The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-04-12
EDITORIAL
The Tariff Evil.

In his speech at Indianapolis which had the ef-
feet to change President Tafts itinerary Senator
Reveridge said that the reasonable prosperity Of
the few dozen American citizens should depend
upon the prosperity of all Americans,
That is a principle eminently sound. In this
country all men should have equal rights and equal
opportunities, far as it is in the power OF gov
eminent to make them Then let the best man
win and let him accumulate ell the wealth ne can,
so long as his methods are honest,
But that has not been the in this country.
The tariff and the rebate system have given the few
enormous advantage over the many and the favored
ones have profted at the expense Of the others 1t
il an Infamous system and altogether demoralizing
Mr. Beverage says that the oil trust and owners
Of vast fortunes could the more BEAUTIFULLY have
bnilded by their genious, courage and industry
without the aid of rebates that the enormous earn
ings of the sugar trust do not need TO be swollen
by misuse of the protective principle. the tre-
mendous profit of the tobacco trust aided by acts
of Congress; that swollen and dangerous fortuhss
are not necessary to good wages to the working
man, fair salaries to the clerks or commercial frav-
eler or honest prices to the farmer. And he
psrtinently adds that the nation will be healthier
and the moral tone OF the people better if these
great masses of individual wealth which now are
being disbursed as gifts had been distributed
through the long years in better wages and salaries
to their owners employees and smaller largess to
their owners lobbyists.
The protective tariff is at the bottom of the
evil being as much rebate as the rake-oH from
freight bill. 1t is false principle in both morals
and economics. 1t has operated to the injury or
the masses and it has placed industrial system
upon an unsound and an unsafe basis. No system
can be safe which depends upon discriminating
legislation for its prosperity. And we have gone
so far that it is hard to turn back. We are like
the man who has taken stimnlants for so long that
he cannot give them up without collapse. And so
it has come pass that whenever there is prospect
OF change in the administration of national af-
fairs, trade halts and trembles. And when Con
gress threatens TO revise the tariff, the manu-
facturers and merchants and financiers cry out in
alarm
1t is not denied that the tariff has been an aid to
American industries. We have built up more
rapidly then we should otherwise have done. But
we have not built so securely. The entire struc-
ture would be on stronger foundation to-day if the
factories had not been fed on tariff pap. And
the conditions Of which Mr.. Beveridge complains
would not be. There would be fewer milhonares
with fortunes so vast that they know not how to
dispose of them, but there would be far greater
E number of men in moderate circumstances. The
few would be poorer, but the masses would be
richer and trade and industry more stable and
less subject to violent fluctuations.
Taken all in all we believe that the tariff as
operated has been more of n curse than blessing
to this country.