The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1910-11-18
WASHINGTON CORRESPON-
DENT.

was tnc principal cause Tor the Republi
can slump of November s. &" declares Rep
resentative Burleson, of Texas, a membe
OF the House Appropriations Committee
unhesitatingly name Senator Henr,
Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, as the
man most responsible for the result ;
said Mr.. Burleson. THE principal rea.
son moving the people to precipitate this
Democratic landslide" continued Mr..
Burleson, was the onerous burdens
which they have been compelled to bear
because of extortionate tariff schedules
affecting the cost of the necessities of life.
Since 1897, the date of the Dingley
law, they have been staggering under this
load, as every intelligent man knows.
The schedules of that tariff law were
made purposely high, so they could be
made the basis for negotiation of reci.
procity treaties with certain countries
through which trade advantages could be
obtained for our country, and at the same
time bring down these schedules of the
Dlngley law so that they would not oper-
ate so as to unnecessarily increase the
| cost OF living. The lamented Senator
Dolllver repeatedly declared that this
was the secret of the unreasonable high
schedules of the Dingley law 1t is said
| that Mr.. Dingley himself said as much.
Undoubtedly this was the reason which
prompted President Mckinley to appoint
the late General John A. Kasson to nego-
tate reciprocity treaties with the leading
/ European countries.
The treaties which General KaSson
succeeded in negotiating would have been
OF immense benefit TO the people of the
United States, but unfortunately Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge who was in place
OF vantage by reason of his membership
and Influence on the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, and who acted in
the interest of certain favored industries
OF Massachusetts. was enabled to throttle
each of these trade treaties, thereby
maintaining the high schedules of the
Drngley law intact. Thus he enabled the
favored manufacturers of Massachusetts
and New England to pilfer the pockets of
the American people.
Senator Lodge, more than anv other
man, is therefore directly responsible for
maintaining for years the causes which
have made the cost of living so burden
some. 1t was he who blocked the pur-
pose which the trainers of the Dingley
law had in mind when they put the sched-
ules unreasonably high, the expectation
beng that they would be reduced in the
negotiation of trade treaties with Canada
and Europe. The schedules, accord
ingly, were reduced in the treaties that
were deprived of the benefits of that re-
duction by Senator Lodge, who throttled
the treaties in committee
II do not hesitate to say that in my
opinion, Henry Cabot Lodge is more
responsible for the result OF the last cleo
tions than either Speaker Cannon or
former President Roosevelt"
Democratic Senators and members of
the House who are in Washington un-
hesitatingly declare that the more they
study the results of November Sth's cleo
tions the more they are impressed with
the belief that those results carry the clear
and emphatic mandate to Congress that
the tariff must be revised in the interest
of all the people, and start thus made
toward the reduction of the cost of living
in this country. No other Interpretation
can be placed on the remarkable manner
in which the rebuke of defeat at the polls
was administered in every part of the
country to those who stood out defiantly
against the honest downward revision of
the tariff which the country believed the
Republican national platform of 1905 had
promised, while almost without excep-
ton the men who fought for such revision
against the majority of their party in
House and Senate were reelected or
otherwise indorsed by their constituents.
In practically every important State in
which the protected industries obtained
all that they demanded through the de-
flant course OF their agents in Congress,
the Republican party went down to defeat
or escaped that fate only by the narrowest
margins. This was the case in Maine, in
Massachusetts, in New York, New Jersey
and Ohio. In Pennsylvania the majority
of the voters recorded themselves as hos
tile to the Republican candidates, and
the latter would have been buried deep
but for the unfortunate division OF the
opposition. AS il was, the Democrats
made gains on members Of Congress of
more than 100 per cent.
Thus in the States where the favored
industries were given everything they
demanded by the trainers of the Payne
Aldrich act, the masses of the people
showed their bitter resentment against
what had been done by repudiatng the
party that was responsible for disregard
ing the welfare OF all but the pampered
few. Democrats can place no other in
terpretation on these results than that
the great mass of the people of those
supposedly high projection States are in
reality convinced that they get none of
the benefits Of high protection. and there
fore want Congress to push through an
honest downward revision of the tariff as
speedily as possible.
On the other hand, it is pointed out by
Democrats in Washington, in every Re
publican State in which the demand for
tariff revision has been strong and has
been honestly voiced by the Senator's and
members from those States, the latter
have been indorsed by their constituents
and almost without exception reelected
to Congress. Democratic Senators and
members here assert that first and fore
most they read in those remarkable re-
suits of the election a declaration on the
part of the people that they are with the
Democratic party in its insistence on
honest downward revision of the tariff as
speedily and completely as it eau be
brought about without unnecessarily dis
turbing the legitimate interests OF the
country.