The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-06-16
TAFT WANTS REVISION.

"TAFT WANTS REVISION"
How contemptuous the standpattcrs
are of all who differ from them on the
wisdom and beauty of standpatIsm'
Having got everything g fixed - to the
content of The trusts, the combines,
and the monopolies, how scornful they
are of the ideas and motives Of all who
think that the bunko tariff law might
| be moulded,
Here is the American Protective
Tariff League, for instance, which sends
out its smooth spoken little leaflets,
urging that protection means their way
of looking at 1t, and nothing else,
and which cndeavors to convince the
public that any move TO correct the
| evils of the present bunko tariff law
is an attack ON protection. It is Just
now especially vindictive in fighting the
tariff board which President Taft is
demanding 1T calls the move for such
n board ga most undesirable scheme, -
and denounces the reasons urged in IFS
favor, TO wit. that the President wants
surgents and put stop to their ugly
criticisms of the Tariff with big y
OF. 1903, as every bad reasons - And
as to the first reason it says
A President may want something that
me leaders Of his party rightly disap
dent INDUCED in TRADE OF abuse of the
customs administrative laws and meth
ous, pronouncing them grossly unjust and
ontrageous In their restriction OF UNDER
valuation frauds. and recommending thclr
alteration In the interest of larger op-
portunitles for underscllIng American in
dustry r1 and labor IN The American mar
Net. rms same President actually did
so pervert and nulify d law OF Congress
as 10 consummate a secret aRrecmcu..
unknown 10 Congress until after II had
heen signed whereunder foreign compe-
titors We're permitted TO lower the Amer
lean tariff by falsely valuing their eX-
ports to this country
Congress did not change the customs
administrative laws because this Presl-
dent wanted ii done, and the Republican
convention of 1905 virtually condemned
the German tariff agreement and similar
agreements by requiring that henceforth
all such trade dickers must have the
cooperation and consent OF Congress.
Similarly the fact that President Taf,
wants the tariff stirred up by tariff
board Is far from being conclusive as TO
the wisdom OF such a procedure Mr.
TAFT Is not the safest Of guides on the
81
men In the House and Senate who know
very much more about the tariff than he
does The President mag recommend.
but Congress Is not obliged to concur
against Its better judgment.
Assuming, you see, that the opinion
of President Taft is of no consequence,
and that the leaders Of the Republican
party are Of the same opinion as the
American Protective Tariff League.
But the analogy sought fails; for,
whereas in the Roosevelt infraction
of law, as cited, Congress refused TO
concur, in the Taft case the board Of
inquiry was expressly provided for, as
President Taft construes the law, and
as Congress has accepted this construc.
tion by voting the money asked for the
board to do its work. the League IS
presentation "goes little lame.D
AS to the second idea, that tho au- |
thorizing of such investigation as the
board would make. will silence the
insurgents the League s leaflet is
not on such unsafe ground when it
says;
Equally faulty and futile is the second |
reason for authorizing the tariff board to |
take up a go-aseyou- please tariff nves-
tigaton. The hostile howls OF Insursent |
taiilt-rippers will not be thereby slIenceo
Quite the reverse. The Insurgent pack
viii howl louder than ever
And why not? They will point to the
tariff boards enlarged powers OF inquiry
as an open confession that the existing
schedules are too high and should be
reduced. They will be perfectly right
The Tawney amendment amounts to an
open confession that there Is too much
protection in many or the schedules. IT
Is equivalent to a mandate to the tarlT
board 10 make out a case of too much
protection.
Well, If so, what of it7 Ism t it the
right thing to get at the facts2 And
when measure, shaped in ignorance
and iniquity. is found to be destructive,
rs the new thrift law has been found to
De, why shouldn't intelligent effort,
through an agency which will give
needed facts, be instituted? OF course,
the 'insurgents mouths will not be
'ilenced; why should they .be7 But
surely to maintain, stolidly and arbi-
,rarily, an iniqutous tariff law, will
not silence them. On the contrary. it
will add TO the number of '"howlinc'
mouths, until the defenders of iniquity
md Ignorance viii have that bunlco
;lamor utterly overwhelmed by Che
nsurgent "howls. -