The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-08-18
THE ALDRICH-BRISTOW EPISODE.

The Journal is not an admirer of
many of the methods of Senator AID
rich, of Rhode Island, and it has taken
occasion from time to time to express
its qualification at his decision to with
draw from public life at the end of
the next term of Congress, but it is
of the opinion that he has decidedly
the advantage in his controversy with
Senator Bristow, of Kansas.
The Insurgent Senator from Kansas
has been making speeches in which
he charged that Aldrich as chairman
of the Senate Finance Committee, had
used his position to increase the duties
on rubber, being interested in it's man
ufacture, and that as a result of a
higher rate the cost of rubber goods
had been greatly enhanced
Mr.. Aldrich showed that he was in
terested only in raw rubber, which is
admitted free Of duty; that the advance
was made upon the recommendation
at New York, and that the price is gov
erned by auction sales at London and
Antwerp, the advance, the world over,
being due Ito the enormous increase
in demand for automobile tires and
for electrical and other industrial uses,
with no corresponding increase in the
available supply
Senator Bristow's reply does not JUS
tify his very grave charge of dishon-
esty, and abuse of one of the most in
fuential positions in public life in Or
der to add to the fortune of the Rhode
Island statesman.
One of the grave errors of the radi-
cal Insurgents is that they are alto
gether too Incorporate in their denun-
Citations. They are quite likely to base
serious charges upon suspicious rather
than upon facts. There are enough
abuses to denounce, there are enough
evils to reform without making any
excursions into the realms of fancy.
there to fight windmills like Don
Quixote.
The Boston Transcript emphasizes
the folly OF making such hasty charges
and draws a helpful lesson from the
episode, in the following manner:
Unless Mr.. Bristow has something
to say in rejoinder more convincing
than now seems possible, he should
learn from this episode that an un-
substantiated charge plays directly in
10 the hands of those against whom it
is levelled. Every place of legalized
graft in the whole American protec-
tive system has been strengthened by
the incident. People will say that if
Bristow was wrong in this rubber cpl
sode, perhaps somebody else is wrong
in pointing out alleged undeserved pro-
nts under the steel tariff, the lumber
schedule and various other eXtortionS.
The virtue of understatement, coupled
with recollection of old Davy Crock
ett's maxim, can never be too often
emphasized.
THE whole transaction emphasizes
the importance of the new Tariff
Board. The country has long needed
al OlllNldl llNtSllSdllIlS agency winch
could, with some deliberation and jul
diciousness, set forth what tariffs were
reasonable and proper. The argu-
ments which Mr.. Aldrich gives for the
increase in the duty on manufactured
rubber goods, appear entirely convinc-
ing; but they would better come from
an official body than from a single
Senator who, while not a beneficiary
of the change, was at least related to
it in his private business. Such rela-
occur, and while they sell
dom involve any Objectionable alliance,
it would be quite as well for an Off
cial board to stand between Congress
and the consuming public"
1t is possible 10 favor progressive
policies, to oppose the methods of the
without becoming as rad
ical as Bristow, Pinchot, and Senator
The extremist almost al !
ways Injuries the cause of reform Mod !
GRAFTON is as wise in politics as it is
in the ordinary affairs of life. 1t |
looks as though Senator Bristow had
been guilty of SANDER.
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Suffered day and night the torment
AT-x4I l.. -.