Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-06-10
What Could tn. Transerip. say9


On Wednesday the Kennebee Journal
reprinted long editorial on 'reci-
procityn from the Boston Transcript.
An editorial reply was prepared TO
run alongside the false doctrine but
it was inadvertently omitted and was
used Thursday. The Journal was not
the only one to answer the Transcript.
Thomas o. Marvin. Home Market
Club, Boston, sent the following COM
munication to to the Transcript under
the caption THE Real Issue:
AT the risk of being regarded as one
of 'the pigs" to quote your malodor-
Gus Characterization OF those protec-
tionists who oppose the Canadian COM
pact because it is not a measure of
reciprocity but a proposal for free
trade in natural products and the open
ing wedge for free trade in every
thing" permit me to say that in your
treatment of this question you ignore
the vital issue. AS calmly stated by
a scholarly contributor to the Quarter
ly Review, ii is 1.-THE well-worn con-
troversy between the consumer who
wants cheaper goods and the producer
who argues that his industry has the
right to exist. tbs the perennial con-
ftict between freesItrade and protec-
tion.'
WHY, then. should the protection:st
who sees through the tawdry disguise
of reciprocity the old familiar fea-
TIRES of free trade be lampooned as
..piggish.'
You refer to the popular indorse-
ment of this measure and the earnest
ness and enthusiasm of the people in
its behalf. But you must know that
the public has been grossly misled In
regard to the effect OF this measure;
that il has been taught by a press
which cannot be called disinterested,
that reciprocity will reduce the cost OF
living. clothe the poor in fine raiment
end provide rich banquets for the hun
cry end oppressed. If they knew. as
President Taft declares is the case,
that this measure will not materially
reduce the cost of living; if one in a
thousand of them knew the actual
terms of this compact and understood
its bearings on the Industrial condi-
ton of the country, would they be so
earnest, so enthusiastic, so gullible?
The real issue is not to what mar
ketplace shall we send the market
basket. important as that question
will ALWAYS be SO long as our own
flag means more TO US than a foreign
flag. The real issue is the encourage
ment of American production, Under |
the competition of the newer lands of
the Canadian West our Western agri-
cultural States will suffer the same de-
cline that overlook the agriculture of
the East under the competition of the |
more productive farms of the Missis. |
sippi Valley.
Any policy which threatens to re-
duce the productiveness of the Ameri- |
can farm or the output of the Ameri |
can factory is poor patriotism bad |
politics and unsound economics. 1t |
means disaster, and the hardest blows
will fall upon the heads of our earn
est and enthusiastic people who are
stumbling blindiy ON the road to free
trade under the mistaken notion that
they are climbing the salubrious
heights OF reciprocity.
When they awaken to an apprecia
ton of the facts, when reason takes
the place now usurped by enthusiasm,
there will be day of reckoning which
might be compared to the upheaval
of 1896 when so many false theories
We're exposed and the principles of
protection again yindicated The en-
eonragement of American industry is
the foremost duty of American states
manship.
The transcripts editor added the
following editorial note at the bottom:
I'VE publish this as an evidence of the
persisteney of the archaic Its argu-
ments have been so thoroughly refuted
by President Taft and other reciprocity
students and were only last Monday re-
pudiated so emphaticalIy by the farmers
of Iowa, who are APPARENTLY needless of
their decline that II needs no other
reply.-The Editor.l
What more could a free trade cham
pion say2 But it looks to US that the
Transcript editor would have stood
fully as well in the public eye If ne had
said nothing at all.
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