The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-07-20

The Farmer begins today, the full speech of Senator LaFollette, to the Senate of the United States, on July 13, relative to the reciprocity streaty with Canada.
 The speech may be said to mark a transition period in the history of the Republican party, and perhaps of the nation.
 It will be remembered that LaFol- lette was substantially the only Re- publican statesman of note who emerged from the election of 1910, not only whole, but with added laurels.
 His speech carries a denunciation of the statesmanship and motives of 1y the breach between two great branches of the Republican party, the progressives and the conserva tives.
 Senator LaFollette said:
 MT. President. later in the discus sion I shall ask the indulgence of the bill in detail. For the present, sir, submit these two propositions.
 First. Considered as a measure of reciprocity, I shall undertake to dem- onstrate later in the debate that the bill violates every principle of recip-
 
 platform declara tions of the Republi- can Parts and recomm ended by for mer Republican Presidents.
 Second Considered as tariff bill, it violates every tariff principle and platform promise upon which William United States.
 Tn the beginning it was heralded as a blessing to the consumer. So was the tariff bill of 1909. It promises to reduce duties for the benefit of the people. It reduces no duties the effect of which can ever reach the people, but it does reduce duties for the mill lers, the packers, Standard oil, the brewers. the coal combines, and in some measure for the already over protected interests. It is nothing that it pretends to be, and profes- ses to be nothing that it is It is a little brother to the ,Payne-Aldrich ficted upon the American people in half century.
 While it is important, MT. President, to the proper discharge of our legis- lative duties, that there should be maintained between the executive and departments that official comity in the absence of which it is to accomplish the largest of public good, yet our bind ing covenant to represent the public interest compels us in our legislative to examine and analyze the of the Executive with the greatest care and thorough ness at all times. This duty be- comes imperative when a Presidents course has been one of vacillation and contradiction, wanting in steadi- ness and constancy of purpose and policy.
 The pending legislation, based on the Canadian pact is so important and far-reaching in it's consequences, will, in my opinion, ultimately exert under the favored-nation clause of ,ur treaties such an influence upon ,ur trade relations wits the great na- n the exercise of the Executive pre- -ogative, so involves the whole tariff ssue, is so related to the strange course of Mr. Taft upon the tariff question and the progressive policies which he was elected to maintain and advance that the wisdom, the true value, the real, stable worth of his can not be fairly judged without reviewing the more issues involved in his elec- ion and the more important acts of lis administration.
 The tariff was the one issue para mount in the presidential contest of | 90S. Everywhere, East as we'll as Vest, that was the all-absorbing ques- | ion. That issue, sir, came with the eco- homie changes in the life of the Ann
 (Continued on page three.)