The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-18
ABOUT FREE WOOL
By sAvoYARD

By sA
 There has been deal of backing and filling over the proposed wool schedule oi this democratic Congress. Shall 1t be such a revision as John G. Carlisle would have made, or shall it be such reaction as Samuel J. Randall would have given us? Shall the work of the democratic majority of the Sixty-second Congress be Germanized as was the work of the dem ocratic majority of the F'ifty-third con gress? Shall we be overwhelmed Tn an ether wave of party perfdy and party dshonor?
 If there is anything firmly established as a democratic policy it is free wool, for Schedule K is the citadel Of protec- ton and the duty on raw wool the Key stone of the tariff arch. As long as we have taxed wool we will have protective tariff and the day wool goes on the free list the tariff wall will tremble, and soon theerafter it will fall. Carlisle said so ard Aldrich says so only few days ago Mir Aldrich said wool is the crux or the protective policy.
 
 on wool? If both parties are for it. what was all that election row about last year? If the country is for tax on wool, why did the people turn out the republicans who believe in it. and set up the demo- crats, all whose leaders of any sort Of democratic character since and including James Guthrie have advocated free wool
 The issue is plain and simple and sharp. The democratic idea is free wool-and other raw materials he is bound to use for the woolen manufacturer, and then compel him to compete with the foreign manufacturer by placing duty strictly for revenue on his finished product. In the first place, that would give the peo- pie cheaper clothing cheaper blankets cheaper carpets, which would cheapen the cost of living enormously. Second. 1t would force the manufacturer to make woolens for the foreign trade, and that would enlarge his plant. give employment to more labor, supply a larger market to the wool grower, and afford investment for more capital.
 That is the democratic idea. The re- publican idea is a protective duty on raw wool dye-stuff machinery, building materials and everything else the woolen manufacturer has to buy. Then pile up the protection on his finished product so as to give him a complete monopoly of the American, market for woolens such as clothing, hats, carpets, blankets, and everything made of wool But" says some fellow, "Fll never consent to free wool so long as the manufacturer has protection" No more will l. We propose to give him free raw materials and then take from him every scrap of protection not found in a tariff on finished products so constructed as to invite and stimulate the position of Cleveland and Carlisle, of Morrison and Mills, of William L. Will son and Henry G. Turner, and I'll say this-it has ever been the position of Will liam J. Bryan. In my little way have discharged as many shafts at the Matchless'' as anybody else. I was op- posed to him when many of those now Noel" and striving to touch the hem of his garment but I always saw in Bryan a genuine tariff reformer of the Cleve- iand not the German. of the Morrison, not the Randall, type.
 Strange to say the manufacturer who buys from abroad 256 eos, 63S pounds of un- manufactured wool insists on paying tar if duties upon it to the amount of $21, ,12S,- 72S Why? Because he knows that as long as there is a duty on wool, 90,000. 0o0 A,.1 fI,a ,,aac r1di ioa1 ire in the world will be forced to buy nearly everything made of wool from him, and the American people pay five times that S21, GOO, ,OO0 to protect him. That Is what is the matter with this wool question. It is what the late Jonathan P. Deliver said 1t was, rascally and wicked conspiracy between the weavers and the shepherds to rob the American people and make liv- ing higher in price and gerater in hard ship.
 When we shall succeed in smashing that cruel and remorseless combination of the shepherds and the weavers, the en- tire rascally tariff will go to pot and not before And that Is what the people or dered Congress to do last November, and why all this backing and filling is the mystery of it;
 Who but must laugh if such a man
  Who would not keep If Atticus were he?
 I have been about Congress for some % years. and 1t takes a heap to shock me, but got a jolt the other day. demo cratic solon from Ohio said that he was elected by 10,o0O majority, but if the den- ocrats put wool on the free list he would be beaten by 10000. Serene in his egotstic asshood this fellow actually believes that ;@ ;~ ir1n fO retain him in Congress than for the democratic party to redeem its solemn pledges of 40 years and upward.
 I recollect 1892. A few months after the democratic Fifty-second Congress passed a bill putting wool on the free list, Ohio voted for Grover Cleveland for President of the United States, and It was the only time Ohio has gone democratic a presi dential year since 1852. The tariff was paramount in 1892 and the democratic as- sault was made, on the wool and woolen schedule. It is true that Cleveland got but one electoral vote from Ohio that year, but if every voter had understood