The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-01
Says He Would Not Term Aldrich Tariff Act Best
 Ever Passed Again
HAS NO CRITICISM
 FOR THE DEMOCRATS
Was Not Trying to Get Tariff Ex- perts in Making Up the Board. He Believes in General
 Income Tax

New York, November 30.-In the cur rent issue of the Outlook there appears an article entitled, "Presdent Tafts Own View. an Authorized Interview in which the President discusses current topics with an interviewer. as follows in part
 Speaking of the tariff issue, MT. Pres ident. if you could begin your adminis- tration again, would you repeat your Winona speech tomorrow" the interve Y- CT asked.
 Tn phraseology, no; in effect, yes liad I known as much as l do now, should have realized that there are some things one cannot leave to be taken for granted. ] dictated that speech to stenographer on the cars between two stations. and slanced through it only enough to straighten it's grammar; it was sent out by the press with correspondngly little ceremony, so that papers received i1 Tn all sorts of shapes. If had prepared 1t two or three weeks before and revised 1t deliberately, as I ought to have done, l should have clarified several passages. And, particularly, I should have changed the sentence where I proclaim the Payne tariff act the best ever passed. The com parative would have been a better de- scription than the superlative, for what ever its shortcomings. the act still con tains less to be criticized than it's prede- cessors, and it did, as whole revise the existing schedules downward.
 q have no fault to find with either democrats or insurgents for trying to re- duce any duties they chose; what l object to is disturbing the business of the coun- try today, when there is nothing better , than guesswork to proceed upon and then disturbing it afresh six months later, when the best available information Is be- fore us. do not join in the charge of inconsistency against the democrats for compromising with LaFollette on the wool schedule instead of standing by their own figures. If they could not get all the re- ductjon they asked for, they were quite justified in taking what they could get. My chief criticism on their tariff activi- ties last session was that they were will ing 10 send to me Legislation so crude and i'll digested that they must have known, if they had paused to think. that could not possibly api" ove it.'
 lis your tariff reduction programme based on the theory that it will bring
 
 cost of living?'
 High Tariff Means Monopolies
 q think that that effect is greatly over estimated. My chief objection 10 need lsssIv high tariff is that 1t nourishes moropoly. It holds forth constant temptation to the formation of little trusts which often are more directly oppressive to the consumer than big ones"
 MT President, there Is your tariff board You have been sharply criticised for making 1t up or men wno are not tariff experts.'
 And that is true; they are not. IF I had been appointing a board of tariff 4 experts could not have got along with less than 25, in order to do Justice to all branches of the subject. What l under took to do was to make up a board O. trained investigators, capable of manag- ing thorough inquiry into costs of pro- tluction and of analysing it's elements. First, Mr. MacVeagh wrote to friends fin leading universities, asking each to give me list of the economists considered by them best equipped for the task in hand. Professor Emery's name was on all the lists and at the top of half of X them. so I made him chairman of the < board. Page comes from the University of Virginia; Sanders is an authority on agriculture; Reynolds, in Interpreting and VI enforcing the tariff laws for four years, f lad presumably learned the ins and outs N Of that business; and Howard regarded II us the ablest southern representative in \ Congress in my day. These men made N 10 pretense of being tariff experts; they s employ all the expert help they need. ' Tariff Produces Revenue x T fully realize, and I wish our people M would that the present prosperity of tho l6 treasury is due in no small measure to N the existing tariff, which, notwithstand- K ing all it's faults. is a revenue producer. ls There is a good deal more that can be K said for that act. It gave us a maximum J and minimum tariff provision which . K deem of the highest importance. and X which tended to increase our foreign II, trade substantially. It gave us free trade M with the Philippines, which has made the |6t islands more prosperous than ever in thei |il history, without injury to any American II industry. It gave authority that used to create and appoint d tariff board. N which, though not the commission I sought, is doing most useful work; and it imposed corporation tax, on which 5y l had set my heart, but which at times despaired of getting through" Now that you have launched your pro- ject for a constitutional amendment you | 4 probably have in mind some particular Al form of general income tax to recoru-
 
 act?"
 Tn way, yes believe, on principle, in a general income tax. The only good arguments against 1t are that it is in |quisitorial. and that it offers tempta- tion to perjury. But would not resort to the ordinary income tax except in an emergency like war, when 1 would have 1t graduated, so that those citizens who had most at stake should bear a cor lrespondingly large share of the burden Iof the common defense. Tn time oe peace AI would avoid temptation to perjury and awould confine the government to taxes That do not involve such inquisitoriaI lmethods in their collection.
 Judicial Appointments
 "Mr. President. I suppose you have mo- hticed MT. Bryan's comments on your ap- spointment of Chief Justice Winter"
 "Ali that I have to say about my jul ldicial appointments is that have re- gaXded my duty in respect to them as the tinl4t sacred with which I am charged, land that I have spared no effort to se- Isre for the supreme court and other H1arts the best men could get. with the
 ilest appreciation of the fact that the federal courts, and especially the supreme I->>~>~
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