The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-15

republican, and he was a republican be- cause his father before him had been first whig and then republican. Con- sequently the President depended on Ald- rich and Shoot in the Senate and Payne and Dalzell in the House to revise the tariff. He expected them to revise it down and was persuaded by them that 1t was revised down. They deceived him {; but they could not deceive the country and the consequence was the signal democratic victory of 1910.
 The democrats planned a popgun cam paign and put a deal of protection in the wool schedule. The bill went to the Senate, where the insurgents injected in to 1t @ lot more of protection, and no doubt the conference will compromise between the two and send the bill to the President It is poor yeson, but such as 1t is it Is better than the Payne-Ald- rich monstrosity.
 Before this letter is printed. MT. Taft will have the bill for his approval or veto.
 If the President shall veto the bill it will destroy him politically He is on record as saying that Schedule K-which is wool-of the Payne-Aldrich tariff is indefensible. The late Jonathan P. Dol liver brought tens of thousands of re- publicans to look on schedule K as a monstrosity, and his speeches against
 it, as able as the Senate has heard in 50 years, filled 50 seats of the present House with democrats. The country is enraged against schedule K, and while the wool bill of this congress is noth- ing like an adequate revision, such as the country intends to have, yet it is revision in the right direction, and il would be the most unpopular thing MT. Taft could possibly do to veto this derwood-LaFollette measure that sim ply bristles with protection but is a re- vision down.
 tariff board is humbug. There again the President was fooled by the stand patters. The board was created to de- Jay tariff revision. It was appointed to do in few months what it is impossi- ble to do at all. MT. Redfield made that plain. One of it's secretaries, who is presumed to be busy finding out some thing to instruct Congress is busy writing letters to standpat newspa- pers in eulogy of a high protective tar if, and when the board makes report, if it ever does, it will be an absolutely worthless document that Congress will give not the slightest heed
 The fact of the business is that an immense majority of the American people are grimly resolved to be rid of every shred of every purely protective fea- ture of the tariff. On the tariff ques- tion Massachusetts is democratic, so are New York and New Jersey. Ohio is almighty doubtful and Indiana is demo- cratic. Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska are all doubtful with democratic leanings, and Woodrow Will son or Judson Harmon can get more electoral votes out of the last named states and Ohio too, than any repubi- can from Taft down. I grant that if the race issue were not perennial threat at the souths several states in that section would be very doubtful if not lost to. us. Certainly Louisiana is a protection state, and so is Florida. North Carolina and Alabama are nearly so. Many communities in Texas are clamoring for protection, and the same is true of Old Virginia and Tennessee Maryland is also bitten by the tarantula.
 But thanks to the madness of the re- publican party of 40 years ago, the south is solidly democratic, not so much be- cause it wants to be, but because it has to be. It would be a grand stroke of politics if the republican party should discover the decency, the patriotism, and the wisdom to repeal the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. It would be worth at least 40 seats in Congress from the south for the c. o. P. and something more than half dozen senators; but at the south are Bailey, Martin Sim mons, Clarke of Arkansas, and others, and they are valuable republican as- sets.
 Can 1t be possible that Taft will veto the wool bill? If he does the demo- crats and insurgents in Congress have no election but to feed him on such measures until the frost kisses the forest in mid October