The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1911-08-16


country there arose that controversy
about which so much comment has
been made. But there was one thing
on which we all substantially agreed.
That was that we do not know what
it costs to produce given article
at home and abroad.
s'There we encountered for the first
time in the history of our party an
difficulty. We passed into
this revision without the information
to which we were entitled in order to
carry out the duties we We're to per-
form.
.'All | ask is that the government
shall provide it's people, as well as
congress, information necessary to
bringing the proper test on any sched-
ule in dispute. I doubt whether any
political organization will ever make
the question of protection an issue
again. Our last attempt at revision
has ushered in a day when we shall
treat it in scientific way just as 9th
err nations treat it, A commission
of the most capable men in Germany
spent five years studying the tariff
problem and fixing duties. In France
a commission worked on the question
three years and then reported to par
lament. where it was referred to for
ty-two committees, which have been
working on it for nine months. Iet
we tried to revise every schedule in
three months without a single definite
reason for changing any duties what
soever.
"Cop gress will never abdicate the
power of enacting the tariff laws. But
like all other bodies, legislative. ad-
ministrative and judicial, it must be
advised. 1t is utterly impossible for
congress, individually or through its
committees, to ascertain that simple
fact
1--WE have demonstrated that there
ought never to be another general re-
vision of the tariff. When the commits
sion gives congress that information.
with no disturbance of business it
can take up one schedule at time
and fix it without it being necessary
to unite different interests in order
to serve majority.
81 am more convinced than ever
that the next step is to organize an
efficient commission, which shall do
for you what you, as intelligent men
should ask to have done-namely, re-
moved from political rancor, fix just
duties which will protect the consum-
er from the avarice and greed OF cor
porations. Tariff revision ought to be
+agitated until it can be carried on,
not only to successful issue, but to
a just one"
This was Immediately following the
most searching debate on the tariff
in our day. when, if ever, congress
might be presumed to have gathered
information, if information could be
had in the old way, with regard to all
of the principal schedules.
Shortly before this speech was de-
livered in Des Moines the senator.
speaking in Knoxville in answer to
Speaker Cannon who had assailed his
tariff views in an earlier address at the
same city, said with more emphasis:
Cannon says have proclaimed my
intention to enter on another agi'a-
ton for revision of the tariff. AS
usual, he is mistaken. God save us
from another revision under the pres
ent congress, or any other that is
without more information. The last
congress did not know enough to re-
wise the tariff as it should be revised.
Not single member of congress
knew the difference between the cost
of manufacture in America and abroad
on the commonest articles. Now, III
tell you what my agitation is. | want
a commission, like court, If you
please, authorized to go about, take
testimony, take evidence and examine
books, and then tell the people of the
United States the difference between
the cost of manufacture here and
abroad. don't want another revision
until we know those differences"
We cite these paragraphs now not
for the purpose of debating Senator
Cummnis' attitude towards tariff re-
vision, but for the purpose OF ask
ing again what progressive republi-
cans propose to do here in Iowa If
President Taft, having set his tariff
board to work on the wool schedule
and having announced report with
at the regular ses-
sion in December, interpOses his veto
to the bill Senator La Toilette and
MIR. Underwood are trying to reach
an agreement on, and thereafter kills
off the many tariff bills the anti
Taft combination now promise to
..n,,t nm tO him?'