The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-08-10
BRYAN AND UNDERWOOD.

DnAAN AMI UNDEhH UUUs
Recent developments in congress
seem to confirm the wisdom OF those
who have contended all along that
tariff reduction is a thing that should
be taken up as a whole, making a fair
and general reduction in all schedules
as against the Underwood policy of
late, taking a single schedule at a
time. The course that has been pur-
sued, led MI. Bryan to charge that
the steel and iron schedules had
been left untouched because Mr..
Underwood is from the Birming-
ham district of Alabama, and
in addition to this that he had large
private investment in that business.
We would not undertake to pass on
the question of whether or not these
considerations have influenced Mr..
Underwood's course but Mr.. Under
wood did not miss the mark when he
said he was placed in an embarrasS-
ing position on account of the fact
that his private fortune was Invested
in iron and steel business. And, how
a fury en- account of Mr.. Bryan's
charges, he does not help his case any
by saying that he asked the committee
in the beginning to take up iron and
steel first, because CT his personal in
terest in those schedules when the
record is that only ten days ago in a
of his fellows. he fought and
defeated a resolution, supported by
Speaker Clark and others, to instruct
his committee to report a bill con-
corning these schedules as early as
practicable, so that action might be
taken on them at this session. The
facts are against him. He has laid
himself open to this charge and he will
find it mighty hard to get away from
it. He has made considerable repu-
tation as a tariff MISUNDERSTANDING
in which he and his con-
stituents were interested only as pur-
chasers, but he has been shrewd
enough to defeat action in the one
tariff schedule that has been univer-
sally denounced as indefensible from
one end of the country to the other
This schedule has been universally
held up as the horrible example. 1t
not only gets the benefit of excessive
protection, even according to the t..
timony of Andrew Carnegie himself,
but it is absolutely trust controlled
and furnishes the further horrible ex-
ample of continually selling its pro-
ducts in foreign markets about a third
less than in our markets. Mr.. Under
woods reasons may be entirely patri-
otto, but they furnish a fine illustra-
tfon of the impossibility of satisfac-
torily revising the tariff by piece
meal. There may be some controlling
reason Of public policy why the cotton
schedule should be revised at this
session and steel and iron postponed
to another day, but the public will
hardly be able to grasp the distinc-
ton.
If the unpleasant disturbance should
serve to instill the lesson, which must
be sooner or later learned, that the
amount of tariff duty that should be
laid upon any article is a relative ques
ton, to be determined largely by the
amount of duty laid upon the ether
articles, and that, therefore, the only
fair way to handle it is by general
revision of the whole list, it will
serve a very useful purpose. If the
duty is to be lowered on manufactur-
ed cotton goods for instance, it should,
at the same time, be lowered upon
iron and steel and other articles that
go to make up the cost of manufactur-
ing cotton goods.
William Jennings Bryan is consist
ent and later developments show con-
clusively that he had a reason for Civ
ing Mr.. Underwood a jolt under the
fifth rib.
uAC No EOUNN ATTON