The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-14

fused to b>relieved of his predicament and made the hole deeper and buried himself hopelessly in it.
 No Congress ever put any President ma hole. Nobody can put another in a hole. His enemies sought all the years of his political career to put Grover Cleveland in a hole; but they disastrously, miserably and ignomini- ously failed. He was fortunate in his enemies; he made them by the legion, and the people loved him the more de- votedly for every one of them he made. When a man is public idol and Is set on a pedestal he himself Is the one person in all the world who can cast himself down. from his eminence. Envy and hat are powerless to harm him, and all attempts to put him in a hole but work to his advantage-as in Cleveland's case--if he is fit to live out of hole. g4
 MT. Taft has made the discovery that a Congress. democratic in one branch,
 is not fit to tinker with the Payne-Al- drich tariff that the people repudiated so emphatically last November By an overwhelming majority the people or dered Congress to tinker with the tariff and revise it down. Unfortunately the democratic House played with the pro- tectionist heifer; but the bills they passed were revisions downward. Though ours is the only government in the north temperate zone, in which is nearly all the civilization of the planet, that taxes wool, the Underwood La Fol lette measure continued that policy, and yet MT Taft would not approve the bill. There was enough protection in it to meet the approval of 30 odd re- pub1icans in the House, and all but two of the insurgent republicans of the Senate, but not enough to suit MT. Taf,, who by his veto, has put himself at the head of the standpatters and makes himself the leading advocate and de- fender of the Payne Aldrich law.
 True there was a story that when he called the extra session last spring MT. Taft entered into an unholy alliance with Boies Penrose and made a cov- enant to the effect that if the stand patters would give him reciprocity he would interpose the executive veto be- tween the Payne -Aldrich tariff and any tariff measure the present Congress might enact at the extra session. If that is so who will be so hardy as to deny that then and there William How ard Taft plunged into a hole out or which all the oxen in Texas cannot pull him? If the alliance between the Senate democrats and the Senate re- publicans was unholy, that between the President and the standpatters was blasphemous. Where did MT. Taft get authority to put in pawn any preroga- tive conferred upon him in the consti tuition?
 The veto makes the tariff superlative- ly paramount. It Is up to the people. MT. Taft by his veto, tells them that the Payne -Aldrich law is good enough for them. He talks about his extra constitutional board, that he appointed to make tariff. composed of three standpat republicans, one Randall dem ocrat, and MT. Page, whoever and whatever MT Page Is. These men arc in Europe seeking what it is impossible for them to fnd--the difference in cost of production there and here. It will be a guess when they report, and Con- gross will not give 1t the slightest heed. MT. Redfield, one of the most capable men when 1t comes to matters involv- ing the tariff Congress ever knew, him. self manufactures, declares that it is simply impossible for Taft's tariff board to accomplish what they were appointed | to do.
 | Mir. Redfeld believes that with free | trade our people would manufacture for | the world that we would outstrip Eng | land Germany, France, Belgium Hol- | land and the rest of them if Congress would only take off trade the shackles | the tariff puts on it. He shows that already. notwithstanding our mediaeval economic system. we are sending abroad | enormous quantities of manufactured | goods and selling thcm at a profit In neutral markets in competition with all the world. That is done in spite of l the tariff which tends to suppress trade with other nations, in spite of taxed raw materials. in spite of taxed ma chinery in spite of taxed building ma terial-in short in spite of the Payne Aldrich monstrosity that taxes thou sends of articles of necessity that ought 1 to be free.
 1 Well, the issue Is made up The tar | If is paramount as much so as it was ] in 1888, or 1892. or 1910 It is the fight 1 between commercial liberty and. com morciai slavery. It is the Payne-Al- drich law against the field. It is the perennial strife between right and wrong
 1 If tho democratic party cannot win on l that issue cvon with q waller dog Itickot, It should go out of politics. With Il good ticket and real tariff reform for platform we ought to gain d greater victory than in 1892. greater even than that of 1890.
 
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