The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1911-12-14

THE TARIFF BOARD
1T CREATION OF THE
PRESIDENT, THEY'LL VOTE
ITS DISCONTlNUANCE
CLOAK FOR TAFT TO HIDE BEHIND
Sherwood Pension Bill Develops Bit
ter Fight on Floor Of House,
Northwest Representatives
Going to Panama.

Washington, Dec. 9.-Without watt
for the first report Of the tariff board
the Democratic leaders in the house
have agreed to vote to withhold ap-
for continuing the board
in it's tariff work. Taking this fact
in connection with the solid opposi-
ton of the Democrats in both houses
of congress to anything like tariff
commission, and it will at once be
seen that the movement encouraged
by the insurgent tariff reduction adj
vocates and the friends of perma-
nent tariff commission will receive no
aid at the hands of the Democratic
opponents of a Republican tariff pol
icy.
1t is stated upon the authority of
Representative DiXca of Indiana,
member of the ways and means COM
mittee, that at a secret meeting of
the Democratic members of the COM
mittee it has been decided to recon-
mend to the committee on appropria-
lions that no further provision be
made for the tariff board.
The grounds upon which the Demo-
cratic leaders have decided to proceed
are that the tariff board is the Great
ure of President Taft, that it will
merely collect facts and figures and
not make recommendations to con-
gress, and that it forms a screen be-
hind which the president and the Re-
publican members of congress hide to
resist the efforts for tariff revision.
A great many of the conservative
Republicans in the house were opposed
to the creation of a tariff board when
provision was made for it in the
Payne-Aldrich tariff law two years
ago. Speaker Cannon, Representative
Dalzell and others of that faction op-
posed the plan for tariff commission
and only accepted the tariff board
scheme upon the understanding that
the board was to eonfine it's work to
the collection of facts and statistics
regarding the cost of production, and
to make no recommendations to con-
gress. The board has no status by
law and it's existence depends solely
upon the appropriations made from
year to year by congress. If these ap-
preparations are cut off, the tariff
board goes out of existence.
The first provision for the tariff
board was an appropriation of $4,000
which passed congress on the same
day that the Payne-Aldrich law was
signed. The following year congress
appropriated $250,O00 and the unex-
pended balance of the $4,000. For
the current fiscal year the appropria-
ton was 225,000, together with the
uneXpended balance.
Pension Bill Develops Bitter Fight.
Advocates of increased pensions for
veterans of the Civil War battled on
the floor of the house in the final
stages of the fight to pass the Sher-
wood dollar a day" pension bill.
The Sherwood bill would grant SIS
month to those who served more
than 80 days, but less than six months;
500 month for a service up to nine
months; $25 month for a service up
to one year; and $50 for service
more than one year. No pension is to
exceeding $1,000 year. The Sullo-
way BILL which probably will be Of
fered as substitute or amendment to
the Sherwood bill before the vote is
finally taken provides maximum pen
sion of $36 per month at the age of rs.
Strenuous objection was made to the
provision that an income of 1000
should make a veteran Ineligible for
pension. Those opposed to it declared
it would "penalize thrift - General
Sherwood declared it was designed
not as an added honor to eX-soldiers,
but to relieve real distress.
Representative Fuller of Illinois adj
vocated the principles of the Sulloway
bill and Representative Sulloway
spoke of his bill as the only one CIV
ing strict equality of treatment to
veterans. Representative Russell of
Missouri advocated the Sherwood bill.
Representatives Stevens and Miller,
of Minnesota, and Representative
Burke, of South Dakota, will go to
Panama in company with the house
committee on interstate and foreign
commerce which is going there to
make study Of the canal situation
as it will affect commerce when it
is open to traffic. The committee will
give particular attention to the ques-
ton of tolls, with regard to the pres
ent demand for free use of the canal
by American vessels. The party will
be gone until Jan. 3, spending the en-
tire holiday season either on the ocean
or in one of the canal cities.
DEPUTY U. S. MARSHAL KILLED.