Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-07-22
Ashland, Ore, Monday, July %, '12
WOODROW WILSON AND DEMO
CRATIC POLICIES.

The writer has long been an ad-
mirer of Woodrow Wilson. He is
big and brainy, honest and fearless,
cultured and forceful. Not so well
learned in the tricks of politics as in
the science of government, he stands
for what is best in private and ma
tional life.
He is a free-trader, but what of
that? Every professor of economics
in America is a free-trader in theory,
and but one we know anything
about, the professor of economics in
the University of Pennsylvania, has
ever attempted to Justify protec-
tive tariff. Therefore it is not
strange that Woodrow Wilson, pro-
found economic student and scholar
that he is, should be free-trader.
In fact, the tariff is still so much
"a mooted policy that no less an au-
thority than Albert Shaw, discussing
the proposed expert tariff commits
sion, in the Review of Reviews, laid
as his premise in arguing for it that
not a single man in America really
knew whether protective tariff was
helpful or harmful to the proper de-
velopment and life of the nation.
From this hypothesis he argued
strongly for a searching examination
of the question by an expert commits
sion.
1t is coming now to be understood
that the tariff is more a local than
national issue The breaking down
of party tradition by democratic rep
resentatives coming from manufac-
turing districts in the south when
high tariff schedules were at issue
affecting directly the manufacturing
enterprises of their districts, did
more than any other circumstance to
prove that the tariff is not so much
a party or national issue, as it is
one affecting specific localities ac-
cording to the nature of the enter
prises of its citizens.
Therefore, considering Woodrow
Wilson as a candidate for the presi-
dency, carrying with it his policy OF
tariff for revenue only, the writer
would look upon him with favor.
However, that is not the end. The
success of the democratic ticket car
ries with it the Inauguration of dem
ocratic policies in line with the plat
form pledges g, laid down at Balti-
more. 1t has long been the claim
of the democratic party that a pro-
tective tariff is the father of trusts.
That party says destroy the tariff
and you destroy the trusts" The
writer does not here agree with the
democratic claim. While protective
tariff may, and probably did, inspire
trust organization, trust life does not
depend upon it. Cut-throat competi-
tion destroys. AS soon as the mas
ters of industry were brought face to
face with that economic truth its
force was broken by organizing big
business into combinations and
trusts. Free-trade, or tariff-for-rev-
enue-only policies, will not destroy
the trusts. Nor is trust destruction
desirable. The dismemberment of
the trusts would badly cripple, if not
destroy, American commerce. The
economic law of competition is mex
orable-an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth-even to the utter
destruction of the body. American
commerce is too complex, and devel-
opment demands too great, to be sue
cessfully and economically forward
ed by individual effort, under com
petitive rules, 1t is not best for the
nation that trusts be destroyed.
However, human nature is so con-
stituted that unlimited power tends
TO injustice and exploitation. When
the production, manufacture and dis
tribution of a commodity comes un-
der the absolute control of a trust
experience teaches, the selling price
is not fixed on the ground of cost OF
production and distribution plus a
reasonable profit, but rather arbi-
trarily set, without regard to these,
and commonly at such a rate as to
produce exhorbitant profits, result
ing in great private gain at the un-
Just expense of the consumer. The
general good demands that this injus-