Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-08-05

1.-THE next great business reform we
must have to steadily increase Amer
lean prosperity is to change the
method of building our tariffs. The
tariff must be taken out of politics
and treated as a business question
instead of as a political question:
Heretofore we have just done the
| other thing. That is why American
, business is upset every few years by
unnecessary tariff upheavels and is
weakened by uncertainty in the peri
DDS between. The greatest need of
business is certainty; but the only
thing certain about our tariff is un-
certainty.
Urges Tariff Commission.
What, then, shall we do to make
our tariff changes strengthen business
instead of weakening business? Rival
protective tariff nations have an
swered that question. Common sense
has answered it. Next to our need to
make the Sherman law modern, I'M
d~erstandable and just. our greatest
fiscal need is a genuine, permanent,
non-partisan tariff commission
Five years ago, when the fight for
this great business measure was be-
gun in the Senate, the bosses of both
parties were against it. So, when the
last revision of the tariff was on and
a Tariff Commission might have been
written into the tariff law, the adj
ministration would not aid this re-
form. When two years later the
aAn ,ipfgtratin r,onortal IL nraaklt
the bipartisan boss system killed it.
There has not been, and will not be.
any sincere and honest effort by the
old parties to get a tariff commission.
There has not been, and will not be,
any sincere and honest purpose by
those parties to take the tariff out of
politics.
WHO has forgotten the tariff scan
dals that made President Cleveland
denounce the Wilson'S German bill as
a peridy and a dishonor?' Who
ever can forget the brazen robberies
forced into the Payne-Aldrich bill,
which Mr.. Taft defended as the best
ever made" If everyone else forgets
these things the interests that profit
ed by them never will forget them.
The bosses and lobbyists that grew
rich by putting them through never
will forget them.
S neither of the old parties can
honestly carry out any tariff policies
which they pledge the people to carry
out. But v e if they could, and even
if they were sincere, the old party
platforms are in error on tariff policy.
Tho nauaAnro4; o ,.l.tf.-- -
free trade; but free trade is wrong
and ruinous. The Republican platform
permits extortion; but tariff extortion
is robbery by law. The Progressive
party is for honest protection; and
honest protection is right and a con-
dition of American prosperity.
"A tariff high enough to give Amer
lean producers the American market
when they make honest goods and sell
them at honest prices, but low enough
that when they sell dishonest goods
at dishonest prices, foreign competi-
ton can correct both evils; a tariff
high enough to enable American pro-
ducers to pay our workingmen Ameri,
a wages and so arranged that the
workingmen will get such wages; q
business tariff whose changes will be
so made as to reassure business in
steads of disturbing it-this is the
tariff and the method of its making
in which the Progressive party be.
heves, for which it does battle and
which 1t proposes to write into the
laws of the land.
Progressives UninHuenced.
The Payne-Aldrich tariff laws
must be revised Immediately in ac-
Icordance to these principles. At the
same time a genuine, permanent, nom
partisan tariff commission must be
fixed in the law as firmly as the III
~terstate Commerce Commission
Neither of the old parties can do this
work. For neither of the old parties
believes in such a tariff; and, what is
more serious, special privilege is too
thoroughly woven into the fibre of
both old parties to allow them to make
such q tariff. The Progressive party
only is free from these influences.
These are samples of the reforms
in N laws of business that we in
tend to put on the nations statute
books. But there are other questions
as important and pressing that we
mean to answer by sound and hui
name laws. Child labor in factories,
mills. mines and sweatshops must be
ended throughout the republic. Such
labor is a crime against childhood
because it prevents the growth of
normal manhood and womanhood. 1t
is a crime against the nation because
il TEAsTArf. fAA -.~.tl - -. r
children into strong. patriotic M
intelligent citizens. Only the nation
can stop this industrial vice.
Modern industrialism has changed
the status of women. Women low
are wage-earners in factories, stores
and other places of toll. In hours
of labor and all the physical condi-
tons of industrial effort they must
compete with men. And they must
40 ii at lower wages than men re-
Seive-wages which, in most cases,
are not enough for these womcn
workers to live on.
This is inhuman and indecent. 1t
is unsocial and uneconomic. 1t Is
immoral and unpatriotic. Toward
women the Progressive party pro-
claims the ~chivalry of the State. We
propose to protect women wage-earn-
crs by suitable laws, an example Of
which is the minimum wage for
women workers-a wage which shall
be high enough to at least buy CLOTH
ing, food and shelter for the woman
teller.
THE care of the aged Is one Of
the most perplexing problems Of mod
ern life. They are questions TO which
the masses Of people are chained as