The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1912-04-11
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

| (By Charles H. Tavener, special
Washington correspondent of The
Reporter.)
Washington, April GA perusal
of the "literature' sent out daily by
| press agents of. both Mr.. Taft and
| Mr.. Roosevelt reveals that these can
| didates for the honors of leading
| their party are making lot of noise
! and kicking up lot of dust about
everything except the one thing that
| is going to be the real issue of the
! coming campaign, namely, the tarlft.
All the democratic candidates are
not only willing, but anxious to tell
| the people where they stand on the
tariff. Look to the opposition head
quarters for a discussion of this Vita
subject, and you are greeted with
| silence so thick that it could be
| cut with knife. Mr.. Roosevelt is
| busy trying to arouse the people with
the recall of judges" issue, and Mr..
| Taft is trying his best to stand pat.
The democrats, on the other hand,
are citing facts and figures to drive
home the one great truth that the
cause of the present high cost of liv-
ing in this country is due to the high
| tariff wall and to that alone.
So apparent has it become that the
tariff trusts have been using the
tariff all these years as a weapon to
gouge profits out of the consumers
of the land, that it is next to pathetic
to hear the protectionists in congress
still shouting, as they occasionally
| do, that to remove the tariff, or re-
duce the rates of the present law,
would take away the "protection for
the American workingman. Pro-
tectionist orators in both houses Of
congress, driven to desperation by
l.! the knowledge that the people at last
| understand the real issue, are max
ing a last frantic effort to drag out
the old, tattered Bogey man of"Com-
| Observation-Disclosures
rope" in the hope of making the
| voters once more swallow the bait.
But the tariff will not down, and the
protectionists' cries are becoming
weaker and weaker.
The democratic Investigations,
| which were so much derided when
| they were first put into operation
taught lessons which are daily sink
ing deeper and deeper into the minds
of the people. The light thrown on
the methods of the steel trust by the
Stanley committee; the exposure Of
the rottenness in the administration
of the Agricultural department by
the Moss committee; the shameful
conditions in the wooden industry as
brought out by the rules committee
investigations; the petty manipula-
ton of public moneys in the state
department, as shown by the inQuir-
les of the Hamlin committee, and the
various other revelations by the dem
ocrats of the house, all revealing
that wherever the light was thrown,
INSTRUMENTATION, inetficiency and
actual graft lay exposed, all have
served to convince the people that
the democrats not only have proven
worthy of the trust placed in them
a year ago, but that they are worthy
of those "graver responsibilities"
which Speaker Champ Clark said the
party would prove itself capable of
carrying. -.
The battle of next November is
going to center around the tariff,
which is the mother of all the evils
that have grown up under the pres
.ent system. despite the efforts of the
protectionists to side track that
question and bring less important is-