Fergus County Democrat., 1912-10-15

fulness the message you bring me
IRON it. l feel that l am surrounded
by men whose principles and am0l-
tions are those OF true servants OF the
people.
The tariff question, as dealt with In
our time at any rate, has not been
business. 1t has been politics. Tarin
schedules have been made up Tor the
purpose of keeping as large a number
as possible OF the rich and Influential
manufacturers OF the country In
good humor with the republican party,
which desired their constant financial
support.
We are not the owners of the Philip
pine islands. We hold them in trust
Tor the people who live in them. They |
are theirs, tor the uses OF their lite.
We are not even their partners. 1t is
our duty, as trustee, to make whatever
arrangement OF government will be |
most serviceable to their freedom and
development. Here, again, we are to
set up the rule of justice and right.
1t is not as easy for us to live as 1t
used to be. Our money will not buy
as much. High wages, even when we
can get them, yield us no great COM
fort. We used to be better off with
less, because a dollar could buy so
much more. The majority of us have
been disturbed to find ourselves grow
ing poorer, even though our earnings
were slowly increasing. Prices climb
faster than we can push our earnings
up.
|
The trusts do not belong to the
period of infant industries. They are
not the products of the time, that old
laborious time, when the great con-
tinent we live on was undeveloped, the
young nation struggling to find itself
and get upon it's feet amidst older and
more experienced competitors. They
belong to a very recent and very
sophisticated age, when men knew
what the ywanted and knew how to
get it by the favor of the government.
4 X X
No law that safeguards their life,
that improves the physical and moral
conditions under which they live, that
makes their hours Of labor rational
and tolerable, that gives them freedom
to act in their own interest, and that
protects them where they cannot pro-
tect themselves, can properly be re-
garded as class legislation or as any
thing but a measure taken in the in
terest of the whole people, whose part
nership in right action we are trying
to establish and make real and prac-
tical.
We do not ignore the fact that the
business of country like ours is eX-
ceedingly sensitive to changes in leg
islation of this kind. 1t has been built
up, however, ill-advisedly, upon tariff
schedules written in the way l have
indicated, and it's foundations must
not be too radically or too suddenly
disturbed. When we act we should
act with caution and prudence, like
men who know what they are about,
and not like those in love with a
theory 1t is obvious that the changes
we make should be made only at such
rate and in such way as will least
interfere with the normal and health
full course of commerce and manufac'
ture. But we shall not on that account
act with timidity, as If we did not
know our own minds, for we are GER
tain of our ground and of our object.
There should be an immediate re-
vision, and it should be downward, nn'
hesitatingly and steady downward.
Moreover, we begin to perceive some
things about the movement of prices
that concern us very deeply, and fix
our attention upon the tariff schedules
with a more definite determination
than ever to get to the bottom OF this
matter. We have been looking into
it, at trials held under the Sherman
act, and in investigations in the com
mittee rooms of congress, where men
who wanted to know the real facts
have been busy with inquiry, and we
begin to see very clearly what a,
least some of the methods are by
which prices are fixed. We know that
they are not fixed by the competitions
of the market, or by the ancient law
7 of supply and demand, which is to be
found stated in all the primers o.
economics, but by private arrange
ments with regard to what the sup
ply should be and agreements among
the producers themselves. Those wht
buy are not even represented by cOun
sci. The high cost of living Is ar
ranged by private understanding.
There are two great things to do
One is to set up the rule of justic'
and of right in such matters as tn
tariff, the regulation of the trusts ant
the prevention of monopoly, tn
adaptation of our banking and cur
rency laws to the varied uses to whicl
our people must put them, the treat
ment of those who do the daily labo
in our factories and mines AM
throughout all our great industrial an
commercial undertakings, and the pc
litical life of the people of the Philip
pines, for whom we hold govern
mental power in trust, for their sci
vice not our own. The other, the ad
ditional duty, is the great task of pre-
tecting our people and our resource
ond IF kooninp Onon IN fho whole nee