The Lamar register., 1913-09-10
TARIFF FRAMED TO CORRAL
VOTES
Bill Drafted by Fifteen Men Wlso
Didn't Want Any Knowledge
ON Subject

OF nature is that a stream can rise
no higher than its source. Nor can
a tariff bill. The source of the bill
of tho vintage of 1913 is one man
in the White house and the four
teen majority members OF the ways
and meanns committee.
The one Is distinguished pro-
lessor of political economy. whose
knowledge of the manufacturing
and industrial problems of the
United States has been obtained
wholly in the calm and distant Sc
clusion of the college clOister.
The fourteen are lawyers. most
ly from centers OF civilization
which mapmakers seem to have
been in a conspiracy to ignore. On
ly two Of them were ever concern
ed in actual tariff revision.
Each and every member of this
band of fifteen can prove a COM
pbete and legal aibi. If charged
with any knowledge Of manufacture
In this or any other country. To
them an excursion into the realm
OF factory and workshop. into the
vital problems of production cost
aud comparative wages OF this coun.
try and the lands across the seas.
into the consideration OF the hand
leaps OF the American producer,
would be but another journey of
Alice in Wonderland.
Nor do they seek knowledge Of
those Who possesssd the informa-
ton which they themselves lacked.
All OF the Information for this
revolutionary tariff procedure was
obtained from three weeks of al
legged hearings. At these hearings
there was little intelligent effort
to get facts. It was a hazing pro-
cess for any manufacturer who was
daring enough to appear and say
that he was In favor OF the pro-
tection of American industry.
In every possible way members
of the committee tried to belittle
the testimony presented and to
make the witnesses uncomfortable.
Some of the sessions were appar-
emily conducted under the Marquis
of Queensbury rules. The Witness
est were restricted TO u bare fif-
teen minutes. with the future of
their business at stake. and then
even this time was used up in the
introduction and discussion of ques-
tiOns entirely foreign to the prob
lem in hand.
From the verdict of these men
there was no appeal. Under the
rule of King Caucus, invoked for
the first time. the members of the
majority party had naught to do
but to vote for the bill like we'll
trained soldiers. even though, like
some other soldiers of former
day and generation at Balaklava.
they felt that
'Some one had blundered;
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why"
These minds also declare that the
experience of nations counts for
nothing; that the ad valorem duty
Is the proper one. and the specific
duty something for the discard.
They throw to the four winds the
lessons and the best thought of
the world. and put into practice a
system that Is being cast aside ev-
erywhere as one that makes busi-
ness unstable and the dishonest i'm
porter the real beneficiary of the
tariff.
The reason for their doing this
is plain. To make up a set of spe-
cific rates is a work for men who
know. 1t requires knowledge of
manufacture and customs of trade
It cannot be the result Of mere
guesswork and the rule of thumb.
The trainers OF the bill were not
equal to the task. They did not
have the efficiency to draw up such
schedules. They were compelled u