Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-07-11

4
San Francisco Argonaut, points out
much thaC President Wilson has 10
learn about being president as result
| of the action OF the chief executive
during the fight of the sugar interests
against the Wilson Underwood tariff
measure:
The schoolmaster speaks loud in
President Wilson's pronunciamento in
criticism of the presence at Washing
! ton of persons interested in tariff leg
| isTation He resents as IAN intoler-
able burden" this constant Interrupt
ton of his legislative, and political
plans He wants conditions favorable
to the calm progress of debate" The
attendants upon congress, described
as numerous" industrious" and
'insidious," have the hardihood to
attempt to Influence the judgment of
public men" and they are even en-
ldeayoring to create public opinion"
even as the President himself is at
! tempting to create public opinion
against them.
Does president Wilson expect that
| measure like his blanket tariff
scheme, planned by politicians for po-
litical effect, adjusted to nicely to
the end of sustaining political poll
cy, shah be left to the consideration
of the politicians of congress unad-
yised and uninfiuenced by the bust
ness elements of the country? Does
President Wilson expect that men
representative of the vital interests
of the country, with both their own
and the public fortunes at stake, shall
iremain unperturEed and qufescent
while college professor on the sone
hand and two groups made up of law
yers and politicians on the other
calmly debate questions which none
of them lin a practical sense knows
anything about? Does President Will
son in the faulty of a fast growing
conceit imagine that the business of
government is strictly speaking his
business and in a lesser sense the
business of congress, and none of the
business of the, producing, trading,
manufacturing, carrying, and consum-
ing forces of the country? Can not
President Wilson so far separate him
self from the conditions and prae-
tees of the academic life as to under
stand. that the business OF legislation
is. essentially public business, that it
lis the business of the whole country,
and that any interested citizen has
the same right to be in Washington
that he has? 1t would seem that
President Wilson should not need to
be told that Washington City is not
"a mere isolated island" of arbitrary
power, but place where the people
of these United States transact the
business of government, through Sc.
lected agents to be sure, but at all
times subject to the common interest
and the general WILL
II is easy to sneer at the ''lobby."
None the less the lobby is quito as
important in legislation as the Con-
gress or the President himself, Judge
and jury might just as properly and
wisely proceed to dispense justice
without the aid Of witnesses or advo-
Gates as Congress to conduct legisla-
ton without counsel and advice, or
in other words without the aid of a
lobby. Perhaps President Wilson in
his ignorance of governmental process
ses, now being shown day by day to
lobby stands for If the lobby does
in some, even in many, instances rep
resent selfish and dishonest purpose,
it stands in its general character for
far more than this. For from the
lobby Congress receives information,
cCunsels. and inspirations which it
could not do without At this time
a committee of Congress is consider
ing, among other things, the wool
and wooden goods schedules of a pro-
posed tariff law. Is there member
of this committee who is an expert
in relation to the wool interests of
this country and of the world? We
suspect not. But the projected bill
touches upon ten thousand interests
related to the production, the manu-
facture, the Importation, the trading
in, the carrying of, the bleaching, the
compromising, the sale il multiplied
forms of wool and wooIens. Will the
President assume that Congress has
no need of information which experts
in these branches of special knowl
edge only can give? Is the President
so arrogant in his schcolmaster's
cocksureness as to assume that per-
sons engaged in wool and wcolen
trade have no right TO visit the ma
tiOnaI capital and present to those
who are fabricating the laws infor.
nation and argument related to the
matters in interest? Can the Presi-
dent Seriously believes, even in rel8-
ton to thing so important and prac-
teal as the" tariff. that the matter
should be-left solely 10 officials and
politicians-that it is undesirable
''impertinent," uncomfortable" that