The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1913-07-17
EDITORIAL NOTES
by j. ID. WATSON


the purpose of furnishing members with data
favorable to the Trusts, and often writing
the speeches that the Trusts wanted the mem
bers to make before Congress SO that there
would be no chance for a dull member to get
balled up on his data, there has come to light
full exposure of the entire system as con-
Quoted by the National Association of Manu-
facturers, with headquarters In New York.
This association of manufacturers has been
the lobby of the Trusts, the medium through
which the Trusts obtained legislation favora-
BILE to the Trusts, and against the interests of
the Countrywide medium through which they
have kept In Congress tools of the Trusts,
and have ousted from Congress members who
made an effort to pass laws favorable to the
people
It has been the medium through which the
Trusts have controlled the important commit
tees Of Congress, the Speaker of the House,
and two Presidents of the United States.
The National Association of Manufacturers
wrote the Mckinley Tariff bill, the Dingley
Tariff bill, and the Aldrch-V reeland bill
1t controlled President Taft, and it created
the Tariff Board for no other reason on earth
than to defeat tariff legislation; it created the
Board for the ostensible purpose Of making a
study Of the tariff for the purpose of scienti-
fcally reducing it, but it created it for the
real purpose of doing nothing except report
that it had not finished it's work. thus giving
President Taft an opportunity to veto the
bills reducing the tariff, on the ground that
the Tariff Board had not compiled the figures
upon which to base scientific reduction.
The Association of Manufacturers had as
its allies in Congress such men as Speaker
Cannon Watson and Dwight, Cannons
House whips, Dalzell, Lodge and Aldrich, and
Vice President Sherman
1t had the use of room in the capitol
building, and used the telephones in the CAPT
tol because there was less danger of detection
by using the private phones paid for by the
Government than there would have been
otherwise
Through Speaker Cannon, and Watson the
Association controlled the House Committee
on Rules, and the House Committees on Labor
and Judiciary, and in these three committee
rooms choked the life out of every proposed
law that the interests did not want to become
law.
The Association made efforts to bride
Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell and Frank
Morrison, and when the labor leaders could
not be brlbed, other schemes were put on foot
to break their influence, -underhanded meth
DDS were resorted to trap them and make them
appear In an unfavorable light to the masses
OF the laborlng class
The Association also engaged in the bust
ness of strike breaking, and it usually sue
ceeded In It's efforts in that field by bribing
minor labor leaders, by having it's paid spies
members of the unions and in that way get
inside information with which to fight labor
The association also 6ri6ed ministers of
the Gospel to preach against the strikers, and
thus create sentiment against them.
The Association also had in its pay the
Chief of pages in the House of Representa-
tlves and he and the seventy five pages under