The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1913-04-18
CONGRESS GETS
WILSON MESSAGE
Brief Document Tells Purpose OF
Extra Session
Lawmakers Asked to Square she
Schedules With TIE Actual
Facts Of Industrial and
Commercial Life.

enate and house at the beginning OF
he extra session, was a brief, point
ed document setting forth in general
terms what congress Is expected TO do
the matter OF tariff revision. The
was as follows:
To the Senate and House Of Repre-
sentatives:
| have called the congress together
In extraordinary session because q
was laid upon the party now In
at the recent elections which 1t
ought to perform promptly, in order
that the burden carried by the people
existing law may be lightened
as soon as possible and in oroer, also,
that the business interests OF the
country may not be kept too. long In
uspens as to what the fiscal changes
are to be to which they will be re-
uuired to adjust themselves. 1t is clear
to the whole country that the tarlH
duties must be altered. They must
be changed to meet the radical altera-
ton i'm the conditions OF u economic
life which the country has witnessed
within the last generation.
While the whole face and method or
our industrial and commercial life
were being changed beyond recogni-
ton the tariff schedules have re-
NAMED what they were before tnS
change began, or have moved In the
direction they were given when no
large circumstance of our industrial
development was wat 1t is today.
Our ask is to square them with the
actual facts. The sooner that Is done
the sooner we shall escape from SUI
fering from the facts and the sooner
our men of business will be free to
thrive by the law OF nature (the ma
ture of free business) instead of by
the law of legislation and artificial ar
rangement.
Business Not Normal.
We have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afield in our day
very far indeed from the field in which
u prosperity might have mad a nor
NAL growth and stimulation. No one
who looks the facts sQuarely in the
face or knows anything that lies be
meath the surface of action can fail to
perceive the principles upon which
recent tariff legislation has beer
based. We long ago passed beyond
the modest notion of protecting the
Industries of the country ana moved
boldly forward to the idea that they
were entitled to the direct patronage
of the government. For a long time
a time so long that the men now active
in public policy hardly remember the
conditions that preceded tive have
sought in our tariff schedules to give
each group Of manufacturers or pro
ducers what they themselves though
that they needed In order u
maintain a practically exclusive
market as against the rest OF tn
world. Consciously or unconsciously
We have built up a set OF privileges
and exemptions from competition be
hind which 1t was Easy by any, ever
the crudest, forms of combination u
organize monopoly; until at last notn
ing Is normal, nothing is obliged Z
stand the tests of efficiency Ii econ
omy. in our world of big business, blu
/. everything thrives by concerted al
rangement. Only new principles O
|, action will save us from a final har
crystallization of monopoly and
complete loss OF the influences tina
, quicken enterprise and keep ind'
q pendent energy alive.
1t is plain what those principle
O must be. We must abolish everythln
that bears even the semblance of pri'
ilege or of any kind of artificial a
e vantage, and pit. our business me
q and producers under the stimulate
e of a constant necessity to be eficien
S economical, and enterprising, master
of competitive supremacy, bette
workers and merchants than any
the world. Aside from the duties la
upon articles which We do not, al
n probably cannot. produce, therefor
v and the duties laid upon luxuries al
/? merely for the sake of the reyenu'
they yield, the object of the tarin q
Y ties henceforth laid must be effecti'
II competition, the whetting Of Anne
8 can wits by contest with the wits
IT the rest OF the world.
n Development. Not Revolution.
1t would be unwise TO move iowa
this end headlong. with Teckle
u haste. or with strokes that cut at I
n very roots OF what has grown
IN amongst us by long process n
te our own invitation. X does not all
IL a thing to upset II and break 1t a
deprive it of a chance to change.
DESTROYS il. We must make chang
in our fiscal laws, in our fiscal syste
he whose object is development. a mC
va free and wholesome development,
rd revolution or upset or CONFUSION.
be must build up trade. especially
eign trade. We need the outlet a
the enlarged field of energy m'
than We ever did before. We IN
D. build up industry as well and M
adopt freedom in the place OF a
IN fetal stimulation only SO far as IL
build. not pull down. In dealing "
re the tariff the method by which
ii 1T In