Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1913-04-10
CDKGEESS Gets
& WILSON MESSAGE
srief Document Tells Purpose Of
Extra Session.
MUST ALTER TARIFF DUTIES
lawmakers Asked to Square the
Schedules With the Actual
Facts Of Industrial and
Commercial Life.

Washington, April s. = President
Wilson's message, read today to the
enate and house at the beginning OF
he extra session, was a brief point
"a document setting forth in general
kerms what congress is expected to do
b the matter Of tariff revision. The
be jsage was as follows:
TO the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives:
NH have called the congress together
ln extraordinary session because a
auty was laid upon the party now in
bower at the recent elections which it
ought to perform promptly, in order
that the burden carried by the people
nnder existing law may be lightened
BIS soon as possible and in order, also,
that the business interests Of the
'eCountry may not be kept too long in
suspense as to what the fiscal changes
are to be to which they will be re-
puired to adjust themselves. 1t is clear
TO the whole country that the tariff
duties must be altered, They must
be changed to meet the radical altera-
lion in the conditions of our economic
( life which the country has witnessed
within the last generation.
VIII While the whole face and method Of
BUR industrial and commercial life
we're being changed beyond recogni-
lion the tariff schedules have re-
mained what they were before the
change began, or have moved in the
direction they were given when no
large circumstance of our industrial
/ development was what it is today.
Dur task is to square item with the
4 aAtual facts. The sooner that is done
the sooner we shall escape from suf-
Eering 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.
a Business Not Normal.
& We have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afeld in our day
very far indeed from the field in which
our prosperity might have had nor
nI.,l 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 been
based. We long ago passed beyond
the modest notion of protecting the
Industries of the country and moved
boldly forward to the idea that they
were entitled to the direct patronage
Il of the government. For long time
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 thought
that they needed In order tC
Fl maintain practically exclusive
market as against the rest Of the
world. Consciously or unconsciously
we have built up a set Of privileges
bDu GAGIlpllOlb HUN Gull pCllblOh ~
hind which it was easy by any even
the crudest, forms of combination to
organize monopoly; until at last moth
Ing is normal, nothing is obliged tc
stand the tests Of efficiency and econ
amy, in our world Of big business, but
everything thrives by concerted ar
rangement. Only new principles o1
action will save us from final hare
disqualification Of monopoly and
complete loss of the influences tha
quicken enterprise and keep inde
pendent energy alive.
8 1t is plain what those principles
must be- We must abolish everything
that bears even the semblance Of priv
nege or of any kind of artificial ad
# vantage, and put our business mel
and producers under the stimulation
Of a constant necessity to be efficient
economical, and enterprising, master
~ Of competitive supremacy, bette
- workers and merchants than any il
"a the world Aside from the duties lai
upon articles which we do not an
probably cannot, produce, therefore
f and the duties laid upon luXuries an
Nal merely for the sake of the revenue
they yield the object of the tariff dt
ties henceforth laid must be effectiy
3 competition, the whetting of Amer
can wits by contest with the wits
~ the rest of the world.
Development, Not Revolution.
It would be unwise to move towar
tRthjs end headlong, with reckes
haste, or with strokes that cut at tn
very roots of what has grown u
amongst us by long process and
- our own invitation, 1t does not altt
4 thing to upset 1t and break 1t an
n deprive 1t of chance to change.
ssstroys It, We must make change