East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1913-04-08
WILSON'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
Tariff Duties Must be Altered He Says --Change Nee
essary to Meet Radical Alteration in Con-
ditions of our Economic Life

To the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives:
l have called the congress together
in extraordinary session because a du-
ty was laid upon the party now in
power at the recent elections which
it ought to perform promptly. in or
der that the burden carried by the
people under existing law may be
lightened as soon as possible and in
order, also that the business inter-
ests of the country may not be kept
too long in suspense as to what the
fiscal changes are to be to which
they will be required to adjust them
selves. 1t is clear to the whole coun-
try that the tariff duties must be al
tered. They must be changed to meet
the radical alteration in the condi-
tions of our economic life yhich the
country has witnessed within the last
generation. While the whole face and
method of our industrial and COM
mercial life were being changed be-
yond recognition the tariff schedules
have remained what they were be-
fore the change began, or have NOV
ed in the direction they were given
when no large circumstance of our
industrial development was what it
is today. Our task is to square them
with the actual facts. The sooner
that is done the sooner our men of
business will be free to thrive by the
law of nature (the nature of free bus
iness) instead of by the law of legis-
lation and artificial arrangement.
System Prevents Competition.
We have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afield in our day
very far indeed from the field in
which Our prosperity might have had
a normal growth and stimulation. No
one who looks the facts squarely in
the face or knows anything that lies
beneath the surface of action can
fail to perceive the principles upon
which recent tariff legislation has
been based We long ago passed be-
yond the modest notion of protect
ing the industries of the country and
moved boldly forward 10 the idea that
they We're entitled to the direct pat
ronage of the government. For
long time-a time so long that the
men now active in public policy hard
~ remember the conditions that pre-
ceded tive have sought in our tar
if schedules to give each group of
manufacturers or producers what they
themselves thought that they needed
in order to maintain practically
exclusive market as against the rest
of the world Consciously or uncon-
sciously. we have built up a set of
privileges and exemptions from com
petition behind which it was easy by
any, even the crudest. forms of COM
bination to organize monopoly; until
at last nothing is normal. nothing is
obliged to stand the tests of eff
cheney and economy. in our world of
big business, but everything thrives
/ by concerted arrangement. only new
principles of action will save us from
a final hard crystalization of monop-
oily and a complete loss of the influ-
ences that quicken enterprise and
keep Independent energy alive.
Privilege Must Go.
1t is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish every
thing that bears even the semblanCe
| ficial advantage. and put our busi-
! ness men and producers under the
stimulation of constant necessity to
! be efficient. economical and enter
| prising masters of competitive SUI
premacy, better workers and mer-
chants than any in the world. Aside
from the duties laid upon articles
which we do not and probably can
not, produce, therefore. and the du-
ties laid upon luxuries and merely for
the sake of the revenues they yield
the object of the tariff duties hence
forth laid must be effective competi-
ton, the whetting of American wits
by contest with the wits of the rest
of the world.
1t would be unwise to move to-
ward this end headlong. with reck.
less haste, or with strokes that cut
at the very roots of what has grown
up amongst us by land process and
at our own invitation. 1t does not