The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-04-28
DEBATE ON TARIFF
BECOMING GENERAL
However, Few, If Any, Have
Changed Their Convic-
tionS.
PROGRESSIVES Blu S Y
Calling Attention To Necessi-
ty For Change In Tariff
Rates.
PROGRESSIVES BUSY
palladium Specially

WASHINGTON, April 28.-General
debate on the tariff bill has been rag
ing back and forth for four days now
and it Is entirely safe to say that not
member of that body has changed
his convictions for or against either
the bill or any of it's four thousand
items. In the main, the debate has ia
ken the same old range made familiar
to followers of proceedings in Wash
ington by hundreds, perhaps even
thousands, of pages of the Congress
sional Record. Republicans assail the
Democratic bill as a disaster-breeding
measure of free trade. Democrats de-
fend it as a measure of relief to the
people of the country from the high
cost of living and assail the Republi-
can theory and practice of high pro-
lection as unconstitutional robbery.
Wit, metaphor and poetry are en-
ployed unfortunately by both sides
and, for all practical advantage, the
report of the proceedings as between
Republicans and Democrats might be
taken from any one of the many SINH
lar sham battles that have preceded
this one.
But new and striking element has
been injected into this debate by the
little band of Progressives in the
House. The standpat newspapers, Re-
publican and Democrat alike, have de-
voted little or no space to this signifi-
cant feature of the present debate,
but it is feature which will increase
rapidly in Importance as the tariff
bill proceeds along it's well oiled way
and which is bound to gain vastly in
public recognition and approval be-
fore the tariff bill receives the presi-
dents signature.
While Republicans and Democrats
are emphasizing by their speeches the
fact that the pending bill is a product
of the same old vicious method of tar
if making that has marked the enact
ment of previous tariff laws, the Pro-
gressives have steadily called atten-
ton to the manner in which the in
consistencies and defects charged by
Republicans or admitted by Demo
Gratis emphasize the necessity for
change not merely in tariff rates, but,
in what is of even greater Importance,
in the method of tariff making. The
Republicans go gaily ahead pointing
out items in the measure which more
or less obviously are the results OF
ignorance or Incidence and, at the
same time, Democrat after Democrat
makes admission that in this, that or
the other respect the bill is not right
and could DE improved. Thus, while
neither side admits the logical impli-
cation of its argument, both sides are
steadily adding to the proof of the ne
cessity for the creation of perman-
nent, nonpartisan scientific Tariff Com
mission, which shall secure to all the
people of the whole country-not me-
rely for the private use of the ma
jority members of the Ways and
Means Committee-full information
about every item considered in a tar
if bill.
The proposition of the Progressive
party is 1.-The establishment of non
partisan, scientific Tariff Commission
reporting both to the President and to
either branch of Congress, which shall
report, first, as to the costs of produc-
ton. efficiency of labor, capitaliza-
ton, industrial organization and eff
cheney and the general competitive po-
sition in this country and abroad of
industries seeking protection from