Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1913-04-08

witnessed within the last generation.
While the whole face and method OF
.our Industrial and commercial Life
were being changed beyond recognl-
Ition the tariff schedules have remained
what they were. before the change be-
gan, or have moved in the direction
! they were given when no large Gil
cumstance of our industrial develop
ment was what it is today. Our task
is to square them with the actual
facts. The sooner that is done the
sooner we shall escape from suffering
from the facts and the sooner
our men of business will be free 70
thrive by the law of nature (the ma
ture of free business) instead of by
the law of legislation and artificial ar
Irangement.
We have seen tariff Legislation wall
Ger very far afeld in our day-very
far indeed from the field in which our
prosperity might have had a normal
growth and stimulation. No one VINO
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 tar
iff legislation has been based. We long
ago passed beyond the modest action
of protecting" the industries of the
country and moved boldly forward to
the idea that they were entitled 20 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 producers what they
themselves though that they needed in
in order to maintain a practically ex-
elusive market as against the rest nj
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 combi-
nation TO organize monopoly until at.
last nothing is normal, nothing is
obliged TO stand the tests of efficiency
and economy, in our world Of big bust
ness, but everything thrives by con-
celted arrangement. Only new prin-
ciples Of action will save US from a.
final hard disqualification of monopo-
~ and complete loss Of the :.:aueSi- !
res that quicken enterprise and keep
independent energy alive.
1t is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish everything
that bears even the sembiance Of
privilege or of any kind 70 artificial adj
vantage, and put our business men
and producers under the stimulation
of constant necessity TO be efficient,
economical, and enterprising, masters
of competitive supremacy, better
workers and merchants than any inI
the world Aside from the duties LAID
upon articles which we do not, and
l. ~obably can not, produce, therefore.
ana ne duties laid upon Injuries and
merely for the sake Of the revenues
they yield, the object of the tariff du-
ties henceforth laid must be effective
competition, the whetting of America
wits by contest with the wits Of the
rest of the world.
It would be unwise to move toward
this end headlong, with reckless haste,
or with strokes that cut at the very
roots of what has grown up amongst
us by long process and at our own in
vitation. 1t does not alter thing to,
upse t it and break it and deprive it
of a chance to change. 1t destroys it.
We must make changes in our fiscal
laws, in our fiscal system, whose object
is development, more free ana
wholesome development, not revolu-
ton or upset or confusion. We must
build up trade, especially foreign
trade. We need the outlet and the en-
larged field of energy more than we
ever did before. We must build up
industry as well, and must adopt free
dom in the place Of artificial stimula-
ton only so far as it will build, not
pull down. In dealing with the tariff
the method by which this may be done
will be a matter of judgment, eXer-
cised item by item. To some not &C
customed to the excitements and re-
sponsibilities of greater freedom our
methods may in some respects and at
some points seem heroic, but remedies