The Penn's Grove record., 1913-01-03
WHAT WILSON
SAYS ON TARIFF
No Uncertainty as 10 His Views
on the Great Campaign Issue.
HIS OPINIONS ALL Definite

Regulated Compositions the Cure For
Regulated Monopoiy-The Clear Road
to Reform Pointed out-Hs 10 For
Big Business and Against Big Trusts,
and He Thinks That Men Should Be
Free In Business and In the Pursuit
OF Happiness.
The following extracts from Wood
tow Wilson's speeches afford the best
answer to the charges Of his political
opponents that he has not made his
position on the tariff clear. Here is
what Mr.. Wilson says about it:
'Deiniteness in politics is the only
thing that clarifies. Defniteness some
times sends a chill down your back,
because you know your own personal
relations to the gentlemen mentioned;
but, at the same time. 1t is q whole
some chill.
It Is like the chill that you get I'M
der the shower bath-it makes your
blood circulate, and you are q better
man and have "a better digestion for
having cleared your mind for the rest
of the day.
It ought to be in this spirit of good
nature and Of frankness that we should
deal with the questions of 1912, and all
that / have to suggest is that there is
this explicit choice to be made in 1912.
1t sounds abstract, but 1t Is the part
Ing Of the ways, and two ways part
Ing at a very slight angle may seem
almost to run parallel with one an
other, but they are diverging, and the
goal at the end Of one Of them Is very
distant from the goal at the end of
the other one.
Your direction Is what you have to
choose in 1912. Now, here Is the choice
-on the one hand, accepted and regu-
lated monopoly; OF the other hand,
regulated competition which will pre-
vent monopoly.
/ have studied history, and I dare
not take the road that leads to regu-
lated monopoly, because by regulating
monopoly you adopt it, you render 1t
permanent you accept all the things
by which it has been established, and
by adopting it as inevitable you try to
make the best of 1t and to see that it
does as little damage as possible un-
der the circumstances.
Whereas, in the other direction, instead
of leaving yourself tied up with his
established domination you take a road
that by slow degrees only DIVORCES
from the other, but nevertheless pres
emily men can walk with greater and
greater freedom, can determine their
W lives with the knowledge that
while they are little they cannot be
crushed by the fellow that Is big.
There Is a difference between a big |
business and a trust. A trust is a big
business that has an arrangement to
get rid Of a competition, and a big
business survives competition by con-
quering in the field Of intelligence and
economy. 1 am for big business, and
l am against the trusts.
You know these things ought not to
have happened, but you feel that big |
business has come to stay, and you
don't see how to break up big business
processes and substitute better ones,
and therefore, with a spirit quite un-
characteristic of America, you shrug
your shoulders and say, "Well, per
haps the best thing to do Is to submit
and to regulate the thing If we can |
find men Of genius to regulate it." 1
One Of the things that 1 know Is
that about half the people in the Unit
81 States are Democrats. I know that
they are engaged il every kind of in |
dustry and that they could not unite
to accomplish economic destruction
without also deliberately accomplish
ing economic suicide. And / do not be.
lieve that half the people in the United
States are going to combine to ruin the
Of the United States. More. |
over, SO far as l am myself concerned, |
l would call attention to a little utter |
ance which l ventured to make upon |
accepting the nomination for the presi. |
dency, in which l explicitly laid down
the program which 1 thought we ought |
to pursue with regard to duties. 1 said
that that ought not to be changed ex
cept In such a way and at such a rate
as would not in any way interfere with
the course of sound business in the
United States. |
1t is futile to stand for the causes |
Of u present wrongs and weakly pro |
pose to control and moderate the re |
suits, and yet that is all that our on |
ponents suggest. They even propose to
remedy the results by the very means
by which they were produced-nameIy
the partnership Of the government In
.he management Of business. l. for nv
part, can never bring myself to accent |
The proposal that the government by |
regulation shall act through the trusts |
for the people. The contact between the |
government and the people in such a
case is too remote and indirect. This |
is no way in which to restore the con-
fidence of the people. 1t is only q wav
in which to provide the people with
new guardians, guardians intereste,
above all things in making a profit OH;
of the guardianship, a political proftt
be 1t observed, as we'll as an economical
profit !