The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1913-04-19
WILSON'S TARIFF MESSAGE. {.

Full ! ext OF OOCuNfEHl ReSQ 9y PFeS
ident to Compassionate Rev
sion and Reduction Urged a
First Duty of New Administration
When President Woodrow Wi1sol
broke the precedents established b,
his predecessors through more thai
hundred years past, by carrying
and reading to congress in person
his first official communication, OF
the Sth instant, this is what he said
ITO the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives:
81 have called the congress to
gether in extraordinary session be
cause a duty was laid upon the party
now in power at the recent elections
which it ought to perform promptly
in order that the burden carried BY
the people under existing law may
be lightened as soon as possible, an6
in order, also, that the business in
terests of the country may not be
kept too long in suspense as tc
what the fiscal changes are to be
to which they will be required to
Ii
the whole country expects the tariff
duties to be altered. They must be
changed to meet the radical altera-
| ton in the conditions of our eco
nomic life which the country has
witnessed within the last generation.
While the whole face and method of
our Industrial and commercial life
were being changed beyond recogni-
ton 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
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 to thrive by the law of nature
(the nature Of free business) instead
of by the law of legislation and ar
tificial arrangement
I'VE have seen tariff legislation
Wanaa very FAR q iel dlss our q v
very far indeed from R{a field III
which our prosperity might have
had a normal growth and stimula-
ton. No one who looks the facts
squarely in the face or knows any
thing 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 beyond the modest
notion of protecting the industries
of the country and moved boldly for
ward to the idea that they were
entitled to the direct patronage Of
the government. For q long time
a time SO long that the men now
active in public policy hardly remem-
ber the conditions that preceded it
we have sought in our tariff sched-
ules to give each group of manufac
turers or producers what they them
selves thought that they needed in
order to maintain practically ex-
elusive 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
combination to organize monopoly: |
until at last nothing is normal, no.
thing is obliged to stand the tests
Of efficiency and economy, in our
world Of big business, but every
thing thrives by concerted arrange
ment. Only new principles of action
will save us from a final hard crys-
tallization of monopoly and a COM
plete loss Of the influences that
quicken enterprise and keep in
energy alive
It is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish every
thing that bears even the semblance
Of privilege or of any kind Of arti-
ficial advantage, and put our busi-
ness men and producers under the
of a constant necessity
to be efficient, economical and enter
Drising, masters of competitive SUI
premacy, better workers and mer-
chants than any others in the world.
Aside from the duties laid upon ar
sicles which we do not, and proba-
oly cannot, produce, therefore, and
he duties laid upon luxuries and
A1SASAy 1Ol CIC SeShC VI SiAC 1CsCAoVoi
hey yield, the object of the tariff
luties henceforth laid must be eff
.ective competition, the Whetting of
American wits by contest with the
Wits Of the rest of the world.
It would be unWise to move toward
his end headlong, with reckless
taste, or with strokes that cut at
he very roots of what has grown
lp amongst US by long process and
It our own invitation. It does not
liter a thing to upset it and break
t and deprive it of a chance to
,hange. 1t destroys it. We must
make changes in our fiscal laws, in
,ur fiscal system, whose object is
a more free and whole +
ome development. not revolution or
upset or confusion. We must build
lp trade, especially foreign trade {
We need the outlet and the enlarged
ie1d of energy more than we ever /
lid before. We must build up in
Iustry as well, and must adopt free
lpm in the place of artificial stimu- i
alton only so far as it will build,