The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1913-04-16
WILSON'S MESSAGE
WHICH HE READ In PERSON TO
THE CONGRESS
THE PEOPLES BURDEN
Calls Attention to the Tariff, and
Says it Must be Revised in Accord
ance With the Promises Made, So
That the Masses May be Beneftted
and Helped.


and Helped.
The following is the full text Of
the message which President Wilson
read in person to Congress on Tues
day: 81 have called Congress to-
gether in extraordinary session be-
cause 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 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 which they
will be required to adjust themselves.
It is clear to the whole country that
the tariff duties must be altered.
They must be economic 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 recognition the tariff sched-
ules have remained what they were
before the change began, or have
moved in the direction they were CIV
en- when no large circumstance o.:
our industrial development was what
it is to-day. 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 busi-
ness viii be free to thrive by the law
of nature tthe nature Of free busi-
nesse instead OF by the law Of legis-
lation and artificial arrangement.
- eve have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afeld in our day
very far indeed from the field in
which our prosperity might have had
normal growth and stimulation.
No one who looks the facts squarely
in the face or knows anything tha.
lies beneath the surface Of action
can fail to perceive the principles
upon which recent tariff legislation
has been based. We long ago pass
ed beyond the modest notion Of ''pro-
tecting" the industries Of the country
and moved bodily forward to the
idea that they were entitled to the di-
rect 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 thought that they
needed in order to maintain practi-
eally exclusive market as against the
rest of the world. Consciously CT
unconsciously, we have built up set
Of privileges and exemptions from
competition behind which it was easy
by any, even the crudest, forms OF
combination to organize monoplT;
until at last nothing is normal, moth
ing Is obliged to stand the tests OF
efficiency and economy, in our world
of big business, but everything rhriE-
es By concerted arrangement. Only
new principles of action will save US
from a final hard crystalization of
monopoly and a complete loss OF the
influences that quicken elterpris and
keep independent energy alive.
ssIt is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish exery-
thing that bears even the semblance
Of privilege, and put our business men
and producers under the stimulation
of constant necessity to be efficient,
economical and enterprisjng, masters
Of competitive supremacy, better
workers and merchants than any N
the world. Aside from the duties
laid upon articles which we do not,
and probably can not, produce. there
fore, and the duties laid upon iuXur-
les and merely for the sake Of the ie
venues yield, the object Of the tarlT
duties henceforth laid must be etec-
tive competition, the whettins OF
American wits by contest with the
wits of the rest of the woril.
cit would be unwise TO move to-
ward this end headloRg. with reck-
less haste, or with strokes that cut
at the very roots Of what has 81 own
up amongst US by long process and at
our own invitation. 1t does not al
ter a thing to upset it and ;resk 1t
and deprive it of a chance to change,
It destroys it. We must make changes
in our fiscal laws, in our fiscal
system, whose object is Development,
more free and wholesome develop
ment, not revolution or upset or con-
fusion. We must build up trade.
We need the outlet and the enlarged
field Of energy more than we ever did
before. We must adopt freedom in
the place Of artificial stimulation on
ly so far as it will build, not pull
down. In dealing with the tariff the |
method by which this may be done
will be matter Of judgment, exer- |
cised item by item. To some not ac- !
eustomed to the excitements and re- !
sponsibitities of greater freedom our |