The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-07-14
Senator McCumber Opens Re-
publican Attack on Bill.
is CONCEIVED IN ANIMOSITY
Retaliate for "Chasing God of
CIOVen HOOf.o
Striking Comparisons of Lux
urieS and Necessities.

washington, july 14-SenaIOr NC
Cumber of North Dakota opened the
Republican assault on the Democratic
| tariff revision bill in the senate today,
defending the farmers of the country
against the free listing or great reduc-
ton in tariff rates on agricultural
products, and charging the Democratic
party with deliberately kicking the
American farmer into the gutter
''In this year, 1913" said Senator
McCumber addressing the Democrats,
you are about to commit a greater
crime against the American farmer
than has ever been perpetrated by any
political party against any class of
people during any period of recorded
history.
with violent hands you are about
to strip him of every advantage which
ply and demand were about to yield to
him. You have declared that he is an
outcast in the land which he has made,
the only one of all the classes of
to any consideration at your hands.
You have insulted his sense of fair
ness, slapped him in the face and
kicked him into the gutter"
Conceived in Animosity.
The tariff bill, Senator McCumber
ceived in animosity against every
American industry that needed pro-
lection, with the American farmer as
the special object of his choler and
hate
rs it because his past political af-
filiation that you are heaping upon
him the vengeance for all your pre-
vious defeats? Or do you consider
yourself to be the instrument through
which providence is to work it's pun
ishment because in the last political
campaign he forgot the faith of his
fathers and went chasing after a
strange god with cloven hoofs and
branching antlers? If he is to be
punished for his heresy, are you the
proper person to inflict the punish
ment? You are the beneficiary of the
farmers infidelity to his own party
last fall. And for you now to be his
executioner for the offense of being
misled by you, strikes me as being one
of the most cold blooded. propositions
1 have ever heard off,
1t was the Democrats, Senator Nc
Cumber declared, who told the farmer
because the former president sought to
trade off his protection for reciprocal
tariff reductions by Canada, and it
was the Democrats who tried to con-
vince the farmer that the Republican
party was not to be trusted and that
they, instead, should be entrusted with
his interests. The reciprocity propo-
sition, the senator argued, had one
virtue, in that it proposed to get
something for surrendering nothing,
while the Democrats proposed to
trade away the farmers interest in
everything "for absolutely nothing"
1.-The reciprocity proposition" he
continued, subjected the farmer to
the free competition of Canada only.
You subject him to the competition of
the whole world-aI of Canada, Aus
Philippines and every other country
on the face of the earth that may
want to dump it's products into mar
ket that belongs by right to the Amer
lean farmer"
The Benefit to Consumers.
Democrats admitted the tariff bill
would injure the farmer, contending
that he received too much for his prod
ucts and must be compelled to sell
them cheaper and charged that the
Democrats know that your claim that
you are going to benefit the consumer
is false and demagogic in the extreme.
The senator submitted statistics seek
ing to show that the tariff did not af-
feet the price of farm products to the
consumer and again addressing the
Democrats said:
Your ears are closed to every ap-
peal for justice, for the tiller of the
soil You are reaching a point where
your income is unable to keep pace
with your extravagances, and you are
asking the farmer to make good the
deficit by reducing the price of his
products. 1t never occurs to you that
the proper place to begin economy is
on the 1uxuries, the unnecessaries of
life You declare to him that the
American people are paying 1,500, ,000,-
900 a year for meat and you say that
is too much. He answers:
"They are also paying $4,000, 900 900 a
year for liquors Cut your liquor bill
in half and you will save enough to
buy all your meat You declare they
are paying $435, 100000 a year for flour.
He replies, They are paying $500, ,O0O,-
900 for tobacco Cut your tobacco bill
in half and your flour is free You de-
clare they are paying S225, 900, 900 a
year for potatoes. He replies, They
are paying $500, 100000 for theaters and
arnusements. Cut your amusements
half and your potatoes are free You
declare they are paying $500, 600, 900 a
year for butter and eggs. He replies,
They are spending $780, 000,0 600 a year
for confectionery His replies are un-
answearable. There are so many monu-
ments reading in clear black letters
into your eyes an indictment of your
own criminal eXtravagances and high
living"
Sees Dark Future.
The North Dakota senator asserted
that prices would lower after the tariff
bill become law, but that it would be
because of the inability of the public
to pay higher prices and because of
the general stagnation of business
brought about by the tariff bill. "The
farmer may be slow, but he is quite
sure continued the senator. He may
forget. but the hard raps of poverty
can jog his memory. Once pass this
accursed measure, and before 1914 he
will be fully awake to the realization
of the offense committed against him.
Pass this bill and unless this cut
throat policy, which annihilated the