The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-07-16
The NEW TARIFF

kota In opening the debate on the
new tariff bill in behalf of those
who favor protection told few
facts that should open the eyes OF
the country to the risk they are
running in chasing free trade idols.
Senator McCumber said in part !:
I'm this year, 1913" said Senator
McCumber, addressing the demo
Gratis, you are about to commit a
greater crime against the American
| farmer than has ever been proper
trated 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 advant-
age which the changed conditions
of home supply and demand were
about to yield to him. You have de-
clared that he is an outcast In the
land which he has made, the only
one of all the classes of American
people who Is not entitled to any
consideration at your hands. You
have sullied his sense of fairness
slapped him in the face and kicke>.
him into the gutter.
The tariff bill. Senator McCumber
declared, seemed to have been "ean-
ceiyed in animosity against every
American industry that needed pro-
lection" with the American farmer
as the special object of its choler
and hate"
rs 1t because of his past political
utilization 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 its punishment because in the
last political campaign he forgot the
faith of his fathers and went chas-
Ing after strange God, with cloven
hoofs and branching antlers? If he
is to be punished for his heresy, are
you the proper person to inflct the
punishment? You are the benefci-
airy of the farmers infidelity to his
own party last fall. And for you
now to be his executioner for the Of
Tense of being misled by you strikes
me as being one of the most cold
heard Of"
1t was the democrats, Senator Nc
Cumber declared, who told the farm
er that he had been wronged by Mr..
Taft because the former President
sought to trade off his protection
for reciprocal tariff reductions by
Canada" and it was the democrats
who tried to convince the farmer
that the republican party was not to
be trusted and that they, instead,
should be entrusted with his inter
ests. The reciprocity proposition,
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"
"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-all of Canada.
Australia, Venezuela, Argentine, Gu
ba. the Philippines and every other
country on the fact of the earth
thatmay want to dump its products
into a market that belongs by right
to he American farmer"
Senaor McCumber asserted that
the democrats admitted the tariff
bill would injure the farmer, CON
tending that he received too much
for his products and must be com
PEELED to sen 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 seeking
to show that the tariff did not af-
feet the price of farm products to
the consumer and, again addressink
the democrats, said:
The farmer may be slow, but he
is quite sure" continued the sena-
tor. 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 of
Tense committed against him. Pass
this bill and unless this cut-throat
policy which annihilated the repub-
lican party in 1912 continues there
will not be a democratic state in the
whole North. 1t took the farmer
l6 years to forget the last democratic
policy. Pass this bill and the gen
Grafton living will never forget
Won"