Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-07-11

4 me IOlIOWlUS, T6pTluteu lIOHs III
iSan Francisco Argonaut, points GU
much thai President Wilson has L
learn about being president as result
lof the action OF tie chief executiv,
during the fight of the sugar interest
against the Wilson-UnGerwood tariff
measure:
The schoolmaster speaks loud ir
President Wilson's pronunciamento il
criticism of the presence at Washing
ton of persons interested in tariff leg
islation He resents as IAN intoler
able burden" this constant Interrupt
ton" of his legislative and politica
plans. He wants conditions favorable
! to the calm progress of debate" The
attendants upon congress, described
as numerous industrious" ant
! ''insidious,g have the hardihood tc
| attempt to Influence the judgment o.
public men, and they are even zen
! deavoring to create public opinion
even as the President himself is at
tempting to create public opinion
against them.
Does resident Wilson expect that
measure like his blanket tariff
scheme, planned by politicians for po
litical effect, adjusted to nicely tC
tthe end of sustaining a political poll
cy, shat bel left to the consideration
/ of the politicians of congress unad
vised and uninf1uenced by the bust
ness elements of the country? Does
President Wilson expect that mer
representative of the vital interests
of the country, with both their own
and the public fortunes at stake, shall
remain unperturbed and quiescent
while college professor on the one
hand and two groups made up of law
yers and politicians on the other
calmly debate" questions which none
of them in a practical sense knows
anything about? Does President Will
son in the faulty of a fast growing
conceit imagine that the business OF
government is strictly speaking his
business and in a lesser. sense the
business of congress, and none of the
business of the producing trading,
manufacturing. carrying, and consum-
ing forces of the country? Can not
President Wilson so far separate him
self from the conditions and prac-
tees of the academic life as to under
stand that the business OF legislation
is essentially public business, that il
! is the business of the whole country,
and that any interested citizen has
| the same right to be in Washington
that he has? 1t would seem that
President Wilson should not need to
be told that Washington City is not
mere isolated island" of arbitrary
power, but a place where the people
of these United States transact the
business of government, through Sc
lected agents to be sure, but at all
times subject to the common interest
and the general will.
1t is easy to sheer at the lobby.
None the less the lobby is quite as
important in Legislation as the Con.
gress or the President himself. Judge
and jury might just as properly and
wisely proceed to dispense justice
without the aid of witnesses or advo-
Gates as Congress to conduct legisla-
ton without counsel and advice, or
in other words without the aid of a
lobby. Perhaps President Wilson in
his ignorance of governmental process
!
be wide and deep, does not know what
lobby stands for. If the lobby does
in some, even in many, instances rep
resent selfish, and dishonest purpose,
it stands in it's general character for
far more than this. For from the
lobby Congress receives information,
counsels, and inspirations which it
could not do without. At this time
committee of Congress is consider
ing, among other things, the wool
and wooden goods schedules of pro-
posed tariff law. Is there a member
of this committee who is an expert
in relation to the wool interests of
this country and of the world? We
suspect not. But the projected bill
touches upon ten thousand interests
related to the production, the manu-
facture, the importation. the trading
in. the carrying of, the bleaching, the
compromising, the sale in multiplied
forms of wool and woolens. Will the
President assume that Congress has
no need of information which experts
in these branches of special knowl-
edge. only can give? Is the President
so arrogant in his schoolmaster' 5
cocksureness as to assume that per-
sons engaged in wool and woolen
trade have no right to visit the ma
tional capital and present to those
who are fabricating the laws infor,
nation and argument related TO the
matters in INTEREST," Can the Presi-
dent seriously believe, even in rela-
ton to a thing so important and prac-
teal as the tariff, that the matter
should be: left solely to officials and
politicians-that it is undesirable, I"
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