The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1913-04-08
FIRST MESSAGE IN
WILSON WASTES FEW WORDS IN
TELLING CONGRESS WHAT 1T
SHOULD DO.
TARIFF REVISION HIS TOPIC
President says the Schedules Must Re
Radically Changed to Square With
Present Conditions, but Work Re-
suIres Careful Consideration.

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Washington, April s.-President
Wilson's first message to the Sixty
third congress, assembled in extraor-
dinary session, was read In the senate
and house today. It was surprising
ly short, being in full as follows;
To the Senate and House Of Repre-
sentatiyes:
I have called the congress together
in extraordinary session because
duty was laid upon the party now in
power at the recent elections which 1t
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 interests of the
country may not be kept too long in
suspense as to what the fiscal changes
are to be to which they will be re-
quired to adjust themselves. It is clear
70 the whole country that the tariff
duties must be altered. They must
be changed to meet the radical altera-
ton in the conditions OF our 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 recogni
tion the tariff schedules have re-
NAMED what they were before the
change began, or have moved In the
direction they we're 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 suf-
fering from the facts and the sooner
our men of business will be free to
thrive by the law of nature (the ma
ture of free business) instead of by
the law of legislation and artificial ar
rangenent.
Business Not Normal.
We have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afeld in our day
very far indeed from the field in which
pur prosperity might have had a nor
NAL growth and stimulation. No one
who looks the facts squarely in the
face or knows anything that lies be-
meath 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 forward to the idea that they
were entitled to the direct patronage
II 1~4,x
time SO long that the men now active
ia public policy hardly remember the
conditions that preceded tive have
sought In our tariff schedules to give
each group OF manufacturers or pro-
ducers what they themselves thought
that they needed in order to
maintain practically exclusive
market as against the rest of the
world. Consciously or unconsciously,
we have built up a set of privileges
. and exemptions from competition be-
mind which it was easy by any, even
the crudest, forms OF combination to
organize monopoly until at last moth
ing is normal, nothing is obliged to
stand the tests of efficiency and econ=
omy, in our world of big business, but
everything thrives by concerted ar
rangement Only new principles of
action will save US from final hard
erystallization of monopoly and a
complete loss Of the influences that
quicken enterprise and keep inde.
pendent energy alive.
1t is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish everything
that bears even the semblance Of priv
ilege or OF any kind of artificial ad-
vantage, and put our business men
and producers under the stimulation
of a constant necessity to be efficient,
economical, and enterprising, masters
of competitive supremacy, better
workers and merchants than any in
the world Aside from the duties laid
unnn articles which we do not. and
PROBABLY cannot, produce, therefore.
and the duties laid upon luxuries and
merely for the sake of the revenues
they yield, the object of the tariff du,
ties heneeforth laid must be effective
competition, the whetting of Ameri
can wits ly contest with the wits OF
the rest OF the world.
Development, Not Revolution.
1t would be unwise to move toward
this end headlong, with reckless
haste, or with strokes that cut at the
very roots of what has grown W
amongst US by long process and al
our own invitation. 1t does not alter
a thing TO upset 1t and break 1t and
deprive it OF a chance to change. Il
destroys It. We must make changes
in our fiscal laws. In our fiscal system
whose object is development, q more
tree and wholesome development. not
revolution or upset or confusion. We
must build up trade. especially for
eign trade. We need the outlet and
the enlarged field of energy more
than we ever did before. We must
build up industry as we'll and must
adopt freedom in the place Of arti
hcial stimulation only so far as it vii
build. not pull down. In dealing witt
the tariff the method by which thii
may be done viii be matter Of judg
ment, exercised item BY item
To some not accustomed to the ex
elements and responsibilities o
greater freedom our methods may IL