The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1913-04-25
Ida, TarbeH Tells 1ou Women Of America
What Nezv Tariff Means IN Tour Home
~ IDA N. TARBEll,
Written Especially for Readers Of The

~ IDA M. TARBELl,
Written Especially for Readers Of The
Times.
Ii Is on the woman rearing 2 family
of children on q small income that
privilege lays the heaviest hand She
must take her husbands hard-earned
wages aud make them do"
For her there are no rebates, no
Wholesale buying. no putting in Nip
plies when prices are low.
On TO the coal she buys by the
bushel. the potatoes she buys by the
half-peck, the cotton cloth. Of which
she can AFFORD only enough at q time
to meet immediate needs. are heaped
the full weight OF every device wh.ch
men have invented TO carry out the
cruel economic theory that prosperity
means limited production and high
prices.
II Is she who feels most the screws
of tariffs and trusts, Of privately-cwn-
ed natural resources, OF war taxes and
Injuries, Of parasite men and women.
These burdens are all OF the same
piece--post and parcel OF the same
economic point OF view. Every time
one OF them IL attacked and weakened
privilege In general IL shaken in its
stronghold. Perhaps the greatest ad-
vantage from putting through the just
prepared tariff bill will be the blow II
Will give to privilege. 1t will be like
taking one of the strongest forts or
besieged enemy.
Bnt the Underwood bill aims to
come more directly than this to the
relief OF the hard-pressed woman. IT
has undertaken to give her the ad'
yantagea OF a free world market In
all those things which are necessary
to life. SO far as the tariff restricts
this market it's DAYS are numbered II
this bill passes.
Take her home, her house. ever
since the civil war. the American
housewife has been paying war taxes
en- that house and OF every thing
that went into it--beginning with the
lumber from which II was built. For
years afterwards the war lumber was
SO dear In the western states that
even wellto-do men and women lived
I'm sod houses. They were helping to
pay for the war then and they are
doing SO still, She has paid taxes on
lumber. but not only that.
She has paid them on the nails
that held the lumber together!
On the glass that went into the
windows OF the house.
On the screens she used in sum-
mer.
On the locks and hinges Of the
door.
On the paper on the walls
On the carpet on the floor!
Everything. literally, that went
into the house bore tariff-even
the lie that makes the plaster!
The new Underwood bill aims to free
entirely or. In part. all OF these things.
II put lumber on the free list, lum-
her and all It's products--clapboard
laths and shingles. 1t makes nails
free. II cuts the tariff on lime nearly
in half: II does the same for window
glass. for wall paper, for carpets and
for furniture!
Where the old duty Is retained un-
der the new bill It has been carefully
adjusted SO that the woman will have
all the advantage which comes from
putting an article under fair competi.
ton in a worldwide market AS 1t
has been, the duties have been so
high that they have made 1t impos-
sible for her to get any advantage
from world competition. The domestic
manufacturer OF window glass, for in
stance. could always afford to sell for
less than the importers who had to
pay q high duty. He could undersell
the foreigner, but he could and did
combine at home to keep up the prices
of window glass above what they
would have been II there had been an
open market. Under the lower duties
Of the Underwood bill the trust-maker
will have no such protection. He will
have to compete and the woman's
home will have the advantage.
But another benefit will come to her
from this bill. II willrelieve her from
a variety Of tarin taxes which are not
ordinarily counted, because not on