The Caucasian., 1913-04-10
The President and Congress.

For the first time since the DAYS
when John Adams was President OF
the United States, President Wood
row Wilson appeared in Congress
on Tuesday and addressed that body
personally.
It has been said that Woodrow
Wilson is a smasher of precedents,
which is in a sense true, and for
which the people are manifesting
their approval. Indeed, there is
much of precedents, especially OF
'snobbery," which it is hoped the
President will smash into smith
ereens-b,lt we have digressed.
At the sitting of Congress, includ-
ing the House and the Senate, Presi-
dent Wilson read his message, in
which, in twenty minutes, he point
ed out clearly and distinctly the re-
sponsibility of Congress in connec-
tion with the great issue, which is
the tariff. President Wilson chose
the second day of the meeting of
Congress deliberately, gin order to
enable Congress to get together for
business.
One of the very few of the critics
of President Wilson in his disregard
of precedents was Senator Williams
of Mississippi, who did not view,
with grace the appearances Of the
President to deliver his message in
person, but this Mississippian was
swept along and lost his identity in
the enthusiastic reception and
greeting accorded the Chief Execu-
tive of the Nation.
In the message was discussed the
imperative need of thorough re-
vision of the tariff dOwnwards. He
said in part:
Consciously or unconsciously, we
have built up set of privileges and
exemptions from competition behind
which it was easy by any, even the
crudest, forms of combination to
organize monopoly; until at last
nothing is normal, nothing is obliged
to stand the tests of efficiency and
economy, in our world of big busi-
ness, but everything thrives by con-
certed arrangement. Only new prin-
ciples of action will save us from a
final hard crystallization of monop-
oily and a complete loss of the influ-
ences that quicken enterprise and
keep independent energy alive.
ut is plain what those principles
must be. We must abolish every
thing that bears even the semblance
of privilege or Of any kind of arti-
fetal advantage, and put our bust
ness men and producers under the
stimulation of constant necessity
to be efficient, economical and en-
terprising masters of competitive
supremacy, better workers and mer-
chants than any in the world. Aside
from the duties laid upon articles
which we do not, and probably can
not, produce, therefore, and the du-
ties laid upon luxuries and merely
for the sake of the revenues they
yield, the object Of the tariff duties
henceforth laid must be effective
competition, the whetting of Amer
ican wits by contest with the wits
of the rest of the world"
This is good Democratic doctrine.
An open sea, equal rights and a free
fight-which is the very opposite of
the Republican scheme of prOtec-
ton to Infant industries" which
have grown into giants of trusts,
monopolies and combines, which
have fattened in their greed on their
indirect oppression of the masses,
and are responsible for the high
cost of living.
Without the protection, as or
dained and decreed by the Republi-
can system, the trusts and combines,
the aggregations of the few against
the people, will become in a sense
harmless.
After all, legitimate competition is
the life of trade and the only sub
stantial relief from the exactions OF
combines, trusts and mOn0pelies is
offered by and can be secured only
through the Democratic creed, ol