Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1914-10-28

WEDNESDAY, OCT. %, 1914.
PRESIDENT WILSON REVIEWS
THE WORK OF CONGRESS
WHICH HAS JUST AD.
JoURNED. =
The White House,
y Washington, October II, 1914
My Dear, Mr.. Underwood '''"l@ !. !
cannot let this session of Con
gress close without expressing m,
warm admiration for the fidelity an,
intelligence with which the program
outlined in April and December o
last year has been carried out, ant
my feeling that the people of tn
country have been served by tn,
members of this Congress as the,
have seldom, If ever, been seryed be
Gore. The program was a great one
and it is a matter of deep satisfac
ton to think Of the way in which i
has been handled. "a
1t has several distinct parts ant
many Items, but, after all, a single
purpose, namely, to destroy privat,
control and set business free. Tha,
purpose was manifest enough in Thu
case of the tariff and in the legisla
ton affecting trusts; but, though
perhaps less evident upon the sur
face there, it lay at the very hear
of the currency bill, too. May I moi
add, even though it lies outside thu
field of legislation, that that, ant
that chiefly, has been the object OF
the foreign policy OF the government
during the last eighteen months.
The Tariff. -.
Private control had shown its sin,
lister face on every hand in America
has shown it for a long time. and
sometimes very brazenly, in the
trusts and in a virtual domination OF
credit by small groups Of men. The
safest hiding place and covert OF
such control was in the tariff. There
it for a long time hid very shrewdly.
The tariff was a very complicated
matter; none but experts thoroughly
understood it's schedules. Many OF
the schedules were framed to afford
particular advantages to special
groups OF manufacturers and invest.
ors. That was the soil in which
trade combinations and combinations
of manufacturers most readily grew,
ana NEST rankly. High prices did
not spring directly out Of the tariff.
They sprang out of the suppression OF
domestic, no less than Of foreign,
competition by means of combina-
tions and trade agreements which
could be much more easily contrived
and maintained under the protection
of ashigh tariff than without it. The
European war came before the with
drawal of this much-coveted oppor.
tunity for monopoly could show its
full effects and active competition
bring prices to their normal level
again but it is clear enough already
that the reduction Of the tariff, the
simplification of it's schedules so as
to cut away the jungle in which Sc
agencies. had SO long lurked,
the correction Of its inequalities,
and it's thorough recasting with the
honest object Of revenue, were
indispensable first step to re
establishing competition.
The present Congress has taken
that step with courage, sincerity, and
effectiveness. The lobby by which
some OF the worst features of the old
tariff had been maintained was driv'
away by the mere pitiless turning
on of the light. The principle was
adopted that each duty levied was to
be tested by the inquiry whether it
was put at such a figure and levied il
such a manner as to provoke COM
petition. The soil in which combina-
lions had grown was removed lest
some of the seeds of monopoly might
be found to remain in it., The thing
had needed to be done for a long
time, but nobody had ventureG before
to undertake it in systematic fash
ion. I>r- -
The panic that the friends of priv
lege had predicted did not follow
has already adjusted itself
to the new conditions with singular
ease and elasticity, because the new
= in fact more norma:
than the old The revenue lost by
the import duties was replaced by an
income tax which in part shifted the
burden OF taxation from the shoulder
Of every consumer in the country,
great or small, to shoulders more Ger
able to bear it.
N War in Europe.
We had time to learn from the ac-
tual administration of the law that
the. revenues res ulting from the dou.
BILE change would have been abund-
ant had it not been for the breaking
out Of the present war in Europe,
which affects almost every route OF
trade and every market in the world
outside of the United States. Until
the war ends and until its effects up
on manufacture and commerce have
been corrected we shall have to i'm
pose additional taxes to make up for
the loss of such part of our import
duties as the war cuts off by cutting
off the imports themselves-a verit-
able war tax, though we are not at
war; for war, and only war, is the
cause Of it.
It is fortunate that the reduction
Of the duties came first. The import
duties collected under the old tariff
constituted a much larger proportion
Of the whole revenue of the govern
ment than do the duties under the
A still larger proportion of the
cfcuu6 WOulu udtS UCCu CuC I'LL w
The war had the old taxes stood, and
a larger war tax would have been
as a consequence. No mis-
calculation, nc lack Of foresight, has
created the necessity of the taxes,
but only a great catastrophe world
wide in its operation and effect.
With similar purpose and in a like
the congress has sought, in
The Trade-Commission bill and in the
Clayton bill, to make men in a small
way Of business as free to succeed as
men in a big way, and to kill monop-
oly in the seed. Before these bills
passed the law was already
clear enough that monopolies once
were illegal and could be dis
by direct process Of law and
hose who had created them punish
I'd as for crime. But there was no
aw to check the process by which
monopoly was built up until the tree
vas full grown and its fruit develop
ID, or, at. any rate, until the full OPP
,ortunity for monopoly had been
With this new legislation
here is clear and sufficient law to