Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1914-03-06
Our Washington Letter.

The Wilson administration is one
year old this week. The. anniversary
finds the President and Congress pre-
pairing to take breathing spell after
q year of almost continuous work.
The only respite was two weeks rest
during the holidays. The work was
carried on during the 'dog days" last
summer because President Wilson
conscientiously refused to sanction an
adjournment until real start had been
made in carrying out the party's plat
form promises. There can be no ques-
ton raised as to the success of the
administration in this endeavor during
its first years work. The tariff and
currency legislation, the good roads
and hog cholera appropriations, the
income tax and direct election of SEN
ator amendments, all placed in oper-
alton, and the trust regulatory and
farm land banking measures, now
under consideration, form wonderful
years work.
The President, his advisers, friends in
Congress have the satisfaction of know
ing that the promises of disaster so
freely made by a partisan press have
failed signally of ful6llment. The
Iowa Republican Congressman who
told eloquently of the protest of small
banks against the currency law,
declaring that hundreds of Iowa banks
would surrender their charters rather
than join the federal reserve system,
have nothing to say now since the new
law has been accepted by the business
and financial world as the most
advanced step yet taken to assure a
permanent, settled, financial condition.
And the fact that only a dozen out of
nearly $4,000 national banks in the
country, representing more than 99s
per cent. of the national banking capt.
tai, joined the new banking system
with enthusiasm, gives an added proof
of how much some of these campaign
scares can be discounted.
There has been the same experience
with the tariff Although the tariff
law has been in operation only since
last summer, the same beneficial results
have been achieved. Already substan-
tial reductions have been made in man
ufactured articles, the latest announced
affecting the wooden trade. Secretary
Redfield has shown that the old alarms
about the competition of the "pauper
labor of Europe" have proven false
alarms. Imports have increased, but
the great bulk of goods imported have
been raw materials for. use in manu-
featuring. There has been no appreci.
able increase in imports of manufac-
tured goods. On the other hand there
has been great increase in exports,
and the balance of trade in favor of
the United States is shown to be larger
in report issued in February than
ever before in the country's history.
The effort to scare labor by threats
OF ldleness consequent upon the reduc-
ton in tariff duties, also has failed.
There has been no let up in industry.
No less an authority than Samuel Com
pers, who knows more about labor con-
dltlons perhaps than any man in the
country, declared in speech in Wash
ington last Thursday that 1.-The ranks
OF the unemployed in the United States
are thinner now than usual" II ex-
press my Judgment said Mr. Comp
pers, when say the present state of
employment is less than usual, and will
be of shorter duration than those which
ever marked similar transitory periods
in the past
The trusts are putting up determined
fight against President Wilson's trust
policy, now before Congress IN the
form of several bills to strengthen the
power of the Sherman anti. trust law.
The same prophecies Of disaster are
being made that were made by pro-
tected interests when the tariff debate
was on. But it is possible to arrive at
the cause for some of these protests.
For instance, when the House judiciary
committee was examining the manu-.
facturer Of patented eye glass bridge,
who entered strong protest against the
proposal in pending antitrust bills to
prohibit price fixing, it was brought
out that this manufacturer sold bis
product to the jobber at S125, to the
retail er at So, and to the consumer at
S., al. through price fixing agreements
by which manufacturer, jobber and
retailer shared profits. and only the
was worsted. Legislating in
The interests Of the buying public,
of the committee believed
this manufacturer gave the strongest
evidence in support of the BILL.
Congressman Henry Vollmer was
worn in last week, being escorted to
he Speakers desk by his colleagues,