Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-10-19
IN Letter to Underwood Re-
views Achievements of DEM
/ ocratic Administration.
COMMENDS ITS LOYALTY
TO PEOPLES INTERESTS
Predicts Nation Will Indorse Party
in Power in the Elections to Be
Held Next Month.

In letter to Representative Under
wood, made public today, President Will
son reviews the achievements of the
democratic administration; predicts that
the nation will indorse the party in
power at the elections next month. and
commends the loyalty of Congress to
the interests of the people. The letter
is as follows:
My Dear Mr.. Underwood: 1 cannot
let this session of Congress close with
out expressing my warm admiration for
the fidelity and intelligence with which
the program outlined in April and De
cember of last year has been carried
out. and my feeling that the people of
the country have been served by the
members of this Congress as they have
seldom. if ever. been served before.
The program had several distinct
parts and many items, but, after all,
single purpose, namely, to destroy
private control and set business free.
That purpose was manifest enough in
the case of the tariff and in the legis-
lation affecting trusts: but, though per-
haps less evident upon the surface
there, it lay at the very heart OF the
currency bill. too, May I not add. even
though it lies outside the field of 1egiS-
lation, that that, and that chiefly, has
been the object of the foreign policy
of the government during the last
eighteen months?
Private control had shown it's sinister
face on every hand in America. had
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
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.
fraY n
afford particular advantages to special
groups of manufacturers and investors.
That was the soil in which trade COM
binations and combinations of manu-
facturers most readily grew. and most
rankly. High prices did not spring di-
Tectly out of the tariff. They sprang
out of the suppression of domestic, no
less than of foreign, competition by
means of combinations and trade agree
1nentS which could be much more easily
contrived and maintained under the pro-
lection of a high tariff than without it.
The European war came before the with
drawal of this uch-coveted opportunity
for monopoly could show its full eff
fects 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 secret agencies had so long
lurked. the correction of it's inequalities.
and its thorough recasting with the
single honest object of revenue, were
an Indispensable first step to re-
establishing competition.
Business Adjusted to New Conditions
''The present Congress has taken that
step with courage. sincerity and effec-
tiveness- The lobby by which some
Of the worst features of the old tariff
had been maintained was driven 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
. figure and levied in such a manner
as to provoke competition The soil in
which combinations had grown was re-
moved lest some of the seeds of monop-
oily might be found to remain in it. The
thing had needed to be done for long
time. Tut nobody had ventured before
to undertake it in systematic fashion
THE panic that the friends of priv
ilege had predicted did not follow.
Business has already adjusted itself to