Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1914-10-23
Wilson Puts His 80. X" On Demo-
cratic Team.

the House of Representatives, in which he
reviewed the achievements of his Admin
istration, outlined the program for the
next session of Congress and declared 1.-THE
Democratic party is now in fact the only
instrument ready to the countrys hand by
which anything can be accomplished.
The letter, in full follows:
81 cannot let this session Of Congress
close without expressing my warm admi-
ration for the fidelity and intelligence with
which the program outlined in April and
December 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, il
ever, been served before. The program
was great one and it is matter of deep
satisfaction to think of the way in which
it has been handled.
at 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
legislation affecting trusts; but, though
perhaps less evident upon the surface
there, it lay at the very heart of the Cur
rency bill too. May not add. even though
it lies outside the field of legislation, that
that, and that chiefly, has been the object
of the foreign policy of the Government
during the last IS months?
Private control had shown its sinister
face on every hand in America, had shown
1t for a long time, and sometimes very
brazenly, in the trusts and in 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 long time hid very shrewdly. The
tariff was very complicated matter; none
butexperts thoroughly understood its sched-
ules. Many of the schedules were framed
to afford particular advantages to special
groups of manufacturers and investors.
That was the soil in which trade combina-
tons and combinations of manufacturers
most readily grew. and most rankly.
High prices did not spring directly out
of the tariff. They sprang out of the sup
preston of domestic, no less than of for
eign, competition by means of combina-
tons and trade agreements which could
be much more easily cOntrived and main
tanned under the protection Of a high tar
i'll than without it. The European war
came before the withdrawal of this much
coveted opportunity for monopoly could
show its full effects and active competi-
ton bring prices to their normal level
again, but it is clear enough already that
the reduction of the tariff, the smplfca-
ton of its schedules so as to cut away the
jungle in which secret agencies had so
long lurked, the correction of its inequali-
ties, and its thorough recasting with the
single honest object of revenue, were an
indispensable first step to re-establishing
competition
1.-THE present Congress has taken that
step with courage, sincerity and effective
ness. 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 prin-
ciple was adopted that each duty levied
was to be tested by the inquiry whether it
was part of such figure and levied in
such manner as to provoke competition.
The soil in which combinations 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 long
time, but nobody had ventured before to
undertake it in systematic fashion.
THE panic that the friends of privilege
had predicted did not follow. Business
has already adjusted itself to the new con-
ditiOns with singular ease and elasticity,
because the new conditions are in fact
more normal 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 shoulders of
every consumer in the country. great or
small, to shoulders more certainly able to
bear it.
I'VE had time to learn from the actual
administration of the law that the reve-
nues resulting from the double change
would have been abundant 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 upon manu-
facture and commerce have been corrected
we shall have to impose additional taxes
to make up for the loss of such part of our
import duties as the war cuts off by cut
ting of the imports Themselves verita-
BILE war tax, though we are not at war
for war, and only war, is the cause of it.
ut is fortunate that the reduction of the
duties came first The import duties col
lected under the old tariff constituted
muchlareer proportion Of the whole revenue
Of the Government than do the duties I'M
der the new. A still larger proportion of
the revenue would have been cut off by
the war had the old taxes stood, and a
larger war tax would have been necessary
as a consequence. No miscalcuation, no
lack Of foresight, has created the necessity
for the taxes, but only great catastrophe
worldwide in its operation and effects.
with similar purpose aud in like
temper the Congress has sought, in the
Trade Commission bill and in the Clayton
hill to make men in a small way of business
as free to succeed ms men in big way,
and to Kill monopoly in the seed Before
these bills were passed the law was al
ready clear enough that monopolies once
formed were Illegal and could be dissolved
by direct process Of law and those who had
created them punished for crime. But
there was no law to check the process by
which monopoly was built up until the
tree was full grown and its fruit developed.
or. at any rate. until the full opportunity