New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-10-19
Looks Forward to Elec-
tions with Confidence, in
Letter to Underwood.
REVENUE DECREASE
ASCRIBED TO WAR
Chief Purpose of Programme
Destruction of Private Con-
troll of Business.

Washington, Oct. 1S.-In a letter TO
Majority Leader Underwood, President
Wilson sums up as follows the work
of the present session Of Congress and
expresses his appreciation Of the sup
port given to his policies:
81 cannot let this session OF Con-
gress close without expressing my
warm admiration for the fidelity and
intelligence with which the programme
outlined in April and December of last
year has been carried out. IL had sew
eral distinct parts and many items, but,
after all, single purpose, namely, to
destroy private control and set bust
ness 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. il lay at the very heart
of the currency bill, too. May | not
add. even though 1t lies outside the
field of legislation, that that, and that
chiefly, has been the object OF the for
eign policy of the government during
the last eighteen months.
High prices did not spring directly
out of the tariff. They sprang out Of
the suppression of domestic, no less than
foreign, competition by means of COM
binations and trade agreements, which
could be much more easily contrived
and maintained under the protection or
4 high tariff than without it. The
European war came before the with
drawal of this much coveted opportu.
rity 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 re-
duction of the tariff, the simplifcation
of it's schedules so as to cut away the
jungle in which secret agencies had so
long lurked, the correction Of its in
qualities and its thorough recasting
with the single honest object of reve,
nue., were an indispensable first step 10
re-establishing competition.
"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 soil in which combinations
had grown was removed, lest some Of
the seeds of monopoly might be found
to remain in it.
"The panic that the friends of privi-
lege had predicted did not follow. Bust
ness has already adjusted itself to the
new conditions with singular ease and
elasticity, because the new conditions
are in fact more normal than the old
We had time to learn from the actual
administration of the law that the rev.
enues resulting from the double change
would have been abundant had it not
been for the breaking out of the pres
ent war in Europe, which affects almost
every route of trade and every market
in the world outside of the United
States.
with similar purpose and in a like
temper the Congress has sought, in
the trade commission bill and in the
Clayton bill, to make men in small
way of business as free to succeed as
men in a big way, and to kill monopoly
in the seed. With this new legislation
there is clear and sufficient law to
check and destroy the noXious growth
in its infancy. Monopolies are built up
by unfair methods of competition, and
the new Trade Commission has power
to forbid and prevent unfair competi-
ton, whether upon big scale or upon
a little; whether just begun or grown
old and mdable. Monopoly is Great
ed also by putting the same men in
charge of a variety of business enter
prises. whether apparently related or
unrelated to one another, by means OF
interlocking directories. That the
Clayton bill now in large measure pre-
vents.
"If our party were to be called upon
to name the particular point of prin
ciple in which it differs from its oppo-
nents most sharply, and in which it
feels itself most definitely sustained by
experience, we should, no doubt, say
that it was this: That we would have
no dealings with monopoly, but reject
it altogether, while our opponents we're
ready to adopt it into the realm OF law.
and seek merely to regulate it and
moderate it in its operation. 1t is our
purpose to destroy monopoly and main
tain competition as the only etfectual
instrument Of business liberty.
an like manner by the currency bill