The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-19
PRESIDENT WILSON COMMENDS WORK OF
 THE CONGRESSMEN
tContinued from Page One)

with which the programme outlined Tn 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, if ever, been served before The programme was great one, and 1t Is matter of deep satisfaction to think of the way in which it has been handled.
 A Single Purpose
 "It had several distinct parts and many items, but, after all, a single purpose. namely, to destroy private control and sci business free. That purpose was mani- fest enough in the case of the tariff and in the legislation affecting trusts; but, though perhaps less evident upon the surface there, 1t lay at the very heart of the currency bill, too. May I 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 long time, and sometimes very brazenly, in the trusts and in a vir- tual domination of credit by small groups of men. The safest hiding place and covert of such control was in the tariff. There 1t for a long time hid very shrewd1y. The tariff was a very compli- cated matter; none but experts thorough ly understood its schedules. Many of the schedules were framed to afford par ticular advantages to special groups of manufacturers and combinations of man. ufacturers most readily grew, and most rankly. High prices did not spring d. rectly 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 ments which could be much more ca silly contrived and maintained under the pro- lection of a high tariff than without it. The European war came before the with drawai or this much-coveted opportunity for monopoly could show its full effects and active competition bring prices to their normal level again. but 1t is clear enough already that the reduction of the tariff, the simplification of It's schedules so as to cut away the jingle in which secret agencies had so long lurked. the correction of it's inequalities, and its thorough recasting with the single honest opJect Of revenue, were an indispensable first step to re-establishng competition.
 ''The present Congress has taken that step with courage, sincerity. and effec- tiveness. The lobby by which some of tho, worst features of the old tariff had beer maintained was driven away by the mere p1tfless turning on of the light The principle was adopted that each duty levied was to be tested by the inouirv whether 1t was put at such a figure and levied In such manner as to provoke competition. The soil in which combina- lions had grown was removed lest some or the seeds of monopoly might be found to remain fin it. The thing had needed to be done for long time but nobody had ventured before to undertake it in systematic fashion.
 No Panic
 The panic that the friends of privilege had predicted did not follow. Rusiness has already adjusted itself to the new conditions with singular ease and e,as- ucity, because the new conditions are in fact more normal than the old The rev enue lost by the import duties was re- placed by an income tax which in part shifted the burden of taxation from tho shoulders of every consumer in the coun. try. great or small to shoulders more certainly able to bear 1t.
 We had time to learn from the ac- tual administration of the law that the revenues resulting from the double change would have been abundant had 1t not been for the breaking out of the present war in Europe, which affects aihoSt every TOute or tra0e and every market in the world outside of the United States. Until the war ends and until Its effects upon manufacture 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 cutting off the imports themselves a veritable war tax, though we are not at war; for war. and only war, is the cause of 1t.
 It Is fortunate that the reduction of the duties came first. The import duties collected under the old tariff con stituted much larger proportion of the whole revenue of the government than do the duties under the new. 4 still larger proportion of the revenue would have been cut of by the war had the old taxes stood, and a larger war tax would have been necessary as consequence. No miscalculation, no lack of foresight, has created the neces- sity for the taxes, but only a great catastrophe world-wi in it's operation and effects.
 With similar purpose and in like temper the Congress has sought. in the trade commission bill ana in the Clay ton bill, to make men in a small way of business as free to succeed as men in a big way, and to kill monopoly in the seed. Before these bills were passed the law was already clear enough that monopplies once formed were illegal and cduld be dissolved by direct pro-