South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-10-19
WILSON PRAISES
ACHIEVEMENTS Of
PRESENT CONGRESS
President in Letter to Majority
Leader Underwood Express
eS Admiration For Way
Promises Were Carried Out.

WASHINGTON. Oct. 1s.-Prest
Wilson made public Sunday letter
10 Majority Leader Underwood OF the
house In which he reviewed the
achievements Of his administration
md outlined the program for the next
session ofcongress.
The letter is to take the place of a
personal appeal for votes which the
president intimates he would like 10
make in every congressman's district.
1t follows:
The White House.
WASHINGTON, oct. Il, 1914.
My Dear Mr.. Underwood:
"I cannot let this session of con-
gress close without expressing my
warm admiration 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, II ever, been served be-
fore. The progress was a great one.
and II is a matter OF great satisfaction
TO think OF the way in which II has
been handled.
many items, but, after all, a single
purpose, namely. 70 destroy private
control and set business free. That
purpose was manifest enough in the
case Of the tariff and in the legila-
ton affecting trusts; but, though per-
haps less evident upon the surface
there, IL lay at the very heart Of the
currency bill. too. May 1 not add.
even though 1t lies outside the fold of
legislation, that that. and that chief
", has been the object of the foreign
policy OF the government during the
last IS months?
Hid Behind Tariff.
Private control has shown its sin
lister face on every hand in America,
had shown IL for a long time, and
some times very braZenly, in the trusts
and in a virtual domination Of credit
by small groups Of men. The safest
hiding place and covert of such con-
troll was in the tariff. There it for a
long time hid very shrewly. The tar
il was a very complicated matter;
none but experts thoroughly under
stood its schedules. Many of the
schedules were framed to afford par
ticular advantages TO special groups
of manufacturers and investors. That
was the soil in which trade combina-
tions and combinations OF manufact-
urers most readily grew and most
rankly
High prices did not spring direct
" out of the tariff. I hese sprang out
Of the suppression Of domestic, no less
than of foreign, competition by means
OF combinations and trade agreements
which could be much more easily
contrived and manufactured under
the protection Of a high tariff than
without 1T. The European war came
before the withdrawal OF this much
coveted opportunity for monopoly
could show its full effects and active
competition bring prices to their nor
NAL level again: but it is clear enough
already that the reduction Of the tar
If, the simplificatiOn Of its schedules
SO as to cut away the jungle in which
secret agencies had so long Iurked,
IN correction of its inequalities, and
its thorough recasting with the single
honest object OF revenue, were an in
dispensi5le first step to reestablishing
competition.
Lobby Is Driven Away.
The present congress has taken
that step with courage, sincerity, and
effectiveness. 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 adopt
ed that each duty levied was 10 be
tested by the inquiry whether it was
put at such a figure and levied in
such a manner as to provoke COM
petition. The soil in which combina-
tions had grown was removed lest
some OF the seeds of monopoly might
be found TO remain in IT, The thing
had needed 20 be done for a long time
but nobody had veotured before to
undertake II in systematic fashion.
The panic that the friends of priv
ilege had predicted did not follow
Business has already adjusted itself
10 the new conditions with singular
ease and elasticity, because the new
conditions are in fact more normal