The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-11
AssaiIs TiInid Business

| the President said t1tat he was <samazed''s that the business men o1 the United States s'have concerned themselves so little with the com merce of the world The American business men. he added. seemed to be afraid and timid and slow to seize the opportunities offered in foreign trade.
 From this point the President led up to brief explanation of, the. ship ping situation ayd predicted that the Administration Shipping Bill would pstss.
 Every one prefers the initiative of private capital, but if private capital will not initiate. then some one else must do it,'' he said, in explaining why it was necessary that the gov CT nment should solve the shipping problem, with a smile, the President said there had been mo violent symp- toms of private capital attempting the, building of necessary ships.'' He added that when the shipping bill was first offered a year ago, he was told that he was proposing something revolutionary.
 ''I am not afraid of any kind of revolution that is useful,'' he said. 'fI am not afraid to try any expert ment provided you put the trying of it into competent hands,
 The President praised the opera LlOn or the 4E od0raI- tL0S6rV6a Bank system and began his speech with a reference to the passage. of a, currency law ah time when no one in this country dreamed of a European war. Unccnsciously, he said, the United States at that time was preparing itself against disaster and for peace
 tsW len we reflect what might have been the situation if our banking sys- tenn had been as clumsy at the out break of the war as it was three years ago,' said the President, i've realize that we might have not only been un- able to escape disaster, but the dis aster might have been so long-lived that we would not occupy today the position we now occupy
 President Wilson asked the busi- ness men to regard the Federal Trade Commission as an interme ediary to bring them together within the letter and spirit of the law.
 t'It is not an instrumentality to gen. crate friction,'' he said of the commis- sion. "It is an instrum entality to avoid friction and accommodate all they can cooperate with each other with the greatest possible energy and the least possible inconvenience.''
 Discusses Tariff Board.
 The President admitted that he had not favored a tariff board a year ago. but he explained that the entire situa- ton had beeen changd by the Euro pean war. The talk of a tariff board at that time, he suggested. seemed to him to be for the purpose of keep ing alive a controv ersy.'
 ''I am not interested in the doctrine of protection and am not interested in the doctrine of free trade,'' he added, smilingly. 'sI have nothing in either doctrine. What we want is facts
 The President said that he wished it were possible to get the tarff out of politics, but he hardly knew wheth- CT to hope for such a thing.
 ~'I look forward with a good deal of >trepidation to the task of naming the members of the Tariff Board" he said. ''I know impartial men on aI- most all subjects, but on this subject know of but one impartial man, and I shall have to institute very elabor- ate search for the remainder of