Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1916-08-17

at has been said that [ am not a
republican because I voted for the
Underwood tariff BILL" said the Sen
ator. II did it with full knowledge
of the charges that would be made
against me for so doing. I have no
apology for my vote"
Continuing the Senator said:
"The tariff as a whole affects the
cost of living. The Underwood tariff
reduced most of the robber schedules
in the Payne-Aldrich law. It was my
candid judgment then, and it is now
that, on the whole, the Underwood
Tariff bill was much more favorable
to the farmers and to all classes Of
people, except the manufacturers
themselves, than was the Payne-Ald-
rich law. Besides the Underwood bill
carried an income tax provision which.
was calculated to raise by direct tax
on swollen fortunes $100,000,000 a
year. To vote against the Underwood
tariff bill required me to vote against
| the income tax. | offered amendments
to the Underwood bill to give the
farmers the protection I thought they
ought to have, but my amendments
did not carry. | chose the better mea-
sure of the two and voted for the
Underwood bill and against the Payne
| Aldrich law"
Senator La Toilette was accompa-
MED on his tour by former State
Senator Henry Krumrey of Plymouth,
who is a candidate for congress in
| the second congressional district, and
a number of Milwaukee and Madison
newspaper correspondents.
The Senator says he is in fighting
trim and eager to get into the fray.
He is in good health. Mrs La Toilette
and son Robert returned to Madison
with the Senator.
The Senator left here for Columbus
where he spoke Monday noon. He
spoke at Rio and Pardeeville in the
afternoon and at Cambria at night.
''In 1908 the republican platform
promised the people revision of the
tariff on the basis of protection to
American industries and American
labor measured by the difference in
the cost of production in this country
and in foreign competing countries.
Mr.. Taft then candidate for president,
in speech in Wisconsin, repeated
many times elsewhere, interpreted
this plank of the republican platform
as revision of the tariff downward.
The demand for downward revision
of the tariff was then so insistent that
Mr.. Taft promised that if he was elect
ed he would call special session Of
congress to deal with the subject. On
this pledge in the platform and on the
pledges of the candidate standing on
the platform the republican party wor
an overwhelming victory. A special
session of congress was called and
passed the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill,
the most Ubiquitous tariff that has ever
been placed upon the statutes In
stead of revising the tariff downward,
it revised it upward and laid new bur
dens upon the backs of a people al
ready overburdened.
'The most that anyone contending
for the principles of protection claim
ed was that the tariff shall measure
the difference in the cost of produc-
ton in this country and abroad; that
is, the difference in the cost of manu-
featuring the raw material into the
finished product. To illustrate the in
EQUITY of the Payne-Aldrich bill l need
only take the cotton schedule | have
taken hundred samples of cotton
cloth and figured the tariffs. Under
the Payne-Aldrich bill I found that on
these hundred samples, which are il
Illustrative of the whole plan upon
which bill was constructed, the duties
on all but twenty-five of the samples