The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-01-06
TARIFF AND POLITICS
ONE AND |NSEPARABLE
WHY TARIFF LEGISLATION MUST
REMAIN THE FUNCTION
OF CONGRESS.

The New YORK Evening Sun takes
no stock in the proposition to take the
tariff out of politics by means of a
mon partisan" tariff commission. 1t
saws that the plan of Senator Gore
"glitters with all the beauty of a glor-
ious futility" and adds:
"A party without a platform is like
sect without a standard of faith. 1t
will lose worshippers. A time for all
things, perhaps, but We fear the time
for non partisan tariff legislation is
not quite yet"
No, nor never, so long as there IS one
set Of partisans fighting for free trade
and another set of partisans fighiins
for protection. Guy Emerson, the pro-
litc eastern scribe of the publicity
bureau Of the tariff commission league
takes exception to our conclusion ana
chat % the Evening Sun. He says:
II have too high an opinion # AM
grican character to believe that such
a contention can be supported"
But in the very next paragraph he
proceeds to upset his argument:
Congress will continue to make
tariffs according to the will of the ma
iority of the people. But when the
members of the ways and means COM
mittee of the house and the finance
committee of the senate publicly de-
clare, as they have been declaring for
the last 10 years, that they have nei-
Their the time nor the facilities to frame
tariffs properly, there certainly can be
no argument about the imperative
need of providing a body which has
both the time and facilities"
Just so surely as congress is going
to keep on making a tariff according
to the will of the majority of the peo-
ple as expressed at the polls, just so
surely the tariff will stay in politics
and can not possibly become a nom
political question. So why continue to
discuss the impossible? But in the
above quoted letter Mr. Emerson dis
cards that glorious futility" and takes
in hand something tangible when he
asserts that "the members"-all of
them, we are to supposed the COM
mittees of house and senate having
charge of tariff matters publicly pro-
claim that they have neither the time
nor the facilities to frame tariffs pro-
perly." What members of the com
mttee on ways and means and the
committee on finance have made any
such public declaration? Name Them
Mr.. Emerson, Perhaps there might be
one such who prefers pleasure to
business and shirks his duties as
committeeman. But practically all
the members of the tariff committees
of congress do faithfully devote their
time and their conscientious endeav-
ors to the ascertainment of facts bear.
ing upon tariff schedules and to the
framing of tariffs that in their judg-
ment best subserve the country's in
terests. To assert that the men in
trusted with the details of tariff MAX
ing have neither the time nor the ia
clities to frame tariffs properly is
scarcely less offensive or less true than
the statement of Mr.. Emerson in his
Herald letter of December 5, that:
There now exists no body of men
who can claim the least approximation
to competence to carry out the will OF
the people in drafting the kind of tar
if which is called for"
To insult, defame and belittle the
congress of the United States seems
to be one of the main methods OF the
advocates Of tariff commission. we
have hitherto expressed doubts as TO
the wisdom of this; whether you can
reasonably expect respectful and raw
orable consideration on the part OF one
whose face you have just slapped II
places congress in the embarrassing
position of confessing its own neon
potency by calling to its aid oooy OF
mon partisans" and "disinterested
persons who knowing all that is pos
sible to know, can teach congress the
. A B C's of tariff making. What con-
gress is likely to register any sucf
confession?
From the frequency of its commuhi
cations to the newspapers 1t Woulu ap'
pear that the literary bureau OF th'
tariff commission league is now Vi
the defensive That is bad slgh'
sign Of weakness.