Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-31
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY ST
SeIt-truSt is the first secret of sue
ceSS.-EMERsoN.
"WAR ORDER PROSPERITY
HARRISBURG working and busi-
ness people have received their

HARRISBURG working and busi-
ness people have received their
first clear intimation of the in
stability and uncertainty of war or
der" prosperity in the notices posted
last night by the Harrisburg Pipe and
Pipe Bending Company, telling hun
dreds of employees that their services
will be required no longer, due to the
fact that England is now able to make
her own shrapnel and that no more
orders for small size shells will be
placed in the United States. Undoubt-
edly this notification will be dupli-
Gated in a thousand machine shops
the country over.
Men who have been studying the
business situation have forecasted this
stagnation in the munitions trade,
lied sooner that even the most con-
servative have expected.
In the midst of the greatest war in
history England and France declare
themselves independent of this coun-
try in the manufacture of war ma
terials. What then are we to expect
of them when the war shall cease?
be competing with us in our own
markets for all manner of trade we
now call our own?
E. st. Elmo Lewis, a student of
business conditions, speaking before
the Harrisburg Rotary Club a day or
two ago, said: Men, l warn you to
prepare for the business drive of
Europe that is to follow the great war
drive now in progress drive against
American trade that will have back of
il all the finances, all the skill and all
Cf the tenacity of purpose that now
mark the armies of both sides on the
field Of battle. I know it is hard to
talk to men of business stagnation
when they have more orders on their
books than they can fill, but I warn
you solemnly that present conditions
cannot continue and America must
sooner or later face the terrific COM
petition OF Europe. Prepare for IT,
Build q bridge over the precipice at
our feet, instead of a hospital at the
bottom"
There are many ways in which busi-
ness can prepare for this keen COM
petition, sure to come, but there is
one essential without which all others
will be of no avail, and that is the
early enactment of a protective tariff
by a Republican Congress. Expert
ence has shown us that a protective
tariff does protect, that it makes for
individual and national prosperity.
and the Democrats can no longer con-
tend that low tariff results in lower
prices of articles of consum ption for
the reason that food and other house
hold necessities have never been so
high in price as since She enactment
of the Underwood tariff law now in
force, a law, by the way. that has
been so Intellectual as revenue pro-
ducer that its trainers had to supple
ment it by the addition of a stamp"
tax that all of us must pay. In other
words, the Republican tariff produced.
prosperity and required the foreign
manufacturer to pay our taxes where
as the Democratic tariff has removed
the tax from the foreigner, placed it
on the home consumer and has given
him no commensurate advantage
prices having gone up under it, in
stead of down.
When the war order" prosperity
shall have vanished, unless we are
prepared in advance, what then?