The Cordova daily times., 1921-07-28
THURSDAY, JULY 2S, 1921.
HAS PROTECTION DESTROYED AMERI
 CAN PROFICIENCY?

On a recent New fInglauu COIeSc coIlLl'Io'- ment occasion Gutzon BorgIum, the sculptor while declaring himself Republican, mVelghed at length against the fundamental Republican pocv of protection and concluded his effort bv advising a graduating class of three nun drcd young women not to identify themselves with politcaI partirs but to hold alOof from tn" great agencies through which alone we hay" re snonsibIc government in this republic, and which have written practically every Inr ol American legislative history during the last century.
 Mr.. Borghm declared that protection had nothing to do with thr development of AmrrI- can industries. thereby proving through mere assertion shat none of our presidents From Iin coIn to the present day, excepting only Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, knew what he WAS talking about when he discussed the tar if question: of course there is a queer colnci- drucr in the fact that when the Morrill, prot"c- five tariff displaced the Walker non-protcctlVe tariff in 1860, when the Mckinley protective tariff in 1897 and when the World war inter 1uptcd the operations of the Underwood non 1rotcctiyc tariff in 1914, there were millions ot uncmplovcd workers in this country, manutac- turrs and agriculture were flat on thcIr back, and the revival of industry came only with the restoration of conditions whereby foreign ln- dpstrioI invasion was hatrd in the first two eases mentioned, by the protective system and in the third case by world war which put an embargo on imports. Rather remarkable, too, that in spite of tariff system thcorlSts like MT. BorgIm have for decades been dcnounclng as harmful, this nation, unimportant fnanclaIly and industrialIy in 1861, had become the first
 tl, | ,,,Ilt not lNa power before the World war began.
 Mr. Borgum's most serious charge agalnSt the protective tariff system ls however, that Il has, in his opinion destroyed the efficiency and productivity of the American Worklngman; that it has tended to standardization rather than originality in production. lie attributes to the existence of a protective tariff the talI- ure of America to produce supermen m the fields of art and deplores the fact that we will not leave to posterity great works of literature and art Mr. Borkum mistakes a world wide for national tendency. There is no reason to believe that the efficiency and productivity and initiative of labor has shown greater dcterora- ton in America than elsewhere in the world, If we except China and Japan, which even a sculp- tor economist would scarcely hold up to us as centers of a superior civilization.
 The purpose of our civilization is not so much 10 produce few super men as to raise the whale level of life for the people. Standardization of motor cars for instance, may not produce Ve- hiccs which will be kept ill museums a hundred years hence as articles of superior craftsman ship, but they have brought pleasure, comfort and broader horions to millions upon millions of the every day people of this country. It is all right to look out for posterity and some sculptors may worry good deal about what the world will be thinking about twentieth cen tury American art in 5000 A. D. But after all a civilization which creates so much of common wealth that the poor man of today lives more comfortably, happily and intelligently than the English kings of Shakespeare's time, is not en- tirely failure. We are not concerning our selves exclusively in this country with the crea-