The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-07-10
FEW KNOW KNOW WHAT WHAT
 TARIFF TALK IS
 ABOUT AT TER ALI
Proofreader In Government Printing Office Had 10 Read It All, But He
 Is the Only One
By ROBERT c. BENCHLEY Associate Editor of Life
Special Correspondent to The Age-Herald
 tCopyright. 1921: by The AEe-Heraldl

tCopyriEht. 1921, by The Age-Herald)
 New York, July 9.-(Special.) - When you come right down to it, there are really very few people who | know what all this tariff talk Is about Mir. Fordney and the proof reader in the government printing office know, because they had to read the bill through from beginning to end, but almost everyone else skins through 1t to see what they have done to oatmeal or iron filings. and let's it go at that.
 This is a big mistake, for there NNre items in the tariff bill which may change the whole course of your life or, if not quite that, at least make very edifying reading.
 Take ramie hat braids, for in- stance. A 30 per cent duty has been put on them. Only the other day some one was saying:
 Don't hear much about ramie hat braids these days. I wonder where they stand"
 And then along comes the tariff bill with a whole agate line devoted to them. But. hidden as 1t Is. in the paragraph devoted to 'sundries," no one of the millions in this country who look hopefully through the pa- pers each day for some news of raniie hat braids will ever be able to find It. In how many homes has the ques- tion been asked by anxious little tots who greet their fathers at the door < with anything in the paper to- might about ramine hat braids, dad dy?" and the discouraged parent, hardly daring to trust himself to answer. shakes his head and says very quietly Nothing tonight, baby kins"
 All this anguish could be avoided If the headline writers would play up the really big side of the tariff story and give us something across the two columns reading, "Solons Fix Tax on Ramies."
 There is one item in the bill which promises a much needed reform. The tax on gypsum has been raised 20 per cent from that imposed in the Underwood tariff. Now, we are as fair minded about foreigners as the next man, but 1t certainly would be a re- lief to be able to go into the coun- tty ior d picdSuIe rue without run hing into squaild little camps by the roadside full of evil looking fortune tellers and tambourine shakers. 1t took a brave. man to suggest this most prohibitive tax on gypsum for 1t is q well-known fact, in rhyme and story, that gypsum never for gets and would just as soon stick 2 knife in your back as not.
 Ominous Side
 But the bill also has its ominous side. Class legislation stalks unde- tected through many of its provisions and the danger is that, once the b.ll the inevitable storm of protest that will arise from those sections of the country which find themselves dis criminated against 1t.
 Take the increased tax on mittens, for example. The mitten market is not seriously a localized one. The sales of adult size mittens on Fifth avenue. even in the coldest winter, is practically negligible, whereas. m the rural districts, the mitten is the farmers sole source of manual warmth, besides serving as pocket book, vanity case and tobacco pouch. Take away the farmers mitten or make 1t more expensive for him to get, and you start a source of class hatred which may end almost any where.
 But where the pinch will be felt most universally will be in the in- creased cost of grindstones. Tax on them has gone up from $1.5o ton to $2. That is. for every two-ton French grindstone that you buy (and the French alone know how to make a grindstone that man of any feel fpR at all would want to have fin his house) for every two-ton French grinstone you will be paying $4 extra duty alone.
 Has . Supply
 Fortunately for us, our family las laid in a stock of Limoges grind stones, bought when the market was down, and we ought not to have to buy any at least for year. but there are many families to whom this new expense will simply mean a cut ting down of grinstones to a point bordering on famine. This Is rot right.
 Neither Is the per cent reduc- tion on jewelry novelties. Heaven knows that with the tax 50 per cent we had more jewelry novelties than any nation could we'll absorb. Now that the bars have been let down and to perdict that in New York city alone during the year 1s2l-22. some of the streets will be knee-deep in scarf pins made in the form of Ques- tion marks and rhinestone heart pen dants. When. in addition to this you realize that the duty on fancy fans has been reduced 10 per cent, you may well consider leaving the coun- try for good and all and giving Den