The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1921-02-18
THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF A
NATIONAL ECONOMIC ISSUI
lManufacturers Recordl

Manufacturers Record) -
The tariff is no longer 4 regional
issue. 1t has been recognized as an
American issue, as a question of ma
tional security and national prosper
ity, by representative gathering of
delegates from all over the South, who
have declared broad principles of pro-
lection for the American farmer,
miner and manufacturer. The session
of the Southern Tariff Congress in At
lanta last week was significant of a
great awakening. 1t has shown that
the Southe.n me- will not follow the
leadership OF politicians who insist on
principles that ex. 'ose American in
dustry to destruction by foreign COM
petition. lie has come to realize that
the principle of protection, which win
preserve the Industrial independence
of the American people, and which,
without discrimination against any
legitimate and proper economic effort
of American workers. will make this
nation as self-sustaining as our nat
ural resources may permit US to be, is
too broad and too vital and all-inclu-
sive to serve as line of cleavage in
party politics. There are other issues
regarding which difference of opinion
can exist, but the Southern governors
and farmers and cattlemen and man.
ufacturers assembled in Atlanta, who
gave testimony to economic conclu-
sions derived from experience, have
made it clear that the tariff is essen
tial to the conservation of our indus
tries and our standards of living, thru
which we may work, out American
ideals.
Without protection the processes
that have been paralyzing our indus
try will continue to operate. The pro-
ducers of potatoes who saw last sum-
mer large quantities of their product
lot in the ground or in their ware
houses, without being able to find
buyer, will continue to witness the
distressing spectacle of shiploads of
this necessary food brought from Den
mark and other European countries
to our Atlantic ports and sold for less
than we can raise them here at home.
The peanut producers showed that
they dare not plant another crop as
long as the Orient is allowed to supply
our needs for vegetable oils at prices
under the cost of production in Texas
and Georgia and other states. The
Southern rice producer is plunged into
debt because he raised crop In 1920.
The corn planter is unable to sell his
output above the cost of production
because the inferior corn of Argentine
comes into our ports in quantities suf-
ficiently large to fix and regulate the
price on the American commodity.
The cattlemen went to Atlanta with
the message that the price of meat has
gone so low that they cannot afford to
winter their stock, and are forced to
decimate their herds, which cannot be
renewed in less than three to six
years. This puts monopoly OF the
meat trade into the hands of the meat
packers who control the bulk of the
South American competitive supply.
Does any man imagine that, when we
are utterly unable to provide meat for
our workers, because our herds have
been destroyed, the meat packers will
magnanimously maintain low prices
for the imported beef and mutton?
When our rice fields are abandoned
and our peanut fields lie fallow; when
we no longer can command even
enough high-grade seed beans in our
markets to plant crops of that vitality
important food; when our cottonseed
oil is no longer produced in sufficient
quantity to be a competitive factor
against foreign peanut, soy bean and
other seed oils, is it conceivable that
the foreigner, meeting no check from
domestic stocks, will continue to sell
at low prices? If we suffer ourselves
to become merely consuming and not
a producing people, we will be at the
mercy of the foreigner-of the Japa-
nese and Chinese-who work for less
than 20 cents per diem, and of the men
who control the pauper labor of Eu-
rope. Continuance of this contraction
of our output. which is now going on
at an accelerating pace, will soon re-
r1uce us to condition of helpless pow
lerty.
What good will it do our people to
have low prices on imported, goods