Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-04-29
4 React;;onary Tariff
n OF eve'. the Old Guard of the Repub-
M Iican press can find it in their hearts

nj Iican press can find it in their hearts
to defend the Fordney- Met umber tar
IF bill. eff the measure is as described" adj
mits the New York Tribune, believers in
tariff sanity and reasonableness have need
to girt themselves for another battle" To
adopt the proposed schedules, thinks the
Globe, would amount to making Europe a
present of her eleven billion dollar debt to
us, and it adds: Whatever reason for a
high tariff may have existed before the war,
when we were debtor nation, no longer ex-
lists when, as the creditor nation of today,
we have amassed most of the worlds wealth"
The Herald needs must deplore "a tariff
wall sky-high all along the line Of industry
and agriculture condition which makes
for higher living cost in every home in
America" and the Philadelphia Public
Ledger points out that while the farmer
wanted tariff fifteen months ago, he is now
learning more about it's effects "He is dis
covering that tariff on hides means prob
able increase in shoe prices. He is afraid he
may be swapping dolh- bills for thin diE.:es.
AS heavy user of potash he will fight the
proposed rates on it; but can he fight well
if at the same time he is the supposed bene
ficiary of other high rates?"
Bad indeed must be bill that draws such
criticism and protest from friends of the
party sponsoring it! Surely, the forces Of re-
action ride high i'll the Republican House and
Senate, or no such measure could ever have
mustered a following. It's scale of duties is,
in the main, higher than that of the Payne
Aldrich act against which the people revolted
in way that made history. And in fixing
such rates it runs counter to, the plainest
warnings of the business world and the pri-
mary principles of economic law. Able OBJ
servers all admonish that if Europe finds it
Impossible to sell to us she will not be able
to buy from us. A tariff wall that shuts us
off from imports will shut us off from the
foreign markets which the revival and
maintenance of American industry so ma
terially depends. 1t will preclude those
who owe billions of dollars from the sole
means they have of paying, and thus will pre-
vent readjustment and balance in the worlds
business relations. 1t will check the vital
processes of recovery that are>so essential to
our own and others prosperity.
For whose good then, can the Fordney
McCumber tariff bill be designed? Certain
~ not for the good of the rank and file of
American farmers, whose welfare depends
largely upon adequate foreign markets for
the surplus of their production. Nor for
the rank and file of American working men,
whose assurance of steady employment and
living wage depends likewise upon foreign
markets for the surplus of manufactures.
And certainly not for the rank and file of
American merchants, whose trade rises and
anguish. In truth no great group or inter-
est Of the American people is advantaged by
an excessively high tariff Only seekers of
special privilege, only inVeterate profiteers
are it's beneficiaries. Yet so firm is the al
lance between these forces and those of re-
dictionary politics that Republicans having no
vision of our new day and its needs are ready
to imperil the bases of the country's common
veal in order to serve their old avaricious
retainers.
But surely the party as a whole will not
follow this blind leadership From the ut
terances of papers like the Tribune, the
Globe, and the Public Ledger it may be
hoped that the more liberal spirit of the party
will assert itself and prevent the grave in
jury which the Fordney-McCumber bill now
threatens. If only politics were to be consid-
cred, Democrats well might wish the meas
ures passage; for soon or late it would bring
popular rebuke Overwhelmingly upon it's per-
petrators. But too much is at stake for bust
ness, too much is involved for the prosperity
and happiness of the people.> The bill should
be defeated, not as party measure but as
national menace.