, 1922-07-26
The Cal Of The Thing

TIIE AMAZING feature of the campaign being
L w;-ged against the enactment of a protective
tariff is the brazen admission of the Democratic
press and the importing interests that they count
upon successfully deceiving the women and the re-
tail interests OF the country into the belief that the
proposed tariff is inimical to the retail interests
and to the ultimate woman consumer.
If the women and the retailers would stop for
a moment to consider the situation they could not
escape the conclusion that the campaign for the
importing interests are inherently deceptive. These
interests are openly spending hundreds of thous-
ands of dollars to defeat the enactment of the pro-
posed tariff.
They are keeping a corps of speakers travelling
throughout the country addressing merchants asso-
Citations, conventions, chambers of commerce, etc.
in opposition to the proposed tariff. They are send
ing out tons of literature to the local retail inter
ests and to membership of clubs, etc, against the
proposed tariff. They are sending out letters under
first class postage to hundreds of thousands of
people protesting against the enactment of the pro-
posed tariff. Even the merest amateur knows that
this sort OF a campaign is costing tremendous sums
of money.
Those back of it claim they are animated only
by the unselfish desire to save the woman consumer
money, by the high purpose of preventing her be-
ing robbed by the American manufacturer. That
the importing interests of this country should ex-
pend such enormous sums for the wholly disinter-
ested and altruistic purpose of saving money to the
American woman and the American retailer is too
silly a proposition to be considered seriously by
anyone giving it a second Thought.
The conclusion is logical and unacceptable that
importing interests which are spending these enor-
NOUS sums Oh money ue1eat a protective tariff
must be profiting many times those sums of money
by the free trade law which we now have. They are
financing the tremendous campaign against the
pending tariff bill not out of a desire to save the
American woman any money but out of a desire to
continue conditions that enable them to rob the
American consumers by buying cheaply made goods
abroad and selling them in this country at profits
amounting from 200 to several thousand per cent.
The retailer outside of the metropolitan cities
has cause for grave alarm at this campaign. The
large importing interests, who also conduct a mail
order business, are buying abroad in ship load lots.
The ultimate destination of a great percentage of
ithese goods is the trade territory of the local mer-
chant in the average American city and the smaller
towns. There is not the least doubt but that the
local trade territory of the home merchant will
soon be flooded with these cheap goods purchased
importing interests that are now trying to enlist
the support of the home merchant to defeat the
pending protective tariff.
The successful elimination of this program of the
importing interests and large department stores
which have a mail order business means not only
the invasion of the trade territory of the home mer-
chant, which in itself would be disastrous, but it
means the throwing out of employment of Amer
lean working people, who cannot produce articles in
competition with the articles bought abroad. This
Will deprive the local merchants of the patronage
of the working people who will be without a job
and therefore without the means wherewith to buy.
There never has been a policy before the coun-
try that was more deserving of the support of the
local home merchant and the American consumer,
from the coldblooded standpoint of dollars and
cents and self-preservation than the policy of a pro
receive tariff designed to stop the flooding of this
country by goods made in Europe and paid for in
deprecated currency.
The importing interests have always opposed a