Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-05-09
Ertort;;mg Tariff Billions From
American Consumers

r-zV RE the American people ready to shout
der from three to four billion dollars
of additional taxes in order that
special interests and special allies of the
Republican party may have "protection?"
Are they ready to see the cost of living in
creased and the economic readjustments now
helpfully under way upset in order that
profiteering may be revived? Are they ready
to sacrifice the larger good Of industry and
commerce both at home and abroad in order
that reactionary politics may pay its debt
to reactionary business and claim theretrom
it's future rewards?
These are all practical issues in the pend
ing tariff bill. The import duties which that
measure proposes to levy, and which In the
main are higher than were those OF the
Payne-Aldrich act of ill memory, must be
paid as Senator Simmons declares in his
minority report, "by all the people and not
by the beneficiaries who have demanded and
got Them Moreover the people must pay
mot only the import duties which go d.
rectly into the treasury, but also the result
ing increase in the prices OF all things they
buy and consume The same high tariff
wall that shuts competition out will enable
the protected" interests-that is, the priv1-
legged and favored ones-to charge the Amer
lean consumer well-nigh what they Will,
certainly as much as they can collect. Thus,
cessve living costs, he is threatened with
new and twofold burden-a tax from the
tariff makers and a price advance from their
clients and patrons in whose behalf that tax
is levied.
Y If the vast tribute which it is proposed thus
to extort from the rank and file would be
unjust and unwholesome, still more so would
be the reaction upon our foreign commerce
and the wide range of interests thereon de-
pendent. A tariff barrier that keeps the
oOYS1n
markets will keep American products out OF
other countries. Especially is this true at
time when those countries, struggling to re-
cover from the great wars waste and I'M
poverishment must sell to us If they are to
buy from us. Many of them are indebted to
the United States in sums which aggregate
billions of dollars, and their only present
means of payment is in services and goods,
for already the larger portion OF the worlds
gold reserve is in our vaults. Business pru-
dnece and economic wisdom demand there
fore that we take these circumstances into
account in framing our policies, and that we
seek to alleviate rather than to make more
acute a world condition which bodies i'll to
all. Yet, in spite of the warning facts and
the pleas Of far-sighted counselors, the Re-
publican tariff clique proposes bill that sets
them every one at naught.
That bill was bad enough as 1t came from
the House, but it is, if anything, worse as 1t
now issues from the Senate committee with
the Republican majority's approval. 1t ex-
cited no great alarm at first because, as
Senator Simmons, speaking for the Demo-
cratic minority observes, the public took it
more as joke than as a serious attempt at
tariff revision and ''felt sure the Senate
would rewrite it, as they expected from that
body saner action in their behalf" But how
sorely misplaced that confidence has been,
the measure now reported bears audacious
witness. That it will be resisted to the utmost
by the Democrats of the Senate goes with
out saying. But will enough Republicans of
true foresight and regard for the common
interests join them to prevent, it's enactment?
Only the event can tell.