Evening star., 1922-05-06
PROPOSED TARIFF
HIT BY MINORITY
Senator Simmons Report
Declares Taxes Imposed
Will Burden People.

The taxes that would be Imposed by
the pending tariff bill would be as
real as those imposed by the revenue
bill and probably as great. from three
to four billions of dollars. Senator
Simmons of North Carolina. ranking
democrat on the Senate finance COM
mittee. declares in a minority report
filed today in the Senate.
"They must be paid by all the peo-
ple,'' the report says. Just as those IN
the revenue bill must be paid by all
the people and not by the beneficiaries
who have demanded and got them.
The people must not only pay the
into the Treasury, but they must pay
the resulting increase in prices of,ail
the things they buy and consume.
Refers to especial Interests"
Broadly speaking, the views of the
special interests who asked these
taxes and got them and of the people
who pay them differ widely in their
appraisement Of this measure and its
effect upon tie national prosperity.
$50 far as the special interests are
concerned. it goes without saying the
taxes imposed are both satisfying and
comforting.
"On the other hand, the people view
this bill as measure full of mischief
and dangerous possibilities. loaded
with innumerable burdens for them
and their posterity.
when the Fordney bill passed the
House the general public regarded IL
as monstrosity so grotesque and
absurd that they took it more as
joke than as serious attempt AT
tariff revision. It did not excite In
them any great degree Of alarm be.
cause they felt sure the Senate would
rewrite it. and they expected from
this body saner action in their behalf
Snys People Were Disappointed.
'In these expectations the people
have been grievously disappointed
That disappointment has grown as
they studied the bill, first into sur
prise and then indignation at the
audacity of the assault upon their
pocketbooks, and is finally culminat-
ing in a grim determination to resist
to the utmost this attempted spolia-
ton.
In these circumstances the people
will be satisfied with nothing short
of full exposure through discussion
of this attempted outrage, inspired by
the desire to placate the subsidized
interests at their expense. No con-
spiracy of silence. no threat of long
sessions, no charges of filibuster or
cloture must be allowed to smoke
screen and divert the exposure of the
iniQuities which lurk in the tax-laden
schedules and paragraphs of the 43S
pages of the amended Fordney bill.
an act tif properly entitled) to mort
gage the country and its resources to
the protected and monopolized indus
tries.'
In his report Senator Simmons
undertakes to answer the main con-
tentions of the majority report and
embodies the main points made by
him in his recent address in the Sen
ate attacking the tariff measure He
aserts that the rule for the measure
of protection found in the bill is de-
fined in the document itself as the
| difference in the selling price in this
country and abroad.
Selling Prices Include Profits.
''The selling prices here includes
the profit he says. 80 that the eff
feet is to protect and maintain
people pay. these increased profits
plus tax for the benefit of the pro-
fiteer."
AS to the flexible tariff, the report
says the power to further increase
the rates vested in the President will
operate as an invitation to invoke the
exercise of these extra legislative
powers when the prescribed rates are
not sufficient to safeguard the pro-
tected producers against the risk of
foreign competition in case they may
wish to raise their prices above the
level of the protection against such
competition afforded by the rates
written in the BILL
Senator Simmons says the state
ment in the majority report that the
purpose of the bill is to permit Amer
! lean industry to pay wages sufficient
to enable American workingmen. to
maintain the American standard of
living sounds rather strange. in
view Of the fact that these self f-same
industries are today engaged in an
intensive drive to reduce present
wage standards"
Reviews Issue of Wages.
He adds that the standard of wages
in foreign competing countries is to-
day more nearly equal to the Ameri-
can standard than ever before: that
the cost of products bears a much
slighter relation to the daily wage
paid to labor than in former times
and that profits constitute far
larger element in selling prices both
In this country and abroad than all
other elements entering into the cost
of production.
Referring to the argument of the
majority that unless the bill is passed
American markets will be seriously
invaded by foreign producers, the re-
port says American goods are sold in
foreign markets in competition with
the world and that if American pro-
ducers can compete in those markets
with foreign manufacturers they
should be able to compete in the
American market.