The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1922-07-26
S0AkS farmer TO
AID COPPER TRUST
Senator Smith DenOunces Joker in
Tariff Bill-Plan to Tax Arsenic.
Smoot, Friend to Big Interests,
Admits Supply is Insufficient.

Washington, July 24.-What may
happen in the formulation and pas
sage of tariff bill was illustrated
the other day in the discovery by Sena
tor Smith, of South Carolina, that
one of the first and most innocent
looking items in the Fordney- Nc Cum
ber measure, now nearing vote in
the Senate would "soak" the farmer
for the benefit of the Guggenhiems
and other copper interests.
A duty of two cents a pound on
importations of white arsenic does
not seem, on the surface, to mean
much, and the Senate accepted the
item as q matter of routine in
committee of the whole. When it
is reconsidered in the open Senate
however, there will be Something
doing" as was sufficiently indi-
Gated by these quotations from the
Record of Friday:
Senator Smith: "My attention has
been called to the fact that in the
very first paragraph of the pend
ing bill there has been placed a
duty of two cents a pound on white
arsenic. Up to the present time
that article has come in free.
"How is white arsenic produced?
The bulk of it in this country is pro-
duced as by-product from the
smelling of copper ores. It is a
forced production; those who pro-
duce it have to get rid of it, just
as it is necessary to get rid of the
hulls OF the cotton seed in order to
get at the meal and the oil in the
seed itself.
Boil Weevil Poison
white arsenic has been upon the
free list because not only was it
by"product, but it was an essential
ingredient of a material used to
keep down the startling ravages of
INSECT pests on the farm. Paris
green Is used for the potato crop;
calcium arsenate for the spraying
Of trees, in order to extirpate the
San Jose scale and the brown
tailed moth and other predatory in
sects that are threatening the ev-
cry existence of our gardens and of
cur fields. Last has come the pest
which is destroying the great cot
ton crop of the South, the boil
weevil. Although the Agricultural
Department has spent something
like $112,000,OO0 in the effort to find
some method of controlling the boil
weevil, they have not even checked
it until within the last two years,
when there has been something of
a nope held out by the use of cal
cium arsenate.
"Now, just as we have discovered
that it would require millions of
pounds of this substance to treat the
35,OO0,00 0acres Of cotton grown IN
the South, Immediately for the first
time in the history of tariff legis-
lation, a duty of two cents a pound
is placed upon this essential in
gredient of an article which is
necessary to protect the fields and
orchards of America.
"Upon investigation it will be
found that those who control the
smelling Of copper in this country
are the ones who have come here
and insisted that this duty shall
now be placed upon this ingredient.
/ am going to take this occasion to
show, or attempt to show, that the
imposition Of this duty, which un-
questionably is an example of
shameless favoritism toward one
combination and set of men, will in
flict upon the cotton growers of the
South alone a burden of $18,OOO,o00."
SmoOt Cuts In
Mention of figures gave Senator
Smoot, Of Utah, a chance to get
in and try to ditch the train of
thought. Utah is one of the happy
hunting grounds Of the copper
smelters, and Senator Smoot is one
of the leading architects of the
pending tariff measure, which