Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-12
TARIFF ISSUE
UP To WOMEN
At ELECTIONS
Both Parties Campaign
For Votes on Issues
involved in Rates.
Republicans Talk About
Protecting Wages and
Democrats Of Prices.
By VANCE
SpecIai Correspondent Of The Great Falls r.
Copyright. 1922. By The Great Falls Tribu

COpyIlgUL l5ZS, Dy Auc Ahs A1iouuo.
Washington, June 1.-THE great
tariff fight between the democrats and
the republicans is not being fought
solely in the halls of congress. For
the first time in history it is talked
Republican and democratic leaders
alike know that the Fordney-McCu Cum
Der tariff bill is to be the issue in the
congressional campaign this fall, re-
CARELESS of whether it is the law of
the land by that time or not. A great
campaign of education for the women
on the tariff is under way. Demo-
cratic and republican supporters are
flooding the country with tariff and
an~ti-tariff propaganda, all OF 1t ad.
dressed to the women. 49,
And anyone who thinks the tariff is
beyond the feminine ken has several
staggering thinks a-comin'.
It is quite the other way around.
Women are amazed at mans inability
to decide whether a tariff for revenue
only or high protective tariff is best
for the country. The men have been
stupidity mulling over the problem all
these years. Now this year the women
are going to say what's what and they'll
say it with votes in the November cleo
tons.
Both Play to Women
Both the republicans and democrats
are desperately trying to bring the
women to their respective viewpoints
and are trotting out their most telling
arguments in pamphlet form for use
in women's clubs.
HAS it occurred to you?" say the
democrats, that women are the spend
-. ~ AZ rnt,nr ,rI will ho tho fIrCf
to object to raising prices due to a
republican tariff"
And, has it occurred to you,' re-
join the republicans. that the jobs of
one and three-quarter millions of wom-
en- in industry will be endangered by a
democratic free trade policy!'
But whether the object is to shrink
or swell the tariff both arguments are
suffering from weak knees and a gin
ability to stand On their own feet with
out webbing. They are based on the
supposition that women believe their
own welfare is to be a separate and
distinct affair from that of the men.
And most of them are aware that 1t is
not.
1t is admitted on all sides that the
women will cast the deciding vote in
determining whether republican tariff
legislation shall be sustained or
blocked.
The democrats are proceeding IN the
theory that women are primarily house,
wives. and not farmers or manufac-
turers, and are therefore deeply in
terested in the cost of things they
must buy and not in the price of things
they have to sell. The republicans are
trying to put over the idea that, no
matter how cheap things may be, il
the husbands or the women themselves
are out of jobs they will be unable
to buy them. They to the fact that
over half of the people employed in the
textile industry, which would be chief
~ affected by the flood of cheap cloth
ing from Europe, are
Says G. o. P. Boosts Living
Mrs. Emily Newell Blair, at the dem
vince the women that the republican
tariff "m~onstrosity," as she terms the
Observation-Disclosures bill, will sen the
cost of living s~ky-rocketing back to
where it was at top notch. She says,
lit adds so per cent to the cost of
every market basket and every ward
robe bundle that goes into the Amer
lean home. 1t places a 90 per cent
duty on practically all articles of wear
ing apparel, cotton, wooden and silk,
and a duty ranging from 40 to so per
cent on all fabrics and clothes. 1t
taxes the cheapest GLOW S. a dozen,
the lowest-priced stockings, 20 cents a
dozen, and the coarsest undergarment,
40 cents a dozen. Table. household
an dgkitchen utensils are assessed at
80 per cent of their value. 1t takes
corn meal. potatoes, cattle, fresh beef,
fresh pork, hams, bacons, milk, eggs
and c%ocoanuts from the free list, where