The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-26
COOLIDGE NOT CONVINCING.


 three things the virtue of which he is willing to endorse, namely, the protec- tive tariff, the supreme court and the federal constitution. The list somehow fails to be impressive. The tariff senti- ment is not notable, because expected of MT. Coolidge. The supreme court and the constitution are not at issue, in spite of the LaFollette opinions on the relative authority of congress and the court. Practically every thinking person in the country would leave these two institu- tions as they are until further and more unanswerable reason for change ij con- Ivincingly set forth. AS for the tariff, we'll, that is no longer local question, because it lies heavily on the pocketboek of every citizen. Its burden is inescapa- ble as long as it's high schedules exist. MT. Coolidge announces to the American people that he continues to stand for the principle that privileged interests should be licensed through the tariff to levy upon the people tax greater than that
 
 The president also assures his hearers that further reduction in taxation will be possible under the present years budget. That reduction in the running expenses of government cannot be regarded as a distinctive Republican achievement, how ever, for the program was undertaken during the closing months of the Wilson administration, and was then regarded as the natural process of decline from the climactic costs of public administra- tion during the war emergency. To make virtue of this inevitable process is somewhat to discount the intelligence of the American people. They are glad it has happened, but they would be amazed | if it had not.
 MT. Coolidge fails to convince when he remarks that he would propose the tax method of "getting all we can out of the rich by making the rates moderate and stimulating business to increase the earnings of the poor" The people re- member that the Mellon tax plan, to which MT. Coolidge gave unqualified as- senb made the, rates moderate for the rich, but provided no measurable relief for those of moderate means whom the Mellon program scarcely touched. The Republican plan would have relieved the rich both ways, first by giving them the unearned increment they collect under cover of the tariff, and second, by lower ing the rates on excess incomes. To grant the very wealthy through the tariff an increased income greater than all their taxes, and then to decrease their taxes at the expense of the people Of moderate means can hardly be defended on the ground of giving the people a square deal, no matter in what shrewd- ness of phrase the proposition may be stated.
 As to our foreign relations, MT. Cool Iidee makes one statement to which all will agree, that we will not consent to lhave our domestic affairs reviewed by an international court. Such an eventu- ality has not been contemplated by the Democratic proponents of the League of Nations. Mir. Coolidge's declaration that we should not enter the league, however, bars us from the very opportunity we should otherwise have of blocking within the league itself those policies and pro- posals that would threaten alike the do nestle sovereignty of all nations. If all ithe other nations should agree on policy to be applied internationally, policy repugnant to our sentiments and sub yersive of our national independence, we should have difficulty ill maintaining oul resistance to it's application. But if we were sitting in the councils of the na tions, how much stronger position we should occupy with respect to making oul desires felt and respected.
 It is a matter of regret to many thai the Democratic convention did not de clare openly for the league, Undoubtedly the plan of referring the question to tht people was, in a manner of speaking, challenge to the Republican claim of mandate against the league. Everybody lknOWS LndC LLS 4cdG uS Noo AAON NAAS N~ ciding issue in the result of 1920. There was an irresistible political reaction sweeping over the country that would have put the Republicans into office ever if the position of the two parties on the league question had been reversed. Fur thermore, the famous declaration o1 Ithirtv-one leading Republicans solemnly assured the people that vote for Hard ing was not a vote against the league but rather for the league. That mos of these thirty-one were sincere Shere ii now no doubt, and this is further prover by the fact that more than a dozen o1 , them have since formally withdrawn iron the Republican party and some of then have come out in favor of MT. Davis. It is evident that Mir. Coolidge ha neither a message of constructive pur
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