The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1924-01-10
GREATEST PIECE OF FIG
TION IN 1929

III 1928 was that put out in the CLOSING.
days of the year by the Democratic
National committee charging the tar
If to have cost Christmas buyers the
sum of S1,000,000,O0O.
The yarn spun by the Democratic
fiction bureau is to the effect that
Christmas sales amounted to six bill
lion dollars and the tariff added an
other billion to the price of goods pur-
chased by American consumers.
Of course there is this to be said,
even on the theory that the absurd
charges were true: The American
consumer had his six billions to
spend, and spent it, which is consid
erably more than can be said of the
American consumer under anv Demo-
cratic administration with free trade
in effect.
Christmas time is very sad occa
sion under Democratic administra
tons, characterized by closed factor
les, idle wage earners, families in
want, distress and suffering instead
OF Christmas cheer. Under Demo-
cratic free trade the most conspicu-
out gift givers are charitable organi-
cations and soup houses.
Tariff taxes on Christmas gifts do
not burden the American consumer
under free trade, because he as a rule
has no money to spend on anything
except what is necessary to keep body
and soul together and clothes on the
back.
Getting back to the text, the Dem
ocratic national committees charges
that the billion dollar tariff tax. which
it alleges the American consumer had
added to his Christmas bill, was "for
the most part collected by manufac-
turers and middIemen' Thu answer
to this wild allegation IS found in
the report of the U. S. Bureau of La
Dor Statistics, which shows that the
average wholesale prices in 1923 were
below the average for corresponding
periods in 1922, before the Fordney-
McCumber tariff was law. The bu-
reau's reports cover over 400 dit
ferent commodities, embracing prac-
tically every industry in the United
States.
1t should be plain to school chill
dren that il manufacturers and mid
dlemen added over a billion dollars
to the Christmas bill of the American
consumer because Of the tariff that
fact would Immediately be shown in
wholesale prices, for the wholesal-
ers are middlemen, and manufacture
ers, as rule, sell to wholesalers rath-
er than direct to the consumers or the
retailers. That wholesale prices have
been lower on the whole since the tar
1T went into effect than before is alb
solute proof that the tariff has not
resulted in higher prices to the Am
erican consumer, no matter what GER
tain interests may charge to escape
the odium of profteering.
Taking at random" says the DEM
ocratic national committee, "a few
Of the hundreds of articles popular as
gifts, the explanation of the advance
in their cost is to be found in the ex-
orbitant tariffs of the Fordney-Mc-
Comber law" The committee then
lists a number of such commodities.
Without exception the articles listed
have been imported in greater guam
titles during the last year than ever
before in the history of the United
States. The buying public has been
appraised by large department stores
and retailers of the fact that they
are featuring fOreign-made goods to
an unprecedented degree. They have
great corps of buyers securing Eu-
ropean counties for manufactured
goods. This is being done for but one
reason. Large retailers featuring i'm
ported goods do so because they can
obtain the goods laid down in this
country, tariff paid, for less money
than they can purchase the goods of
American manufacturers In view of
this, how foolish to charge American
manufacturers with profteering!
What do the large retail interests
which handle imported goods say re-
garding prices? Here is a quotation
from page advertisement in the
New York papers during December
by one of the largest retail concerns
in the United States:
January sale Of household linens
and towels.
During the past eight months buy
ers have secured Ireland, Scotland.
Germany, Belgium and Czechoslcva-
kia for this sale, The assortment Is
wide and the prices are substantially