Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-18
KEYTOFARMRELIEFTA TARIFF
HELD BY DIXIE DEMOCRATS
Harmony Urged in Protection Fight
by Periodicals. "Open Letter"
Barrage.

duStry is the most conSplcuouS-that
wants this tariff passed and is agrees
sive in support of 1t.
The tagging and Sagging of this tariff
bill, its failure to gather much Roadway
in the beginning and its actual loss of
momentum at the present moment is
Illustrated by that schedule which has
been made most conspicuous, namely,
sugar. The bill, as passed in the Lower
House, raised the tariff on sugar from
2.20 cents a pound to 8 cents a pound
with, in both cases, q differential of
20 per cent in favor of Cuba). That
raise is pretty certainly doomed Hardly
anybody now expects the increase
granted by the Lower House to stick.
The probability that 1t won't stick is
proved, fairly convincingly, by the
bringing forward Of a substitute, the
sliding scale device.
The sliding scale had an inning last
week and at the close of 1t the common
agreement was that 1t had made no
more Roadway, II as much, as the origi-
nal straight increase passed by the
Lower House. After two false starts the
project for a higher tariff on sugar is
right where 1t was at the beginning.
This evolution of the sugar schedule
is indicative Of the psychology attend
ing the whole tariff measure. 1t limpS
1t slows down.
The psychology necessary to pass an
all-'round protective tariff bill must
rest upon all-'round need for its bene-
fits, and therefore all-'round participa-
ton in it's benefits If each of the
two or three hundred members of the
Lower House and each of fifty or
sixty Senators has one industry in his
district that earnestly wants an in
crease, then each Congressman will do
lNs.
what he wantS-and he will be perfectly
what he wants. He will vote for his
own schedule and with equal hearth
ness he will vote for every other sched-
ule and for the whole bill.
The condition is lacking now. 1t
is lacking in precisely the territory
where high tariffs in the past have
had their homes namely, in the North
and East. What We are about to see
for the first time now Is whether a
protective tariff bill can be passed
when its home is not in the East and
North, and not am eng manufacturers
but in the agricultural West and
among farmers. 1t may be that under
these conditions a bill can be passed
but 1t can't be passed by the West
alone and the farmers alone. They will
need the help of considerable portion
of the South and Of the Democrats.
Justice for Farmers.
That the farmers, under their present
conditions, ought to have every possible
benefit the tariff can give them Is
conceded by practically everybody. That
belief lies at the heart of this tariff
session. Only because of that belief
was the session called. But when the
bill gets down to the heart Congress,
Senators and Members become luke
warm. First of all the Fasteners and
manufacturers took a bill which was
meant to be a farmers bill and loaded
it down with increases In conSidera-
able quantity of manufacturing Sched-
ules, such as textiles, cement and boots
and shoes, together with shingles and
building materials.
Thereupon the corn belt and the
wheat belt cried out, with much justice.
They said that a tariff originally de-
signed to help the farmer was going
to make the farmer pay more for what
he buys. Senator Borah, rejecting the
farming West, proposed that all the
increases in industrial duties be wiped
strictly to farm crops and few prod
ucts directly related to farm crops.
The nearnesS of Borah's proposal to
victory-a roll call of SO to 38-con-
WINGED the East and manufacturers
that they were not going to get much
out of this bill. Thereupon they fell
into a mood not far short of hostility.
Losing their mood of benevolence to-
ward the farmer, they began to think
Of increased duties on farm crops in
terms of increased costs Of food which
manufacturing communities must buy.
The net of it is this tariff bill Is
headed toward being a bill for farmers
only-or else no bill at all. The farmers
live mainly in the West and In the
Democratic South. If there is to be a
farmers tariff, it win need to get
farmers support In the South as well
as the West.