Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-11

events business Is not static, and in
neither event can it survive a static
formula.
Fourth-They charge that this flex1-
bility is unsafe because the character
of tariff commissions and Presidents
is Indispensable The country will
smile at this-at least so far as Presi-
dent Hoover is concerned, because he,
like his illustrious predecessor, enjoys
a common confidence which is a benc-
diction on the Nation. Indeed, 1t
might not be amiss to observe that it
was the leadership of Mr.. Hoover which
the country thought 1t was choosing
last November. and nothing indicates
that the country has changed its mind.
What of Failures?
But let us frankly admit that amid
other and splendid services, there have
sion'S record. What of it? Does that
Justify desertion of the system? Shall
we do away with banks because a
bank occasionally fails?
The blacker these critics paint the
record of the past the weaker becomes
their present posture. In spite of this
record, have any untoward tariff rates
resulted? No one intimates any sucn
thing. Should any of them be with
III dNH' NO SuCu ptOpOodl AilpCAAOo' -
we have been safe under the condi-
tions that are alleged TO have obtained
in the past, there certainly is no hazard
for the future.
The wise course is to purge and
improve the system-preciSely as We
now are attempting to do-rather than
to Scuttle the whole great adventure.
The principle is vital. If its admin
istration actually has been safe, even
under alleged unhappy auspices, there
can be no rational excuse for its aban
donment simply because one dissents
from these auspices Without it Amer
lean industry and agriculture are utter
ly unsafe, and-speaking through a
vast preponderance of spokesman
have so declared themselves in power
ful terms.
Having made these four basic but
untenable charges against us. the OPP
position then pretends to offer the
country substitute. 1t would PROVIDE
that these interim tariff changes shall
come back to the ponderouS Congress
for fiscal action, thus substituting Con-
gresS for the President as the fleXing
agent But like most substitutes, 1t
is poor imitation of the real thing.
1t is sham and delusion. 1t is politics.
The infirmities which now attach to
general tariff making would reattach
to this perennial submission of the.
tariff to congressional surgery.
Pretty Fairy Tale.
But, they say, we shall fix it so that
when the Tariff Commission and the
President recommend a changed ral-
to Congress, then Congress must con-
fine itself to this one item or matters
germane thereto. A pretty fairy tale!
This Senate, if bent on political mis-
chief, can find anything "germane" it
pleases. We might start with innU-
cent little shoestrings; discover them
"germane" to shoes; shoes to leather,
leather to hides. hides to the farm
problem, the farm problem to the in
dustrial problem, and soon the lowry
shoestring runs itself into a general
tariff revision and into major po-
litical crisis.
Thus would craftsmanship keep
itself in work-and national business
in an uproar. If Congress, instead of
the President, had handled the 81
tariff changes that have occurred since
1923-n it had discussed the tariff 81
times in 6. yearS-it would have done
nothing else, and probably would not
have finished even that, if running
true to present Senate form.
No. This substitute is a Subterfuge.
It does not make either for the re-
sponsive speed or the bipartisan econ
omies which we require in our con-
tinuous accommodation to the tariff
needs of a volatile economic era in
which uncertainties abound precisely
as they did in postwar 1922. 1t is
a longer route. 1t is a political high
way. 1t is a treacherous formula chief
ly calculated to induce hardening or
the tariff arteries. And what could
be more paradoxical than to find those