Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-27
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States and that, therefore, it would be
improper for him to urge anything upon
the old Congress Mr.. Coolidge was
still President and his successor could
not gracefully take such an initiative
as this.
In the end the old Congress passed
no farm relief measure. BY that fact
Mr.. Hoover was called upon to redeem
his promise.
President Hoover called a special ses-
sion of Congress to meet April Is. The
primary business of the special session
was to be a farm relief bill. AS. so
to speak, an additional way Of helping
the farmer, tariff revision was proposed
as the secondary business OF the SeS-
sion.
Just what kind of tariff revision We
should have was defined i'll several au-
thoritative places. 1t was defined by
President Hoover, whose message called
for broad and general revision on all
farm crops and then limited" revision
on such industries as were in impera-
tive need of more protection. In other
words. as respects industry, the revision
was to be Limited" Speaker Long
worth of the Lower House gave the
same definition, saying that the changes
should be "as few in number" as pos
sible.
Followed Call.
If this program for the revision had
been followed the present condition
would not have arisen. Immediately
after President Hoover announced he
would call special session, the actions
began which have led to the present
situation.
The actions came from industries
which wanted more tariff revision than
q limited" revision would give them
Just as soon as it was known there
would be special session, many manu-
facturers. many heads of industry and
their Spokesman in Washington an
nounced truculently, that the revision
must not be limited" but must be
general They had the air OF implying
that they would show President Hoover
whether or not the revision should be
Limited" Indeed, they openly Jeered
at the President. In their printed
propaganda they raised doubts OF MI
Hoover's orthodoxy as a protectlonlSt,
raised doubts of his Repuhlicanlsm.
They announced they would bring
about a general tariff revision and they
put their announcement into ERECT by
coming to Washington in force and
putting pressure on Congress. 90 oe
accurate, it should be added that not
all industry took part in this project.
BY no means. Fully half of American
business had nothing to do with it.
Those who did it were the familiar
group of old-time tariff benef1ciaries)
That the high protectionist manu-
facturers overreached themselves there
can be no doubt. That was step No.
In the cause Of the present tariff STU
alton.
Accepted Recommendation.
The session began The ways and
means committee-which is the tariff
making committee of the Lower House
went to work. (To be accurate, they
had begun their work In anticipation
Of the special session several weeks be-
fore.) The ways and means committee
appears to have accepted in the begin
ming the Presidents recommendation
that the revision as respects indus |
tries should be limited" The COM
mittee spoke Of its work not as tariff
revision" but as a tariff readjust-
ment'' This phrase stands today as
the official title in the hearings con-
Quoted by the committee.
Assuming that the ways and means
committee intended that the revision
should conform to the Presidents rec
ommendation: assuming that they in
tended to keep the revision as respects |
industries limited ''-assuming all that, |
something went wrong. Various ex- |
plantations are given.
One thing happened clearly. The |
familiar claimants for high protection, |
who turn up at every tariff revision, |
turned up before the committee in as |
large a force as ever. Demands were |
made for higher rates in behalf of |
scores Of industries which no one had |
thought of as needing tariff revision. |
One aspect of the atmosphere at the
time favored these demands. Congress,
as whole, was busy with farm relief |
The attention of the country was then
focused on farm relief. The tariff bill, |
50 long as 1t remained in the ways and
means committee, was not much noticed.
Committee Ambitious.
In addition 1t is sometimes charged
that the ways and means committee
was ambitious and, therefore, did not
like to confine themselves to anything
less pretentious than general revision |
General revisions of the tariff have his |
toric Importance, and the men who con-
duct them get their names into the |
books Of history. This motive is given
q good deal of weight by the best in
formed persons, who now try to analyZe
Just where the mistakes were made.
In any event, for whatever motives,
or because of whatever reasons, the
committee wrote a bill in which the
Changes were so extensive that they
could hardly be said to conform to
the word limited" In the light of
critical analyses made later it is prob |
ably fair to say that the ways and
means committee went farther in the |
direction of protective theory than had |
ever been proposed before. Many of the |
rates they adopted, many of the ad- |
Y1inistratiye provisions thew wrote into