Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-27
BY WILLIAM HARD.

BY WILLIAM HARD.
With the Senate adjourned and with
the congressional and administrational
records completed, the country moves
forward into the Fall elections with
Providence, it Is professionally believed
here, largely favoring the Democrats for
fairly considerable gains unless they
| talk themselves into taking clear, posi-
tive positions on issues.
! The basic element favoring the DEM
ocrats In the political situation Is
thought here to be that prices of most
goods are going down and that most
| producers feel reasonably, or unreason-
ably, bad about it. The basic Demo-
cratic strategy is to feel bad accord
ingly and harmoniously in terms of
broad general sympathy and eloquence.
/ The only fundamental diff1culty that
any Democratic leaders see ahead Is
that some Democratic orators may get
drawn incautiously into suggesting def
mite remedies and solutions.
4 4 X X
Both political parties, in the opinion
of the economic specialists in non-par-
tisan scientific institutions of research
here and in New York City, are In the
clutch of national and international
their political platform planks seem like
driftwood hurting downstream in q
| Spring flood.
The Republicans, for instance, ind
themselves only feebly able to claim
that their tariff bills have operated as
q water-tight dam for the United States
against the worldwide downward cur
rents Of commodity price declines. Three
times, 1t is pointed out, since they came
| fHf4A fl0U,or fhr0Yf0H fba Fall alanfi0rc
Of the year 1920 the Republicans have
| passed tariff bills designed to be price
hulWarks. They erected the special
agricultural tarif wall Of 1921 and then
on top Of it the general additional
| tariff wall Of 1922, and finally, in this
present year, the revised and read
justed. non-leak, ultimate tariff wall of
Mr.. Hawley and Mr.. Smoot. The forth
coming edition Of the Commerce Year
book" Of the Department Of Commerce
viii ooldly portray the statistical price
results.
The year 1925 will be taken as the
statistical comparative percentage base,
with q standing of 100, and the relative
jumps and drops of prices will be ex-
hibited as follows:
Farm products in 1920 were at 1907.
They have now sagged to $50.
They have now come to earth at sos.
Other commodities non-ag-
ficultural-in 1920 had climbed to 1913.
They have slid now to 85.7.
In these circumstances it Is calcu-
lated by the busy bookworms who COM
petidyely supply our political parties
with their arrows OF learned argument
that no Democratic spellbinder win al:
low any Republican antagonist to bind
any spells Of high price exuberance
around the brains Of any assemblage Of
1nuuiring citizens.
They additionally calculate, on the
other hand, however, that the Demo-
cratic veavers of rhetorical magic win
be-and already are-equally debaTred
from peddling their traditional set
speeches out of the party cannery. Low
prices OF commodities are sad impede
ment to the convincing effect OF
speeches about the Nervousness of the
tariff as direct cause of high costs of
living. The strange spectacle is there
upon presented even now of Democratic
spokesman denouncing the most recent
Republican tariff for having failed to
restore prices-or, in other words. for
having failed to keep the costs of liv-
ing up.
gatirists here in their idle moments
ocratic performers and Republican per-
formers changing parts before their APP
pearance on the Autumn stumps in the
political backwoods of this years con-
gressional controversial show. The Re-
publican actors. 1t is suggested, might
claim for high tariffs the proved Stats
tical virtue of having caused prices to
60 down since 1920 at 3 price seldom
before equalled in our history, while
the Democratic actors might promise
low tariffs on the notion that they are
the direct opposite of high tariffs and
would therefore send the prices of COM
modities and the costs Of living up.
Since unhappily, however, it is ex-
tremely unlikely that either party will
consent to amuse the public by satiriz-
ing itself, the serious prospect Is that
the Republicans viii simply claim that
prices would have been worse without
high tariffs and the Democrats, deplor-
Ing the business depression and the low
prices received by producers, win con-
hne themselves to deploring and will
strictly in present circumstances avoid
suggesting that low prices be cured by a
Democratic tariff lowering.
X
In other words, the Democrats viii
be in the position Of finding it profitable
to denounce the results OF Republican
tariff rule, but of finding 1t inadvisable
at this time to propose the immediate
substitution of tariff rule of their own
traditional lower positive sort. They
can gain votes by weeping at the
malady, but they cannot gain votes at
Q moment Of reduced price fairness by
advocating their reducing cure.
They and the Republicans are again
IN q similar paradoxical situation on
the only other immediate economic
issue which rivals the tariff, namely,
farm relief. The regular Republicans
will tell the voters that their farm
relief scheme. as put into operation
by the Federal Farm Board, will. like
the Republican tariff, have splendid
ultimate consequences; but, as in the
case Of the tariff, they are unlikely to
be able to demonstrate any instant
price, bettering glamorous market quo
tations. The Democrats, though, viii,
as q party, be quite chary Of suggest
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