The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-26
At The National Capitol
z DAILY WASHINGTON LETTER
Digest of Who's Who and What's What
 By RODNEY DUTtHER

l Washington-The old high pro- tective tariff theory seems to be in more desperate straits than ever before and it's enemies think they can knock it in the head before this depression is over.
 l Anyway, this is the best chance /. the free traders and advocates of moderate duties have had and now that American foreign trade has dropped off about 50 per cent they are intensify.ng the attempt to con vince the country that the Hawley- Smoot tariff is responsible for d. lot 1, of it's troubles.
 Meanwhile comes Chile's start ling suggestion of Latin -Ameri- can customs proposals for d Euro- velopments. arraying continent a. gainst continent, would be bound to have large although unpre- dictable effect on the future of our tariff and those of other nations. One of the greatest factors in American industrial progress has been our vast domestic trading area free of tariff walls; smaller countries on other continents envy us that.
 Democrats Cite Trade Drop.
 No can now settle the argu- ment as to the relative importance of the Hawley-Smoot act in Ameri- cas- economic trouble but every body knows that tariffs are barriers to trade. The democratic publicity bureau has persistently hammered in the charge that republican high tariff was very largely responsible for the big foreign trade drop. Re the new tariff has been helpful, if anything. Political exigencies de- mand that both groups of politi- clans say what they are saying.
 Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out in fairness that opponents of the Hawley- -Smoot act predicted in advance that it would wreck fore ign trade and that its friends rec commended it as q measure to re- store prosperity. A thousand econ omists joined in warning against it and congress merely sneered at professors" Senator Jim Watson. republican floor leader, predicted as the tariff bill passed that the coun- try would be on the upgrade within 30 days and that we would soon regain the peak of prosperity. As prOgnosticators, the enemies of high tariffs have since had all the breaks.
 Senate Cordell Hull of Tennessee, a fiscal genius who can be depend ed on to speak as an economist rather than as a democrat, was pre- dieting six years ago that our high tariffs would reduce production, diminish trade, impOverish nations and promote economic wars"
 Introduced Income Tax.
 Hull has talked like that all along. When he came to congress 25 years ago Joe Cannon put him on a couple of unimportant com mittees, but Hull turned deliberately to intensive study of revenge, fi- nance and economies. He introduce ed the bill for the income and es- tate taxes. when everyone was con vinced that income tax was dead because the supreme court had once called it unconstitutional. The tax ation system devised by Hull, put through in the first Wilson admin istration, largely financed the war.
 Allowing for the real value of the dollar, Hull says, our foreign trade is now back at the 1913 level. He has held consistently that all that made it look big after the war. when handicapped by the Fordney- McCumber tariff, was the great au- tomobile export trade and the fact that we were lending 15 billion dollars abroad which we were paid for with our own goods.
 "One-sixth of our automobiles and parts, worth $5S0, 900. were being exported" Hull says. "The in- dustry was one of the big railroad shippers. It took IS per cent of the iron and steel. GO per cent of the plate glass, 90 per cent of our manufactured rubber, most of the oil and gasoline and laid the foun- dation for our great highway sys- tems by enabling states to lay gasoline taxes. It employed about four and q half million people. de rectly and indirectly,s and spent about six billion dollars a year.
 Points to Foreign Reprlsnls.
 You see what happened when other countries deliberately fol- lowed our example and our automo. bile and allied industries were stricken. The biggest thing to re. member is that we could not afford to throw awny our foreign markets the co per cent of our raw cots cent of our wheat, the i7 per cent of our automobiles and half q doS- on big things Ike that, But we passed inW which has ,Dinced the average ad va'orem up about DO 'iiuii wli lsp tO persuade the