Evening star., 1933-03-19

comnAzadS regard. It Is inadequate 70
say, even. that he commands respect. In
the attitude that people take toward him
there fs q little obeisance Of reverence.
They feel in him something afar from
the trivial, something remote from the
immediate, something unspotted by the
world.
He, thereupon, In seeking the suffrages
of his constituents, gives them proven
der OF nothing but data ana ideals. He
imperturbably assumes that they are,
deep thinkerx. You may say that the
assumption is incorrect. I call your
attention to the fact that the outcome
Of the assumption election nights-has
been almost invariably exactly right for
Mr.. Hull.
OUCH are the lineaments Of an Ameri-
can professional politician g be-
queathed ~ our new Secretary of State
to the portraiture in the gallery Of Amer
lean time.
He becomes Secretary o6 state now
precisely because of the impressiveness
Of mental character and Of moral char
aeter that he has given, ever since he
was n, to the Grover Cleveland taril
issue Of 1888. He has had Q certainly
impeccable political marital fidelity to
that issue. He was faithful to It even
when he was specifically philandering
with income taxes and inheritance taxes.
Tariff reform was even then hts one true
love. And after 1921 and 1922, when the
Underwood tariff law was replaced by
the Republican agricultural emergency
tariff law and by the Republican Ford
ney-AcCumber tariff law, he became
Washingtons continuous Caasandra IN
his prophecies that Republican tariff
policy would bring the American Troy to
q fall. It Is obviously open to him now
to assert that It did.
In the Democratic convention Of 1913
his views were considerably eclfpsed by
one of those periodic limitations Of Re-
publeanism to which the Democratic
party Is subject. In the pre-convention
Democratic agitations Of 1882 hts views
were accepted In full form by the Roose-
welt faction. In the meantime, the whole
world had come to such an tmpasse Of
trade discouragements, Of trade quotas,
OF trade licenses (meaning principally
non-licenses and of trade prohibitions
that tariff reform had become not only
an American but an international issue
Of the first magnitude.
It was logical enough, thereupon, that
the Roosevelt faction, triumphant first
within the Democratic party in June and
then throughout the country In Novem-
Der, should turn to Mr.. Hull and say:
You were Cassandra. Now be Alex
ander and cut these Gordian knots"
How viii he 60 at cutting them? That
Is the question that now elicits the curl
oSity not only of our State Department,
but Of the inhabitants Of those dismal
edifioes 80 glamorously called the chan
cellerites of Europe"
I have not sought to interview him
on the point. have only asked him
if his views are what they were. They
are. I now-with no violation of con-
fidence- state them.
It would be idle-and hurtfulH to seek
q regime of international free trade. In
the United States many industries have
been nourisaed in a tariff hot house.
Fresh air must be let into that hot house
only gradually.
Yet it must be let in, even if the
gradualness requires much patience and
even if it requires pfotracted interna-
tional negotiations
Our international negotiations in the
immediate future must be primarily eco
nomic. It IS q vast error to think that
good international relations are based
fundamentally ON sentimental or politi-
cal or legal exchanges. They are based
On commercial and monetary exchanges