The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-06-14
TARIFF BILL is
HERALDED KEY
TO PROSPERITY
New Reciprocal Act Marks
Historic Change in U. S.
Commercial Policy.
BY MAX STERN
Times Special Writer

WASHINGTON, June 14.-Ad-
ministration leaders consider the
signing yesterday of the tariff bill
not only a welding of the missing
link in their chain of new deal
measures, but an historic step to-
ward world prosperity and peace.
From today until the end of the
next three years, the President is
authorized under this measure to
work out a tariff policy unique in
Americas history since it's first tar
if act of 1889.
The new policy will create a treaty
or conventional" system in place
of the rigid, or autonomous, one
that under recent Republican rule
pushed the United States into a po-
sition bordering on economic
isolation.
President Roosevelt will work the
change by means Of the gradual
adoption of a series of trade agree
mentS with the ten great trading
nations and the smaller Latin
American republics.
Crisis in World Trade
The thing that has wrought the
amazing tariff reform is a crisis in
world trade, and one that has
touched the United States harder
perhaps than any other exporting
nation. Few realize how near the
brink of disaster this country'S tar
if policies have pushed the nation
and its customers.
Towering tariffs, politically forced
by special groups and regions and
resulting in retaliatory barriers and
boycotts in practically every big
exporting country, have shrunk the
volume of world trade to approx
mately 70 per cent below the 1929
figure.
The United States has paid more
dearly for it's tariff mistakes than
any other nation. Between 1929 and
1888 this country'S exports fell from
5,241 900 900 to $1,675, 600, 900; i'm
ports from $4,399, 00O, 900 to $780,
600, 900.
To this choking off of American
trade, economists trace much of the
depth and duration of the depreS-
sion in this country. Although we
export normally only about 10 per
cent of our production We export a
much larger percentage of our basic
products.
Seven Million Jobs Involved
There are an estimated 1000, 900
persons dependent On foreign trade
for a livelihood in the United
States. To make THAR jobs secure
and to help lead the world back to
sane commercial intercourse the adj
ministration is out to make the new
measure work. T.
In departing from the beaten, but
bOgged-down, autonomous tariff
path it has followed for 165 years,
the United States will go neither to
the left of extreme nationalism nor
to the right of extreme information
alism. 1t will follow "the middle
road" and even upon this road it
will move with extreme caution and
elaboration.
The leftWard road toward "Ameri-
ca Self-contained' leads to stagna-
WILL oNSOA O4AAS w 0CO1COo1y VI GAS-
riculture Henry Wallace. To isolate
the United States under the logic
of Grundyism would mean the ulti-
mate removal from production of
more than so, 0 900 acres of good
farm land, the shifting of large
groups of people, the complete
abandonment of foreign invest
mentS.
The road to the right would lead
to economic imperialism, with
equally disastrous consequences.
The middle road, administration
leaders explain, means a policy
combining a planned economy at
home with tariff reciprocity abroad.
Part of National Plan
Thus, the new reciprocal trade act
compliments the domestic planning
projects under MIRA and AAA.