THE ROLL CALL
THE ROLL CALL ON MEN AND MEASURES The Senate and the Beef Trust ONE of the most widespread and insistent demands for tariff revision was that for "free hides." We do not produce in this country...
...It will be a mighty small crumb that he will be able to pick up when the Trust shells the chestnut, for the Trust is noted for looking very closely after the crumbs for its own maw...
...In the case before us, Chairman Aldrich of the Finance Comit-tee refused to report to the Senate the duties on the products, shoes and leather, until the Senate had first fixed the duties on the raw material,—hides...
...We do not produce in this country enough hides to supply the domestic consumption...
...Bradley Dick *Hughes Smoot...
...The farmers of this country produce on the average less than one and a half hides a year apiece, so that the total tariff benefit which they could possibly receive from this duty would not average one dollar a year...
...This item increases as the commodity passes from hand to hand through the various processes of manufacture, and the profits of the several successive manufacturers are added— gathering as it goes, like the rolling snow-ball—until it reaches the consumer, a maximum burden...
...Aldrich permitted the Beef Trust to get the benefit of a duty on hides...
...The House had made hides free and had reduced the duty on shoes from 25 to 15 per cent...
...Market statistics show that the prices paid for cattle have in the past borne no apparent relation to the prices of hides...
...Under these circumstances, the duty is clearly added to the price paid by the consumer...
...Some of the Eastern manufacturers of fine shoes, which are very little affected by the duty on hides but have the full benefit of the duty on shoes, dissented from this proposition, preferring naturally to retain a substantial benefit which subjected them to a minimum burden...
...Stone Bristow Dolliver Jones Sutherland Brown Elkins Lorimer *Taliaferro Bulkeley *Fletcher McCumber Warner Burkett Flint *McEnery Warren Carter Foster *Newlands Wetmore Clark, Wyo...
...The Aldrich amendment restoring the duty on hides was debated at length in the Senate, with most of the Senate sitting close to the electric fans and the lemonade bowl in the adjoining cloak rooms...
...It is safe to say that the great burden of the cost increase due to the tariff on hides is borne by the working people and the farmers...
...He said the Finance Committee would have to know what the duty was to be on hides before they would recommend a duty on shoes...
...And into the cost of that raw material enters as an inevitable item the tariff duty...
...So solicitous did it become, in fact, that it has organized and conducted a great national campaign to preserve the duty on hides so that it might be obliged to pay the farmer higher prices for his cattle...
...A further reason, and a principal one, for the demand for free hides is the purpose to eliminate a tariff benefit which is helping the Beef Trust to perfect its domination of the hide market and to gain further control of the tanning and leather industries of the country...
...Aldrich permitted the Beef Trust to get the benefit of a duty on hides...
...These constitute the raw material from which are made the upper leathers for fine shoes, fancy leather goods and articles of luxury...
...So the amendment of the Committee on Finance was agreed to, and Mr...
...ad valorem...
...Aldrich proposed to restore the Dingley rate on hides...
...Brandegee Dixon Johnson, N. Dak...
...Bacon Clapp *Gore Page *Bankhead *Clay *Johnston, Ala...
...The fact is that the farmer is being used to pull the chestnut out of the grate for the Beef Trust...
...The roll-call reminds us that when he needs them "Boss" Aldrich always receives enough Democratic votes to sustain his amendments...
...The users of fancy leather articles bear none of it...
...Yet, so anxious have been many of the shoe manufacturers of the country for free hides and leather that they nave declared repeatedly that, if given free hides and leather, they would give up not only their compensatory duty but all protective duties on shoes...
...The vote was as follows: (The star indicates Democrats...
...Kean Perkins *Smith, S. C. Depew *McLaurin *Rayner Stephenson Dillingham *Money Richardson *Taylor...
...Nor is the weight of this burden to the ultimate consumer to be measured merely by the duty on hides...
...The Treasury Department years ago ruled, following the language of the merchants, that a- hide is not a hide unless it weighs over 25 pounds...
...For the Duty on Hides—46...
...The hides that are subject to the tariff duty are the hides that are used for the manufacture of sole leather, harness leather, and the heavy leather used in the stout, heavy, working shoes of farmers and laboring men...
...Burrows *Davis Nelson *Tillman Burton du Pont *Overman *Chamberlain Frye *Owen Not Voting—16...
...But it will cost them infinitely more indirectly in fastening more securely upon them the oppression of the Beef Trust...
...The wearers of fine shoes bear an insignificant part of it...
...Naturally, under these circumstances, the Beef Trust is very solicitous for the welfare of the farmer...
...We import some millions of hides annually to make up the shortage...
...If the manufacturer must pay for his raw material a price increased by the imposition of a duty to which his foreign competitor is not subject, to be protected, he must have a duty on his product increased accordingly to compensate him for that disadvantage...
...There is no evidence that has been or can be adduced to show that the Trust will pay the farmer more for his steer because there is a tariff on the hide...
...Moreover, this tariff duty is made the basis for a number of so-called "compensatory duties" upon the manufactured products into which it enters...
...Aldrich * Culberson Guggenheim Piles *Bailey Cummins Hale Scott Borah Curtis Heyburn *Smith, Md...
...Gallinger Nixon Crawford Gamble Penrose Against the Duty on Hides—30...
...duty on shoes...
...All skins or hides under that weight are called "skins," or "kips," and are not subject to the duty on hides...
...If the farmer gets any benefit from the duty on hides it will be small indeed...
...Of the Senators "not voting" the following were paired in favor of the duty: Bourne, Depew, Dillingham, Kean, Oliver, Perkins,—all Republicans...
...The ultimate consumer does not buy hides...
...Under the Dingley tariff law, the duty on hides is 15 per cent...
...Paynter Beveridge Crane La Follette Root Briggs Cullom Lodge *Shively Burnham *Daniel Martin Smith, Mich...
...Bourne *Frazier Oliver *Simmons *Clarke,Ark...
...He buys shoes, harnesses, saddles, belting, and the thousand-and-one articles of daily use into which the hides are finally made as the result of a series of processes of manufacture, each bound by the laws of business to yield a profit to the manufacturer not alone upon the manufacturing process but upon the cost of the raw material as well...
...It will cost them more than that in shoes and harnesses...
...The adoption of his amendment would, of course, necessitate the restoration of the 25 per cent...
...The following were paired against the duty: Clarke, Ark Frazier, Money, Rayner, Smith, S. Carolina,—all Democrats...
...So the amendment of the Committee on Finance was agreed to, and Mr...
...But, if the farmer, through some benign grace of the Beef Trust, should have added to the price of his steer the whole amount of the tariff on the hide, figured upon the average price of hides for twelve years and the average weight of hides in this country, the price of the steer would be increased by the magnificent amount of sixty-two cents...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 26
