THE TARIFF DEBATE IN THE SENATE
THE TARIFF DEBATE IN THE SENATE Disclosing the Methods by Which the Aldrich Bill was Jammed Through.---Significance of the Contest.---As Seen From the Gallery By EDGAR EUGENE ROBINSON HOW was...
...Of the nine men, it is well understood that Mr...
...His observations throw much light on the methods employed in putting through a high tariff bill in the upper House, and suggest a reason why it was possible thus to act in direct violation of party pledges and popular command...
...Protests of the Progressives TN face of the refusal of the committee to meet the issue, Senator Beveridge said, "We have in good faith asked for facts and explanations, which we had a right to do, and it was their duty to answer with facts and explanations instead of answering with sneers and retorts...
...Him—"Because, darling—now, understand, I'm not finding any fault, for I know that these little oversights will occur—because you forgot to give me a can-opener...
...McCumber...
...This leaves the Middle West unrepresented, except for Mr...
...is a question that is found recurring among the people quite as frequently as the other, familiar one, "Was it revision downward...
...These men possessed none of the collective patriotism of the entrenched majority that rallied around the standard of Aldrich at every call of their leader, but who shall decry the greater individual patriotism of the seven progressive senators that believed, and fought as they believed, that the tariff bill neither redeemed party pledges nor was the basis for a future greatness and usefulness of the party...
...With the remembrance of a tariff revision campaign fresh in the mind and heedful of the extra session called by the President "to give immediate consideration to the revision of the Dingley tariff act," one was surprised to hear the chairman of the committee in charge of the bill devoting his time to the following question: "Will the bill as reported from the committee on finance produce sufficient revenue when taken in connection with the internal revenue taxes and other existing sources of revenue to meet the expenses of the government without the imposition of additional taxes...
...Senator Dolliver in commenting upon the treatment received by a witness that he had brought forward said, "It is a strange state of society when a man cannot be brought into the Senate to give the public the benefit of his knowledge and wisdom * * * without invoking from the members of the Finance committee a personal insult and disparagement of his fitness...
...Robinson is Fellow in American History in the University of Wisconsin.—Editor's Note...
...Aldrich replied, "I am so anxious to get a vote upon this bill, and every feature of it, that I am willing to forego any desire to make a speech and go on and vote now...
...New England seemed very ready to defend the bill...
...Senator La Follette said, "Every time a rate is questioned, every time a request is made of the Finance committee for their authority of an increased rate, some member of the Finance committee arises and answers that the manufacturers have stated that they need it, * * * Senators are denied access to the testimony that ought to be submitted for consideration...
...Of the majorities given to the Republican party by these states in 1908, the lowest was 18,444...
...Change Missouri which gave Taft only 629 majority, and two votes in Maryland where the electoral vote was split, and Mr...
...Senators Beveridge of Indiana, Bristow of Kansas, Brown and Burkett of Nebraska, Cummins and Dol-liver of Iowa, Crawford of South Dakota, La Follette of Wisconsin, and Clapp and Nelson of Minnesota, all voted against the bill when it went to conference...
...The reply of the Progressives was that the President had pledged a downward revision during the campaign, and had called an extra session to enact a law that the people had been demanding for the past four years or more...
...It is to be remembered that of the ten, three senators, Brown, Burkett, and Crawford, voted for the bill on its final passage...
...The traditional foes in American politics were arrayed on either side of the broad central aisle, but even the oldest of traditional questions of party difference failed to divide the chamber in the accustomed manner...
...No additional taxes are needed...
...We may expect to find the senators from these states in no great fear of political upheaval...
...Senator Flint of California spoke only sixteen times in debate, Senator Penrose fifteen times, Senator Burrows five times and Senator Cullom does not appear...
...Cullom and Mr...
...66 of them were for Mr...
...Burrows did little either in committee or in the Senate...
...In view of the fact that the then operative Dingley law had created a deficit, and of the further fact that the Republican party had pledged a downward revision, the closing statement of Mr...
...Robinson describes the proceedings as he observed them from the gallery of the Senate chamber...
...Aldrich and his standpat conservatism and Mr...
...IN debate Senator Aldrich asked, "Mr...
...They represent public sentiment in a region where the people are most alert and most interested in the attitudes of their representatives...
...The South is not represented...
...The utterances of these men in debate show that they adhere to the protective principles, but realize, as their constituencies realize, that there is need for much reform in the application of those principles...
...Introduction of the Bill ON April nineteenth Senator Aldrich asked that the bill as prepared by the Republican members of the Finance Committee be laid before the Senate for consideration...
...Senator Cummins, speaking as one of the seven Republican senators who voted against the bill on its final passage, said, "I am opposed to the bill * * * it is not a fair and reasonable performance of the promise of our platform...
...One man apparently ruled the Senate, although at times his methods and his remarks seemed so ill-advised that one found it difficult to believe that he was the force behind the scenes that determined the plays and made sure each day's procedure...
...DAY after day, for a month of the three months' discussion of the Aldrich bill, we listened to the debate and viewed the drama played upon the Senate stage...
...The Progressive votes come from states where strife is the rule and where representatives must truly represent...
...It may be added that only one of the ten is a member or any one of the three most important committees of the Senate...
...Yet as votes were taken, the action of the Finance Committee was invariably sustained, even though its chairman and his associates failed to explain the schedules and would not admit revealed errors...
...It is not an accident that the Senators advocating lower rates and fighting the high protection of the committee came from a block of states in the Middle West...
...The situation is aptly described by the following cutting: Senator Dolliver, "I wish to say that the Senator from Rhode Island has been promising for four weeks that he would make a statement about this bill and there being a quorum present it would at least be a fair suggestion that he proceed to make that statement before a vote is taken on a proposition that involves the principle of the Senate amendments throughout this schedule...
...Aldrich spoke for an hour reviewing the work of the committee and outlining what he considered would be the course of the Senate debate...
...Later, "We intend to enact a tariff bill that will follow the principles of protection and a protective policy, whether it was written in the platform at Chicago or elsewhere...
...These men have nothing in common with the spirit back of the declaration of Senator Heyburn, "There is nothing in the platform of the Republican party that pledges us to reform either the Republican party or its principles...
...The assaults of these Progressives fell harmlessly upon the unbroken front of the entrenched majority...
...termed "Insurgents" by the "Regulars...
...Taft would have had 255 votes to 228 for Mr...
...President, where did we ever make a statement that we would revise the tariff downward...
...What Constitutes Revision...
...Senator La Follette replied, "I say in response to the criticism of the Senator from Rhode Island that the Chicago convention was not controlled and the Chicago platform was not made by his kind of Republicanism, and I say to him here to-night that if he had been running for the Presidency of the United States upon a tariff platform such as this bill seeks to embody into law, he could not have carried four states in the Union...
...Progressives" by their admirers...
...the solid block of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and their sister states are not to be abandoned...
...Not only is more uncertain supremacy found, but in Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin, the progressive wing of the party has caused much strife, and therefore has produced more alertness...
...Of the seven states, one or both of whose senators voted against the bill when it went to conference, Iowa has never changed from the Republican column, but the majority for 1908 was the lowest in its history...
...For fifteen years their party organizations, for which the committee senators stand, have been in unbroken control...
...This being the case, what progress have the astronomers really made?—The Chicago Record-Herald...
...The imposition of other taxes under these conditions would not only be unwise but unjust and prejudicial to every interest of the great people that we represent...
...The tariff bill as it has become a law is constructed on lines satisfactory to men who have succeeded in life's struggle and with secondary consideration to the great mass of the people who have yet to toil...
...The states sending one or two Progressives, read out of the party by Chairman Aldrich, cast 74 electoral votes in 1908...
...Aldrich declared that he had no time to discuss theories, only facts, and he proceeded to select the facts...
...a few of its members furnished information and interest at isolated intervals...
...Nebraska gave the electoral votes to Bryan in 1908...
...Indiana and Wisconsin went Democratic in 1892...
...These Senators voted as the popular vote in their states would have dictated had the Aldrich bill been subject to popular vote...
...New England with all its influence possesses but 41 electoral votes...
...The Senators from the Middle West coming from States where the two parties are fairly balanced were willing to leave a blind party allegiance and to vote with the opponents of the protective system in an effort to make the application of that system just to the workers...
...It is interesting and significant that the insurgent votes came from the Middle West, from states unrepresented in fact or in name upon this committee...
...The Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America in convention assembled has resolved that it is impossible at the present to communicate with Mars or any other heavenly body...
...Later, "The Senate has ample opportunity, without any limitation whatever, to read it, to consider it, to discuss it, and amend it...
...Some Reasons for Votes OF the nine states represented on the committee, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, have given steady Republican majorities for twenty-five years and more: Utah has been Republican since admission to the union: Michigan, Illinois, North Dakota and California have not changed since 1894...
...Kansas and South Dakota went Democratic in 1896...
...but I suggest to those Senators that they cannot attempt to speak for the party without a protest from men who represent states here that have elected and can and will elect Republican presidents, whatever may be the attitude of individuals...
...In closing the debate, "This bill which will be voted upon in this Senate is a revision which carries out to its letter every pledge of the Republican party...
...some of its members seemed interested only in local matters, taking sectional advantage of the absolute control and responsibility vested in the majority party...
...At the outset we find the committee primarily raising revenue and secondarily, if at all, revising the tariff...
...THE TARIFF DEBATE IN THE SENATE Disclosing the Methods by Which the Aldrich Bill was Jammed Through.---Significance of the Contest.---As Seen From the Gallery By EDGAR EUGENE ROBINSON HOW was the tariff revised...
...Of the nine members of the committee, Senators Aldrich, Hale, Lodge and Smoot, appear most often in the record as defending their bill...
...Each member, even though silent during debate, had a vote, and at times we were forced to admit that argument had little effect and that facts were shown to no result...
...Aldrich refused to give the committee method of judgment or his own analysis...
...Take them from the Republican list as useless to Mr...
...As these well-to-do, well-dressed, and well-groomed men passed in and out of the Senate chamber each day, we were reminded that conservative, well-satisfied, prosperous representatives can rarely be expected to pass legislation that will meet the needs of the "hewers of wood and the drawers of water...
...He said, "The pending bill will, if enacted into law, provide all the necessary revenues required for the public expenses on a liberal scale...
...The Finance Committee THE Republican Finance Committee of the Senate consisted of Senators Aldrich of Rhode Island, Burrows of Michigan, Penrose of Pennsylvania, Hale of Maine, Cullom of Illinois, Lodge of Massachusetts, McCumber of North Dakota, Smoot of Utah, and Flint of California...
...Aldrich seemed amazing...
...As the debate proceeded, Mr...
...Breaking it gently.—Her—Richard...
...When Senator La Follette inquired, in the case of the gas retorts, what figures represented difference in cost at home and abroad as separate from "a reasonable profit," Mr...
...Why on earth are you cutting your pie with a knife...
...Taft...
...Anticipating the progressive votes against the bill he said, "If Senators shall see fit to vote against this bill on account of their individual opinions, that is a matter for them to determine...
...Cleveland Leader...
...Commenting upon habitual absence of members of the Finance committee Senator Nelson said, "I rise to express my great surprise at the fact that while the Finance Committee are ready to hear the various protected interests they are unwilling to hear Senators when they discuss those same items of the tariff bill from another point of view...
...The minority party was not conspicuous...
...Senator Aldrich on behalf of the Republican members of the committee said, "It is a bill reported by a majority of the committee upon their responsibility...
...Senator Daniel, speaker for the minority of the committee said, "The Democratic members of the Finance Committee have not as yet (when bill was reported) had an opportunity to read this bill or to know anything about its contents...
...Peaceful rule has been held...
...Bryan...
...Minnesota elected a Democratic governor in 1908...
...The standpat votes come from states of entrenched majority where the needs of the voter are not as near the heart of the Senator as they should be in a well-balanced democracy...
...Thus the result was predestined by the chairman at the outset...
...Manifestly, if the tariff was revised downward without additional taxes, the deficit would be increased...
...In the consideration of who is responsible, the Democrats,—Senators Daniel, Money, Bailey, Taliaferro and Simmons,—need not be counted...
...The most active participants, as the actors appeared upon the public stage, were men of the Middle West...
...Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Iowa, and Indiana, are entirely unrepresented...
...From membership on the committee and utterances during debate these men were all high protectionists...
...Of the four appearing in defense each day, Senators Aldrich and Hale went into conference, followed by Senators Cullom, Burrows and Penrose...
...The accompanying map shows the states represented on the committee...
...Explanation by the Committee IN introducing the bill Senator Aldrich said, "A majority of the committee having in view the public interests of the country decided that the discussion had better take place upon the floor of the Senate than in committee...
...The conclusion is clear...
...With the imposition of no additional taxes, revision would constitute a rearrangement of schedules and little else...
...On the map are also shown the progressive states...
...In the following article, Mr...
...When Senator Daniel asked for an explanation ef committee action, Senator Aldrich said, "The gentleman is mis-informed...
...Bryan would have been elected...
...Those who listened with the expectancy of hearing of "revision" were disappointed...
Vol. 1 • August 1909 • No. 34
