EDITORIALS
DOLLIVER'S ANSWER TO CANNON The broadside of invective which Speaker Cannon recently fired at the "Insurgents" has received marked attention from the "System" press. But his cry is not a new one....
...We have seen a majority obtained here not by an appeal publicly and squarely made to the judgment and conscience of the Senate, but by a sort of reciprocity of benefits, all centering in the so-called 'citadel of protection.' I have made up my mind that the first business of the American people now is to examine that citadel and see by what right it is entitled not only to protect itself, but to barter away the privileges and the advantages of the protective-tariff system on the basis, 'We will give you whatever you ask, if you keep your mouth shut and leave us undisturbed in what we have and what we think we ought to take.' A majority so collected together has no moral authority to bind me as a member of this body or as a member of a political party...
...Ponder, 0 thoughtful reader, this "citadel of protection," as portrayed for you by Senator Dolliver—faithfully portrayed by one who tore it asunder, time after time, and exposed its inmost recesses—ponder and judge for YOURSELF, Whether FIDELITY to this THING can be made the yard-stick of HONEST republicanism...
...Collier's names Secretary Knox, Secretary Ballinger, Vice President Sherman and Senator Aldrich as "the four pall bearers of the Roosevelt policies...
...We think not...
...John L. Mathews in Hampton's for December...
...But in waxing indignant at this mess of conspiracy, bribery and theft, that has been uncovered, we should remember that the Sugar Trust is but one of many trusts...
...It has persistently violated the Sherman anti-trust law...
...With progressive Senators and Congressmen who were "held up" and forced to support this tariff outrage in order to conserve what they conceived to be vital interests of their constituents, the arrogance of this jobbing, log-rolling legislative high-binding, rankles deep...
...No kind of rascality that could be turned into profits seems to have been passed by...
...The wickedness of the Sugar Trust is indeed appalling...
...BALLINGER is not a large man...
...Sugar Trust Crimes THE, REVELATIONS of Sugar Trust criminality are shocking...
...Let the light of publicity be turned on, no matter what crimes or what persons are exposed...
...He has himself made that plain...
...With Speaker Cannon, of course, as the funeral director...
...But it appears that a trust does not possess even the kind of honesty that is to be found among thieves...
...He stepped away from his desk and paced rapidly up and down his office...
...And, at another session of Congress, when it will not be too costly to their constituents, they will "get even...
...And while, as Henry 0. Havemeyer once testified, "the customs tariff is the mother of all trusts," still the Sugar Trust is the image in which the others have been created...
...When the People Decide ON ANOTHER page Mr...
...It will not be possible to perpetuate the protective-tariff system in the United States if local interests, favored by experienced leaders, are permitted to say, 'This is the citadel,' and from it call out to everybody in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, 'If you desire your constituents taken care of, make your terms with us.' "We have seen in this Congress a spectacle that has discouraged my heart, the spectacle of men being compelled to bargain with the authorities which control the Senate for the protection of the interests of their own people...
...Is this the declaration of a man who sincerely believes that the Public Domain should be protected from rapacious monopolies—even within the "strictest construction" of the law...
...And let the investigation be as prompt as it should be thorough...
...The adoption of "Plan Two" is another triumph for the Referendum...
...It served them in the place of debate...
...Taft's letter, full of absurd errors in mere fact, was inflicted on the President's trustful nature by Ballinger and his allies...
...Perhaps it will explain why the customs frauds could go on unhindered under the very noses of government officials and with the aid of government employees...
...The 'citadel of protection' of which the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr...
...Nor will its exponents in high places be able to fix their status in the Republican party...
...That is the citadel of protection, which I shall defend in the future, as I have in all the years of my life against all its enemies...
...It has committed these atrocious acts to strengthen and complete the monopoly made possible by the enormous graft handed to it by Congress in the form of exhorbitant and unjustifiable and dishonest tariff duties...
...about "shreds of suspicion," when strong evidence of his gross unfitness and treachery have been presented, and, as he well knows, more is in reserve...
...BALLINGER, when the issue of his own integrity it presented to him, talks about "the whole record" at Washington, with never a hint of anything that can help explain his plight...
...It has used money in politics freely, and, it would appear, profitably...
...It furnished the model...
...The thing to do with it—" and here he stopped and faced me...
...Ballinger's Policy MR...
...Collier's Says--MR...
...But it isn't quite clear why "the Old Czar" should refer to himself and "Boss" Aldrich as "the people...
...They are waiting impatiently the opportunity to "get even" with this Aldrich-Cannon machine...
...but that captains of industry should stoop to low thievery and petty cash bribery and brazen graft almost passes belief...
...That the trustification of our great industries has been accomplished by unlawful acts has long been suspected...
...We must sever completely and forever the ties that now bind Big Business and the Government so closely together...
...To the threats and reproaches of Aldrich, he merely adds the Cannon coarseness of speech—the "picturesque language" of the speaker...
...He has worked hard to reach editors, and fill them with irrelevant commonplaces, confusing only to those ignorant of the facts...
...about the Presidential whitewash, well knowing that Mr...
...It was their stock "argument...
...His undertaking to read the "Insurgents" out of the Republican party is only a repetition of what was heard from day to day in the Senate during the tariff debate...
...It lacks even the merit of originality...
...For when all is said about the crimes of the Sugar Trust, it will be found that the people of this country are most deeply concerned about the intimacy that has long existed between this powerful monopoly and the government...
...He is backed by the huge combined business interests which wish to control our resources, and by newspapers and politicians subservient to those interests...
...Ballinger's statement reveals the philosophy which has guided his official acts—a philosophy which places Vested Interests above Public Interest...
...So says Big Business...
...Divide the Public Domain among the big corporations," he says...
...At the conclusion of the tariff debate, Senator Dolliver of Iowa answered this "argument...
...about changes in the law, an old trick which formerly he has worked at the moment when he was doing his best to introduce still faultier legislation and to outwit what protective law we had...
...These railroads are necessary to the country...
...Will you do this...
...It has accepted rebates in violation of the inter-state commerce act...
...The citadel of protection is the right, which every American producer who invests his labor or his money in an industrial enterprise has, of living without being disturbed either in his employment or in his reasonable profit by the competition flowing into our market place from other lands...
...You are hindering the development of the West...
...Turning to Aldrich and his "associates" in the Senate, Dolliver said: "I can not support this measure, because I am opposed to the methods by which it has been prepared...
...And Adds--MR...
...IT is announced in the East that Aldrich, before retiring from public life, is ambitious to crown his career of senatorial achievement by a great constructive reform of the national banking and currency system---a reform really in the public interest, a reform that will carry his name down in history as a benefactor of the people...
...You chaps who are in favor of this Conservation programme are all wrong...
...Is this the Roosevelt policy...
...And this intimacy is of such a nature as to make imperative a most searching investigation...
...One duty, at least, stands out clearly against this background of corporation villainy...
...In my opinion the proper course to take with regard to this domain is to divide it up among the big corporations and the people who know how to make money out of it and let the people at large get the benefit of the circulation of the money...
...You don't understand this thing," he said...
...He has been questioned and quizzed about his troubles over Conservation until he is no longer able to control his temper...
...He disposed of it for all comers and for all time...
...Perhaps such an investigation will reveal why the Sugar Trust was enabled to have inserted in the tariff law the atrocious "Dutch Standard" joker...
...See here...
...Those who receive them will confer a favor by passing them on to friends...
...And if the other trusts have followed the pattern of the Sugar Trust in all its details, if they have entrenched themselves in power by corruption and fraud, then there is a much greater task ahead of us than the only too difficult one of bringing the Sugar Trust malefactors to justice...
...The citadel of protection is in the judgment and good sense op the American people from one ocean to the other...
...A distinguished leader of the Senate in the course of the debate took occasion to say that nobody ought to speak disrespectfully of the wool tariff, of schedule K, because it was the 'citadel of Protection.' I deny it...
...Many of these circulars will find their way to present readers of La Follette's...
...Aldrich) has so often spoken, is a fortress of cards...
...BALLINGER has handed falsehoods to the President, to his own associates, to the people of the United States...
...This attempt to read out of the party those Republicans who refused to support and vote for the Aldrich-Cannon tariff program was the favorite retort in debate of Aldrich and Cannon and their "associates...
...As a Favor JUST now the business office of La Follette's is putting into the mail thousands of attractive colored circulars, presenting briefly and pointedly a few good reasons why La Follette's should have a place on every reading table...
...Watch Aldrich...
...And more than that, this whole big domain is a blanket—it is oppressing the people...
...Speaker Cannon says this is a government by the people...
...Aldrich Reformed...
...Boston's experience furnishes fresh proof that important questions of government can safely be referred to the people...
...Also, he disposed of it in the usual Dolliver style, with characteristic completeness and conclusiveness...
...The American people demand all the facts about this nefarious business...
...The Sugar Trust has shown utter disregard for both law and morality...
...It would seem too great a price to pay even for the riches and power that come from monopoly...
...It is an old axiom that a corporation has no soul...
...It demonstrates anew that when the voters are called upon to decide between two measures, where the issue is plain, they are inclined to decide in the interest of the general good rather than in the interest of those who profit through control of government...
...This black-mask-and-dark-lantern "System" statesmanship will not be able to intimidate and bulldoze men who are bent on serving the people...
...Bottomly tells how the people of Boston rejected a plan of city government that was backed by the bosses and the machine politicians and adopted "Plan Two" which placed the control of the government more securely in the hands of the people themselves...
...His policy is not the people's policy...
...It has stolen vast sums of money from the United States government by using short weight scales and bribing customs house employees...
...It has conspired to ruin independent sugar refiners...
...In the face of it, his publicly expressed scruples about "acting within the law," etc., appear as mere evasions...
Vol. 1 • November 1909 • No. 47
