WHY THE PEOPLE DISLIKE THE NEW TARIFF LAW
Why the People Dislike the New Tariff Law NOW the simplest and most obvious fact about the new tariff law is that it was primarily the work of representatives of the "interests," and was bitterly...
...This ugly fact remains before their eyes...
...Why the People Dislike the New Tariff Law NOW the simplest and most obvious fact about the new tariff law is that it was primarily the work of representatives of the "interests," and was bitterly opposed by those Senators and Congressmen who are closest to the people...
...This is a fact which will not down...
...Even President Taft's powerful influence is not enough to turn the scales in favor of the law...
...President Taft and others may extol the merits of the law, but when all has been said an insistent thought creeps back into the minds of the people...
...Moreover, in an important sense the people were defeated in the enactment of this law, and they are still smarting under the sting of defeat...
...It does not relieve the pain to be told that the law is a good one: It may be good or bad—that is a matter of relatively little moment...
...But the people cannot welcome a measure which is approved by many men whom they distrust, and is condemned by many others in whom they have the highest confidence...
...The important thing is that in the passage of the bill it was demonstrated that the Republican party in Congress is in the control of the Cannon-Aldrich coterie— men whom the people have come, rightly or wrongly, to regard as their enemies, as the enemies of industrial and political democracy...
...Is it strange that the people do not like the law?—From an article in The Independent for November 11, entitled "The People and the New Tariff Law," by Harrison S. Smalley, Assistant Professor of Political Economy in the University of Michigan...
...It is possible that if the very bill which finally passed had been introduced by the insurgents and advocated by them, its passage would have been hailed with satisfaction, at least by the great body of Republicans...
...the tariff law was fathered and furthered by the agents of special privilege, but was fought to the end by a goodly number of those who are believed to have the public interests at heart...
...The law now stands as an outward and visible sign and as a constant reminder of the domination of the few over the many...
...The existence of the law, therefore, means to the people a defeat, not so much because of defects in its schedules as because of the circumstances of its enactment...
Vol. 2 • January 1910 • No. 3
