EDITORIALS
Two Republican Party Platforms Compare Them Wisconsin PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF The Payne-Aldrich tariff is not a compliance with the pledge of the Republican party made in its national platform. The...
...Upon the information so obtained Congress should proceed to revise the different schedules independently of each other according to protective principles...
...laws extending the regulation of safety appliances, and the law-providing a method by which the surface of coal lands and other mineral lands is made available for agricultural use, while conserving the minerals under the surface for the public benefit...
...The magnitude of the problems involved render it impossible for the members of the interstate commerce commission to perform their duties with justice and dispatch...
...We favor the election of senators by direct vote and urge that Congress take immediate action accordingly...
...FOR POPULAR GOVERNMENT Primary Frauds We believe that the same safeguards should surround primary elections as have been shown to be effective in preventing repeating and frauds at general elections...
...Unlike the Democratic law, its great reductions of duty have not stopped industry, nor deprived labor of any part of its hire...
...The right of the President to withdraw public lands for conservation purposes has been set at rest, by legislation and the completion of irrigation projects is assured by the authorization of $20,000,000 of bonds...
...The Congress has responded to recommendations of the President by enacting measures of far-reaching importance to the people, including valuable amendments to the Interstate Commerce law, a postal savings bank law, a law providing for the publicity of campaign expenses, the creation of a bureau of mines, with a view to the better protection of mine workers...
...This principle was not recognized...
...The true basis of a protective tariff is the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, and we hold that any increased cost of production, due to higher wages and standard of living of American labor, should be accompanied by compensatory tariff duties...
...The House of Representatives has five times, the last time by unanimous vote, adopted and transmitted to the Senate a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to that end...
...It is an instrument of evil...
...ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESS We enthusiastically indorse the progressive and statesmanlike leadership of William Howard Taft, and declare our pride in the achievements of his first eighteen months as President of the United States...
...Wisconsin is to be congratulated upon having representatives in the Senate and House who remained true to the people and to the national platform of the party, notwithstanding the efforts to punish them for so doing by withdrawal of federal patronage...
...Prompt action should be taken to complete our forest reserves as soon as practicable and to preserve our forests from destruction by fire...
...We favor the creation of a non-partisan tariff commission, empowered to ascertain the cost of production in this and other countries and required to make frequent reports of the information gained to Congress...
...It is the key to this vast territory of treasure...
...We urge an amendment to the present law providing for physical valuation of railroad property without which the commission is powerless to determine reasonable rates...
...Transportation is the basis of control...
...The attempt of private monopoly to steal the Alaskan coal fields was defeated for the time being through the efforts of a few courageous officials, whose sacrifice and devotion to duty furnish an example worthy of emulation in every department and rank of the public service...
...Advances in the cost of living are only the local reflection of a tendency that is worldwide and cannot be truthfully said to be due to the present tariff...
...Because of the patriotic service rendered by progressive Republicans in the Senate and House at the last session of Congress, the railroad bill as proposed was changed from a public menace to a public benefit...
...It enters into our daily life, awakens into an active moral force a renaissance of the old-fashioned virtues, prudence, thrift and foresight, and gives to them a larger and a national meaning.—ALFRED L. Baker...
...the wide-spread use of the word has given to it a meaning undreamed of in the beginning...
...A Republican Congress is necessary to provide needed appropriations for this board and to assure business and labor that changes in rates will be only to equalize the difference in cost of production, and not to reduce rates to the free trade or purely revenue basis favored by the Democratic party...
...Conservation: The Watchword of the Hour CONSERVATION has become the watchword of the hour...
...As exceptional conditions in Panama required the government of the United States to own and operate a railroad on the isthmus in order to protect its interests and the interests of shippers, so we hold that exceptional conditions in Alaska require that the federal government should construct, own and operate the railroads, docks and steamship lines necessary to the opening up of the Alaskan coal fields and other natural resources...
...Under its first year of operation the value of imports free of duty was the greatest in our history by $109,000,000, and the average rate of duty was less than under the Wilson law...
...FOR POPULAR GOVERNMENT Election by Direct Vote Election of United States senators by direct vote has long been demanded by an overwhelming majority of the people...
...It debauches manhood and corrupts the electorate...
...We promise legislation which will enact these principles into law...
...The postal savings bank law should be amended to compel the establishment of postal savings depositories throughout the country within easy reach of the depositors, and to prevent the concentration of the postal savings in the large centers and their use in financial manipulation by the great corporate and banking interests of Wall street...
...The present tariff board has no power of investigation and is not required to report to Congress...
...Subordinate boards should be provided to relieve the interstate commerce commission from a portion of its duties and facilitate the prompt and efficient administration of the law...
...Initiative, Referendum and Recall We favor giving to the people the power to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to enact, adopt or reject the same at the polls...
...The Senate has refused to permit a vote upon these resolutions...
...Money in Campaigns We are opposed to the excessive use of money in political campaigns...
...Second Choice" We pledge amendment to the primary law which will secure majority nominations by giving the voter the right to name his second choice candidate for each office...
...Its maximum and minimum rates give us for the first time equality of opportunity with other nations in our foreign trade...
...Failing to secure the coal fields through perfidy and fraud, special interests will exploit them through a monopoly of transportation...
...We pledge legislation that shall encourage the earliest and highest development of these resources, while retaining all the rights of the people in them...
...Wisconsin CONSERVATION We are unalterably opposed to the surrender to the states by the federal government of its control over waterpower sites still a part of the national domain...
...In providing, upon the suggestion of President Taft, for a tariff board, it affords the means of still more accurately determining the difference in cost of production at home and abroad...
...The title to the coal fields of Alaska should be forever retained by the government subject to lease under proper regulation...
...and we pledge ourselves to the prompt adoption of such constitutional and statutory enactments as will accomplish these ends...
...A general law should be passed, outlining a comprehensive plan for the development and operation of waterpower plants and providing proper restrictions under which waterpower franchises may be obtained, to the end that all persons holding waterpower rights may be made subject to the same general law...
...By increasing the duties on some luxuries and articles not of ordinary use, making, however, no increases on any common food product, it turned a national deficit into a surplus...
...New York CONSERVATION In the interests of the growth and prosperity of the State we favor the conservation, development and utilization of all our natural resources, under conditions, however, which will protect and safeguard the rights of the State...
...and we pledge submission as early as possible of constitutional amendments providing for the vesting of such powers in the people under the initiative and referendum and the recall...
...to reject by their vote any act of the legislature...
...Direct Nominations To Governor Hughes is due the credit of arousing the interest of the people and convincing them of the need of directly electing their party officers and directly nominating their party candidates...
...New York PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF The Payne tariff law reduced the average rate of all duties 11 per cent...
...In the form of an intelligent energy it has applied itself to all the concerns of life from the conservation of the soil and the forest to the conservation of birds, of child life and of health...
...Each succeeding month since his inauguration has confirmed the Nation in its high estimate of his greatness of character, intellectual ability, sturdy common sense, extraordinary patience and perseverence, broad and statesmanlike comprehension of public questions and unfaltering and unswerving adherence to duty...
...The situation of Alaska is exceptional...
...To avoid disturbance of business we urge the adoption by Congress of the joint rule of the two houses recommended by the President and leaders in Congress, by which the two houses could consider a single schedule or a single paragraph of the tariff, without the necessity of amendment which would lead to a general revision...
...We favor the enactment of a law which will authorize the publication by the state of necessary information concerning the qualifications of candidates at all primaries and general elections...
...and to remove any recreant or incompetent public official...
...It is the weapon of special interests...
...Private monopoly should be controlled by the leasing of waterpower on limited permits subject to regulation, valuation and reasonable compensation...
...We favor such regulation of our rivers by storage reservoirs or, otherwise, as will multiply and equalize the hydraulic power, give relief to thousands of wage-earners who are now regularly deprived of work during the summer months, prevent needless loss of profits to manufacturing and mercantile communities, stimulate the upbuilding of our industries, eliminate the annual destruction of property by floods and improve unsanitary conditions...
...It gives free trade with the Philippine Islands, and it establishes a customs court...
...The conservation of the natural resources of soil, forest, mine and waterpower and the settlement of the uncultivated lands suitable for agriculture are the foundation of the prosperity of the state...
...We therefore favor extending the signature law, as now applied to general elections, to primary elections...
...It serves every bad cause and embarrasses every good one...
...ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESS We endorse and commend the services of progressive Republicans from Wisconsin in the House of Representatives, who consistently fought to fulfill the promises of the Republican party, and their efforts to amend the rules in order that the House may again become a representative body...
Vol. 2 • October 1910 • No. 40
