THE ROLL CALL
Invading the Citadel PRESIDENT TAFT'S tariff bill, based on his trade agreement with Canada, passed the Senate without a single amendment. Convincing facts and unanswerable arguments against it...
...These sales are extensively advertised for months and bring in buyers from all Eastern Canada and the border states...
...It is my judgment that there are no more iniquitous, no more indefensible, no more harmful provisions in all the tariff law than those contained in Schedule K. The mill men and the woolgrowers together constructed a law the terms of which are so complicated, so devious and obscure that, within its windings and turnings, comprehension and criticism are lost...
...Enough has been done in the way of investigation—scientific investigation as complete and thorough as it is possible for man to perform—to teach us that much at least...
...they will still be safe...
...Schedule K had been shorn of its iniquities by the hands of the United States Senate...
...was voted down...
...President, I sought the first opportunity offered since 1909 to redeem the pledge which the Republican administration violated in the tariff revision of that session...
...The excessive duties of Schedule K are a product of expert knowledge and misrepresentation regarding it...
...Only certain species of timb«r may be cut...
...This, despite the fact that tuberculosis is hardly hereditary, easily curable, and still more readily preventable.—The Progressive Woman...
...How bad is it...
...It came quickly...
...It passed because the great newspapers in combination, the great special interests joined with them, the President of the United States, the free-trade and tariff-for-revenue Democrats, and the stand-pat, high-protection Republicans, all acting together, were powerful enough to put it through...
...President, the stress and strength of the assault of the American people for six years was directed against this very schedule...
...Culberson Dillingham duPont Frye Gallinger Lea Percy Rayner Sutherland Tillman * * * ¶THE Province of Ontario, Canada, disposes of its timbers by periodical sales...
...The Cummins amendment to reduce duties on the steel schedule 40 per cent...
...There was to be one more attempt to secure honest revision—revision that would reach the pocket-books of the consuming public...
...They did not sueceed...
...These reductions, if adopted, will compensate the farmers, at least in part, for the loss which they will suffer as a result of free trade in agricultural products with Canada...
...Yet they were not content merely to oppose the passage of the sham reciprocity...
...Not a line of this bill was written in the interest of the consumer...
...But Congressmen and Senators, called into special session to enact tariff legislation, were in duty bound to frame such legislation in accordance with public demand...
...The least the Senate can do at this time is to pass that revision of the tariff duties of the woolen schedule which the President will be most likely to sign...
...Convincing facts and unanswerable arguments against it were presented without avail...
...MR...
...Taft Gets "Assurances" HIS BILL APPROVED by Congress, President Taft hastened to his summer home at Beverly, to enjoy himself at golf...
...Said Senator La Follette: "You desire the tariff as an issue for the next presidential campaign...
...The woolgrowers were ignorant of manufacturing...
...It has been accepted by the public because it has been misrepresented to the public as signifying tariff reductions of advantage and benefit to the consumers...
...President, that that idea will continue to prevail long enough to tide over the coming election...
...The La Follette amendment to the woolen schedule reducing the duties 38 per cent...
...They came under the leadership of the Progressive Republicans for the time being because in that way was to be obtained the overthrow of the outrageous Schedule K. Here is the vote: FOR THE LA FOLLETTE BILL—48...
...They based duties upon false claims as to some of the terms of their formulae and equations...
...It is therefore quite apparent that the manufacturer, and not the wool-grower, was the author of the iniquity of this schedule...
...Nothing under twelve inches and no other timber except such as is specified may be cut unless absolutely necessary to enable the logs to be gotten out...
...It was used by Senators by way of justification of their vote for the bill...
...Aldrich, the latter made the impassioned declaration that Schedule K was the very citadel of protection...
...This relief, Progressive Republicans sought to obtain...
...President, its duties are so excessive that it is perfectly safe for Congress to cut them down without fear of crossing the line that measures the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad...
...President Taft called his bill "reciprocity...
...Progressives Voted Down DESPITE THIS FACT, known to every Senator, the President's tariff bill was slated for passage—without even the changing of a comma...
...It was, however, in plain terms, a tariff bill...
...The Cummins amendment to let in free certain manufactured products from Canada was voted down...
...Perhaps they imagined things were still run in the Senate as in the days of "Boss" Aldrich...
...Myers Nelson Newlands O'Gorman Overman Owen Paynter poindexter Pomerene Reed Shively Simmons Smith, S. C. Smith, Md...
...An Opportunity to Relieve Consumers WHAT DOES IT MEAN...
...Nothing could tempt the President to abandon reciprocity...
...You might as well expect a drowning man to relinquish his hold on what he believes to be a life-preserver, even though it shall later prove to be a millstone about his neck...
...Martine, N.J...
...That's what they told the President...
...If he should take such a course, in the face of the public demands for the redemption of the broken pledges of 1908, Senators who refused to make this amendment a part of the Canadian tariff bill, as well as the President, will have to answer to the people...
...I think it should have been made a part of the bill which forced the farmers to sell their products in a free-trade market, because it would have relieved them of some of the burdens of these excessive duties at the same time that the Canadian tariff deprived them of all protection upon products of their labor...
...was voted down...
...They will, in some measure, relieve all of the people of the united states who have been made to pay tribute to the woolen trust, long the pampered favorite of the tariff law...
...Smoot Stephenson Townsend Warren Wetmore NOT VOTING—10...
...And everyone knows that the people have been crying out for relief from the burdens, not of the agricultural schedules (!) but of the trust schedules...
...It was a moral certainty that the President would approve the Canadian bill even though we attached to it my amendment reducing the duties on woolen goods...
...Downward revision—the genuine article—was to be put up to the Senate on its own merits...
...It was made plain to the Senate (though not to the whole country because of newspaper suppression) that this measure was not reciprocity but— A good bargain for the trusts, A good bargain for the newspapers, A good bargain for canada, A bad bargain for our farmers, NOTHING FOR OUR CONSUMERS...
...So any apprehension that the President would veto this reciprocity bill if it were amended with the revision of the woolen schedule, for example, added to it, is preposterous...
...The very citadel of protection," so sacred to Aldrich, had been invaded...
...Stone Swanson Taylor Thornton Watson Williams Works AGAINST THE LA FOLLETTE BILL—32...
...It is expected in some quarters, Mr...
...it came from the people who were paying extravagant prices because of excessive duties...
...Crawford cummins Davis Fletcher Foster Gore Gronna Hitchcock Johnson, Me...
...It was this: "President TAFT will veto the bill if it is amended...
...The manufacturers' duties were obscured and concealed in the technical terms of the business...
...Said Penrose, said Smoot, said Crane, "Don't worry, Mr...
...This is what happened: When, on July 27, the House wool bill came before the Senate, Senator La Follette offered an amendment...
...Then the House bill came to a vote...
...It also was rejected...
...La Follette's Coup THEN CAME the stroke that opened the way to tariff reduction...
...His amendment was to make the bill exactly the same as the amendment he had previously offered to the "reciprocity" bill...
...Progressive Republicans knew this...
...These tracts of timber are sold, subject to stumpage or royalty to the highest bidder...
...Under the Constitution no tariff bill can originate in the Senate...
...a recent investigation in Des Moines shows that one third of the pauperism is due to that disease...
...Whereupon he offered again his amendment to Schedule K, this time changed slightly so as to provide for a lower scale of duties...
...The wool bill, as passed by the House, came to a vote...
...It is certain that he can find less justification for refusing to approve a reduction of Schedule K along protective lines than a bill which can be called a Democratic revision of that schedule...
...It is six years ago since the people of this country, starting out to change the tariff, demanded revision...
...Senator La Follette's amendment to Schedule K— the iniquitous woolen schedule—was likewise voted down...
...I think he rightly characterized it...
...When its import dawned upon them, they were speechless with anger and dismay...
...No legitimate interests will suffer...
...Listen for a moment to Senator La Follette: "Mr...
...It is said now that the President will veto any tariff bill which we may pass...
...It is common talk on this floor between Senators privately that that is what is behind the voting down of the amendments to couple tariff reductions with this proposition...
...It appeared to the System-Administration Senators that their "assurances" to the President were well made...
...Everybody knows that it is bad...
...Look at the Vote UPON the vote the Democrats cast aside narrow partisanship and upon broad grounds of public interest threw their support to a bill that offered the only way of giving immediate and substartial relief to the consumers...
...and it is the very schedule, intrenched in the citadel of protection, that was strong enough, by rallying its support from the agricultural side and the manufacturing side, to resist having a hand laid upon it in the tariff revision of 1909...
...was voted down...
...His motion was carried...
...NOT ONLY IS STARVATION the bottom upon which tuberculosis rests...
...It was rejected...
...it was but a pretext...
...Crane cullom Curtis Dixon Gamble Guggenheim Heyburn Jones Lippitt Lodge Lorimer McLean Nixon Oliver Page Penrose Perkins Richardson Root Smith, Mich...
...In this form it met with the approval of the Democrats, as well as of the Progressive Republicans...
...They made a gallant effort to amend the bill so as to give it at least the semblance of honest tariff revision...
...The manufacturers were masters of their craft in all its details...
...You know that the President would not veto this Canadian reciprocity proposition if the wool bill was attached to it...
...What La Follette Proposed 1OFFER AMENDMENTS proposing reductions in the duties on woolen goods, the rates upon which have long been recognized as grossly excessive...
...This attempt was to be made, too, without consulting the wishes either of the Administration or of the System Senators...
...The buyer has a certain number of years in which to cut the timber, at the expiration of which period the land reverts to the province and is thrown open to settlement, or, if still too remote for settlement, is turned back for another growth of timber...
...This threat came from the White House...
...But when the President's Canadian tariff bill came before us at this session it presented the first chance since the Payne-Aldrich bill passed to move for a reduction of the duties of Schedule K. I promptly offered this same amendment to the so-called reciprocity bill, believing that if it were adopted it would surely receire Executive approval as a part of that bill which the President was sure to sign...
...They contrived a mixture, a blend of duties, compensatory and protective, specific and ad valorem, so compounded with mysterious proportions, equivalents, and equivocations as to make the logarithms of trigonometry a simple pastime in comparison...
...The demand for revision did not come from the protected interests...
...Every amendment to the Canadian tariff pact offered for the purpose of making it in some degree less burdensome to American agriculture and affording some measure of relief to the American consumers was voted down...
...The Citadel of Protection" "SENATORS will remember a brief two years ago when that gifted man of power, the late Senator Dolliver, was here in all his splendid vigor, striking masterful blows against this particular schedule, and pressing in debate the then Senator from Rhode Island, Mr...
...Borah Bradley Brandegee Briggs Burnham Burton Clark, Wyo...
...President...
...They were denied relief...
...It was pointed out repeatedly that this was not the real reason...
...For that reason, if for no other, I believe the Senate should adopt the amendment to this woolen schedule which I offer, and relieve the people of a part of the great burden which the Payne-Aldrich tariff imposes upon them...
...Bankhead Bailey Bacon Bourne Bristow Brown Bryan Chamberlain Chilton Clapp Clarke, Ark...
...The "Argument" that Prevailed ONE "ARGUMENT" sufficed to insure its passage...
...These sales yield from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 each...
...PRESIDENT, the whole country, I think, understands pretty well the iniquities of this schedule of the tariff law...
...The La-Follette amendment to the cotton schedule reducing the duties 47 per cent...
...It would have been a great relief to all consumers throughout the land, but it was defeated then...
...It left the standpatters gasping...
...Not so, however...
...The question is...
...Mr...
...It was rejected...
...Johnston, Ala Kenyon Kern La Follette McCumber Martin, Va...
...All amendments offered will be voted down...
...It may be that the people of this country are to be denied at this session any revision of this schedule, which nobody has the courage to defend, which even the President of the United States, who thinks the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill the best ever made, has felt bound to admit is a bad schedule, that ought to be changed...
...There will be no other changes in the tariff law...
...So I say to you now that there is every reason in the world why the Senate, with the facts that the public has possession of and that we have possession of, should proceed to reduce the duties now...
...These duties are enormously excessive, and no protectionist who cares for the principle involved in protection and wants to see that system maintained in this country will hesitate to cut the duties, and to cut them DEEPLY...
...Then Senator La Follette moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill failed to pass...
...The combined votes of stand-pat Republicans and Democrats defeated its adoption at that time...
...Summing up the changes proposed in his amendment to Schedule K, Senator La Follette said: "The ad valorem rates proposed will simplify the schedule in point of phraseology, will automatically do away with whatever fraud there is in the so-called compensatory duty, will abolish the discrimination against the poor man's cloth in favor of that of the rich man, will remove the discrimination against the carded-wool manufacturer in favor of the worsted-goods manufacturer, and, without attempting to draw the line between the compensatory and the protective duty, will automatically provide for both, leaving ample protection for the wool-grower and the manufacturer, without leaving the consumer completely at the mercy of the latter...
...The Bristow amendment to attach to the bill reductions in duties on sugar was voted down...
...The timber land is surveyed and blocked off in tracts...
...As far as its framers were concerned, the Ultimate Consumer was indeed, as Lodge once exclaimed, a "myth...
...The public is the victim...
...How Bad Is It...
...The duties on wool were made to appear much higher than they are...
...He went with the solemn assurances of the "Old Guard"—what is left of it—that there would be no further tariff revision this session...
...It passed...
Vol. 3 • August 1911 • No. 32
