THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Lippitt THE COTTON PLANT was first cultivated in this country as a garden flower. Today the United States produces five-sixths of the world's cotton supply....
...The first successful cotton factory in this country was established by Samuel Slater at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1790...
...Public hearings on the tariff bill were ordered before the House Committee on Way and Means...
...Many of them sleep and eat two meals a day in tenements that are scarcely fit for human habitation...
...Manufacture in Rhode Island means principally cotton goods manufacture...
...Payne by Lippitt and MacColl on behalf of the Arkwright Club, requesting that paragraphs 310 and 313 be amended and submitting the language desired...
...It was appreciated that the already high duties of the cotton schedule would invite attack in Congress...
...Practical, calculating, incisive, hard, men of money, they represent a business that is greedy and sordid...
...Rhode Island cast 72,317 votes in the last presidential election...
...The manufacture of cotton goeds was first extensively developed in Great Britain and Europe, but in more recent years and during the stage of highest mechanical development, its growth has been most rapid in the United States...
...This irrepealable right to tax Rhode Island, granted by the legislature to its System masters, was sold by them to Philadelphia capitalists for about $40,000,000...
...He read from his paper: "No such things exist in our industry as has made possible the great fortunes derived from other industries...
...My impression is that most of the large New England fortunes have been made in it...
...Lippitt appeared there, representing the Arkwright Club...
...As a safeguard against such contingencies, the office of governor, has been rendered utterly innocuous...
...I do not think so...
...Their effect was exposed on the floor of the House and Mr...
...A few years ago, a Democratic Governor, elected by the people of Rhode Island, addressed a message to the legislature in the following words: "Gentlemen: * * * That bribery exists to a great extent in the elections of this state is a matter of common knowledge...
...In a considerable number of our towns bribery is so common and has existed for so many years that the awful nature of the crime has ceased to impress...
...Then may I ask you what you call a large fortune...
...Their importance is recognized not only in the state government, but as the concern of the Rhode Island delegation in Congress...
...We are not accustomed to very large fortunes in New England...
...I said I thought three-quarters of a billion was a large fortune...
...The cemeteries of the factory towns are filled with thousands of graves of little babes who have been robbed of a home and mother care by the greed of the System—the System which houses its Lippitts and MacColls in palaces »nd builds them mills and fortunes out of the people's tariff trust fund contributed in the name of "protection for American labor...
...This was in the public hearing...
...Clark...
...The executive has no veto in legislation...
...I help them to get elected and, naturally, many warm friendships result, then when they are in a position to repay me they are glad to do it...
...With the exception of a new duty which was proposed for mercerized cloths and yarns, there was not a hint in the letter that any of the proposed changes would have the effect of increasing a single duty...
...The cotton schedule is their's too, just as "indefensible" as the woolen schedule and even more conspicuously an evidence of the power of "pull" and crooked canning in tariff legislation...
...of all the spindles in the country are found in the two adjoining counties Providence, Rhode Island, and Bristol, Massachusetts, (the Fall River district...
...Lippitt and MacColl: Tariff Boosters WHEN TIME for tariff revision arrived, the "Arkwright Club" of Boston knew exactly what it wanted...
...Longworth...
...The Republican party shouldn't be blamed...
...There were no public hearings before the Senate Committee...
...And, of course, the System uses its corruptly gotten and corruptly maintained legislature of Rhode Island to elect System representatives to the Senate of the United States...
...They issued $8,000,-000 of bonds to buy the property...
...Mr...
...Chairman Payne and his committee swallowed the bait whole, and reported the requested changes in their bill...
...Selling Legislation PROBABLY the most exclusively manufacturing State of any in the Union, the factory and labor laws of Rhode Island are preposterous...
...The Arkwright Club is dominated by Henry F. Lippitt and James R. MacColl of Rhode Island...
...In a recent election one member of the legislature was unanimously elected by the 78 voters of his town...
...About ten per cent...
...MacColl...
...The wages of cotton mill operatives which for the North Atlantic States average $7.51 a week in 1905 and less in Rhode Island, afford the work people only a miserable existence...
...Finally, as usual, it was left to Lippitt and MacColl of Rhode Island to formulate the plan and to furnsh the method...
...The people never elect the legislature...
...I only asked the queston because I thought it was rather an exaggerated statement...
...They dominate because of their eminent fitness to dominate an industrial oligarchy...
...Rubber and cutlery and jewelry are their's also, but these are small pickings...
...The matter presented some difficulty...
...Of course, when the bill came before the Senate all this trickery was exposed to the Senate and to the public, but Aldrich had the votes to put the increases through...
...But this was only an incident, a by-product of government by the System in Rhode Island...
...Brayton's perquisite was the right to sell to minor Interests and "outsiders" such legislation as they were willing to pay for which would not interfere in any way with the business of his "regular clients...
...This little family of New England manufacturers, as between themselves and the world at large, have been and are so harmonious and unanimous and happy together that legal forms are superfluous...
...Mr...
...They give to the Republican campaign fund in Presidential years, but usually when you go to them to get money for State election they say: 'O...
...He pointed to the increased cost of cotton, to the increased cost of labor and even to labor legislation restricting work hours and the employment of minors and women...
...Only a few own their homes...
...Facts were advanced which showed that the cotton goods industry of New England was not entitled to the protection that it was then receiving...
...Occasionally there is a protest even in Rhode Island against System government...
...Richard Arkwright's invention of the spinning frame in 1769, followed by Eli Whitney's cotton gin, were the foundation of this greatest of the textile industries, which today practically clothes the world...
...Mr...
...In managing the campaign every year I am in a position to be of service to men all over the State...
...There were no reasons given justifying increases in the cotton schedule...
...Mr...
...Lippitt's Idea of a "Lsrge" Fortune BUT MR...
...Longworth...
...Children are reared in day nurseries while mothers work in factories...
...I would regard a fortune of three-quarters of a billion as a large fortune...
...As everyone knows, I act for the Rhode Island Company...
...The money is furnished by the "respectable" Big Business interests of the State, principally the manufacturing, railroad, and franchise corporations...
...For its control in New England is highly centralized...
...that as trustee for the "protective tariff fund of prosperity for American labor" this industry was violating its trust...
...I do not know whether I understood Mr...
...The only question was how to go about it—the method...
...Mr...
...But it found new things that it wanted...
...The gentleman asked me what I considered was a large fortune...
...The administration of those laws by officials appointed under System dictation is equally so...
...They are imbued with the Rhode Island idea of the subservience of all things, and of government in particular, to the profits of business...
...Lippitt correctly to say that no large fortunes have ever been made in this business in New England...
...The rest is rubber, jewelry, cutlery, and gold and silver ware...
...We'll take care of our town;' so in that way all of the towns in the State are peddled around, each manufacturer taking care of his own town...
...Mr...
...Longworth...
...This is another story, the story of how and why it was done...
...For a few dollars spent in the elections the System buys outright the government of Rhode Island...
...Mr...
...The iniquities of the Aldrich cotton schedule we have explained heretofore...
...Occasionally the people elect a governor of Rhode Island...
...It owns and conducts the government for profit...
...Many assemblymen occupy the seats they do by means of purchased votes...
...Payne was obliged to withdraw that portion of the bill and change it, but much of what the gentlemen from Rhode Island had requested got through the house, some of it without being understood...
...Mr...
...All members of the family old enough to render service are driven by the System into the mills...
...The Arkwright Club THE Arkwright Club dominates the American cotton goods industry outside of the southern states...
...Among other things, Brayton said: "I don't think there is much outright vote buying being done...
...In many of the cotton mills of New England and of Rhode Island, in particular, the conditions under which operatives work are destructive both of health and morality...
...There they labored and "assisted" the customs experts detailed to assist Aldrich in making the tariff— the government's agents who could not even be interrogated by a Senator not on the Finance Committee without a written order from the President of the United States...
...They call it the "Arkwright Club...
...Clark...
...It was explained in the Lippitt-MacColl letter that these changes were designed simply to "clear up some disputed points in the present act," and "to meet legal questions" which have been brought up in connection with it, and that the, language and form of the paragraphs had the approval of Marion DeVRIES of the Board of General Appraisers...
...The Republicans have never passed any legislation that would bother them, like the ten-hour law, and things like that, until there was such a strong demand from the laboring people and the citizens that the party had to do it...
...And how successful they have been, these Rhode Island Interests, operating in conjunction with other Interests (particularly of New England) in jobbing the American people in tariff legislation...
...Thirty per cent...
...Aldrich Out: Lippitt In ALDRICH is going...
...Of the cotton schedule of the Dingley law, Governor Ding-ley wrote: "The cotton cloth manufacturers should have no fault to find with the Dingley tariff, because I allowed them to write the cotton cloth paragraphs as they pleased...
...Moreover, they live in Rhode Island...
...Rhode Island, the least and the most notorious of the States, has been for years the seat of venality and corruption that is a disgrace to the American commonwealth...
...There they could deal with their own Senator across the table...
...Lippitt Helps Make Tariff Law IN THE Senate the bill went to the Finance Committee—to Aldrich of Rhode Island...
...The business is one of narrow margins and success in it can only be attained by most careful management...
...In each election enough votes to carry a majority in the legislature are openly, commonly, notoriously bought with money...
...These two speak for the industry in Business and in Politics...
...Longworth...
...His leadership discredited and broken, his name anathema to an outraged, indignant populace, his usefulness to the System as Senator from Rhode Island and leader of the Senate has passed...
...of the legal voters of the State in some twenty towns elect a majority of the legislature...
...Where the industry took root one hundred and twenty years ago, there today is its center of control...
...After the hearings were concluded and as the tariff bill wag about to be reported to the House by Chairman Payne, a letter was written to Mr...
...Mr...
...is not called bribery, nor considered a serious matter...
...The child labor laws are not tenderly respected...
...Votes Are Paid for Their Time" AREMARKABLE INTERVIEW with "Boss" Brayton was published some time ago in the New York Evening Post...
...The "protected American labor" of the cotton mills of New England and of Rhode Island, in particular, is predominantly the imported pauper labor of Europe...
...The Democrats are just as bad, or would be if they had the money...
...Though the connection is hidden, a fair study of the cases indicate that there is a connection between the desire of this Interest for inordinate tariff duties and the series of remarkable and in many cases, absurd tariff boosting, custom-house decisions which have been rendered ir the last few years, and in most cases overruled by the courts...
...For the most part he read his testimony, which had been carefully prepared in advance...
...And the Interest was fairly well pleased with the schedule at the time...
...The cotton manufacture of New England is controlled by a little industrial oligarchy of about a half-dozen families...
...A billion...
...Mr...
...Brayton's job consisted of taking the funds contributed by the railroad, franchise corporations, and the manufacturers and placing it in the towns where it would secure the election of subservient legislators and, having elected the legislature, of directing its operation in channels dictated by System Interests...
...I am retained annually by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, and am usually spoken of as 'of counsel' for that road...
...which they did Rhode Island-wise...
...Its legislature passes such laws as will enable System Interests to prey most profitably upon the people...
...It was not necessary...
...It is well known that in such towns, when one political party is supplied with a corruption fund and the other is without, the party so provided invariably elects its assembly ticket, thus affording positive proof that the votes are bought and the voters bribed...
...What he couldn't put through in the Senate, he wrote into the bill in conference, and both Houses swallowed the dose, because that was the only bill that Aldrich and Payne and Cannon would permit Congress to pass...
...I mean to say if you compare the cotton industry with others...
...Their's is the woolen schedule, re-enacted in the last tariff law a little worse than in the Dingley law, and which even President Taft declared is "indefensible...
...THE CHIEF CONCERN of these Rhode Island Interests in Congress is the tariff...
...His testimony is as follows: "Mr...
...The governor is elected by the voters of the state at large...
...LIPPITT told the Payne committee that great fortunes were not made in cotton manufacture...
...The chief executive is an office with little honor and with less power, particularly of recent years...
...No general election passes without, in some sections of the state, the purchase of votes by one or both of the great political parties...
...I have had connections, not permanent, with various companies desiring franchises, charters, and things of that sort from the legislature...
...Some of them haven't treated the party just right...
...They are adepts at Rhode Island methods...
...There are now over twenty million cotton spindles in operation in the United States...
...These are the paragraphs which define the terms of the cotton schedule and slight changes in their language could be made to increase enormously the tariff duties under nearly all the paragraphs of the cotton schedule without changing the rates of the schedule...
...Other changes were also requested which would substantially increase many of the cotton goods duties...
...In 1840 in Rhode Island, out of a population of 108,000, only 9,500 landowners enjoyed the right of suffrage, and today the foundation of suffrage in Rhode Island is the ownership of property...
...The cities which contain nine-tenths of the population elect no more representatives than they did when they were villages, and the degenerate, decayed and depopulated country towns continue to elect a majority of the legislature...
...Lippitt and MacColl did not have to meet there consumers or importers or anyone else opposing their desires...
...The Rhode Island Company referred to by "Boss" Brayton is a consolidation of the principal street railways of Rhode Island, formed a few years back by Senator Aldrich and a group of associated "captains of finance...
...Their's is the Woolen Schedule...
...How much did you say you would regard as a comfortable fortune, three-quarters of a million, or three-quarters of a billion...
...They have a little club at Boston...
...Just as they have regarded it legitimate to plunder Rhode Island through control of State and local government, so they have held themselves entitled to batten upon the rest of us through the tariff laws of Congress...
...The reciprocity of benefits extends around the circle and embraces the petty rake-off of the corrupt political managers, immunities and privileges to the railroad and franchise companies and legislative indulgence or administrative protection for the factories...
...When the combination was perfected, the legislature gave them a perpetual franchise...
...The "Rotten Boroughs" IN RHODE ISLAND the legislature is the instrument of government...
...It continued to be governed under this charter for 179 years—until Door's Rebellion forced the adoption of a constitution in 1842...
...I think so...
...In some towns the bribery takes place openly...
...What more fitting successor to Aldrich could System-ridden Rhode Island send to the Senate than Lippitt—LIPPITT OF RHODE ISLAND...
...The legislature is elected by "rotten boroughs...
...You mean there are no manufacturers of very great wealth in New England...
...And there, behind closed doors, was unrolled for Aldrich and his handyman Smoot, the beautiful and wonderful scheme cf Lippitt and MacColl for boosting the cotton tariff without raising the rates...
...Mr...
...I am an attorney for certain clients and look out for their interests before the legislature...
...The manufacturers in the State are really to blame for present conditions...
...the voters are paid for their time, because they have to leave their work and come down to the polls...
...Its membership represents three-fourths of the cotton spindles of New England...
...They have not trustified the cotton mills...
...Yes, sir...
...Mr...
...The bulk of the industry is in New England...
...If the legislature is not satisfied with his appointments it makes them itself...
...The colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, founded by Roger Williams in 1635, was chartered by Charles II of England in 1663...
...It is a government by the "best people...
...He was questioned about it by members of the committee...
...In Rhode Island the factories are most important...
...For many years and up to a short time ago the government of Rhode Island was managed for the Interests by Charles R. Brayton...
...He concluded his statement: "We ask, therefore, that the present schedule shall not be materially changed and that cotton manufacturers be allowed to continue the operation and further development of this important industry under the tariff conditions that now prevail...
Vol. 3 • January 1911 • No. 4
