A SUPREME FOLLY
Follette, Robert M. La
A Supreme Folly THE return to Congress of a number of the old standpat leaders from states and districts in which Aldrich has been the ideal for a quarter of a century, is hailed with joy by...
...A Supreme Folly THE return to Congress of a number of the old standpat leaders from states and districts in which Aldrich has been the ideal for a quarter of a century, is hailed with joy by special interest press and politicians...
...Let that not be forgotten...
...Remember 1908, 1910 and 1912...
...They propose to "rescue our perishing industries...
...If it will but furnish employment to labor at a scant living wage, overgrown business, swaggering and brutal, shall have license to destroy competition, establish monopoly, violate the law, intimidate justice, corrupt government, destroy democracy, and set up in its place industrial and commercial despotism...
...This he did not receive in the Democratic tariff bill...
...And so we have had our season of "business depression"— a small measure of it the logical result of tariff changes, necessary during the period of readjustment from the false, artificial, inflated basis to a sound, honest, stable basis of actual values...
...It is the religion of the tory that he who "disturbs business" commits the unpardonable sin...
...But what of that...
...Does any rational human being doubt that the tariff interests would fight to the last ditch to maintain their unlawful profits...
...It may contribute to the political success of a few Senators and Members of Congress from pro-tariff states to contend for such legislation...
...Like conditions produce like results...
...The consumer will have to pay the piper...
...On wool and sugar and most of the products of agriculture, the cut was unwarranted...
...And the Wilson administration has been "disturbing business...
...more than "the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad...
...No such tariff monstrosity can ever be maintained...
...It was an open boast of standpat statesmen at the beginning of the tariff session under the present administration that "the protected interests would make the American people pay dearly for their folly in the election of 1912...
...They had many times warned the public that it would be unsafe to interfere with them...
...The interests could afford to take a small present loss on a manufactured depression to restore their privileges of monopoly and huge profits for another long high-tariff period...
...Its principal offense is that it has reduced the tariff...
...We must have "prosperity" at any price...
...Democratic tariff duties on the schedule of manufactures, with the exception of some of the more highly finished products, accorded to those industries a fair measure of protection against foreign competition...
...But on the whole the bill was a PROTECTIVE TARIFF MEASURE, and infinitely better and fairer to the American people than the Payne-Aldrich law...
...There was no reason for a business depression of a radical or general character...
...that when a few million laborers had been laid off, and the balance had suffered a cut in their wages...
...BUT IT IS SUPREME FOLLY FOR GREAT INDUSTRIES TO HOPE TO ESTABLISH BUSINESS STABILITY AND REAL PROSPERITY OK A BASIS OF WRONG AND INJUSTICE...
...That there should be some business disturbance following a reduction of the high tariff duties was inevitable...
...Business is to be revived and labor is to be rewarded...
...The investigation of Taft's tariff board proved beyond dispute that many favored industries were entrenched behind the tariff duties of the Payne-Aldrich law, ranging from one to two and three hundred per cent...
...but upon many things grown upon the farm, he has foreign competition maintained under conditions which entitle him to the same measure of protection accorded to the American manufacturer...
...Already the first number of the program of a new administration is announced'—"restore the Payne-Aldrich tariff...
...Of course it will raise prices and increase the cost of living...
...They are already counting upon "a large increase in duties all along the line...
...For the most part it is true that the farmer cannot be materially benefited by tariff duties upon his products...
...That much of the depression was artificial cannot be disputed...
...that when the banks reduced the credit line and people were made to feel the pinch, they would be eager to bring Aldrich and Cannon back and beg them to make the wheels go round...
Vol. 6 • November 1914 • No. 45
