Newspapers / The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) / Feb. 11, 1915, edition 1 / Page 6
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THE OLD GUARD BACK ON THE JOB By Senator Robert M. LaFollette in LaFollette's Weekly. The return to Congress of a number of the old stand- pat leaders from States and districts m winch Aldnch has been the ideal for a quarter of a century is hailed with joy by special interest press and politicians. Business is to be revived and labor is to be rewarded. Already the first number of the program of a new administration is announced "restore the Payne-Aldrich tariff." They propose to "rescue our perishing industries. They are already counting upon "a large increase in du ties all along the line." Of course it will raise prices and increase the cost of living. The consumer will have to pay the piper. But what of that ? We must have "prosperity" at any price. And the Wilson administration has been "disturbing business." Its principal offense is that it has reduced the tariff. That there should be some business disturbance fbl lowing a reduction of the high tariff duties was inevitable, i hat much of the depression was artificial cannot be dis puted. Does any rational human being doubt that the tariff interests would fight to the last dicch to maintain their unlafful profits? They had many times warned the public that it would be unsafe to interfere with them. 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: that when a few million laborers had been laid off, and the balance had suffered a cut in their wages; 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." The interests could afford to take a small present loss en a manufactured depression to restore their privileges ef monopoly and huge profits for another long high-tariff period. And so we have had our season of "business depres si on" a small measure of it the logical result of tariff changes, necessary during the period of readjustment from the false, artificial, anflated basis to a sound, honest, stable basis of actual values. There was no reason for a business depression of a radical or general character. Democratic tariff duties on the schedule of manu factures, with the exception of some of the more highly finished products, accorded to those industries a fair mieasure of protection against foreign competition. On wool and sugar and most of the products of agriculture, the cut was unwarranted. For the most part it is true that the farmer cannot be materially benefitted by tariff duties mpon his products; but upon many things grown upon the farm, he has foreign competition maintained under con ditions which entitle him to the same measure of pro tection accorded to the American manufacturer. This he tlid not receive in the Democratic tariff bill. But on the whole the bill was a PROTECTIVE TARIFF MEASURE, and infinitely better and fairer to the American people tkan the Payne-AIdrich law. The investigation of Taft's tariff board proved be yond dispute that many favored industries were entrench t d behind the tariff duties of the Payne-Aldrieh law , rang ing from one to two and three hundred per cent more thai: "the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad." No such tariff monosity can ever be maintained. It may contribute to the political success of a few Senators s.nd members of Congress from pro-tariff States to con tend for such legislation. BUT IT IS SUPREME FOLLY FOR GREAT INDUSTRIES TO HOPE TO ESTABLISH BUSINESS SECURITY AND REAL PROSPERITY ON A BASIS OF WRONG AND INJUSTICE. Remember 1908, 1910, 1912. Like conditions produce i like results. Let that not be forgotten. ""' SOME STRIKING POINTS IN PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH in INDUSTRY, ECONOMY, INTEGRITY If I were not ready to fight for everything I believe I would think it my duty to take a back seat. I love the Democratic Party, but I love America a exeat deal more than I love the Democratic Party, and when the Democratic Party thinks that it is an end in itself, then I rise up and dissent. There are Democrats who are sitting in the breech ing strap, wTho are holding back, who are nervous. claim to be an animated conservative, because being a conservative I understand to mean a man who not only preserves what is best in the Nation, but who sees that in order to preserve it you dare not stand still. ' Politics in this country does not depend any longer upon the regular members of either party. There are not enough regular Republicans in this country to take and hold national power, and I must immediately add that there are not enough regular Democratc, either. This country is guided and its policy is determined by the in dependent voters. What seems perfectly evident to me is this, that if you made a rough reckoning you would have to admit that only about one-third of the Republican Party is progressive; and you would also have to admit that about two-thirds of the Democratic Party is progressive. The Republicans have not had a new idea in thirty years; they have not known how to do anything except sit on the lid. This country is bursting its jacket, and they (the Re publicans) are seeing to it that the jacket is not only kept tight, but is riveted with steel. There is one thing that I have got a great enthusi asm about, I might almost say a reckless enthusiasm, and that is human liberty. Until this recent revolution in Mexico, until the end of the Diaz regime, 80 per cent, of the people of Mexico never had a look-in in determin ing what their government should be. The country is theirs. The government is theirs, The liberty, if they can get it and God speed them in getting it! is theirs, and so far as my influence goes while I am President nobody shall interfere with them. Have not European nations taken as long as they wanted and spilled as much blood as they pleased in set tling their affairs, and shall we deny that to Mexico be cause she is weak? No, I say! I want to ask the business men here present if this is not the first January in their recollection that did not bring a money stringency for the time being. I have asked bankers if that happened this year, and they say, "No, it did not happen; it could not happen under the Federal Reserve Act." We have emancipated the credits of this country. TAKE A LOOK AT CANADA Edmond Sebastien in the National Magazine. The basic function of education has to do with the de relopment and drection of will power in the child. The f undamental lesson to be learned by all human beings is industry application to the execution of a task. This re jures an exercise of will at the outset and continuously though the will is strengthened and the tasks lessen in difi culty and relative repugnance with practice. The deci sion to work, when it would rather play, represents the first and most vital achievement in the development and life of a child; and to bring the will up to this decision is the first task and duty of education. Next comes the lesson of self-control ; and it is closely allied to the first. Indeed, it is involved in the first, as self-control, in a marked degree, has been attained by the child who proceeds to do a thing that is not agreeable, though a sense of duty, necessity or obedinence to instruc tions. But the lesson of self-control goes further and ex tends to the whole of personal conduct to the regulation and inclination and appetite. Economy is the lever of the educator here. The child that is always satisfying its craving for sweets, for in stance, is cultivating indulgence and extravagance, the two main materials of loose character. On the other hand the child that is taught to restrain the continuous indul gence of its inclination and senses is being shaped for useful citizenship. Industry and economy, therefore, as developing will power and self-control, are the first and main goals of education; and they are so, properly, as they do more than anything else to prepare the character of the child for the growth of the seed of sound integrity; which completes the trio of the cardinal virtues of mankind, upon which .the security and progress of society rest From the Milwaukee Journal (Rep.) Some of the Tories who have been scolding President Wilson for not keeping the American dinner pail full should be greatly enligthened by. reading a little indus trial history now being made in Canada. It would reveal, for instance, that the Grand Trunk Railroad proposes to educe the wages of 14,000 employees. It might be added that the earnings of the Canadian Pacific have fallen off nanv millions since the outbreak of the war. Canadian cities have hosts of unemployed men in spite of the indus- tries that have been stimulated by the demand tor war materials. This, in Canada, the State where the corporations are so '"fairly treated," where railroad and Trust commis sions are not treading on the heels of the beneficent rulers of Big Business. With all these wholesome Canadian laws, carefully designed to promote and encourage ex pansion of trade, Canada still has a depression. Why not blame Mr. Wilson tor tne depression in Canada as well as that in the United States? Since any Democratic Executive must bear the brunt of crop fail ures and-panics .bothbef ore and after hisdministration, . . I t mi i r j l 1 wny not unioaa tne depression oi vanaaa upon ms snoui ders as well? Why such deference to a high office and an overworked President? OUR TOWN Formulated and distributed by the Chautauqua Associa tion, of Swarthmore, Pa. My Creed I believe in our town. I believe in our boys and girls. I believe in our churches and schools, and in our stores and industries. I believe in clean entertainment for our town I believe in clean streets and alleys, in flowers and grass plots and in buildings both sigthly and useful. I believe that much of my happiness depends upon the happiness of my neighbors. . I believe that much of my prosperity depends upon the prosperity of my neighbors. My Pledge I will work for our boys andgirls, for our churches and schools. I will help provide for wholesome recreation and clean entertainments for our town. I will work for my neighbors. I will give a deaf ear and a bridled tongue to all scan dal about my neighbors. I will delight my own and my neighbors' eye with grass plots instead of rubbish heaps, with flowers instead of weeds. I will insure, my own and my neighbors' health by keeping alleys and barn lots clean. I will bury any grudge against my neighbor.s When prices are no higher, I will aid myself and my neighbors by buying at the stores in our town. I will help make our town the best town on the map. WAR AND INDUSTRY The New York Commercial discusses the above suk ject most interestingly as follows: Comment was made recently in this column of the fallacy of the theory that the costly wars of modern times cannot be financed for more than six months with out exhausting the resources of contending nations. The present world war has exploded another fallacy, the the ory that industrial prostration of the belligerent Nations necessarily must attend a prolonged struggle. It was on this theory that the price of cotton broke last fall from 12 cents to 6 cents a pound. The trade believed that con sumption of cotton would be curtailed to such an extent through prostration of the textile industry that there would be no demand for the staple. During the first six i months of the war, with two of the largest consumers of cotton almost completely isolated, the cotton market saw the largest foreign buying movement in years and the volume of exports of the staple constantly expanding. The heaviest buyers have been the warring peoples. The facts seem to be that the first clash of arms was a severe shock to industry throughout Europe. The sum moning of workers to the colors, the interruption of sys tems of transportation and the dislocation of foreign com merce gave industrial enterprise a tremendous setback. For the moment paralysis was complete. Then followed a readjustment which has been continuous ever since. This industrial revolution is now almost complete and instead of increasing depression the unexpected phenom enon of gradual recovery to normal conditions is wit nessed. The remarkable recovery of British industry is dis closed in the White Paper issued on that subject by the Board of Trade. While private business has fallen off to an unprecedented extent government requirements have so expanded that the labor market at the end of the cal- eudar year presented the appearance of a veritable bcom. A striking feature of the industrial transformation caus ed by the war has been that the transference of labor and machinery was affected with a minimum of unemploy ment. The report shows that there were actually 2.7 per cent fewer men unemployed in December than there were a month before the war broke out. It will be answered that the summons to the colors accounts for the decreased number of unemployed. The point is granted but with reservations for the reDort shows conclusively that the percentage of employment has risen steadily during the period of the war. Thus. according to this interesting compilation, whereas the reduction in the number of male work people employed in October was 10.7 per cent compared with the previous July, by December the reduction in the number of work men employed had fallen to 10.6 per cent. The proof of mcx easeu muustnai activity is aiso nad in tne. iact tnat the number of workers on short time was reduced from 17.3 per cent in October to 10.8 per cent in December while the percentage of overtime rose from 5.2 per dent in Oc tober to 13 per cent in December. The improvement in the industrial employment of women workers in Great Britain is shown to have been almost equally marked. The trades which show greatest contraction of employ ment are the cotton, the building and the furniture trades according to this Whitf Paper, but it appears that this is due less to the stoppage of consumptive demand than to a shortage of skilled labor due to enlistments in the army. The work is ther to be done, but plants cannot run to the capacity of their orders because they lack skilled workers. After allowing for enlistments the number of cases in which employes have been taken on is considerably in excess of the dismissals. What has occurred in England is more or less typical of conditions in the other warring Nations. There is reason to believe that industrial conditions in the war zone will continue to adjust themselves to a state of bel ligerency and that the improvement already noted will increase rather than diminish. SING A SONG OF GLADNESS Have you tried to measure the depth of Europe's woe? Have vou looked bevond the dare and'riitter and pomp of marching armies to the horrors of battlefields which make all of Dante's imaginations of the Inferno seem tame and commonplace? , Have you opened your soul to a study of what it means to have 400,000,000 people in an agony of suspense, of suffering, of aching and breaking hearts, for every shell fired, though it miss its mark, yet strikes some wom an's or child's heart? Have you thought that never in the history was there such an awful weight upon so many millions of people and that never before did the angels of Heaven look down upon so much human suffering, physical and men tal, as now? Have vou thought of the millions and millions who in their homes will suffer in deepest poverty, and who this winter will know more of famine and of starvation than the world has ever known before, while husbands and fathers and brothers and sweethearts will day after day be among the killers or the killed? And as vou think of these thincs. is not vour heart so full of gratitude for the blessings enjoyed by you and every man, woman and child who has the privilege of. living in this country, that there is no room left in your soul for worrying over the petty things that confront us in business? Sing a song of joy and gladness a song of thanks-. giving every hour of your life. Make the best of the situation even though vou mav have manv real burdens to carry, and the clouds will pass away ere you know it. Manufacturer's Record.
The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.)
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Feb. 11, 1915, edition 1
6
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