The American Magazine (1906-1956)/Volume 64/Editorial Announcement

EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

THIS story is all news to me" is a phrase frequently used by readers of Miss Tarbell's narrative of "The Tariff in Our Times," which The American Magazine has been publishing during the past year. Curiously enough the events of our own times, by which we mean the 50 years just behind us, often are all news to us. We know the story of the Revolution of '76 better than the story of Reconstruction; the causes of the fall of the Bastille are clearer to us than the causes of the Panic of 1873! It was this consideration mainly that led us to publish Miss Tarbell's narrative. We wanted to get certain significant facts of recent tariff history clearly in the minds of our readers in order to use them as a basis for telling certain other stories of the day in which we are all concerned and of which we are all thinking. What are these facts?

It is clear that at the beginning of the period covered the country was committed to low duties, laid primarily for revenue and only incidentally for protection. It was not a change in the popular mind that brought about high duties. They were laid from 1862 to 1865 to compensate manufacturers for internal taxes made necessary by the war, and the raise of duties was accompanied by a distinct promise to take them off as soon as the war was over and the internal taxes were removed.

But they were not taken off when the taxes were because of the strength of the resistance of those who profited by the duties.

The party in power, the Republican, was occupied with serious problems: the war debt, reconstruction, the resumption of specie payment. To solve these problems it felt the necessity of a strong and solid front. Again and again it compromised on the tariff. The Democratic party came into power committed to a tariff for revenue—with incidental protection. But the same interests which had converted the Republicans to their uses went to work to protectionize the Democrats and they were finally able to prevent the party carrying out the policy to which it was committed. That is, Miss Tarbell's first series of articles makes it clear that for twenty-five years after the close of the war both great political parties shaped their course on the tariff to suit the demands of those who profited by it.

The Story of a Great Campaign

What were the methods by which the protected interests were able to exercise such power in politics? Miss Tarbell's second series of articles, which will appear in the coming numbers of The American Magazine, will answer this question. It is doubtful if there has ever been an educational effort in the United States in behalf of a doctrine equal in organization to that which was developed to eradicate the general belief in tariff for revenue with incidental protection and replace it by the doctrine of protection for protection's sake. It was a campaign which included every device from the most vulgar of broadsides to the very founding of institutions of learning to teach protection. It was a campaign inaugurated supported and carried on almost exclusively by those who profited by the duties. There never was a disinterested element of any importance in it.

Hand in hand with the education machine built up by the protectionists went the political machine, developed until it has been able to control the elections in scores of Congressional districts—to name the chairmen of the Ways and Means Committee, to select the chairmen of at least the Republican National Committee, and to dictate to the very president of the United States! From it grew many political devices full of significance, its chief fruit of course being the Campaign Fund, as we now know it.

Apt Pupils and Unholy Alliances

While the educational and political machinery of the protectionists have always been active in any field where there was a chance of success labor has been its favorite field. Here it has applied most successfully its methods. The efficiency in organization and in the exercise of political pressure which the labor unions of to-day show are due in no small degree to what the men learned from their protectionist employers from 1870 to 1890; that is, that solidarity in labor which manufacturers are trying to overcome is a solidarity of which they themselves laid the foundations, hoping to use it for their own purposes!

A no less interesting phase of protective work which is also developed in the articles is the alliance of those who enjoy tariff privileges with those who enjoy transportation privileges, immunity from taxes, land grants, monopoly of franchises, power of unrestricted combination, freedom from governmental regulation. In this alliance the tariff element is undoubtedly by far the strongest.

The leading feature of the second series of articles, however, is the discussion of the results which have come from allowing the protected to make their own tariff schedules. The leaders of both political parties repeatedly pointed out from 1860 to 1887 that high tariffs must result in increased cost of living—in a surplus which would lead us into vicious national extravagances and in a crop of monopolies and tariff-made millionaires. What are the facts—what has the tariff had to do with the present high prices of the necessities of life—with our "billion-dollar Congresses"—with multi-millionaires?

Are Havemeyer and Carnegie Self-Made?

Not only are these economic results discussed; there are chapters on certain intellectual and ethical effects of our dealings with the tariffs which are too often overlooked. Among others is that change in our spirit of self-reliance. Time was when Americans gloried in working out, unaided, their careers. The protective tariff has done an enormous amount to undermine this spirit. The greatest portion of the opulent class of the country have achieved their wealth by the aid of privileges. Our tariffmade millionaires can none of them truly be said to be self-made men. Mr. Havemeyer is a tariff-made millionaire, just as Mr. Rockefeller is a rebate-made millionaire. Mr. Carnegie is a combination of the two—the tariff mainly, but rebates not inconsiderably have given him an enormous advantage over the mass of men. That is, these gentlemen, who are undoubtedly natural money-makers of unusual ability, have obtained their unnatural wealth through discriminations made in their favor. Their success has had its effect. Under the influence of the protective idea the strongly individualistic spirit of this people is changing. This is, of course, logical. Protection and paternalism are as one and inseparable as free trade and individualism.

Is the Bargain a Good One?

Perhaps the most serious side of protection, as it has been worked out in this country, is ethical. As has been said, there has been at no time ignorance or silence in either party on the dangers inherent in a protective system. Throughout this period of twenty-five years there were always men in both parties insisting on the inevitable corruption that would come from an oligarchy organized to preserve privileges, on the deterioration in national selfreliance which would come from protecting people in their private undertakings. To meet these critics the protected have opposed as a justification the material results. Protection may mean monopolistic trusts, they say, but it means also raising the value of our steel and iron production from two hundred and ninety-six million dollars in 1880 to over eight hundred and four millions in 1900. Protection may breed alliances between the privileged, but it means making 1,025,920,000 pounds of tin plate in 1904, where twelve years before we made but 42,000,000 pounds. Protection may require intellectual jugglery, but it produced the beet sugar industry. And they contend the bargain is a good one!

The Cost of Living

It is with these significant and interesting developments of the protective policy that Miss Tarbell will deal in the coming year. The articles will carry on the historical narrative, although they will be separate studies. They will be published at intervals as editorial policy dictates. The first of the new series will be called "The Tariff and the Cost of Living."

In no sense are the articles controversial. They will deal entirely with facts open to any student who will take the trouble to unravel them. What we have done on the tariff — why we have done it, and what the results have been, is the subject matter of the articles. We believe we are not wrong in our conviction that the time for shirking the tariff question — from diverting attention from it by threats of panic and depression — is passing. The country is strong enough morally, intellec- tually and financially to PTamiti^ thought- fully the whole case, to make up its mind what is good and what is bad in the ^rstem now fixed on us and then with due care but with due firmness to correct the bad. Whatever will contribute to this end is worth publisning. We believe Miss Tar- bed's amcies are sucn a contribution.