On the Border

The Republicans had been talking about the tariff. Nominee Curtis, Secretary Jardine, Senators Moses, Borah and Fess, Speaker Longworth, Under-Secretary Ogden Mills and many another had been saying and repeating what a dreadful thing it would be for the Democrats to obtain power, because they would lower the tariff. The tariff, thanks to Republican persistence, was beginning to loom with Prosperity as one of the campaign issues. National Chairman Work (Republican) drew National Chairman Raskob (Democrat) into a public tariff debate, in the course of which Mr. Raskob promised to resign if it could be shown that Nominee Smith did not favor a protective tariff. That put it up to Nominee Smith, who was already very busy planning where to go and when to speak along the border between the North and South.

Moving southwards, visiting at Richmond, Va., where Governor Byrd shook his hand heartily and Mrs. Byrd put a rose in his buttonhole, the Nominee planned what he would say about the tariff. In his speech of acceptance, he had said: "The Democratic Party does not, and under my leadership will not, advocate any sudden or drastic revolution in our economic system which would cause business upheaval or economic distress. This principle was recognized as far back as the passage of the Underwood Tariff bill."

That last sentence would need explaining, because the Underwood bill placed on the free list a lot of things that farmers raise, viz. bacon, hams, hogs, wool, lambs, sheep, corn, wheat, potatoes, rye, milk, cattle.

At Nashville, the Nominee paused for an unscheduled speech, a reply to Nominee Hoover's speech in Tennessee the week prior. He came down hard on the Hoover equivocating over water power and Muscle Shoals (see Republicans). He extricated himself from the position on immigration into which he felt Nominee Hoover had tried to place him. He said: "In Tennessee, the Republican candidate said, 'I do not favor an increase immigration.' Why does he say that? . . . I do not favor any letdown [of alien restrictions] at all. ... It smacks a little too much of the old-time legal practice that they used to tell about, when the lawyer wanted to get the witness in bad by saying: 'When did you stop beating 'your wife?' '

But tariff was still uppermost in his mind and he announced that he would speak on it next evening in Louisville.

Louisville was a logical place, and at the same time a fearsome place, for a Democratic speech on the tariff. It was in Louisville, in the columns of his Courier-Journal, that the late Col. Henry Watterson (1842-1921) used to thunder about the tariff. It was Col. Watterson who called the Democratic party "the star-eyed goddess of tariff reform" and who in 1884 coined the oldtime phrase, "A tariff for revenue only," a phrase repeated in national Democratic platforms as late as 1920. Nominee Smith had the double problem of breaking away from the revenue-only tradition and of embracing the historically Republican principle of protection without losing political steam.

In the Louisville speech, he proceeded as follows:

"Now, of course, we know as sensible people that the tariff argument can and has been used for the purpose of covering a multitude of political sins ... a handy smoke screen." He pointed out that the Republican tariff plank was seven lines long in 1920, two pages long in 1924 and 1928.

He disputed the Republican claim of credit for "the new standard of American wages and American living conditions," by asserting that

1) Wages and conditions are not so fine in the coal, textile and agricultural worlds, and

2) The "new standard" was set during the Wilson administration, by two War factors: a) the cessation of immigration; b) the removal of U. S. industry's foreign competition.

The standard having changed, "two things . . . remain to be done in order to maintain it: continue the [immigration] restriction and leave the tariff where it will give full protection. . . .

"This the Democratic party in its platform holds to be absolutely necessary. ..."

Next he quoted President Coolidge's speech last June to the Bureau of the Budget, in which President Coolidge explained that an Administration is not obliged to furnish the people with Prosperity, but with "every fair opportunity" for Prosperity, which the people furnished themselves.

"Now," said Nominee Smith, "the object of linking prosperity to the tariff is, first to scare off businessmen and scare off the wage earners; but there is another-- campaign contributions have, to come in.

"No general tariff bill was ever enacted as the result of a report from a properly constituted fact-finding body.

"The tariff has been in politics. It has been brought about by the log-rolling system, by the give and take--you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours--give me my schedule and I'll vote for yours."

Next came a review of partisanship in the U. S. Tariff Commission, blaming Democrats and Republicans alike, Taft, Wilson, Harding and Coolidge, but forgiving Wilson because of the recreation of the Commission in 1916. Secretary Jardine received a flaying for having misquoted the Smith reference to the Underwood Act of 1913.

Finally came the Smith tariff "prescription," in nine parts, of which the following were significant:

1) "I believe that the tariff should be taken out of politics."

4) "I state definitely that the Democratic party if intrusted with power will be opposed to any general tariff bill. . . . I definitely pledge that the only change I will consider in the tariff will be specific revisions in specific schedules, each considered on its own merits by an impartial commission. . . ."

5) "... I say to the American workingman that the Democratic party will not do a single thing that will take from his weekly pay envelope a 5-cent piece. To the American farmer I say that the Democratic party will do everything in its power to put back into his pocket all that belongs there. And we further say that nothing will be done that will embarrass or interfere in any way with the legitimate progress of business--big or small."

6) "In the belief that provision for a bi-partisan tariff commission promotes rather than eliminates politics. I would ask Congress to give me authority to appoint a tariff commission of five members from among the best qualified in the country to deal with the problem irrespective of party affiliations, with a salary sufficiently large to induce them to devote themselves exclusively to this important work."*

9) "I can relieve the Republican party and its managers of the necessity of spreading false propaganda about the Democratic attitude on the tariff by stating that neither the Underwood nor any other tariff bill will be the pattern for carrying into effect the principles herein set forth."

*The U. S. Tariff Commission is at present composed of six members, of which not more than three may be of the same political party. They receive $9,000 each per annum. The present, and usual, constituency is three Republicans, three Democrats and it is usually deadlocked on party lines when reports are required of it.