The Tariff in Our Times

by Ida M. Tarbell

When he had finished his clean, competent dissection, Schedule K lay before the Senate a law without principles or morals; and yet, just as it was, the Senate of the United States passed it, and the President of the United States signed it, and it went on the statute books, even to Mr. Whitman’s prohibitive duty on tops.

What made Mr. Whitman so powerful? Probably we shall not go far astray if we assert that the real reason is that for many years he and his worsted friends have been one of the main financial reserves of the high protective wing of the Republican party in New England, and that in return they have got what they asked for. That is political ethics—or etiquette. Ever since 1888 it has been a settled and openly expressed principle in political circles that your protection shall be in proportion to your campaign contribution. In that year it was laid down officially that as the manufacturers of the United States got “practically the sole benefit of the tariff” and in prosperous years “made millions” out of it, therefore it was entirely justifiable that those who granted the tariff should, when their time of need came, put these manufacturers “over the fire” and “fry the fat out of them.”

Mr. Whitman’s individual support is not to be despised, but with it has always gone the support of his association. It means the support of the great “wool trust” with William M. Wood at its head, and it means also, as we have seen, the support of the wool-growers of the far West—not, be it noted, of all the wool-growers of the country, but of those who, like the worsted manufacturers, are getting more out of the present duties than their competitors, and are therefore most anxious to keep them. These are the men who produce a wool which on an average will yield only about 44 pounds of clean wool in every 100 pounds sheared from the sheep. Yet their protection on this 100 pounds is the same as that of the farmer of the South whose wool yields 60 pounds to every 100, or the Eastern and Middle state farmers whose wool yields 52 out of every 100 pounds. The protests of these Eastern, Southern, and Middle West farmers that they are not fairly treated were no more heeded by the makers of the Payne-Aldrich Bill than the protests of the carded woollen and carpet manufacturers. The reason is obvious enough. The Western wool-growers are as loyal and generous in their support of their Senators as are Mr. Whitman and Mr. Wood of theirs. Each group—the wool-growers of the far West and the worsted manufacturers of the East—controls a good-sized block of votes. By uniting these blocks they control probably the largest and most dependable vote of any tariff-protected interest in the country. It is a vote which for over forty years has never bolted. It is a vote which always gets what it asks, for the simple reason that it is powerful enough to defeat any duty in a tariff bill if the backer of that duty is hostile, and nobody doubts it will exercise the power if tried. It is the size and solidarity of the vote which explains why when, through the boldness of the insurgents, the most odious features in the wool business had been laid before the Senate and a motion was made to send Schedule K back to the committee for revision, it was lost by 8 yeas and 59 nays. It is Mr. Taft’s reason—given frankly enough after he found the odium of allowing the schedule to stand was not going to pass. “The interests of the wool-growers in the far West,” said Mr. Taft, “and the interests of the wool manufacturers in the Eastern states, and in other states, reflected through their Representatives in Congress, were sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the wool tariff, and had it been attempted it would have beaten the bill reported from either committee.” Apparently the same combine was strong enough to prevent the presidential veto the country had a right to expect from Mr. Taft.

Not less significant than the experience of wool in the Payne-Aldrich Bill was that of cotton.

When Mr. Aldrich reported the bill of 1909 to the Senate on April 12, there was lively curiosity in many quarters about what the cotton schedule would contain. Rumors were general that it had been cleverly manipulated in its passage through the Ways and Means Committee. It was said that Mr. Payne had declared “in language somewhat exaggerated by impiety,” as Senator Dolliver afterward put it, that he had been fooled by the gentleman who had presented the needs of the schedule to him. It was known that he was so certain of the odium of a certain paragraph which he had reported that he had risen in the House and withdrawn it. It was certain that the first publication of the schedule had drawn down an avalanche of criticism and charges of bad faith, many of them from the most respectable and best informed trade sources. So vigorous and authoritative had the attack been that many believed that Mr. Aldrich would not venture to report the schedule which the House had sent him.

Schedule I, as the cotton schedule is known, is one of first importance. In 1905 there were over six hundred and thirteen million dollars invested in cotton manufactures in this country. The product was something over four hundred and forty-two million dollars—a big proposition from every point of view, not one to be lightly or dogmatically treated. A question of humanity, too, as well as of economics, for there were over 310,000 persons employed, 125,000 of whom were women, and 40,000 children under sixteen years of age.

It was not against the entire schedule that charges had been brought, but against that which concerns itself with woven goods—that is, sheetings, shirtings, muslins, calicoes. A very large proportion of the product in cottons comes under this head. Fully three hundred and eight of the four hundred and forty-two millions of dollars of cotton products produced in 1905 was in woven goods. Now all woven goods have been protected for many years, and so well protected that the importations in 1905 were only about eight millions of dollars—or about 2⅔ per cent of the product. These importations were not scattered over the whole group of cotton goods—they were concentrated on the higher grades. Of the cheaper cotton goods there is almost no importation; on the contrary, we exported over forty million dollars’ worth of them in 1905. What that means, of course, is that we have come to a point in making the cheap grades of cottons where we do not need much, if any, protection, since we can afford to export and sell them in competition with English-made goods.

With the higher grades of goods it is another story. We cannot make them as cheap as they are made abroad. We are turning out many really beautiful cotton fabrics, and our qualities and designs are continually improving, but they cost us more. The protection given all these better grade fabrics, however, has been sufficient to permit a great expansion in this part of the industry, and while it has not prevented importation, it has probably allowed no more than was a healthy stimulus to the industry. At least this was the opinion given to the Ways and Means Committee by the most important witness that appeared before it on cotton—Henry F. Lippitt, the general manager of the important group of Rhode Island mills in the Manville Company. Mr. Lippitt is a member of one of the half dozen or so families in whose hands the textile industries of Rhode Island are largely concentrated. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were cotton manufacturers. They were able men at their trade, as he is. They were also, as he is, stiff protectionists and active Republican politicians. Mr. Lippitt’s father and one of his brothers have been governors of Rhode Island. He has always been one of the main stays of the party in the state—a support of the blind Boss Brayton and one of Mr. Aldrich’s stanchest friends. Since the passage of the Payne-Aldrich Bill Mr. Lippitt has succeeded to Mr. Aldrich’s seat in the Senate. Mr. Lippitt’s expression about what was needed in the cotton schedule was accepted as authoritative, and this is what he said on December 1, 1908, when he appeared as a representative of the Arkwright Club of Boston:

“We are going to ask you to leave the duty as it is on the cloth schedule with the exception of some very minor points.

“We ask 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 upon the same tariff conditions that now prevail.