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LODGE'S STAND ON THE TREATY.

By William E. Brigham.

other co-operation or advice than that of the few unofficial satellites he called about him to run his errands. He told the Senate nothing, and he deliberately kept from its knowledge developments in many foreign countries, like Mexico and Central America; he shared no confidences even with the State Department, and he treated the Committee on Forrig Relations as if it did not exist. The Senate expected to co-operate with the President in his foreign policies and would have saved him many ridiculous blunders had it been consulted. But Mr. Wilson had his own way of doing things, and whenever he wanted anything of the Senate he sent his orders through Democratic messengers exclusively.

The writer often has been asked his tation with its members and with no private personal opinion. as to whether Senator Lodge would have taken the stand he has maintained on the treaty if any other man than Woodrow Wilson sat in the White House, in other words, if Mr. Lodge is playing personal partisan politics with the German peace treaty. The question does injustice to Senator Lodge for reasons which at once become apparent after a brief review of senatorial history. During all his long career in the Senate and as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations it has been the pride of Senator Lodge that "partisanship stops at the water's edge." If he has made that statement once to public audiences he has a hundred times, and his sincerity never has been questioned. It had become an article. almost of the religion of the senior senator that international questions should be considered with complete freedom from partisan bias, and it has been generally true of all members of the committee, of whatever party, that as far as foreign affairs. are concerned their first duty is to their country and not to the party which elected them.

It was with the utmost amazement, therefore, that when the Wilson administration came into power the members of the Committee on Foreign Relations noted the determination of the President to conduct foreign affairs without the slightest reference to the Senate, without consul

He con

ducted even the war on a partisan basis, as his supporters boasted at the Jackson Day Dinner, and his only communication with the Senate relative to the reservations to the League Covenant were made, one to a Democratic conference and the other to a political dinner.

It is particularly true of of Mr. Lodge, as of some other Republicans on the committee, that he would have acted as loyally and disinterestedly with President Wilson in foreign matters as with any other person, but Mr. Wilson had no use for the patriotic wisdom of men like Elihu Root. Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore E. Burton and Philander C. Knox. These men continued, however, to do

their duty as they saw it. Mr. Lodge was the strongest supporter of the President upon the highly controversial issue of the Panama Canal tolls, for example; and throughout the war Mr. Lodge and his colleagues supported the President often when members of his own party deserted him.

A QUESTION OF JUDGMENT, NOT
POLITICS.

But they had learned by experience that his judgment in international matters was not to be trusted, and they believed that the wholly novel personal policies he was bent upon following were visionary and dangerous. His Mexican policy they regarded with contempt, because it had alienated Latin America, destroyed American prestige and sacrificed hundreds of American lives and millions of American property with only literary attempts to protect them, or none at all; and they believed that in going up against the trained diplomats of the Old World with his theories the President was in danger of bartering away the American birthright without knowing that he had traded it off.

The sequel, from their point of view, justified their suspicions. They believe, a majority of the Senate believe and, apparently, most of the people of the United States believe that the United States cannot afford to try the experiment of entering an unprecedented League of Nations without safeguarding from destruction at the hands of foreigners the vital principles upon which the American Republic is founded. Sen

ator Lodge has asked nothing more than this and asks nothing more now.

Mr. Wilson, had he been. So minded, could have brought home from Paris an agreement that would have satisfied his own aspirations and been acceptable to the Senate and to the country. He preferred to trust to his own individual judgment and to his own partisans in the Senate for the success of his plans. He built his structure in his own narrow and exclusive way, with a threat that if his plan were not accepted he would annihilate his critics. His critics, however, unfortunately included the bulk of the American people, including also many members of his own party in the Senate, who allowed themselves to be restrained

by partisan ties and reasons from speaking their own minds. The result of this stubborn folly has been, to say the least, dangerous to the prospects of the League of Nations. The President can have an Americanized covenant any time he gives the word, but no other.

Commenting on the President and the World-League, Sidney Brooks says in "The Nineteenth Century": "But no President has ever stretched the Constitutional prerogatives of his office so far as did Mr. Wilson when he pledged the United States to enter a World-League for the maintenance of peace. The pledge was given without even the shadow of a mandate. Neither in nor out of Congress had it been preceded by anything more than the most casual debate; and the policy to which it committed. the country was one that cut clean across the strongest of American traditions."

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VISIONARY TARIFF ARGUMENTS.

By Roland Ringwalt.

It is a notable and deplorable fact that a very large proportion of those men who are engaged in educating the youth of the country and who thereby exert an immeasurable influence upon public affairs, are unsound. in their arguments and careless in their statements of fact. This is particularly true with regard to such questions as the tariff, government ownership, and internationalism.

We have before us, at the moment, a copy of a book on economics by Professor Henry Rogers Seager, a book that is being used in a course of study in economics at the night classes of the Y. M. C. A. Professor Seager pretends to set forth the arguments for and against a protective tariff; but he does it in such a way as to leave the preponderance of argument in favor of free trade, when, if he had been entirely frank, the argument would have been to the opposite effect. That he closed his eyes to facts is all the more evident when it is observed that his book was written in 1917, and did not take into consideration serious conditions which had been disclosed by the outbreak of the war. For example, he says that "national economic independence, the first and perhaps the strongest reason urged in support of protection, has long since been achieved and would. not be endangered in the slightest degree by a change of trade policy."

The author fails to set before his readers the figures which show that

when the Underwood tariff law be came effective, in 1913, our imports of foreign-made goods increased and our exports of home-made goods decreased until the merchandise trade balance turned against the United States. The drain upon American financial resources resulted in the closing of American mills, and millions of men were out of employment until the outbreak of the war served the purpose of a prohibitive tariff and revived American industry.

The statement that "national economic independence has long since been achieved" was disproved scores of times during the recent war, when America suffered seriously for the want of commodities for which we had depended upon Germany in the past. Dyestuffs and chemicals are notable instances, fresh in the mind of all the people. National economic independence has been achieved to the extent, and only to the extent, that we have maintained a protective tarif on those essential commodities whch other nations could supply more cheaply than we could produce ourselves. The vital consequences of economic dependence were never more forcefully illustrated than in the case of Russia, which had always depended upon Germany chiefly, and other nations in lesser degree, for manufactured commodities, being content to supply the raw materials herself. At the outbreak of the war, Russia was incapable of supplying

her armies with the essential equipment of an army, except raw materials. She had armies without guns or ammunition, and without the facilities for supplying the want.

The author of the book under consideration is not frank with his readers when he says that "it is the consuming public which has to pay higher prices for protected goods." While this may be true in some instances, it is not true as a general principle. In any event, it is not true when considered in relation to the ability of the consumer to pay. It is a notable fact, attested by the official reports of the administration that enacted the Underwood tariff law, that even before the war began the cost of living advanced under that law, although the law was enacted for the special purpose of reducing the cost of living. But even if there had been a one per cent decrease instead of a one per cent increase in the cost of living, of what avail would that have been to four million men who were thrown out of employment entirely and had no money with which to buy? Following the enactment of the McKinley tariff law, in 1890, which established a protective tariff on tin plate, the price of tin plate steadily and continuously declined, in face of the predictions of the free traders that the amount of the tariff would be added to the price of the product. Prior to that time the United States had depended chiefly upon Wales for tin plate. We paid tribute to the Welsh tin trust. It was predicted that by the establishment of a protective

tariff the American consumer would be compelled to pay duty to an American tin trust. The rapid decline in price as a result of the establishment of home industry completely disproves the theory that the amount of the tariff is always added to the price.

Another instance of lack of frankness on the part of the author is his statement that the success of the Democrats in 1916 "can only be interpreted as an endorsement of their tariff as of their other policies." It is amazing that any man who has been in touch with public affairs could make such a statement. The re-election of President Wilson in 1916 was brought about by the swinging of Republican States in the Middle West to the Democratic column, and that was accomplished by the delusive. plea, "he kept us out of war." But even with that astonishing swing of hitherto Republican States to the support of President Wilson, his election. would not have resulted but for a trivial incident in California, arousing the resentment of thousands of Republicans against the Republican candidate and turning the State to Wilson by a very narrow margin. If Charles E. Hughes had shaken hands with Hiram Johnson, he would have been President of the United States. The author of this book on the Principles of Economics must have known this to be true, yet he sets before the youth of the country the deliberate statement that the success of the Democrats in 1916 "can only be interpreted as an endorsement of their tariff, as of their other policies."

WILLIAM J. BATTISON.

William J. Battison of Needham, assistant secretary and statistician of

the National Association of Wool Manufacturers of Boston, died at his home in Needham on Sunday morning, January 3, after an illness of seven months' duration. Mr. Battison was born in England in 1842. In 1883 he became associated with the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, of which the late Hon. John L. Hayes was then secretary. His connection with that association continued up to the time of his death.

Mr. Battison was widely known, in this country and in all the wool and woolen centres across the water, as

an expert authority, not only on the wool manufacturing end, but also on the world wool clip and supply. One of his compilations, the Annual Wool Review, published by the association, always has been in wide demand by the trade. As an expert on wool, he was connected with several of the United States censuses, often being called to Washington to advise upon matters appertaining to the tariff on woolens and on Governmental statistical matters.

DOINGS IN CONGRESS.

Jan. 5-The Senate passed the school teachers' retirement bill, which, having already passed the House, was sent to conference.

The House passed by a vote of 231 to 55 a bill increasing monthly pensions to civil war veterans and dependent relatives totaling more than $65,000,000 annually.

Jan. 7-Chairman Cummins desig

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Jan. 10-Senator Walsh, Massachusetts, put into the Record a letter from President Lowell of Harvard University, in which Mr. Lowell announced his change of front in regard to Article X of the treaty and declaring that the article is "mischievous."

Jan. 12-The Senate passed a bill increasing fees of witnesses in Federal courts from $1.50 a day to $3 a day, and a bill placing pay of coas guard service on guard service on same basis as the navy.

Jan. 13-The House by 183 to 123 adopted the Gallivan resolution asking the War Department for a complete record of facts regarding the award of medals and decorations in the army. Democrats opposed the resolution after Representative Gallivan had denounced General March, chief of the army, and declared that many officers who never heard a shot were given medals, while scores of heroes in the American expeditionary forces have gone unrewarded.

Jan. 14-The Senate ratified trade conventions with Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Jan. 15-After a ten year fight the water power development bill was passed, 52 to 18, and sent to confer

ence.

The House passed the annual postoffice appropriation bill, carrying $460,977,868 for the support of the postal establishment during the next fiscal year, the aggregate being the largest ever carried in a postal bill.

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