| Show FIRST MESSAGE IN WILSON FEW WORDS IN deluna 13 CONGRESS WHAT IT SHOULD DO TARIFF REVISION HIS TOPIC dint sya the schedule schedules mut must bo as i radically changed to square with resent condition conditions but worn tta 11 t quires careful consideration washington april S B president Wilson Wl lson tg first message to the sixty third co cohere haress in extraordinary session was read in the senate and aud hour house today it was surprising ly lir abort short being in full an a follow follows to the senate and house of cepro senta tives I 1 have called the congress together in extraordinary session because a duty was laid upon the party now in power at the recent election elections which it ought to perform promptly in order that the burden carried by the people under existing exi eting liw may inar be lightened aa an soon ae six this and in order aleo also that the business interests Int ereita of the country u not be kept too long in suspense aa as to chott the fiscal change changes are sire to be to which they will be required to adjust themselves ves it ie in clear to the whole country that the tariff duties amit be altered they must be chanced changed to meet the radical alteration in the conditions of our life which the country has witnessed within the last generation whilo while the whole face and method of our industrial and commercial life were being changed beyond recount tion the tariff schedules have re bained what they were before the chance change began begin or have moved in the direction they were given when no larco large circumstance of our industrial development was what it is today our task ie Is to square them with the actual facts facto the sooner that la done the sooner we shall escape from suffering buffering from the facts and the sooner our men of business will vill be free to thrive by the law of nature the nature of free business instead jf it by the law of legislation and artificial arrangement ran gement Bual Sual nere ners not normal we have neen meen tariff legislation wander vander very far afield in our day very far indeed from froin the field in which our prosperity rity might have had a nor ua mra growth and stimulation no one who the facts sj shanely rely in the face or knows anything blat lies beneath the surface of action can fall to perceive the principles upon which recent tariff legislation hrs hes hr s been based we long ago presed beyond the modest notion of protecting the industries of the country and moved boldly forward to the idea that they were entitled to the direct pat rne of the government for a long time tinia a time so long that the men now active in public policy hardly remember the conditions that preceded it we have sought in our tariff schedules to give each group of manufacturers or producers what they themselves thought that they needed in order to maintain a practically exclusive market as against the rest of the world consciously or unconsciously we have built up a set of privileges and exempt hns from competition behind chich it was easy by any even the crudest forms of combination to organize monopoly until at last noth ing is normal nothing is obliged to stand the tests of efficiency and economy in our world of big business but everything thrives by concerted arrangement ran range gement munt only new principles of action will save us from a final hard crystallization of monopoly and a complete loss of the influences that quicken enterprise and keep independent energy alive it Is plain what those principles must he be we must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privilege or of any kind of artificial advantage Nan tage and put our business men and producers producer i under the stimulation of a constant necessity to be efficient economical economic ul and enterprising mastera of competitive supremacy better workers and merchants than any in the world aside from cue atles laid upon articles which we do not and probably cannot produce therefore and the duties laid upon luxuries and merely for the sake of the revenues they yield me object of the tariff duties henceforth laid must ire oe effective competition the whetting of american wits by contest with the wits of the rest of the world development not revolution it would be unwise to move toward thin end with reckless baite haste or with strokes that cut at the very roots of what has grown up amongst us by long process and at our own invitation it does not alter a thing to upset it and bre ark k it and deprive it of a chance to ch chonge inge it U destroy destroys it IL we must mako make changes in our fiscal laws in our foscal system I 1 whose object is development a more free and wholesome development not revolution or upset er or confusion wo wait build up trade opec specially lallY tot otan ign trade we need the outlet and the enlarged field of nargy more did before we must than we ever build up indu try ae an aall ell and must adopt fiefdom in ILI the place of arti arli fl caal stimulation only po far as it will build not pull down in dealing with the tariff the method by which this may be done will be a matter of judgment exercised item by item to one some not sc accustomed to the ex and responsibilities of greater freedom our methods ma may in some respects and at some points aselt ebi heroic but mo may y be heroic and yet be remedies it ie is our business bual neBB to make sure that they are genuine remedies our object Is clear if our motive la in above just challenge and only an occasional error of judgment is 1 chargeable against us we shall be fortunate we are called upon to render the country a great service in more mat ten than one our responsibility should be met and our methods should be thorough as thorough as a moderate erate and well considered based upon the fact facts aa an they are and not riot worked out aa an it we were beginners we are to deal with the facts of our own day with the fact facts of no other and to make law laws which square with those facts it la Is best indeed it Is necessary to begin with the tariff I 1 will urge nothing upon you now at the opening of your session which can ob soure that first arst object or divert our energies from that clearly defined duty at a later time I 1 may take the liberty of calling your attention to tr re forma forms which should press clo celoso 10 upon the heels begis of the tariff changes if it not accompany them of which the chief Is in the reform of our banking and currency laws but just now I 1 refrain for the present I 1 put these mattera matters on one aide side and think only of this one thing thin cf the changes in our fiscal system which may best serve to open once more the tree free channel channels of prosperity to a great people whom we would serve to the utmost and throughout both rank and hie file WOODROW WILSON the white house april 8 1918 |
