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Show SENATOR SMOOT'S SPEECH. However much we may be forced to disagree from Senator Smoot's defense of the Payne-Aldrich-Smoot tariff measure of the last congress, we must admit that in his treatment of the liquor question the senior senator, in his key-note speech in the Republican state convention this morning, made an excellent presntation of the conservative side of the subject, and, even more, that his address as a whole was a masterful effort from the point of view of the Standpatter." Stand-patter." On the liquor issue, Senator Smoot is for local option in the cities where there is police regulation, and for prohibition in the country districts. That is the best solution of the problem so far presented. With the country districts committed to prohibition, the entire state may eventually become "dry." But the process would be a gradual one, and in response to an actual, and not forced, demand, and, therefore, might prove effective. On the tariff issue, Senator Smoot appeals to our local self-interests. self-interests. He talks of our mines of lead and our herds with their wool products. We, as a people, must grow extremely narrow if we cannot see the tariff question from a national standpoint. The moment it is demonstrated that tariff is being used, in combination with the power of the trusts, for the purpose of extorting from the American people a price they cannot pay without extreme hardship, that moment the tariff should be scaled downward, and so perceptibly percep-tibly that no one would venture to question that the revision was downward. Some of the best authorities within the Republican party dispute dis-pute with Senator Smoot the correctness of his conclusion that the tariff has been reduced. Dolliver, Beveridge, Cummins and others men of keen judgment and great experience in legislation say the present tariff law is an injustice to the American consumer and is simply serving to enrich the special interests. Without going into details as to how tariffs are made or applied, ap-plied, we know this, that the export trade in manufactured articles for ten years past, has demonstrated conclusively there is no line of industry in this country that need fear the under-paid, or the underfed, under-fed, or the serf whichever you may feel at liberty to term it labor of Europe or Asia. There is only one danger, and that is in the far distant future, which might justify the building of high tariff walls around our trust-fortified manufactories, and that is the awakening of China and all the Orient to the modern commercial spirit, with a reaching out for the trade of the United States. When that cloud grows dark enough to cast a shadow on our industrial life, then will be time enough to become eloquent in defense of the necessity of artificially protecting the American laboring man in his natural helplessness. |