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Editorial
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Week Ending
Dec.16,1913
Let Is Have Progress Coupled With Prosperity
President Wilson says: “There is but one cloud upon our
horizon," and describes that cloud as our trouble with Mexico.
Mr. Wilson evidently is not an expert in political meteor
ology.
There is, perhaps, only one cloud on the distant horizon, but
there are several very threatening clouds hanging immediately
overhead, and casting a very heavy shadow upon the business
interests of this country and upon the general prosperity of the
producing classes. This heavy shadow, with a prospect even of
a serious storm, is due to the President’s exceedingly obstinate
attitude in regard to the modifications of the tariff.
The President is one of those men to whom success gives hal
lucinations.
He has the Presbyterian belief in predestination.
He is convinced that he is the direct representative of the
Almighty on earth, and that, being in more immediate contact
with mundane affairs, his knowledge of them is, perhaps, a little
superior to that of the Almighty.
This conviction is not uncommon among men whose sudden
rise to power is as incomprehensible to them as it is to the rest
of the community. Not only politicians have this obsession, but
business men also who attain unusual success or important posi
tion too rapidly.
A conspicuous example of this hallucination was given by
George F. Baer, of the Reading Railroad, with his avowed inspi
ration and his arrogant action by “Divine right."
Vanities of this kind would be harmless enough if they did
not so often lead men to become inaccessible to facts and im
pervious to reason, and if they did not so often persuade men
that their own fallible opinions were direct inspirations from on
High, not to be modified or ameliorated by the opinions of other
men or the actual conditions which confront them.
The clouds which now hang menacingly overhead and
threaten the prosperity of the nation could have been dissipated
if Mr. Wilson had taken a broader and more liberal view in his
policies of tariff reduction.
He should have realized that tariff reduction, however
necessary for the benefit of the consumers, must fall more or less
heavily and disastrously upon the producers of the country.
He should have appreciated the necessity of compensating
these American producers for the markets which they would
lose here at home by opening to them markets which he could
easily have secured lor them abroad.
The reduction of our tariff barrier allows our markets to be
invaded by foreign products, and our producers to be deprived
of a greater or less proportion of our American markets.
If a policy of reciprocity had accompanied the policy of
tariff reduction the markets of foreign nations would have been
reciprocally opened to the products of our American manufac
turers and producers. The advantages gained in these foreign
markets would have compensated our producers, and, perhaps,
more than compensated, for the loss of part of their home
markets.
Mr. Wilson should realize that the word producers does
not mean only the big business men who conduct manufactories,
but the workingmen, who are the partners in this production, and
the farmers, who are the most important producers of all.
However desirable it might have been to benefit the consum
ers, it was certainly as desirable, or even more desirable, to ben
efit the producers in this country. THE GREATNESS OF THIS
COUNTRY AND THE WEALTH OF THIS COUNTRY ARE
DUE. NOT TO WHAT WE CONSUME, BUT TO WHAT WE
PRODUCE.
The increase in the creation of wealth depends in great meas
ure upon proper encouragement to production, and the distribu
tion of wealth in good prices to fanners and good wages to
workingmen is obviously dependent in the first instance upon the
creation of wealth through profitable production.
Profits on production depend largely on the extent and ex
cellence of available markets, and any sort of ordinary business
intelligence or political intelligence ought to have observed the
wisdom of increasing and improving the markets for American
products.
In fact, the only kind of mind that could not see the practical
and sentimental, the material and human advantage of such a
policy would be that type which believes itself to be the medium
for the direct transmission of Divine instructions.
It is certainly not incompatible with any moral obligations
to consider the material welfare of a country and the financial
prosperity of the individual citizens.
The material prosperity of the people is a matter worthy of
the attention and consideration of any Administration, but par
ticularly of a Democratic Administration, and Mr. Wilson’s
policies, no matter how inspired he may believe them, should be
executed with due regard for the welfare of the nation and of
the citizens.
Indeed, it would be well if Mr. Wilson could realize that no
one man is doing God’s work on earth, but that all men are
doing it, in the place and with the power that God has allotted
to them; that vox populi vox Dei, that all men are entitled to be
heard, and that the moral and material interests of all are right
fully to be considered and conserved.
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST.
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