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Editorial Page 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. ;l