Fiction

Pursuant to the "flexible" provision of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, the Tariff Commission has made seven reports to President Coolidge.

Five of these have recommended increases in the tariff and have been promptly put into effect by the President:

Increase of 30c to 42c a bushel on wheat (TIME, Mar. 17, 1924).

Increase of 78c to $1.04 a bushel on wheat flour (TIME, Mar. 17, 1924).

Increase of 3c to 4 1/2c on sodium nitrate (TIME, May 19).

Increase of 4c to 6c on barium dioxide (TIME, June 2.).

Increase of 1 1/2c to 2 1/4c on potassium chlorate (TIME, Apr. 20).

Two of these have recommended decreases in the tariff (sugar, linseed oil) and to neither of them has the President given effect. And his removal of Mr. Culbertson to Rumania (see above) argued that he never would.

High-tariff Republican politicians and newspapers said conspicuously nothing. Low-tariff Democratic voices became sharply strident. Silas Bent, journalist, supplied to a syndicate headed by The New York World a series of articles on sugar. He opened with the charge that every day Mr. Coolidge keeps the sugar report in his pigeonhole costs the U. S. public $200,000--or a total of about $70,000,000 per year--or, roughly, $2.50 per year per household.

He then listed an ominous number of sugar men who had given tangible assistance to Air. Coolidge in the last campaign. At the Republican convention were:

From Colorado: The President (William L. Petriken) and the General Counsel (Charles W. Waterman) of the Great Western Sugar Co.; the General Counsel (William V. Hodges) of the Holly Sugar Corporation, who became Treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

From California: John D. Spreckels,* owner of the biggest beet sugar factory in the world ; H. C. Giese, manager of one of Air. Spreckels' companies.

From Michigan: Charles B. Warren, onetime President of the Michigan Sugar Co.; William H. Wallace, now President of the same; Gerrit J. Diekema, President of the Holland, St. Louis Sugar Co.

From Utah: Senator Reed Smoot, a leader of the Mormon Church, which owns three-fourths of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Co.; E. O. Howard, a Director of this concern.

Other men with "sugar interests" gave money to the campaign.

What is the point of all this evidence to show a connection between the Republican administration and "sugar interests" and to show a reluctance on the part of the President to reduce the sugar tariff? In two words, it amounts to a charge of political insincerity.

Both Republicans and Democrats have said that specific tariffs are technical questions which should be removed from politics. This principle was reiterated in the Republican Fordney-McCumber tariff of 1922--one of the highest in U.S. history--by the inclusion of the "flexible" clause authorizing the President to change tariffs on the recommendation of the Tariff Commission.

This body, composed of three Republicans, three Democrats, is supposed to be nonpartisan. It never has been. President Wilson appointed low-tariff Republicans and President Coolidge has just appointed a high-tariff Democrat and removed a low-tariff Republican whose place will undoubtedly be filled by a high-tariff Republican. The new Tariff Commission is confidently expected to reverse the sugar report, to advise against serious reduction.

It is perhaps safer to consider this juggling with the tariff as the continuance of a political fiction rather than an exhibition of insincerity. For it is understood that Republicans make high tariffs, Democrats make low; and every two years the people of the U. S. can choose between them at the polls.