462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the natural outgrowths of the tariff, and I further believe that while 

 the good trusts should be continued and their interests safeguarded 

 for the benefit, not of the trusts themselves, or their thousands of stock- 

 holders, but for the interests of the millions of consumers, the "bad 

 trusts" should be shorn of the power to rob those millions of con- 

 sumers, which power is now largely theirs through the protection which 

 the present tariff gives. 



To arrive at this desirable end and as well to protect his own inter- 

 ests is the aim of the reputable importer, and because of the reasons 

 given above, the necessity of producing the required evidence which will 

 prove where the evil conditions now exist, and of submitting such 

 evidence to the Congress, devolves upon the importer. 



In the parlance of the day " it is up to him " to present to those 

 engaged in the revision of the tariff all the data required to establish 

 the injustice of any of the present duty rates and to urge the correction 

 of the same. 



The subject is the most important which has been before the 

 Congress in the past decade. The prosperity of the country and its 

 people, our commercial supremacy, our national credit, all largely 

 depend upon the result of the present tariff revision. If the new bill, 

 which may become a law by July 1, 1909, and which surely will become 

 a law before January 1, 1910, is just and equitable in its provisions, 

 we may look with assurance for many years of prosperity; if on the 

 contrary the new act retains many of the evils which have grown up 

 under the present one, if it is so drawn as to protect favorites and to 

 slur over or fail to eliminate the wrongs now existing within its pro- 

 visions, we may anticipate commercial unrest, if not disaster, and all 

 the attendant train of calamities. 



Tariff revision, therefore, from the importer's standpoint, is of the 

 first importance. Greater than the Canal question — for our country 

 will go on in its magnificent career whether the Panama Canal be 

 completed in seven years or fifteen — greater than any political issue — 

 for experience has taught us that the people right political wrongs in 

 the long run — greater than any questions affecting our army and navy, 

 our insular possessions, or even the future of our ex-presidents — the 

 question of tariff revision goes to the very vitals of national life. And 

 this being so, the importer finds himself suddenly thrown into the lime 

 light as the spokesman for — not alone his own interests — but as well 

 the interests and further welfare of all the people, the great body of 

 the nation, the consumers, and as the champion for them and to protect 

 and ensure them in their rights for years to come, he accepts the 

 responsibility and seeks to supply our law makers with the enormous 

 mass of facts, and the needed evidence which they require in order to 

 produce a finished tariff act, one that shall be grounded in " favoritism 

 toward none and justice to all." 



