PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN 



INDUSTRY 



BY 



Hon. Asbury F. Lever, Representative from South Carolina 



A T the annual meetii^g of the 

 •**■ American Forestry Association, 

 January 29th, Congressman Lever 

 was called upon to speak, the Chair- 

 man remarking that here was a lever 

 which might be used in moving Con- 

 gress. Mr. Lever responded : 



Mr. Chairman, Ladie;s and Gen- 

 tlemen : 



You may be interested to know that 

 my mother was a Derrick, and a com- 

 bination of a .Lever and a Derrick 

 ought to be able to move somebody or 

 something. So far, that combination 

 has not been able to move the powers 

 that be in the National House of 

 Representatives ; but we are hopeful, 

 we are optimistic, we are rather 

 sanguine with respect to the pending 

 bill. It was not my purpose to make 

 a speech here to-night, and I am not 

 going to do so. I came down to hear 

 speeches made, and I am glad I have 

 come, because Mr. Shepard has very 

 briefly but very comprehensively met 

 the chief objection that the friends of 

 this proposition find in the House, 

 namely, that relating to the power of 

 Congress to appropriate money for 

 this purpose. He has shown you, he 

 has convinced me — though I was con- 

 vinced before — that if Congress has 

 the power to appropriate money for 

 the purpose of dredging your rivers 

 and your harbors ; if Congress has the 

 power to appropriate money for the 

 purpose of building locks and dams in 

 the aid of navigation ; if Congress has 

 the power to acquire lands at the head 

 of navigation on the Mississippi River 

 in aid of the navigation of that great 

 artery of commerce ; if Congress has 

 the power to appropriate money for 

 the purpose of acquiring artificial 



means in aid of navigation, then, in 

 the name of heaven, I ask why has not 

 Congress the power to acquire the 

 natural reservoirs of this country in 

 aid of navigation? 



I am not a lawyer — I am glad 

 sometimes that I am not one. I ap- 

 proach this subject, therefore, as,' a 

 layman. I approach this subject 

 without the constitutional cobwebs 

 that sometimes grow in the brains, of 

 great lawyers, but I can look at it, I 

 hope, from a purely practical and busi- 

 ness point of view. I take it that the 

 Democrat from Texas who votes ,an 

 annual appropriation of $500,000 for 

 the purpose of controlling the cotton 

 boll weevil will not have the nerve to 

 stand up and argue his constitutional 

 conscience upon this proposition. I 

 take it that the member of Congress 

 from Kansas who appropriates Fed- 

 eral money for the purpose of destroy- 

 ing the green-bug that destroys the 

 wheat fields out there, will not have 

 the nerve to stand up and quibble 

 about his constitutional objections to 

 this proposition. I take it that the 

 New Englander who voted an emerg- 

 ency appropriation of $500,000 for the 

 purpose of stamping out the foot-and- 

 mouth disease in that section several 

 years ago, is not going to find it very 

 easy to reconcile his constitutional ob- 

 jections to this proposition with his 

 past record. I take it that these gen- 

 tlemen who vote appropriations of 

 over a million dollars each year for 

 the maintenance of the great Weather 

 Bureau of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, which furnishes such valuable in- 

 formation, not only to the agricul- 

 tural, but to the commercial, the in- 

 dustrial and the shipping interests of 

 this country, will find it a rather hard 



