The Tariff
Performed by Woodrow Wilson
Recorded September 24, 1912
We stand in the presence of
an awakened nation. Plainly it is a new age. There
are two great things to do. One is to set up the rule
of justice and right in such matters as the tariff,
the regulation of trust, and the prevention of monopoly.
The business of government is to separate special
and particular interests from the general interests
of wide community. The initial task this year is to
get our government in such shape that we can use it
for our own purpose, not against anybody in particular,
but for everybody in general. We want to establish
a real partnership between all the people and the
federal government instead of between special interests
and the federal government. We must affect a great
readjustment and get the forces of the whole people
once more into play. The tariff question as dealt
with in our time has not been business; it has been
politics. The tariff has become a system of favors.
Tariff schedules have been determined in committee
rooms and in conferences. The tariff becomes a matter
of legitimate business only when the understanding
it represents is between the leaders of Congress and
the whole people of the United States, instead of
between the leaders of Congress and small groups of
manufacturers demanding special recognition and consideration.
That is the heart of the whole affair. It is at bottom
a question of good faith and morals. Our conviction
as Democrats is that the only legitimate object of
tariff duties is to raise revenue for the support
of the government. We denounce the Payne-Aldrich Tariff
Act as the most conspicuous example ever recorded
of the special favors and monopolistic advantages
which the leaders of the Republican party have too
often shown themselves willing to extend to those
to whom they look for campaign contributions. The
changes which we make should be made only at such
a rate, and in such a way, as will least interfere
with the normal and healthful course of commerce and
manufacture. There should be an immediate revision
downward. It should begin with the schedules most
obviously used to kill competition and raise prices
in the United States and should be extended to every
item which affords opportunity for monopoly and special
advantage, until special favors shall have been absolutely
withdrawn and our laws of taxation transformed from
a system of governmental patronage into a system of
just and reasonable charges which shall fall where
they will create the least burden. The Republican
party does not propose to change any of the essential
conditions which mark our present difficulties. Mr.
Roosevelt proposes in his platform not to abolish monopoly, but to take it under the legal protection
of the government and to regulate it, to take the
very men into partnership who have been making it
impossible to carry out these great programs by which
all of us wish to help the people. We do not wish
to disturb the industry of the country, but to destroy
the control over the industry of other people which
these men have established and which makes it impossible
that we should give ourselves a free field of public
service.