The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913Various
General
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913
Various
Periodicals
a schedule by schedule reunion, was deliberately repudiated. The
Payne-Aldrich tariff was a thoroughly bad bill; and therefore I am all
the more sorry to see the principles of evil tariff-making which it
crystallized repeated in the Underwood-Wilson bill.
The Democratic party specifically asserted that by correcting the
evils of the tariff they would reduce the cost of living, help the
wage-worker and farmer, and take the most important step necessary
to the solution of the trust problem. So far, there has not been the
smallest evidence that these results will follow their action; and
unless such results do follow from it, the Democratic tariff policy
will be proved an empty sham.
I have read with care Mr. Wilson’s chapter in the “New Freedom”
in which he professes to set forth his attitude as regards the
trusts. The chapter does not contain, as far as I can find, one
specific proposal for affirmative action. It does contain repeated,
detailed, and specific misrepresentations of the Progressive
position--misrepresentations so gross that all that is necessary in
order to refute them is to challenge Mr. Wilson to produce a single
line from the Progressive National platform, or from the speeches of
the men who stood on that platform, which will bear out his assertions.
Aside from these specific misrepresentations, there are various
well-phrased general statements implying, approval of morality in
the abstract, but no concrete proposal for affirmative action. A
patient and sincere effort to find out what Mr. Wilson means by the
“New Freedom” leaves me in some doubt whether it has any meaning at
all. But if there is any meaning, the phrase means and can mean only
freedom for the big man to prey unchecked on the little man, freedom
for unscrupulous exploiters of the public and of labor to continue
unchecked in a career of cutthroat commercialism, wringing their
profits out of the laborers whom they oppress and the business rivals
and the public whom they outwit. This is the only possible meaning that
the phrase can have if reduced to action. It is, however, not probable
that it has any meaning at all. It certainly can have no meaning of
practical value if its coiner will not translate it out of the realm of
magniloquent rhetoric into specific propositions affecting the intimate
concerns of our social and industrial life to-day. To discriminate
against a very few big men because of their efficiency, without regard
to whether their efficiency is used in a social or anti-social manner,
may perhaps be included in Mr. Wilson’s meaning; but this would be
absolutely useless from every aspect, and harmful from many aspects,
while all the other big unscrupulous men were left free to work their
wicked will. The line should be drawn on conduct, not on size. The
man who behaves badly should be brought to book, whether he is big or
little; but there should be no discrimination against efficiency, if
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