The special session of Congress was called to expedite the fulfillment of
party pledges of agricultural relief and the tariff. The pledge of farm
relief has been carried out. At that time I stated the principles upon
which I believed action should be taken in respect to the tariff: "An
effective tariff upon agricultural products, that will compensate the
farmer's higher costs and higher standards of living, has a dual purpose.
Such a tariff not only protects the farmer in our domestic market but it
also stimulates him to diversify his crops and to grow products that he
could not otherwise produce, and thus lessens his dependence upon exports
to foreign markets. The great expansion of production abroad under the
conditions I have mentioned renders foreign competition in our export
markets increasingly serious. It seems but natural, therefore, that the
American farmer, having been greatly handicapped in his foreign market by
such competition from the younger expanding countries, should ask that
foreign access to our domestic market should be regulated by taking into
account the differences in our costs of production.
"In considering the tariff for other industries than agriculture, we find
that there have been economic shifts necessitating a readjustment of some
of the tariff schedules. Seven years of experience under the tariff bill
enacted in 1922 have demonstrated the wisdom of Congress in the enactment
of that measure. On the whole it has worked well. In the main our wages
have been maintained at high levels; our exports and imports have steadily
increased; with some exceptions our manufacturing industries have been
prosperous. Nevertheless, economic changes have taken place during that
time which have placed certain domestic products at a disadvantage and new
industries have come into being, all of which create the necessity for some
limited changes in the schedules and in the administrative clauses of the
laws as written in 1922.
"It would seem to me that the test of necessity for revision is, in the
main, whether there has been a substantial slackening of activity in an
industry during the past few years, and a consequent decrease of employment
due to insurmountable competition in the products of that industry. It is
not as if we were setting up a new basis of protective duties. We did that
seven years ago. What we need to remedy now is whatever substantial loss of
employment may have resulted from shifts since that time.
"In determining changes in our tariff we must not fail to take into account
the broad interests of the country as a whole, and such interests include
our trade relations with other countries." No condition has arisen in my
view to change these principles stated at the opening of the special
session. I am firmly of the opinion that their application to the pending
revision will give the country the kind of a tariff law it both needs and
wants. It would be most helpful if action should be taken at an early
moment, more especially at a time when business and agriculture are both
cooperating to minimize future uncertainties. It is just that they should
know what the rates are to be.
Even a limited revision requires the consideration and readjustment of many
items. The exhaustive inquiries and valuable debate from men representative
of all parts of the country which is needed to determine the detailed rates
must necessarily be accomplished in the Congress. However perfectly this
rate structure may be framed at any given time, the shifting of economic
forces which inevitably occurs will render changes in some items desirable
between the necessarily long intervals of congressional revision.
Injustices are bound to develop, such as were experienced by the dairymen,
the flaxseed producers, the glass industry, and others, under the 1922
rates. For this reason, I have been most anxious that the broad principle
of the flexible tariff as provided in the existing law should be preserved
and its delays in action avoided by more expeditious methods of determining
the costs of production at home and abroad, with executive authority to
promulgate such changes upon recommendation of the Tariff Commission after
exhaustive investigation. Changes by the Congress in the isolated items
such as those to which I have referred would have been most unlikely both
because of the concentrations of oppositions in the country, who could see
no advantage to their own industry or State, and because of the difficulty
of limiting consideration by the Congress to such isolated cases.
There is no fundamental conflict between the interests of the farmer and
the worker. Lowering of the standards of living of either tends to destroy
the other. The prosperity of one rests upon the well-being of the other.
Nor is there any real conflict between the East and the West or the North
and the South in the United States. The complete interlocking of economic
dependence, the common striving for social and spiritual progress, our
common heritage as Americans, and the infinite web of national sentiment,
have created a solidarity in a great people unparalleled in all human
history. These invisible bonds should not and can not be shattered by
differences of opinion growing out of discussion of a tariff.