The tariff question as dealt with in our time has not been business, it has been politics. Tariff schedules have been made up for the purpose of keeping as large a number as possible of the rich and influential manufacturers of the country in a good humor with the Republican party which desires their constant financial support. The tariff has become our system of favor. It becomes a matter of business, of legitimate business, only when the partnership and 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 why the general idea of representative government becomes a necessary part of the tariff question. What has the result been? Prosperity? Yes, if by prosperity you mean vast wealth no matter how distributed or whether distributed at all or not. If you mean vast enterprises built up to be presently concentrated under the control of comparatively small bodies of men, who can determine almost at pleasure whether there should be competition or not, the nation, as a whole, has grown immensely rich. But what of the other side of the picture? It is not as easy for us to live as it used to be. Our money will not buy as much. High wages, even when we get them, yield us no great comfort. We used to be better off with less, because a dollar could buy so much more. The majority of us have been disturbed to find ourselves growing poorer even though our earnings were slowly increasing. Prices climb faster than we can push our earnings up. Moreover, we begin to perceive some things about the movement of prices that concern us very deeply and fix our attention upon tariff schedules with a more definite determination than ever to get to the bottom of this matter. We know that they are not fixed by the competitions of the market, or by the ancient law of supply and demand, but by private arrangements with regard to what the supply should be and the agreements among the producers themselves. The high cost of living is arranged by a private understanding. This is the natural history of such tariffs as are now contrived as it is the natural history of all other governmental favor and of all licenses … to help certain groups of individuals along in life. The fact is that the trusts have been formed, have gained all but complete control of the larger enterprises of the country, have fixed prices and have fixed them high so that profits might be rolled up that were thoroughly worthwhile, and that the tariff, with its artificial protections and simulations, gave them the opportunity to do these things and have safeguarded them in that opportunity. Laws must be devised which will prevent this, if laws can be worked out by fair and free counsel, that will accomplish that result without destroying or seriously embarrassing any sound or legitimate business undertaking or necessary unwholesome arrangements. The Democratic party is not speaking destruction of any kind, nor the disruption of any sound or honest thing, but merely the rule of right and of the common advantage.

Biography:

Like Roosevelt before him, Woodrow Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the people. "No one but the President," he said, "seems to be expected ... to look out for the general interests of the country." He developed a program of progressive reform and asserted international leadership in building a new world order. In 1917 he proclaimed American entrance into World War I a crusade to make the world "safe for democracy."

Wilson had seen the frightfulness of war. He was born in Virginia in 1856, the son of a Presbyterian minister who during the Civil War was a pastor in Augusta, Georgia, and during Reconstruction a professor in the charred city of Columbia, South Carolina.

After graduation from Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) and the University of Virginia Law School, Wilson earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and entered upon an academic career. In 1885 he married Ellen Louise Axson.

Wilson advanced rapidly as a conservative young professor of political science and became president of Princeton in 1902.

His growing national reputation led some conservative Democrats to consider him Presidential timber. First they persuaded him to run for Governor of New Jersey in 1910. In the campaign he asserted his independence of the conservatives and of the machine that had nominated him, endorsing a progressive platform, which he pursued as governor.

He was nominated for President at the 1912 Democratic Convention and campaigned on a program called the New Freedom, which stressed individualism and states' rights. In the three-way election he received only 42 percent of the popular vote but an overwhelming electoral vote.

Wilson maneuvered through Congress three major pieces of legislation. The first was a lower tariff, the Underwood Act; attached to the measure was a graduated Federal income tax. The passage of the Federal Reserve Act provided the Nation with the more elastic money supply it badly needed. In 1914 antitrust legislation established a Federal Trade Commission to prohibit unfair business practices.

Another burst of legislation followed in 1916. One new law prohibited child labor; another limited railroad workers to an eight-hour day. By virtue of this legislation and the slogan "he kept us out of war," Wilson narrowly won re-election.

But after the election Wilson concluded that America could not remain neutral in the World War. On April 2,1917, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.

Massive American effort slowly tipped the balance in favor of the Allies. Wilson went before Congress in January 1918, to enunciate American war aims--the Fourteen Points, the last of which would establish "A general association of nations...affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

After the Germans signed the Armistice in November 1918, Wilson went to Paris to try to build an enduring peace. He later presented to the Senate the Versailles Treaty, containing the Covenant of the League of Nations, and asked, "Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?"

But the election of 1918 had shifted the balance in Congress to the Republicans. By seven votes the Versailles Treaty failed in the Senate.

The President, against the warnings of his doctors, had made a national tour to mobilize public sentiment for the treaty. Exhausted, he suffered a stroke and nearly died. Tenderly nursed by his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt, he lived until 1924.