ingenuity and enterprise. This can not be while Federal legislation
through the imposition of high tariff forbids to American manufacturers
as cheap materials as those used by their competitors. It is quite
obvious that the enhancement of the price of our manufactured products
resulting from this policy not only confines the market for these
products within our own borders, to the direct disadvantage of our
manufacturers, but also increases their cost to our citizens.

The interests of labor are certainly, though indirectly, involved in
this feature of our tariff system. The sharp competition and active
struggle among our manufacturers to supply the limited demand for their
goods soon fill the narrow market to which they are confined. Then
follows a suspension of work in mills and factories, a discharge of
employees, and distress in the homes of our workingmen.

Even if the often-disproved assertion could be made good that a lower
rate of wages would result from free raw materials and low tariff
duties, the intelligence of our workmen leads them quickly to discover
that their steady employment, permitted by free raw materials, is the
most important factor in their relation to tariff legislation.

A measure has been prepared by the appropriate Congressional committee
embodying tariff reform on the lines herein suggested, which will be
promptly submitted for legislative action. It is the result of much
patriotic and unselfish work, and I believe it deals with its subject
consistently and as thoroughly as existing conditions permit.

I am satisfied that the reduced tariff duties provided for in the
proposed legislation, added to existing internal-revenue taxation, will
in the near future, though perhaps not immediately, produce sufficient