Refreshed by a month-long armistice, Senate warriors last week climbed doggedly back into their trenches to finish the Tariff War. They swung into action with a skirmish on wool. The coalition of Democrats and Progressive Republicans wilted badly under the pressure of sectional interests. The wool rates went up, but not before Joseph R. Grundy, longtime tariff lobbyist, now Senator from Pennsylvania, had startled his comrades-in-arms with a display of tariff chivalry. A wool yarn manufacturer himself, he announced on the vote (35-to-29) which increased the duty on this commodity: “I am interested in the industry sheltered under this paragraph. Therefore I withhold my vote.” Skeptical observers wondered what he would have done had the vote been closer.
The Coalition rallied to beat down a regular Republican effort to bulge the silk tariff. Defeat of this item gave them an especial delight because its chief advocate was Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut whose connection, either naive or bold, with the tariff lobby caused commotion last autumn (TIME, Oct. 28).
The tariff battle then wheeled squarely into Schedule Five—the sugar sector, which was passed over earlier because of its especially controversial nature. The four-cornered sugar lineup: domestic beet producers, led by Utah’s Senator Smoot, for a 2.75¢ per Ib. import rate (Cuban: 2.20¢); domestic cane producers, led by Louisiana’s Senators Ransdell and Broussard, for the House rate of 3¢ per Ib. (Cuban: 2.40¢); unorganized consumers, led by Mississippi’s Senator Harrison, for the existing rate of 2.20¢ per Ib. (Cuban: 1.76¢); scattered farm Senators, led by Idaho’s Senator Borah, for an as-yet-indefinite bounty system for domestic producers in place of an actual increase in sugar rates.
Other factors which confused the Battle of Schedule Five and sent Senate soldiery scampering from one camp to another: the scattered production of sugar beets in 16 States; sugar imports from the Philippines and consequent agitation for the Islands’ independence; heavy U. S. investments in Cuban sugar production; the activities of high-duty and low-duty sugar lobbies.
Combat began when Democrat Ransdell leaped to the Republican breastworks with a mighty harangue on the “absolute necessity” of sugar protection (for Louisiana). Senator Vandenberg followed this up with a devastating gas attack of statistics to show Michigan’s need for a higher sugar duty. Senator Smoot, his heart beating fast for the beet-growers of Utah, delivered an impassioned attack upon the National City Bank of New York. Likewise he smote the “American pop industry” and U. S. chocolate manufacturers with large Cuban sugar properties.
Despite the intense preparation of both sugar lobbies to enliven this subject with new facts, the Senate debate was very long, very involved and, most of the time, very dull
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