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Leather, on which was imposed a "compensatory" 15% ad valorem duty, with the prospect that the farmers may find themselves paying increased prices for harness and saddles.
Oratory. The House debate on the Tariff Bill was unimportant except for one speech by Representative James Montgomery Beck of Pennsylvania, onetime (1921-25) U. S. Solicitor General. Mr. Beck had fared badly when he first came to the House in 1927. His right to a seat had been challenged on the ground that his residence in Philadelphia was not bona fide, that he was not an inhabitant of Pennsylvania and did not meet the constitutional requirements for membership in the House. For months he remained in the legislative shadows, a mortified little man taking little or no part in House affairs. Last session the House cleared his title to a seat. Last week he took the House floor as a full-fledged legislator and on a topic that in other hands would have been stupid, brought the House membership to its feet cheering for him. Such demonstrations in a tariff debate are rare.
"I am a Republican and a protectionist," said Mr. Beck, flaying the proposed change in tariff flexibility, "but I am an old-fashioned constitutionalist." Congressman Beck's complaint was that the present tariff law allows the President to change duties up or down by 50% on the basis of inequalities in production costs here and abroad. The new bill would allow the same 50% revision, but on the basis of inequalities of conditions of competition. The first, Mr. Beck called an ascertainable fact; the second, an economic theory. He deplored the transfer of such "an almost absolute power of taxation" to the U. S. President, begged Congress not to destroy itself by giving up such a fundamental prerogative. He blamed the proposal upon "one of these theoretical economists [who] are as full of ideas as a dog is of fleas."
This "vicious circle'' he traced to the House: "One individual in an executive bureau conceives an idea that greater powers ought to be given to the Executive, and then the appropriate department approves it, and then your committees approve it because the department did, and then the Congress enacts it because the committee approves it and then the judiciary adds its final sanction out of respect for the legislative will."
And at the U. S. Supreme Court he made the House laugh by saying: "The Supreme Court is very much like Hamlet following the ghost of his father. The court follows that ghostly thing we call the will of Congress. It follows it as did the Prince of Denmark follow the ghost, with timidity and trembling, because it never knows how far the Congress is going or into what abyss of unconstitutionalism the ghost may lead it. But finally there comes a time when the court sees it is approaching some perilous cliff, and it says, 'Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I will go no further'."
Formality. The final proceedings on the Tariff Bill were hardly more than parliamentary formalities. The House adopted its rule 234 to 138. Sugar brought five Louisiana Democrats to the Republican side. The Democratic minority, thus shut out of testing House sentiment by offering amendments to the measure, loudly complained that they were "hog-tied." Thereafter the measure sped rapidly along toward final House action.