practically a free trader, though of course he did not consider
free trade as a panacea, and his speech, according to the Socialist as
well as other reports, was received with a storm of
applause--especially, of course, from free-trade Democrats.

He pointed out that the manufacturer, having thoroughly mastered the
home market, had found that tariff wars were shutting him out from the
foreign markets he now needs. He might have added, as evidenced by the
nature of the proposed reciprocity treaty with Canada, that many
manufacturers are more interested in cheap raw material and cheap food
for their workers (cheap food making low wages possible, as in
free-trade Great Britain) than they are in a high tariff, and this even
in some instances where they have a certain need for protection for the
finished product and where no great export trade is in view.

Mr. Berger forgot England when he said that the tariff falls on the poor
man's head, for England has shown that the abolition of the tariff does
not benefit the poor man in the slightest degree. Poverty is far more
widespread there than here. He pointed to the fact that the importation
of goods into the United States was restricted, while that of labor was
not. He forgot that where both are restricted, as in Australia, the
workers are no better off than here.

The arguments employed in Mr. Berger's speech, in so far as they
referred to the tariff, were for the most part not to be distinguished
from those used by the Democrats in behalf of important capitalistic
elements of the population, and hence the welcome with which they were
received by the Democratic Congress and press. The Socialist matter in
the speech relating only indirectly to the tariff was, of course, less
favorably commented upon.

Mr. Berger's second speech before Congress was also significant. It was
in support of governmental old-age pensions, a very radical departure
for the United States and difficult of enactment because of our federal
system--but already, as Mr. Berger said, in force in Great Britain,
France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
Since the legislatures in all these countries are controlled by
opponents of Socialism, it is evident that such measures have been
adopted from other than Socialist motives. In fact they have no
necessary relation to Socialism at all, but, on the contrary, have been
widely enacted for capitalistic reasons without regard to the deman