ief in "protection" to turn
away from it. He proposes that everybody who believes in the "protective"
tariff should pay it and the rest of us should not; if they want to
subscribe, it is open to them to subscribe.

As for the rest of us, the time is coming when we shall not have to
subscribe. The people of this land have made up their minds to cut all
privilege and patronage out of our fiscal legislation, particularly out of
that part of it which affects the tariff. We have come to recognize in the
tariff as it is now constructed, not a system of protection, but a system
of favoritism, of privilege, too often granted secretly and by subterfuge,
instead of openly and frankly and legitimately, and we have determined to
put an end to the whole bad business, not by hasty and drastic changes,
but by the adoption of an entirely new principle,--by the reformation of
the whole purpose of legislation of that kind. We mean that our tariff
legislation henceforth shall have as its object, not private profit, but
the general public development and benefit. We shall make our fiscal laws,
not like those who dole out favors, but like those who serve a nation. We
are going to begin with those particular items where we find special
privilege intrenched. We know what those items are; these gentlemen have
been kind enough to point them out themselves. What we are interested in
first of all with regard to the tariff is getting the grip of special
interests off the throat of Congress. We do not propose that special
interests shall any longer camp in the rooms of the Committee on Ways and
Means of the House and the Finance Committee of the Senate. We mean that
those shall be places where the people of the United States shall come and
be represented, in order that everything may be done in the general
interest, and not in the interest of particular groups of persons who
already dominate the industries and the industrial development of this
country. Because no matter how wise these gentlemen may be, no matter how
patriotic, no matter how singularly they may be gifted with the power to
divine the right courses of business, there isn't any group of men in the
United States or in any other country who are wise enough to have the
destinies of a great people put into their hands as trustees. We mean that
business in this land shall be released, emancipated.

VIII

MONOPOLY, OR OPPORTUNITY?

Gentlemen say, they have been saying for a long