Courage v. Hysteria

"Is this a country of free enterprise, courage, risk taking and initiative, or is it in a state of hysteria and fear psychosis?" The question was asked last week by Ohio Lawyer Charles Phelps Taft, 56, brother of the late Senator, in a speech on tariffs at Chicago's World Trade Conference. In answering his own bristling question, Midwesterner Taft let fly at the chemical industry and others who want tariffs kept high. Said he:

"The chemical industry ... is still fighting the long-dead German dye trust of 1914. [The chemical companies] finance the American Tariff League and repeat the old high-tariff shibboleths. They can't talk any more about infant industries, but they have seized upon defense considerations as their last argument. They even question American technical proficiency in their tariff speeches, while in separate statements they report extraordinary earnings from extraordinary discoveries and processes . . . The imports are . . . less than 17% of American consumption. Are they entitled to a monopoly of the American market?

"For Americans crying in their beards about German, French and Italian competition in Latin America, I would say what the London Economist said to British businessmen ... on the same subject 'Quit crying and go to work; the sellers' market is over; you have to get out and do a job if you want the business.'"

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