Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1888 — “PLAYING TO THE GALLERY.” [ARTICLE]

“PLAYING TO THE GALLERY.”

•The Ridiculous Attitude of the Republican Senate on the Fisheries Question. [From the Chicago News, independent.] The Republican Senators, the journals of the party, and its big and little henchmen, formerly so belligerent on the fishery question, now that the President has sent in a message to Congress which is simply the logical sequence of all that the Senate had up to that point said and done on the contention, sing exceedingly small. It is, in fact, at this particular moment, the piping time of peace with one and all of them. At the bi me time they take occasion to denounce the President for “playing to the gallery,” as one or two of them express it, at such a critical juncture as this, when so many material interests are involved. The cool impudence of such a charge as this, after all the bellicose swash which for months past has disgraced our upper legislative body, is positively refreshing. Take, f r instance, as "a specimen brick,” a proposition from that ancient representative of the staid old Bay State commonwealth, Senator Hoar. • At a time when the British Government was in the very act of making an earnest attempt to settle this unfortunate fishery dispute, Senator Hoar introduced a resolution which was duly referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. By this motion the President is requested to open negotiations “with a view to the settlement of all differences between her Majesty’s Government and the United States the Dominion of Canada to be represented, its concurrence being indispensable to the object sought, which is “the annexation to the United States of the whole or any portion of Canadathe political union is to be “in accord with the Federal system and Constitution of the United States;” no consideration for this wrestling of one of the colonies of the empire

therefrom is defined, except it be a vague flourish on the subject of other possible ireadies for “the future peace, happiness, security, and general welfare of her Majesty s dem Inions and of the United States.” Yet ft is in the face of such a proposal as this, by a leading Republican Senator, tout .he Preaident is charged with “playing t> the gallery" w hen he merely proposes, after the failure of all other m ans, to carry out the policy of th i Senatorial majority.