Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1891 — UNCERTAIN CONTROL OF THE SENATE. [ARTICLE]

UNCERTAIN CONTROL OF THE SENATE.

Will the Republicans control the Senate of the Fifty-second Congress? On the “face of the returns” they have a plurality of eight in that body and a majority of six. The question, however, is not disposed of by these figures. There are considerations entering into the matter which make Republican dominance extremely uncertain. If the tariff and free silver should come prominently before Congress next winter, and the probability is that they will, there is a chance that the majority which the Republicans have on the roll of membership will not present itself in the balloting. Some of the Republican Senators of the States west of the Mississippi care more for unlimited silver coinage than they do for the maintenance of the tariff. On the tariff question Peffer and Kyle, the two Farmers* Alliance men, will undoubtedly vote with the Democrats. Their affiliations, as well as their utterances since the election, leave no room for doubt on this point.— On the tariff these two men are virtually Democrats, and they will have to be counted with the Democrats in all calculations as to legislation affecting the customs. If the Democrats can, on this issue,' gain four Republican Senators, the Senate will pass out of the hands of the Republicans, and the Democrats will bear sway over the upper as well as the lower branch of Congress. The opposition which the McKinley bill met with from the Republican Senators of this section last year shows that this contingency is not remote or improbable. In one way, and in that way only, a Republican split can be avoided and legislation opposed by the bulk of the Republican party be prevented. The Republicans themselves, in the Senate, must prepare a bill making a moderate and safe reduction of duties and push it through that body. It is true their scheme may not prevail in the House or in the conference committee, but even if it should fail, the party line would still be held unbroken. This course is necessary for partisan as well as economic reasons. If it be neglected, at least half a dozen Republican Senatorial votes in the Northwestern States will undoubtedly be lost. The readiness with which the force bill was traded off for free coinage in the Fifty-first Congress is suggestive of the ease with which the tariff could be sacrificed for free silver next year. Of course, neither a sweeping Democratic cut in duties nor unlimited coinage wo’d be likely to obtain in the Senate the twothirds vote to carry it over the Presidential veto which they would encounter, but the existence of a deal which could send them to the President in the first place weuld be fatal to Republican harmony and enthusiasm, and seriously handicap the party in the Presidential campaign. The sentiment of the Republican masses in the West is overwhelmingly in favor of a discriminating and reasonable reduction of custom duties on many of the leading articles of importation, and if the party desires to maintain its sway in the Senate, to head off free trade and and to keep itself m shape to wage a successful canvass for the Presidency, it will give this sentiment the consideration which it demands.—St. Louis Globo Democrat.