Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1894 — VOORHCESS' LETTER. [ARTICLE]

VOORHCESS' LETTER.

Sets Forth the Difficulties In So Arranging the Schedule as to Secure a Solld Democratic Vote Fpn It. In a letter to Hon. John B. Stoll, of the South Bend Times, Mr. Voorhees defends himself from the personal attacks made upon him by his political and personal enemies. Mr. Voorhees says:

'lt seems that in certain quarters I am to be assailed so. all that is done or left undone by the senate of an unsatisfactory character on the subject of thetarift. To begin with, the senate committee on finance is composed of eleven members, six oF whom are Democrats and five Republicans. In order to report a bill of any kin i on the tariff you will see that tbtre must be an absolute agreement between the aix Democrats constituting a majority of that comm ttee—each member of tnat majority, including the chairman, having his own vote to ca*t, nd no more. Ahy bill on the subject of revenue for the support of tie government by tariff taxation from the first one in 1789 to the present time has been necessarily and inevitably an adjustment of dift' rencesjbetween men in reg rd to business and labor interests t-f the higbest importance. 'One of the greatest compromise measures which marked Henry Clay’s longard brilliant career was that of 1832 on the subject, the terms, and the details of the tariff. In fact, it must be admitted that everything es great value in the history of this govemirent, including thecorstitu tion of the United States itself, and all the leading enactments of our legislative history, comes from the spirit of conces sion, and‘the work of compromise. Of course, the right of a majority to govern must be conceded or our government must be abandoned. No one man in committee, in the senate, or anywhere else, can have his own way regardless of others Wii ile libertv remains regu'ated bylaw. There are several features in the bill now pending in the senate which I did not desire to have in it, but because I was overruled on those ooints I did not therefore feel at liberty to join the Republican members of the committee, report no i ill at all, defeat all proposed|legislation, and thereby leave the McKinley law remain on our statute books. You will see that the bill we leported reduces nearly $75 000 - 000 per annum—s23,soo,ooo of that am‘t being taken oft the wearing apparel ■ f the people. I say to you with the utmost frankness and sincerity that I fought hard against anything at all being put on sugar, iron, r coal, but when it was demonstrated in a full three days’ hardworking caucus of nil the Democratic senators, as in the committee, that a bill with these articles on the free list could no more pass the senate than a ship of lead could navigate the ocean, I came to'the conclusion after anxious and painful solicitude that it was my plain, clear and explicit duty to the laboring masses of th< country, and especially to the Democratic party, to support the bill as it now stands; to fnaketsureof the immense reductions in tariff taxation which it guarantees, and then continue to fight for further progress and reform hereafter. I cannot help rem mbering that the world was not made in a day, although there was no want of a reliable ii ajority on that occasion. If I have made a mistake in the discharge of my duty as one of yc ur senators, it is in believing that the bill we reported and which is now pending is greatly to be preferred to no legislation at all -to the odious McKinley law which we stand pledged to repeal. But I ihigk much is being said and written now in absolute ignorauce|of what the senate bill as well as the Wilson bill actually contains. Are the people of Indiana aware of the fact that the average rate of duty, prof tariff tax, ever known in this country since the Walker tariff of 1846, and its subsequent Democratic amendments in 1857, is the hate now provided for, and contained in the bill I baa Inlv l e P° r * to the senate on the -Otp day of March, and which is now pending? This statement is true notAithstandipg the transfer of certain articles from the free list in the house bill to the dutiable list in the senate bill. I repeat that the average rate of duty, or of t riff tax, as it may be better described, in the pendingsenatebill, with sugar, coal and iron, all charged up to it, is lower than the average rate of duty, or of tariff tax, i i the Wilson bill as it came from the house with those articles on the free list

Let me give you, in this connection, a few treasuiy statistics which re officially reliable, and may be of interest at this time. Average rate of ad valorem duiy on dutiable impo t-: 1890—The McKinley bill, 49.58 1884 The Mills bill, proposed 42.78 1894—The Wilson bill, ' 35 52 1894—The Senate bill, 34.15 Nothing could be further from mv ?A R b °I PVPQsq thqp tq gay a in tritjcism pf the Wilson bill, or an> of the work of the house with its reliable Democratic majority of nearly a hundred. At the same time lam hardly willing to be clubbed to death, or read out of the Democratic party in the name of the Wilson bill by those who are totally ignorant of its most important provisions. The imperious demand that the sonate shall pass the Wilson bill without amendment is a I burlesque on common sense. I herejis not an intelligent man in the United States, with information on the subject, who has for a moment thought the Wilson bill wait tq pass tne senat'e without amendment. Jtg own authors and guppoTters have never expected anything of the kind. When it came over to the senate it was followed by many of its ablest and most judicious friends, pointing out to the senate committee on finance, where and in what resp< ct it'could be improved by amendments. But aside from all other features of the Wilson bill requiring the utmost care and attention of the senate, there was one of immense, overshadowing importance, which could not bo heedlessly ignored.— Strange as it may appear to you and cur people, yet it is a fact that on the face of the Wilson bill, as it passed the house and came to the senate, a deficiency will occur in- he treasury for the fiscal year l-t>s of ''’7'.X<ls.33. The title of the bill is; A bu 1 to reduce taxation, to provide revenu'e for the government, and for other purposes." ” * j ft is but just to the ways and means committee of the house to explain tu at I they thought this deficiency wo’d be made up by an increase of importations in the future. An estimate of this kind, owever. is wholly conjectural. It may < ome trn , or it may entirely lail, ost likely the latter. lhedepr. seed condition! f business over the world at this time make our im-

portations very uncertain. Surely a mere guess at the future on a question so vital as government revenue is not safe ground on which to legis'ate. T> e fulfillment of the pledge in tLe title of the bill, “to provide revenue for the government,* cannot be left in any doubt. If a deficiency sho'd occur the actual cash must be raised to meet it, either by issuing treasury notes orinterest-bearieggovernment bonds, the latter a thing most abhorent to the Amercan people. Rather than knowingly and consciously secure the passage of a bill to provide revenue for the government, but in' real ity provided fora deficiency and a const quent increase of our int restbearing bonded debt, I would gladly leave my seat here in the senate,and hide yself forever as far as possible from public disgrace. “You know I want no hard words with anyone. I cherish not the slightest resentment on account of anything that has been said. I have not a particle of ambition to gratijy ih the future, but if anyone in Indiana, or anywhere else, thinks it wise to impugn my motives and impeach my Democracy in the name of a measure which fails to provide sufficient revenue with which to pay the ordinary expenses of the governmeni, while at the same time it levies a higher rate of tax than the bill I reported to the senate, that person, whoever he may be, will find my side of that issue, not neglected, at the proper time, kefore our people. Ido not claim perfection, as you know, for the senate bill, but under all the trying circumstances here, I am willing to stand or fall by a bill which makes far heavier reductions on the necessaries of life than the Mills bill, the Morrison bill, the Wilson bill or any other proposed democratic bill since the amendments to he Walker tariff in 1857, and that while making such reductions and giving such relief also increases the revenue and places the oredit of the gover ment on seem e foundations. This kind of a platform will do to stand on at the close of my career if the close is at hand. “After all, however, both the bills are alike merely tentative and experimental; th y will have to go together to the joint conference committee of the two houses; neither of them in terms will become the law The enactment, if one is reached, will simply be a measure of compromise as will commend itself <to the judgment of the conference committee appointed to adjust tho differences between the two houses as manifested in the two bills.”

The Pilot indorses Coxeyism.—Democratic Sentinel. “The Sentinel does not usually tell such lies.” Pilot. In a sympathetic outburst for Coxeyism the Pilot, last week, asked: “Who are they that ho bitterly denounce the march of labor to the national capital?" “March of labor,” applied by the Pilot tn the Coxey procession, is good, and certainly indicates where its sympathy is placed. In the same article, in asp rit of resentment, the Pilot answers its own query thus: “Answer, those who have I esn there and stolen every thing that was loose except the morals of our congressmen.” The Pilot can take which horn it pleasts. It may stand in with “the march of labor,”(?) or class itself with those included in its “answer.” It must do one or the other in order to keep in line with its own proposition. • ■ Indianapolis Sentinel: Turpieskinned Aldrich in only one language. If be had used the other six which he spe ks Aidrich would have been sausage. A dispatch was received yesterday stating that W. J. McConnell, who was indicted jointly with Zimri Dwiggins and John W. Romell some time ago on tho charge of receiving deposits at the Oxford Ind., bank while knowing the bank to be insolvent, had been acqu rted by a jury. Mr. McConnell was the cashier of the institution, qud it is thought that as the charge in bis case has been declared to be groundless, the cases against Niei-srs. Dwiggins and Hornell will be dismissed. —lnter Ocean.