Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1901 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

From Our Regular Correspondent: The administration is determined that there shall be an extra session of the next Congress. That is now as plain as the nose on your face. Mr. Mckinley is talking up a settlement of the Cuban question as the reason, but if the ship subsidy job had been allowed to go through he woold have probably discovered that an extra session would not be necessary to deal with Cuba. But there are other strings to the extra session bow, and it would not be surprising if the republican leaders in Congress so manipulated things that one or more of the big appropriation bills failed to get through at this session, and then tried to raise a howl that it was the democrats who were to blame for the extra session that the failure would make neceagary. Neither would it be surprising if the River and Harbor bill,, which is to be reported to the Senate this week, also failed to get through. That would reduce the total of the appropriations made by this Congress— a total that has thoroughly alarmed the] republican leaders since the press of the country, regardless of politics, have opened up on it. Then there is the bill for the reduction of war taxes, which is dead locked in conference ami in a fair way to fail, because the House conferees encouraged by Secretary Gage and other rrembers-of the administraI tion, refuses to accept the cut in j beer and tobacco taxes made by the Senate. The Senate is now considering the oleomargarine bill, but whether that measure is to < be voted ou or merely be used as a club to kill time is not yet [ clear. One thing is very certain, and that is that the intelligent people of the country know that the democrats will not be respons- ! ible for the failure of any regular ; appropriation bill. They have at ; all times assisted in disposing of i the appropriation bills, as fast as ! they were ready, and have repeat- | edly warned the republicans that | they were wasting time on the j Ship Subsidy bill that should have been devoted to the ApproI priation bills.

The U. 8. Government would have saved money had Congress appropriated an amount equal to what would be received from the sale of tickets to the Inaugural ball, toward the expensese of Mr. McKinley’s second inauguration, as the receipts from the sale of those tickets will be very much less than $50,000, which represents the costs to the government, of allowing the Pension building to be used for the Inaugural ball, not to mention the delay in the work of the bureau that will be caused by the holiday of all of its employes from Feb. 27th, until March 7.

Senator Teller destroyed the last hope of the looters in their ability to push the Ship Subsidy bill through at this session, when he said: “In the interests of puplic business, I desire to give notice that this Ship Subsidy bill cannot pass.” Senator Aldrich pretended to be much suprised and said that he had not before any positive notice that no vote would be allowed on the bill. Senator Teller spoke of three repnblican Senators who had gone to him and expressed the hope that the bill weald not be voted upon, and then said:

“There is a strong sentiment among the republican Senators, shared by probably half of them that this bill ought not to pass. I am notsnprised, for no other bill, ever presented to the Senate, carried upon its face Buch evidence of jobbery as the Ship Subsidy bill.” Senator Hanna got terribly worked up while Mr. Teller and other Senators were saying things showing the impossibility of passing the Ship Subsidy bill, and made a speech in which he vituaily took the ground that the reelection of Mr. McKinley was a verdict of the people in favor of of the Ship Subsidy bill and any other measure he might favor—in plain words, that he alone had a right to say what appropriations of public money should be made. Instead of showing that the subsidy bill was not a looting scheme, Mr. Hanna declared that the River and Harbor bill contained appropriations “that would make the Shipping bill look pale.” Representative Babcock’s bill to repeal that section of the Dingley tarriff law, imposing duties on such articles as are manufactured by the newly-formed Morgan Steel Trust, is not likely to be allowed to pass by the republican bosses, more’s the pity, but it has stirred up the republicans in Congress, many of whom are expressing views worthy of goo<} anti-trust democrats, for instance Representative Landis, of Indiana, said: “I am heartily in favor of the bill to remove the duty from steel and iron and kindred products. And the commendation that bill will receive from every nook and corner of the country, will surprise some gentlemen, especially the magnates who boldly and in defiance of public sentiment, have organized the most gigantic industrial combination in history. The people will expect this Congress to teach these ungrateful beneficiaries of their bounty a lesson, and if the next session of Congress does not do if, the people will send one that will. An anarchist is not necesarilly a poor man. A trust that destroys legitimate competition by brutal arbitrary power, is just as much of an anarchist as the fellow who destroys a building with a bomb. I am against both of them.”