Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1901 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

The Tariff Revision Fisht. That tariff revision will be the rock Upon which the Republican party will split in the next Congress finds strong proof in a review of the political situation by the Washington correspondent of The Philadelphia Ledger, who is known to be one of the best political prophets in the country. The fact that the present tariff bill suits only the men behind the trusts Is plain enough, and that substantial revision all along the line is demanded not only by the voters at large, but by the general independent business community, is equally plain. The Republican party wants to appear as the patron of the latter class, but is bound hand and foot to obey the behests of the former. Hence this two-horsed straddle is proving uncomfortable and Is likely to result in a catastrophe.

The proposition for revision .came from Mr. Babcock, a Republican member of the Ways and Means Committee, to whom Speaker Henderson is under special obligation, which will force his reappointment on the committee. The defeat of Henderson for the Speakership would solve the problem of getting rid of Babcock, but he is too strongly Intrenched for that. Henderson will stick to the Speakership; Babcock will retain his place in committee, and the Western Republicans will back him up in the demand for a reTision of the tariff bill, so as to get leverage undy the trusts. The only tope left the latter is to so emasculate the Babcock proposition as to take all ▼alne out of it, and this is what they are now preparing to do.

To show the'alliance between the trusts and the Republican agencies of propagandism it is only necessary to point out the interference of the Home Market Club, of Boston. Through its representative that club enters upon a "vigorous denial that the present tariff makes the trusts possible, and makes the astonishing declaration that it really promotes competition. “The assumption," says this agent——"of the Babcock bill is that the steel trust, so-called, is not only an evil, but a result of the tariff. Now, everybody recognizes that it is in no other sense the result of protection than that the 4ndustries which it carries on may have been established in this country under the inducement of a protective tariff. But there are many other concerns en--gaged in these industries besides the United States Steel Company. They ■are independent and competing. One of the objects of protection is to develop competition among home industries. Now, if protection is withdrawn, the smaller and independent companies will be more injured by it than the combination. ■ This is so plain a proposition that it does not need to be fortified by fact or argument. Therefore, Mr. Babcock’s bill would defeat one of its purposes, and I have yet to find the man who can see how it would protect consumers of iron and steel goods in this country or compel those of any other countries to pay any more <han they pay now. A protective tariff should be equitable and national, extending alike to all industries that are subject to foreign competition. To amend it piecemeal is to introduce inequality and Injustice. There is absolutely nothing to defend or justify it from a protectionist or a Republican point of view.” From this it Is plain that the Republican party, handicapped by the obligation wliich it is under to the trusts, will be unable to give that relief to which the people are entitled, and that the Democrats must take it into the next campaign, where alone it can be discussed upon its merits. Speaker Henderson and Mr. Babcock can hold their places in Congress and be thorns in the sides of the elephant, but their hopes will be finally crushed out, until the people shall have a chance to talk the matter over for themselves.—Atlanta Constitution.

Some Third-Term Reflection*. The Louisville Courier-Journal approvingly quotes this sentence from President McKinley’s statement: “There are questions of the gravest importance before the administration and the country, and their just consideration should not be prejudiced in the public mind by even the suspicion of a thought of third term.” But our Louisville neighbor adds that this principle applies as pertinently to a second term. Bo It does. In the campaign of last year every public question was subordinated to the re-election of William McKinley to the Presidency. Every movement in the Executive Depart- * ment or in Congress looked to what would take place at the polls in November rather than to a just and final settlement of “questions of the gravest importance.” And now what will take place? The personal ambitions of Mr. McKinley having been satisfied, will he drop party and personal politics and devote his second term to real statesmanship and the carving In history of a great name Cor himself? We do not wish to disturb the general amiability prevailing over the President’s course, fear not. As the first McKinley term was devoted to the re-election of Mr. McKinley, the second McKinley term may be devoted to the election of Hon. Marcus A. Hanna to the Presidency in 1904. And what would that be but a third

term of the McKinley Presidency! Mr. Hanna has “shied” a little at the mention of his name for the Presidency, but he surely' would not be the first man in the history of the country to order the office to get behind him, along with Satan. If Mr. Hanna wants the Presidency there is nothing in his power that Mr. McKinley will not do to get it for him. There is no limit to the Indebtedness of the Executive to the Senator. That “politics is war” has come to be almost universally accepted. Political campaigns are not conducted on Christian Endeavor or Sunday school lines. What Mr. McKinley might be able to do to promote the nomination, and election of Mr. Hanna hesitate at anything for of his office. He might be called on to do many things against which his moral sentiment would revolt. He might

be required to take many steps that he would not regard as in perfect line with the high plane he assumes in his statement. But could be/efuse? Did Mr. Hanan hesitate at anything for him? Did not the Senator carry about on his broad shoulders for several years great loads of denunciation and a multiplicity of charges that be was guilty of “low down politics” in national affairs? Didn’t he bleed the affluent for campaign funds, and kick the civil service regulations to death to get money out of the Federal officials and employes? And he did it all for Mr? McKinley. Mr. McKinley buttoned his frock coat around himself, planted the forefinger of bls right hand under the upper button, wreathed his Presidential face in its sweetest expression, and accepted all that had been done for him; and he did it with such consummate grace, and with such color of unconsciousness that there bad been anything even Irregular, that the “goody good” people blessed him from the bottom of their hearts. The President is reciprocal in his nature. Could he allow small scruples to stand in the way of conducting his second administration so that on the 4th of March, 1905, his welcome at the Executive Mansion would be to the man who had “landed” him twice? There is no man who has fair familiarity with the politics of the last half a dozen of years, and who will patiently and honestly think the matter over, who will not grant in his heart that President McKinley’s second term will be available for all that it can do to secure a third term of the McKinleyHanna combination.—Cincinnati Enquirer.

The reinocratic Dantrer. The effect upon the Democratic party of the South, of legislation looking tn the elimination of the negro from politics, is looked forward to with the gravest sense of danger by Democratic leaders whose thoughts extend beyond the mere gaining of an office to-day. 'Two evils they foresee. One is the moral certainty of the South losing in importance by having its representation cut down in Congress and in the Electoral College; the other, the possible consequence of the Southern white people dividing and fighting on political lines as soon as the fear of black domination is removed by the elimination of the negro as a voter. Congressman Livingstone, of Georgia, and ex-Governor Oates, of Alabama, are among the Democratic chiefs who foresee these dangers and have raised their voices to sound the alarm. So far they have been unheeded. It is not certain that their stand will call a halt. The men who make laws, themselves officeholders and representing the officeholding class, take no thought of the morrow. It Is popular now to move against the negro. To go with the current is easier than to oppose it. Charles Sumner and Thad Stevens, far-seeing as they were, committed the blunder of making voters of negroes and adding to the political strength of the South almost as much as was represented by the addition of the negroes to the white population. They thought the negro vote would hold the Southern States Republican, with the help of the white Republican# In those Slates. Their error lay in not taking account of the truth that a solid negro party would compel a solid white party, and array the political forces along ethnological lines. The added votes of the Southern States due to the enfranchisement of negroes gave the Democratic party control of Congress and enabled it to elect Cleveland the fl rot time. Disfranchising the negroes means the subtraction of their representation In Con-gress-and this representation Is expressed In Democratic terms. The Democratic leaders in the South who perceive these dangers and do not cry out against the present tendency are falling In duty to their people.— Fort Worth Register.