Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1902 — POLITICS OF THE DAY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY.

Why Not Fire Lons? President Roosevelt can possibly afford to take some risks with his reputation as a political idealist; his reputation as a man of courageous honor and justice he ought not to Imperil. Until Mr. Payne shall have begun the restoration of the spoils system In the postal service we need not dispute his appointment to Mr. Roosevelt’s cabinet. But if the time has come to reconstruct the cabinet, why does Mr. Long remain? He has destroyed the morale of the navy and smirched its reputation. He has affronted the public sense of justice and decency. Mr. Roosevelt knows this, and his continued toleration of this unfit person among his constitutional advisers, has done more than any other thing to impair confidence in the judgment, and courage of the President himself. The issue comes plainly before him In the miserable miscarriage of justice in the case of Rear Admiral Scbley. President McKinley, who was originally responsible for Long, would not have allowed him the opportunities he has abused. Dewey was designated by McKinley; the other two members of the Court of Inquiry were selected by Long, and have carried out his orders. Their absurd and outrageous finding, in utter disregard of truth, was what he expected of them and could not fail to receive his approval. But every Instinct of Theodore Roosevelt’s manly character must revolt against it. And he, not Secretary Long, is conunander-in-chlef of the navy and responsible for fts security and honor. If this preposterous finding be allowed to go on record, to the detriment of a brave and successful officer whom the nation delights to honor, Theodore Roosevelt must bear the blame and suffer the resentment. The secretary has had Ills way long enough; it is time for the President to take the case out of his hands and set aside the whole proceedings. He was not responsible for the inception and growth of the disgraceful conspiracy, but his administration will be dishonored by Its consummation. It is for him to brush aside the quibbles of the narrow naval pedagogues and give expression to the nation's confidence in the men who have won its victories. If this should drive Mr. Long from the cabinet it will please the country all the more. The President is thought to be turning his attention to polities. It will be very bad politics to load his administration at the outset with the disgrace of the persecution of Schley. A still stronger argument for his courageous intervention is that it would be right. The American people will forgive much to one in whose controlling sense of righteousness they can confide; their disappointment will be bitter if Theodore Roosevelt fails in so conspicuous a test.—News, Macon, Ga.

The Tariff and The Trusts. Congressman Dalzell of Pennsylvania, second member of the ways and means committee of the house, and said to be closer to Speaker Henderson than any other representative, declares that the Dingley tariff bill will not be molested by congress. It should be remembered, Incidentally, that as Mr. Dalzell is one of the most Influential Republican leaders in the house, it may be naturally assumed that he is in duty bound to protect tbe Interests of the trusts. That assumption would account for the following remarkable declaration lie-makes: “The only excuse offered for tinkering with the tariff is that trusts may be punished; whereas it is well known that the trusts cannot be punished In this manner.”

Many men of brains have declared that the only way to get at the trust is through the tariff. Therefore when Mr. Dalzell assumes that the contrary “is well known” he either purposely or inadvertantly errs. If a protective tariff was justified when our “Infant industries” were really infantile, it has proven the mother of the trusts which were begotten by a manipulation of the monetary system. In reply to Mr. Dalzell it might be said that the attitude of such men as himself warrants the belief that a revision of the tariff is exactly the way to punish the trusts. The Republican party in the last campaign, as an offset to the cry raised against trusts by the Democratic leaders, made voluminous promises of antitrust legislation. Now its delegated members in congress are growing redfaced in the ondeavor to head off ue only logical anti trust measures so far suggested. It Is noteworthy that In urging that tariff revision would be futile they fall to present nny other means for obtaining the end they professed to be so desirous of in 1900. If the trusts themselves were not so anxious to assert that the tariff has nothing to do with them, the people might receive the declarations of Congressman Dalzell and Congressman Grosvenor with more credence.—Kansas City World.

Descending to Machine Politics.

According to special dispatches in some of our Republican exchanges President Roosevelt has already began a retrograde movement, and Is descending to machine politics in order to advance his personal political fortunes. The case to which special attention Is called at this time Is that of the appointment of Francis E. Baker to

a United States Judgeship in Indiana. It is regarded in Washington as well as in Indiana as a “jolt” administered to Senator Fairbanks, who it is well known aspires to the Presidential nomination by his party in 1904. It seems that Baker is a very special friend of Senator Beveridge. He is what may be termed the original Beveridge man. Ills backing was exclusively Beveridge. Senator Fairbanks and all the Republican Congressional delegation from Indiana with one exception were for any other than Baker. In appointing Baker, therefore, the President has turned down Fairbanks and all his following, thus notifying them if they expect any favors from him they must be “good Indians.”

Fairbanks did everything in his power to avert the blow. He withdrew his indorsement of Monek aud declined to indorse any one candidate. He would be satisfied with any of a dozen names. If any but Baker had been appointed it could have been billed as a Fairbanks victory, the significance of which seems to be that Roosevelt recognizes in Fairbanks a rival for the Republican nomination in 1904. He does not trust him, and he will not allow him to dispense the federal patronage. Beveridge may be on the Roosevelt ticket as candidate for Vice President. At any rate he will help land Roosevelt delegates in Indiana. Thus it is that our good and strenuous President is engaged in looking after his fences, and he is evidently going to use the federal patronage to down his opponents.—lllinois Register. Blowinir Hot anil Colt. The action of the commissioner of internal revenue in holding the Philip pines to be domestic territory for the purposes of taxation is in direct conflict with the attitude of the treasury department in holding the Islands to be foreign territory for tariff purposes, although it is in harmony with the decision of the Supreme Court in the Porto Rico cases. It will be recalled that the Supreme Court held that Porto Rico became domestic territory for taxing purposes immediately it passed under the sovereignty of the United States, and that no duties should have been collected on goods shipped from the island to this country. In the next case it held that while Porto Rico was not foreign territory during the military administration that Congress was empowered to treat it as such in tariff legislation and that the Porto Rican tariff was constitutional. The Philippines occupy the same relation to the United States as Porto Rico did prior to the passage of the establishing of a civil government In the island, and, unless the Supreme Court takes another twist, tariff duties levied on goods coming from the islands to this country or entering the Islands from American ports will be held to have been illegally collected. By the same reasoning the action of the commissioner of internal revenue will be maintained. The government at Washington, however, is clearly Illogical in exacting customs duties and at the same time collecting an internal revenue tax on articles subject to such a tax and shipped to the Philippines. The Philippines cannot be both domestic and foreign terri toryM ihva ukee News.

Are We to Imitate Weyler? The information contained in the dispatches yesterday that Gen. Bell has notified the Filipinos of Batangas province that on Dec. 28 he proposes so concentrate them in the neighborhood of the towns, including their goods and live stock, will not be agreeable news to Americans who had hoped that the war was over In the Philippines. This military order means the inauguration of the dreaded reconcentrado system of warfare, which horrified the civilized world when the Spanish general, Weyler, attempted to crush the Cuban rebellion, and which is now being practiced by the British in South Africa. The dispatches say that the roads from Batangas and Laguna provinces “are lined with a continuous stream of native men, women and children in carryalls, carts and mounted on earabous, seeking safety from the horrors of war,” The people are being driven from their homes with the threat that if they do not herd themselves in camps, to be under military guard, they may suffer death and confiscation of their property. We condemned this plan as murder and Weyler as a butcher when Spain ndopted it in Cuba, and it is hardly possible that the same humane indignation will not now express itself when an American army officer is resorting to a method entailing so much misery to non-combatants. It marks the beginning of another chapter of the Philippine blunder, the terrible cost of wliish in life and treasure we are only beginning to comprehend. —Buffalo Courier.

The Handmaiden of Monopoly. Reciprocity, the handmaiden of protection, as high-tariff Republicans now delight to term that vague and evasive policy, will doubtless lie found to have earned the title beyond ail dispute before the fifty-fifth Congress shall have reached the day of final adjournment. What still remains to be seen, however, Is whether the general public will be fooled into believing tbaffcuch a handmaiden serves any but monopoly Interests.—St. Louis Republic.