Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1902 — CUBAN BILL PASSES. [ARTICLE]

CUBAN BILL PASSES.

BEET-SUGAR MEN SCORE SENSATIONAL TRIUMPH. Hard Blow for Sugar Trust—Thirtyfour Republicans Join Democratic Phalanx in the Intensely Dramatic Struggle—Lively Time in the House. Doubtful victory for Cuban reciprocity, smashing defeat of Speaker Henderson and his lieutenants in the House, a hard blow at the New York sugar trust and a sensational, though perhaps temporary, triumph for the beet sugar protectionists. All this happened in the House of Representatives Friday afternoon amid scenes of excitement such as have rarely been known in the history of that body. The Republican Speaker was overruled in a Republican House by the combination of thirty-four men of that party with the solid Democratic vote —by long odds the most dramatic political coup seen in Congress in many years. By a vote of 171 to 130 control of the lower branch was wrested from its leaders and the majority party and turned over to the Democratic ultra protection alliance. Then by a vote of 199 to 105 the Morris amendment, striking off the sugar trust’s differential protection of oneeighth of a cent a pound, was adopted, thus admitting refined and raw sugar for two years at the same rates of duty. And finally the Cuban 20 per cent reciprocity bill, thus amended, was passed by a vote of 247 to 52.

The provisions of the bill as passed are summarized as follows: The President is authorized as soon as may be after the establishment of an independent government in Cuba, and the enactment by said government of immigration, exclusion and contract labor laws as restrictive as those of the United States, to negotiate a reciprocal trade agreement with Cuba by which, in return for equivalent concessions, the United States will grant a reduction of 20 per cent from the Dingley rates on goods coming into the United States from Cuba, such agreement to continue until Dec. 1, 1903. During the existence of such agreement the duty on refined sugars and all sugars above number 16 Dutch standard ia to be 1.825 cents per pound.