Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1905 — THE CARDS STACKED. [ARTICLE]

THE CARDS STACKED.

k«f*Ulnu Plan to Give Railiw** Another Leue to Floater. When congress meets the Republican leaders will be forced to show their hands, aud we sball then know if the deal has been a square one. The band that the chairman of the ways and means committee will hold will probably be a bobtail flush, for the dealer does not intend there sball be any real revision of the tariff. Sereuo E. Tayne may bluff a bit and pretend that he does not wish the trusts to be fostered, but be will be obliged to lay down his hand early In the game. He is at the mercy of the dealer, and the way that Speaker Cannon has stacked the cards In the interests of the protected monopolies puts the committee out of business. What kind of a hand has been fixed up for Mr. Hepburn and the committee on interstate and foreign commerce Is problematical, but If those card sharps, the railroad attorneys, are as clever today as their predecessors have been In the past the chairman will have a royal flush to stand pat on, and the president will be up against a sure -thing when he draws his cards. But President Roosevelt has been up against skin games before and has settled the matter by exposing the fakirs and Is how demanding a new deal and a square one. He has the nerve to defy the gang that are now marking the cards and rehearsing the brace game that has to be played to give the railroads another lease of power for plunder. The majority of the representatives of the people will merely be onlookers at the game, but few of them will dare to open their mouths for an honest settlement of the railroad rate question. A big smudge will be made for the timid ones to hide behind—ln fact, the fire has already been started by the senate committee on Interstate commerce, and the smoke of the evidence to befog the minds of the people Is rising to heaven dally under the fostering care of the Republican senators and the railroad attorneys. When the “show down” comes next spring, It Is safe to say that no one will have a clear winning hand, and the plot will have to be divided between the railroads and the other gamblers. The people will be out of It early In the game unless the president obtains a square deal.