Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1906 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the I National Capital. From our Special (?orre*potid®nt: The death in committee of the Payne Philippine Tariff Bill can be borne by the country with considerable equanimity for two reasons. It was an apparent without being an actual step in the direction of free trade. The advocates of the measure, the Secretary of War and the officials of the Insular bureau and the Philippine government, claimed that it would not hurt either the rice, tobacco or sugar industries in the United States. If it was not going to affect the export of these crops, all of them by the way southern crops, enough to hurt these industries at home, it was not likely to do the Filipinos much good. If it was going to build up the islands materially, then it was going to do so at the expense of the United States. So either the bill was obviously not worth passing or else it was a good one to kill. But the larger interest in the tight lay in the shadow it casts on the progress of the Statehood Bill. This is and always has been a party measure of the moat partisan kind. It means if it passes, not only linking Arizona and New Mexico in dis-

tasteful union, but it means substituting four Democratic Senators for eight in the probable lineup of the southwest. It was intimated some time ago, intimated too plainly for mistake, that the fate of the tariff bill and the statehood bill was one. Since the combination in the Senate has been strong enough to kill the first measure, it may be strong and recipracal enough to kill the other. Such an outcome could be viewed by almost anyone with a degree of resignation approaching jollity. t t t Three amendments to the Hepburn Rate Bill are scheduled to be tacked to the measure in the Senate. It is strongly protested by the covert opponents of the rate bill that the amendments are nothing serious and that they will not affect the spirit and intent of the bill, But the very insistence of the Senate on amending the bill raises the suspicion that there is a joker hidden in one of them somewhere and that it will develops when the “judicial review,” which is being 'strongly urged, commences. Senator Deliver has come out as a strong advocate of the unamended bill and in the course of a long speech on the subject paid a possibly unecessary tribute to the industry and executive ability of the Inter-state Commerce Commission. No one who has lived in Washington and watched the Commission at close range would think the subject called for a very fervid tribute. But if the Hepburn bill succeeds, as is its alleged intent, in instilling a little vitality and aggresiveness into the I Commission, nobody will grudge the tribute even if it was a little premature. 111 The bill “for the increased torture of live stock in transport” is ready to be reported from the committee to the House. This measure it will be recollected provides an extension of from 28 to 36 hours in the time that cattle being shipped to market may be transported in a cattle car without food, water or rest. The measure is being urged by the cattle shippers and is opposed by the Humane Society which declares that the time in transit should be cut down instead of being extended. The 28 hour law has been on the

statue book for twenty years or so. But it is only within the past two years that it has really been enforced. Since then the shippers have felt the pinch and they are now trying to legalize the wrong they formerly perpetrated in defiance of what they fondly hoped was a dead., law. They have won over Secretary Wilson to their side and he is actually advocating the extension of the shipping time. But the Humane Society declares that 28 hours is too long to strave anything or anybody and that the time either ought to be shortened or the cars fitted with feeding and watering attachments. There are two other ways of meeting the difficulty without further torturing the cattle. One is by moving the slaughter houses closer to the point of or.gin of their living freight. This would necessitate some initial expenditure on the part of the Beef Trust, but that would be quickly made up, for it is notoriously cheaper to transport dressed meat than it is to ship liye cattle. And the Beef Trust makes enormously on every mile one of its refrigerator cars is run. But in this particular case the Trust is loath to see that it could save money by spending money. The other method would be to make compulsory the shipment of live stock at a greater speed instead as is now done, of frequently side tracking the cattle trains for hours in favor of some inanimate freight. The run of a cattle train in this way could easily be increased from 250 to 500 miles per day and everyone would be better off, for the cattlemen themselves say that the steers lose weight terribly in shipment. Any of the plans mentioned would be cheerfully accepted by the opponents of the bill as ground for a compromise. But if the thing is to be fought out to a vote the people who are interested in seeing humanity triumph can help the cause a great deal by appealing to their members of Congress and Senators in person or by letter. Eyes examined free; latest methods; by A. G. Catt, Eyesight Specialist. Graduate refractionist. Permanently located in Rensselaer. Office upstairs in new Murray-Long Block. Two carloads of Pittsburg coal just received at J. E. Bislosky’s coal and wood yard on Front street.