Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1906 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and Oenecal Gossip of the National Capital. From our Special Correspondent: It would be entertaining to know what the President and Senator Tillman really think of each other. Probably nobody will ever know exactly. But there seems no doubt after Senator Tillman’s impassioned defense of the rate bill in hiß "personal report” on the measure that the President has found by accident in the Senate a champion who echoes his views and who iB really standing for the spirit of the law that the President has set himself to have enacted. Thus there is presented the curious spectacle of the President jnd his bitterest personal and political opponent fighting shoulder to shoulder in the same cause. Senator Tillman has often proved himself a fighter after the President’s own heart and his language on the rate bill is no less logical and infinitely harder and more rugged that the things the President had to bay in his message as to the necessity for rate legislation. In fact some of the naked and unsightly truths that Senator Tillman exposed to view in his speech are so vital to the interests of everyone who has a real heart interest in the country that they may well be reproduced For he says that it is a case of finding out whether the government can control the railroads or whether the roads control the government, and if the latter proves to be the case there is a period of radical reaction and social revolution ahead that may lead to bloodshed or worse. In the course of his remarks Senator Tillman said “Those who are responsible for delay or inadequate legislation will find that when at last the flootj gates of popular wrath and indignation are hoisted, there will have to be some fine grinding done. The situation today brings into prominence the fact that the propused legislation is nonpartisan. If any decision of the Supremo Court shall declare that Congress is powerless to grant speedy relief through a cominis sion, it needs no prophet to tell what an outburst of surprise and indignation will sweep over the country. Whatever else Congress does or fails to do, the producers of the country should be relieved from such danger of being compelled to make good the values of over-capitalized railroads as lurks in the innocent looking and plausible provision about, fairly remunerative rates. "Within the last few years the railroads have become transformed into the veriest band of robber-highway-men who do not thrust their pistols in the faces of their victims and demand money or thpir lives but who levy tribute in freight rates which are as high as the traffic will bear, deny access to the market, monopolize with brazen alTrontery one of the prime necessities of life—toil and in every way show their absolute contempt for the people and the pecp’es’ rights. We should divorce absolutely the business of transporting freight as a public carrier and the business of producing freight to be transported. If those who are interested in these great properties will not consent to wise legislation to relieve the distress of the people, there is danger of more radical policy and leaders coming to the front, with the result that legislation far more drastic and dangerous than any thing proposed in tide bill, and the one amendment to be offered, will be speedily enacted.”

The foregoing is bat a part of Senator Tillman’s personal view as presented to the Senate. How near it cornea to being an accurate view every householder who has felt himself in the grip of the railroads through enhanced prices of living will realize. It is a flat warning to the railroad magnates and the owners of the colossal fortunes that the railroads have built up to come into camp and act with reasonable decency lest a worse thing befall them. Whether the railroads and great "interests” now well represented in many high priced seats in the Senate, will heed the warning, the vote on the rate bill will make plain. The prospect for reasonably satisfactory legislation are somewhat brighter now. But there are many things that can happen between now and the vote on the bill. Much pressure has been and will be brought on individual senators in favor of the bill. The pressure against it has already been brought in large rolls, and there is more where that came from. It is possible that the railroads will see the situation in the same light that Senator Tillman has presented it, and will call off their lobbies when they have done what they think is the utmost they can safely attempt. At the same time it is possible that their eyes may have been puffed shut through too fat feeding, and if this is the case, the legislation is sure to be either delayed indefinitely, or else will be of so unsatisfactory character that it might as well not have been passed.