Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1909 — INDIANA DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS.

It is fortunate for the people of Indiana that the eleven Democratic congressmen from this state have put themselves clearly on record on the tariff bill that has just been forced through the house. The Washington dispatches say that Representative Moss off'the Fifth district is opposed to the removal of the “protective” duty on hides on the theory that the duty benefits the farmer. As the packers who compose the meat trust are the only ones who really get the benefit of the duty'Mmposed on Imported hides, the chances are that Mr. Moss has been misunderstood as to his position. With a united front, therefore, the eleven Democratic congressmen from Indiana have stood squarely for an honest and genuine revision of the tariff. It was not their fault that the fraudulent Payne bill was accepted by the house. Doubtless the senate will make it worse, and when it gets to President Taft, it will be a monstrosity compared with which the infamous Dingley law was respectably.

So the end of the tariff farce is in sight! It has been a performance that should be very instructive indeed. Under a promise of tariff reform a great party has brought in a measure that increases the tax on most things, lowering it on a few of which the people will get indirect benefit.’—lndianapolis News. t Well, who expected anything else? The Republican party is still controlled by the same thieving special interests that have guided its legislation for a generation. Three times before it promised the people a fair and honest revision of the tariff. But that was during the campaign, when it was after votes. The people listened and were fooled. A fourth time the same promise was made, and for the fourth time the people listened and were fooled. Is it possible that a majority of the American voters can be fooled all the time? It begins to look like it.

The next general election is more than eighteen months away, but it should not be forgotten that the Democratic members of the late legislature tried to pass a bill which would, had it become a law, have made it impossible to commit frauds through the instrumentality of illegal foreign votes like those charged in Lake county last November. The Democratic house did pass this bill but the Republican senate killed it. Governor Marshall approved it—he even was said by.the Republicans to have been the author of it • the best citizens of the state'wanted it enacted into law, but the Republican politicians had profited by the scandalous laxity of the law as it stands and would not allow it to be changed. A legislature ought to be elected in 1910 which will put this election reform bill in the statutes.

The eleven democrats and one of the two republican members of congress from Indiana voted Tuesday for free lumber in the pending tariff bill, Crumpacker alone from this, the tenth’ district, voting to retain the duty. The voters of this district should paste this item in their hatbands that they may not forget when the next election rolls around and “Crump” comes up again as usual for another term.