Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1897 — State Central Committee Meeting. [ARTICLE]

State Central Committee Meeting.

There will be a meeting of the State Republican Central Committe at Indianapolis, Indiana, on Tuesday the 2Sth of December, 1897, for the purpose of fixing a date for the reorganization of the party campaign of 1898. The State Central Committee would be pleased to see a goodly number of republicans attend the meeting from Jasper County.

B. F. FERGUSON,

Chairman.

The calm, clear, and forceful expressions of the President at the prospective course of the Government in the Cuban question in case the Spanish promises of autonomy and justice to the Cubans are not carried out have impressed the country very greatly in his favor, and developed a general willingness to leave this important and delicate question in the hands of the adminislration instead of attempting to force action and embarrass the Government by such Congressional action as was demanded by so many people a few months ago.

Dingley law earnings first four months $90,517,114 Wilson law earning first four months $83,038,007 The above official figures are quoted for the purpose of calling attention to the injustice and absolute falsehood with which opponents of the present administration attack its measures and operations. The New York “Journal,” the eastern mouth-piece of th£ silver party, on the morning following the presentation of President McKinley's message, said specifically in its editorial column that the “President finds the Dingley bill producing smaller revenues and greater deficits than the measure which his platform denounced ever did.” Of course the measure which his platform denounced was the Wilson law, and the inaccuracy of this statement by this mouth-piece of the silver party is shown by the official figures quoted above.

A revenue law which increases its earnings more than twenty-five per cent, in four months and has a prospect of continuing that increase for several months at an equally rapid rate ought not to be embarrassed by suspicion or denounced by people who profess to be friends of the parly framing itThe Dingley law, which started in under the extremely embarrassing circumstances under a condition in which the country has been filled with foreign goods prior to its enactment, has increased its earnings more than 2-5 per cent, and there is prospect that the earnings, which are now over $25,0CX),000 a month, will be increased from $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 per month shortly after the beginning of the new year. It i 3 thus apparent that the people who are demanding that Congress shall immediately legislate to increase the revenue are doing an injustice to the law and to business interests which are, of course, disturbed by any proposition for further tariff agitation at present. , A new kink in the law relating to the estimates of expenditures which Government officials are required to turn in every year is responsible for the enormous figures covering the estimates for the expenditures for the fiscal year 1899, and for the nominal estimates

of a deficiency in that year. Secretary Gage’s estimate, sent to Congress on the second day of its session, indicates a prospective deficit of $21,000,000 in the fiscal year which begins next July and ends June 30, 1899. The fact is that neither the Secretary nor any of his assistants expect that there will be any deficit in that year, but, on the contrary, a handsome surplus; but a law recently enacted compels the War Department officials to include in their so-call-ed “estimates” of expenditures the estimates made by their subordinates scattered over the country, in relation to river and harbor appropriations, and this resulted in an estimate from the War Department for over $60,000,000 for river and harbor work, while it is well known that no more than onefourth of that sum is likely to be appropriated. This accounts for the estimate of an apparent deficit in 1899, about which Democratic editors have given so much trouble and which they will doubtless forget all about when they see the Dingley law piling up a surplus of at least that amount in the year in question.

Still Surveying The Trolley