The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1883-02-05
GLIMPSES OF WASHINGTON.
Something About the Seemingly Intermin-
able Discussion on the Tariff Cues
tion In the Senate.
Pen Pictures of Senator Beck, Vance, Frye
of Maine, George. of Mississippi,
and Others.

WASHINGTON, January 3o.-To-day sat
for an hour in the Senate while the intermna-
BILE debate on the tariff was going on. This
debate is conducted good deal as debating
club would be on a question with an affirma-
tive and negative side, Morrill,, of Vermont,
and Aldrich, of Rhode Island, defending the
tariff, with Beck, of Kentucky. and Vance, of
North Carolina, opposing it. Now and then
others on both sides pitched in, but these four
men seem to be delegated to do all the fight
ing.
Beck, who leads the Democrats, is large
sized man and looks more like blacksmith
than statesman; he lacks intellectual char
acteristics, his face is wrinkled and has many
hard lines aboutit; in gesture he is very awk
ward, always pounding away with his left arm
always in furry, never correct in his state
ments of facts, and always subjecting himself
to be corrected; he always seems to be mad
never attributes anything but the worst mo-
tives to his opponents; he scatters and splut-
tiers in most ridiculous fashion and lacks in
every element that makes leader,
EXCEPT IMPETUosTY.
Vance, who sits Immediately behind Beck,
is rather handsome man, with full head of
gray hair wears a moustache, and thinks a
good deal of his personal appearance. He is
a good talker, but like Beck, he fails to state
facts, but generally manages to dodge the
issue by branching out upon some side mat
ter. It is evident that Vance is working hard
to manufacture campaign capital for '84.
Besides Beck and Vance, on the free trade
humbug, is Bayard, the great Bayard. He
has a weak, unsteady voice, and assumes a
knowledge of facts that he is seldom borne out
in. Bayard appears weak man in the pres
ence of Vance and Beck.
Morrill,, Of Vermont, the great tariff cham
pion, is an old man, with long face; but he
is cultured, and speaks easily and pleasantly,
and never gets excited, but has always his
facts close together and unanswerable.
Aldrich, of Rhode Island, is a compare
lively young man, but upon every point he
seems to be thoroughly posted.
Besides these two might mention the inn
pulsive Frye, from Maine, who cannot talk
without being eloquent and whose impetuous,
but splendid, rhetoric reminds one of the de-
scripton given of Hayne, of South Carolina.
On this particular morning the Senators de-
scribed were the chief actors, with one or two
others.
George, of Mississippi, was addressing the
Senate, as took my seat, upon motion to
reduce the
DUTY ON TEXTILE MANUFACTURES
to 10 per centum. George is large man,
with rather redish hair, which fuffs down
over very narrow frontal. His features are
heavy and rather indicative of cruelty than
anything else; his delivery is labored, and he
talked like man who had failed to grasp his
subject; in fact, like Beck and Vance, who
prompted him, he didn't know what he was
talking about He wanted machinery to be
let in free of duty in order that the South
might be enabled to buy it cheap and thus
engage in manufacturing.
Frye, Of Maine, proceeded to answer
George. He produced facts that went to
show that unless protection was given the
machine shops they would cease to exist; that
the manufacture of cotton and wool had gone
hand in hand with the invention and manu-
facture of textile machinery in this country;
that under the absolute prohibition law of
England that prevented the expectation OF any
textile machinery for 70 years down to 1916
American genius had been stimulated into
action, and that now American machinery
was better than that made in England. He
cited the cotton gin and instanced the great
growth of the production of cotton in conse-
quence. He laid it down as fact in the
experience of manufacturing that it has been
only through the concentration of factories
and the necessary machine shops had New
England succeeded.
FRYE's SPEECH
was overwhelming, but Vance got up
to reply to it, and instead of doing it
went off on the question of protecting labor,
and read letter from some Bourbon free
trade Democrat in New Hampshire, describ-
ing the laborers from Canada who hocked over
10 New Hampshire to work in the factories,
and this letter he produced as an argument
against the plea of protecting American labor.
1t was catchpenny thing, and unworthy of
the adoption by an American Senator.
Dawes, OF Massachusetts, reported to Vance
as to the factory operatives of his State, and
there did not seem to be anything left to be
said; but Vance did get up and go off again,
quoting the statement of a census gatherer
that the average wages of factory operative
in New England was IS cents day, and some
other garbled facts. Aldrich came back at
him, and showed by the same report that the
same class of laborers in North Carolina only
averaged az cents per day.
As sat and listened to this debate, and
looked at the men engaged in it, became
convinced that the American people would
never trust their affairs to
A PARTY so POORLY LID,
so badly informed, las the Democratic party is.
The South must send up different set of
men from those who now represent it, il it