Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-26
BLAST FROM BLAINE.
Continued from First Page.


would be open to amendment without any
Limitation whatever. 1t was not the lnten.
| tion of the committee to limit the power OF
offering amendments.
Mr.. Plumb objected to that part of Mr..
AldrIch's request as to the committee
amendment. The less hide.bound the mat
ter was, the better it would be. Mr.. Aid
rich modified his reques. and simply asked
that the formal reading of the bill be dis
pensed with and that the bill be read by
paragraphs for consideration.
Mr.. McPherson-Does the Senator mean
by that that the bill will be open to amend
ment as read?
Mr.. Aldrich-Certainly, under the rules
of the Senate.
VANCE TAKES THE FLOOR.
Unanimous consent was given and Mr..
Vance proceeded to address the Senate. de
said that the result OF the pending bill
might be to reduce revenue to certain ex-
tent, but not to reduce taxes. A reduction
of taxes was one thing and reduction Of
revenue was another, and quite different
thing. What the people desired was COM
mon sense reduction of the revenue and
corresponding relief from the payment OF
taxes. But the taking off of 2 cents a pound
on sugar with one hand, and the paying of
other hand, was indeed reduction of reve-
nue. with both hands, but the taxes remained
and the people paid them all the same.
The Mckinley bill, he said, was an out
rage on human patience and an insult to the
intelligence of mankind. Looking at the
high-souuding title of the billA"To reduce
the revenue and equalize duties on imports"
and comparing it with what it would ac-
complish, the bill would be pronounced the
most stupendous fraud which the ingenuity
of man had yet perpetrated on a much
abused and long-suffering people.
A sCATHING ARRAIGNMENT.
1t neither reduced revenue, in the sense of
reducing taxation, nor equaiized duties on
imports. On the contrary, it increased tax
alton, ana it made duties more unequal by
imposing heavier burdens on the Door than
on the rich, SO willing the taxes on the nee
essaries of life to shock the moral sense of
any just man. Mr.. Vance went on to ar
raign the Republican party for the evils
which, he claimed, protection had brought
upon the country, and said:
These are some of the prominent results of
your misrule and of the policy which you ad-
wise us to continue and increase. "These be
thy gods, oh Israelr' If you are wise, you will
renewed sacrifice on their affairs will not save
you. Nothing will help you but to obey the
injunction of the prophet, repent and depart
from your idols and turn away every one Of
you from all of your denominations.
QUOTING FROM BLAINE.
He went on to quote from Mr.. Blaine's
letter to Mr.. Frye, and said that the un-
mistakable wisdom of what that distin-
guished man had said illustrated the
wisdom of what he had lett unsaid. If it
we're important to extend American trade to
Central and South America it could not be
unimportant to extend it to the European
continent, which in wealth and population
was ten times greater. If free trade with
the people of the Latin races were desirable
and profitable no reasoning could show that
a little free trade with the people of Teutonic
blood was not also desirable and profta BILE.
Mr.. Plumb said that before proceeding to
the consideration of the bill by paragraphs
he would like to know what the Finance
Committee believed would be the effect of
the bill on the revenue. If there ever was
a time when Congress and the country were
entitled to know that fact it was now. He
should not Of he could help it) enter on a
discussion Of the items of the bill until
there was a disclosure of that kind on the
part of the committee, or of some one au-
thorized to speak for it.
THE NEW JERSEY IDEA.
Mr.. Mcpherson said that the able, in
cisive, eloquent and almost unanswerable
speeches of the Senators from Indiana and
North Carolina (Mr. voorhees, and Mr.
vance, seemed to preclude the necessity of
any further defense Of the Democratic posi-
tIon-at least until something was heard
from the other side OF the Chamber. And
now the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Plumb),
in the simplicity OF his nature [laughter], In
quired for some information on the bill.
Did not the honorable Senator know that
for the past three or four days the news
papers had been full of reports; that it had
had been resolved, not only by the Finance
Committee, but by the Republican
caucus also, not to attempt any
defense of the pending bill ?
Had not that Senator noticed that
when Senator on the Democratic sidef of
the chamber addressed the Senate the seats
came vacant, showing that Republican
Senators did not wish to hear anything
about it? If the bill could not be defended |
it could not be passed. He therefore, in
order to expedite business, would move |
that the
PENDING BILL BE RECoMMITTED
to the Committee on Finance with instruc- |
tions to report, at the earliest practicable |
moment, bill to reduce the revenue and to |
equalize duties on imports on the basis that |,
the average rate of duty should not exceed |
the average ad valorem war tariff rate of |
1864.
Mr.. Aldrich-Are you in favor of going
back to the rates of 1864?
Mr.. McPherson-I am in favor Of going
back to rates that will not exceed the ave-
rage ad valorem rates of 1864.
Mr.. Aldrich-State the particular rates.
Be little more specific.
Mr.. McPherson-I speak of the average
ad valorem rates.
Mr. McPherson then launched out on a
review of the tariff question in general and
of the pending bill in particular. He un-
dertook to show that neither the farmer nor
the consumer would be benefited by it.
Who, then, he asked, would be benefited?
Was it labor9 1t was not although in
every campaign the Republican party pro-
claimed itself the friend OF labor and de-
the Democratic party as a free
trade party. No greater falsehood had ever
been uttered. He referred to the campaign
OF 1888 as one in which
IMMENSE SUMS OF MONEY
had been corruptly raised and corruptly
used in behalf of the Republican ticket.
That money had been raised, he said, among
the benefciaries of the pending bill. Chief
among them being pious citizen of Penn
sylvania who had since been rewarded with
a seat in the Cabinet as the price of his
By such practices in the cam.
paign of 1888 the public voice had been
strangled, truth crushed to earth and the
country disgraced.
Mr.. Sherman criticised Mr.. McPherson's
remarks as to reducing the average rate
under the pending bill to the average rate