The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-12-30
Speaker Crisp's Committees.

Crisp as speaker, and particularly in his
committee appointments, if the lamen-
tations of Watterson and the jeremiads
of the independent press are true
indications. Watterson is lurid in his
criticisms. "The rule of the speakers
arrangement" he says, dis to reward
those who supported him and to punish
his opponents y; the selection of Mr..
Springer as chairman of the Ways and
Means committee "eXposes both the
speaker and the chairman to whatever
the ill-disposed see ftto say about them,
thus giving the cause of tariff reform
black eye on the threshold of presi-
dental campaign" The Boston Herald
sees dire disaster to the democracy in
the practical substitution of the free sill
yer coinage for the tariff issue, as the
speaker has done in refusing to place
eminent "tariff reformers on the
Ways and Means committee and in
making Bland, the bell-wether of free
coinage democrats, chairman of the
coinage committee, and supporting him
with committee, eight of whose thir-
teen members are for free coinage.
This act, according to democratic con-
temporary, "places the party on the
down-hill slope to political bankruptcy"
The Springfield Republican is in fren-
zy of anger. "Speaker Crisp has blum
dered egregiously and stupidity in the
makeup of the house committees"
Even the Gorman-Hill-Brice gang of
bourbons and reactionists, which was
chiefly responsible for putting Crisp
hurtful length to which the speaker has
carried the game" The irate and
gloomy mugwump is "unable to see how
the house can be organized advantage
ously by crowding to the rear the recog-
nized and experienced leaders and in
thrusting forward new men in reward
for personal service, or because they
will be more subservient to the speak
er's will" The true inwardness of the
Republicans grief and anger seems to
lie in the evident purpose of the speaker
to "head the party in another direction
from that in which it has been moving
along toward a stronger and stronger
position in recent years.; that is to
say, to "head" the party toward free
coinage of silver and away from "tariff
REFORM" euphemism for free trade.
IL the opinion of this dolorous free
trader, /" a blunder, as stultifying as it
is irreparable, has been committed"
and the result sis particularly unfor-
tunate for the independent in politics."
This last clause seems to be something
of a give-away. Possibly the Republt-
can is caring, after all, more about the
sorry plight in which the Independent
in politics" is left by this fancied re-
turn of the democratic SOW to its wal
lowing in the mire than for the "head-
ing" Of the party away from alleged
reforms to the embrace of dangerous
financial heresies. And indeed the
independent has reason to be mad
and mortified. He has studiously laved
the "sow" with rose water, perfumed
her, and decked her in fine linen of his
own Incompatible spinning and weav-
ing, taken her into his parlor and feasted
her at his table, and now the unesthetic
brute, true to her instincts, inconti-
nently makes break for her old mire
bed, and the Independent is left angry
and lamenting. The democracy, he
says, is developing that historic capacity
for laundering that has been its oppo-
nents' unfailing reliance. When, by
chance, or by dint of lying, or by mis-
representing, or by cheating at the bal
lot box, the party has been hoisted into
power, " SO often has democratic blum
dering proved the salvation of its oppo-
nents that it has passed into proverb,'
etc., etc. The moral that the outcome of
the speakership contest teaches is clear
and has been time and again enforced.
The democratic party has no defined
policy or fixed principles. 1t shifts its
ground at every election. 1t is party
seeking power, and when its leaders
discuss question the first thing consid-
cred is the effect on the party, the sec
ond its merits as affecting the country.
1t is utterly incapable of sacrificing an
election to a principle. But recently
the champion of tariff REFORM" it
sees the rising tide of benefits flowing
from the Mckinley bill and begins to
send its tariff reformers to the rear, and
to spread its drag-net to scoop in the
elements that may be enmeshed and
arrayed against the republicans--the
party of progressive action, the party
of performance, the party upon which
the country relies for salutary legisla-
tiOu and real refOrm