Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-07-24
WASHINGTON LETTER.
WASHINGTON. JuIu II. 1898.


Indications increase as the time for
the meeting of the extra session draws
nearer that there will be just as bitter
a fight among the democrats over the
tariff as there will be over silver, and
whether correctly or not Mr.. Cleve
land is classed among those demo-
Gratis who will favor a revision of the
tariff on protection lines. The attempt
on the part of the administration to
center public attention on the silver
question was the deliberate and in
territorial result of the conviction that
it would be suicidal both for the dem
ocratic party and for the country for
the democratic Congress to keep the
pledges made by the Chicago plat
form, in the construction of a tariff
bill, and that it was necessary to
withdraw public attention from the
tariff in order to prevent the change
of attitude being so noticeable. The
free trade wing of the democratic
party in Congress, mostly from the
south and west, are just beginning to
catch the drift of this movement and
they say they will demand that Con-
gress carry out the party platform
and wipe out so much of the tariff as
represents protection to home indus
tries, and open our markets to the
manufactures of the world
1t seems more probable now than at
any time since the election that the
republicans in Congress may by act
ing with that wing of the democratic
party which will vote for moderate
protection be able to prevent the ut
ter destruction of many American in
dustries that cannot possibly exist
without some protection. But even
with the hardest work on the part of
the republicans it is probable that the
reductions made in the present duties
will be large enough to cause gen
eral reduction in wages throughout
the United States, in order to allow
our goods to compete with the pro-
ducts of European labor, but a reduc
ton in wages, bad as it is, is prefera
BILE to the entire loss of employment
that would necessarily follow a |
triumph of the free trade wing of the
democratic party.
The alleged news of the preparation
by England to resist by force the de-
cision of the Behring Sea Arbitration
should it be in favor OF the United
States, as it must be if the arbitra-
tors decide without prejudice, found a
few people here who took it serious
ly, but most people regard it az mere
ly one of the stories of the silly sea-
son, through which the world usually
passes at this season of the year.
Such action on the part of England
would mean war, and England does
not war with Us; it would precipitate
the inevitable loss of her possessions
on this continent.
1t is admitted on the quiet by Mr..
Crisp's friends that there is to be lots
of shaking up in the membership of /
the House committees, and that
good many democrats who had prom ;
inent and desirable committee places ;
in the last House will be given only |
minor places in the coming re- organ
ization. They do not feel free yet to
openly boast of these changes, which $
have in reality been ordered by Mr.. ]
for although there is no t
candidate in sight to make fight |
against the election of Crisp to be /
Speaker, they realize that combina- I
ton might be made within forty i
eight hours of the time for holding {
the democratic caucus that might do !
the business for Crisp and upset /
things generally. Representative
Bland of Missouri, who has been chair {
man OF the Coinage committee when s
ever the House has been democratic, E
for these many years, is to be left out
in the cold and they are saying that t
he has consented, but that is doubt {
full. Springer is to be sat upon hard,
and instead of hitting back with his I
good right hand he and his friends f
are begging that he be given his old t
place at the head of the Ways and s
Means committee and expressing his 6
to make any promises S
that may be required. 1t is believed, s
however, that he is needlessly hust- t
ing himself and that he has no chance c
Of getting his old place. Holman also I
s to go. His economy was good v
enough when one branch of Congress S
vas republican, but now the demo- e
Gratis want to get at the cash.
A FRANTIC APPEAL. .