The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-02-21
SENATORS ALL ACQUIESCED.
Then as Suddenly Changed Their
Minds Again.
NO AGREEMENT ON THE TARIFF
Protection Senators and the President
Strike Rock on Which They
Have Divided.

! WIG men are EeiIiDR III GHelr DeSI WCTK
on the Finance Committee. They gave a
wine iun cheon" to-day to the sub-com-
miitee on tariff revision.
Chairman VOORHEES, of the Finance Com
mittee is beginning slowly TO realize that
| tue tariff question cannot be disposed OF
| in the easy manner he said would be the
case. When the bill came over from the
| House Voorhees, declared bis intention at
| that time TO report it to the Senate within
| a week. His committee has now had the
| bill in charge for nearly three weeks, and
| ii is apparently not any nearer ready for
| report than 1t was when the committee
| first began consideration of the measure.
! A draft of bill was printed for the ben
! eft of the committee on Saturday and Mr..
| Voorhees, then announced that he would
report it Tuesday. Tonight Mr.. Voorhees,
said he could not tell just when it would
| be reported, but Senator Harris, member
of the committee. went yesterday on ten
days leave of absence. He is not men,
ber of the subcommittee which has been
considering the bill, and be was told by
members of tic subcommittee that there
would be no need of his presence here for
ten days. 1t is possible that the bill might
be reported in Mr.. Harris absence. but he
said before he went away that it would
certainly not be reported before the regu-
lar meeting on Tuesday of next week.
| voorhees, was asked to-day why the bill
was not reported. as he said would be the
case on Saturday. but he made an evasive
answer. The CALL correspondent, how
ever, is able 10 tell just what the reason
| is. The Democratic members of the CON-
m1ttee took printed draft of their bill to
| the White House and went over it with
| President Cleveland. They had inserted
in the bill small duty on coal and duty
on sugar. but they had not been able to
fix mp their disputed points to the salts
! faction of all the members of their party
in the Senate. Mr.. Cleveland insisted
that the bill ought to be reported with as
! few changes as possible from the way in
which it left the House. He declared that
the disputed points had better be left open
to be settled in the Senate.
| AS stated before in these dispatches, all
the Democratic members of the committee,
with the exception of Mr.. Mcpherson, are
IN favor of free coal and free iron ore and
sugar. The President said that as the bill
had passed the House by siXty-four ma
j0rity and had received the approval of the
party in the country, it would be much bet
ter to bring it before the Senate as it left
the House and put upon any Democratic
Senator the responsibility of trying to de-
feat it because protection was not given to
some local industry.
AS a result of that conference at the
White House, the Democratic members
concluded TO report the bill to-day, max
ing no changes in sugar, coal, iron ore and
Lead as the bill left the House, but when
this decision was made known to Mr..
German. Mr.. Pugh, Mr.. Caffery and other
Democratic Senators they stubbornly OPP
posed it. Mr.. German declared that it
would be suicidal to report the bill to the
Senate in that shape, and that all of these
disputed points should be adjusted, so
that the measure would have the support
| of all the Democrats in the Senate in the
shape that it came before the Senate.
| These objections were made i'll such a
| way that Mr.. VOORHEES, and other members
| of the committee concluded that they had
| better reject the Presidents advice tenn
| porarily and try to adjust their party diff
ferences before reporting the bill. That is
why the bill will probably not be ready
for at least another week. all reports to
the contrary Notwithstanding.
There is the authority of a member of
the committee for stating that 1t has never
for moment entertained an idea of put
ting duty ON wool. Mr.. Mills said that
wool was the keystone of the tariff and
that the first effective step iD the way of
| breaking down the tariff was 10 put wool
| on the free list. Hence there will be no
concessions made in the way of any duty.
| ALI of the Democratic members * the
committee and the President are united Oh
that point.
The coal question is one on which the
President feels very strongly. 1t is said
that at the conference he pointed to the
! fact that there had been a restriction since
| January l in the output of anthracite coal
Of over 100000 tons and that this was
| done by combination for the purpose of
| keeping up the price of coal. The Presi-
dent referred to the complaint in New
York and New England as to the high
price of coal, and said that he
could not conceive 8 greater piece of
folly than for Democrats to agree TO
put duty on coal, while at the same time
advocating free raw material. The Presi-
dents opinion on this subject is not any
more decided than that of Mr.. Mills and
| MIR. Vest, and the probabilities are that
| coal will remain on the free list despite
the threat of Mr.. German and others to de-
feat the bill if a duty is not placed on that
article.
| Mr.. Whites removal from the Senate by
his selection for the Supreme Court bench
may not make any difference in the sugar
schedule, but the probabilities are that it
will weaken the opposition to free sugar.
| The other Louisiana Senator is candidate
| for reelection this year and could not
afford to put himself outside of party
| lines. The expectation, however is that
| Governor Foster of Louisiana will ap-
| point as Mr.. Whites successor some man
equally outspoken against free sugar, but
the new Senator would be handicapped in
| that respect as compared with Mr.. White.
| -----
Who Hanged Secretary Morton.
IL. Il.