The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-03-13
J WASHINGTON LETTER.
Prospects of the Wilson Biu--The Pr esi-
dent in Quandary.
From our Regular Correspondent.

free traders in the senate. He has
stormed and raved but it has all been to
no purpose; the free traders are still on
the run, and today the prospect of the
ultimate defeat of his tariff bill is bright
er than ever. The bit of parliamentary
legerdemain by which the senate took
up the Bland bill for the coinage of the
seigniorage did not improve his state of
mind, as the democratic party is even
more divided on that measure than up
on the tariff, and if the senate promptly
passes it, as now seems probable, he
will have to choose between vetoing it
and breaking his word, pledged by Sec
retary Carlisle to the New York bankers
in order to prevent the absolute failure
of the recent bond issue.
The tariff bill is now in the hands of
the full finance committee, but the ten
democratic kickers, headed by Hill, Cor
mon and Brice, are masters of the situa-
tion. They are growing over the cuckoos
to such an extent that some of them are
threatening to become kickers them
selves because of the concessions that
have been made to the ten. Senators
Allison and Aldrich, republican mem
bers of the finance committee, have
given the democratic members of that
committee notice, on the floor of the sem,
ate, that the republicans do not propose
to allow the bill to be railroaded through
the committee, and the republicans,
70 ho oh 0E
one of the democratic members Of the
committee, are in position to prevent
any precipitate action by the full COM
mittee. Senator Hills open fight
against the income tax has not improved
the situation from democratic point of
view.
It must have caused Mr.. Cleveland,
Hoke Smith and Commissioner Lochren
to blush with shame when they read the
manly criticisms of the administrator
pension policy made on the floor of the
house while the pension appropriation
bill was under consideration. General
Sickels, one of the few democrats in the
house who always stands up and fights
for those who fought for the country in
its hour of need, made ringing speech
against the administration policy. He
began by quoting the declaration con-
corning pensions from Mr.. Cleveland 8
'92 letter of acceptance and declaring
most emphatically that if that declara-
tion had been lived up to there would
have been no trouble. Gen. Slckles'
speech contained a number of epigrams
worthy of preservation. For instance
eff you would have good soldiers in the
next war, take good care of the soldiers
of the past war''-and, speaking of a
| compilation of pension laws issued by
the pension bureau, which he held in
his hand-"They print them for other
people to read; they ought to read them
themselves" Gen. Sickles was particu-
larly severe on Commissioner Lochren
for trying to break down the act of Dec
ember, 1898, declaring a pension to be a
vested right, an act which Gen. Sickles
said will stand. Gen. Grosvenor, of
Ohio. in a remarkably strong speech
against the administration treatment
of old soldiers, paid his respects to Mr..
Cleveland's libel about there being hun
dreds of thousands of fraudulent pen
sioners, and said: ''If there are 200
| fraudulent pensioners on the roll, the
commissioner ought to be impeached for
inefficiency." Gen. Grosvenor said ne
had been told by an official of the PEN
sion bureau that the most of the frauds
on the roll had been placed there by
| (t0r,o
veteran bill.
| The charges connectingsa a number of
democratic senators with specializing in
sugar stock have reached that point
where they are little short of q great
national scandal, and it now looks as
though those democratic Senators who
have not been specializing in sugar stock
will be compelled in defense of their own
good names to join with the republican
senators in ordering an investigation.
Five democratic senators, two of them
members of the finance committee, are
involved in these scandals. Gossip has
it that the profits of one of these senators
on the day that it was announced by
two democratic senators that an arrange
ment had been made with President
Havemeyer of the sugar trust, who was
at the time in Washington, by the demo-
Gratis of the finance committee, to pro-
tect the sugar trust, reached the sum of
SOS, 900. Ifthese democrats are innocent
of stock -jobbing with the sugar clause OF
the tariff bill they should ask for an in
lvestigation and establish their innocence.