St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-05
THE sENATE's OPPORTUNITY.

The senate gets with the Wilson bill
an opportunity to retrieve some of the
standing in popular opinion which it
has undoubtedly lost. This will not be
done by changing the bill in the direc-
ton of protection; that would intensity
the feeling. 1t will not be done by
passing the bill as it comes to that
body; this would be simply following
the lead of the lower house. 1t can
only be done by such revision OF the
schedules as will make the rates con-
form strictly to the demand of the tariff
plank of the Chicago platform.
There are some conditions tn at serve
to place the suppOsition that such a
course may be taken inside the pale Of
probabilities. We are also free to admit
that there are others which put it out
side of even the possibilities. The SEN
ate is remOter from the touch OF popular
thought than is the house, and if the
response of the house to the call of the
people was so hating, it is hardly TO be
expected that the senate will be reader
in its response.
But, as we said, there are conditions,
resting for the most part on those quail
ties of our human nature which form
the handspring of most action, which
favor the framing of a purely revenue
bill by the senate. 1t is a very wide
open secret now that President Cleve-
land has put a very chilly atmosphere
between himself and the members of
both houses. AS one representative
says: He seems to regard us all as
mob on a hill" We have recently
given what appears TO us as the reason
able explanation of this /; the impatience
of the president with the petty matters
of office-seeking and placing which
form the object of the visits of nine out
of ten of the members to the executive
mansion. But however trivial these
matters may seem to the president. they
are not so regarded by congressman,
and the result Of the Indifference of the
executive is an Irritation which can
easily find vent in refusing to follow
the lead of the administration on some
measure supposed to be of its Initiation
and the adoption of some policy of its
own by either the house or the senate.
There are reasons for belief tn at the
Wilson bill embodies the presidents
views of tariff reform. 1t is in line
with those expressions of his in his
message Of 1887 and other later declara-
tions, In which he expressed soicitude
that the reduction should not be too Sc
we're on the industries that had learned
tolean heavily on taxation. Then we
all know how the entire body of pro-
fessedly Democratic papers from the
Delaware to Boston rebelled against the
tariff plank of the Chicago platform,
and. when Mr.. Cleveland gave out his
letter of acceptance, declared that in it
he had kicked that plank out from
under him.
Much as we resisted the claim then,
we are now constrained to admit that
they knew the situation best, and that
Mr.. Cleveland, while giving out words
that seemed to echo the demand OF the
invention, from which a sympathy
with it might be inferred. had still in
mind that these infant industries
walked with crutches which should not
be taken away at once, but only short
ened by degrees, so that they might
sometime, in remote and shadowy fut-
ure, get able to walk without them. If
this was his meaning. it finds ample
expression in the Wilson bill, which
there is ground to believe was drawn
on lines laid down by the president.
and, whether this is so or not, was