Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1896-12-19
THE HOUSE nEANs BUSINESS.
For a Protective Tariff-Popocrats
Oppose immigration Bill.
From our Regular Correspondent

feel gratified at the outcome OF the
consultation Of Senators and Repre-
sentatives of the party, which have
been a feature of the first week OF
Congress. With the exception of the
few silver boilers, the party and both
branches Of Congress is unit as to
what is to be done in the near future.
Without majority in the Senate the
party is powerless to force tariff or
any other legislation at this session
of Congress, but the mischievous sill
yer element in the Senate, led by AL
len, the Nebraska Populist, have al
ready been taught that the Republi-
can Senators do not intend to lose any
opportunities to pass the Dingley bill
at the present session. These would
be mischief makers started out with
the mistaken idea that the Republi-
cans were afraid of the Dingley bill
and that they could SO demonstrate to
the country; they may find themselves
prepared to go on record as the OPP
ponents of increasing the revenues of
the government before the short SEES
sion closes, by being forced to vote on
the Dingley bill.
The Republican members of the
House committee on Ways and Means
have once more demonstrated that the
Republican party never shirks its res
possibilities and always keeps promi-
SEES made to the people, by deciding
to begin at once the preparation of a
protective tariff BILL to be passed at
the extra session of the next Congress.
No man in Congress is better fitted
to preside over those preparations
than is Chairman Dingley, of that
Committee, and no man is better fitted
to direct the department of the Gov
eminent charged with the admins
tration of the tariff law, should Presi-
dent Mckinley see fit to make him
his Secretary OF the Treasury, as many
believe he will. There are probably
not twenty men in the country who
are so we'll posted on the tariff as Mr..
Dingley is, and this is especially for
tunate both for the country and for
the Republican party, as 1t is the in
tention to make the new tariff bill the
best we have ever had-no catering
to favorite industries, as the present
law does, but equitable protection for
all, and at the same time revenue
enough to meet the needs of the gov,
eminent 1t is in sense an innova-
ton for the Ways and Means Com
mittee of one House to prepare bill
for the next House, but it happens to
be all right in this case, as every Re-
publican member of the present COM
mittee has been reelected to the next
House and will be certain to retain
their committee places because Speaker
Reed will be chosen Speaker of the
next House without Republican OPP
position.
The Ways and Means Committee
has already held formal meeting
and assigned the work of preparing
the different schedules of the new
tariff bill to the individual members
of the committee best fitted to handle
them, and hearings of the representa-
tives of different industries will at
once be arranged for. One OF the mis-
takes of the past which will be avoided
by the new bill will be the heavy i'm
portation of foreign goods and the
consequent injury of our own manu-
facturers and workingmeu. This will
be done by providing that dutiable
goods in bonded warehouses at the
date upon which the new bill becomes
law shall pay duty under the new
and not the old law.
No one was greatly surprised when
certain Democratic Senators-sixteen
of them-tried to kill the bill forbid
ding the landing of any immigrant
between the ages of 10 and 90 years
who is unable to read five lines of the
u. S. Constitution in some printed
language, by postponing its considera-
ton until January. But the decisive
manner in which these Senators,
working in the interest of steamship
companies rather than to raise the
standard of our foreign-born citizens,
were sat upon by thirty-seven Sena-
tors indicates almost to a certainty
that the bill will be passed before the
holiday recess.
The House during its first week
Dacced the regular Pension; ADDrODria-