Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-07-20
Prompt Adoption Of the Conference
Report by the House.
ACTION TAKEN AT MIDNIGHT
Incident Showing the Differences
Among Democrats.
THE VOTE 1s9 YEAS, 115 NAYS

The conference report on the tariff bill
was adopted by the House shortly after
midnight last night by a vote of 1S9 to us.
This eclipses all previous records. The re-
suit was accomplished after twelve hours
of continuous debate But two speeches
were made by the republicans, one by Gov.
Dingley in opening the debate and one by
Mr.. Payne of New York in closing 1t. The
democrats were thus forced to put forth
speaker after speaker. but their lombard
ment of the republican position was I'M
answered
The evening session. which began at 8
o'clock. was full of interest An immense
throng of visitors crowded the galleries,
cheering the speakers and manifesting their
interest and concern in the proceedings.
Secretary Long, Attorney General McKen-
ma, and a number of senators were pres
ent. The galleries remained well filled to
the time OF adjournment, and, though the
air in the Capitol was sitting, all thought
of personal discomfort seemed to be over
looked
Mr.. Wheeler (Ala) opened the debate for
the democrats in the late afternoon. criti-
cising the bill as the most vicious and
burdensome ever imposed on the American
people. In particular he discussed the Seri-
Gus effect of the measure on the laboring
and agricultural classes. Mr.. Wheeler re-
ferred to the advance on sugar stock In the
New York market yesterday. and said this
was the ciearest evidence of the benefits
conferred the sugar trust.
Mr.. Swanson CNa.), a member of the
ways and means committee, to whom Mr..
Wheeler yielded a portion of his time de-
voted his attention to assaiing the sugar
schedule agreed upon by the conferees.
Mr.. Svanson's Attack.
He asserted that the proposed schedule
gave sugar double the protection received
under the present law, and quoted Mr.
Payne IN ". who in 1894 denounced the
40 per cent duty on sugar, and said that
1t would constitute a tax of 81 on every
man. woman and child I'm the country. If
that was true. then, he said, the present
schedule increased the tax to 81 per CAPITA
1t had been loudly proclaimed Mr.. Swan
son said. that the House conferees had
won a brilliant victory over the Senate
on sugar, and he had seen in the morning
papers pictures of the Speaker of the
House with the sugar trust crushed and
bleeding under his feet
He then compared the two schedules to
Show that the duty on refined sugar in The
Senate schedule and the new schedule were
exactly the same. and he figured out that
the trust would receive differential re-
fned sugar. on I2-degree sugars (the aver
age of sugars imported), of cents per
hundred pounds mCree than the House
schedule The Senate surrendered So
cents. the House 1 cents That was the
victory the House had won. He CHALLENGED
con tradiction- Mr.. Swanson said that Mr.
johnson UndD had stated that he would
vote against the conference report if the
sugar schedule agreed upon gave the trust
more protection than the House schedule
He proceeded TO produce some figures in
support of his contention that it did He
figured out a differential for the refiner On
average raw sugars, when the present law
when in competition with German sugars