The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-04
JACKASS DINGLEY.

LE'rom the Evening POST of Yesterday.l
If the term Leader of the House" We're
not such a gross misnomer as applied
to Mr.. Dingley, more Importance would
attach to the views with which ne fav-
ors the country regarding what Congress
may be expected to do. AS it is, his re-
marks serve only to accentuate his in
Sincerity and vacillatIon. He must be
praised, however, for superb GOODNESS in
ignoring what everybody else is talking
about-the Dingley Deficit. Other Repub-
lican Congressman are mortified, alarm
ed, furious about the deficit, but the no
BILE author of it pays no attention to the
clan1or. Deficit, who said deficit? Why,
Mr.. Dingley hasn't even heard it
"mentioned'-no kind friend has even
'sealled it to his attention" as the writ
ers of letters to newspapers say. Yet the
Leader of the House was not always so
silent He was fairly shrill last March,
and steadily till July, begging and implor-
ing Congress to hurry up with his tariff
so as to stop the awful deficit. Every
days delay was costing the country $780,
600. For Heavens sake, pass his bill, and
bring the intolerable Wilson deficit to an
end Well, his bill was passed, and the
Wilson deficit was put an end to-but only
because huger zDingley Deficit at once
took its place. And while the whole coun-
try is ringing with this, the architect of
all the ruin is found affably contersing
about other subjects. One of them is the
fear that Congress may try to take the
Cuban question out of the hands of the
President. Mr.. Dingley deprecates this.
Il Il Is Is clear to him that Congress has no
business to interfere in matters that be-
long exclusively to diplomacy. Then why,
most solemn Dingley did you and your
party repeatedly try to take the Cuban
question out of the hands of the President
in the last Congress? Beware, lest some
wicked Democrat expose you and cry,
"FaughH'
1t is clear that the revenue from GUS
toms under the Dingley bill is not going
10 be large enough to pay the appropria-
ton for pensions alone. That is to say,
all the sound and fury of the extra ses-
sion, all the moving heaven and earth
to pass a tariff, all the suspense and dis
turbance which afflicted the business
world-an this resulted in 9. law which
will not produce enough to foot the an
nuai pension bill alone. The remaining
expenses of the government must be paid
from direct taxes or by borrowing. The
truth is, that the customs revenue is play
ing a smaller and smaller part>in the ma
tion's income. 1t is the internal revenue,
ana other forms of direct taxation, that
we have to depend upon more and more.
There was a gain of about SS,00o,0 600 in the
revenue from those sources in the first
five months of the fiscal year. This was
due to some slight increase of certain
taxes and to expanding business. But
The tariff, about which all the outcry was
made, which was the one thing that was
going to put us in funds-that, after all
5he changes and the long wrestling, is
bringing in less revenue than ever. This
is only fulffllment of the prophecies eff
Secretary Carlisle and of Senator Aldrich.
But the wise Dingley, the infallible Reed
the sympathetic Mckinley, knew better,
and are now confronting the actual fig
ures like so many dumb dogs.