The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-10-18
Danger Gauge Change in
THE WHEREFORE OF KAssON.

We are assured by the gentlemen in
Washington to whom the admlnistra-
ticn confides those sentiments which it
desires the country to know it enter
tains. that President Mckinley is so
much devoted to the promotion of re-
ciprocal trade with other countries
that he cannot wait upon the move
ments of the several ambassadors and
ministers, with their secretaries and
under secretaries of legation, but has
decided to appoint special minister
paramount with plenary powers, to
take over the whole business and get
something done right off. We are told
that all the trouble lies in the state
department, where, we infer, the entire
force of secretary and assistant secre-
taries is so absorbed in trying to help
John Foster out of his game with Sal
isbury and on with his game for the
seal monopoly that they have not time
for so small a matter as is that of
negotiating treaties that will make it
easier for our people to get what for
eigners make and they want.
We are told that the interest of the
president in reciprocity is especially
keen, and during his connection with
the tariff legislation of 1890, while
chairman of the committee on ways
and means, the inclusion in that law
of a reciprocity provision was conclu
sive of his determination to foster and
promote American industry by this
MEANS" An involved sentence that
cannot hold water. Were Mr.. Blaine
alive, he would read this with a cyni-
cal smile as he recalled how Mr.. Nc
Kinley gave his scheme the cold hand
and how it was only when the bill got
into the senate that he could impress
its Importance upon the finance COM
mittee by smashing his silk hat in his
wrath at what he termed "drivel-
ing idiocy." The incident is too fresh
yet to permit Mr.. Mckinley to parade
in Jim Blaine's plumes.
There is another plausible eXplana
ton. After the Instructions that
France and Germany had raised to the
admission of our pigs and steers in re-
taliation for those we had raised
against their sugar We're partially re-
moved by the reciprocity negotiations
conducted under the act of 1890, with
the resultant benefits that always come
from the lowering or removal of such
hindranceS, there was a stiff contest
for the credit of it among the various
statesmen who had their eyes on the
presidential chair and a longing in
their hearts to occupy it. Whitelaw
Reid, then our minister to France, filed
minister to Germany, gave notice of a
contest. Mr. Mckinley himself caught
on and INDUCED his taste and talent
for rhetoric in eulogiums of reciproc-
victions about the foreigner paying the
tax. Mr. Harrison maintained digni-
fed silence, but intimated to his
friends that those other fellows were
IL , ms W oObOAO Ills eApElSo, Willie Jul
Uncle Jerry Rusk, who presided over
the department of a agriculture and was
specializing on what he would do when
ne warmed Ben's chair, was not at all
diffident in asserting that he had a
good deal to do in getting them thar
treaties fixed up, himself.
Recalling all this and having made
up his mind that being president is a
pretty good thing for a couple of
terms, Mr.. Mckinley does not pro-
pose to have any job lot of ambassa-
doris making presidential capital out of
the reciprocal dickers for which the
Dfngley act makes provision. SO he
takes the whole matter away from
them and the secretary of state and
John Foster, that ubiquitous interna-
tional busybody, and puts it in the
custody Of John Kasson. political
back number,a sort of exploded caisson,
q dog who has had his day, and who
cannot resurrect himself into a presi-
Dental possibility through reciprocity.
Whatever he accomplishes will re-
dound to the honor and glory of Nc