The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-08
MONDAY. MARCH s. 1897.
This paper is Democratic in principles
and is independent in its riescs on al local
qateStions.


this fact. 1t viii be worth while briefly
the defunct combination has made.
When it came into power two years ago,
the g. o. P. organs gave u to calam-
ity bowling and took up the paean of
prosperity. The. election of this wonder
full Congress was a guarantee that there
would be no more Clevelandism; business
would begin to boom again. It is hardly
too much to say that business refused to
boom. The more the quality of the Fifty
fourth Congress- developed itself, the less
booming business old.
one of the things the late Congress
might easily have lone was attempt q
reform Of the currency system. The
measure might not have got through the
Senate, because by a mean deal for offices
the Republicans placed the organization
of that body in the hands of the silverites.
but the passage of a sound currency bill
by the House of Representatives would
AVE been a guarantee of good intention
to the business world. This guarantee,
the majority party refused to give.
Another possibility was the passage of
a gold bond bill. which would have ena-
bled the Administration to maintain the
gold reserve at greatly diminished cost.
To the demand for such a measure as
this, the House responded with a bill to
Issue short-term. low-interest bearing
COIN bonds. This measure never passed
the Senate. It was well known when the
House passed it that 1t would not pass
the Senate, and it was tolerably certain
that if 1t did pass the two Houses, Presi-
dent Cleveland would have been COM
PEELED to veto it. because. no loan could
have been negotiated under it on reasons
able terms at that c%onjuncture.
Then there was the equally infamous
and ridiculous Dingley Tariff bin, a pro-
duct of false heartedness of the most das-
tardly kind, This proposal was intended
70 deceive the large portion of the com
munity which has not the opportunity of
studying economical questions thoroughly.
It added in terms, large per centages to
the tariff rates on various articles of i'm
portation. This. it was intended, should
make it look TO the general public like
q revenue increasing measure. In fact.
almost every n of the rascals who voted
for it knew that it could not possibly re-
suit that way. Hardly one of them was
so ignorant or SO supplied by prejudice
as not to understand tina the immediate
effect of sue a measure would be to kill
our Import trade so completely that there
would be practically no revenue whatever
from it. They knew also, that the second
airy result weuld be the destruction of our
growing line of exports. But they never
expected the bill to pass. They calculated
implicitly upon its defeat in the Senate.
Failing that, they knew the President
would have crushed it with his veto. All
they wanted was the false pretense of
having passed a revenue raising measure.
The second session Of this precious
Congress has been noteworthy chiefly for
the mischief which it has done by its
promiscuous jingoism. Warlike resolu-
tons affecting half a dozen friendly
powers have been banded about in both
Houses to the dire depression of. business
and the wreckage of stock values. Cuba
has been the provocative of a majority
of these outhursts of un~scrupulous dema-
gogism. They have lone Cuba nc good.
They have Zone Spain no harm. They
V retarded the revival of business in
our own country by creating feelings OF
alarm. They have caused peril and suf-
fering to our innocent citizens abroad by
embittering Spanish feeling against us.
Another exploit of this second session
was the mutilation of the Arbitration
treaty with England, a highly dis
creditable performance, which, however,
1t is proper to say. was due just as much
TO infamous Democrats as to reckless Re-
p~ublicans.
To all this might be added the charge
of gross extravaganza. coupled with a
cessation in the development OF our navy.
a host of minor offences might be re-
cited. but enough has been said to show
what the late Congress was, and what it's
effects were upon the contemporaneous
life of the public.
The new Congress is made of exactly
the same material-almost exactly the
same men. The am leaders are there.
II is only necessary to recall that New
Jersey sends back the same eight repre-
sentatives, to judge how nearly the new
Congress is a duplicate of the old. The
changes are mainly in the substitution
Of new Republicans for Democrats in
what used to be Democratic districts be-
fore the light of Organism flooded tbs
land. In the Senate the changes are so
great as TO break the power Of the silver
conspiracy and place the Republican
party in control, but the prevailing spirit
l. the game, and except for the disap-