St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1897-05-14
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Week Has Been Busy One With
Our Statesmen.
Dingley Bill Much Changed by Senate Com
mittee-Arbtratlon Treaty-l1rs. Ricker's
Aspiration, Etc.
Especial to the cALEDoNrAN.)


OF last week in matters incident to the
Grant celebration at New York city,
nave since devoted themselves more
assiduously to the public duties incum-
pent upon Them and have in the short
time since arriving back from New York
succeeded in reporting the Dingley bill
to the senate, and have in addition given
the pending arbitration treaty pair of
beautifully discOlored optics.
Or course the most important trans
action OF the two was the report of the
Dingley bill. 1t is, as was expected, radi-
cally different from it's makeup as pre-
sented to the senate, for as the McK.n-
ley Dill lost it's salient features in the
senate machinery, so did the Wilson
Dill and 50 has the Dingley bill. The
history of recent tariff legislation simply
establishes beyond a doubt that the sen
ate is slowly but surely taking away
from the house its constitutional pre-
rogative of framing and saying what
revenue measures shall be like.
The principal changes in the bill as now
remodelled and before the senate are,
In brief, as follows:
A duty of l12 cents per pound is placed
on hides, which item is probably the most
important to New England and her var
led interests. This duty was placed on
hides to get the votes of the western
senator's for the bill, without whose as
sistance the measure could not wig2le
through the senate, on account of the
peculiar construction of that body at
this time. The New England senatc +,
will fight this provision. but none Of
them, so far as / am able to ascertain,
and l have interviewed every one Of
them, will feel like voting against the en-
tire mcasu unless the hide duty is
stricken out The duty may be reduced
to l cent per pound, after hercuean eff
forts, but at the present time am in
clined to doubt If a reduction can be Sc
cured, as the western senators are so
mandatory in their demands.
An additional tax of 50 cents a barrel
on beer is also one of the new features;
so is the tax of cents a pound upon
manufactured tobacco; another new
amendment proposed is duty Of 10
cents pound uu tea while lead ore is
also transit I'd from the free list to the
duuabie artIs,s. I'm the senate COM
mittee on finance ha proposed over
200 amendments 10 The pending bill but
the above are the most salient and all
absorbing ones. although, of course,
every one Of the 700 affects some particu-
lar interest, many of them of a New Eng
land character although trivial when
the particular interest touch d upon is
not under discussion.
Senator Jones of Nevada. leading the
western senators who made these vari-
Gus demands simply got what he and
they wanted. His vote was needed to
get the bill out of the finance commit
tee in a way satisfactory To the Repub-
lican managers, and he was therefore
catered to to the queens taste. and he
had but to ask and he forthwith received.
1t remains to he seen whether the senate
as whole will agree to the agreements
which the finance committee and Sena-
tor Jones have previously entered upon
There is not much doubt, however, but
what the bill will he passed practically
as 1t suits the senate Then it will go to
the house for the agreement of the latter
body for its sanction to the senate
changes The contest may be bitter and
long drawn out. but the belief here seen. $
to be that the house will practically
agree to the senate notifications and
alterations The lower branch has gem
orally done so in previous tariff bills al
there seems to be no reason to expect
that it will not follow a similar course
In the present situation.
Tho hin VI i'm he a1lad IN ", 10 can ta
on May is by a New England senator
Hon. Nelson w. Aldrich of Rhode Island
who though not chairman of the COM
mittee on finance, is the the active Re
publican member on it, and the one who
Is usually entrusted with the care of leg
islating a tariff bill through the upper
branch when the Republicans control it,
Senator Morrill, of Vermont is the chair
man of this committee, but he gladly al
lows q younger man to take his place
in the active work of having charge of
the measure. The debate is apt to be
acrimonious on both sides, and l look
for a good deal of campaign talk for use
in the presidential election of 1900. 1t
would not surprise me a particle to see
the debate drift entirely from the tariff
question w lIldl VI lllt Nul 4 tllNyt etp lIlt
general impression is that the currency
and not the tariff will be the issue in
1900. and the leaders want to shoot off
little oratory while the pending bill is
up.
AS to the arbitration treaty, its defeat
was expected, although it was rather a
close vote after all, only a change of
three votes being necessary to have it
ratified. BE it understood that in rati
fying a treaty a two-thirds vote must
be had. But as the treaty read at the time
of the vote 1t was meaningly meaning
less conglomeration anyway. 1t was
stripped of all its original verbiage, and
was only a mess of words placed to-
gether, the whole purport of which was
that war is bad thing and that Eng
land and the United States did not want
env of 1t in theirs, if it could possibly be
prevented by arbitration All negota-
tions under the treaty If it had been rati
fed. were to be subject to the approval
of the senate on the part of the United
states. and nearly everyone who read
the treaty as first prepared were heart
Iy glad when 1t was defeated in its pres
ent phraseology
u,o nrohability now Is that it will