The San Francisco call., 1898-08-19

medicines and kindred things. They said those are luXuries and they ought to pay the tax. The man who takes glass or beer ought to have the tax doupIe, whereas the thinker of champagne can rest upon the patriotism which he has manifested in retrospect.
 Beer is a luxury and why cannot the toilers get along without it, our friends said Tobaccoi Why should man chew tobacco, the filthy weed? Ar is luxury, !, our Republican friends told us: Luxury A man digging in the streets Of your city making 1t possible for you to get water and gas, making your sewer connections, toiling day by day under the hot sun, the sweat of his brow wetting the arid soil, chews his tobacco. It is luxury and you need not chew it unless you want to. Fellow citizens, it Is our opinion that the tax was not justly distributed. We thought there should be general tax upon the great corporations or this coun- try. and we proposed to levy it. We were defeated, not by Democratlc votes, save the solid Republican column. AS l have already said, and l repeat now, when we presented a single amendment direct ed at the Standard U-l Company and the sugar trusts then there were a few Sen ators who were compelled to yield be- cause they could not face their constltu- ents but the Republican majority stood up like one man and refused to tax those great industries.
 I introduced an amendment to assess the great siHeping-cars of the country, to assess their gross receipts. It was amend ed requiring them to put a tax on the tickets they sold, and to pay for that tax themselves. 1nat was a1 exception. Gentlemen, the great telegraph corpora telegrams, and when you go to send your dispatch away, they congratulate you upon your patriotism. (Appiause) Yet you will hear Republican orators, during this campaign, charge that the Demo- cratic party was inimicable to the war because it refused to vote for that Dill. We had a measure of our own which was defeated and we voted for the other. When the President called for supplies, whenever he asked for appropriations, however large, we gave It to nm. We submitted to the elimination of the river and harbor bill though it was important to alI in order that money might be contributed to the public cause. The great triumph that we have met will go down to history as the triumph of the Am erican people, and small indeed, micro scopic in mind and conscience is he who asserts that the Republican party won the battles of Manila ana Santiago. (Ap- ulause) Whatever may have been the views of any man as to the initial con troversy, unity of action was manifested and whatever may have been the opinion of any one, the Amerfca.l people and all of them and their children and their children's children will look back upon the achievements of this war with lnde- umph that is eminent over 1t all is not the mere destruction of the foe and the elevation of our flag, but It IS the concen- tration of the patriotism of tie republic regardless of wealth or position, respond ing iee 't to the call of their nation. When upon the Wfnslow's burning deck young Bag lev threw out his line and laughingly said. "It has been warm here" and when 2. shell burst over him and his com panions and hurled them to their doom 1 there died brave young man whose widowed mother in North Carolina pours tears over his grave, for which no money 1 can compensate. On Fl Caney's heights l in the stormy scene there, young Hamil- l ton Fish. gho fell by the bullet of tha