The true northerner., 1900-03-15

the laws Of this country, but that Is soon
as congress has taken cognizance OF their
existence by any legislation whatsoever
concerning them, at that moment they
become part of the United States, in
alienable, and entitled to all the rights
of any other part. III this position be-
be correct, the first legislation for the
Philippines will entitle the inhabitants
of those islands to free trade and free inn
migration to the United States-things
which no one in this country desires.
But it cannot be determined whether or
not this position is correct until the su-
preme court has chance to pass on leg
islation adopted by congress in regard
to either Puerto Rico or the Philippines.
Therefore, to guard against the possibil-
ity of an irretrievable error with regard
to the Philippines, it is necessary for
congress to legislate for Puerto Rico and
let the supreme court decide. This is
the real reason for the bill and not any
question of trusts as the demagogues as
sert. 1t is possible that some way will
be found in the senate whereby court
decision may be obtained without impos-
ing duties on Puerto Ricans, but SO far
none has been discovered, and the chances
are that the the bill will pass with its
tariff features nearly as they came from
the house. So far, only three republican
senators have declared their opposition
to the bill. They are Hoar, Mason and
Wellington, all of them constitutional
IL a., IA. ha. do,
ocrats are understood to favor the bill
Senators McLaurin, McEnery and CAT
fiery. There are several other senators
who do not altogether like the bill and
who are trying to devise some way of
amending its provisions, but all will al
most certainly vote for it if no better al
tentative can be found. AS the straight
republican majority in the senate is 10,
there is little doubt that the bill will
pass.
The question of the campaign this fall
will, after all, be whether the gold dem
ocrats will come back to Bryan in suf-
ficient numbers to give him any chance
of election now that the gold bill has
been practically passed and the danger
of free silver removed for six years at
least. The general opinion is that they
will not. The gold democratic papers
which bolted in 1896 are nearly all still
out and show no sign of returning, and
business men generally seem to feel the
old fear of Bryan's hare Drained theo-
ries. Conrad n. Jordan of New York,
an old fashioned democrat, in discussing
the situation in his state, said recently:
Il suppose that 10000 democrats in New
York state refused to vote for Bryan i'm
1856, because of the Chicago platform,
and every one of them would go back to
the party next fall if German, Oney or
any other democrat of that type were
nominated for the presidency. Perhaps
1900 of them will be willing to support
Mr.. Bryan, now that congress has made
it impossible for him to injure the credit
of the government; but the remaining
1900 will not vote for Mr.. Bryan under
any circumstances or on any platform
Many of them differ from Mr. Mckinley
on the tariff question, but that is out of
the way also, until we get democratic
majority in the senate again, which is
not possible for at least six years, Some
of our sound money democrats differ
with the president on the expansion
question, but | think that 60 per cent of
the New York democrats who voted
against Bryan in 1896 will do so again in
1900"