The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1900-03-08
WASHINGTON.
FROM our Regular Correspondent.

The republican leaders of the House
are still shaking from the fright given
them by their narrow escape from a
humiliating defeat on the Porto Rico
tanff bill. The hgurative sack cloth
and ashes of Ash Wednesday came
very near to being real for them on
that day. They amended the bill by
reducing the tariff from IS to IS per
cent. which Representative Berry aptly
said merely changed the crime from
grand to petty larceny, and by limit
ing its operation to two years, which
was an acknowledgement that the
whole principle of the bill was
wrong one, and then they could not
get the votes needed to pass it without
resorting TO every known form of
political bull-dozing and cajoery. Had
the republicans of the House voted
their real sentiments, the bill would
have been defeated by more than a
two thirds vote instead of being pass
ed by d vote of I7z to I6I. The
Constitutional question involved in
this bill will not down. 1t will be
heard when the bill is taken up in the
Senate, and it will be heard all during
the coming Presidential campaign,
and like other great questions, will
never be settled until it is settled
right
Senator Aldrich explained the gold
standard bill agreed upon by the Con-
ference Committee, to the Senate, but
he did not attempt the impossible task
of defending the measure, which ought
to be officially entitled ga bill to put
money in the pockets of the rich at
the expense of the poor"
Within "a hours of the time that
the House was passing the bill to rob
the poor Porto Ricans by imposing a
duty upon the products they have to
sell the Senate was taking the first
step towards making Hawaii State,
by passing the bill providing a teri.
torial government for Hawaii If
there is any logical reason for making
this unjust distinction between pros,
porous Hawaii and halt-starved Porto
Rico, 1t has been carefully concealed
from the public.
The House Military Committee has
endorsed two pet schemes of the ad-
ministration to provide promotion for
favorites-that to give the Adjutant
General of the army the rank, pay and
allowance of major-general, which will
be in the nature of reward to Gen.
Corbin for his subservency to Alger,
and his underhand attacks upon Gen.
Miles, his superior officer; and that
authorizing the President to select a
retired brigadler general for promo.
sion to major general, which is in,
tended to give Gen. Shafter the diff
erence between the pay and emolu
ments of brigadier general and a
major general, retired, as reward fol
the Cuban campaign, the greater part
of which he spent lying in ham
mock. "Funny" old world.
Representative Bailey, of Texas
made the closing speech on the demo
cratic side against the Porto PicC
tariff bill, and it was powerful ple'
for the maintenance of the Constitu
ton as its farmers intended it to b'
maintained. His last words, which
we're received with uproarious ap
plause by the democrats and the oc
cupants Of the galleries, were: "Whel
emotional statesmen were asking wh'
would haul down the flag, dared t
say that l would take it down from
any place where the Constitution
could not follow it. Do you desir
TO present the anomaly of govern
Dent restrained by the Constitution
in one quarter of the globe, and pos
sessed OF despotic power in the res
Of the world? How long is the Con
stitutlon to shield us and our childre
if its protection is withheld from tn
humblest inhabtant2 Let me boz
row the words of Lincoln: "This rt
public cannot endure one-half free an
one-half slave. We must all b
citizens, or in time we must all b
subjects. l did not want to assimi
ate these alien and inferior races, an
pray God to deliver us from the tasl
But ifyou will take them, they mus
share our destiny with us"
The bill providing for the ship sui