The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1901-02-28
NO EXTRA SESSION
CONGRESsMEN WILL AVOID THIS
IF POSSIBLE.
Efforts Will BE Made to Pass Cuban
Legislation Before Adjournment
situation in the Island Exciting
Washington correspondence

"A III NV
and more attention, and not a little un-
easiress. The president is evidently
much worked up about IL. According
to the most reliable Information the
state of affairs in the island is any
thing but satisfactory. Although the
urgency of this situation is beginning
to be generally acknowledged by con-
greSsmen, there is no abatement OF
their desire to avoid an extra session,
and they will make a strong effort to
stave it off. Some of the senators are
now busily engaged in studying over
the matter and trying to IN
some plan by which the necessary Gu
ban legislation can be secured before
March 4. This will be difficult on ac-
count of the complexity and great inn
p~ortance of the subject. Any serious
mistake made by us now in regard to
Cuba might be ir~reparable, and might
result in allowing Great Britain or
Germany to get in their hooks where
Spain formerly had hers, in which
case the last state of the West Indies
you'd be worse than the first.
Shipping BilI's Importance.
All ~partisanship aside, it is of the
highest Importance that he people
should understand the fundamental in
dustrial situation upon which the pro-
posed shipping bill is based. This is
pre-cminently an industrial nation. Ex-
cept at the very outset. when every
citizen earned a bare living for himself
and his family by the sweat of his
brow, the nation has always produced
more han ii has consumed. This fact,
This tendency, was perceived by our
early statesmen and leaders as far
back as Washington, Hamilton n
Jefferson, who framed the laws in their
time so as to provide for this situation
of affairs. 1t is true that, for many
Years, our imports exceeded our ex-
ports, such as they were, representing
even then an exportable surplus. This
surplus, at first small, has been steadi-
ly increasing for a century, until it has
nov reached the gigantic dimensions of
one billion dollars ($1, 600, 600, O00) in VAL
ue, and constitutes nearly, if not quite,
one-third Of our total productions.
More than nine-tenths of this i'm
mense e~xportable surplus-practically
all Of it's now carried To foreign ports
in ships belonging to other nations.
This foreign service is irregular, un-
sympathetic. costly, n is liable to be
seriously ~curtailed, if not absolutely
cut off, at any time by the intervention
Of a war. Most Of these ships are Eng
lish, German and Norwegian. In case
of a %geneneral European war, or a war
between this country and any of those
European powers, our export trade, if
still carried on by the present system,
would be instantly crippled and very
likely completely paralyzed.
The present system is very uneco-
nomical. The foreign shipowners dis
crimirate in their rates against us, ano
we are paying them now at the enor-
nous rate of nearly $500, 900. COO a veal
for carrying out goods across the seas.
All this money ought to be kept at
home, and it would be If we had an
adequate American merchant marine.
The people cannot understand too
quickly or too clearly the vital i'm
portance of securing a regular, reliable.
reasopa BILE means of access to foreign
markets for their surplus productions.
and the only way to secure this is by
h building up of a large n compe-
tent merchant marine. The construc-
ton of c a merchant marine would
give employment to thousands and tens
of thousands of operatives, and when
constructed it would carry our exports
to the four quarters of the globe. The
carrying trade would be under the con-
troll of our own citizens, instead of for
eigners, as now We should see 1t en-.
trusted TO American captains and
American sailors, and on the other side
there would be American agents n
American branch houses and American
bankers, all deeply interested in the
extension of American foreign trade;
whereas, now all our foreign export
trade exists upon sufferance, as it
were. and whatever growth 1t has at
tanned has been in spite OF the very
discouraging conditions under which it
has been carried on.
This country, in the opinion of the
wisest and best-informed business men,
will soon have to face an industrial
crisis IL a better outlet for cur surplus
products is not obtained. Producing
now one-third more than we can con-
sumo at home, the surplus of food
products, cotton and manufacture ar
ticles, amounting annually to S1,000,-
900, 600 in value, and constantly in
creasing every year. must be readily
and steadily distributed in foreign
markets, or what will be the alterna-
tive? What will happen If any consid-
erable portion of this billion dollars
worth of goods is undisposed of, re-
naming here and Cutting the home
market? Any schoolboy can answer
that question.
Inaugural Preparations.
The preparations for the inauguration
continue on a most generous scale. III
the clerk of the weather is In n kindly
mood, the celebration will go ahead
of any of it's predecessors by a large
ma iority, Already there 8 n ereal