The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1901-02-12

,.x~AN n IL many quarters, and has thus enc
countehed much unreasonable opposition,
most of which, in the light of better knowl-
edge of the subject, has now been with
drawn AT first great many thought that
the bill was simply intended to give lot
Of public money to few big corporations
which are already comfortably supplied
with funds, like the American line of steam
ships, the Pacific Mail company, the Penn
sylvania Railroad company, and what Sen
ator Vest alluded to in his recent speech
against the bill as that poor, emaciated.
starving corporation, the Standard Oil
company" In point of fact the bill grants
comparatively very little aid to the larger
and richer existing companies. Its chief
benefits will go to the owners of low power
freight steamers of large cargo capacity, and
to the farmers, miners, metal-workers,
merchants, manufacturers and industrial
artisans generally, whose business or wages
will be greatly enhanced by the new ship
building and commercial activity engendered
by the bill.
The democrats in congress are making q
dead set against the bill, but their attitude,
standpoint, is rather comical. In the first
place, great many democrats all over the
country and including the southern states,
are known to be strongly in favor Of the
bill, which, they see, would enlarge their
business, and would be especially advan.
tageous to cotton-growers This is the posi-.
tion of the most important southern bust.
ness organ, the Manufacturers Record Of
Baltimore. Again, it is curious to see the
democrats making so much fuss about the
expenditure of 100000 called for by the
bill, when they make no such combined OPP.
position to the $l450O0,O00 for pensions, the
$70.0O000O for the navy, or the $60,O00,00d
for rivers and harbors. Indeed, the demo.
Gratis from the Mississippi river valley.
which is the chief beneficiary of the big river
and harbor bill, it is thought may relent a
little from their pitiless hostility to the 49,.
100000 shipping bill if they find that un'
less they do relent their pet $50 900, 900 ap
preparation may be endangered.
Commander briggs, executive officer Of
the auxiliary cruiser St. Louis during the
Spanish war, remarked with emphasis the
other day, in conversation on the practical
merits of the shipping bill, that according
to his experience 'the actual value of the
St. Louis to the navy in the war was more
than the total amount of the proposed sub
sidy during the whole Is years of its opera
ton" The st, Louis, it will be remem
bered, is one of the swift steamships Of the
American line which was used as an aux
iliary cruiser in the war Commander
briggs explained further that if the Span
iards had not known that the ST Louis and
her sister ships of the American line were
in active service as warships, they would
have sent some of their Spanish vessels ul
to our Atlantic coast to devastate our sea
board cities, according to their original in,
tention; but they were deferred by the con
sideration that they had no vessels which
could cope with such speedy and powerful
cruisers as the ST. Louis, st. Paul, Yale and
Harvard. And yet Senator Vest declared
the other day that such auxiliary cruisers,
drawn from the merchant marine, would be
of no use to the navy or to the country, and
that all the talk about them was "a subter-
fuge" and ga mere glamour"
Most citizens, and most congressman, will
be inclined to think that an ounce OF approx
al from naval expert is worth pound oil
criticism from political theorjst.
y & 4 T. u o i d Z T. g at,