Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-12-20
1T SHOULD BE DROPPED.
The Ship Subsidy Scheme Should Not
he Permitted to Offend
Again.


assert that the ship subsidy scheme
will not be urged upon the next con-
gress we stand by the position taken
ever since the attempt at legalized
cobbery was entered upon and insist
that its abandonment is the only hon
orable course open to its promoters.
Reliance cannot be placed upon their
dropping it because its adoption
would infiict a great wrong upon the
people, says the Detroit Free Press.
They apprehended the moral status
IF their case as clearly when they in
tiated it as they do now. 1t was con-
.eived in selfishness and pushed with
the single idea of benefting certain
preferred interests that were exposed
Turing the long discussion of last
winter. The men behind the under
taking have. known from the outset
that they were merely planning
great financial coup that, if executed
successfully, would mulct the country
in the sum of at least $3O,OO0,00O, that
it would receive literally nothing by
way of compensation and that the
sole beneficiarieS would be those
working the colossal confidence game.
Yet, while conscience has worked
90 change of heart on the part of the
nien who started out to enrich them
selves by the method which has
grown as familiar as it is obnoxious
to the people, popular opinion has
checked, if it has not halted them. 1t
will be surprising if their shrewdness
has not detected the handwriting
dpon the wall. The masses who pro-
eide the revenue of the government
are in no mood to make an enforced
contribution at such dictation or for
any such purpose as it has been
sought to conceal under the cloak of
building up our merchant marine,
keeping pace with our expanding
commerce, getting into the game"
with our foreign competitors and ris-
ing to the dignity of a world power.
These are winning slogans in the abb
stract and liable to ignite inf1amma-
bic patriotism, but the promoters
are now in the position of man who
has shown his hand when nothing but
a ''bluff'' could have made it a ne
gotiable possession. The country,
through the debates in congress and
exhaustive discussion in the newspa-
pers, knows the true inwardness of
the subsidy scheme and realizes that
it is without material feature de-
serving commentator or support.
In addition to being exposed as a
ring that is out for the money when
we now have greater tonnage in for
eign trade than can find employment,
| when private capital is giving the
| shipyards all that they can do and
stands ready to meet every demand
that commerce makes, there is d
grave political consideration. The
schemers are republicans and include
such party luminaries as Hanna, the
head and front of the party manage
| ment; Senator's Frye, Aldrich, Lodge
and many other republican leaders in
their respective sections of the coun-
try. They have been forced to under
stand that their subsidy plan is I'M
popular and that to give it the force
of congressional sanction would inn
peril the future of the party.
!. The president himself, although he
has been quoted as an original sup
| porter of the movement, sees how i'm
| polite it would be to urge the scheme
| in his message and will probably pass
| it over. The rural con gressmen have
been hearing things at home and we
| are inclined to believe that the meas
ure will not figure in the records of
the next session. Political policy, it
| impresses us, blocks the grabbers.