Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1902-03-20
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Especial Washington Letter.

Especial Washington Letter1
?" HE great Republican party is
rent in twain on the tariff
question. The house Repub-
licans have had caucus after
caucus to determine what
they will do about the Cuban tariff.
These caucuses have been battles royal
betwixt the reciprocity cohorts and the
beet sugar crowd. The fight of the
Kilkenny cats wasn't marker to those
Of the Republican factions More pow
er to their claws! Every time they en-
gage in caucus the hopes of a Demo
cratic house in the next congress in
crease, a consummation devoutly to
be wished. My venerable and vitrioiic
friend, General Charles Henry Grosve-
nor, in the early part of November de-
clared that the sweeping Republican
victory in Ohio meant, inter ALA, that
there was no more chance Of the Ding
ley schedules being changed than there
was that the Ten Commandments
would be amended or repealed, which
was putting it rather strong and pic
is bowling for 20 per cent reduction
! of the tariff on Cuban products, which
shows that the good, gray general is
not too old to learn.
For several days the edifying specta-
Gle has been witnessed of such grave
| and eminent statesmen as Hon. Serene
E. Payne of New York, Hon. John Dal-
zell of Pennsylvania and Hon. Chester
l. Long of Kansas on one side and Hon.
Charles e. Littlefeld OF Maine, Hon.
| James Tawney of Minnesota and Hon.
William Alden Smith of Michigan as
representatives of the other side going
about the house and lobbies electioneer-
ing as busily as candidates for consta-
BILE. Sweat oozed out of their intel
lectual foreheads and poured down their
flushed faces as though they were the
leading contestants in a worlds cham
pion long distance pedestrian race. Mr..
Chairman Payne and the big Indians
of his committee are not only fighting
for reciprocity, but are battling to re-
tain the leadership of the Republican
side of the house. 1t is war to the
death between the factions.
What a Fall, My countrymen!
Surely the bowling jingoes in this
country must feel little chopfallen
when they realize that the Philippine
propaganda has dragged us down to
such low moral plane that Rudyard
Kipling makes fun of us and justifies
the brutal butchery of the Beers by
alleging that in that beastly business
the bloody Britishers are merely fol-
lowing our example in the Philippines.
Among other sweet morsels which he
rolls under his venomous tongue in this:
81 am very glad to learn on your show
| ing that the American seems to be con-
stitutionally incapable of admitting
himself in the wrong and frankly put
ting himself in the right, because l did
not like to think of the Americans as
any more logical than ourselves. OF
course" says Mr.. Kipling, what a new
country wants is high toned despot
of unlimited powers and absolute integ
rity'-in which he differs widely from
such old fogies as George Washington,
BENJAMIN Franklin and Thomas Jeffer-
son.
DoIeful.
Governor Sanford B. Dole of Hawaii
has been sent for posthaste to come to
Washington to advise the powers that
be as to how the numerous tangles in
that faraway territory may be straight
ened out, and he is coming as fast as
steam can haul him. 1t is fine kettle
Of fish he must describe to the presi-
dent when he gets here. The cause of
all the trouble is that the Hawaiian
people were always opposed to annex
alton. / so stated on the floor of the
house in the debate on annexation in
1898 and dared the proponents of an
neXation to submit the Newlands reso-
lutions to plebiscite. They were afraid
to do so and of course refused, all
the time claiming, however, that the
HawaiianS were clamorous for annex
alton. The handful of American ad-
venturers were, but not the real Ha-
waiians Now that these latter have
possession of the legislative machine
they are making their opposition mani
fest and are doing all they can to ere
ate trouble; hence the hasty trip of
Governor Dole.
The Vital Issue.
The New York Journal has entered
upon a unique project-that is, it has
written to divers and sundry Dem.
ocrats asking each to write an article
setting forth what appears to him as
the vital issue now pressing for solu
tion. The old field schoolmasters were
wont to set us this copy when we were
kids, "Many men of many minds" the
truth of which will in all human prob
ability be fully illustrated by the va
rious answers, for, while it is a historic
truth that there is in every campaign
dominant issue, there is always a
multiplicity of issues. Each of these
in the preliminary stages of cam
paign will be considered the most i'm
portant by particular persons. SO it
will be in the present instance. The
first to respond to The Journals invi-
tation was ex-Vice President Adlai z.
Stevenson, who wrote an able article
ON the tariff. 1 was the second, and
here is my answer in full:
The vital issue before the American peo-
pie is this: what shall be our permanent
policy in the Philippines?''
1t goes to the root of our institutions
A greater question was never debated
among men, for upon it's proper deter
mination depends the perpetuity of the
republic.
The tariff, trusts, finance, building of
the isthmian canal and economy in the
public expense are all important ques-
tions pressin. for solution but farreach-
ing and urgent as they are they in no
wise involve the existence of free govern
ment
lingo jugglers vociferously and vehe-
mently insist that the overshadowing
question as to our policy in the orient was
settled definitely and irrevocably by the
last election. Not so however.
A multiplicity of issues contributed to
the result of the campaign of 1900. Will
liam McKinley's wondrous personal popu-
larity was large-perhaps the decisive
factor therein.
Mr.. Mckinley was many thousands of
votes stronger than his party.
| Many men who doubt the wisdom of our
becoming an Asiatic power supported Mr..
| Mckinley by reason of his unfailing ami
| ability and his blameless private life.
| While believing him wrong, they had i'm
plicit faith that at last he would come
| around all right. They knew that he had
| changed his mind on that question radi-
| cally once swinging from the American
doctrine that .'forcible annexation is GRIM