Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1902-02-27

committee would drop the question of
Cuban duties, and take up that Of
abolishing our own internal revenue
taxes, as being of more pressing Inn
portance TO the American people. And
this they did. They took off the
stamp duty from playing cards; they
materially reduced 1t on beer and
whlskey; the stock gamblers were
told that they needn't pay-as laws
were not made TO be obeyed by them, !
and so OH. But the user of sugar |
could get no relief, while the Cuban |
planters waited, hat in hand, in the |
ante-rooms of their deliverers, and
shivered In the Washington wind
The lobbyists went home to New
orleans and said they had satisfactory
assurances that nothing would be
done inmcal to their interest
Oxnard kept on the ground to see
the promise made good. And so from
December first to February last was
taken up with doing nothing to re-
deem our sacred honor pledged to
Cuba, or to tighten the burden resting
on the consuming and working public
of our own country. Driven at last
by the impatience of the people and
the opportunities of the President, the
committee. at meeting held last Sat 4
urday night, agreed TO report bill
reducing the duty on imports of Cuban
sugar by 20 per cent, from the present
rate. Even this grudging and tardy
relief proposed, granting only one-half
Of what the President had asked and
thought reasonable, was hedged about
with conditions which emasculated it.
1t postponed its going into effect until
Cuba, by treaty. should make recipro-
cal reductions in duties required upon
imports from our markets to hers.
The committee very well knew that
this could not be done for months to
come. The Cuban Electoral College met
only on Monday of this week and cast
the ballots for the islands executive.
| No date has yet been fixed for the
new government to go into operation.
| In any event 1t Is not expected to be
before May. Then, by the provisions
of the Cuban constitution, the treaty
proposed, when negotiated, will be in
effectual until Publications are OK
changed by the contracting parties.
BY that time our Congress will have
adjourned, or If not, with the utmost
expedition that can be had-and d.
plomacy is proverbially slow--midsum-
mcr must be here before the niggard-
ly mea sure of relief proposed can be
reached. BY that time the crop will
| Dt EOlltl anu IlC
But the American consumer can have
the felicity of keeping on paying
tribute.
Another condition annexed to the
committees proposition was that the
reduction should not be made unless
Cuba would adopt our immigration
laws,a gratuitous insult to people
whom we claim to have set free
an impudent interference with her
right To make her own laws, and
| which was not reserved to us even by
the Platt Resolutions. And IL any Pres
ident of the United States may think
these enforced laws are being dis
obeyed by the Cubans at any time
the proposed measure gave him thu
power arbitrarily TO cut Off all the
privileges of our markets conferred by
the bill, thus putting the commerce
of nation at the mercy of one mar
and he foreigner. If the Cubans
have Il spark of manhood left, after
all the goadlngs and buffetings the,
have received ut our hands, they viii
be swift to resent this attempt to die
tate to them what laws they shal
) pass, after they shall have set up an,
put in operation government Of thei
I own. The probability is that this con
@ dition was inserted for the crafty pur
@ pose of having IL rejected and thu
I upsetting the entire scheme of recipro
: cal rights Of trade. and throwing tn
= responsibility for the failure upon tn
n Cubans.
y But the measure proposed by tn
q committee, late AS 1t was, and sean
4 as 1t was,-scant to our own peopl
@ no less than TO the islanders VIII
q trusted us, had another string al
= tached to II, Ii was not to bccom
It operative until ratified 10y caucu
o of the Republican members OF tn
l. House,