Sunday Washington globe., 1902-06-01
The Handwriting on the wall.

The condition Of the Republican party is
not only serious but alarming. The action
Of the sixty-two Republicans in voting with
the Democrats to abolish the diferential
duty on refined sugar has seriously alarmed
the national leaders who fear that the gulf
between the two factions will widen as the
session progresses. Should this prove true
the Congressional elections are a foregone
conclusion, and the next House will be
Overwhelmingly Democratic.
It is evident that the present deplorable
condition in the House is due to a woeful
lack of leadership. Had Speaker Hender-
son been less autocradc and leader Payne
more sagacious and far-sighted the present
trouble could have been averted But the
leaders Of the Republican party are vir
tually intoxicated with their unprecedented
success. So successful have they been,
Notwithstanding their base betrayal Of the
peoples interest and the most egregious
political blunders that they had come to
believe that they were invincible. The
people believed in their rosy promises and
IN their protestatious of official purity.
But they were little too long on promises
and a trife too short on performances.
The people lost patience and demanded an
explanation from their representatives,.
The explanation was not forthcoming. The
real explanation would consigu them to the
limbo Of political oblivion. They could
not tell their constituents that the reason
no remedial legislation was passed OF even
considered was because the Republican
Representatives had delegated their legis-
lative powers to a Scotchman named David
B. Henderson. This evidently would not
do. The only alternative was to revolt
against the very conditions and rules which
they imposed upon themselves. By their
own motion they had made the House of
Representatives a nou-deliberative body
and then marvelled why the gag.rule was
applied; they invested the Speaker with
autOcratic power and then were offended
because he exercised this power like an
autocrat; they relinquished the rights of free.
men and then complained because they were
treated as slaves. They foolishly imagined
that they were entrapping the Democrats
while they were enslaving themselves,
under the impression that they were sowing
the seeds of harmony they were virtually
sowing the seeds of party disintegration
Some Republicans would like to lay the
cause of the whole trouble at the door of
Representative Babcock of Wisconsin, in
suggesting reduction OF the tariff on trust
made articles. But they are barking up
the wrong tree. They do not read the signs
of the times correctly. If they would look
below the surface Of things and investigate
the deeper currents that are beginning to
move and flow and impel men to political
action they would realize that the trouble
is far more deep-seated than they imagine
Mr. Babcock's proposition was not the
result of personal caprice, but the result
of a sentiment that is growing rap
idly in the West, and which he knows will
overwhelm the Republican party if not
allayed
Now comes the revolt against the Naval
Committee that had reluctantly agreed to
provide for the building of one of the six
vessels in a government navy yard, by au-
thorizing the construction Of three Of the
vessels in government navy yard
The signs on the political zodiac are not
encouraging 10 Republican supremacy.
While internal discords are tearing and
rending, the storm of indignation that is
gathering without against the grand old
party is something fierce