The age-herald., 1902-03-15
Washington Day bY Day

been seldom so directly and operly dis played as in the ready obedience of the Republican leaders to the mandate of MT. Roosevelt respecting reciprocity with | Cuba.
 We need not stop to discuss the fact that MT. Roosevelt did not influence these Congressmen in the strictly constitutional method. which provides that the Presi- dent shall from time to time advise Congress" as to the public good, and which would have made 1t necessary for him to send special messenger urging in effect that few millionaires compos- ing the beet sugar trust should not be suffered to traffic in American national honor to the extent of further enriching themselves by starving the Cubans and levying taxation upon the great mass of l the people.
 Mir. Roosevelt Is not considered a skill
 full politician; but even an ordinarily reckless Rough Rider could have foreseen that a special message which would have e:rayed in hostile attitude the scores of
 Republican Congressmen who are mere
 automatops to register the will of the
 beet sugar trust would be poor politics.
 Sc MT. Roosevelt simply "called across''
 the noble masters of Congressional legis- | lation, Henderson, Payne and Dalzell, and
 orally bade them change the views of a
 majority of the Republican majority of l the House. The triumvrate yielded as meekly as lambs-consented to do with apparent gladness what they had sworn
 they would never do. Just as the con- l ference between Mir. Roosevelt as Presi- l dent and Henderson, Payne and Dalzell, as the rulers of the House, was concluded, poor old Grosvenor, who dreams in his
 befuddled brain that he is leader.
 appeared at the White House ''by acci- dent" that was unmistakably design, and
 the President was forced to greet him
 with "hello, old fellow" in order to be
 civil. Going further than the occasion
 required, the truly good-natured Presi-
 dent told Grosvenor what was expected
 of him, and thus in the present emer-
 gency Grosvenor Is sweiled up like the l frog that endeavored to drink himself as big as the OK; and like the frog Gros- venor will soon burst and there will be an end of as contemptible a demagogue as there Is in Congress.
 Thus we have the initiative of the, ex- traordinary change of front on the part of the Republican party in Congress re- specting mercy to Cuba and a half meas ure of defiance to the beet sugar trust. The President gave orders to the legisla- tive firm of Henderson. Payne and Dal- zell petty tyrants with baggy trousers, and they have apparently carried out their instructions; being assisted in their work by the most astute political worker | of our time, Senator Hanna, namely. There has never been, it seems now. any real reason for doubting the Senates sympathy with Cuba and Senator Hanna 1 having no work to do for Cuba, in that place, set about pulling Mir Roosevelt out or the hole in which the Republicans of the House had placed him. In doing this Senator Hanna carried out his own views 1 concerning the national obligation to Cuba ana at the same time did great ser. vice to his party.
 At any rate. there has suddenly come | into view fair prospect that some meas- ure of justice will be awarded the Cu- pans. Behind it all, of course. is the mighty power of public opinion; for with out respectable exception the influence of the press and the people has been ex- erted against the original and clearly ex- | pressed purpose of the Republican major- ity Of the House to obey the beet sugar trusts lobby. Chairman Payne and Dal- zell or the ways and means committee declared, after reporting the war tax re- peal bill, that they would do nothing for Cuba. And not in our parliamentary his- l tory has there been so great or so sudden change in the attitude of any party in l Congress The speaker of the House per- l sonally got down amongst the common herd of the Republican caucus and ragged and begged that the will of the master In the White House be obeyed.
 Would you assign all our party assets l to the Democrats?' Speaker Henderson is quoted as demanding of his Republican majority.
 l And this from the big boss who with
 Payne, Dalzell and all the rest of their party constituted a fortnight ago the Cuba-be damned class in Congress!
 So far as the Presidents advice" to Congress being not in strict constitu- tional form, many of the people would have not objected If he had ordered to jail every servant of the beet sugar ioppy having a seat in Congress
 Meantime it is not dspleasing refiec- tien that the gigantic sugar trust proper, | which favors the rights of Cuba, was un- | willing to outbid the beet sugar trust for | the favor of the Republfcan marty in Con. | gress. The latter a fortnight ago abso- lutely controlled the Republicans and the Louisiana Democrats; and that is clear proof that the great sugar trust was not | srending much money. Yet the latter proC.. bly, had ten dollars for it's lobby l for every doll0 at the command of the l beet sugar lobby. The original sugar | trust has been on the side of the people. i though it has expended little money to l prevent the other trust from working the | infamous destruction of Cuba. In fact the sugar trust openly declares that it | prefers absolute free trade in raw sugar. and that Is what all the American people outside of Louisiana and the beet "farms'' in "the great Saginaw Valley" and some l ten other localities demand
 | All this is history. and from our na- | tional viewpoint it is history of supreme