Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1902-01-31
IT SHOULD BE DROPPED.
The Ship Subsidy Scheme Should Not
BE Permitted to Offend
Again.

While in no position to positively
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
robbery 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 infict great wrong upon the
| people, says the Detroit Free Press.
They apprehended the moral status
| of their case as clearly when they in.
| itiated it as they do now. 1t was con
ceived in selfishness and pushed with
the single idea of benefting certain
| preferred interests that were exposed
during the long discussion of last
winter. The men behind the under.
taking have known from the outset
that they were merely planning a
great financial coup that, if executed
SUCCESSFULLY, would mulct the country
in the sum of at least $30,OO0,O0O, 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
no change of heart on the part of the
men 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
upon the wall. The masses who pro-
vide the revenue of the government
are in no mood to make an enforced
contribution at such dictation OF 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 world power.
These are winning slogans in the abb
stract and liable to ignite infiamma-
bic patriotism, but the promoters
are now in the position of man who
has shown his hand when nothing but
bluff" could have made it 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 q
! grave political consideration. The
schemers are republicans and include
such party luminaries as Hanna, the
head and front of the party manage
ment; Senators 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 un-
| popular and that to give it the force
| of congressional sanction would i'm.
| 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 congressman 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.