The age-herald., 1902-02-21
Washington Day by Day

 booters. votes urgency money to break the foot-thicl ice in the Potomac so that the skating ponds of idlers may not be flooded when the thaw begins, poor and ragged and starving Cuba, with her two babies in her arms, Is crouehing and shivering and dying in the fury of the Congressional blizzard blown by the beet sugar trust, and the tobacco trust.
 Let Cuba starve," saith the Congress of Dingleyism.
 When King Charles the First stood at the block, the headsmans axe brightly gleaming, he remembered the obligations of fidelity and his last words, we are told, were:
 "Do not let poor Nellie starve"
 Charles was a seventh century king, but in his heart there was more of the humanity of world-democracy than there Is manifest in this Twentieth Century Congress of Dingleyism-at once the most baleful and the most outrageously tyran- nical political doctrine which any modern nation has suffered to be imposed upon Itself.
 "Let Cuba starve," saith Dingleyism.
 Maybe Dingleyism will suffer rate similar to that which overlook the mis- guided though murdered, king Of two hundred and fifty years ago, in that II will be slain, and rightously so; but there is no hope that justice can so triumph at any time within a half dozen years to come Dingleyism and It's legitimate off- spring the millionaire barons of oppression are too firmly established in the govern ment to be soon thrown down and cast out. The Democratic party has been too painfully mssed-it has followed too faithfully certain blind heretics and fooi- ish heresies. We all of us who were party to all the folly see this now, but we see it too late for present help. We are suffering for our political sins, and we ought to suffer.
 But the Democratic period of penance | would seem to be ending. Those who | misled us are still with us, but so lar l as leadership Is concerned they are hope l less and hurtless. The Democrats have learned something, though at cost to l the whole people that is appalling In circumstances unexampled in our na- | tional legislation, the House unanimously | adopted the measure repeating all span | ish war taxes While the Democrats to | a man aided in the repeal, it was in essence Dingleyism triumphant and dem | ogogy glorious.
 l Primarily the sole incentive to the measure on the part of the Republican majority was to forestall all honest ef- forts to mitigate the vice of Dingleyism. Incidently it enabled them to further prostitute the legislative power to parti- san ends by standing in the market places and proclaiming in selfrighteousness their surpassing virtues as set forth in the re- | duction of taxes to the extent of sev- enty-five cents for each inhabitant. | Hypocrisy, knavely, corruption-all this 1 and nothing less accounts for the Repup- lican attitude in regard to the war taxes Through their unrighteous and absolute devotion to the rascaldom of Dingleyism, they have borrowed thin veil Of virtue | to throw over their naked political de- fbauchery. Like and unlike Phryne, they | have in their sins appeared before their Judges in the delusion that the outward semblance of virtue will secure their ac- quittal The judges will in part render their decision next November. Fearing the effect of their own exposure l at the hands of the Democrats and the courageous members of their own domin- ant party in the House, the all-powerful triumvirate of robber-tariff and other in- iquities, namely, Speaker Henderson, Mr. | Payne and MT. Dalzell, resolved to gag l the whole House and forbid the offering of any amendment to measure which dealt with seventy million dollars year; 1 these three men therein constituting or themselves in effect the supreme power of revenue legislation vested by the con- stitution in free and ungagged House Of Representatives, which Is now composed of more than three hundred and fifty men!
 | And the President of the United States consented and thereby became party to the most dangerous pact yet consum- | mated against the people.
 l In vain MT. Underwood, one of the two l Democrats of the rules committee, MT. 1 Richardson of Tennessee being the other, 1 pleaded against this tyranny; in vain he | offered an amendment looking to some | final lessening of the evils of Dlngleyism; in vain he represented the principle of a free and ungagged House. In his popular | representative capacity, MT. Underwood might as we'll have been trying to make | a. breach in the wall Of Dingleyism by
 hurling peanuts against the walls of the | Big Rock Jail.
 But there is one real comfort and actual | Democratic advantage in this war-tax re-
 moval measure. Mir. Richardson of Ten
 nessee, the Democratic leader on the | floor of the House, whom one cannot al-
 ways accredit with astuteness. or even l cleyerness, had the acumen and the quick
 ness to spike the gun of Republican
 demagogy by offering a motion that the repeal measure be passed forthwith and l without any debate whatever.
 This was a masterly act and MT. Rich | ardson of Tennessee is entitled to the
 frankest and most cordial praise and pub | lie honor His action not only deprived
 the Republicans of their demagogic par
 tisan advantage on account of their Ire duction of taxation" humbug cry, but it | emphasized to all the American people
 the tyranny of the triumvirate by which
 the House of Representatives is as com
 pletely ruled as the private soldiers of the l r,..a-1 ;,, patareb,,rU ara ri1Iad bu