Middletown transcript., 1903-09-19
WASHINGTON LETTER
WAsHINGroS. Sept. lat

! WASHINGTON, Sept. 14th 1903.
HON. George Frisbie Hoar, the venerable
- Senator from Massachusetts, has in
an address at Salem, made an announce
ment which is attracting wide attention
and furnishing food for deep thought.
Mr.. Hoar says that the time to revise the
tariff is at the session following the elec-
ton Of Republican President and the
eminent statesman furnishes many ex-
cellent reasons for his belief He SUBJ
mits that the election OF a Republican
President invariably brings a feeling of
confindence and relief to the country at
large, and for that reason business at
such time is sure to be in healthy
condition and least susceptible to the
shock of changes in the tariff schedules.
tie points out, moreover, fact well re-
cognized by every statesman who has
given recent history genuine study,
namely that it takes several years for the
country to judge as to how tariff law is
going to work because it requires time
for the business interests to adjust Them
selves to the new schedules. For this
reason there is danger that any attempt
at revision coming at the approach Of
presidential election may be followed by
purely temporary depression and that
may produce, i'll turn, temporary change
of view on the part of the voters, a
change which would have been entirely
dissipated before presidential election
arrived had the tariff revision been at
tempted three years earlier. 1t was this
view of the situation which certain ex-
perienced senators presented to the Pres
dent at Oyster Bay last spring and which
converted Mr.. Roosevelt to the "stand
pat' policy, but it is also this view which
in the opinion of certain well posted Re-
publicans, may and probably will lead
President Roosevelt to advocate some
notifications in the present schedules
during the winter of 1904-05.
*x*
The opposition recently expressed by
certain dignataries of the Catholic |
Church to the oath required of members |
Of the International Typographical I'm
ion has served to bring out the fact that,
according to areliable authority, the COM
mittee which, acting for the President,
has just completed an investigation of
the Government Printing Office, called |
President Roosevelt's attention to the
incompatibility of the printers oath and
their loyalty to the Government. 1t is
claimed, moreover, that it was for this
reason that the President Immediately
instructed Public Printer Palmer to re-
quire the usual oath OF office from every
employee of the Printing Office, which
has been done. The members Of the
union referred to are required to swear
that their duty to the union shall not be
interferred with by 'any allegiance
owed to any other organization, social,
political, or religious" 1t is explained
by Jerome F. Healy, Secretary of Union
No. 6, that this should be accepted in a
purely Pickwickian sence and not as
what it is not unlikely that the
printers will see the untenableness OF
their position and will change the ver-
biage of their oath so that it will be i'm
possible to construe it as inimical to the
loyalty every American owes to his coun.
try, or as interfering with the feaity
man may desire to give to his church.
There has been expressed considerable
curiosity as to the delay in making pub
lie the results of the Printing Office in.
vestigation, but it may be said that the
reasons for-deferring Its publicity are ex.
cellent and are calculated to make for
the best interests of the government and
Of the Office.