The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-10-28

Vi SAS
cabinet positions were held up to
view. He had appointed Metcalf and
Morton to the places they hold be-
cause of their relations to some OF
the great railroads of the country and
the influence they were therefore ex-
pected to exert in securing the elc-
ton of the president. AS If this were
not enough, the senator said that OF
the hundreds of trusts having an ex
istence prosecutions against only five
had been instituted at the instance OF
the president. He mentioned these
separately, but much to the disap-
poinment of the audience nothing was
said of prosecutions under either of
the Cleveland administrations.
After paying particular attention to
the beef trust, the senator b%ranched
off onto the tariff and declared that
instead of being free traders, the
democrats were prOtectionists. This
they had proved by the Wilson-Gor-
man bill, the schedules of which
averaged about the same as those of
the existing Dingley bill, only they
were differently distributed. He de-
Tended the declaration of the demo-
cratic national platform that the pro-
tective tariff is a robbery" by say
ing that that declaration had sole
reference to the trusts and was not
inended to apply to the products of
the people.
imperialism afforded another sub
ject for the speaker to air his views
and those of his party. He deplored
that when Dewey sank the Spanish
ships he did not sail away and leave
the Filipinos to their fate. "They
don't amount to much, anyway" he
said, "but l must say that they are
just as capable of self-government as
the Cubans." The United States
should get out of the islands. No
other nation wanted them; if any had
wanted them they would have been
taken from Spain long before this
nation finally assumed control there.
Disavowing any intention or desire
to discuss the matter from a political
standpoint, the senator talked on ir-
rigation. Before he had gone far,
however, he, like the stanch and
good democrat he is, could not resist
the temptation to claim credit for the
national act in aid of the arid regions
for his party. A democrat, Newlands
of Nevada, had originated the bill
and then he told how many demo-
Gratis had voted for 1t and how many
republicans had voted against it.
Should the people of the United
States have the grace to elect Alton
B. Parker as president the people OF
the arid states would have a friend
at court, for in his letter of accept
ance that good man had devoted no
less than a page to the subject OF
national irrigation.
Concluding, Mr.. Clarke said that
both the republicans and the demo-
Gratis had nominated some pretty
good men, for state offices, but in his
opinion the democrats had a shade
the better of it and therefore he asked
all to vote the democratic state and
county ticket.
Another TilIman Is Heard.
Mr.. Carwile now introduced Cap
tain Blair, the man who has come
all the way from Texas to tell the men
of Montana how to vote. He said he
would talk on the same subjects as
Mr.. Clark, and took a crack at "im-
perialism" as a flyer by saying that
we had already "plenty niggers and
don't want any more little brown mig
gers"
Saying that he would speak as a
man from the south, a region between
which and the west there was a COM
munity of interests, the captain said
the south and west should stand to-
gether n turn out the republican
party, which was the common enemy
of both sections, for it legislated only
for the benefit of the eastern manu-
~facturers and wanted free trade on
the raw products of the south and
west, but was rabid on the subject OF
affording protection to the rich and
arrogant manufacturer who put those
products into marketable condition.
BY enacting the present tariff the re-
publican party had made it possible
for a few rich persons to become
richer and the great masses poorer.
AS an illustration of the Ubiquitous
workings of the "prohibitive' tariff
and tho manner in which it diScrimi-