Iron County register., 1904-12-29
SCHEME LOOT TREASURY
Evidence That the Ship Subsidy
Scheme Is Yet to Be Reck-
oned With.

III would De mistake 10 assume tnat
all but universal hostility to every prop
osition that has yet been made to re-
store the American flag to the sea has
had its basis in enmity to the idea that
the ocean traffic of this country at
least should be carried in American
ships, There is no doubt, say the De-
troit Free Press, that the people of the
country would have sentimental pride
in the knowledge that in maritime af-
fairs the position held by the United
States was as great as in the CONNER
cial and industrial world There is no
doubt that the presentation of satisfac-
tory evidence that some government as
sistance was necessary to start the work
OF upholding our merchant marine
would be followed by the approval of the
public provided the methods suggested
were free from taint of fraud and mad
equately designed to meet the end de-
sired as near as such end could be at
tanned without the teachings of an abso-
lutte experiment, although there is a
very considerable number of people who
object to governmental paternalism in
any form. But there has as yet been no
opportunity whatever to consider the
matter on its merits.
So far in the proceedings every plan
has been scheme and every scheme
has shown such palpable evidence that
it was conceived with the idea of graft,
that raid on the treasury" was the
purpose rather than the upbuilding Of
our merchant marine, and that it has
carried its own condemnation with it.
The first measure introduced, of which
Senator Frye, of Maine, was the putative
father, and Senator Hanna one of the
sponsors, was so phrased that the direct
beneficiaries would have been the trans
atlantic lines, which are not in nee6 of a
subsidy at all There was no apparent
intention on the part of the promoters
of the affair to make the subsidizing
general, there was nothing whatever to
indicate an intention to foster steam
ship companies that might undertake
the establishment of lines to ports that
now enjoy no direct connection with any
Of our chief Atlantic or Pacific ports.
The vigorous objection to end denun-
citation of the measure as graft pure
and simple was effective to accomplish
the abandonment of the original method.
Thereupon the promoters resorted to
artifice and the maritime commission
was appointed for the ostensible pur-
pose Of gathering information-for the
real purpose of devising plan of at
tanning the same end by more indirect
means.
In the Lewiston Journal, which is sup
posed to be newspaper in close touch
and sympathy with Senator Frye, there
recently appeared an editorial lamenta-
tion, not on the failureSof the congress
to devise some sensible and honest plan
of upbuilding the merchant marine, but
On the failure of the original graft meas
ure to pass. There was a wall because
the transatlantic mails are carried in fast
British ships, that the subsidies paid by
other countries forbid competition for
the business by the unsubsidized con-
Germs in this one-in fact, general rep
etition of the old arguments that were
advanced when the Frye bill was under
consideration. That was one side Of the
case and the side that was doomed to
failure.
The other side is presented in a news
paragraph to the effect that the demo-
Gratis in congress have decided to fight
the subsidy "as nothing more than 4
scheme to mulct the treasury for the
benefit of few big transportation COM
panies." That is what it is, and the
matter will never win without justi-
fled and vigorous opposition and it will
be as earnestly opposed if law is
framed according to the wishes of the
grafters. If the proponents of the meas
ure would first absolve themselves of
suspicion and then present plan that
would be honestly honest in its purpose
to accomplish something that is desir
able, the project would be viewed with
more patience and would meet less
heartfelt opposition.