Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1905-01-07

congress met for its second session
Mr. Roosevelt was keenly alive TO the
advisability of revising some SEIZED.
ules OF the Dingley tariff, and of doing
1t before the spring of 1906, when the
campaign preceding the general cleo.
ton OF representatives in congress
would be at hand. Those who had
access to him reported that he was
disposed to express his views upon the
subject in a special message announc-
ing that he should convoke in extra
session the Fifty-ninth congress soon
after the 4th of March, for the purpose
OF revising the tariff. What was the
outcome, however, of prolonged CON
situations with Mr.. Aldrich, Mr.. Hale
and other leaders of the majority in
the senate, and with Speaker Cannon
and other influential Republicans in
the house? Instead of converting
them to- his revision ideas, Mr.. Roose-
welt seems to have become a convert
to theirs; or, what practically amounts
to the same thing, he has assented, an
parently, to an indefinite postpone
ment of his project. If any ruling has
been done in this business, it is not
the president who has proved to be
the ruler.
We pass to what some would deem
the capital feature of Mr.. Roosevelt's
personal program; certainly it is the
most important feature of his last an
nual message. We refer to his
warmly urged request that congress
would clothe the Interstate Commerce
Commission with the power not only
to set aside as unreasonable an exist
ing railway rate, but to substitute for
it rate which in its judgment would
be more reasonable. AS we have for
merly pointed out, bills making sub
stantially the same proposal were al
ready pending in the present congress
one in the senate and the other in
the house of representatives. There
is no indication that either bill will
become law, or will even reach the
stage of public debate. Moreover,
even those senators and representa-
tives who are supposed most faithfully
to represent the presidents opinions
including the secretary of the navy,
who is a railroad man of much expert
ence-seem inclined to renounce the
plan of comforting the function named
on the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion, and of delegating it instead to
an Interstate Commerce Court. Even
the substitute thus talked of, however,
is still in embryo; no bill defining it
has yet been introduced in either
house of congress, nor Is one known to
have been prepared. Inasmuch as the
present congress will expire in about
two months after the holidays, and
in9smuch as none of the great appro-
priation bills has come up even for
we may dismiss as out of
the question the notion that an Inter-
state Commerce Court whether the
large one suggested by Senator FL
kins, or the small one favored by the
secretary of the navy, will be Gre
ated earlier than the winter of 1906,
even if the establishment of such
tribunal is seriously contemplated by
the leaders of the Republican MAORI
ties in the federal legislature.
Let us glance at some of the other
measures to which Mr.. Roosevelt is
committed but as to which it re-
mains to be seen whether he can
rally his party to their support There,
for example, are the arbitration
treaties, of which five have been con-
cluded, namely with France, Germany,
Italy, Switzerland, and England. We
have little, if any, doubt that
q considerable majority of the Repub-