The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-12-31

) spirited as in the earlier days whe
) Senator Frye of Maine and the lat
: Senator Hanna of Ohio were battlin
for the principle of subsidies, and tn
Senate debated almost day and nigh
in it's efforts to reach q vote. TIL
House was even more skeptical thai
the Senate in those days. 1t remain
skeptical now, apparently does no
want to be convinced-perhaps viii no
be convinced. There are standpatter!
| galore in the House, grim old legisla
| tive veterans who have persona
| knowledge of all the important con-
| gressional legisla ton of the last fifteen
| wears. since the time when Thomas B.
| Reed, then in the prime OF his career
first took up the House gavel. They
are tremendously interested in keeping
the tariff schedules where they are, but
those who come from the Middle West
do not care a picayune about protect
ing ships. for that is what subsidies
amount to.
TIE Senate fought the question out
in the course of long debates, the sub
sidy bill passed there, with Senator
Frye at the helm, and passed again
and again, but the House has remain
ed obdurate. and now the battle is to
be fought out there. The preliminary
and also the very important part OF
the fight is being waged in the House
Committee on Merchant Marine and
Fisheries, which is deep down in the
bowels of the Capitol-"down under the
terrace" in the vernacular Of the Cap
itoI. where one must have a guide to
find his way.
Maine has long been a foremost state
in pressing for ship subsidy. and
whether the numerous ship subsidy
bills of the last quarter of a century
have been before the Senate or the
House, some prominent Maine man has
been actively championing them. In
the Senate it has generally been Mr..
Frye, because he has long been the
chairman Of the Senate Committee on
Commerce, where subsidy bills are
framed. but Mr.. Hale of Maine, now
the floor leader of the Senate, has been
quite as active in pressing for such
legislation Over in the House the late
Nelson Dingley of Maine was at one
time chairman of the Merchant Marine
champion. Now his successor in Con-
Committee and an active subsidy
gress, Representative Charles E. Little
field, is a member of the committee
and one of the foremost champions
of the pending bill. Mr.. Littlef1eid
dives down into that terrace commits
tee room every little while to wrestle
anew with the opposition and when ne
comes up again to the corridors sur
rounding the House he has woeful
subsidy bill. but still fights on.
The present trouble is of Speaker
Cannon's making. Be it known that he
comes from the Middle West, where
there are no oceans, no rockbound
coasts, no seafarfng population. no
ships Astute in generalship, Mr.. Can
nor last year packed" the committee.
He did not pack it in the interest Of
opposition And there are now four
Republican members of that commit
tee from the Middle West, every man
of them ready to fight ship subsidies
to a finality.
hi
resentative Charles H. Grosvenor OF
Ohio. the chairman. He is the most
ADVANTAGEOUS of ship subsidy advo-
Gates. He would vote an appropriat ton
for about anything that the big ocean
liners want That hurts the cause. 1t
also hurts the cause that Gen. Gross
venor is down and out politically. He
lost a denomination and therefore
reelection. and members of the House
of Representatives are as averse as are
men in other callingS to following q
dead one" The committee meetings
are tempestuous. Gen. Grosvenor'
carving his burden of seventy-three
wears and with two decades of House
service behind him, reproaches the Re-
publican members, half his years, Tor
blkewarmness. They retort with spirit.
Representative Littlefield, full of en-
thusiasm for the legislation, strives to
act as a mediator, but thus far to IT.
tie purpose Clever tactics are resort
ed to by both sides.
Out of the constant scrapping, wnlch
constitutes by long odds the l1vel1est
fight of this session of Congress, there
has already grown a process of elm
ination. The House will vote no cargo
subsidies. Freight ships, as such, will
receive no subsidies, unless it can be
voted in on the floor or forced IN