The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-30
REPUBLICANS
 DECLINE SEATS
CANDID REPLIES TO CERTAIN
 QUESTIONS WOULD BE HM- EXPRESSING.
Not Desirous of Going on Record over Signatures-Answers Are E"iG- nautical, Evasiye, 1ncOnclu-
 nive and Some Hostile.

washington Special to New foFk
 World.
 Although sfar from desiring sucn an
 outcome, it now looks as 1T the Aineii
 can Federation will have to nght ali
 huf a few Republican members of the
 tIousa seekingsre- election this fall to
 make good its threat to oppose aiA those who refused or failed to give sat
 isfactory answers to the questions framed from the bill of grievances sup
 mitted to- President Roosevelt, Speak-
 or Cannon and Vice-President Fair
 banks last spring.
 Fewer than one-third Of the meIu-
 bers of the House have made answer
 so far. With but few exceptions the
 Renublican members have given an-
 swers that are variously described as
 evasiye, enigmatical, unsatisfactory' contradictory and inconclusive. TWO
 or three have been described as openly
 hostile.
 Not one of the answers is sur
 prise, for as a matter of fact the onn- cers of the Federation had very Iair
 idea of how each member stood on questions of vital importance to them Their object, then. in asking for det-
 milton of the position of each man was to nut him on the record over ms own signature.
 Iittlefeld Is in a way the represen-
 tative of the, whole Republican party and the great corporations by whom he has been employed for years as an attorney. To a man who has not been
 i'm the district 1t looks like hopeless task for the labor leaders. They have
 challenged the finest of the phalanx or
 Republican debaters fin a rock-ribbed
 Republican State-one that takes a
 pride in showing the rest of the coun-
 try what it ought to do for the Re
 publican party.
 Not only is the Republican organi- zation interested in preventing the de- feat of Littleleld, but the railroads and the big corporations generally can see the necessity without having II pointed out to them by Littlefeld or doing all they can to save his neck. If Littleheld should be defeated the | way would be clear for the labor lead crs to move into the district repre- sented by John Dalzell, who Is regard | ed as the representative in the ruling | coterie of the House as the spokesman l for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the United States Steel Corporation and other steel interests not at war with
 the big trust
 Then, after getting the campaign
 well started against Daizell, they would | he at liberty to go after Lorimer. of l Chicago, the very near and dear friend of the packers in Chicago. and of | Crumpacker, who during the meat in- l spection bill fight also showed himself | very friendly toward that interest, and | Mann. of Illinois, who Is regarded as | another representative in the ruling | coterie of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
 The making of such fights against 1 the sneciaI representatives of big cor | porations would produce greater chaos | lAan has been wrought by the inquiry | of the Interstate Commerce Commis- | sion into the relations of the Pennsyl- | vania with the coal mining companies
 and the Standard Oil. To have the la ! boring men taught to believe that the high priests of protection all repre- sented some special interest would re- ] duce the political condltlon or thl@ country to primal chaos.
 American Federation officers in pol | itics constitute an entirely new factor | in the congressional campaign They have never taken any hand Tn any po- | litical fight Therefore it IS lmpossi- ble to even estimate how much force | thev will exert. If the union men of l tba country follow them there will be the greatest revolution this country has ever known.
 There are approximately 2000,000 I votes in the bodies that compose the Federation. They constitute one-seV- enth of the voting population. With their sympa thizers they probably con- stitute a fifth. There are at least 250 1 of the sS6 Congressional districts where one-tenth of the voters going l from one party to thee other would change the political complexion. In the present Congress the Repub- lican party has PAT members. At one | time 1t had 25O. but three Republicans | from Pennsylvania died during the
 last session. The Democrats have en-