The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1907-05-30
CREENvILLE, OHIO, THURSDAY MAY 80 1907.
WASHINGTON LETTER.

and more surely as the issue OF
the coming Congress. The Tar
iff League, presumably of the
United States, but which has its
headquarters in Chicago, has
come out with a vicious attack
on the possible nomination OF
Secretary Taft because he is
credited with being a free trad
er. Free trade Republicans are
about as common as albino Afri-
cans, and Secretary Taft is moth
ing of the sort. But he is a tar
iff revisionist confessedly so, and
he stands for the Philippine tar
iff bill which was defeated in the
last Congress, not because it
could not have passed the Senate,
but because there did not happen
to be a majority of its friends on
the Senate committee that pig
eonholed it. Secretary Taft will
have a good many more serious
things to answer for than free
trade proclivities when his polit-
ical account is cast up, for in all
probability a majority of the A
merican people are heartily with
him on the subject of tariff re-
form.
The recent convention of the
Manufacturers Association had
a show of hands on this same
tariff proposition and it was found
that IS per cent of the manufac-
turers were heartily in favor of
tariff revision and only 20 per
cent were flat against it. The
remainder were wavering and
had qualified answers. Thus it
would appear that in spite Of
Speaker Cannon's distaste for
the subject the rank and file of
the party will insist on it's dis
cussion when the next Congress
meets and if the leaders" in
sist on delay, the best that they
will be able to do in all probabil-
ity will be to secure the appoint
ment of an ''unprejudiced COM
mission" that is to say as badly
preiudiced a commission as they
can secure to go all over the
schedules and spend several
months in accumulating data for
longwinded debates on the floor
of Congress.
1t is not generally known, but
the government is regularly a
party to fostering the tipping
evil and this practice has now
been extended. When govern
ment officials travel, they are al
lowed to charge in a certain a.
mount for tips in their travelling
accounts. Heretofore the dis
bursting officers of the depart
ments have allowed them to tip
the Pullman porters and conduc-
tors and hotel porters. But now
there has been a regular allow
ance added for the waiter on the
dining cars. This officially a
mounts to 40 cents per day.
Some statistically-minded indi-
vidual connected with the Inter-
state Commerce Commission has
figured out that there are 725
employees of the government
travelling on the railroads every
day. If these tip the walters 40
cents a day it will amount to 1920
a day and this figures out $1O2,-
$50 year. 1t has been officially
assumed heretofore that the en-
ployees of the government went
down into their pockets for tips
of this sort. But it is an erron-
eous supposition. Tips are dis
bursed and other small expendi-
lures made by officials when
travelling that they know will not
be allowed by the auditing off.
GERS, but these always get into
the expense account as Station
cry" or messenger service" OF
something else that will be passed
and that does not require a YOU