The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1909-01-14
PUBLIC Gets OFF
IN MUD IN ROW
At CAPITOL
FIGHT BETWEEN PRESIDENT AND
STATESMEN BEING WAGED AT
EXPENSE OF WHOLE PEOPLE
TARIFF FORGOTTEN.
BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS.

BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1.-THE riot
progressing between the White House
and congress continues uppermost AS
topic. Also the question is begin
ming 10 be asked by ones whose only
interest rs the mild interest OF lockers
on. what public gooc is 10 come OF II
The public harm is apparent enough.
In the controversial hubbub excited,
the terih has already been lost sight
CT other questions OF moment have
also been sent To the rear.
Were congress and the White House
animated by public reasons. II might
not be SO bad, while far from being
good. But the fued is wholly private
in it's character. Ii is no better than
just q case OF mutual hates, mutua!
antipathies.
One OF the worst features is that
this Donnybrook business Is being
waged At the expense OF the public
and with public weapons. II is like
row between roughs In the street
wherein the blocks intended for paw
ing and making better the causeway
become missile weapons and the artii
lery OF private offense.
The world, the American world,
would come out better OF II our viva
cious ones In high places would think
oftener OF the country. less frequently
CT themselves, and not permit the gen
eral good as a motive with them 10
ploy second fiddle TO their petty vanl'
lies--play il with a soaped bow. too.
Mr.. Tillman has defended him
self and done himself no good. Mr..
Roosevelt did himself no good by at
lacking Mr.. Tillman. He might have
done SO had there not been so many
more than Mr.. Tillman whom he mas
not attacked. And now. with this at
tack which failed, plus this defense
which failed, IL is 10 be supposed that
the business may end.
And SO ending, what public need has
been served, what public injury either
righted or revenged?
Accusation Falls Short.
Going up Forty-second-st In New
York the other day, my eye fell upon
a great plate glass window that had
been broken. A card pasted on the
broken pane read:
This window was broken by two
drunken women. They were fined 80.
The window cost us $3.50. Where
do we get off?'
In this White House-congress war
the query pertinent becomes: Where
does the public get off?" Doubtless "
gets of where 1t usually gets on,
videlicet, In the mud.
That presidential accusation OF a
misuse of the ranking privilege
leveled at Mr.. Tillman fell short. u
not fat 1t might have carried
farther were IL not so thoroughly
known that the ranking privilege Is
misused, and has been for years, In
every angle Of the arrangement, from
White House and cabinet TO senate
and house.
And now Mr.. Tawney. over In the
house, as chief OF the appropriations.
Is TO engineer through Mr.. Olmstead
and a committee an Investigation
into the secret service expenditures or
the score or more departments. They
say, or rather Mr.. Tawney says, that
the aggregate OF these disbursements
a la Fouche reaches 100000 Very
likely! What then? Will II be less
1ext year because OF the Olmstead-
Tawney inquiry? Have these gentle
men any thought OF making 1t less?
Or do they so much as care? Or are
they brought TO these sudden gusts OF
economy and fiscal virtue by any
higher, nobler motive than merely to
fling an appropriational dead cat at
the president?
The great loose screw with both
White House and congress is that they
look too often in the mirror. too sci.
dom from the window. Like Kipling's
gorilla, they suffer from an overplus
Of ego In their cosmos.
The Tawney- Olmstead Investigation
Beyond making copy" For the news
papers. beyond anording feeting
glimpses OF those feet OF clay which
appertain unto our various Republican
gods. what benefit will 1t work? What
gressional investigation? One time
and another. putting the years to-
gether. there have been a gross OF
these inquiries. Not one OF them ever
PANIED out. They accomplished moth
ing, led nowhere. Commonly these in
vestigations themselves are as At sub
jects for investigation as the affairs
which they assume 20 probe.
Should Forget II.
The Tawney-Olmstead hunting on
the trail OF secret service expenditures
will be no better, end no better. than
its futile, not to say suspicious, prede.
cessors. The common veal would DO
best served were the Roosevelts and
Tillmans, and Tawneys and what
Others are involved IN all this sod.
paving and horn-slashing TO turn their
backs on the whole affair and devote
themselves TO tariffs and appropria-
lions and what other matters such
governmental trickery "a White House
and Congress were instituted TO con.
slider and ponaarva