The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1909-06-10
BELATED WRATH.

In an editorial entitled popular Feel
ing and Tariff Bunco," the st. Paul
Pioneer-Press, a republican paper, says:
'.The most wholesome thing for con-
gress to do at this juncture would be to
adjourn for few weeks and distribute
itself amongs its constituents. 1t would
learn something to it's ultimate adj
vantage, and to the advantage of the
country. 1t would get in touch with
the practically universal evaporation
and disgust of the voters with the Payne
bill, the Aldrich monstrosity, and the
cheap skullduggery and chcane which
have characterized the framing of the
house and senate measures. But there
is not the slightest hope that congress
will consult it's constituents. The tariff
trainers do not want to hear from the
country. The leaders want to put their
heads in the sand and imagine that there
is no trouble in store for their blessed
protected industries. They can't and
they won't see that unless they grant
the just and reasonable demands of
consumers for more moderate tariff on
necessities, and for free raw materials,
particularly for free lumber, free wood
pulp, free hides, free iron ore, and free
coal, there will be storm that is not
unlikely to put an end for good and all
to the republican party as at present
constituted, or at least to the domin-
alton Of the standpatter and reaction
airy, and to extreme protection for any
industry whether it needs it or not.
Let congress commit the crime it
threatens to commit and by little
jndicious leadership on the part of the
democratic party, by sloughing off free
trade, free silver and other populistic
excrescences, that party would be like
ly to carry, four years hence, nearly
every state in the Mississippi valley.
To elect a republican president against
sound and sensible democratic candi-
date standing on platform of common
sense, there would not only have to be
republican candidate and platform un-
equivocally pledged to definite tariff
policy, but complete change in the
feeling that now exists.
lit is probably not exaggerating to
say that millions of voters west of Ohio
are ready today to rebuke congress for
its evident intentions in way that
will disturb the gall even of that hoary
old sinner, Aldrich. For the rank and
file of the republican party is mad, and
mad clean through. They are not only
exasperated at the gold brick which
1T is the purpose of Aldrich and his fol-
lowers to hand them; they are still
more eXasperated at the evident as
sumption that they are pack of dolts
and blockheads who can be bamboozled
with impunity.
ut is time for congress to wake up to
the facts. Either the consumers of this
country are going to get what they de-
ma nd ,icso lo1
raw materials on the free list, and with
out any administrative .iokers' or any
70 per cent maximum trickery, or there
is going to be the dickens to pay two
years and four years hence in the re-
publican party. Failure to comply with
the demands of the rank and file will
split the party wide open.
these are not threats. They are a
plain statement of popular feeling as
expressed in this state by individuals |
and as revealed in the columns of the
press of the country from one end to the |
other
There now, will the republican con-
gress be good? But why this belated
wrath? Who is this man Aldrich, the
s.hoary old sinner" He is the same man
who has controlled the republican ma
jority in the senate for 10 these many
years. And who is this awful man,
Payne? He is Speaker Cannons right
hand man. And how do such unspeak-
able men happen to be in control of the
republican machine. Because the right
eously indignant newspapers like the
Pioneer-Press helped to win republi-
can victory.
But why does the Pioneer-Press rage?
Yhere is President Taft-he can by his |
veto prevent the contamination of the |
foul plot which Aldrich and Payne have
concocted. We have the guaranty of the
mighty hunter" that Mr.. Taft is a re-
former and Mr.. Taft himself in burst |
of confidence, ventured to say that he
thought the revision would be down
ward.
The Pioneer-Press had chance to
help elect tariff reform president and |
a tariff reform congress, but it refused. |
Where will it be in 1910 and 1912 when
the republican party seeks an endorse
ment of it's odious record?