Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-07-23
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From Our Regular Correspondents

Washington, d. c., July 1.-THE
Republicans in both houses of Congress
have been treated to an extraordinary
and i'll many instances most unwel-
come surprise during the week just
ended. Misled by the genial exterior
and apparently easygoing disposition
of William Howard Taft they elected
him President and then prepared for
an administration which would close
ly resemble that of President McKin-
ley. The events of the past week have
brought them to realization that their
President has will of his own and
that behind his ever present smile
there is determination which bodies
i'll to the ''stand patters" in his party.
Twenty-Five Republican members of
the House marched on the White
House in solid phalanx, last Friday,
intending to read the President a lee
ture because he was eXerting his inf1u-
ence with the conferees to induce them
to ploce hides, iron ore, petroleum and
coal on the free list and to accept the
House duty of 81 a thousand feet ON
lumber, which is just halt the Dingley
rate. They approached the White
House with most militant spirit and
gave some broad limitations to the
newspaper correspondents in the ante
room of the very bod half hour in store
for the President. They came away
looking like set of boys who had been
caught stealing apples and the later
confessed that the President had ridi-
culed them, had lectured them, had
charged them with selfishness and mar
rowness and then calmly informed
them that he, with the whole Ameri-
can people for his constituency, had a
mucn broader point of view than they
did regarding any commodity which
was produced in their respective dis
tricts. He told them, moreover, that
he constru:: ID the Republican platform
as pledging the party to tariff revision
downward and that he purposes TO do
all in his power to accomplish full
Fl lment of that pledge and that the
wisest thing they could do would be to.
go back to the House and wait for an
opportunity to vote for tariff bill en-
bodying his ideas.
Before this conference the President
had explained his views to the con-
ferees of the two houses. He had eX-
planned to them, laughing all the time,
that, if they were genuine friends of
Speaker Cannon, instead of putting a
duty on petroleum, as he wanted them
to do, they would put petroleum on the
free list because that would prevent the
speakers being relegated to private life
at the next election. He told them
that the American people did not be-
lieve that the duty put any money in
to the pockets of the farmers, but that
it did put large amount into the trea-
sury of the Beef Trust and that the peo-
pie did not like that and would punish
the party which continued the tariff
on hides He assured them that a ma
jority of the voters would interpret a
duty on petroleum as tribute to the
Standard Oil Company, and a duty on
iron ore as tribute to the Steel Trust,
and any duty on lumber higher than
the House rate as tribute to the Lum-
Der Trust, and any duty on coal as tri-
butte to the Coal Trust and he hated
awfully to think of what would hap
pen to political party which the peo-
pie held responsible for taxing the con-
sumers to swell the profits of these
trusts. He told them that he had
nothing very much at stake because
his position was known to the people.
They appreciated that he favored tariff
revision downward and besides his
term did not expire until 1918, but he
was awfully sorry for all those poor
Republican members of Congress who
must stand for reelection in 1910, be-
cause then the indignation of the vot-
ers would be at white heat and they