The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1909-06-11
BY Ernest q. walker.
all special to the Advertiser


WASHINGTON, ID. c., May Is
Autumn days is now the wall OF the
tariff prophets, who are preparing to
sizzie through hot, tropical summer.
Somebody advanced the date to Oc-
aober / the other morning. He was
she most lugubrious prophet of them
all OH crs have talked about lock-
ing up the press galleries, excluding
the public from the sessions, and
1hen going ahead in star chamber.
No tariff builder then could get fame
from the country by talking or op,
posing. Within the chamber 1t would
be grim and silent, except for mo-
Iotonous haste to get through to the
end of the big, thick bill.
The country probably does not real
ne how idle all that kind OF CONVEX
sation is. 1t takes time, and ought
10 take time, TO enact a tariff bill into
hw-not SO much time as the Senate
Is occupying probably. All the rest of
Washington. except those 81 Senators,
Is sitting around and waiting. 1t reads
the papers in the morning to see how
many test votes were taken and to
note the weary progress toward the
last controverted paragraph. Most
Of the rest of Washington, 1t might
also be said, has made up its mind
about what the tariff ought to be,
has taken sides one way or the other
and Is ready to settle the terms of the
bill on a moments notice
Under ordinary circumstances there
would be much else doing to occupy
1he brains and the faculties of this
big company of idle Washington peo-
pie. They are drifting now, however,
waiting upon the bill. The House
wants the bill. How the hotel expens-
Us are pillng up! How impatient the
statesmen at thar end of the Capitol
are with their old foe-the Senate! And
the Representatives. headed by Uncle
Joe Cannon. are rapping away every
day in confident conversational tones
about the dilatory old Senate. There
are 200 or 300 Representatives in town
and they are all talking as industri-
susly as the members OF a sewing
Rircie about the dilatory old Senate.
There gossip infects the air, it gets
into the newspapers, 1t reaches to the
RtterInost parts of the country.
Irksome as residence in Washington
at this time of year may be, and eager
IS the business world may be for the
terms Of the tariff, the Senate is not
doing 50 very badly. The present
tariff bill is quite as far advanced as
was the Dingley bill at a similar date
1welve years ago. The extra session
fhat framed the Dingley law met in
ihe middle of March, just as did the
present extra session. But the Senate
in the summer of 1897 did not get
through with the tariff bill till the
very first days of July. 1t is a fairly
safe wager that the Senate will be
the middle of June-possibly before
that time-and it is altogether prob
able that by early July-the date
when the Dingley bill was getting out
Of the Senate in 1897, the Payne bill
will be upon the Presidents desk and
that he will sign 1t promptly so that
Congress can hasten home nearly a
month in advance of the time when
Congress FASTENED home in 1897.
And when one analyses the situa.
Iion. Washington hotel bills are at the
Bottom of the heated talk which pro-
reeds from Washington. In recent
years the sessions of Congress have
been growing shorter and shorter, al
though the business of Congress has
leen growing larger and larger in vol
ume. 1t used to be that Congress at
its long sessions, occupying every two
years, stayed in Washington till July