The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1909-05-07
ny rmss, q walker


WASH N0rON. April i5.-1he see
and proctss in the making ~ iarif
is now under way. Tho most important
" an bills with which Congress has TO
deal b now under Senatorial scrutiny.
The attractive feature Of immense ae'
uyity is transferred TO the Senate
chamber For several weeks the biggest
debate the Senate has seen in a dozen
years will rage.
The great hearing room and its nest
Of smaller committee rooms over in
The House office building are deserted
and silent. Thither thousands Of men
went for weeks and weeks during the
late autumn and early winter, There
twelve WAYS and Means Republicans.
aided by score Of experts, toiled in
busy hive of industry for over three
months Then, when the bill had come
forth. the great hall of the House be
came the theater of tariff activity. The
administrative plans for its final pas
sage. the parliamentary tactics for
speeding consideration and bringing the
hill TO successful issue were worked
ont after weeks of effort In the Speak.
er room during more than month of
stressfu effort. That was the most
siressfu period Speaker Cannon has
ever been through. II proceeded during
the long House debate. At times the
very fate of the bill seemed to hang in
the balance, so divergent were the con
hieting interests of the districts of the
1871 members.
But at last the tariff bill has endured
ihat ordeal The hall of the House Of
Representatives is now silent. There
are no longer the reverberations of tariff
oratory. Most of the 39l members are
ioafng around Washington. They have
nothing to do but wait for the weeks of
Senate discussion to wear itself out.
And the Senate is springing to its task.
Never before in the history of tariff
bills has a House measure been so
speedily reported back to the Senate.
The moment the bill had been presented
by Chairman Payne of House Ways
and Means, Senators knew they were in
possession of all the essential provis-
ions of the bill as it would be sent to
them. And for the last month all the
intense activity that prevailed in the
House office building, near the Ways
and Mems Committee room has prevail
ing, across the Capitol grounds, and in
the vicinity of the Finance Committee
vooms and offices.
Thither went more thousands of peo.
pile. pleading for duties to be raised or
for duties to be lowered. The important
Senators of that committee have been
giving an example of real industry.
Most of the nine Republican Senators
10
from twelve to sixteen hours a day to
acquiring information about schedules
and passing Judgment or getting ready
TO pass Judgment upon the rates of duty
10 be assessed. Then they turned the
bill over for the inspection of their
Democratic colleagues of Finance. But
sbe Republican Senators gave their
Democratic colleagues more opportunity
TO scrutinize the work, than the House
Ways and Means Republicans gave their
Democratic colleagues. The Senate al
ways does things a little less brusquely.
And now this week the tariff bill, still
known as the Payne bill which could be
quite as appropriately be called the Aid
rich bill, is at last dumped upon the
desk of the clerk of the Senate. Char.
man Aldrich is making his statement
about the measure. comparative state
ments about the increases and the re-
ductiUns have been ground out by the
httle army of experts which the Senate
summoned to aid the committee, and
mt last the long expected Democratic
assault is in progress.
"UncIe Joep Cannon, after his long
siege with the bill, is having plenty of
bisurs hours. He takes a spin in his
automobile of n forenoon or an after
noon wanders into his corner of the
Capitol, now quiet as q church, smokes
black cigar, shakes hands with an
occasional visitor, and when the mood
is upon him. tells an anecdote.
The throngs that were surging into
fhe House galleries daily are now
surgfng TO the Senate galleries. The
attractions for the immense numbers
Of Easter tourists are north of the
dome, not south of 1t. The Senate
leaders, not the House leaders. now
have the problems of tactics and the
massing Of majorities to work out.
1t is superb 10 see so much legis-
mtive machinery in motion. There
Is unusual concentration. The indif-
ference that characterizes large por-
sfon Of Congress at most sessions is
srrklnglN absent. NO congressman
district in the country is without
some interest in some schedule OF the
tariff, and every one of the 3s1 Repre-
sentatives and every one OF the nine
ty-two Senators-theTe are but ninety
one with the vacancy from Illinois
are watching out and trying to get
something put on or something taken
off. That is hardly true of any other
measure than tariff bill before
either the Senate or the House. And
at no other time on no other measure
is there such n rush of citizens to
Washington. for no other measure af-
fects so many people so directly as
raising or a lowering of tariff sched-
uIes
There is one more phase Of the leg
islative situation. That is the execu-
tive. President Taft nominally is sup.
posed only to send tariff message to
Congress, when 1t assemblies to revise
the tariff. and to sign or veto the
rariff BILL when II Is completed and
placed before him. But no President
m the last fifty years has been able