Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-08-05
CAPITAL CHAT.
Maine Senators Waiting
For Roll Call on Tariff.
No Further Worry About Items
Wanted by Maine.
New Provisions Satisfactory to
Paper Industries.


Washington, D. c.. Aug. 4.-(Spec
iaD.-Senators Hale and Frye are
sticking in Washington till the last
roll call on tariff That, of course, is
necessary. For, while it is certain that
the bill will become law as written in
the conference report and while there
need be no further worry about the
items that Maine wanted in the bill.
it is essential to be on the ground
when the orators have concluded and
the voting begins. The Maine Sena-
tors have no speeches to make. Like
d very large proportion of their COL
leagues they are chiefly sitting around
ready to go on record for the bill and
then to start Maineward.
They have no speeches to make
worth mentioning much during all the
tariff consideration. Senator Hale has
laid almost the entire State of Maine
under obligation to him for his splen-
did work in getting the continued duty
upon mechanically ground wood pulp
and for fighting through 1915 a ton
duty on print paper. He made sever
al brief speeches on general topics in
connection with the tariff bill, although
making no set effort. But he made no
speech at all about wood pulp and
print paper. 1t is an instance which
forcefully demonstrates that it is the
right kind of work, rather than de-
claiming which wins victories in Wash
| ington.
To be sure both Senators Hale and
Frye were ready to do a little speechi-
flying on wood pulp and paper. They
had speeches in their systems, as the
phrase runs at the Capitol Senator
Hale had Intercepted one of the wild
western orators on a certain day to
draw him out and to demonstrate how
little this Senator knew about the SUBJ
ject he was discussing But, as has
already been told. when the time came
around for them to speak the Maine
| Senators decided they would rather
not. There were the votes in the Sen
ate for the propositions that the Maine
paper and pulp manufacturers IA
vored. The situation was in all re-
spects about as the Maine Senators
| would have it. Then why talk? Bet
| ter vote and vote they did.
In getting through with the pulp and
paper fight without a speech Senator
Hale did better than did Senator
Lodge, of Mass ChuSettS with his fight
for free hides. Senator Lodge spent
| many days preparing a powerful free
hides speech and finally he delivered
it. The speech was an effective argu-
ment of class far above most of the
Senate speeches, but the Massachu.
SptfS Senator of
losing his fight for free hides, would
have lost it in fact had not President
Taft come to his rescue.
1t should not be overlooked that
Senator Hale did some talking in the
Finance Committee and finally in the
Conference Committee for wood pulp
and paper. If some of his remarks in
| those two places could have been TAX
en- down and printed they would make
mighty interesting reading. He was
practically alone in his demands for
those duties among the Republicans of
Finance and of the Conference Commit
tee. There We're a few Republicans
who sympathized with him on general
principles. believing that both articles
needed more protection than the House
had voted. Then the Maine Senator
was at a disadvantage because of the
so-called Mann report, made by
Committee of the House, headed by
Representative Mann Of Chicago, hold
ing that the duties should be material
ly lowered.
in all the chronicles of the tariff BILL
now about to be signed and made law,
there is probably no instance of a
Senator or of a Representative who
went into fight single handed against
a dozen men of his own party and
against hostile majority in the House
of Representatives and came out so
triumphant. The more the agreement
of the Conference on wood pulp and
paper is studied the more advantageous
it appears for the pulp and paper max
ing industries. The House voted free
wood pulp, everybody has been saying
but under the retaliatory clauses which
senator Hale had incorporated into the
conference agreement and therefore in
to the new tariff law wood paper is
going to have q, protective duty as high
as 1t has now and even something bet
ter. Print paper, too, is to have a
duty of practically s5.75 although it
was supposed that the duty of 1915
ton means simply that and nothing
more. If some clerk or other attache
around the committee had not been
careless the duty on print paper would
have amounted to S7.75, which is s175
more than under the present law
But in some way which no one has
beer able to explain, retaliatory duty
of 2-10 of one per cent. was changed
to Ito of one per cent. and therefore
if provinces of Canada impose export
duties upon wood pulp or pulp wood
as some of them are doing now and
will continue to do. the extra one
tenth of one per cent. ton. or 81 will
be added to the 1915 which Senator
Hale had fixed as the duty in the new
law.
In any event it is understood here
that the new provisions are satisfactory
to the pulp and paper making indus
tries and are likely to be satisfactory