The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-07-28
HOT WEATHER MIXES UP
WITH THE TARIFF DEBATE
Incidental Gossip About the Summer Solstice,
the Work in Hand and the People
Engaged in It.
BY Ernest G.. Walker.
mail Special to the Advertiser.)

WASHINGTON, July 12.-The great
heat ball is glazing down upon Wash
Ington this week-a city that for the
first time in a dozen years focuses the
sountry's attention during a mid-July
sizzling. The President in the White
House is trying to keep cool by thinA.
ing about how pleasant it is in Beverly
by Massachusetts Bay. There are 81
Senators and 285 representatives.
when the tariff conferees have been
are scooSing away to the
parks and resorts, waving palmleaf
fans, absorbing soft drinks and trying
to keep their temperatures down while
the tariff bill is licked into shape. No
matter about those eight poor mortals
from the Senate and those nine poor
mortals from the House, who are to
adjust and compromise. Or to be cor
rect one should say five or even three
poor Senate mortals and six poor mort
ais from the House.
For the Democratic conferees, just as
was expected, have been waved aside
and enjoined to enjoy themselves while
the Republicans fix up differences
among themselves. They may go to
the seashore and fill the days with hilar-
ity for all the Republicans care. And
the Democrats take it eomplacently for,
they say, they would do the same thing
if they had majority of the Senate
and the House.
One, two. three weeks! The CUES.
sers are guessing now long it will be
before the doors are thrown open, be-
fore the Democrats will be invited in
and the mysterious conference report,
wherein the compromises are Indicated
by numbers, will be dumped upon the
Senate and the House. Three
weeks,'' exclaim the nervous and the
impatient. "By that time we shall
have shrivelled up under this fierce
heat The optimists look for an agree
ment by the end of this week. More
likely the laded conferees will wind
up their deliberations some time along
next week. There is a possibility of
their getting the report into the Senate
and the House by the middle of the
week, with a complete agreement upon
the SAT amendments, which the Senate
made to the House bill.
Then, whether it be by the middle
of the week or the end Of the week,
come on you leather lunged oratorsi
There will be three or four days for
you before outraged legislators who
hold their peace will grab you and throw
you into the cool Potomac The cry
for muzzles will be overpowering if
speech is long drawn out, once that con.
ference report is in hand and only a
vote in Senate and a vote in House
stand between 500 weary legislators
and home Those cantankerous West
ern insurgents are preparing to splurge
forth when the opportunity again offers
but they have already taxed the
patience tremendously. If the middle
westerners would have talked only as
much as other mortals in the Senate,
the bill would have been passed and
out of conference by this time. They
have an overweening sense of their
Importance and emphasize it by de-
monstrating their thoughts and word
power on every possible occasion.
Strangely enough most of the offenders
have been Republicans.
The first stage of the tariff confer.
enee has already passed. A few es-
sential things have been established
with reference TO it. President Taft
is not swinging club over the Con-
ference. The writer of speculation said
he would and there would be "some-
thing DOING That is not the Taft
wav of handling legislation He has
talked with the leading conferees.
He went over the situation first with
Senator Aldrich, who enjoys the Presi-
dents fullest confidence. Then he
took Speaker Cannon of the House on
a iov ride that very night and they
talked things over. The next night he
had Chairman Payne of the Ways and
Means Committee with him. In the
meantime he filed in the day with talks
with other Congressman who had to do
with the framing of the BILL
Those who stood afar off said the
President was simply swatting the big
Congressman. laying the law down. and
making it plain that if the conferees
did not meet with his wishes he would
veto the bill, veto the bill mind you.
That is the old subject on which those
who stand afar off have harped early
and late ever since the tariff bill was
in the arena of legislators.
AS a matter of fact President Taft
paid very little attention to any partic-
ular feature of the bill except the
corporation tax. But he told the Sem
ators and the Representative that he
would like to see some compromises in
conference that would make things a
little easier on poor old ultimate con-
sumer. something off on hides, from
which his boots and shoes are made,
something off on lumber from which
he builds his house, something off on
coal, which he burns to keep warm,
and so on and so on.
"Why, Mr. President, something of
that kind has been in mind from the
beginning said the eonferees. "We
have put up some duties said the
Senators. (which ought to be put up in
our Judgment, and we have put up some
others for the sake of making the pesky