The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-06-17
WASHINGTON
From our Regular Correspondent.


From our Regular Correspondent.
Washington, d. c., June IL, 1909
The progress OF the tariff bill
through the Senate is strikingly
suggestive of trip up the side of a
mountain on cog railway. The
bill progresses but it is by series
of short and emphatic jerks. In
fact it recalls the somewhat witty
conundium propounded BY Dem
ocratic statesman regarding Mr.
Roosevelt. He inquired Why
President Roosevelt was like gas
oliue automobile, his answer being
Because he procee Is by series Of
explosions" Considerable prog
ress has been made during the last
week. The cotton schedule, over
which there was probably more
wrangling than is likely to attend
any other section of the bill, has
finally been disposed of, and mate
rial progress has been made on the
wool schedule. When this trouble
some proposition is out of the way
date will probably be set for the
6nal vote on the measure and once
that is done the debate will move
along with increased celebrity and
diminished interest.
~
The explosions which have at
tended the debate recently have
not been confined to either side Of
the chamber. Senator Aldrich as
leader OF the organization and Sen.
ator Beveridge as would-be leader of
the insurrectos have been clashed
frequently and violently. Senator
Stone as the close personal friend
OF Mr.. Bryan and Senator Bailey
as the determined opponent of the
peerless Nebraskan, have crossed
swords and made the sparks fy.
Senator Newlands, who was a
statesman is sui generis, has con-
tributed to the gaiety OF the situa-
ton by a wealth of defamation
which has emptied the Senate
chamber on more than one instance
and proven the occasion for numer-
Gus wagers concerning the school
OF political economy 10 which the
Nevada statesman might prove ul-
timately to belong.
#s*
The administration, despite its
efforts to hold aloof from the tariff
squabble, has come in for its share
OF condemnation. The Secretary
OF the Treasury, than whom there
is no more discreet member of Mr..
Taft's cabinet, took occasion to ex-
press few modest views on the
tariff TO the Commercial Club of
Chicago and as result the Repub-
lican leaders in the Senate are now
explaining that Mr.. MacVeagh' S
revision-downward views are due
solely to his experience in politics
and are intimating that President
Taft knew nothing of the purpose
of his Secretary of the Treasury to
discuss this subject, whereas the
fact is that the President carefully
viewed his Secretarys speech be-
fore Mr.. MacVeagh left Washing
ton. That noblest Roman of them
all, William Alden Smith of Mich
igan, whose chief function in the
Senate is TO secure protection for
the beet sugar industry and to pre-
vent any curtailment of the water.
power monopoly of great electric
corporation, has publicly declared
that Secretary MacVeagh could not
make up his mind for him, which
led Senator Stone to reply that not
being omnipotent Mr.. MacVeagh
could not make up anything which
did not exist-all of which illus
tr2tes the spirit of brotherly love
which has pervaded the upper
house of Congress during the tariff
debate.
*.%
Presidents Tatt's Secretary of
the Navy seems destined to earn
the soubriquet of Secret Board
Meyer" When Mr.. Meyer be-
came Secretary of the Navy he
found himself heir to an extremely
troublesome controversy bequeath-
ed to him by the Roosevelt New
berry administration. Immediate
ly he appointed secret board with
Admiral Speery at its head to de-
wise a method of extricating the
Navy Department from its difficult
ties. Twenty-four hours after the
board was appointed an enterpris-
ing newspaper correspondent rob-
bed it of its secrecy and thereby,
apparently, destroyed its efficiency.
1t finally made two radically diver