Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-04-21
Senate Now Wrestling
With the Tariff.
House Members Busy With
Neglected Correspondence.
Conferences With the President
Visitors to the City.


laD-The second process in the max
ing of a tariff is now under way. The
most important of all bills with which
Congress has to deal is now under
senatorial scrutiny The attractive
feature of immense activity is trans
ferred to the Senate chamber For
several weeks the biggest debate the
Senate has seen in dozen years will
rage.
The great hearing room and it's 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
| a busy hive of industry for over three
| months. Then, when the bill had
| come forth, the great hall of the House
| became the theatre of tariff activity.
The administrative plans for it's final
passage, the parliamentary tactics for
| speeding consideration and bringing
| the bill to a successful issue were
worked out after weeks of effort in
the Speakers room during more than
a month of stressful effort. That was
the most stressful period Speaker Can
non has ever been through. 1t pro-
ceeded during the long House debate.
At times the very fate of the bill SEEM
ed to hang in the balance, SO diver
gent We're the conflicting interests of
the districts of the 391 members.
| But at last the tariff bill has endured
that ordeal The hall of the House of
Representatives is now silent. There
are no longer the reveberations of tar
iff oratory. Most CT the 391 members
in Washington are at work on
their correspondence which was nee
essarily neglected during the tariff dis
cussion. They are waiting for the Sen
ate discussion to wear itself out. And
the Senate is springing to it's task.
Never before in the history of tar
| in bills has a House measure been so
speedily reported back to the Senate
The moment the bill had been present
ed by Chairman Payne of House Ways
and Means, Senators knew they were
in possession of all the essential pro-
visions 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 Means Committee room
| has prevailed in the companion Senate
Office building, across the Capitol
| Grounds, and in the vicinity of the FL
nance Committee rooms and offices.
Thithcr went more thousands of peo-
pie, pleading for duties to be raised or
for duties to be lowered. The import
| ant Senators of that committee have
| been giving an example of real indus
| try. Most of the nine Republican Sen
| atOrs of that committee have been de-
| voting from twelve to sixteen hours
q day to acquiring information about
| schedules and passing judgment or get
| ting ready to pass judgment upon the
| rates Of duty to be assessed. Then
they turned the bill over for the in
| spection of their Democratic colleagues
of Finance. But the Republican Sen
| ators gave their Democratic colleagues
more opportunity to scrutinize the
work, than the House Ways and
Means Republicans gave their Demo-
| cratic colleagues. The Senate always
| does things little less brusquely.
And now this week the tariff bill, still
known as the Payne bill which could
be quite as appropriately called the
Aldrich bill, is at last dumped upon
the desk of the clerk of the Senate.
| Chairman Adrich is making his state
ment about the measure, comparative
statements about the increases and
the reductions have been ground out
by the little army of experts which the
| Senate summoned to aid the Commit
tee, and at last the long expected Dem
ooratc assault is in progress.
"Unclc ice" Cannon, after his long
| ho I, n1o Nv
of leisure hours He takes a spin in
his automobile of a forenoon or an af-
ternoon, wanders into his corner of the
Capitol, now quiet as church, smokes
a black cigar, shakes hands with an
occasional visitor, and when the mood
| is upon him, tells an anecdote.
The throngs that We're Surging into
the House galleries daily are now surg
ing to the Senate galleries. The at
| fractions for the immense numbers of
Easter tourists are north of the dome,
not south of it. The Senate leaders,
not the House leaders. now have the
problems of tactics and the missing of
majorities to work out.
| 1t is superb to see so much legisla-
tive machinery, in motion. There is
unusual concentration. The indiffer-
ence that characterizes a large portion
of Congress at most sessions is strik-
ingly absent. No Congressional dis
trict in the country is without some in
terest in some schedule of the tariff
| and every one of the 391 Representa-
tives and every one of the 80 Senators
there are but 81 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 tar
| if bill before either the Senate or the
| House. And at no other time on no
other measure is there such a rush of
citizens to Washington. for no other
measure affects so many people so di-
rectlv as q raising or lowering of
| tariff schedules.
There is one more phase of the leg
islative situation. That is the execu-
tive. President Taft nominally is
supposed only to send tariff message
to Congress, when is assemblies to re-
wise the tariff, and to sign or veto
the tariff bill. when it is completed
/ and n1aeed before him Rl1t no Pres