The Spanish Fork press. [volume] (Spanish Fork, Utah) 1902-current, 1910-02-10

will champion the presidents bill on
the floor, but who will be his lieuten-
ant it is hard to tell, for no one of the
chief men of the party thus far has
done any volunteering.
In the senate, Mr.. Elkins has intro
duced the presidents interstate com
merce amendment measure. The West
Virginia senator is the chairman of
the senate committee on interstate
commerce and he is the proper per-
son to introduce the bill and to guide
its destinies, but not even Mr. Elkins'
friends will claim that he is in any
sense debater or a skillful hand in
plotting legislation through the shoal
waters and the rocks of trouble which
frequently are found in the senatorial
sea.
Postal Savings Bank Bill.
In the house the postal savings bank
bill has no great company of friends
among the leaders. The bill is in the
postofIice committee, and naturally
Representative Weeks, who 10 the
committees chairman, should be its
sponsor on the floor of the house, but
the chances are that Representative
Foss of Illinois will undertake to do
the work that the president wishes 10
have done Mr.. Foss for years has
been the chairman of the house COM
mittee on naval affairs, and when he
undertakes the pilotage of the postal
savings bank bill he will be somewhat
out of his element.
The presidents conservation rec
concentrations are likely to lack out
andout champions in both house and
senate. The bills, when prepared and
introduced, probably win go through
because they seem to be immensely
popular with the country, but for
some reason or other they do not
seem to be at all popular with the Re
publican leaders. The Republican
members of the committee on public
lands do not seem to care to stand
sponsor for Mr. Taft's measures for
conservation. Who it is that will take
up the work no one can say, but the
Democrats say that good many Re-
publicans are losing fine chance for
popularity with the country and to Sc
cure reelection for themselves, by this
holding back at time when the presi-
dent needs strong friends willing to
stand in the open and to fight for him,
and not to be content merely to ex-
press willingness that the legisa.
ton should go through.
Tariff Very Much to the Front.
After long, hard, hot wealth
er session of congress which end
ed in the passage of the Payne
Aldrich tariff bill. 1t is likely that most
persons thought the tariff would be
practically dead issue. Very like
ly the majority of the Republicans in
the house and senate thought that 1t
would be, but 1t now seems certain
that the tariff is to raise its warlike
front again in the campaign preceding
next November's election, and that it
may be formidable enough to brighten
most of the other issues out of the
field
The leaders in congress recognize
the power of the tariff as a continued
trouble maker. Representatives of the
two schools of tariff thought are pre-
pairing for the fight that they know ia
to come. The Democrats are going
to present the action of the Repub-
lican congress as high protection"
act which was unjustifiable, and the
Republicans are going to defend It as
the best tariff bill ever passed"
Some few of the Republicans, how
ever, those who belong in what is
known as the insurgent camp, have
spoken their minds so freely in oppo-
sition to some Of the tariff schedules
that they probably will be contented
to forego any attempt at a defense of
that which previously they in part
have denounced
Both houses OF congress have the
privilege of printing pretty much
anything that they choose as a public
document, so that it can be franked
through the mails. One of the re-
suits of this privilege is that both
Democrat and Republican campaign
documents are sent out at the peo-
pies expense. In connection with the
tariff matter 1t may be said that Sena-
tor Thomas Carter of Montana,
regular" Republican, has succeeded
in having printed President Taft's
Winona speech. and this pronounce
ment of the president will go to many
of the voters of the land as a public
document. In his Winona speech Mr.
Taft said that the tariff bill passed by
congress at its August session was the
best tariff bill the Republican party
ever enacted into law.
1t must not be supposed that the
Republicans are having everything
their own way in the matter of ,eacb.
ing the country with campaign mate
rial printed at public expense. The
Democrats have the same privilege
that the Republicans have, and il ia
very seldom that anyone enters obiec.
ton to the printing of a document for
in the senate 1t is a case of turn about |
is fair play, and if one senator should |
object another senator also would oh. |
iect when the chance came to get
-'nn