The daily sentinel., 1910-08-09
LIVE WASHINGTON
COMMENT BY ONE
Who WATCHES THINGS
by Clyde H. Tavenner. STAFF Wash
ington correspondent of The
Sentinel

Sentinel
Washington. Aug. S.-AII over the
land the regular republican candi-
dates for congress are preparing to
ask for election or reelection on the
record of President Taft and the last
congress.
Aside from the tariff revision with
which the public is already familiar,
the predominating features of the
platform on which the standpatters
will make their final desperate stand
are the postal bank bill and the So
called railroad regulation bill.
The railroad bill as passed was
better than existing law, improve
ments having been forced by demo-
Gratis and insurgents. The original
draft was one of the most vicious
pieces of legislation proposed in con-
gress in years. President Taft sent
this bill to congress with his personal
Endorsement and asked that 1t be
passed without amendment.
1t provided for a commerce court
which would have destroyed the use
| fulness of the interstate commerce
commission, and made appeal TO the
higher tribunals impossible.
1t took the railroads from under
the antitrust law. and would have
permitted them to make what rates
they pleased without any effective
check.
1t legalized existing mergers be-
tween existing lines; it contained
joke provision to regulate the Issuing
of railroad securities.
The democrats and insurgents fore
ed some improvements, but were pre-
vented by administration influences
from putting in provisions which
would have been of real value to the
people, such as physical valuation of
the roads as basis of rate regula-
| tion.
Such was the railroad bill that
would have become law had Presi-
dent Taft had his way.
As TO Postal Banks.
Congress passed the kind of postal
savings bank that Mr.. Taft wanted.
The effect will be, it is thought by
those who have given study to the act
as passed, to drain local communities
of the money deposited in postal saw
ings banks. Had the democrats and
insurgents had their way, postal
bank bill such as was desired by the
people. would have been passed But
| through the influence of the admin
istration, Aldrich was able to thwart
the will of the people. and to secure
the passage of bill which will give
Wall street the control of the peoples
money as never before.
The Tariff Commission.
Still another feature of the Taft
record is the tariff commission law,
also a gold brick, 1t creates a COM
mission without powers. and gives
| the special interests s25O,O00 of the
peoples money to carry on the cam
| paign against honest revision of the
tariff on the basis of equalization of
the cost of production at home and
abroad.
Pinchot Wise to Protection.
ENForester Clifford Pinchot has
ideas on other things beside conser-
Walton. At a dinner given recently
he declared that the nation had lost
confidence in congress because il rep
| resented special interests rather than
| the people. Continuing. he said:
And of this there could be no bet
| ter illustration than the tariff. The
| tariff, under the policy of protection,
was originally means to raise the
rate of wages. II has been made a
| tool to increase the cost of living.
The cotton cloth schedule was in
| creased in the face of the uncontra-
dicted public testimony of the manu-
facturers themselves that it ought to
remain unchanged.
The steel interests by trick Sc
cured an indefensible increase in the
| tariff on structural steel.
The sugar trust stole from the
government like a petty thief, yet
congress, by means of dishonest
schedule. continues to protect it in
bleeding the public" (Republican