Ellsworth American., 1911-02-22
FROM wAsHuNGroN.
senator Hale Fighting Reciprocity
Closing Days are Strenuous.

Senator Hale Fighting Reciprocity
Closing Days are Strenuous.
WASHINGTON, Fe b. 20 Especial y Maine's
senior senator is rounding out his last
days in the publ service with heavy bat
ting. The Senate never took more notice
OF his opposition than it is taking now.
Almost slngle- handed, so far as open war
fare is concerned, he is dealing heavy
blows against Canadian reciprocity. He
is making his stand for the farming popu-
lation, whose protection from Cana dian
competition would be removed il the Nc
Call bill, embodyihg the Presidents
Canadian reciprocity agreement, should
be enacted into law.
Senator Hale's grim and unyielding
opposition is all the more attractive be-
cause it has been directed from his sick
bed and also because, when it was no
longer feasible to defer consideration of
the Mccall bill in the finance committee,
OF which Senator Hale is member, he
left his sick bed to continue the fight at
the capitol. These opposition duties are
any event, his last days as senator must
be crowded with deal OF other work.
The time for getting the appropriation
bills ready is now at hand.
The new apportionment bill, which the
House has just passed, giving Maine four
Congressman for the next ten years, is
pending in the Senate census com nittee.
II would have been taken up there before
this, but Senator Hale sent a request that
the meeting be deferred till he was a BILE to
get out. This has been granted. Mr..
Hale wished to be present to safeguard
Names interest in the measure, which, OF
course, is very great. He has to do the
heft Of the work in revising the naval ap-
preparation bill after it gets oui of the
House, and also the heft of the work in
revising the sun Try civil appropriation
bill. These are two OF the most import
ant of the appropriation bills.
senator Hale probably hardly expects to
prevent flvorab BILE report on the Cana
dian reciprocity bill. That is too much to
expect with the influence of the admins
|
But he will make the best fight he can,
| and, il the bill is defeated or deferred, it
will be due very largely to his efforts. A
score OF other republican senators are
sincerely in sympathy with his efforts, but
no one OF them has been willing to come
out into the open and make the vigorous
resistance that he is making and, at time,
too, when most men in a like position
would have been content to serve out the
remainder OF his term in, peace and in
activity.
| 1t has now come to the point where folks
count the remaining days as one by one
the twenty-four hour periods fly into
eternity. Only six legislative days after
this week, and there is yet world OF
things to do, and the contest is fierce.
And yet it is the biennial story over and
over again. The life OF every Congress
comes in gaily and, withal, leisurely. 1t
goes out gaily but with tremendous rush
and hurry. Its closing is always great
human spectacle, such as can be witnessed
at no other place on this continent. and
probably at no other place in the world.
The story OF whatever success the ses-
sion may achieve will not be apparent till
next week. The test OF success will come
in the very closing days, for then it will
be possible 10 judge more accurately and
to tell more prehensively.