New Ulm review., 1913-12-10

A tariR law must In the nature Of
conditions In q country with forty
eight states and 435 congressional dis
tricts, with many diverse interests. be
more or less Of compromise. The
new law is not just as would have
written 1t nor as Mr.. Underwood
would have written it, but itcomes as
near to what both Of us would have
written as we could make it. 1t takes
at least 26S men to pass a law-o1S in
the house. 10 In the senate and ! In
the White House. These men. all be-
longing to one party. have divergent
views on the tariff as well az on other
public questions. And they get to-
gether. talk them over and agree. That
is sensible way to do.
There has been heap Of twaddle
set afiOat about king caucus and
caucus rule" Now. let's see about
that. The Baltimore platform prom
ised multitude Of things. Some were
exceedingly important and some of not
so much Importance. There were two
principal things in that platform which
we promised to do. One was to re-
wise the tariff down. and we have done
that. There was no equivocation. men
tai reservation or purpose of evasion
about that promise. and there has been
no equivocation in redeeming that
promise. The promise second in i'm
portance was to give the country a
good currency system. and we are in
the process of doing it. but more about
that later.
just consider for moment the con-
tinual howl the Republicans and Pro
gressives have raised about legisla-
ton by caucus. 1t Is the most idiotic
cry that has ascended to heaven with
in a generation. The Payne bill.
which the Republicans passed in 1909.
was allowed to drag along with gen.
eral debate for three weeks, which
does little good. Then they allowed
two days under the five minute rule,
the only opportunity where members
Of the house have an opportunity to Of
fer amendments. Then they brought
IN rule to jam the bill through. per-
mitting four amendments. but by
strategy we got five. That general de-
bate was allowed to drag along until
they could persuade" enough Repub-
licans to vote to pass the bill. When
I say persuade" l want to be polite.
but they really dragooned. browbeat
and threatened men. They had to
make trades. and that is why they per
mitted the four amendments to be vot-
ed on, and they had mighty tough
time getting enough votes to adopt the
rule and pass the bill.
Democrats Must Stand Brunt
Now. in regard to caucus rule. We
must have organization in order to en-
act the will of the people into law. In
the Democratic caucus every man has
the right to offer any amendment and
debate it as long as he desires. The
debate in the Democra tic caucus was
free and ample. The truth is the peo-
pie of the United. States want to know
what congress does. They are more
interested in results than how they are
worked out We made up our minds
as Democrats that we We're RESPONSE !
BILE for legislation and that we were
going to give the people results. We
found that 1t could be done best by
the bills in caucus and
agreeing upon them.
Suppose the tariff bill works right
and the currency bill works right--of
they are experiments to some
is going to get the credit
for them? The Democrats. Suppose
the bills work badly. who Is going to
be pounded for it next year and in
1916? Why. the Democrats. The Re
publicans are spectators. If these bills
work badly our opponents will take
advantage Of it and criticise us. So
we would be pack of imbeciles. be-
ing responsible for legislation. not to
formulate the legislation for tariff and
currency We passed those bills as
party measures, passed them as Dem
ocrats wanted them. taking the respon-
sibility for them. We would have been
Just as responsible IL we had not held
a caucus and the Republicans and Pro-
gressives had put in them the amend
ments they offered in the house.
My friend Victor Murdock. the leader
of the Progressive party In the house.
has been one Of the most severe critics
Of the ca ucus system and asserted that
the tariff ought to be thrown open to
amendment and consideration In the
house. l should like to f1nd out how he
would ever get tariff bill containing
1900 items passed by 435 men repre-
senting as many districts. each differ
ing somewhat in his interests and
ideas from the other. Such method
would also tend to logrolling and trad
ing. There is more logrolling and trad
ing in the consideration Of bills by all
parties on the floor Of the house than
when bills are considered by party eau
Gus. The party caucus makes the in
dividual sacrifice something to the gen.
eral good. In an open grab game every
x-la l. ~