Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-22

W NJ bnOuSdnQIn Time the OlQ
story about the Senate. It
arises, this time, out of the
delay over the tariff. It has two parts.
The first is the complaint against the
Senate rules made familiar by Ambas-
sador Dawes when he was Vice Presi-
dent
The second is the familiar discussion
about the quality of the Senate, whether
the Senate today Is as able, contains
as large a proportion of able men, as
1t did at some other time.
This second topic is perennial, Dur
ing the second session of the Senate
in the 1905, one suppoSes there must
have been much odious comparison
with the first; and then of the third
with the second, and so on to this day.
BY this process, it is familiar human
trait to arrive at point of view which
would assume that the first Senate, or
any other group that functioned in the
beginning of the Government, was a
body of supermen.
Tariff Delay Causes Instability.
r. is true that two complaints can
ne made about the present Senate In
connection with delay on the tariff
IN at least one assertion and one COM
plant.
It is a fact that the Senate's delay
about the tariff is unfortunate. We
are in a period when practically every
business leader and business man in
America is exerting himself to create
and preserve stability. In the midst
Of this effort the one great uncer-
tainty Is expressed in the question,
what are the tariff rates going to be
next year? The justiflable complaint
Is that no one can know what the rates
are going to be.
No one can demand that the Senate
should pass quickly one kind of tariff
or another, low tariff or high tariff; ;
the only justified complaint is that the
Senate ought to pass some kind of
tariff quickly. Absence of information
about what the tariff rates will be
next year is the one area of uncertainty
lin a scene in which heroic efforts are
being made to assemble all the other
figures and facts by which business
must chart its course. The one great
lack of certainty is about the tariff
As one Senator put it, THE Senate Is
the only important organized body
failing to respond to the need for CO.
operation in the interest of stability
and certainty. Organized labor Is CO.
operating, so is organized agriculture
and organized business-but the Senate
q not"
Demand for Action Called For.
1t would be hard to dispute, now or
at any time during the last six weeks,
the justice of the demand that the Sem
ate do quickly whatever it is going to
do about the tariff We are barely out
of the shadow of what could have been
major business disaSter-what was
prevented from being major calamity
only by the prompt and generous CO.
operation Of practically every impor-
tant group in the country. Most Of the
younger persons in this generation win
never know what has been avoided
They will go on without serious disloca-
ton; by Spring business will be IS
usual and the younger persons will ac-
cept their immunity as a matter Of
course. Persons over IS, however, will
remember 1907; and persons over SIS
will remember 1893. Probably no per-
son in the United States under the age
Of, roughly, 40, knows fully what is
meant by soup house" or ever saw a
lineup in front Of one.
The conditions and the persons that
have averted an economic calamity by
energetic and generous effort are not
unreasonable II they criticize the Sem
ate for failing to make the one con-
sp1cuous contribution within the Sen
ate'S power-that is, to give to business
early information about what the ts.riff
rates are going to be.
Dawes Objection Misunderstood.
The complaint that Dawes made con-
spicuous about the Senate rules was not
perfectly understood. Commonly, peo-
pie thought Dawes criticism was about
delay and about filibustering. Dawes
did say that the rules and practices of
the Senate result In woeful delay. He
said further that the delay has the eff
feet Of piling up legislation toward the
end Of the session He then pointed
out that with legislation piled up at the
end Of the session dlibuStering becomes
easy and probable.
But Dawes complaint went deeper
than this. He said the rules of the
Senate result in laws being passed or
not pased-not as the result of 96 votes
on the Senate floor. but as the result of
private negotiations in Senate cloak
rooms.
What Dawes meant by this is intri-
cate and needs to be made clear He
meant that under the Senate rules one
Senator, or small group Of Senators
(often literally one Senator), can post
pone, and in many cases by postponing
kill, important legislation. Since one
Senator has this power, he is likely
frequently, to use the power to his per-
sonal advantage. If flibuStering and
deliberate delay were confined to cases
of few men holding strong conscien-
tiouS convictions against certain legis-
1ation-in that case the practice might
be partially defended.
Filibuster Called a Club.
But Dawes pointed out a graver de-
feet. a decidedly less justifiable use
that one Senator can make Of his
mower to fiilibuster at the end of the