The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1929-10-23

This week the Presidential name
Is linked with that Of America 5
grand old man of science. Thomas
A. Edison, whose labors in the field
Of invention in bringing the nations
together have probably been more
significant than that of all the
statesmen and all the prophets.
No more graceful tribute could be
paid by the President to one of the
foremost of his fellow countrymen
than the trip which he has made
to Dearborn. Mich, this week, to
of electric light which Henry Ford
and a few of his friends threw into
the national spotlight.
While the President deserted the
White House for a few days, events
were moving swiftly toward con
summation of the limitation of
naval armament program upon
which the United States Great
Britain, Japan, and probably France
and Italy. have embarked.
The American delegation to the
limitation conference, which is to
he held in London in January, will
include Senator Joseph T. Robin
son of Arkansas. minority leader
of the Senate, and Senator David
A Reed of Pennsylvania, it is an
nounced.
Senator William A, Borah, chair
man of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, was proffered a
place upon the delegation, which
will be headed by Secretary of
State Stimson. but found it i'm
possible to accept. Senator Borah
probably desires to retain the in
dependence of thought and action
which is his leading political char
acteristic, and does not want to
have his hands tied" by becoming
a cog i'll the machine of an inter
national conference.
This is the immediate aftermath
of Ramsay MacDonald's visit to
Washington There has been an.
other sequel to that visit which
sophisticated circles in the Capital
have watched with keen interest for
the past few days. This has been
the ''entirely unofficial" presence
here of Premier MacDonald's strong
est ana IliDSI II hlOlO'S po'iNN a !
enemy, the Tory Winston Churchill,
chancellor of the exchequer in the
recent Baldwin cabinet.
The future of the Administration
tariff bill, which has been before
Congress since April. is now
is reason to believe that it Will
never be enacted at the special SEES
sion of Congress except in such a
mutilated form that President
Hoover, will, perforce. veto it.
The mocratic-Insurgent coa!i-
ton in the Senate is responsible for
the pessimism existing over the
tariff measure. Recent events have
made it clear that this combination.
this pooling of legislative groups
opposing President HoOver's pro
gram, is in command OF sufficient
strength to scuttle the bill unless il
can be written in their own way.
1t was no mere stray Whim that
inspired this coalition to vote the
farm debenture amendment into
the Hawley -Smoot bill. The SEN
ators who voted for this action
and they dominated the Senate by
vote of As to 32-were not MAX
ing an idle gesture-at least. If
they were prepared to revoke their
action at later day, their
strength Of purpose has been sadly
exaggerated and misrepresented by
their journalistic spokesman.
The farm debenture proposal al.
ready has been vetoed by President
Hoover when presented to him as
sparate piece of legislation.
When it was voted into the tariff
bill, the Senators supporting this
action knew that the President
could never accept such an amend
ment without stultifying himself.
Their purpose is partly political
and partly economic: First and
foremost is the plan of the Pro
gressive$ on the Republican side
of the aisle to limit the tariff bill
to agricultural schedule and to pre-
vent the industrial states of the
East-which for generations have
been writing tariff bills-from
and almost monopoliz.
ing the measure which is now be-
ing debated in the Senate.
Matching the economic motive Of
The farm bloc are the Democrats
across the Senate aisle with trad
itional low tariff policy and, in the
esent case, with what they con.