The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1937-12-09

coastwise ships from payment OF
Panama canal tolls. In the first
place, the Treasury department is
opposed to the plan, because it
does not want ' to give up the
revenue. The Treasury is having
enough trouble with congress be-
cause that body wants to cut taxes
in various directions, and is very
reluctant to impose any new ones
to replace them.
But that is only part of the opposi-
ton. There are still good many
senators and representative who
remember when Mr.. McAdoo was
lobbying on this Panama canal tolls
question, but lobbying on the other
sidel
One of the first big fights of Wood
row Wilson was to repeal the ex-
emption of American coastwise
ships from these tolls. President
Wilson held first that the exemption
violated the spirit, If not the letter,
OF the Hay-Pauncefoote treaty with
Great Britain. But he also held
that this granting of exemption to
our coastwise shipping was bad eco
nonics.
So bitter did the fight become, in
volving all the then very strong anti
British feeling In this country, that
it left scars which were still ugly
when Wilson entered on his last
fght--to ram the Versailles treaty
through the senate. So high did feel
ing run that on at least one occasion
only the bulk of Sen. Henry f. Ash
hurst of Arizona, thrust suddenly
between two quarreling senators,
prevented fsticuffs right on the SEN
ate floor.
Resented Opposition
Wilson, to the day of his death,
never forgave any senator or rep
resentative who opposed him on this
Panama canal tolls issue. He never
made any allowance for political
expediency. For instance, it was
clear at the time that no senator
from any of the Pacific coast states
could 60 along with him and hope
to survive at the next election. Yet
Wilson never forgave Sen. George
e. Chamberlain Of Oregon, nor Sen.
Francis C. NeWlands of Nevada, for
voting as their own states demand
ed.
He was the more convinced of
the Brightness OF his cause because
most of the Republicans on the SEN
ate foreign relations committee, in
Guiding Elihu Root and Theodore e.
Burton, went along with him. He
was the more sensitive because the
platform on which he had been
elected, barely a year before the
fight started, pledged the Democrat
ic party specifically to continuance
Of this canal tolls exemption.
The issue has never quite died.
The platform on which Warren G.
Harding was elected in 1920 prom
ised that the exemption would be
restored. though no move to carry
out this promise was ever made.
Opponents Of the exemption point
out that it would apply only to coast
wise ships, never to overseas ship
ping. AS coastwise shipping is
barred to foreign ships, there is no
question involved of encouraging
American shipping except on the
possibility that the exemption would
permit the coast to coast ships to
haul some freight which now goes
| by rail. This last argument rouses
no enthusiasm in the administration
today because OF the eagerness to
do everything possible to help the
railroads in order to stimulate buy
ing by the railroads.
But Mr.. McAdoo is now senator
from California, and hence sees the
problem through California glasses.
Whereas his devotion to Woodrow
Wilson is no greater than when he
wirelessed from a liner his pair
against senate approval of the World
court, another Wilson issue.
Anti-Lynching Bill
Pressure for the anti-lynching bill
is not based purely on humanitarian
motives, nor is it just politics. SINH
larly, resistance to the measure is
not based purely on the idea that
only this form of brutal iawlessness
is the proper preventative for GER
tain types of crime.
Underneath the surface there is a
real struggle of far-reaching extent,
which has nothing to do with lynch
ing, per Sc, nor even with the crime
situation.
To the South the proposal, which
has been constant threat for 80
years, is but another form of the So
called force bill back toward the
end of the last century. The force
bill would have put supervision of
elections in the individual states in
the hands of the federal govern
ment. Southerners were sure that
it would mean federal troops at
their polling places on election day,
for the ostensible purpose of max
ing it possible for every negro to
vote, and with the concealed pur-
pose, they feared, of providing Re-
publican majorities by bayonets.
The South beat the force bill by a
/