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About The daily gazette-times. (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1909-1921 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 1909)
) Cummins and His Bold Challenge low Senator. Leader of the In surgent I Their War Against the Fayne Tariff Bill, Is a Fighter Who Never Sounds Retreat. 0 Main Question on Which the Bat UeWill Be Waged Side Lights on Senate Insurrectos, Strong Fac tors In the Progressive Movement ! By JAMES A. EDGER.TON. THE statement of Senator A. B. Cummins of Towa that the In surgent fight against the Payne bill Is not ended, but that it will te carried into every Republican con vention and will be fought out on the floor of the national convention in 1912, introduces a new element into American politics. In my own view, no more, important step nor one fraught with possibilities of more farreaching consequences has been made in recent years. Of course the present purpose of this fight is to unhorse the stand pat leadership in congress, and especially in the senate, and to control the Republican party. That is the intention of the Insurgent leaders, but it is one thing to start a political prairie fire and quite an other thing to control it when it is once under way. No one can tell just "What proportions the blaze will as sume nor where it will end. The en thusiastic reception given to Cummins when he returned to Iowa would in dicate, that the people of that state are with him. Signs are not wanting that there is a deep undercurrent of senti ment in that direction throughout the land, being most Intense perhaps in the states of the central west. The Cummins program does not con template any further general revision of the tariff in the immediate future or, in fact, for the next ten years. Its main plank Is one demanding the rigid carrying out of platform pledges. This tor makes it plain that he supports the president, whom he regards as a pro gressive, and he adds significantly that he will continue in this policy until or unless the president proves that he is not a progressive. Still more significantly Mr. Cummins intimates that he would not himself be averse to becoming the standard bearer in 1912. This makes the issue explicit, fur nishes a battlecry and a candidate around whom to rally, throws down the gauntlet defiantly and makes com promise impossible burns all political bridges, in a word, and insures that the contest will have to be fought out to a conclusion. There is to be no quarter asked or given. In good old phraseology, It is to be war to the knife and knife to the hilt It is about the most definite and fighting challenge that has been is sued in American politics in the last dozen years. What of the man who makes it? Is his character such as to Insure that he means what he says and that he has the purpose and the ability to make a finish fight? And, if he measures up to the task he has set himself, what of the forces behind him? A general must have an army. Has Cummins lieutenants who will stay by him? Can he rally . the masses? The answers to these questions will determine wheth er this Is to be a fight or a fiasco, a battle or a blunder, a victory or a joke. Father of the "Iowa Idea." First as to Cummins, Fortunately he Is not unknown. His record Is an SENATOR CUMMINS OF IOWA, WHO LEADS THE INSURGENT FIGHT ON THE TARIFF, AND TWO OF HIS LIEUTENANTS. shows Its wise political generalship, catches the enemy at his weakest point and raises an issue against which it will be impossible to make a suc cessful fight. In theory all men agree .that, party promises should be kept. !Any other policy is insincere and dis honest, and woe to that politician or vgroup of politicians whose sincerity .and honesty the public comes to doubt. Nothing, means such spdy and cer tain political death. The Iowa senator ihns assails Aldrichism at the one fa tal breach In the wall. . It is impos sible to argue against the principle. A SPoBtical platform is. not, like a car TpHrtform, meant to get In on, but not tto stand on. It must be made In good :falfh and considered as sacred as the rpromlssory note of a private individ ' iiad indeed, more so, for with the plat--fonn pledge tens of millions of private Individuals are Involved, and the duty to fulfiH the obligation is raised to the nth -power. This principle is pri mary -and fundamental. There Is no gainsaying it. The Issue then becomes one of fact as to whether platform pledges have been carried out or not, and on this question the coming bat tle will be waged. To Tight In the Party. As to the tariff itself, Senator Cum mins program is exceedingly mod eratea commission of. tariff experts, -which In a somewhat crippled and lh ffective fashion Is provided , for. In the Payne bill itself, and revision on Individual schedules as public . policy seems to demand. Emphasis Is placed on the underlying principle of protec tion, the basis for making rates being -that laid down In the last Republican siational platform and made promi nent In the campaign of President Taft, which Is that the tariff on. any -given article should equal the dlffer ence between the cost of domestic, and .foreign production, with the addition af a reasonable profit. The Iowa sena- open book and determines the charac ter of the man. In the light of this record certain facts stand out In clear relief. Albert Baird Cummins is a fighter. He means what he says. He never sounds retreat. He fought the old leadership of Iowa Republicanism to a standstill, was elected governor three times In spite of their opposition, hammered the railroad politicians till he got a yell out of Senator Elkins, their high priest; stirred up the whole country by his "Iowa idea" of pro tecting American Industries without sheltering illegal combinations, dared to veto a bill permitting a . railroad combination which all the corporation attorneys and old line politicians want ed him to sign, showed his independ ence of party lines, although political irregularity in Iowa was then, consid ered almost a capital crime, and finally was elected to the senate despite the frantic opposition of almost everybody in the state except the people. But did he stop fighting when he had real ized his supreme ambition of sitting In the United States senate? .Did he Ask Aldrich. Ask Smoot, the Mormon elder, who became Aldrich's right hand man. They know how hard Cummins can fight And did he stop flgntlng when the tariff bill was passed? His pronunciamento Issued on his way home from the extra ses sion is the answer.. And .will he stop fighting till he wins? If you have any doubts on this score read, his history, To start a new battle the next day after the finish of an old one Is his habit. Twenty years ago or more, when he1 was practically unknown in politics, he entered a fight for the United States senate and came within three votes 1 of beating ' ex-Governor Gear, who had the state machine and the Burlington railroad behind him. . The . next morning after Gear's elec tion Cummins announced himself as candidate for governor and won out by narrow margin of eighteen votes aft er one of the bitterest and ugliest fights in the history of Iowa politics. And this is the man that has now thrown down his glove In front of the tariff barons and trusts of America. Behind him are La Follette, who has shown equal pugnacity and determina tion; Dolliver and Beveridge, the ora tors; Bristow, the man who exposed the postal frauds, and many others of like fiber, with a great army of the farmers of the middle west falling into step in the new crusade. It cer tainly looks like political war of the real variety. Handsome . Albert." Senator Cummins is fifty-nine years old, of distinguished appearance, iron gray hair and mustache, graceful and Chesterfieldian in manner, always wins the support of the women so much so, in fact, that if woman suf frage were In force he would be elect ed almost unanimously a man who dresses well and knows how to wear his clothes, called by his enemies handsome Albert" and "this man Cummins," an orator who is equally at home with a column of figures and spread eagle peroration in fact, an all around leader that if he catches the tide on this present proposition Is liable to go to almost any heights. He of the sort who will either be presi dent or die In the last ditch. Glue your optic to Cummins, for, without trying to pun, he is a coming man. Then there Is La Follette, small and scrappy, who has fought even harder than Cummins and has been abused more, who also was three times gov ernor of his state and fought against the railroads and the old political bosses, a man who would not accept his election to the senate until sure that his state reforms would be car ried out! La Follette is five years younger than Cummins and has been the senate four years longer. When he went to that body the Aldriches and Hales tried to haze him, but he hit them so hard that they soon gave up that policy. Well hated by the In terests and better loved every year by the plain people of the United States, Is a tossup whether Cummins or La Follette is the real leader of the In surgent forces, and it does not much matter since they are so nearly alike in principle that the same cause will triumph whichever carries the banner. Perhaps the third In importance among the senate insurrectos is Al bert J. Beveridge of Indiana, who Is younger than either Cummins or La Follette and has been in the senate much longer. Beveridge is outgrowing his reputation as a boy orator and through his fight against child labor and for other reforms is more and more endearing himself to the hearts of the progressives.- He was born in Ohio' in 18G2, beat-Bryan in a college oratorical contest and has long been a Chautauqua idol and a -spellbinder that could do anything with the Eng lish lansuaee except shut it off The old chaps in the senate never wpuld give the Indiana Demosthenes a chance, and now that this Insurgent movement has happened along he is in his element. How Cnmmins Corralled Dolliver. Nor Is Beveridge the only orator in the bunch. Jonathan P. Dolliver, Cum mlns' colleague from Iowa, has the American eagle trained so that it will not only spread and soar for him, but turn fllpfiaps in midair and scream in sheer rhetorical delight. Dolliver is also an insurgent, though there are those who say that Cummins had to kidnap him and drag him into the game, or, rather, Cummins grabbed off the whole state of Iowa and Dolliver had to come along if he wanted to play at all. At any rate, he is committed and now makes a noise like a pro gressive. Likewise he gave Brothers Aldrich, Hale and Lodge several un comfortable half hours during the late lamented extra session. Dolliver was born in what is now West Virginia fifty-one years ago and has been in coneress nineteen years, seven . of which have been spent in the Senate. Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas is an editor and a reformer of the Roose velt type. When he was not running a paper in the Sunflower country he was secretary of the Republican state committee and private secretary to Governor Morrill. McKinley made him one of the assistant postmaster gen erals, third, fourth or seventeenth, and he unearthed the Cuban postal frauds. This made him right with Roosevelt, who set him to work clean ing out the whole postofflce depart ment, which needed It enough, as the "sequel showed. Bristow was born in 1861 and is a new member of the sen ate. The only pity is that he cannot investigate that body and clean it up as he did the postofflce bunch, Personally speaking, it is a grief to me that Burkett and Brown of Ne braska, who insurged up to the very last hour, had not the stamina to stick It out and vote against Brother Al t,rlch in the last ditch and beyond. I used to know both .of them in my salad days, when I was trying to do a little reforming on my own noos. But there is hope that in spite of that one vote for the conference report they t will return to the insurgent camp and make things Interesting along the Platte. .. ,:. Nor should Knute Nelson, the grand old Norwegian from Minnesota, be for; gotten, nor Clappboth of whom stuck to the end; nor Coe.I. Crawford of South Dakota, who insurged in spots and at Intervals, although lacking at the last roll call; nor Victor Murdoek and a host of others in the house; nor old Uncle Josh and Bill Jones, back on ?he farm and in the shops, who had no chance to spout in the halls of legis lation, but who are looking grim and waiting till they get a chance to go to the polls. These are the boys that have the last say in the matter, and their verdict Is yet to be heard. WATER POWER TRUST Gifford Pinchot Tells of Its Peril at Irrigation Congress. HE ADVISES SPEEDY PROTEST National Forester Assarts That a Com bination Is Forming and That the Tims to Fight Its Schemes Is Now. Points Out the Country's First Need. Athene of the sessions of the recent Irrigation congress, held in Spokane, Wash., Gifford Pinchot, the chief of the forestry bureau, directly charged that there was a water power trust in process of formation. "Not only this;" he said, "but this water power trust does not have any hesitancy about appearing before this congress, in the persons of its attor neys, to seek to break down the last remaining opposition to ownership of all the power in the country. "In. fact, I know one genial and ur bane gentleman who is now here help ing the trust's cause. The time for protest is very short, and the water power trust will show but little con sideration to the common people If once the power of the country is cen tralized. Ia power there is life, and the water power trust will eventually control aD other- trusts." ' Equality of Opportunity For All. Mr. Pinchot named one' power cor poration whichv he charged, was after the control of water power. His speech was in part as follows: "The first thing we need in this coun try, as President Roosevelt so well set forth in that great message which told what he had been, trying to do for the American people;. i equality of oppor tunity for every citizen. No man should have less and no man ought to ask for any more. Equality of oppor tunity is- the real object of our laws and institutions. It goes without saying that the law is supreme and must be obeyed. Our civilization rests on obedience to law. But the law is not absolute. ' It re quires, to be construed. -Rigid con struction of the law works and must work in the vast majority of cases for the benefit of the men who can hire the best lawyers and who have the sources of influence in lawmaking at their command. Strict construction necessarily favors the great interests as against the people and in the long run cannot do otherwise. Wise execu tors of the law must consider what the law ought to accomplish for the general good. The great oppressive" trusts exist7; because of subservient la-wmakers and adroit legal construc tions. Here is the central stronghold, of the money power in the everlasting conflict of. the few to grab and the. many to keep or win the rights they were born with. Legal technicalities seldom help the people. The people, not the law, should have the benefit of every doubt. j Water Power Trust Now Forming. "There could be no better illustration of the eager, rapid, unwearied absorp tion by capital of the rights which be long to all the people than the water power trust, not yet formed, but in rapid process of formation. This state ment Is true, but not unchallenged. We are met at every turn by the indig nant denial of the water power inter ests. They tell us that there is no com munity of interest among them, and yet they appear year after year at these congresses by their paid attor neys asking for your influence to help them remove the few remaining obsta cles to their perpetual aDd complete absorption of the remaining water powers. "They tell us it has no significance that the General Electric interests are acquiring great groups of water pow ers in various parts of the United States and dominating the power mar ket in the region of each group. And whoever dominates power dominates all- Industry. Have you ever seen a few drops of oil scattered on the water spreading until they formed a continu ous film, which put an end at once to "all agitation of the surface? The time for us to agitate this question Is now, before the separate circles of central ized control spread into the uniform, un broken, nation wide covering of a' sin gle gigantic trust. There will be little chance for mere agitation after that. No man at all familiar with the situa tion can doubt that the time for effec tive protest is very short: If we do not use it to protect ourselves now we may be very sure that the trust will give hereafter small consideration to the welfare of the average citizen when in conflict with Its own. , . 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This is the ; goo(J r0(jS) lines, etc All of man iur wuuui me ivwoevcit yuiiuiea were created, and his welfare Is the end to which the Roosevelt policies lead. As a nation we are fortunate at histtlme in this fact above all others. that the great man who gave his name to. these policies has for his successor another great president whose admin istration Is most solemnly pledged to the support of them." It is on account of this speech that the belief is expressed in "Washington that Mr. Pinchot has imperiled his chances of long remaining in the gov ernment service. which can be had at our estab ishment. Heater & Harrington SUCCESSORS TO M. M. LONG Phone 126 ' Corvallis, Oregon GEO. W. DENMAN Attorney at Law CORVALIJS, OREGON Office In Fischer'buildinK,, over Graham . & Worthani drug store New African Gold Field. 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