OCR Text |
Show I AKIXG TAX BILLS. S an McKinley Has on His ko Through a Close Study of tie Tariff. , J T jo GET TO THE - PEONT. i , ' t gtuay and "Work Hard to Win " tingtoa as Elsewhere-Sen- i? .tors MorriU and Allison. 11 . lt: , t ASHINGTON.JiinolS- T I 'j'lus tariff is the greatest - hi l'"'ilil!l1 is!i,1 at tlie na' Li: 1 tioiial capital, as it is tha 1 1 most common topic of !' l discussion throughout str 1 the country. An old rtr V member of congress said II io mo the other day that w ,,r niniiher of statesmen had B rrcimlation out of the tariff of anv other line of legis- known to the history of this in the morning till past midnight. Hear-; Hear-; a the Capitol from 10 in The mo S till noon, executive meeting later in the day, another meeting at McKh SSS" wasthe daUy belated newspaper men have seen five or as weary gentlemen leaving the Ebbitt house walking a half mil! or mife to their homes. They were members of way and means who had been in con-terence con-terence on the great taxing bill. M m who want success must work for it in Washington as elsewhere. The verv afternoon that I saw McKinley riding homeward on the platform of a street car, one of the noted men of his times, I also saw a handsome equipage standing in a secluded spot under the trees which surround the Capitol grounds. A pretty JTg woman the cart. Evidently she was waiting for some one from the Capitol, and presently this some one appeared in the person of a member of congress who has a wife and family. Thus was explained the woman wom-an s selection of a shady, out of the way nook for the trysting place. Men who have wives and families must be prudent if nothing else. This man is in the prime or tire, well to do and talented. Ha entered en-tered congress a few years ago with brilliant prospects, but he is still one of the army of congressional unknowns. Soon he will be forgotten. As ho stepped step-ped into the cart and drove away with his charmer I could not help noting the contrast formed between him and the man who was journeying on the platform plat-form of a Pennsylvania avenue street car to his sick wife. McKinley's personality is an interesting interest-ing one. He is one of those men who set out in life with a purpose, and who bend every effort and circumstance to the end in view. He is also one of the row men who can be earnest, firm, un-deviating, un-deviating, and nt the same time suave and genial, He is a man who knows how to have his way about things, to ride over other people when necessary, without making them his enemies. As chairman of ways and means, constructor con-structor and manager of a tariff bill, ho has been at the focus of much selfishness. selfish-ness. A thousand men of influence and importance have wanted a thousand things. They have brougLt to bear rpon him all tho pressure which lawyers and lobbyists, politicians and capitalists know so well how to bring. Whether one agree or disagree with McKinley's economic views, it must be admitted there is something admirable in the manner in which he has borne himself through this ordeal Where other men would have become nervous or irritable he has grown in gracionsness and courtesy. cour-tesy. Where others, might have been sharp spoken or imperious, he has been deferential and pleasing. But he has been turned neither to the right nor to the left. He has smiled and smiled, and had his way still. . . ' - Now at the senate end of the Capitol a number of distinguished statesmen are wrestling with this question of taxation. Perhaps the most picturesque of them hsm'S TRITJMPHAL JOURNEY. ly. But the tariff we always have 11 Just now Mr. McKinley is the 11 figure of the tariff world. The I to man to power and influence Splendid example of what may be in-ith a specialty in public life. Mr. Jnley has never bothered himself trach about anything but the tariff. lg all the years he has been in con-I con-I the tariff has been his constant enion. iils he was Btill a law student at In, 0., the question of protection of fccan industries came up for dis-In dis-In in the town Lyceum. An old Ir represented free trade, and to McKinley was assigned the de-I de-I of protection. The old lawyer, land experienced in debate, over-bingly over-bingly defeated his young antag-I antag-I This stung the young man's pride plight out the good qualities that I in him. He determined to be a Ir of that question. He studied leal economy with even more zeal I he studied law; he read Speeches sat up o' nights with statistics and Inment reports. McKinley's first I in public life was as county attor-I attor-I He was a good officer, but all the I continued to maie headway as a lpion of protection. When speeches panted he was called upon to make I and presently his devotion to that pn him an election to congress, lew days ago I saw McKinley riding I the Capital to his hotel. He was Ite rear platform of a street car. rn minutes before this he had won pit triumph of securing passage le house of representatives of a tariff taring his name. This was the Is of his ambition. And yet here h returning from the scene of his Ity in the most common of public-fyances. public-fyances. There was something I. American, democratic about that 11 of travel on that occasion which ps to having an admiration for. pips McKinley chose the common iceonyeyance because of its cheap-I cheap-I He is comparatively a poor man. ply he was as rich in this world's I5 when he first came to congress as 1 ww after thirteen years of service, pre entering congress he made a Imoney in his profession and investd b Wlding in his town; but for the p that has brought him he would pes have been sorely pinched for I; money. McKinley leads a very Wife in Washington. It is princi-fa princi-fa life of work. He occupies two moos in a down town hotel. One P Jrtfe's room, the other his work-f work-f Mrs. McKinley is an invalid, and Wand tenilerly spends with her ponient that can be taken from rrk. The two rooms adjoin, and Ihen busiest he i3 constantly going Pe to the other. All winter and lu i waj 8 ani meaus committee 11 almost nightly meetings. These f te'd at McKinley's room, that the pan might be near his charge. So we j'even in a tariff bill, and in the In 9 ,aa.n wno Siyes all his energies f ig legislation, there may be some-fof some-fof sentiment. I , SENATOR MORRILL. all, though not the most powerful, is Senator Morrill. This fine old man makes a picture worth looking at as he sits at the head of the table in the committee com-mittee on finance. The oldest man in congress, and the veteran in service, he represents in his career three or four distinct dis-tinct eras of his country's history. He was a well known man in the days when Kansas and slavery extension were the overwhelming topics of public interest. He was chairman of tho house committee commit-tee on ways and means in the early years of the war, when the expenses of the government were increasing at the rate of millions of dollars a day, and the great problem was the procuring of revenue reve-nue with which to carry on the war. Nearly thirty years ago he wrote a taxing tax-ing bill which carried his name to every hamlet in the land, and here he is yet, an octogenarian, at the head of the senate sen-ate committee which is at work upon another revenue act. Though chairman of the committee Senator Morrill is not much more than a figure head. His days of law making are. nearly run. Yet it was the tariff that gave him prominence and laid the foundation for his fame. The real head of the senate committee is Senator Allison. Here we have still another example of tho value of specializing special-izing one's efforts in a public career. Allison, like McKinley, has made the tariff his distinct field. On these lines he has approached the presidency, and may yet win it. Like McKinley, too, he is a comfortable sort of person, smooth, velvety, soft of touch, likable. It seems that in dealing with the revenues of a government and tho thousands of men whose interests are affected by the manner man-ner in which those revenues are raised, it is the man who can say no smilingly who does best. , In this Allison is even more skillful than McKinley. It has been said of him that, if a judge and under the peinful tecessity of sentencing a malefactor to throws, he could So it m such manner man-ner aT to make the nr.fortunate quite happy and content. Ask Allison to do S that for you, and he will comply ii he , possibly can: but if cannot he will put his arm about you, ead you off to a corner and whisper his refusal so SS?and with such charmius mys-ffin mys-ffin of manner that you He him in spite of your disaPP0"1- rpoe. And since revenues and taxes are neces-sarr neces-sarr features of this business of carrying ona wt government, and many un-Xa'anf un-Xa'anf things must be done m their pieaaaiiu iib , two such t,1'0 FOP. HTR ADMIRER. ' People think members of con-. con-. wnt work hard. They ought to tari"?an1 means committee mak-.. mak-.. bill, or the members of the ance committee dealing with Lqr'estin. A member of the i a?Tttee assnres me that or ue and hia colleagues worked |