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Show TATT TO THE. RESCUE. President Taft. it . appears, was suddenly sud-denly choked off in his joyous part ie.i-nation ie.i-nation in tin celebration on and about Lake Cliamplain, by the news of tin: passage of ihe tariff bill in the Senate. And so he hurried oil' lo Washington to take his part in the. final shaping of this bill. It has been inliinaled all along that President Taft intends to lake a very prominent, pari in Ihe linal shaping of this bill. The House framed it very much on the lines of Ihe exportation of the public and on the declarations of ! President Taft during last year's campaign, cam-paign, that a revijiion of Hie tariff .schedules would be made, and that this revision would be downward. As staled by the great. Republican organ of Ihe country. Ihe 'bill,- as passed by Ihe House, was satisfactory to the public 'ind-in keeping with the President's promises to the people and the party pledges. Rut the Senate has ullerly disregarded all these pledges and been contemptuous of the pavly expectations in this respect. Members of the dominant domi-nant faction in Ihe Senate, (which by no means includes all (he 7?cpublie;iii Senators.) openly expressed contempt for the idea that, there was any obligation obliga-tion to revise the tariff schedules downward. down-ward. On Ihe contrary, Senator Jley-hurn Jley-hurn of Idaho, speaking the minds of the Aldrich faction, referring to the claim of expectation of revision downward, down-ward, stated that there had been no such pledges, and that, the idea came from some miasmatic, source, indeterminate indeter-minate and unknown. This being a direct di-rect slap in the face for President Taft. mm. i.:n ...:n - . n. n i uv; ijiji nill 1UIUU ll III mic MOUSe, and if Ihe usual order is pursued,, ihe Senate amendments will be read paragraph para-graph by paragraph, and -where Ihe House agrees with Ihe Senate, that will be the end of it so far as that paragraph para-graph is concerned. Where it disagrees. dis-agrees. Ihe disagreements will bo massed and tho whole of I hem will be referred to a conference committee. But indications indica-tions arc that the regular course will not be pursued, and that tho bill will be sent direct to conference, as a whole. It is here where the friction will occur, and where President, Taft will got in his expected work. It is not supposed that ho has forgotten his campaign pledges, nor that he will sec them ignored in the final form of this bill. The indication is that ho will be a sort of referee between be-tween the House and the Senate when the conference committee between the two houses gets into active consideration considera-tion of the disagreements in its charge. The House conferees will naturally insist in-sist upon the prevalence of the House view in all matters at issue between the House and Senate. On the oilier hand, the Senate conferees vill, with like tenncily, insist upon carrying out the Senate ideas. It is hero that President Presi-dent Taft, if, indeed, he is disposed to take any active part in the final disposition of the schedules, as the constant con-stant indications impl3 that he is, will get in his work; and that his decision will favor the House schedules and that, he will cany out his ' campaign pledges for a revision downward, there can hardly be the least doubt. In such a case, of course, he will place himself in opposition to the cabal in the Senate which has pursued its vicious policy of framing the tariff bill according to the interests of the New England manufacturers manufac-turers without regard for the count ry at large, and without regard for party pledges, in n way that has been a political scandal. Aside from the fixing of the schedules, sched-ules, there is another thing of importance import-ance at issue between the two houses. The bill as the House sent it to the Senate, contained a provision for nn inheritance tax. This the Senate struck out and substituted in place of it the corporation lax proposition. So much opposition has developed against the corporation lax that it is very likely that tho two houses ma.y come practicably prac-ticably to a deadlock on this substitution. substitu-tion. And it is possible that some form of income tax, which will cover also the corporation tax with some of its inquisitorial regulation features eliminated, elim-inated, maj be a compromise result. The framing of the tariff bill, so far from having been completed, or anything any-thing like it, is liable to prove to have bceu just beguu. This on the supposition supposi-tion that President Taft is really going go-ing to take a hand in the final shaping of the measure, in which case tho country coun-try will now lake a more decided and lively interest in tho reports from Washiuglon on this mutter than it has been doing for a good while past. |