170 



CONGRESS. (THE DINGLEV BILL.) 



sideration in Committee of the Whole.' The spe- 

 cial rule, now reported deprives the House of that 

 riirht. 



"Do gentlemen understand that if this rule be 

 adopted no amendment will be in order? What 

 authority is it that is so powerful, so omnipotent on 

 the Republican side of the House that it can say to 

 you: 'Here is a general tariff bill affecting the in- 

 terests of every district and community in the 

 United States, and you must take it without the 

 right to offer a single amendment.' 



" There is no necessity for this bill. This bill is 

 not demanded by any department of the Govern- 

 ment. There is no suggestion from any source that 

 there is an insufficiency of revenue. Yet, under 

 whip and spur, without giving members of the 

 Committee on Ways and Means, as I have said, an 

 opportunity even to send this bill to the Treasury 

 Department and invite the judgment of an expert 

 as to its effects, you are required to vote yea or 

 nay." 



Mr. Dalzell said : 



" Mr. Speaker, there is no gentleman within the 

 sound of my voice who does not know that we face 

 to-day as a people a peculiar exigency. Since the 

 4th day of March, 1893, when the Democratic party 

 came into power, we have been issuing bonds, bor- 

 rowing money, and day by day, month by month, 

 year by year, our revenues have been showing a 

 greater and greater deficiency. The President of 

 the United States and Secretary of the Treasury 

 have both become alarmed. The President of the 

 United States, appealing to a party that is not his 

 own in the House of Representatives, has asked 

 them with all the solemnity that pertains to his 

 high office to come to his aid. He has said : ' Gen- 

 tlemen, will you not forego the pleasures even of a 

 holiday season and address yourselves to legislation 

 that shall aid the Government ? ' Under these cir- 

 cumstances, in this most extraordinary emergency, 

 the Committee on Ways and Means have addressed 

 themselves for the last three or four days, and I 

 may say nights, to the solution of the problem to 

 ascertaining the best solution possible under the 

 circumstances. 



" I agree with my friend from Georgia that a 

 tariff bill, if it were now presented in the first in- 

 stance as a new one, ought to be considered and 

 prepared with great care and proper deliberation, 

 after due hearings upon the various schedules. But 

 the gentleman knows, as every member of the House 

 knows, that if the House responds at all to the Ex- 

 ecutive call, it must respond immediately, and must 

 content itself with such deliberation only as is pos- 

 sible under the existing circumstances. But this is 

 not a tariff bill ; it is not a revision of the tariff at 

 all, in any general sense of the word. It is not an 

 attempt to correct the many manifest absurdities, 

 incongruities, and injustices of existing law. It is 

 merely an emergency revenue measure, intended 

 to bring relief to the suffering Treasury of the 

 country. 



" The gentleman from Georgia says that we are 

 to be driven into the support of this measure to-day 

 under the party whip. It is refreshing to hear from 

 the gentleman from Georgia about the 'party whip ' 

 and 'ironclad rules.' Is his memory so short that 

 he forgets the act which I hold in my ha;id, with 

 over GOO amendments, not one of which was ever 

 considered by this House, and which was passed 

 through the House with but two hours' debate pur- 

 suant to a rule framed by the gentleman from 

 Georgia himself ? Does the gentleman from Georgia 

 forget that, in violation of all precedents and of 

 parliamentary decency, bills were intro.duced in this 

 House, and, without reference to any committee, 

 d under a rule framed by the gentleman from 



Georgia with but fifteen minutes' debate on each 

 side ! Does he forget that a bill which dealt with 

 the great coal interests of this country, a bill that 

 dealt with the great sugar interests of this country, 

 and a bill that dealt with the ore interests of this 

 country, each and every one of them never deliber- 

 aled upon in the Committee on Ways and Means at 

 all, were presented in open House and passed in 

 thirty minutes under a gag prepared by the gentle- 

 man from Georgia himself 'i Is it not refreshing? 



" Now, gentlemen on both sides of the chamber, 

 what are we called on to do ? You are called on to- 

 day to answer, as best you can, and to answer under 

 the circumstances existing, the request of the Presi- 

 dent of the United States. It is not in answer to 

 the party whip ; but rising, as the Republican party 

 always rises, above the plane of party consideration 

 or party prejudices to the high level of patriotic 

 purpose, we propose to afford to the President of 

 the United States and to the Treasury of the coun- 

 try the relief that he has asked." 



Mr. McMillin said in part : 



" You are called upon to pass upon a general 

 tariff bill to-day without the right to amend a bill 

 which affects every item on the dutiable list, 1 be- 

 lieve, in the tariff schedules, except sugar, amount- 

 ing to more than 4,000 in number, and you are asked 

 to come blindly up and cross your hands and let the 

 gentleman from Maine and his colleagues tie you 

 hand and foot, hard and fast, and surrender your 

 right even to present an amendment to the bill. 

 You are called upon to take such a course in con- 

 nection with this bill as has never been taken in 

 connection with any revision of the tariff in the 

 history of the House of Representatives since the 

 organization of the Government. 



" The gentleman from Pennsylvania attempts to 

 confound the action taken by the House on the Sen- 

 ate bill in the last Congress'in connection with the 

 Wilson bill, and to offer that as a comparison to 

 this proposed rule. But the gentleman fails to tell 

 you, Mr. Speaker, that on that bill we had elaborate 

 hearings in the Committee on Ways and Means, 

 where he had a right to bring his friends. We had 

 ample arguments and ample opportunities for hear- 

 ings before that committee. He should also remem- 

 ber that after the time that bill had been agreed upon 

 an opportunity was given to him and his colleagues 

 to present and have considered the views of the 

 minority. But how different is it here ! Yesterday, 

 a holiday, when the departments of the Government 

 were closed, when the Treasury was closed, when 

 even the Library of this Capitol was closed, and no 

 man had an opportunity to get the bill proposed 

 by the gentleman from Maine, that measure was 

 brought in to the Committee on Ways and Means, 

 never having been introduced in the House at all, 

 never having been considered, was never read be- 

 fore the Committee on Ways and Means, and even 

 amended materially after it was brought there, and 

 in thirty short minutes we are asked to take and 

 swallow it whole, without even an opportunity for 

 amendment ! 



" When they get it into the House they propose 

 to impose $44,000,000 of taxes on more than 4,000 

 different articles in less than four hours, or $11,- 

 000,000 an hour." 



Mr. Turner said, in part : 



" Reference has been made here, Mr. Speaker, to 

 what took place at the heel of the List Congress. 

 Gentlemen who were members of that House un- 

 derstand fully the condition which then prevailed. 



" The House had sent to the Senate a bill em- 

 bodying the view of my party. The Senate put 

 upon that bill a great number of amendments, and 

 with reference to their course upon it I dare not 

 offer my sentiments in stricture. I can not do that 



