? ESCH AND THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION ?
? Esch and the Paramount Question ? IS THE CANDIDATE a Progressive? That's the question! That is the paramount question as to every political candidacy in this campaign. That question every voter...
...He secured the adoption in committee of several amendments to the bill and after it was reported the bill was known as the townsend-esch bill...
...He voted for the passage of the Payne bill in the House and for the passage of the Payne-Aldrich conference bill...
...This would prevent the House voting separately on the amendments and require the passage of the bill, if at all, just as reported...
...It was designed to promote the safety of passengers and employees on railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees...
...After the Islands became American territory, however, the Interest demanded that our coastwise laws be applied and it be given a monopoly of carrying the Philippine commerce...
...When the measure came to the House it was known that the same amendment would be offered there...
...Esch voted for the gag rule—to assure the passage of the bill in the House in the form reported by the committee...
...It was an encroachment upon the eight-hour law and a discrimination against American labor...
...He voted, also in this session against a proposed anti-trust amendment to secure full and thorough-going publicity of corporations engaged in interstate commerce...
...This rule absolutely protected the wool schedule, cotton schedule, the sugar schedule, the iron and steel schedule and practically every over-protected trust product in the tariff...
...Esch voted for it in the House, without question...
...Esch claims to be a Progressive —"a Progressive before the name was coined...
...The castings used in this factory for the building of big guns are purchased from the steel trust at steel trust prices and delivered at steel trust convenience...
...The Progressives and Democrats in the Senate forced adoption to the bill of several amendments eliminating its worst provisions and adding others in the public interest...
...In the Senate an unsuccessful attempt was made to require the banks to pay the government two per cent...
...The last apportionment makes a change of four counties in the District, but not in its character as a progressive constituency...
...Another Vote for Steel THE GOVERNMENT operates at Washington a naval gun factory...
...Andrew H. Dahl...
...Esch voted for the special gag rule, under which the bill was put through the House without opportunity for amendment and against even postponing the effective date of the bill...
...The amendment was lost by the close vote of 137 to 144...
...This was a measure introduced and passage secured in the Senate by La Follette...
...Senator La Follette tried in the Senate, to have the bill amended and, failing, voted against it...
...With Cannon and Aldrich AT THE OPENING of the Sixtieth Congress, Esch did not show himself the original Progressive he claims to be, but refused to join other Progressive Republicans who refused to vote for Cannon for speaker...
...He challenges Esch upon this issue...
...Has he been a Progressive in Congress...
...It was not, however, until the Fifty-ninth Congress, until after he had made the foregoing pro-subsidy record, that Esch weakened in his support of the Interest...
...On the various roll calls throughout this fight on Cannonism, however, Esch is found paired on three votes in support of Cannonism and the rules...
...Esch was the greatest makeshift I have ever seen proposed as a matter of legislation...
...The effect of the law upon Philippine Commerce was so disastrous that a few sessions later it was repealed, the House voting almost unanimously for repeal...
...The Philippine Shipping Bill BEFORE the Spanish War the Philippines were foreign territory and our commerce with them foreign commerce, in the carrying of which ships of all countries competed...
...Dahl has for years labored actively and earnestly in the service of Progressivism...
...The House conferees appointed by Cannon refused to agree to the Senate amendment and, to get action in the House Vandiver moved to concur and to investigate also the question of combination...
...The report relates the attempt of the Cannon machine to force through without consideration this Esch substitute and the failure of this attempt, making necessary a special rule from the Rules Committee, removing some of the more objectionable features of the substitute bill before it could be passed in the House...
...The bill was referred to the House Committee on Interstate Commerce, of which Esch was a member...
...It is not the record of a Progressive...
...They cannot be reconciled with Progressive principle...
...This substitute as reported by Mr...
...The Department has asked Congress repeatedly for a small appropriation to enable the government to build a foundry to make its own castings when it can not get fair treatment from the trust...
...His progressivism is unquestioned...
...When the bill carrying the appropriation for the enforcement of the anti-trust law came up in this session, an amendment was offered to provide that no part of the appropriation should be spent for the enforcement of the anti-trust law against labor unions...
...Littlefield moved that the bill be taken up and voted on with the committee amendments...
...The candidate whose record does not show appreciation of these essentials and service in accord with them to the full measure of his ability and of his opportunities for service is not a Progressive, whatever he or his friends may represent to a progressive electorate in the campaign...
...Government regulation of tolls was in terms provided, but no basis of valuation, or other basis, was provided to make the regulation effective...
...Presumably, Esch knows that political opinion in Wisconsin in the twentieth century demands a basis of fact...
...The house voted Littlefield's motion down, 145 to 54...
...To cut off this amendment, the previous question was at once moved on the passage of the bill as it came from the Senate...
...that he shall have stood for public interests and against Special Interests—not merely sometimes, but every time...
...Then Esch voted to pass the bill just as Aldrich had put it through in the Senate —just as Wall Street and the System wanted it...
...Of course, it had to be taken up under a "special order," or gag rule, which would prevent the House from voting separately on amendments or perfecting the bill, and for which rule Esch voted...
...In the Senatorial Primary of 1910, the Conservative or Standpat candidate for United States Senator received in this District an average of less than one vote in four as against the Progressive candidate in the Republican primaries...
...Will this Progressive district permit itself to be longer misrepresented in Congress by a Reactionary, who, at best, is only a Progressive occasionally and then for political purposes...
...Esch voted against this amendment...
...Significant of the weakness of the bill and how little it alarmed the railroads and System interests, when one remembers the then dominance of the Cannon System machine in the House, is the fact that only 17 votes were recorded against it on passage...
...It is not and ought not to be influenced by mere assertion of an interested candidate...
...The question is raised in the Seventh Wisconsin with special emphasis by the opposing candidacy of Hon...
...This was opposed by Cannon and Babcock on the floor and Esch voted with them, but the railroads did not need his vote and the Senate increase carried without it...
...These are essentials of the true Progressive...
...Senator Newlands, in the Senate, stated that upon $68,000,000 of armor plate purchased in eight years, the establishment of an armor plant costing $2,000,000 would have saved the government $34,000,000...
...In the Fifty-ninth Congress he got it reported for passage...
...Essentials of Progressivism FOR THE reliable answer to this question—the answer which should control your vote and political effort—it is your duty to look to the record of the candidate...
...interest on these deposits, which it was expected would at times run into hundreds of millions...
...The facts are undisputed and are well known to everyone in his district who has given attention to political matters...
...On the farmers' free list bill, Esch voted against its passage in the House and, after it had passed both Houses and was vetoed by Taft, VOTED TO SUSTAIN THE TAFT VETO AND KILL THE BILL...
...A Democrat offered the amendment and was promptly declared out of order by Speaker Cannon...
...On this vote he was the same kind of Progressive as Payne, Dalzell and Tawney...
...If Progressives were nominated, presumably he voted for them and presumably would have done the same if they were Reactionaries...
...However, when the bill was vetoed by the President, Esch's transient Progressivism deserted him and HE VOTED TO SUSTAIN THE Taft VETO AND KILL THE BILL...
...It was vigorously opposed by the railroads...
...On two of these measures, the farmers' free list bill and the wool reduction bill, they agreed with the Progressives in the Senate upon duties, which, while being a substantial reduction from the existing tariff, afford a fair measure of protection...
...Esch) had introduced without consultation with us...
...In the Presidential Primary of 1912, the Standpat candidate for President, supported by all the pressure of patronage and the prestige of the Presidency, received in this district less than one vote in four as against the Progressive candidate in the Republican Primaries...
...Voter, can justify yourself in giving him your support...
...There were times when Esch was appealed to for his influence and support for the progressive cause...
...The story of shipping subsidies is the story of the "endless-chain" of Privilege...
...The War Department protested and government officials familiar with Philippine conditions, including Governor Taft, pointed out that great injury would be done to the commerce of the Islands...
...The record of a Representative on these measures is the supreme test of what he represents...
...Esch's course on this measure, if not inspired by, had the active support of the CANNON-System machine...
...With Littlefield against Labor IN THE Fifty-seventh Congress a bill was introduced by Ridgely to exempt labor organizations from the anti-trust law...
...The Progressives demanded that the resolution be amended to provide for the selection of a committee by the House itself and to prevent the committee being packed by Cannon for the System, but Esch voted against election by the House and for appointment by Cannon for the System...
...It is not the record of a Progressive...
...Notwithstanding the public's objections, the Fifty-eighth Congress passed the Philippine Shipping Bill for the Interest...
...Esch voted for it...
...When the bill was returned to the House, Lenroot moved that the House concur in the bill as amended by the Senate...
...between the people, on one side, and Privilege and the System on the other...
...Two Votes for the Trusts DURING his first session, Esch voted against the proposed amendment of the anti-trust law, which would authorize the President, whenever upon investigation it should be found that a trust or monopoly enjoying tariff protection was using that protection to impose excessive prices on the public, to suspend the tariff on the trust products...
...In The Present Congress IN THE PRESENT Congress, the Democrats have a majority in the House...
...During all of this time—and some years before—Progressivism has been making the fight of representative government in Wisconsin...
...Civil Service vs...
...Esch again voted No, against the public interest and for the Special Interest...
...Ship subsidies are a rank form of Privilege...
...Such is the record of Esch on test votes betwen the people and Privilege, between public interest and Special interests, as a member of the House of Representatives...
...Esch voted against the amendment and for the Commission...
...The Issue in the Seventh ONE OF the Congressional Districts in which the Paramount Question is now being raised in the Seventh Wisconsin...
...Publicity of campaign expenses is a well-recognized principle of Progressive politics...
...On the one roll call, in the Fifty-sixth Congress, he voted Aye, with Babcock and for the railroads...
...Estimates based upon figures furnished by the War and Navy Departments were that this legislation would cost the government an increase in its ocean freight bill of $10,000,000 a year—simply to subsidize the Interest...
...The Frye Shipping Bill ANOTHER MEASURE of the same character passed by this Congress was the so-called Frye Shipping Bill...
...The Progressives, including every Wisconsin Congressman present except Esch and Stafford, voted for the Lenroot motion...
...John J. Esch, Representative in Congress and candidate for re-election...
...This bill, in short, provided that the American shipping combine should have a monopoly of ocean carrying of supplies and materials shipped by the government...
...This was a measure to strengthen the control of Wall Street and System financial Interests over the money and credits of the people...
...Rixey then moved to concur in the Senate amendment...
...This gag rule would prevent the House perfecting the bill in the public interest...
...Bearing in mind the essentials of true progressivism, let us look to his record there...
...They have been working for tariff reductions, framed chiefly, of course, along the Democratic theory of tariff for revenue only...
...Esch on February 16th...
...Politics IN THE First Session of this Congress, Esch voted against progressive civil service principle and for the political spoils system in voting against a measure to prohibit rural mail carriers using their official positions to promote the interests of political candidates or parties...
...Such is Esch's record in Wisconsin, so far as the Progressive movement is concerned...
...The Union Station Bill IT WAS DURING the Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses when the old System machine put through the infamous program of legislation whereby millions in public land in the District of Columbia and in cash from the Federal Treasury were donated to the Pennsylvania Railroad and its subsidiaries entering the Capital for the construction of a Union Station...
...Esch voted with Littlefield and against labor...
...Esch voted against this motion...
...That question every voter should answer for himself...
...Esch voted for the Crumpacker motion...
...The Republicans of the District are progressive...
...As reported, it in no sense measured the public demand for legislation to provide efficient regulation of common carriers...
...Capitalization was authorized at $800,000 per mile, or $180,-000,000 in all...
...The Townsend-Esch Railroad Bill THE chief thing to which Esch has referred as evidence of his alleged Progressivism was the connection of his name with the House railroad bill of the Fifty-eighth Congress...
...Esch was absent on account of illness in his family at the opening session when the fight was made by the Progressives against the election of Cannon for Speaker and during the fight of the Progressives later on the Norris Resolution for rule reform in the House...
...So far from being progressive, or in the interests of the public, or the railroad employees, it was in the interests only of the railroads, opposed to the wishes and interests of the employees and hostile to efficient legislation on the subject...
...The Progressive Fight in Wisconsin IT IS PROPER to record here something of the record of Esch as a Wisconsin citizen in public life and in politics and as a Republican candidate for Congress in every campaign for the past fourteen years...
...Progressive Republicans of Wisconsin in their State platforms have declared against them, and the Republican legislature has repeatedly memorialized Congress against them...
...Formerly this business went by contract to the lowest bidder...
...Protecting the Steel Trust IN THE LAST SESSION of the Fifty-eighth Congress, an amendment was proposed to the Naval Appropriation Bill, ordering an investigation by the Secretary of the Navy into the cost of armor plate for battleships and of establishing a government armor plant...
...In the Fifty-seventh Congress, the only record vote was on a disagreement with a Senate amendment, which proposed to give the railroads an extra million in cash...
...For the Merchant Marine Commission THE OTHER ship subsidy scheme of this Congress was the bill to create the Merchant Marine Commission...
...The candidate as to whom it is raised is Hon...
...The purpose and the result of this commission was, at government expense, to promote the agitation and make arguments for a big ship subsidy grab attempted to be put through the next Congress...
...Esch Counted with the Reactionaries IT WAS ALWAYS understood that the sympathies of ESCH in this struggle and his efforts politically, so far as he took part, were with the old machine reactionaries and against the Progressives...
...On the preliminary motions he voted against advancement of the bill, but when the bill was finally put on passage he weakened and voted "Present...
...Of course, this object was denied when the bill was pending, but when an amendment was proposed that the Commission should not report in favor of subsidies it was voted down...
...Railroad Hours-of-Service Bill CREDIT is claimed for Esch in connection with the enact-ment of the so-called hours of service law for railroad employees...
...Cannon refused to allow it to be called up until Crumpacker moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill with certain "force bill" amendments to be tacked on for the purpose of defeating the original measure...
...Esch's part in this legislation is told in the official report of the National Legislative Representative of the Railroad Brotherhoods for the Fifty-ninth Congress, second session, as follows: "Had those claiming to be friendly to legislation on this subject stood together for the La Follette bill with the view of having stricken from it the objectionable Senate amendments, it is believed an effective bill could have been passed, but Representative J. J. Esch of Wisconsin, a member of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, who had at the previous session introduced for us a bill similar to the La Follette bill, abandoned our bill and pressed for the committee's consideration another weaker bill which was drawn by E. A. Moseley, Secretary of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and which he (Mr...
...Esch voted "Yea"—to cut off the amendment...
...A proviso was inserted in the Deficiency Appropriation for the Panama Canal in the Fifty-ninth Congress to relieve the contractors on the Panama from the eight-hour law, at least as to alien labor...
...Esch, whether because the voters of Wisconsin, including his district, had just declared, after a hard fought campaign upon that issue, for complete government regulation of railroads, or for some other reason, took an active part in the committee work on this bill...
...On the wool reduction bill, Esch voted for Payne's motion to send the bill back to the committee to await indefinitely the report of the Tariff Board on the wool schedule, voted against the passage of the bill in the House, voted twice to delay action on the conference bill in the House, then switched and voted for the conference bill as agreed to between the Progressive Republicans and the Democrats...
...Esch explains, two years afterwards, that he entrusted his pair to Davidson and was so paired contrary to his instructions...
...Against Eight-Hour Law THE GENERAL LAW prohibits more than eight hours as a day's labor on government work...
...By reason of this rule, adopted to control consideration of the tariff bill in the House, the House was absolutely prevented from taking any action or making any amendments in all the schedules of the tariff bill as reported by tariff booster Payne, of the Ways and Means Committee, except, on some half-dozen commodities named in the rule...
...During this Congress was passed the so-called Taft Commerce Court bill...
...The issue, in Esch's case, as in all other cases, must be determined upon the record of the candidate...
...You have a right and a duty to demand of the candidate whom you support that he shall have given active political support to progressive principles...
...The returns show substantially the same proportion for the new district and for the old...
...Approached by Progressives to aid the progressive cause, Esch always declined to "take sides...
...It was shown prices of Philippine products would be increased to American consumers and the cost of carrying government supplies multiplied...
...Nor can you answer this question justly to yourself, your family and your country by merely asking the candidate and accepting his affirmative answer...
...There never was a time during all this conflict—this life struggle of Progressivism in Wisconsin—when Esch said a word or put forth an effort in its behalf...
...During all of this time, Progressivism has been making, in Wisconsin, the supreme struggle...
...His votes on the great body of these measures are an infallible index of his character as a representative of the people or the representative of Privilege and the System...
...A Vote for Alleged Rebaters DURING the same session that Esch was so active for the Townsend-Esch bill (with the gag rule), he helped vote down a resolution to investigate the alleged rebating of $400,000 by the Santa Fe Railroad to the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company...
...The voting at every stage was close and a change of half a dozen votes would have defeated the bill...
...Esch voted "No," with the Old Guard of Privilege...
...The bill in committee was "doctored" by System lawyers, and reported by Littlefield with amendments calculated to render it useless or to defeat it...
...This great struggle has been mainly within and for the control of the Republican party as the means of Progressive accomplishment...
...This bill was substituted by the committee for the La Follette bill, and was favorably reported by Mr...
...The bill was passed in the House only when the end of the Congress was at hand and, considering the magnitude of the subject, there was no chance of its being acted on in the Senate and it died i 1 the pigeon-hole of the Senate Committee...
...It was what the trusts and railroads wanted...
...Esch's Peculiar Record on Ship Subsidy ESCH'S record on shipping subsidies and kindred Special Interest favors is interesting...
...Out of the few commodities on which the House was permitted to act after the adoption of the gag rule, Esch voted against free lumber and against free hides...
...The answer must be, "Yes," before you, Mr...
...Esch voted for it, along with trust-busters Littlefield, Cannon and Tawney...
...at least, when the issue was plain...
...For Express Companies, Too IN THIS Congress, also, Esch voted against a measure to require railroads and express companies to pay their share of the Spanish War Revenue Taxes...
...At every general election, Esch was himself a candidate on this ticket...
...This legislation was put through in the House by Babcock, Esch's friend and colleague, and Esch never even questioned it...
...Esch voted for the Vreeland bill, as passed by the House and for the Senate-House bill, as fixed up by Aldrich and Vreeland in conference...
...Except for one small competitor, the steel trust has the armor plate business on its own terms...
...The Democrat appealed to the House and on the roll call Esch voted to sustain Cannon...
...Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal Bill FOR YEARS Dalzell of Pittsburgh, Cannon leader and agent of Steel Trust interests in Congress, had been trying to get through a bill to incorporate for the Steel Trust the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal Company, with a federal charter to construct and operate a ship canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River at Pittsburgh...
...For Tariff Gag Rule THE MOST IMPORTANT tariff vote in the House was the vote on the gag rule...
...No Help from Esch THERE HAVE BEEN times when it seemed that the future of Progressivism here hung in the balance...
...The important legislation of the First Session of this Congress was the so-called Aldrich-Vreeland currency bill...
...Starting in the Fifty-sixth Congress with two bills to give two subsidiary companies $3,000,000 cash out of the treasury and government property worth perhaps as much and more for track elevations and changes of terminals, this program wound up in the Fifty-seventh Congress with the passage of the Union Station Bill, which carried donations to the railroads of some $8,000,000 in public land and public money...
...The American shipping combine had practically abandoned the field...
...Of course, after the primary battles were over, Esch supported the Republican-ticket...
...Of course, he might have entrusted his pair to a Progressive and would then probably not have to explain...
...A Progressive District Misrepresented THE SEVENTH DISTRICT of Wis-consin is overwhelmingly progressive...
...While it was claimed the bill would secure publicity of trusts, a conspicuous feature of it as reported was a provision abolishing imprisonment penalties for railroad rebating, a thing the railroads had long prayed for and which the Interstate Commerce Commission had consistently opposed...
...After it passed in the Senate, they redoubled their efforts to defeat it in the House—not by open opposition, but by displacing it with a weak and innocuous substitute...
...Esch voted against it—voted again for the Interest and against the people...
...When this bill came before the House, Esch, for the first time, took notice of the public sentiment against ship subsidy...
...The great battles have been in the primaries, caucuses and conventions of the Republican party to secure the nomination of Progressive candidates and the adoption of platforms committing the party and its candidates, to true public service...
...Paired" Wrong THE FIRST SESSION of the Sixty-first Congress was a special session...
...In the Fifty-ninth Congress the proposition got to a vote in the House...
...Esch voted for this measure on every roll call...
...Esch Votes "Present" THE Fifty-ninth Congress brought the "report" of the Merchant Marine Commission, and with it a bill for an ocean mail ship subsidy of $3,750,000 a year for ten years...
...In this Congress, Townsend introduced a bill to enlarge and increase the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...In this Congress, too, Esch voted for the so-called enlarged homestead bill, designed to facilitate the operations of land grabbers, and for the Alaskan coal land bill, to provide for the consolidation of coal interests in Alaska, and the sale of the government holdings at $10.00 an acre...
...For Ballinger and the Railroads IN THE SECOND SESSION of this Congress came up the investigation of the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy...
...The bill gave the company sweeping powers of eminent domain, gave it any public lands, roads or waters which it could use along the route of the proposed canal, the right to develop and sell water power and practically every other benefit or privilege the promoters could think of...
...The passage of a different bill in the House gave the System managers a chance to further weaken the bill in conference, the majority of the conferees from both houses being really opposed to the legislation...
...Easy on the Trusts LITTLEFIELD introduced in this Congress an alleged antitrust bill, which, after being "doctored" in Committee with amendments, was reported with a special rule to put the billion passage with the committee amendments and "without intervening motion...
...More Gag Rule IN THIS SESSION the Cannonappointed committee brought in a postal bank bill framed and, to suit System Interests to provide against the contingency of amendment by the House in the public interest, the usual gag rule was resorted to...
...In this Congress a bill was reported in the House providing for publicity...
...The Record's the Thing IN NEARLY every session there came before the House measures which present the issue between Progressives and Reactionaries, between public interest, on one side, and Special Interests, on the other...
...For the Aldrich Deposit Bill ONE OF the important measures of this Congress was a bill by Aldrich to provide for larger deposits of government money in national banks...
...He voted against placing trust-controlled products on the free list...
...Space will not permit a detailed analysis of the bill...
...Esch voted with Cannon, Payne, Tawney, et al., for the adoption of this rule...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 29
