THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES A Senator of Ideals IT USED to be said that it was an "off day" in the Senate when Albert J. Beveridge failed to make a speech. That was during: his first term....
...Progressive, independent Republicanism is winning There is the prospect that in another Congress Beveridge will have the votes...
...Forced to accept the bill with its usefulness thus impaired, Beveridge declared that the fight would go on...
...But the Interest has continued to hold the voting power...
...When, in 1902, Congress, still thoughtful, repealed the war revenue tax on tobacco, it carefully legislated for the trust to continue its reduced-size packages—repealed the tax on the trust but legislated that the trust should continue to collect it from the consumers...
...He voted against the Aldrich increases in the cotton schedule, against tariff increases by re-classifications and against the new cumulative duty for mercerized cloths...
...He became a crusader for government inspection of these places where the people's focdstuffs are prepared...
...Even before Bevlridge departed upon his independent course in the Senate, he was a diligent worker in legislation...
...and to prevent the investment of postal savings in government bonds bearing less than two and one-fourth per cent, interest, and for the passage of the bill...
...Failing in this, he refused to do wrong with them...
...to give the Interstate Commerce Commission and shippers the right to be represented in rate cases in the commerce court...
...By his votes and by argument Beveridge showed that he was for a postal savings bank for the people, not a postal savings bank for Wall Street...
...And Beveridge's victory, won in open debate in the Senate, was stolen from him and from the people behind the closed doors of the conference room...
...has been willing to defy the powerful monopoly of the express companies in an effort to give the people a parcels post, A Notable Tariff Record BEVERIDGE was one of the first to advocate in an effective way the establishment of an expert, non-partisan tariff commission, to put an end to the framing of tariff laws by the lepresentatives of the Special Interests to be benefited thereby...
...Now, however, the sky is brightening...
...The only way to satisfy the popular demand is to frame the tariff schedules in accordance with the facts as disclosed by a deliberate and thorough investigation by competent and unbiased experts...
...It taught him also that there were honored Senators of the United States, some of them "leaders" in his party, who would stand up in the Senate and strive shamelessly to effectuate that baneful influence in legislation...
...Aside fro 1 the people directly affected, the work receives little public attention...
...When you have caught your small boy in the jam have you ever noticed how he tries to turn the conversation to the pifef of candy he expects to get for you with that penny you gays him yesterday?—Kansas City Star...
...He voted against the Aldrich increases on wool wastes and ihoddy, against the woolen schedule, and for the Dolliver and La Follette amendments to correct the frauds and reduce the duties of that schedule...
...In the Committee on Territories, of which he has been a member since coming to the Senate and is now chairman, he has been most industrious...
...Stop," they cried out...
...Largelv as the result of his efforts to secure legislation to prohibit interstate commerce in the products of child labor, the enactment was secured of a model child-labor law for the District of Columbia...
...to prevent railroads engaging in the production of commodities in competition with the independent producers...
...And Beveridge has kept his promise to the "enemy" and to the public...
...In the railroad and postal savings bank legislation of the last Congress, Beveridge worked and voted with the progressive Republican Senators to amend the bills in the public interest...
...He voted against the Aldrich bill as a whole when it passed the Senate...
...But Beveridge answered, "It does not hurt any business to tell the truth about it, and to correct the evils which that truth reveals...
...He was one of seven Republican Senators who voted against the final adoption of ths Aldrich-Payne-Cannon conference bill...
...But the Interest had friends in the Cannon machine of the House, and when the bill went to conference the House conferees insisted on Beveridge's "dated label" provision going out of the bill...
...Making Commerce Bill Over ON THE commerce bill he voted for amendments to require the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission, upon hearing and investigation, before rate increases could become effective...
...He voted for the McCumber amendments for free lumber and against the Aldrich lumber schedule...
...for restricting the jurisdiction of the commerce court to that held by circuit courts in rate cases...
...Beveridge is one of a handful of Republican Senators who have suppoited and voted for election of United States Senators by the people, Beveridge, too...
...He showed how Congress had delegated to the trust the power for its own profit to tax the people...
...He voted for the La Follette tariff commission amendment and against the Aldrich court of customs appeals...
...He has lost no opportunity to force the fighting...
...to require railway traffic agreements to be approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...Since that first term, Beveridge has learned to perfect his high purposes into fine achievement...
...He enlcted v.-ilk cnthuslaem upon all the duties which came to him and in which he could do good and useful service...
...Any business that can be permanently hurt by telling the truth about it ought not only to be hurt...
...Unable to control the Republican Party in Indiana, the System is throwing its weight of influence and money into a campaign to beat Beveridge by electing a Democratic legislature...
...But the point is that Beveridge made it...
...As a public speaker and writer he has done much to bring about the intelligent public demand which forced the recognition of the tariff-commission principle in the present tariff law...
...The country looks to the voters of Indiana to see to it that Albert J. Beveridge is returned to the Senate, to help in the great struggle to redeem the Government for all the people...
...But this knowledge of the character and the power of the opposition only spurred Beveridge to a more militant advocacy of the legislation...
...MANUFACTURERS FAVOR TARIFF COMMISSION IN THE present temper of the people of the United States no tariff framed by a committee representing special producing interests can escape serious opposition...
...for amendments to prevent railroads destroying water competition...
...He voted for the Dolliver and Cummins amendments reducing the duties of the metal schedule, and against Aldrich's amendment increasing the duty on wire nails...
...And the Senate conferees yielded...
...BEvrsiDGE labored with great industry and brought to bear his exceptional powers of argumentation to persuade the Senate leaders to do right...
...also, was secured a national investigation of industrial, social, and moral conditions of women and child workers throughout the country...
...Kills Tobacco Tax Graft IT WAS in the tariff session that Beveridge exposed the "good thing" of the tobacco trust...
...Beveridge made his demonstration unanswerable, and forced a System Congress to compel the trust in the future to pay into the treasury of the United States the indirect taxes which it collects from the people...
...He voted against the Aldrich duty on hides...
...He made plain that inspection, instead of hurting legitimate packing business, would be an asset for it—an advertisement of great value...
...We postpone them to a later day," he said, "but we will .meet the enemy upon a future field...
...Beveridge showed1 that, through this bit of legislative thoughtfulness, "all told, the Government has lost $184,090,557.43 in the last eight years...
...for the reenactment of the long and short haul clause...
...But the break came, as it had to come for a man of Beveridge's ideals, when that leadership departed openly from Republican principle and from principle in the abstract...
...There were other Republicans, professing progressive convictions, who lacked that courage...
...His public career has been conspicuous for his leadership in the advocacy of measures for the improvement of conditions under which the people live and work...
...But Indiana Republicanism has repudiated its Hemenways and Watsons and stands Progressive...
...On 55 out of 127 tariff roll calls Beveridge voted against Aldrich and the Aldrich schedules...
...Again, Beveridge demanded that all cans or packages bear a label showing the date of the inspection...
...He voted for the Cummins amendment to strike out the provision designed to enable the concentration of postal bank funds as a reserve...
...He voted for provisions to empower the Interstate Commerce Commission to suspend rate advances pending investigation to determine their reasonableness...
...it ought to be destroyed...
...And he continued fighting for the government inspection, to "destroy" the "business" of selling the American people diseased and decayed meats...
...for amendments placing telegraph and telephone companies under the interstate commerce act...
...He voted for the amendment to prevent the investment of postal bank deposits in Government bonds, except in times of war...
...He voted for the Bristow amendment to eliminate from the tariff law the "Dutch Standard" graft of the Sugar Trust...
...And, of course, the "business men" and corporation attorneys in the Senate, who were there to do things for the System and not to make speeches, disparaged and discouraged Beveridge's oratory...
...for prohibiting any person financially interested in railroads from serving as judge on the commerce court...
...It stands overwhelmingly by Beveridge...
...It may have been easier for Beveridge to make the break when he could do it in company with a small minority from his own party...
...In the recent Congress he supported the investigation of the cost of living and sought to have it comprehend a thorough-going study of the questions of wages and prices...
...But for this reward Beveridge was always willing to work...
...When the war revenue tax of 1898 was levied upon tobacco, a thoughtful Congress authorized the trust by law to reduce the size of its packages so as to make the consumers pay the tax...
...And his speeches and his writings have done their share to ere-ate that general understanding of public questions and that power of public sentiment, which has made possible real accomplishment alon^ lines of constructive progress in government...
...The reward of this service is Ihe satisfaction of duty c'one...
...He voted to strike out the System provisions of the Wickersham Bill designed to legalize the fictitious railway capitalization of the country...
...to provide for the selection of the commerce court by the entire Supreme Court rather than by the Chief Justice thereof...
...If there is anything the System loves to see elected to Congress, besides a Cannon-Aldrich Republican, it is an innocuous Democrat...
...Because Beveridge has served the people in Congress, because he has made war on dishonest Privilege in legislation, the System is out to prevent his reelection...
...His first halt came only during the last session, when he failed to press with his accustomed vigor the passage of the Administration's Alaskan Government Bill, and he suspended then because he learned that the bill was a bad measure'-Territorial affairs require most painstaking study...
...The Fight on the Unclean THE exposures of unspeakable conditions in tfce packing houres of the beef trust, which were made public in 1905-6, roused Beveridge's fighting blood...
...You will hurt business...
...Not only did he fight for inspection, but he demanded that the packers, not the federal treasury, should pay the three millions of annual cost which inspection entailed...
...Largely through the efforts of Beveridge...
...For Pootilar Election of Senators SENATOR BEVERIDGE is one of the few members of that "august body" who are willing and eager to submit their case to the neople, and to give them more immediate influence in Senatorial affairs...
...and to provide for physical valuation of railroads in order that their rates might be regulated upon the just and lawful basis of the true, fair value of the property used for the public convenience...
...In Congress he has been the most conspicuous advocate of legislation for the improvement of the working conditions of women and for the prevention of child labor...
...No person of sense would think of excluding the manufacturers from participation in such an investigation, but such participation must be free from the suspicion of undue control if the people, whs rule this country when they please, are to be satisfied with the result.—Textile World Record...
...Beveridge was right...
...Politically cradled, so to speak, in the Republican party, it was hard for Beveridge to differ from the recognized leadership of his party in the Senate...
...Of Beveridge's invaluable services to the people in the tariff session we have told in a former roll call—his services in putting the System on record, his exposures of the jugglery of legislative procedure, and the suppression of information in the interest of the enactment of System duties and System schedules...
...Places Human Rights Above the Dollar IN A Government too much dedicated to subserving the sordid interests of Big Business, Beveridge, with his profound convictions of public service and his idealizing of human rights, finds a field of useful and unending labor...
...But the Interest had the votes...
...For Postal Bank for the People [N THE postal bank legislation Beveridge supported and voted for all amendments designed to secure a comprehensive system of postal banks uniform throughout the United States, and to keep the funds in the communities where they were owned and from the control of System finance...
...Exposing in powerful fashion the fraud of selling as "fresh provisions" meats of ancient storage, Beveridge beat the Interest in the Senate...
...The opposition which this merely decent legislation met in Congress taught Beveridge the "influence" of sordid Interests in national legislation...
...Turning the Conversation IT IS reported that Secretary Ballinger is about to prosecute vigorously certain land frauds in an effort to make people forget the Cunningham claims...
...Beveridge held that, "every industry that needs inspection ought to pay for that inspection...
...Legislation to promote the safetv of the traveling public and of employees upon railroads by prohibiting the continuous employment of train oneratives for unreasonable hours, had Bevfridge's active support...
...But it was good oratory just the same, and the speeches were often sermons of political righteousness that would have done the Senate good and would have served the people if the Senate had heeded them...
...He voted against the Aldrich duty on iron ore...
...He voted finally for the postal bank makeshift which was concocted in the House to subserve System finance because it was a recognition of the principle of the postal bank and the only bill that could be passed by a Congress controlled by Aldrich and Cannon...
...most of this has come out of the pockets of the people and gone into the pockets of the manufacturer...
...It would prefer to beat Beveridge with a Republican amenable to party regularity and the influence cf Big Business...
...The System is bipartisan...
...And, even though the Senate did not heed them, they will stand upon the Record, a perpetual memorial of a brilliant mind and of a heart true to the people...
...Of course, the Interests were against this "paternalistic interference...
Vol. 2 • October 1910 • No. 42
