PAIRED AGAINST PROGRESS
Paired Against Progress DURING the past fifteen years James H. Davidson has been a representative in Congress from the Eighth District of Wisconsin. His service in the House has continued without...
...Davidson joined with Dalzell and others of the System henchmen and voted for this motion...
...The Steel Trust had long wanted a water outlet from its great factories and foundries at Pittsburgh to the Great Lakes, a distance of about 113 miles, but instead of receiving charters from the states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, had sought a federal charter...
...Roosevelt's errors are not to be wondered at...
...He voted for the popular election of United States Senators...
...Champion of the Steel Trust DAVIDSON'S most conspicuous service in Congress has been as the spokesman and champion of the Steel Trust...
...Congressman Dalzell, the representative of the Steel Trust, introduced such bill at several sessions...
...He thus helped to save Cannon...
...Another amendment proposed that the Secretary of the Navy should make a detailed report upon the specifications and needs of battleships before their building was begun...
...It was estimated that the national banks in Wall Street would thus get $400,000,000 a year, which could be loaned out at from six to ten per cent...
...Davidson brought in the conference report and PUSHED IT THROUGH THE HOUSE...
...In doing this he was acting in entire accord with the Cannon machine...
...Scarcely five minutes intervened between the first and second sessions...
...When not paired on important votes, or "ducking" by answering "present," he is busy with the work of the Cannon machine...
...In the 59th Congress, Congressman Lilley of Connecticut charged that a submarine company had made improper attempts to influence him and other Members...
...He Was Busy—Doing What...
...But his amendment was voted down...
...This committee, instead of investigating the submarine company, put Lilley under cross-examination for making charges and made a report which was practically nothing but a censure of Lilley—one way of "whitewashing...
...Pairs for the System I N THE 58th Congress, a ship subsidy scheme was brought forward in the guise of a bill to create a merchant marine commission...
...It was designed to promote the safety of passengers and employees on railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees...
...He was paired on the vote for an investigation of the Money Trust...
...He was paired on the bill reducing the steel tariff in 1912...
...This was a section of the post office appropriation bill granting to certain railroads a considerable sum of money under the pretext of "expediting the mail...
...On the several votes on this occasion, Davidson was paired with Sparkman, Democrat, thus in effect, voting against the reduction of the steel schedules...
...At the beginning of the first session of the 61st Congress came the first big fight against Cannonism...
...No public man since the government was formed has treated Constitutional limitations so contemptuously...
...Of course this object was denied when the bill was pending...
...The same in Congress...
...He saw all this happen within the fifteen years he was kept in Congress by the voters of the Eighth Wisconsin—and indeed within less time than the latter half of this period...
...The placing of such custom receipts in banks had been expressly prohibited since 1864...
...A committee of investigation was appointed headed by Olmsted of Pennsylvania, friend and servitor of the Steel Trust...
...On the final roll call he voted to keep Cannon in the Speaker's chair...
...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...
...The company had failed to live up to its charter...
...Davidson, sensing the lively interest of his constituents and other citizens in this contest, voted with the progressives the greater part of two days on roll call after roll call...
...Again Davidson was paired...
...Not once in the long struggle to restore a people's government in Wisconsin did Davidson lift a helping hand...
...A Vote for Cannon DAVIDSON'S record on the fight of the progressives against the autocratic old rules is that of a "straddler...
...During recent years, as the lines between representatives of public interest and representatives of special interests have become more clearly drawn, there have been contests in the House over bills and resolutions plainly against the public interest...
...The people of his district, of his state and of his country...
...it was not in the interest of either the public or the railroad employees...
...This speech was the only one he made in this session...
...During the early years of Davidson's service as Congressman there were several important measures voted upon in the House which were frankly and boldly for the benefit of special privilege...
...Not a single member was obliged to incur a dollar's worth of expenses in travel...
...He joined in the smiles of the Old Guard when La Follette came to Washington as "the lonely man of the Senate...
...Davidson's vote on this legislation was not progressive...
...This was a ship subsidy bill...
...He offered an amendment that the incorporators should be permitted to issue certificates of indebtedness only as the Interstate Commerce Commission found it necessary...
...Davidson voted against it—another vote for the trusts...
...Against Eight-hour Law THE LAW prohibits more than eight hours as a day's labor on government work...
...Davidson's further record on important votes affecting the Steel Trust, since that time, follow: In the second session of the 58th Congress, when the Naval Appropriation bill was up, a motion was made to recommit the bill and order the committee to provide that there should be no purchase of armor from any trust, and for the building of battle ships in government yards...
...When the Naval Appropriation bill came up in the third Session of the 58th Congress, a motion was made to appoint a committee to make a thorough inquiry into the cost of armor plate and the establishment of an armor plate plant, which committee should report to Congress...
...On this proposition Davidson was paired...
...He was paired...
...On this Aldrich proposition to let Wall Street have these millions, without paying any interest, Davidson voted "aye...
...Ship subsidies are among the most pernicious forms of special privilege...
...Davidson entered Congress March 4, 1897...
...In the second session of the 59th Congress, an amendment was introduced to the Naval Appropriation bill, setting aside $100,-000 for the brass and iron foundry at the Washington Navy Yards, to make a competitive test for the Steel Trust, which was receiving extortionate prices for the equipment it was furnishing the Navy...
...Among other things he reported that G. W. Beavers, former chief of salaries and allowances, had granted increased salaries and rents in some cases above the proper limit and that some Members of Congress were not above suspicion in requesting these irregularities from Beavers...
...And in the following session Davidson was either paired or voted "no" on several votes on ship subsidy schemes...
...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...
...That is true of the last fifteen years...
...If so, does not this show the danger of enlarging the powers of the executive as he desires to enlarge them...
...This does not mean that he was idle...
...Congressman James of Kentucky said it would be from five to ten millions a year...
...His whole bias is wrong...
...Esch on February 16th...
...Davidson had secured one increase in salary and one increase in rent in his district and he felt called upon to make an explanation of them...
...Blowing Hot and Cold ON THE ship subsidy legislation of the 59th Congress Davidson voted "no...
...One of these was a bill which permitted the concentration of coal entries in Alaska to the extent of 2,560 acres—a measure which would center many millions of dollars in coal values in one hand and would pave the way to pernicious raids on Alaska's resources...
...Speaker, I am opposed to this alleged treaty...
...Bryan says in part: "But Mr...
...Another amendment was introduced in this Congress which provided for complete publicity of the affairs of corporations doing an interstate business...
...On the bill providing for the sale of oil and asphalt lands in the West, Davidson voted "aye...
...Votes For The Trusts IN THE first session of the 56th Congress, Davidson voted against the proposed amendment of the Sherman Antitrust 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 upon the public, to suspend the tariff on the trust products...
...In the third session of the Sixty-first Congress, it was proposed to amend the Naval bill by providing for the building of but one battleship instead of two...
...When not voting outright for Wall Street and the interests, he is paired— paired for the System, paired against progress...
...He voted for the Fordney amendment to the California-Oregon land grant bill which would in effect have protected great lumber companies as "innocent purchasers" of valuable lands bought from railroads, which lands had been given to the railroads by the government...
...He was paired on the several roll calls on the recent anti-injunction legislation...
...Helping Aldrich DAVIDSON voted again for Wall Street when in the second session of the 59th Congress, he voted to let the national banks have the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in custom receipts, without paying any interest...
...Yet the System's spoilsmen seized upon the idea that they might as well stick the money in their pockets—a sum amounting to $190,000...
...Against Reciprocity DAVIDSON voted against the Canadian reciprocity bill...
...he was found in the councils of the opposition...
...Davidson's next connection with this measure in a prominent way was in the second session of the 60th Congress, when he reported favorably upon another Dalzell bill, to give this company three years more time in which to begin its work and three more for its completion...
...It was one of the boldest schemes of Senator Aldrich and his following, then at the height of its power...
...A Vote for the Railroads DAVIDSON'S record on the so-called hours of service law for railroad employees is on a par with that of Esch...
...He observed state after state borrow from Wisconsin the direct primary and with it hurl the special interests from power...
...This amendment was clearly in the public interest...
...Or, like so many of his colleagues, a small but powerful group of business interests...
...He pointed out that all transportation stock in the country was tremendously watered and that the public was obliged to pay dividends upon it...
...He showed that by an issuance of $800,000 of stocks and bonds, on each mile, the canal stock could be watered to the amount of $180,000,000...
...Davidson stood by Esch and voted with him on this legislation...
...Whom has he served...
...No names were mentioned by Bristow...
...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 proposed among other things to let the incorporators issue $400,000 of stock and $400,000 of bonds on every mile, or $800,000 per mile...
...While the most of the progressives voted for this amendment, Davidson boldly stood by the Steel Trust and voted "no...
...He said, "Mr...
...He was paired on the reciprocity bill in 1911...
...Esch) had introduced without consultation with us...
...He was paired on the resolution which was introduced in the House with a view to discrediting Bristow...
...He came over to the progressives momentarily by voting against the Fitzgerald-Tammany resolution which practically saved the Cannon rules after the House had just voted them down...
...Davidson voted FOR the Vreeland bill in the House and later FOR the Aldrich-Vreeland conference bill...
...In this Congress, too, when the Frye shipping bill came up, Davidson dodged by answering "present...
...When the bill came back to the House with its Senate amendments, Mr...
...The answer is found in the Congressional Record...
...Davidson made a "regular" speech for the bill...
...This bill was substituted by the committee for the La Follette bill, and was favorably reported by Mr...
...He noted the irresistible onward sweep of the progressive movement throughout the nation...
...He also offered an amendment that there should be no issue of stocks or bonds above $10,000 a mile, until estimates of the cost of the Canal had been made by the Secretary of War...
...This substitute as reported by Mr...
...He did not vote on the agricultural free list bill but did vote against passing it over President Taft's veto...
...While Cooper, Gronna, and other Republicans voted in favor of this slight relief, Davidson again stood by the Steel Trust by pairing with a Democrat...
...Not once has he led a fight for the people on a big measure or done anything comparable to his service for the Steel Trust, in putting through the bill for the so-called Lake Erie & Ohio River Ship Canal...
...Bristow was then Assistant Postmaster Genera] and he had reported on the extensive fraud and corruption he had unearthed in the postal service...
...Not an inkling is found in his whole record of the kind of leadership shown by Cary, Nelson, Cooper or Lenroot...
...He was paired on the bill reducing the cotton tariff...
...It was said on the floor of the House that it would mean a million dollars a year interest to Wall Street...
...Did he not show by his conduct at Chicago that he is more interested in obtaining the office for himself than in advancing reforms...
...In the debate on the bill, Davidson led the fight for the measure and controlled the time for the majority while Williams of Mississippi, led for the minority...
...In the 60th Congress Davidson gave his vote to a number of grab measures...
...Fifteen years may bring forth profound changes in the life of a state or a nation...
...In the second session of this Congress occurred the spectacular four-day fight of the progressives against Cannon, which succeeded in breaking the power of the Czar...
...A Vote for High Tariff DAVIDSON voted with Payne, Tawney, Dalzell and the other stand-patters for the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill of 1909...
...A provision was inserted in the deficiency appropriation for the Panama Canal in the 59th Congress to relieve the contractors on the Panama from the eight-hour law, at least as to alien labor...
...I have great admiration and respect for President Taft and it has been a pleasure to give cordial support to his administration...
...When the bill came to the Senate, Senator La Follette made a strong effort to have it amended...
...He voted for the La Follette-Under-Wood Wool Bill in 1911, knowing the President would veto it, and then he voted against passing it over the President's veto...
...Davidson voted for him...
...On the passage of the pure food bill, Davidson was paired...
...This was at a time, be it remembered, when the trusts were growing most rapidly in number and power—the very time when a restraining hand stretched forth by Congress or by the President would have been most effective in preventing the tremendous accumulation of trust evils and oppressions of the present day...
...His service in the House has continued without interruption from the opening of the Fifty-fifth Congress down to the present time...
...It was a bold scheme to put the stamp of government legality upon the highly watered securities of Wall Street...
...By that answer must be determined the fitness of Mr...
...It was against this proposal that Senator La Follette in the Senate made a speech of eighteen hours...
...It was in this session that there occurred a notorious raid upon the public treasury...
...In all his long service in Congress, he has never voted against this most powerful of all trusts, but on the contrary, has repeatedly come to its aid, with voice and vote...
...This we cannot believe is the real purpose of the bill, but rather that it is to enable this corporation to escape as far as possible, state control and regulation, privilege or franchise tax, and to obtain larger powers than can or ought to be conferred upon it by the laws of these states...
...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...
...The Democratic platform contains all the progressiveness that the people are ready to accept and Governor Wilson can be trusted to carry out the platform...
...But when an amendment was proposed that the commission should not report in favor of subsidies, it was voted down...
...Find out how a Congressman has voted on the more significant and important of these measures and you will have found the answer to the question, is he a progressive...
...Davidson made an elaborate report in support of the bill, and when Dalzell made a motion to suspend the rules and force consideration of the measure, Davidson made a speech in support of the Dalzell resolution and also VOTED FOR IT...
...He shared the growing concern of the System oligarchy over the steady increase in the ranks of the progressive Republicans in both the Senate and the House...
...Davidson was paired...
...It was in the interest only of the railroads...
...Esch was the greatest makeshift I have ever seen proposed as a matter of legislation...
...On the contrary, his is a colorless, wobbling, weak and negative record...
...But in the very crisis of the fight and when his help was most sorely needed, he went back to the support of Cannon and the machine...
...He voted against the bill reducing the woolen tariff in April, 1912...
...It does not mean that he sat in Washington as a mere spectator of this national drama unfolding itself to his view...
...WHAT PART did Davidson take in this great movement to make government in state and nation truly and effectively representative...
...His last service for the Steel Trust was January 29 of the present session, when a vote was taken on reduction of steel schedules in the present Payne-Aldrich tariff law...
...On two votes on this proposition, Davidson was paired...
...This bill, which was in the interest of Wall Street, proposed to make railroad and other securities a basis for emergency currency...
...In the same session, the "special facilities" grab came before the House...
...He did not vote on the amendment to the postal bill requiring newspapers and magazines to print the names of the editors and stockholders and to designate political advertising...
...Another amendment he proposed was to strike out the section permitting the setting aside of earnings of the company for a sinking fund...
...He made a brief but exceedingly ambiguous speech of protest, but stuck to the machine when it came to a roll call and voted for the bill which President Taft later called "the best ever...
...Not at all...
...It was vigorously opposed by the railroads...
...None of the Wisconsin progressives voted for the re-election of Cannon as speaker...
...On almost all the other important measures of this session Davidson is found paired with a Democrat, which is in effect a vote for the System and special interests, since at that time the Democrats voted pretty generally against the schemes of the Republican regulars...
...It was an encroachment upon the eight-hour law and a discrimination against American labor...
...The next day he voted for the previous question and FOR THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL...
...Here again Davidson is found among those "not voting...
...He is more Hamiltonian than Hamilton himself...
...Is there no other person big enough for such a swollen presidency as he would create...
...In its report against the bill, the minority of the committee said: "It is claimed by the advocates of this bill that the fact that this is a federal charter will the better enable its promoters to float the bonds in the markets of the world...
...A Negative Record DAVIDSON'S record is not the record of a progressive...
...He could have nominated any one of a number of progressives—why did he refuse to stand aside...
...But he immediately joined the "regulars" again by voting for the infamous "gag-rule" of Dalzell which shut off debate on the tariff bill...
...Again David-son was paired...
...to make the will of the people the law of the land...
...At the opening of the second session of the 60th Congress, he" voted with Dalzell and the other Cannon lieutenants for the adoption of these rules...
...On the conference report on the Hepburn railroad rate bill Davidson was paired...
...On both the vote on the amendment and on the creation of the commission Davidson was paired...
...The purpose and 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...
...Davidson and Congressman Roberts of Massachusetts, the private navy yard Congressman, were made the House members of the conference committee of the two houses...
...Lastly, he proposed the physical valuation of the property of the company by the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...Nothing, absolutely nothing...
...He was reasonably busy—busy serving, in committee and in his seat, the special interests, notably the Steel Trust, busy obscuring and befogging his record wherever possible, busy keeping his political fences standing with props of professed fidelity to the progressive ideals of Wisconsin voters...
...He voted against the sugar tariff revision bill in 1912...
...It was another evidence of the restlessness of conscientious Members of Congress over the gauging the government was receiving from the Steel Trust in the purchase of armor at extortionate profits...
...From his seat in the House of Representatives, he saw afar off the mighty struggle in Wisconsin to free the state from the corrupt and sordid control of the railroads and other special interests and to restore to the people true representative government...
...A Cannon Regular ON RECENT legislation affecting the general public interest—legislation that is well known to readers of the press—Davidson's record may be summarized briefly as follows: He voted to let Cannon pack the Ballinger-Pinchot investigating committee...
...The measure failing, it again came up in the 59th Congress...
...He was paired on the final passage of the Sherwood pension bill...
...A Vote for Wall Street IN THIS SESSION came up the so-called Aldrich-Vreeland bill...
...Instead of lifting his voice in a clear and emphatic "no," Davidson stood weakly between the fear of his constituents, who abhor subsidies as well as all other forms of privilege, and the desire to serve his friends among the "regulars," so he surrendered the commission entrusted to him by the people of the Eighth Wisconsin when he was sent to represent them in Washington, and merely said "present...
...On the resolution to ascertain if Paul Morton, as traffic manager of the Sante Fe, had violated the law in remitting rebates of $400,000 to the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and if any steps had been taken to prosecute, Davidson was paired...
...There were three sessions in the 58th Congress...
...This was a measure introduced and passage secured in the Senate by La Follette...
...He witnessed at closer range the beginnings of insurgency in Congress...
...Bryan on Roosevelt William Jennings Bryan, in an editorial in The Commoner, described Theodore Roosevelt as a reactionary who was not worthy of the support either of Democrats or of progressive Republicans...
...In the first session of the 59th Congress, amendment was offered to the Naval Appropriation bill, providing that cables, chains, anchors, etc., should be bought in the open market...
...On this matter of great benefit to the Wall Street financiers and of vital consequence to the people Davidson cast his vote with Wall Street...
...One by one, these amendments were voted down...
...Later he made a speech in favor of this bill and he voted for the bill...
...In the 57th Congress an effort was made to shut politics out of the rural free delivery service...
...On two other proposals relating to the same charges—one requiring that all papers be sent to the House and the other that the resolution go to the Committee on Postoffices and Post Roads, Davidson is found paired for the System regulars and the Machine...
...Davidson, again loyal to the Steel Trust, voted to accept the Olmsted report...
...Davidson voted against this attempt to prevent rural carriers from being used as a political spoils machine...
...There was no opportunity for Congressmen to go home...
...In the second session of the 58th Congress, Davidson as a member of the Committee on Railroads and Canals, reported in favor of the bill...
...It was known as the "mileage grab...
...A Vote Against Labor Unions WHEN in the Sixty-first Congress an attempt was made to make the Sherman Anti-trust law apply to the labor unions, Davidson stood by the enemies of organized labor and voted to bring the unions within the terms of the Anti-trust act...
...Davidson to remain in office as "the gentleman from Wisconsin...
Vol. 4 • August 1912 • No. 32
