ber 4, 1901. The President's recommendation was upon the lines of this bill, which had received the general support of the west and of western senators and representatives; and a meeting was immediately called of the western senators and congressmen and a special committee of seventeen appointed to report a bill which would unite the west, which, however, was not accomplished until after two Wyoming Representatives, Senator Warren and Congressman Mondell, had tried unsuccessfully to amend it in ways which would have destroyed its character as a national and a popular measure; one wanted the reclamation fund to be expended by the engineering departments of sixteen different states and territories; the other wanted the nation merely to store the water and turn it into the streams, where it would be open to appropriation and sale by individuals, firms and corporations. These proposals were beaten.

Certain changes, however, were made in the measure as introduced by Mr. Newlands, but they did not change its essential character. The original Newlands bill of January 26, 1901, was the broad foundation stone on which the new national policy was erected; it was a stone taken from the Democratic quarry, hewn and shaped by Democratic statesmen, prominent in which work was Shaffroth and Bell of Colorado, and Dubois of Idaho. The measure as revised by the committee, was submitted to the western senators and congressmen, and a motion was made authorizing Mr. Newlands to introduce it in the House, and Mr. Hansbrough to introduce it in the Senate. It passed the Senate without opposition, but powerful opposition was encountered at the hands of the most influential Republican leaders in the House of Representatives.

REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION.

Here is the way in which the great leaders of the Republican party "supported" the national irrigation policy when its fate trembled in the balance at Washington:

Mr. Hepburn, of Iowa: Mr. Chairman, if I were not one of the most. humble and polite men in this House, I would take the liberty of saying that the proposition involved in this bill is the most insolent attempt at larceny that I have ever seen in a legislative proposition.

General Grosvenor, of Ohio: If this scheme can be carried into execution, I would not give five cents on the dollar ten years hence for all the beet sugar stock this side of the Missouri river. What is the evidence that has been taken this year before the Committee on Ways and Means? Why, sir, the evidence is that the beet sugar men of Utah, California and Colorado can manufacture beet sugar almost a cent a pound cheaper than can be done without the application of irrigation.

In a recent speech reviewing the history of the measure delivered by Congressman Van Duzer of Nevada on April 27, 1904, he said:

Every democratic leader supported the bill. Every republican leader spoke and voted against it. Mr. Payne, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and the leader of the House; Mr. Dalzell, of the Committee on Rules; Mr. Cannon, then the chairman of the Committee

on Appropriations; Mr. Ray, the chairman of the Committee on Judiciary; Mr. Grosvenor and Mr. Hepburn, all of them constituting the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, aided by other strong and forceful debaters, opposed the bill vigorously, and in some cases bitterly. THE VOTE ON THE BILL.

The bill passed in the Senate by a non-partisan and practically unanimous vote. The final vote in the House was as follows:

The evidence is absolutely clear and indisputable. National irrigation is a triumph of Democratic statesmanship, carried over the opposition of the Republican leaders in Congress, and finally consummated with the approval of a Republican President who recognized the wisdom and justice of his political opponents in framing and passing the law which opens the way for millions to get homes on the reclaimed public domain.

Democratic statesmanship brought the whole western half-continent under the American flag. It negotiated the Louisiana Purchase and acquired the territory from Mexico under the treaties of 1845 and 1853. It stood faithfully by the mining industry in sunshine and in storm. It initiated and consummated the plan for reclaiming the deserts and peopling them with men who shall live free from the exactions of land and water monopoly. And now the Democratic party solemnly pledges itself to go forward with the work of internal development.

True to its history and its principles, it stands for the growth of the Republic at home in preference to the exploitation of empire in distant lands.

THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE.

The Democratic party has ever been the true friend of American shipping. Under the wise leadership of James Madison, aided by the far-seeing statesmanship of Thomas Jefferson, in the early years of the republic our shipping became our most prosperous industry and the mainstay of the nation. From less than twenty

five per cent. of our foreign commerce carried in American vessels, the policy placed on our statutes by the founders of the Democratic party increased the proportion to above ninety per cent. During all the years preceding the Civil War an average of seventy-five per cent. of our entire foreign commerce was carried in American vessels. During the past forty-three years less than twenty per cent. of our imports and exports have been carried in American vessels.

During the last year of the Buchanan administration the American merchant marine reached the high tide of its prosperity, 2,642,628 tons of shipping being under American registry in the foreign trade, while last year American shipping under registry had fallen to.888,776 tons, a shipping less by nearly 100,000 tons than we had in the foreign trade in 1810, almost a century ago.

It cannot be said that the decline of our shipping under register is due to lack of commerce to carry. Our foreign trade is now more than four times more valuable than it was in 1861, when our shipping engaged in its carriage was three times greater than now. Our ships then carried sixty-five per cent. of our foreign trade, while they now carry eight per cent.

The disappearance of our shipping from the foreign trade is largely due to the outrageous and unnecessarily high tariff inaugurated by the Republican party and maintained in defiance of public condemnation. To this high tariff policy and the high cost of materials used in shipbuilding resulting therefrom is chiefly due the fearful decline in American shipping during the past fortythree years.

During the long period preceding the adoption of our high tariff policy, American shipping in the foreign trade was able practically unaided-to compete successfully and profitably with foreign shipping. In no decade of our history is the record more illumined with the wonderful growth, superior qualities and high achievements of American shipping, than during that between 1850 and 1860. American ships were as cheaply built and they were better built than their foreign rivals; they made an average of three voyages while their foreign competitors were making two; they carried their cargo with less damage; insurance of our ships and their cargoes was less, even in the ports of Great Britain, where they commanded a preference over British ships; their commanders, officers and seamen were men of superior intelligence, of marked intrepidity and wonderful skill, and the life of our ships compared favorably with those of other nations, and the care exercised in keeping them in almost perfect condition was the marvel as well as the envy of all seafaring people. The presence of an American ship in a foreign port in the heyday of its greatness-the last great decade of Democratic administrations-was an event of great importance, and the ship was always crowded with admiring visitors. The fame of American ships was known wherever the waves rolled and the winds blew, and for grace, beauty, speed, safety and endurance they were unequalled.

Contrast the foregoing statement of our maritime conditions with those of the present! To-day American ships are all but unknown in the ports of the world. In most of the ports of the continent of Europe an American ship is never seen, and of the thousands of ships and millions of tons that pass through the Suez Canal one under the American flag is the greatest of rarities. Such, in short, is the low state to which a once great interest, and industry of vast extent and large profit, has fallen under Republican neglect and misrule.

The Republican party has lacked the courage to apply the protective policy to our shipping which it believes to be necessary for its restoration. Its beloved subsidy policy, a policy that would take millions and tens of millions from the national treasury for the benefit of a limited number of trust-ridden steamship owners, a policy so extravagant and withal so uncertain as to its beneficial results to the nation as to appall some of the more conservative and less greedy of its followers, has been promised them, but it has not been given because of the sturdy and unyielding opposition of the Democratic party, although in a minority. The Republican party believes in subsidies, because by such a policy, so arranged as to confer the greatest benefits upon corporations from which the largest campaign funds can be most easily wrung, the national. treasury may be used to reimburse and still further enrich those favored beneficiaries, the trust magnates and the millionaires.

The subsidy bill which the Republicans jammed through the United States Senate on March 17, 1902, carried in its provisions many millions of dollars annually for rich and powerful owners of swift steamships, but all vessels under a thousand tons-the small craft owned by the common people, the small builders, the sailmakers, the outfitters, the men whose labor constructed them, the masters, officers and seamen who sail them, their widows and orphans of limited means all of these were ruthlessly denied any share in that subsidy lest their competition should possibly give some annoyance and inconvenience to the trust-controlled steamships. That remnant of our small tonnage which the competition of heavily subsidized foreign shipping has failed to destroy would thus be ruined by the large and powerful corporations owning subsidized American shipping-that was the mockery of assistance which the Republican party offered to the American owners of vessels under one thousand tons-subsidies for their larger American competitors, but nothing for the American tonnage owned in small shares by individuals of moderate means! Hard as is the lot of the small vessel owner, limited as are his opportunities for making headway against the larger and richer corporations with which he competes, severe and crushing as are the losses that fall upon him because of his inability to pay the excessive insurance rates demanded by the underwriters whose directorates are filled with the strongest competitors, it was provided in that infamous Republican ship-subsidy bill that such feeble competition should no longer be possible, and that a summary end should be put to a class of ton

nage which develops and nurtures the sturdiest seamen, the very flower of courage and skill, most useful as men-of-warsmen, the most valuable indeed, the priceless-resource of the navy in time of need! Thus, instead of the mercantile marine being the nursery of our armed navy, the American sailor was to be smothered in his cradle.

The Democratic party is pledged to restore American shipping, but not by the exotic and corrupting assistance of the national treasury, not by one-sided subsidies and bounties, not by expedients which rob the many for the benefit of the few.

EQUAL PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD.

In April, 1902, the following resolution, introduced by Representative Goldfogle, of New York, a Democrat, was passed by the House of Representatives:

Resolved by the House of Representatives of the United States, That the Secretary of State be, and he hereby is, respectfully requested to inform this House whether American citizens of the Jewish religious faith, holding passports issued by this Government, are barred or excluded from entering the territory of the Empire of Russia, and whether the Russian Government has made or is making any discrimination between citizens of the United States of different religious faiths or persuasions, visiting or attempting to visit Russia, provided with American passports; and whether the Russian Government has made regulations restricting or specially applying to American citizens, whether native or naturalized, of the Jewish religious denomination holding United States passports, and if so, to report the facts in relation thereto, and what action concerning such exclusion, discrimination, or restriction, if any, has been taken by any Department of the Government of the United States.

Replying to the inquiry embodied in the Resolution, Secretary Hay, in substance admitted that passports held by American Israelites were refused recognition by the Russian Government.

In July, 1902, President Roosevelt was again urged to take some action through the diplomatic channels towards effecting a change of Russia's attitude towards Jewish American citizens presenting the American passport; yet the Administration took no steps to correct the abuse.

On April 21, 1904, the House of Representatives passed a further Resolution, as follows:

That the President be requested to renew negotiations with the governments of countries where discrimination is made between American citizens on the ground of religious faith or belief to secure by treaty or otherwise uniformity of treatment and protection to American citizens holding passports duly issued by the authorities of the United States, in order that all American citizens shall have equal freedom of travel and sojourn in those countries, without regard to race, creed, or religious faith.