Resigned President

Long ago the Senate's day-to-day ploddings through the Tariff Bill ceased to be newsworthy. For five months the coalition of Democrats and Progressive Republicans has been painstakingly revising downward industrial rates set by the House and by the Senate Finance Committee.* Last week the Tariff got back into headlines, not because of any startling new developments, but because of the lack of them. A great juggling match of political blame-fixing for the delay ensued. Once more the position of President Hoover, who last November "hoped" the Senate would pass the bill in a fortnight became a major conundrum.

The mainspring of last week's tariff upheaval was the Congressional elections in November and the shadow they cast across Republican success. The Senate's long tariff siege was frankly harmful to G. 0. Politics. In sharp contrast to the first year of Woodrow W'ilson, the Hoover record on which its supporters must stand in the campaign is blank, except for Farm Relief, still largely experimental. Unless the monster tariff can be got out of the way Congress is likely to adjourn in June with little else accomplished. Old Guard leadership is shattered. Where the President stands on tariff rates is anybody's guess. The House has lost interest in piling up legislation it knows the Senate can never touch.

Such was the situation last week when Connecticut's Representative Tilson, House Majority Leader, went to see President Hoover. He complained of the Senate's tariff dalliance, declared: "I deplore the situation that has developed. I can't remember any time as bad as this."

Next morning President Hoover summoned Indiana's Senator Watson, Senate Majority Leader, to breakfast. They talked tariff, puzzled out vain stratagems to speed up the Senate's action. Back at the Capitol Senator Watson spoke: "The President thinks that this [tariff] legislation should be disposed of quickly in the interest of the business of the country and in order that other matters may be brought before this body for solution." Up rose Mississippi's Democratic Harrison to inquire sarcastically of Senator Watson just which rates the President favored--the high rates of the Old Guard, the medium rates of the Young Guard, the low rates of the Coalition. Senator Watson could not say, though he made a 90-minute speech because, as he said, he was "baited and taunted into it."

Agile Old Guardsmen quickly spread the impression that President Hoover held the Coalition responsible for the tariff delay. The White House cautiously bolstered up this belief by hints that the recovery of Business and Industry after the stockmarket crash was being retarded by the tariff. Every partisan effort was made to discredit the Coalition's management of the tariff bill. The Coalition's defense: The House without adequate debate had passed a tariff bill with exorbitantly high rates; the Senate had to revise the whole measure; revision with fair debate took time. Declared Senator Borah: "Time is not nearly so important as to have a good bill when it is passed."

Suddenly the situation shifted and the President was put in the odd position of favoring the Coalition's slow attempts to revise Old Guard rates downward. Pennsylvania's Senator Grundy found a news story in the Kansas City Star by "roving reporter" Edwin Pinkham which declared that the President really stood with the Coalition in its fight against the Senate's regular Republicans. Newsman Pinkham had been a recent Hoover guest. The White House, when queried, refused to deny the Pinkham story. Senator Grundy stormed around among his Old Guard colleagues, threatened to vote against any tariff bill by the Coalition. Senator Harrison, arch-twitter, expressed ironic gratitude at having the President on his side, even if the information had come from the "sidelines." House Minority Leader Garner shouted: "Not a Republican leader has the faintest glimmer of what the President really wants."

But where President Hoover stood on rates remained in official doubt. Senator Watson went to see him again, came back to announce: "Everything is satisfactory." The Senate continued to plod along in its slow accustomed fashion, cutting the duty on aluminum, raising it on cattle, letting it stand on bread, mushrooms, potatoes, lard. President Hoover waited with resigned patience for what might come.

*The Senate took four months (April to August) to consider and pass the Fordney McCumber Tariff Act in 1922.

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