Home-rule from Abilene, Kansas • 1

mb---. smumj.mn II Ill llll IHl frw I ImQ) HI $1.00 PER YEAR VOLUME I NUMBER 2 ABILENE, KANSAS, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1907 ij J. Apprehension Felt: "Don't you think there ought to be another war In the Philippines or Cuba soon, and let little Willie go over?" MY CASE AND THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY OF INTERESTS" BY J. R. BURTON INTRODUCTION.

5n the first session of Congress, after Mr. Roose- became President I mortally offended him, be- use I refused to support a bill that was tendered were on the brink of commercial ruin. It will be remembered that the principal production of the island is raw sugar, and hence a reduction of duties practical meant a reduction of the tariff on raw sugar. I believed that we had done enough for Cuba, but if we were to extend that island further aid, I knew that the bill would not, and was not intended or expected, to help Cuba. Again t' knew, as all Senators did, that the island the Senate Republican caucus by the Committee Ai the Relations with Cuba.

This bill, in the shape which the Senate committee offered it to us, was measure was a blow at beet sugar, and that it would pour millions into the overflowing coffers of the sugar trust, that it would not, and was not, intended to help Cuba, that it was conceived in falsehood and supported in hypocrisy, I refused to support the measure. For this President Roosevelt never forgave me. There was another matter that came up about this time that widened the breech between us. The President had written a long, wordy finding, in which he tried to make it appear that Admiral Schley was not in command at the battle of Santiago. Indeed, he goes further, and attempts to show that the admiral, if not a coward, acted with indecision in the presence of the enemy's fleet, and that he is hot entitled to any credit for the very brilliant feat of arms of our navy on that memorable day.

I could not agree with the President. I tnought Schley was in command in that battle, and, as he must (have borne the censure of failure had the fortunes of war been against us, he was entitled to credit for victory. If Schley was not in command, then we had the fleet in front an enemy that might attack at any moment, without a commander. Such a thing seemed absurd to me. Besides, Schley's ship got in the way of the bullets from Cervera's guns; his ship was the center of the enemy's fire, and Schley was fighting from the beginning to the end of the battle.

I really thought, and still think, t-at Schley was in that fight. That had made but little difference what I thought had I kept still, but I voiced my simply a twenty per cent reduction of the tariff rates between Cuba and the United States. As it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate, It containd a provision, repealing what was known as the differential duty on refined sugar. in common with other Senators, who opposed the measure, as it was presented to us by the commit- did not need help; that it was prosperous beyond anything had ever experienced in its history; that the ories of distress in Cuba, published throughout the United States, were pure fabrications, put forward to cover the designs of the sugar trust. I knew that the sugar trust, and not the Cubans, would get substantially all the benefit of all the tariff reduction that was made.

I knew that beet sugar was an infant industry an agricultural infant industry that was growing rapidly under the protection of the Dingley tariff law. I knew that its phenomenal development since the passage of the Dingley bill made it certain, if not checked or retarded, that by 190S we should be producing enough sugar from the beet for our home consumption. This, of course, would destroy the sugar trust. Knowing, as I did, that the proposed offered to support the bill if it was reported in the same shape as it had passed the House. That was not satisfactory to the sugar trust, and hence the legislation faiUd for the session.

The bill was an administration measure, and it sailed under the hypocritical colors of "Cuban Reciprocity." The real purpose of the proposed legislation was to make a gift of millions of dollars to the "American Sugar Refining Company," commonly called the "sugar trust," and to retard the develop-Ji went of the beet sugar industry. The alleged pur- pose was to help the Cubans, who, it was claimed, I.