Tariff Tangle Still Annoying Congress.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 29, 1912:
Little Hope for Any of the Bills Becoming Laws Except That Reducing Sugar Duties.
PENROSE PLANS A NEW COUP
May Keep Enough Regular Republicans Away to Let the Democrats Pass Their Wool Bill.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 28.— With three Tariff bills and the excise measure already in conference, Congress seems no closer to a solution of the legislative snarl than it was a month ago. This does not mean that Congress is committed to another month of tariff tinkering, but it does mean that, except for the Sugar bill, which passed the Senate yesterday, the fate of every measure involved is as much in doubt as ever. The President's references to the subject in his speech of acceptance on Thursday may point the way out, but nobody knows yet what he will say.
    It does seem almost certain that the Sugar bill in practically the form which it passed the Senate will be signed by the President. That measure is unincumbered by amendments except the general substitute in rates which the Senate supplied instead of the House drafts. But even those rates are admitted by both parties and all three factions to be lower than the existing law. In the Senate only two Democrats were against the measure. It is simply a question of days before the House, or the House managers, if it goes to conference, decide to accept the Senate substitute or something like it.
    But the situation as to the other measures is not so simple. Weeks ago the Steel bill passed the Senate, carrying with it Mr. Penrose's favorite remedy for all tariff evils — the amendment repealing Canadian reciprocity, and Imposing a duty of $2.75 a ton on print paper. As a result of that amendment the Steel bill has never even reached a formal conference, and it will not be heard of again this year.
    The wool bill is in a still more perplexing tangle. Though the Democratic and regular Republican measures on this subject had to give way to the old La Follette bill of last year, that measure faces the possibility of the sharpest bit of Republican tactics that even Mr. Penrose ever devised. This is nothing less than directing enough regulars to absent themselves from the chamber to permit the Senate Democrats, even at this late stage, to move successfully the acceptance of the House bill. Such a plan, if carried out,would at once kill that bill, as there would be no chance of the President signing it.
    But the regulars are beginning to waver in their plan of battle. Mr. La Follette has served notice that he will make a hard fight against such tactics, and though it is not apparent where he will get his strength to force things in the direction he desires, the Republican leaders in their new, awakening to the possibility of harmony on tariff matters are not anxious for a fight. They say now that it is possible a real effort will be made to adjust the differences between the two houses.
    Such a compromise would, of course leave the way open for the President to sign the La Follette bill. It could be urged for him that the conferees were guided by the Tariff Board's report on wool, even if the House committee ignored it and the Senate measure as passed was drafted a year before the report was written. But it is still uncertain that the President will accept it. Indeed, unless it seems probable that something like a wool bill conforming to some idea of the wool report can emerge from conference it is more likely that the regulars will take the bit in their teeth in the old-fashioned way and kill the whole bill by permitting the Democrats to pass their own measure.
    The Excise bill has the disadvantage of being considered in general by the President as unconstitutional. But it looks as if he will be saved from vetoing it by the Canadian amendment, which is attached to it. The House, it is thought, will pass no measure carrying that amendment, so that, with the Steel bill, the excise levy will sleep on in a nominal conference for which the conferrees never gather.