Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1886 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The majority of the House Committee on Elections has decided to reject the claims of Frank H. Hurd to the seat from Ohio now held by Romeis. Solicitor General Goode testified before the Pan-Electric Investigating Committee at Washington, on cross-examination, that he was not aware of using any undue or unusual haste in ordering the suit against the Bell Company. If he had known of the Attorney General’s connection with the Pan-Electric Company, and an application for a suit had

been made, his action would have.been the same as it was. When asked if it had not occurred to him that it was late in the day to charge fraud against the Bell patents, witness replied: “No; and I want to say further that I did not know that the Bell Company was hedged about with such divinity that it could not be brought into court like other companies. There is one point I desire to make clear, and that is that the Attorney General had no more to do with the institution of this suit than any member of the committee.” Witness admitted that fie could not recall a single case where a patent suit had been ordered without reference of the papers to the Interior Department, but the practice, he said, was merely one of courtesy. The witness said he had directed the discontinuance of the Memphis suit because he knew it would be agreeable to the President The House Committee on Coinage has voted to report favorably a bill for the establishment of a sub-treasury at Louisville. The Secretary of the Interior has revoked the order of Commissioner Sparks of the General Land Office of April 3, 1885, suspending final action upon entries upon the public lands. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Commissioner of Railroads, testified before the Telephone Investigating Committee that the idea of using official influence to further the interests of the company had never been thought of by his associates. He had never heard until now that Senators Garland and Harris had written professional opinions touching flic validity of the patents. He saw now that the opinions of the associates as to the value of the Rogers patent were highly extravagant. Witness remembered that a suit before Judge Baxter was not regarded as particularly advisable, because he was said to bo hostile and antagonistic to Senator Harris. The office of Public Printer, now filled by 8. P. Rounds of Illinois, has been more eagerly sought by Democrats than any other one place in Washington. Mr. Rounds’ four years’ term expires this month. To a Congressman who was pressing a friend the other day, says a Washington dispatch, the President impatiently announced that he had about made up his mind to make no change in the Government Printing Office until after the adjournment of Congress. “I know that Mr Rounds’ time has about expired,” said the President, “but he seems to know how to run a printing office, and I will make no experiments during the middle of a session. ” Before the House Telephone Investigating Committee Stilson Hutchins, of the Washington Post, said he had, in a spasm of generosity, offered to buy Senator Vest’s PanElectric stock at what he paid for it. The latter finally declined to sell, as he considered the newspaper claim unjust, and would not yield to it. Witness had been offered some of the stock to publish Dr. Rogers’ poetry, but thought both the poetry and stock bad. The rupture between Secretary Lamar and Commissioner Sparks is said to bo so complete that one or the other must go.