Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1887 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The Senate Committee on Printing, by a vote of two to one, has decided to report adversely the nomination of Public Printer Benedict, and he will probably be rejected. The fight against him, says a Washington special, has been made by the Typographical Union through its local representatives, and the objections advanced have been many. Mr. Benedict is not a practical printer in the meaning of the law, which requires that the man at the head of this great institution shall be one. He has been the publisher of a country newspaper, but never learned tho' trade and never worked at it, although in his business he has picked up a general knowledge of the art. He is not a member of the union. He has not recognized the union in the management of the office, and has got the whole labor element down on him because of some petty indiscretions. He has appointed to positions under h m as many as thirty persons from the town where he lived when he iot this office, a little village in New York, and has dismissed old and influential members of the union to give them places. He has had the big-head to an unlimited extent, and, coming from a little country weekly newspaper office to be the manager of the biggest printing institution in the world, he has an idea that he is as great a man as the President of the United States. He has treated the Senators like ordinary applicants for office, and they do not relish such conduct after the deferential manners of Rounds and hie staff. Another mistake Benedict has made is to attribute all the bad management at the printing office to the condition in which things were left by his predecessor. It could not be expected that a new man would come in and get on without friction, and complaint was natural, but Benedict tells every one, and wrote a letter to Congress, charging all the blame to Rounds, and the latter has a good many friends in the Senate, who have resented this sort of scapegoat business, and they are for rejection. The conferrees representing the Senate and the House have finally reached an agreement concerning the pending bill for the suppression of polygamy in Utah, says a Washington dispatch. The bill passed by the Senate provided that the Mormon Church should be governed by trustees appointed by the President That was an unwise provision, and in conference it has been • rejected. The requirement that all marriages in Utah shall be matters of public and official record will assist prosecutors in the performance of their duty. The most important paragraphs of the bill as it now stands are those which repeal the charters of the Mormon Church and the Mormon Immigration Society, and instruct the Attorney General to proceed in the courts for the recovery of all the church property which was not acquired in accordance with the laws of the 'United States. Section 1890 of the Revised Statutes is as follows: “No corporation or association for religious or charitable purposes shall acquire or hold real estate in any Territory during the existence of the Territorial Government of a greater value than $50,000; and all real estate acquired or held by such corporation or associat on contrary hereto shad be forfeited and escheat to the United States. ”

The first pension to a survivor of the Mexican war, under the recent law, was granted to Senator Williams, of Kentucky. The Secretary of the Interior, in recommending the establishment of an additional pension agency, in view of the passage of tho Mexican bill, points te New Orleans as the most suitable location. Vice Consul George H. Murphy will succeed Mr. George C. Tanner as United States Consul at Chemnitz, the latter’s resignation having been accepted by the President.