Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1919 — WASHINGTON NEWS IN BRIEF [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NEWS IN BRIEF

Washington, D. C., Oct. 7. With the government facing a deficit this fiscal year estimated at from $2,000,000,000 to $3,5Q0,000,000, republican leaders in congress have abandoned their program for the reduction of taxation and are casting about for means of meeting prospective expenditures of more than $10,000,000,000, the estimated revenue /being little more than $7,000,000,000. Repeal of the soda fountain, movie and other luxury taxes has been halted. —o— Industrial conference adopts set rules designed to hoad off—exr tremists of the “left wing” in all groups —from wasting time with projects unlikely to make headway. Its purpose is to keep sessions from being flooded with panaceas and from “developing into a debating society,” with enough material to keep it talking until the Fourth of July. John Spargo, exs-ocialist, protests it prevents “individual constructive thinking.” Secretary Franklin K, Lane is made permanent chairman.

Senator Hitchcock, of Nebraska, stirred up a hornet’s nest in the senate when he sought tq link treaty opponents with bolshevists, and he was, in turn, stung by a counter charge of pro-Germanism in the early days of the war by Senator Poindexter, of Washington. Senator McCormick, of Illinois, submitted to the senate protests from Chicago ministers against the league of nations propaganda. —o — Gen. Sibert, chief of the chemical welfare service of the army, urged the house military committee to make provision in army reorganization for retention of the gas service, maintaining that it is of the utmost importance as a permanent department. He attacked the war department bill as putting too much power in the general staff and his criticism drew from Representative McKenzie, of Illinois, the assertion that “the day is not far off when we are going to hold funeral services over the general staff till.”