Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1899 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

(From oar recnhrconaixndnL) A bomb was exploded in administration circles Ivy a prominent New York republican who came to Washington for the purpose, when it was announced that Gov. “Teddy” Roosevelt was in the field for the republican Presidential nomination, next year, and that there was an understanding between ‘Teddy” and Gen. Miles, who has been credited with entertaining a similar ambition himself. Some of Mr. McKinley's friends appear to think that he is bound to be renominated and re-elected, bat those of them who are long-headed and who have had experience in politics, do not look at things that way; they know that both Roosevelt and Miles have qualities which are calculated to arouse the enthusiasm and support of the yonng men in their party, and that with good management a combination of their following might give the Hanna-McKinley machine a hard fight, if not an actual throwdown. If this announcement is straight, Boss Platt must have failed in his efforts to keep “Teddy” off the McKinley track. With all Czar Reed’s faults, and he has enough and to spare, he has never been a sneaky fighter, which is more than can be said for the administration crowd, which is afraid to come oat in the open and try to defeat Reed for the Speakership, but is engaged in trying to bluff him into not being a candidate, by stating that the administration has determined to throw its influence for Reed, bnt with the express understanding that the rules of the next House shall be changed so as to cat oat all the Czar business. The idea is that Reed would not care to be speaker, if he is to be shorn of the autocratic power he has weilded. This is on a par with the talk which has at times been heard ever since Reed first became Speaker, about republicans who were going t° unite with the democrats to change the rules and curtail the power of the Speaker. They never did so. and if the republicans elect Reed Speaker of the House again, as they will almost surely do, he will be the same old Czar. *** It has been brought out in the testimony before the Military Court of Inquiry that Gen. Eagan told a Boston Contractor, and a Texas cattle-raiser who had in a bid for furnishing beef on the hoof, that Secretary Alger had practically ordered him to try the refrigerated beef, which Swift A Co. | claimed to have a secret process of | preserving, as an experiment. The 1 longer the Court sits, the worse! things look for the Alger-Eagan j crowd, and Maj. Lee who is representing Gen. Miles says he has already been fully proven to have been bad, the court may decide that it is unnecessary to hear all 1 these witnesses. Mr. McKinley has apparently at last become aroused to the danger, to his own political fortunes, of retaining Alger in his Cabinet, and, unless all the political “wise men” are at fault, the “Ex” is hot on the trail of Alger and cannot fail to catch up with him very soon. It has been, these men say, fully determined by Boss Hanna and the other directors of the administration machine that Alger must go. They prefer that he should do so willingly, but if he declines to tender his resignation without being requested by Mr. McKinley to do so, Mr. McKinley will make that request. From a strictly selfish point of view, democrats would prefer that Mr. McKinley should keep Alger in the Cabinet, for then it would be impossible for the administration to deny responsibility for Algerism and all its horrors, but democrats are too patriotic to wish to see a nan filling the responsible office of Secretary of War, who deserves to be kicked out. just to make political capital for their party; they wish, above everything else, to see the affairs of the government properly administered, and know that they will not be in the War Department, as long as Alger is at its head.

A group of army officers were discussing the cost and results of the campaign of Gen. Otis against the Filipinos, which has just closed with the taking of Aguinaldo’s capital, and the driving of him and his army into the interior, when one of them said: “For my part, I don’t think the game worth the candle. After a considerable loss of life, we have the Philippine insurgents just where the Spaniards had them. That is, we have possession of the coast and all of Hie towns and they are in the interior. It is true, that if we start after them, our pursuit will be very different from that of the Spaniards, and that in the end American grit is bound Id win, and we

shall succeed in killing, capturing or subduing them all, but it will be no picnic I assure you, and I know what the conn try is; we shall pay dear—far too dear I think—for our triumph over them.”

* * * The Cubans who came to Washington to present to the Administration resolutions adopted by the Cuban Assembly, left town in disgust when informed by Secretary Hay that Mr. McKinley would not receive them, and that no more money would be put up than the $8,000,000 promised Gen. Gomez, and that the Assembly would not be allowed to issne bonds for the purpose of raising money. There is a trick concealed in this bond business that nobody has succeeded in getting entirely to the bottom of. There are also some millions of dollars in it, if the administration can be roped into giving an official consent. Although this consent has just been refused and not for the first time, the schemers have not given up and are still at work and hopeful of success.