Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1900 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

From Our Regular Correspondent; The entire administration, from the President down, is playing partisan politics for all it knows how, and the public business is getting on in any way it can. The White House has been turned into a political headquarters with the President filling the duties of Lieutenant to Boss Hanna. Anything to keep the republicans in power is the basis of all the White House consultations and conferences. That even single votes are not being overlooked was shown by the official order sent from Washington for the immediate dismissal of a woman clerk in the Indianapolis Post Office, who got married the other day, and the appointment of a voter in her place. Besides the political work that members of theadmisistration are doing in Washington, the following prominent officials, and this is only a partial list, are on the stump for McKinley, with salaries being paid by the tax-' payers while their official work is being neglected: Postmaster General Smith, Secretary Wilson 'Secretary Gage, Attorney General Griggs, Solicitor General Richards, Third Assistant Postmaster General Madden, Fourth Assistant Postmaster General Bristow, "Assistant Secretary Meiklejohn, Commissioner of Pensions, Javans, and Director of the Mint, Roberts. In addition to these there is an army of smaller officials in the field of speaking or pulling wires to influence voters, and the people are footing all the bills. Republican speakersand writers arc Trot likely to exploit the return for the month of September from the post offices of the fifty largest cities'in the country, just received and tabulated, to prove the increasing prosperity of the country, for the simple reason that fourteen out of the fifty shows smaller receipts than they had in September of the last year, indicating that the pinnacle .of the temporary, prosperity made by the war with Spain, big crops, and other conditions which put money in circulation, has been passed and that the business of the country is now on the downgrade, as democrats have predicted it would be as soon as the natural reaction set in. Senator Wellington passed through Washington on his return from a speaking tour in the West and Northwest. In reply to questions as to the campaign outlook, he said: “In my judgment. Bryan will be elected. I think the Middle West will go for him, and that when the electoral college is polled he will get the necessary number of votes. I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Bryan will carry Maryland. The sentiment in the state, and I have sounded it thoroughly, is greatly in favor of the democratic candidate. There are hundreds and hundreds of old-time republicans who will leave the party and vote the democratic ticket. On the other hand there will be a handful of democrats who will fail to stand by their party’s nominee. I think that Bryan's majority in my native state will be anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000.” More government clerks will go home to vote this year, than have done so since the days when Zach Chandler bo«sed the republican machine and made them do as he pleased. Clerks will register and vote who have not done so for twenty years or more. Every government clerk residing in a state considered always close has received a circular letter from the republican bosses of his state, telling him that if ho fails to register and vote, his name will be handed to the republican state committee, which is merely another way of telling him that if he fails to vote, he will lose his job. The heads of the government departmens are doing their part to help along the exodus of voters, at the expense of the taxpayers of the country by allowing it to be known that the clerks will be paid for the time lost in going home to register and vote, and will not have the time deducted from their annual leave. The starting of Hanna upon a stumping tour of the Northwest shows who is bossing the campaign, as it is well known that Mr. McKinley did all be could to stop the speech-making of Hanna, because of his knowledge that it was hurting him badly. Late advices from Illinois put that state in the sure democratic column. A poll of the state completed by the democrats several days ago, giv *8 Bryan a majority of from 2U,(XX) lo 30,000 outside the city of Chicago, which has l>een practically conceded to the democrats by the republicans from the begining of the campaign. When it was telegraphed to Washington a few days ago, that Teddy had, in a speech at Milwaukee made the promise that the

war tax on beer would be repealed by the republican Congress at the coming session, it was thought that he had been talking merely to make votes among the brewing interests of that locality, but it is now almost certainly know that he he spoke by the card, and that Boss Hanna has made a dicker with big brewers, whereby in return for big campaign contributions and their influence, he promised that the beer tax would be repealed at the next session of Congress. Teddy’s only break was in publicly stating what he would probably have preferred being kept quiet until after election.