Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1903 — IN GENERAL. [ARTICLE]

IN GENERAL.

Pedro Anlvarado, a multimillionaire of Mexico, has offered to contribute $50.000,000 for the payment of the national debt. / Presklentr Palma of Cuba has signed the soldiers’ pay loan bill, which authorizes the issue of bonds to the amount of $35,000,000. President Roosevelt sent a special message to Congress Friday asking passage of bill reducing tariff on Philippine products nnd quoting Gov. Taft as to grave need of islanders for such relief. Speaker Henderson has withdrawn from the firm of Henderson, Hurd, Lcnehan & Keisel at Dubuque, lowa, of which he has been a member for twentytwo years, and, it is said, will join the New York law firm of which Thomas B. Reed was a member. “I am not a polygamist. I have been married only once and my wife and six children are in Utah at the present time. The statement that I have contracted a polygamist marriage is absolutely and unqualifiedly false.” So said Senator-elect Smoot in an interview. Tho United States gunboat Isle de Luzon, which went aground near the mouth of the Mobile river during a dense fog, has been floated. Her officers report that no damage as far as they know was sustained by the vessel, but a thorough examination will be made. The National Tube Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, will expend $9,000,000 on its fourteen plants. Plants at Lorain, Ohio; Benwood, near Wheeling, W. Va.; McKeesport, Pa., and also other plants in Pittsburg will be enlarged. Sharon mill will be dismantled. Passengers arriving in New Orleans oil the steamer Breakwater brought the first news of a desperate battle fought in Honduras between the government troops and insurgents under Lee Christmas, an American. Tho battle was fought at Mani, two days’ journey from Tcgucigalpo, the capital. Of 200 men under Christmas, sixty were killed and 100 wounded. M. Jusserand, the French ambassador, nnd Herbert W. Bowen, the Venezuelan plenipotentiary, have signed a protocol for tlie settlement of the French claims against Venezuela by a joint commission to meet at Caracas and for the reference to The Hague tribunal of the contention of the allied powers for preferential treatment in the satisfaction of their demands. It has become pretty well known throughout interested circles in St. Paul that Wm. R.Merriam, director of the United States census, will before many days tender his resignation to President Roosevelt and ask that it take effect at once. Mr. Merrinm Jias accepted a position with an international credit concern of great magnitude and will make his headquarters .in New Yurk. Nicaraguan forces under the command of Gen. Vasquez, sent to help President Sierra of Honduras to cope with the revolution begun by Senor Bonilla, hare occupied Cholutoca City, sixty-eight miles south of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Gen. Ortiz, with Salvador troops, has invaded Honduras to assist Bonilla. Bonilla himself has occupied tho town of Ocotopec, fifty miles north of San Salvador, and is now advancing towards San Antonio del Norte.