Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1904 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General (Jossip of the National Capital. It that tbe absence of forty members of the Senate and House at the funerrl of Mr. Hanna in Cleveland would result in a semi paralysis of Congress, or at least in confining its discussions and business to pension bills and other personal claims what the abbatoir men would call the “bi-products” of legislation. But matters were very lively notwithstanding tbe important hegira. Before the funeral train reached Ohio the Panama canal question was tip again in the Senate and Mr. Spooner had the gratification of hearing his own voice for three Or four more hours, and insisting, against the declaration of the most skillful engineers of the world, that the Panama route was better than the Nicaragua. Senator Morgan dipped into bis inexhaustible tank of information and vastly puzzled and embarrassed the Wisconsin man with questions which he could not answer. In the House, discussion centered on the fortifications bill. John Sharp Williams, Democratic leader, asked that such a fundamental measure as the fortification of the Philippine Island be postponed till the Republicans should decide what was to be the future of that archipelago. The bill passed, however. t t t Two special trains went to Clevland at the expense of the government to participate in Mr. Hanna’s funeral. In the first went his family and personal friends, some thirty or forty escorting the body. The second carried eleven members of the Senate with their clerk personal servants and the Senate barber, and thirty Congressmen and their clerks and messengers. All of the trains were Pullman sleepers and they were all fitted up with buffet cars provisioned abundantly at the expense of the government. The cars which carried the Senators was divided into ten large staterooms extending from side to side and one Senator was assigned to each. Everything that men desire to eat or to drink was provided free in unlimited quanities. The Speaker of the House selected the funeral committee of Representatives. Mr. Frye, of Maine, President pro tempore of the Senate, designated the Senators who were to have the pleasure of a free trip to the Ohio metropolis. He took two Senators each * from Maine, Rhode Island and Indiana; Massachusetts was slighted, much to the disgust or Senator Lodge; Illinois had no representative, and Senator Cullom remonstrated Several Representatives and at least one Senator were so anxious to go and stand by the bier of Senator Hanna that they were finally included ou their personal request, so that the dead statesmen has received all the official tears to which he was entitled. These committees are made up of generally sober men, so that no scandal is likely to lesult except the scandal of paying out SIO,OOO or $12,000 of government money for an excursion and parade when a committee composed of one member from each house would have been ample. Is this abuse never to end? t t t A Washington spectacle which excites both envy and admiration is that of a young fellow perhaps not thirty years old, acting as private secretary to a big Secretary who is a, member of the Cabinet. This specimen of the jeunesse

doree has a salary of $2,500, en-< joys the luxury of a magnificent private office, has his own stenographer and sumptous typewriter, comes mostly from Ohio, aud “has, at his behest, and at the expense*of Uncle Sera, a smart hors# and carriage costing SI,OOO, which he c-ouid not keep at less than S6O a month, and a coachman who is on the government pay-roll., t t t Mrs. Roosevelt’s transformatioa of the White House seems to be a failure. It cost $500,000 and ths walls of the annex already, in less than two years, show large fissures, and evident signs of disintegration. In one place the plaster has cracked frdrn floor to ceiling. The ugly little box built for ths Executive office, which cost $63,000 when the White House was “renovated,” is now obviously crumbling away and will probably have to bo torn down within tws or three years. t t t One of the most interesting and valuable sections of the exhibit which the Fish Commission is this city will make at St Louis, consists of tha food products now manufactured from fishes collected from all parts of the world. Every part of a fish is now utilized for food, for oils for glues, for ths arts aud sciences and for fertilization. The exhibit will be larger than that at Chicago and with much finer aquaria. Some of these will be for salt-water fish, the sea water being brought from the Atlantic in tank cars.