Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1904 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and Oeneral Gossip of the National Capitol. Special Correspondent to The Democrat: I called at the Congressional Democratic headquarters this morning to spy out “the lay of the land.” Senator Jones has gone to Arkansas for a fortnight, leaving Representative Cowherd of Missouri in command. Senator Gorman steps over every day or two from Maryland. Representative Vandiver was here Wednesday but he had to hurry to look after bis particular protege, Folk, whose enthusiastic approval by the people of Missouri is the talk of the day. Culbertson of Texas is here, quite unafraid of any hurricane in bis state, Houston, the single member from Delaware, elected because of a Republican split, is also at headquarters. Fitzgerald, of Brooklyn, has just been here and Broussard of Louisiana. Cowherd says there are forty close districts this year, estimating as “close” any district which would be changed by the transfer of a thousand votes. Seven of these are in Missouri. It is believed that„Folk’s run for governor will pull through all imperiled Democrats and give us at least one more member from the State. Some three or four of the doubtfuls are in Illinois, but the Republican scrimmage there will be likely to settle them.

I met Martin Emerich, Democratic representative from Chicago, yesterday. His is a close district, but he very likely will get in again, for he is Sublime Past Master, Worshipful Grand Mogul, and Royal High Priest of more fraternal socities than any other man in America. He said, with a laugh, “I am not terrified at the state of things in Springfield one bit. I shall not weep if they keep it up. Isn’t it funny, though, about Cannon? Republicans think that if they could make him run for Vice-President, Senator, Governor, and Speaker, they would carry the state.” At headquarters your correspondent ran against Col. Herbert, President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy. I .asked him what it looked like. • He said “Parker, this morning,” and he evidently measures up to the position: “A tariff so high as to be robbery has debauched the entire country. Look at the Republican clamor for ship subsidies. One would think that Jim Hill’s dismal experience as confessed by himself would be enough to put a stop to it. Haven’t the farmers of the United states a right to send their crops to foreign markets by the cheapest possible mode of conveyance? Are they criminals that they should be held up and plundered and punished?”

Secretary Shaw in his annual report to Congress last December announced that there would be a surplus of $14,000,000 iu the Treasury on July 1. It is now obvious that the Secretary was dreaming about what ought to be, instead of declaring what would be. At any rate, he got within sixty-six million dollars of it, for ft seems certain that the deficit will be fifty-two million dollars. The receipts have fallen off sevenmillion dollars in a year and the expenditures for ordinary purposes have increased about twentytwo million dollars. Including the Panama and St. Louis expenditures. the disbursements are seventy-five million dollars more than a year ago. In other words, the nation is heavily in debt, and is going down hill at a smart pace. When the Democrats inaugurate their President next March the outset party will of course shout: “We have handed to you an overflowing treasury, and now you are squandering the nation’s wealth and bringing on hard times.” If every voter will stick this paragraph in his hat, he will be able to show in a moment which party it is that under the bewildering boast of “Prosperity!” has dragged the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.

Some very lively word-slinging is being indulged in by R. H. Pratt, Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian school, and W. J. McGee, the chief American ethnologist of the country apd now in charge of Indian affairs at St. Louis. Pratt says (virtually) that ethnologists are doing all they can to keep Indians wild and savage. McGee retorts, “I brand your statement as wholly false and deem you a pusillanimous slanderer.” Pratt rejoins that McGee is “petulant and puerile” and then he sneers at ethnologists’ “alleged discoverys of alleged hindering, indurated complexities of Indian life.” If the learned combatants

, , ? r, continue to hurl these elaborate and obtruse neologisms at each other, Sagamore Platt may have to go into the Indian hospital for daodolion incurables and lir. Anita Newcomb McGee return from the siege of Port Arthur to nurse the stricken member of her family. The missiles may not stick, however; it is certain that they will not stick as adhesively as if composed of the fuscous compound which the Geological Survey,. in one of its inspired moments, has alluded to as “that finely comminuted and thoroughly lixiviated substance which is called mod.”

A Panama Canal is an expensive luxury. The plates are now being prepared at the Printing and Engraving Bureau of the vTreasury Department for the ilsue of Panama Canal bonds amounting to $130,000,000 authorized by Congress. They will bear the protrait of the late Senator Hanna in grateful recognition of his service in getting the canal treaty through, and of his method of getting into the Senate. When Congress meets again the Secretary will ask that they be rendered untaxable and be called “consols” —this last, of course, being a delicate to adyism—refined incense at the foot of the British throne. These bonds are not to be issued immediately; the Secretary only wants the plates ready to pass when it is necessary to take up the collection.

Jus'l before the Supreme Court dissolved for the summer it decided the case of Dorr and O’Brien of Manila. They were convicted and sentenced for libel and were denied the right of a jury trial, though they were American born and reared. Five of th 6 court confirmed that verdict; four opposed it. Justice Harlan held that the Philippines were part of the United States; that the Constitution extended to those islands, and that the right of a jury trial was a fundamental right and could not be taken away by Congress. He declared that an amendment of the Constitution by the Supreme Court was a most dangerous step, leading to unseen perils.