Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1904 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and deneral Gossip of the National Capitol. Special Correspondence to The Democrat: To a resident of the national oapitol an end seems to have come to all partisian activity. The city has no caucuses,no conventions,no partisan harangues, no beseech, ments to rally register no partisan newspaper, and no pratriotism, for the few clerks who have retained the privilege of voting in the states they came from are cautiously waiting to see which side wins before announcing their allegiance. The work of the Congressional committees goes swiftly and silently on; some scores of girls are busily addressing documents and mule teams are every day dragging to the postoffice four or five tons of franked stuff —information, allegation, and protestation. Congressman Cowherd is back again from New York This remark can be made of him three or four times a week. Your correspondent asked him yesterday what specific fact he was now endeavoring to impress upon the American people. “This week,” he answered, “the fact that the Democratic party is the party of thrift and economy. For instance, when President Arthur went out of office, March 4, 1885, he left for Cleveland a surplus of barley $63,462,770. When Cleveland went out, in March, 1889, he left for Harrison the magnificent surplus of $330,348,916. When Harrison in turn surrendered the presidency to Cleveland in 1893, he left behind him the pittance of $62,450,575. Under Harrison began the hard times, which continued during Cleveland’s second term, but so frugal and thrifty was Cleveland’s administration that it turned over to McKinley the great surplus of $157,213,632. Doesn’t that record sound very much as if the Democratic party was the. party of prosperity?” Of course your correspondent scorned to answer such a question as that and here leaves it to your readers. General William Birney remarked to your correspondent the othor day, “The most distinguished Republicans of the past generation have repudiated the principles and party of McKinley and Roosevelt. Besides John Sherman, who opposed the war on the Filipinos and was therefore persecuted on his dying bed, and Tom Reed, who resigned the second office in the gift of the American people because of his disgust with his party comrades, there remain Boutwell, Carl Schurz, and Teller, wheelhorses of the Republican party through two generations and all of them in its Cabinets, and ex-Senator Edmunds of Vermont, whom Mr. Roosevelt nominated for the presidency in 1884, who has just joined the Parker Club in New York City, and will vote the Democratic ticket, on the issues of trusts and imperialism. Isn’t it strange that these illustrious men should abandon their life-long associations unless they had the best of reasons? Then th6re’s Ben Harrison, as an ex-president he sternly opposed the Philippine policy of the United States and told McKinley to his face, ‘We hold no commission from God to police the world!’ It is now reported that general W. H. H. Miller of Harr son’s Cabinet and Hon. S. N. Chambers, Harrison’s district attorney, will vote the Democratic ticket.” Congressman Sulzer, the redheaded rustler from New York City, who has his foot in the road a good deal of the time, was here on Thursday, full of information. He Baid, “We in New York mean to have ten or twelve hard-work-ing Democrats assigned to each of the 5,000 election districts in

the state —a force of 50,000. About 9200 will be expended on an average by each, for printing, meetings, carriages, etc. They wiH take two careful canvasses costing probably a million dollars. By the first week in November they will have their lessons by heart. We never had so thorough an organization as we have this year, and the first canvass of the state above the Bronx is about finished. t t t A fraud order has been issued by the Attorney General barring W. M. Farr of this city from the use of the mails in connection with his alleged colleges and universities and their “diplomas.” General Goodwin says its pretencces and promises are “a tissue of falsehood.” Why does not the Postmaster-General tackle that institution in Niles, Mich, which offers diplomas and degrees to men who have never studied medicine or surgery, guaranteed that they are competent to practice those professions and reccomends such quacks to all whom it may concern?” Yet it may be possible to carry this supervisory business too far. Wiley’s chemical laboratory for testing imported food products may possibly do some good by menacing people who transport impure food, and cannot do much harm. But if the government is to issue fraud orders against all the newspapers that advertise medicine “with no curative power,” what will the end be? Will it test every alleged medicine and guaranf.ee to the purchaser the excellence of those which it thinks is good? “The Department intends to-issue fraud orders against all remedies that are shown by analysis made by government chemists to contain harmful ingredients or ingredients that have no medicinal value in the complaints for which they are designed and sold.” Such inspection would require a force larger than the entire army and navy of the United States. t t t Congressman J. Adam Bede of Duluth, is now galloping through the United States expressing himself on every eligible stump. Fifteen years ago he was a reporter in this city, and a very lively boy he was, He followed his business to the west and came to Congress from the Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas as a Democrat. Then he indulged in a sober second thought and came as a Republican. A sentence of his speech the other day at Chautauqua was, “The first thing Democrats need to do is to get right with God.” No auditor ought to mention or even remember the fact that it did not occur to Adam Bede to get right with God till after the Democratic party had refused to re-elect him.