Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1905 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. Special Correspondence to The Democrat: It looks very much as though the stand-patters were going to be forced at the coming session of Congress to take their front feet out of the trough and consent to a scaling down of tariff duties in line with the sentiment of countries that have to do business with the United States and with the citizens of the United States who are suffering now from the monopolies that have grown up under protection. The wave of reciprocity has spread all over the west and the farmer with a big crop of wheat in front of him and the cattleman with steers to sell and export does not look forward with any satisfaction to a discriminating tariff against him in the German market that will put his wheat under a handicap of 47 cents a bushel as compared with seven other European countries and double the tariff against him on meat products. It is of course known that Germany has negotiated a tariff with seven other countries in Europe containing the most favored nation clause and that she had denounced the treaty with us which will expire in consequence in March, 1906. Of course Germany has a right to frame her tariff to suit herself, just as we have, but it is one thing for us to exercise that right and another to find it exercised against us by Germany. It is just possible that this situation along with the Chinese boycott of American goods which cuts us off from two big export markets, may have some effect on the high protectionists who have turned down several very decent reciprocity treaties that have been sent them by the State Department. The President has said, so it is reported, that he would send no more reciprocity treaties to the Senate till something happened to shake them out of their self complacency that had led to the rejection of the previous treaties. It looks very much as though the time at hand when he could make this move, and the chances are that he will do it. t t t _ln the meantime China is protesting that she does not know what a boycott is and that there is no protest against goods in China. The advices to the State Department tell a different story entirely. The boycott against American goods which started in Shanghai is spreading rapidly and the government could do nothing to control it if it wanted to, which is very doubtful. It is on the other hand using the panic which has been thrown into American exporters to force the framing of a new treaty that will put the imigration of Chinamen to this country on a very much more liberal basis.

11 t At the same time the Treasury Department has just received news from Buffalo or a most important capture of smuggled Chinese near that point. It has known for years that Chinese were run across the lake and landed near Buffalo, that being one of the favorite points for that sort of illicit traffic. But last Saturday night it caught the smuggler, redhanded in the act and not only will the crew of Chinese and Roumanians that he was smuggling be turned back but his boats and launch were confiscated and there is a long term in prison staring him in the face. The Chinese goverment has declared that the stories of Chinese smuggling across the border were fictions and the only Chinamen entering this country were those coming through the regular ports and that these were subjected to great indignities. It is just possible that the present capture will have something to do with the attitude of this goverment when asked to sign a treaty providing for the freer admission of Chinese to the ports on the Pacific slope. t + t There has been a good deal of rumpus over the Weather Bureau of late and stories of corruption and grafting were current, on a par with those circulated about the Agriculture Department and the Geological Survey. Chief Moore of the Weather Bureau has issued a statement denying the existence of any irregularities in his department and inviting an inspection of the books by any “reputable parties,’’ Of course Chief Moore would be the judge as to the reputability of the parties and it is not known just how far the books would really be thrown open. But he states that he has not employed labor at excessive prices at the Mt. Weather observatories in the Blue Ridge

and also that this observatory was not luxuriously fitted up as a summer resort for the officials of his bureau. He says that he has paid more than the market rate for labor about the observatory and that he is proud of having disturbed the local labor market, that the prevailing prices are too low. Whatever this statement is worth Mr. Moore is certainly entitled to the full distribution of it, for it is frank in the extreme, t t t The Postoffice Department having gotten through for a time at least with the grafters inside its doors, is now trying to deal with the outside grafters who have been making money out of raising postal money orders. Of course the goverment is not likely to lose directly by this process as the orders are written in carbon duplicate and the carbon copy is sent to the paying postmaster who compares it with the money order presented before handing out the coin called for. It seems, however, that a good many storekeepers have been rather lax in the cashing of money orders, for strangers and there have been a good many cases of orders for twenty-five and fifty cents that have been raised to a corresponding number of dollars. These have been cashed by unsupecting store and saloon keepers and the grafters have gotten off with the difference. Now Postmaster General Cortelyou has devised a punched out money order like a bank check that is hoped will defy the raisers and will leave the graft, if there is any, inside the department with the men who sell the machines for punching the orders.