Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1905 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. Special Correspondence to The Democrat: The attorney General has come out with an official statement, of which it is very hard for the anxious layman to make anything at all, regarding the pending cases of the Beef Trust before the Chicago District Court. It seems that the beef defendants in entering their pleas in bar have accused the commissioner of Corporations of entering into cahoots, (that is not exactly the way the Attorney General expresses it but that seems to be the meaning) with the Department of Justice and making improper use of the information that he obtained as Commissioner of Corporations in order to secure indictments from the grand jury. This improper action the Attorney General emphatically denies and says that he will urge the cases for a speedy hearing. That is the best and most understandable news contained in the whole statement. The farmers of the cattle country who found their beefs selling for four and a half cents on the hoof while porter-house steaks were bringing thirty cents a pound in the stores, will not care particularly about the technical details of the case. But they would like to see someone sent to jail by the same token. If the Attorney General will just press the cases and get a few convictions, the farmers who suffered will probably excuse him from elucidating his official statement. They will also have the entire sympathy of the consumers who had to pay famine prices for beef while the farmers were being assured by the buyers in Chicago that it was a drug on the market. t t t It is now announced that two Congressmen have been caught in the Schuylkill Arsenal frauds. None of the details of the case have been made public, but a report has been filed with the War Department and the names of the Congressmen probably will come out when indictments are secured, unless they have pull enough to keep their names from going before the grand jury. It will be remembered that the Schuylkill Arsenal frauds were turned up last spring. It was found that a number of the contractors for clothing and the like has been working off inferior goods on the government and paying the inspectors to say nothing about it. Now it appears that two Congressmen at least were concerned in the frauds. One of the men was a manufacturer. What the other’s connection with the case was has not yet developed. t t t A very interesting letter has just been received by a prominent business man in Washington from

the Hon. Wu Ting Fang, late minister of China in Washington. It has been suggested frequently in the public prints that the wily Wu had initiated the Chinese boycott of American goods in China. This Wu denies with great earnestness. He says, however, that if his remonstrances, made while he was in the United States againt tbe enforcement of tbe Chinese exclusion act bad been heeded, the boycott, which he regrets exceedingly, would never have occurred. The letter throughout is a covert sneer at Americans and American ways, and alludes to President Roosevelt as "your good President.” The letter is in too good English, of which Wu was a thorough master, to admit a doubt that this phrase was intended for what it would be considered in diplomatic correspondence, an intentional slur. It presents the Chinese side of the boycott case very ably, and suggests that much good might be ascomplished by showing the. letter to the President or to "some of the high officials of the government.” The communication is interesting from the fact that it shows the Chinese boycott to be ns active as ever, which fact the latest advices to the State Department have amply admitted. It shows also that the Chinese officials do not think that the boycott is working fast enough and that they are anxious to do everything in their power to break down the bars of exclusion which the President has already lowered as far as he properly can, considering law and prejudice. t tt Speaker Cannon, of the next House, has issued a definition on the subject of tariff legislation. He stated after his visit to the White House Friday that he did not propose to “have the country held up by the tail during the coming winter.” He seemed tolerably well satisfied over his talk with the President and this was taken to mean by some of his hearers that there will be no mention of tariff revision in the coming message of the President to Congress. This does not mean that there may not be a special message sent in later on the subject of tariff revision, but the feeling in general is that the President intends to make his first and strongest fight on railway rate legislation, feeling that he has a strong backing on the tariff question whenever he chooses to bring it to the fore;"”