Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1905 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. There has been a general shifting of places in the State Department. The Third Assistant Secretary Herbert H. D. Pierce has been appointed Minister to Norway as it was intimated sometime ago in these letters that he would be. He will be succeeded in the Department by Chas. Denby, son of the late Minister to China, and until recently chief clerk of the department in succession to Col. Michael, who was sent to Calcutta as Consul General more to get him out of the Department gracefully than for any desire to promote him. David Thompson, the former Ambassador to Brazil, will go to Mexico as the Ambassador there and Loyd C. Griscom, who won considerable commendation as minister to Japan during the Russo-Jap war, will be raised to an ambassadorship and succeed Thompson in Brazil. The post of Minister to Japan, vacated by Mr, Griscom, is still open. The appointment of Mr. Griscom is popular as it is generally conceeded that he did excellent work in Tokyo and the President has been looking for a chance to acknowledge his services by promoting him. Also the appointment of Mr. Denby in the State Department is looked upon hs the expected. He has had the widest possible experience of Far Eastern politics. He was Secretary of Legation in Pekin for years, was afterward foreign advisor to Yuan Shai Kai, who succeeded Li Hing Chang as the power in foreign affairs at the court of the Empress Dowager. It ,was understood when Mr. Denby was made chief clerk some months ago that he would not remain in the position but that Secretary Root wanted to avail himself of his experience as an orientalist and would promote him as soon as opportunity offered. Ttt

There is talk «that the Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor has just about completed an investigation into the affairs of the Standard Oil Company which will end in the trial of that noted or notorious corperatiqp for a combination in restraint of trade. It is quite possible thrtt the investigation is under way. The Commissioner of Corporations would naturally like to have a look into the affairs of the great oil company. But it is doubtful if Mr. Rockefeller is losing any sleep over it. It is likely that the case will never come to trial and if it does, it is still more unlikely that a conviction will be secured. In the case of the latter improbability there is no danger that the sentence will be any more severe than it was in the case of the beef trust men who were fined $25,000 without a jail sentence. Of course a fine would be a great hardship to Mr, Rockefeller or Mr. Rogers. A fine of $25,000 would be almost as much to either of them as a tine of 25 cents would be to the average prosperous citizen.' But the wildest flight of immagination could not picture anything worse than a fine happening to one of the big men in the Standard Oil Company. t t t The War Department is having all sorts of business these days. It has rejected all the bids for the Philippine railway system because none of them came within the provisions of the specifications. The trouble with the bidders was that they wanted to construct fragments of the various lines

that they knew would be paying from the start and were perfectly willing to leave the other sections to be finished up at some future time as the country developed. This did not altogether meet the wishes, of the war Department, though Governor Luke Wright, who is now in Washington, said that half a loaf was better than no bread and was rather in favor of allowing the partial bids to stand. But the Secretary of War has announced that fresh bids will be advertised to be opened January 20. ttt Then there has been more trouble over that perennially sore spot, the army canteen. The officials of the War Department profess themselves deeply grieved, but not in the least surprised, at the state of affairs disclosed by the investigation in Fort Sheridan, where it was shown that the worst sort of grog shops, dives and crooked gam bliug joints flourished all around the post. It was said too that there had been 25 homicides in these places within the past year. AU of the officers in the army want the canteen reestablished. As prominent a member of the W. C. T. U as Miss Phoebe Cousins said l that it was useless to blink at matters and it was better to control the drinking of the soldiers than to force them to drink out of the garrison. But the military Committees of the House and Senate have not the moral courage to replace the canteen. So vice of the worst sort will be allowed to flourish around all of the army posts because a few good but mistaken women cannot understand that “single men in barracks don’t grow into plaster saints.” . ttt

The funniest thing that has happened in the War Department for one time is the general order that all cadets at West Point shall attend a cooking school. Now as a matter of fact the most of the cadets learn to handle a chafing dish while they are at the Academy, and in the days when there was any frontier services worth mentioning, they learned from force of necessity to handle a frying pan, soon after they got out of it. But the War Department thinks they would be in better shape to look after the enlisted men if they were practical cooks, so cooking as well as dancing is to be made a part of the West Point curriculum. Wanted for Cash, —All kinds of household and kitchen furui ture and stoves, at the Second Hand Store, telephone 195, Rensselaer, Ind.