Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1906 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Oosslp of the National Capital. Prom our Special Correspondent: If the Senate is marking time on the rate bill and finding excuses for not speaking, the House is by no means talked oat. Bourke Cockran last week had an hour of time granted him in which to express his views, and they were well expressed and went to the point as is usual with his speeches. What he advised was for the House to “stand pat” on the rate bill and allow no amendments from the Senate. He said that in common with a good many other members, he had gone over the Hepburn bill, hoping to strengthen it by amendment, but he found that in every case he had been anticipated by the framers of the bill atul he thought that the best thing to do was to pass the bill as it stood and not allow the Senate to saddle it with amendments. In the matter of a court review provision, Mr. Cockran took the very common-senße view that if any railroad were not satisfied with the ruling of the Commission, all it had to do to secure a court review was to fail to enforce the order. This would at once throw the matter into the courts and get the ruling that all the court review amendments purported to seek. It was quite a simple, homely speech and as notice had been given that it was to occur, the galleries were crowded. Of course so long as the bill is under consideration in the Senate, the talk on the House end is rather beside the mark, but it is an indication to the Senate that the House for once intends to stand on its rights and that if the bill comes back from the Senate in any considerably amended shape, it is likely to have a hard time before it gets to conference and afterward.

' Almost as old as the proposal to change the date of the Presidential inauguration is the proposal to elect Senators by a popular vote. But the measure has been introduced again by Mr. Norris of Nebraska and in spite of the faot that the bill has four times passed the House and has been killed in the Senate, there is renewed talk of its passing. There is incorporated with the bill a proposal to make the term of members of the House four years instead of two. The object of this, the report says, is to give more importance to the primaries and prevent the professional boodler from living over from term to term on the proceeds of his unholy work at one election. “The people are tired,” the report says, “of this continuous drama and as a result are inclined to give little attention to the primaries and the conventions which are the very foundation of our political system, and are the times at which the country’s interests can be best protected.” The change in the order of elections would have to be accomplished by a constitutional amendment, but the framer of the bill is convinced that it is a good one and it has at least had a favorable report to the House. t t t

It will not be loug before the Pure Food Bill will come to a vote. Matters are in such a shape that it can at any time be made the unfinished business and a vote on it may be arranged at any day. It is possible that the measure may pass at this session and it is almost a certainty that if it does not it will pass and be signed by the President at the next session. Dr. Wiley of the Department of Agriculture is of course the father of the bill and he has a lot of "arguments” in the shape of adulterated foods of one sort and another spread out on two big trays at the Department which he intends to send up to the Capitol to back his declaration that a pure food bill is an absolute necessity. The custom house inspectors in New York played into his hands this week too and furnished him with what he has told a number of friends is auother good argument. It ia to the effect that lhe market of the eastern states is being flooded with spurious “pure olive oil.” This oil is of two sorts. One of them is imported right enough, but it is imported free and costs 40 cents a gallon. It oouaes in free under the declaration that it fs purely for mechanical uses. And that is all it is fit for. It is the lowest grade of refuse from the oil factories. When it gets into this country, however, it is filtered to remove the dirt, a little potash added to take out the rancid taste, for it is all of it rancid, and then is bottled and put on the market as “pure lucca oil.” This stuff, Dr. Wiley, declares, is entirely unfit for human consumption. Yet

is it largely sold and there is do federal law under which the vendors can be prosecuted. The other device is even more barefaced, though less harmful. The Department fouod recently that the eastern end of the country was being flooded with cheap “olive oil” for which there was no equivalent record at the custom house, though all of it was labled imported. The inspectors finally found that it was manufactured by the oar load in New York, oil, bottles, labels and all, and then sold outside the Btate. There were 25 samples captured by the Pennsylvania authorities and several hundred dollars will be collected in fines from the men who- sold it, but what the advocate of the pure food bill want is a law under which the makers of the stuff can be prosecuted. And this they say they will have when the bill passes.