Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1907 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. Special Correspondence to The Democrat. There is much just dissatisfaction in the office that Mr. J. W. Oliver, the unsuccessful bidder for the Panama Canal contract, has established on Fourteenth street. Mr. Oliver -says he has been defrauded, lured on by false pretences, and has been made to spend $40,000 in putting in his bid. He says that he is going to sue the government for this amount. Whether he will add anything for “mental anguish” as is the custom in breach of promise suits, be does not say. Anyhow Mr. Oliver is thoroughly disgusted with the unbusinesslike way in which he has been treated. He says he was made to pay $40,000 in good money. It is easy to see how this amount could have been expended in organizing a syndicate to dig the Panama Canal. t tt There will be no war with Mexico at present. This will be satisfying information to the people who did not know that there was war impending anyhow. Perhaps there was not a war cloud, but there surely were international complications, and they are settled most happily by the escape of Mr. Antonio Vilarea. This is an amusing case that has been hanging over since last October. Vilarea was down in El Paso, but the crux of the situation was in Washington. He was a revolutionist by profession, and the government of Mexico wanted his blood in the most approved melodramatic fashion. So he skipped over to the United States. But the Mexican government was crafty and pointed out that while we might not surrender Mr. Vilarea as a revolutionist, it being against our policy to surrender political refugees, he. had been convicted in a shooting scrape down in Mexico, and was therefore ineligible for admission to the United States under the immigration laws. If this were true, we could not admit him to the United States, but if we deported him, it was sure death when he fell into the hands of the Mexican government. So the immigration bureau, to whom the case was finally turned over, was ranch in a quandary. The case dragged on for months, and just as it was on the eve of being settled, Vilarea es- J caped from the custody of immigration inspector and the incident is at an end. But the escape was so opportune and the Mexican consul at El Paso was so indignant that Secretary Strauss, commissioner sargent, and everyone else who had anything to do with the case has been kept busy every since explaining that they were not particeps criminis and that it was a really truly escape. Maybe it was.

An announcement has been made by the department of agriculture as to the process of cotton seed separation to which some reference has been made in print with the cheering information that will add übout 10 per cent to the actual amount of the cotton crop wherever it is put in use. As the cotton crop amounts to about $750,000,000 in value annually, it will be seen that this is a considerable item even if the system is followed over only a part of the cotton belt. The trouble in picking out good cotton seed all along and in planting the cotton, too, hb is known bydwellers in the belt is that the seed is 'fussy and will not easily separate. But the department has discovered a process of smoothing down the seed at the cost of about 1c a bushel and, afterward a very cheap method of picking out the heavy from the light seed by means of an air blast. The system has been experimented with on two successive crops by the department, and the results are good beyond question. It means an inexpensive aid to the farmer in planting his crop and a better crop as a result of his planting. The process and the two machines involved are being patented, and when this is done the process will be thrown open to whoever wants to take advantage of it. t t t Senator Beveridge has, temporarily at least, lost his fight to amend the meat inspection bill so that the date of canning shall be shown on every can. The packers say that meat is just as good after it has been canned a decade as it is after it has been canned a year. But they are very loth to have the date of canning put on the can for all that. Senator Beveridge has made a strong fight to amend the law, but he has been opposed by the house conferees led by Representative Wadsworth of beef trust fame, and the measure probably

will be barred for the session. It will be Mr. Wadsworth’s last legislative act in congress anyhow, for he has been defeated for reelection and goes out at the end of his term. t t t A delegation of Russians called on the president at the white house last week in the interests of the Famine Relief association. They presented the facts in the case to the president, saying that the villagers in twenty provinces were starving owing to successive crop failures, and they begged that he issue a proclamation recognizing the existence of the distress and authorizing the American Reed Cross to act as it was now acting in China. Mr. Roosevelt promised to take the matter under consideration, and it is probable that the proclamation will be issued. The Red Cross is doing good work in China, and $65,000 was forwarded last week by the Christian Herald to the missionary committees at Soanghai and Chingkiwang. t t t Minister Carbo of Eucador was summoned unexpectedly to his home last week to take the post of minister of foreign affairs. He has been one of the best known and active of the younger South American diplomats, and was only recently put on the directorate of the Bureau of American Republics. He will act as chief advisor on American affairs to the government of Eucador and the position will be an important one, as Guayaquil is the last port of call for vessels passing west through the Panama canal. The city is in a most unsanitary condition and will have to be thoroughly cleaned up either by its own government or by the United States before the canal will be safe to use.