Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1907 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and Oeneral Gossip of the National Capital. m Special Correspondence to The Democrat. Every southern state will, be interested in the decision rendered last week by the Department of Justice anent the North Carolina immigration case. It will be remembered that recently the state appropriated a considerable amount of money to which was added more by private subrcrip tion, and the state Commissioner of immigration was sent abroad, bringing back a whole shipload of immigrants who were landed at Charleston instead of at some northern port and were promptly welcomed and employed as soon as they landed. There was some question at the time whether the state had not violated the alien contract labor law in bringing the immigrants to this country, for the passage of most of them was prepaid. The case was referred to the Department of Justice at the time and it decided that under the law an individual state could do what a private employer could not do, in the way of assisting foreign immigrants to its borders. But under the new law, a decision has been rendered that cuts off part of the state’s privilege. The department decided last week that a state might spend money in advertising abroad and might do what it wanted in drumming up immigrant traffic, but it could not pay the passage of aliens to this country as had been done in the North Carolina case. This will operate as something of a drawback in getting other shiploads of foreigners direct to the South, but it is not likely to stem the tide of immigration if it can be once induced to set that way.

Hearings were continued last week on what has been known as the “car stake case” before the interstate Commerce Commission. The railroads all over the country have been transporting much of the billions of feet of lumber carried annually on flat ears, and to do this it has been necessary to place stakes along the sides of the cars to keep the lumber in place, The railroads have forced the shippers to thus equip the cars in accordance with the rules of the Master Car Builders Association. It seems like a little matter, the cpst of equipping a car being only $4. But in the aggregate it costs the lumbermen of the country about $6,000,000 a year. They claim that there should be properly equipped cars with permanent stakes furnished by the railroad companies and a number of iron stakes, folding stakes, *and the like have been patented. The lumbermen claim that some of these will serve the purpose, but the railroads insist that the problem has not yet been solved, and that it remains for some inventive genius to perfect a stake that will answer the call when a flat car is loaded with lumber and will be out of the way when the car is wanted for something else. The commission has taken the case under advisement, and it' has not yet been decided who shall foot the bill for equipping the cars.

Ambassador Bryce called on Secretary Root last week and went over with him the general situation between Great Britain and this country where there are still a number of rough edges to be smoothed by diplomacy. Some of the most pressing things however are the matters between this country and Canada, the Great Lakes Fisheries, the reciprocal tariff, and the New Foundland Shore question. These matters it is understood were not touched on in the conference, and will be allowed to go over till the approaching visit of the new ambassador, to Earl Grey in Canada, when the wishes of the Canadian government can be expressed and the ambassador can come back to Washington with a clear notion of what basis of settlement will be acceptable to Great Britain’s most important colony. t t t One of the last things that Congress failed to do was to include in the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill any money for continuing the work of black sand investigation that the Geological survey has had on hand for some years. This has proved a most important work in the west, and arrangements had been made to bring the bulk of the apparatus east and establish part of it at the Jamestown Exposition, and the rest at Chapel Hill, N. C., where the same work was to be done for the eastern states that had already been done for the west. The students of the state university at Chapel Hill were to have done much of the actual work under the direction of 1 the scientists of the Burvey, and

it is believed yet that an immense amount of good will be done this country all along the Appalachian range by furnishing a method whereby the gold deposits of low grade that undoubtedly exist all through the foot hills can be worked at a profit besides extracting many other rare and useful minerals at a minimum of expanse. As the case stands, however, the work will have to be done by the state of North Carolina, and residents of the other states in the south who want samples of mineral deposits examined will have to send them to the state university and pay the state for doing the work. t tt Just a little malicious fun was indulged in at the Navy department last week on the announcement of the release from active service of Jas'. B. Connolly, the literary friend of the President, who shipped two months ago as a yeoman on the battle ship Alabama to accumulate “local color” and do for the American navy in a literary way what Kipling has already done for the British Army. Mr. Connolly is a promising young author and has written some good sea stories, principally of the New England coast. This scheme of putting him in close touch with the navy and allowing him to write warship stories was well conceived. But the trouble was that it was heralded a little too much through the press, and the sailors "got next” before Mr. Connolly ever set foot on the deck of the Alabama. They resented being studied at dose range even by h high olass word painter, and they gave Mr. Connolly suoh a markedly oold welcome that he decided to end his cruise at the end of two months. How muoh begot in the way of material in that time is not known, but it is to be feared that it was not enough to send him echoing down the corridors of time as the Kipling of the Ameri-

can Navy. Real life studies such as Kipling was able to make of Tommy Atkins are usually the rel suit of a happy combination of accidental circumstances and are not brought about by premeditated official action, however well intended.