Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1907 — WASHINGTON LETTER [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER

Political and deneral doaalp of the National Capital. Special Correspondence to The Democrat. While the Republican political kettle is already boiling, boiling over in some instances, the Democrats are calmly surveying the situation, confident that there is plenty of time before their national convention and determined to profit by any mistakes their political opponents may make. Mr. Bryan’s friends are rejoiced at the attention paid to their leader by Secretary Taft, and argue that Mr. Taft and the President must be confident that Mr. Bryan is to be tne next Democratic candidate. t t t What they term "the spineless character” of Secretary Taft’s advocacy of tariff revision is prdving a source of comfort to many democrats who believe that the country is now ripe for genuine tariff revision along Democratic lines. Mr. Taft, it will be remembered, advocates a revision of the tariff at a special session of Congress to be called for the purpose immediately after March 4, 1909, but he asserts his belief that the tariff should be revised along tariff lines, and that doubtless means that the protected pets of the Republican party must not be permitted to suffer any great inconvenience. The Massachusetts Republican papers are greatly upset because the man they regard as most likely to be the presidential candidate of theirparty is not more emphatic in his declarations that the tariff should be revised downwards, although they try to find some comfort in the fact that he openly and frankly advocates some kind of revision* t t t President Roosevelt’s Provincetown speech is a source of renewed annoyance and anxiety to the old line, conservative members of his party who insist that it is an outrageous thing for a Republican president to hamper and harry the men who have always contributed so generously to Republican campaign funds, even if they have erected monopolies and practiced extortions on the people. To these men Theodore Roosevelt is nothing less than an iconoclast, some go so far as to pronounce him an anarchist, and judged from their point of view, perhaps he is. ttt

Silly reports continue to appear in the public prints relating that Japanese have been caught, first here and then there sketching American forts. The latest of these comes from Atlanta, where two Japanese are reported to have been detected in the act of making piolbres of the buildings at Fort McPherson. If any Japanese were so caught th y were undoubtedly seeking models with which to scare away their enemies, according to the old-fashioned methods of Oriental warfare when soldiers wore masks to scare their enemies off the field of battle. Correctly epeaking, Fort McPherson is not a fort at all. There are no fortifications there, only a collection of barracks and officers’ quarters most of them excellent models of bad aichiteoture, which anyone is privileged to copy, should he be so ill-advised. Certainly there is nothing there which would be of the slightestuse to the Japanese government. Moreover, military officers in Washington declare that there is nothing which they would seriously object to having the Japanese sketch, even our fortifications. Japan has in Washington, in connection with her embassy, a military and a naval attache. These men doubtless forward to their government drawings of our battleships and fortifications before even the general public has seen them. The United States maintains in connection with its embassy at Tokio, similar officials who send all available information to the militay information bureau in Washington. When Japanese army or navy officers come to the United States, they are shown our battleships, fortifications, gunfactories and navy-yards, and any. thing else they may ask to see, except, of course, the plans and military records of the General Staff, if any Japanese are so foolish as to make worthless drawings of Amerioan military posts, say the general officers here, it is from some silly idea that they may receive a reward from their government, or else, as has been suggested in the case of Fort MoPberson, in order that they may send to their military architects some samples of what not to imitate; tt t - I Governor Magoon is about to promulgate in Ooba with the approval of the President and the Secretary of War, a deoree creating a national bureau of sanitation

which shall have power to prescribe and enforce sanitary regulations throughout the island. Governor Magoon has found that the local administration us sanitary matters whioh was provided during the former American occupation of Cuba, is not to be relied upon, and Jo-day the island is threatened with a serious outbreak of yellow fever. Sanitary regulations and precautions are naturally repugnant to the Cubans, and the local authorities, either through a lack of appreciation of the responsibilities devolving upon them, or through being too amenable to local influences, having permitted most unsanitary conditions to exist. It is believed, however, that with a national sanitary board to make the regulations and to enforce them, ail further danger can be eliminated. The authority to issue and to enforce this decree, even after the present occupation of Cuba shall have ceased, is found in Section 5 of the Platt Amendment. ttt 'The President has approved the pkovisiohs of the Army graduated pay bill, which will be introduced next session, and which provides for increases of pay for the army as follows: lieutenant general, 10 per cent; major and brigadier generals, 15 per cent; colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors, 20 per cent; captains and lieutenants, 25 per cent; and enlisted men and non commissioned officers 30 per cent. It is expected that this bill, with possibly some modifications, will become a law next session.