People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1893 — Washington Letter. [ARTICLE]

Washington Letter.

From aur regular correspondent. Washington, Sept. 29, 1893. Had the language which was used this week on the floor of the senate been used in the same place forty years ago there would have been several duels, but the only aparent result of it all was to draw the line a little tighter between the friends and oponents of the Voorhees repeal bill. The sources of Irritation were numerous. Senator Stewart was irritator-in-chief for a portion of several days, by his remarks about the attempt of the executive to control the legislative branch of the government; Senator Peffer had several whacks at Senator Sherfhan and the treasury department, and Senator Allen, of Nebraska, also fired a few shots at the Ohio senator; Senator Dubois, speaking in favor of his resolution to postpone the consideration of the silver question, the tariff and the bill for the repeal of the federal election laws until January 15, 1894, in order to give the states of Montana, Washington and Wyoming a chance to be fully represented in the senate, trod on a good many tofefi when he said that in those states it was believed that the senators appointed would not bo in their seats if senators had voted their convictions regardless of the silver question; Senator Wolcott starred up phlegmatic Senator Gorman by referring to him and Senator Aldrich as steerers for the repealers, and Gorman retorted by accusing Wolcott of having obtained the information through eavesdropping. These are only a few of the most glaring instances; there were lots more. In fact, the senators remind one of a lot of cross children, ready to get mad at the slightest provocation, as well as to say the most provoking things to each other. And it will probably get worse before it gets better, as an attempt is to be made next week to compel the senate to sit twelve hours daily, the object being to force a vote on the Voorhees repeal bill. An object that every man in the senate knows will never be accomplished by any such tactics. The latest effort of the conservative repealers to secure a vote is to promise the silver men that a sufficient number of senators will vote for a silver bill to pass it as a separate measure immediately after the repeal bill is passed. * * * The house wants to know what part the U. S. army had in the opening of the Cherokee strip, under what orders, and whether the orders were violated and outrages committed on any citizen of the United States. This will give Secretary Lamont an opportunity to show whether the soldiers are innocent or guilty of the many crimes—including murder—they are charged with in connection with the opening of the strip. Later on Secretary Hoke Smith may be given a similar opportunity in connection with the numerous charges of bribery made against land office officials. Considerable written evidence has been sent to the house committee on military affairs, which has been looking into the matter. * * * There is one question as old as our government that apparently will never be finally settled and disposed of. It is that of state’s rights under the Constitution of the United States. The discussion in the house of the bill for the repeal of the laws for the federal supervision of presidential and congressional elections has brought the subject to the front once more, the Democrats championing state’s rights and maintaining that the laws which the bill proposes to repeal infringe upon those rights, while the Republicans maintain the constitutional right of congress to enact laws for the supervision of all national elections. The Democrats being in a majority will decide in favor of state’s rights and against federal election laws, but by the time the question is again brought up in congress the whirlagig of time may have reversed the majority and the national idea will be endorsed. Thus it has always been and probably always will be, on this question. * * * If the senators vote in executive session like they tali in public the notorious purchase and sale of the position of Ambassador to Italy will never be ratified by the confirmation of the purchaser’s nomination for the position. The general belief here is that President Cleve-

land was imposed upon by somebody, and that he was ignorant of Mr. J. J. Alien having contributed 150,000 to the campaign fund in exchange for the promise of being nominated American minister to Rome—it was not at that time known that the legation would be raised to an embassy. However that may be there is no doubt that Van Alen paid the money and that he was doing some very lively “kicking” just before he was nominated, because of the delay. ♦ * * The house committee on banking ttnd currency began a series of hearings to-day by listening to an argument of Representative Oates, of Alabama, in favor of his bill for the conditional repeal of the tax on state bank currency. This bill differs from all of the others introduced for the repeal of this tax. It requires banks to deposit bonds, state, county, municipal or national, to the amount of currency they propose issuing; limits the total of currency in any state to $5 per capita, and puts the banks under federal supervision, just as the national banks now are,