People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1893 — Washington Letter. [ARTICLE]

Washington Letter.

From our Regular Correspondent. Washington, Nov, 17 ’93. The individuals who claim the power to hold communication with other individuals thousands of miles away, by projecting their astral bodies, whatever they may be, to the place where the peron is with whom they desire to communicate, might have done a rushing and profitable business in Washington this week, if they could have performed what they claim. There was general anxiety to learn what was going -on in Hawaii, shared by everybody from President Cleveland to the humblest private citizen. Did the provisional government of Hawaii melt away under the genial influence of an intimation from Minister Willis that this government wished it to do so, in order to le’ the Queen resume her sway? Or did the minister have to order the marines and a few gattling guns from the U. S. ships ashore in order to bring about the reseating of the dusky Queen? These are the questions that everybody has been trying to answer all the week. ' The state department got a communication from Minister Willis by the last Hawaiian mail, but it refused to divulge its nature. There is a rumor, however, from a source which has often been found trustworthy, that Minister Willis asked for further instructions, in view of his having found a dis ferent condition of affairs from what he expected and from what the administration supposed existed.

President Cleveland and the members of his Cabinet still maintain a dignified silence in the midist of the shower of hostile critism to which they have been subjected because of the position they have taken in favor of restoring the government of Hawaii to what it was before the Queen was made to abdicate and the provisional government asked for annexation to the United States, but those close to the administration stoutly maintain that when all the facts are made public there will be a revolution in public opinion. Meanwnile Madame rumor holds the fort and is making the most of the situation. There was another opportunity for the gentlemen with astral bodies to have turned an honest penny this week but somehow none of them took advantage of it. Without previous notice (to the public) President Clevland brought Mrs. Cleveland and the babies from his country residence to the White House and straightway took himself off to New York, without telling a single newspaper man why or wherefore. In the absence of correct information by means of the aforesaid astral bodies the most imaginative correspondents and reporters on the local press, proceeded to write for their papers thrilling stories about surgical operations and other pleasing happenings to the President. Mr. Cleveland is again at the White House, but he hasn’t told yet what he weqt to New York for, and by the way, he doesn’t have to tell, either. This is a free country even the President.

The pension question is going to make considerable trouble during the coming session of Congress. Senator Voorhees has announced his intention to set the ball to rolling by making an attack upon the manner in which the Pension bureau has been run by Commissioner Lochren. Of course he will backed up by all of the Republicans, and a number of Democrats have openly expressed their sympathy and some of them may try to square themselves with their soldier constituents by joining in the attack. One of the most difficult things that the Pension bureau will have to do will be to explain why it has already restored 9,000 out of. the 10,000 pensioners dropped from the rolls on suspicion of being frauds. Either their first examination was a very careless one or the bureau is easily bulldozed by protesting Congress.

Chairman Wilson, of the House Ways and Means committee, is, as the saying is, “between the devil and the deep sea,” so' far as reaching a decision upon the coal and iron schedule of the new tariff bill is concerned,.. if the gossip of Congress is true. According to this gossip, Mr. Wilson's personal inclination, as well as that of President Cleveland to whose influence he owes his positional the head of this important committee, is to put both coal and iron on the free

list. But he has been informed that a large number of his constituents wish the duty retained upon these two products of West Virginia, and that if he allows them to go on the free list he will not be elected to Congress. From the best obtainable evidence it is believed that the bill as reported will put coal and iron on the free list, but it is thought to be doubtful whether it can be passed in that shape. Ex-President Harrison’s Democratic brother got the appointment he wanted—Surveyor of Custom of Kansas City, Mo.— although both of the Missouri Senators and the entire Congressional delegation worked against him. The Missouri Senator are not wielding much influences with the appointing power; they both voted contrary to the wishes of the administration on the silver question.