People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1894 — FROM WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

FROM WASHINGTON.

An Interesting Batch of News From the Capitol. From our Regular Correspondent. Washington. April 27, ’94. Presto, veto change! And a new tariff bill makes its bow to the country. First the Wilson bill, second the Vest-Jones-Mills bill, third the caucus-directed Finance committee bill and now a new bill which Senator Brice says has been fixed up by Secretary Carlisle, President Cleveland and Senators Jones, Cockrill, Gorman and himself, and which will be supported by all the democratic Senators. Having at last got together on the tariff the democratic Senators have now begun the fight to force the bill to a vote, which they say they will do whatever sacrifice it may cost them. The republicans will have to be driven inch by inch towards a vote. This they have shown since the expiration of the agreement under which the general debate was conducted, and the consideration of the bill by items began. Vice President Stevenson may have to count a quorum in the Senate before the fight is ended, unless forty-three of the forty-four democratic Senators can be kept in their seats constantly, and that will be a hard thing to do.

• • • There is no excitement over the coming of Coxey’s army next week. Both houses of Congress have indicated by the treatment of bills and resolutions that they will do nothing for the army. The populists in Congress while not endorsing the movement, favor granting the men a respectful hearing, but .there is no probability of their getting it; that is, not in person. They can of course, get petitions presented. The authorities do not expect to have any trouble with Coxey’s army but they have information that a considerable number of desperate criminals will attempt to come into Washington as members of the army. It is for these last that extra precautions in the way of extra policemen and guards have been taken; the same precautions, by the way, that are always taken to look after inauguration day and other large crouds.

• © a The friends of cheap literature are strong in the House, as was shown by the large vote by which an amendment to the Post Office appropriation bill, proposing to compell the publishers of books in series or “libraries,,, in paper covers, to pay fourth-class postage, instead of second-class, as at present, was defeated. It was shown that it costs the government about §18,000,000 a year more than it receives as secondclass postage to carry the sec-ond-class matter, but a big majority of the House thought the money well spent. In as much as Canada carries second-class mail matter free of charge the action of the House in refusing to raise the price on American publishers seem right and proper. It will pay better to carry these books for one cent a pound for our own publishers than to carry them for nothing for Canadian publishers. © ® © Lovers of sensations were disappointed because Senator Mills, who made the closi njj speech in the general debate on the tariff bill, did not make a personal attack on Senator Hill. It was state I a week before Mr. M. made his speech that he had been specially selected by President Cleveland to defend the administration and the tariff bill from the vicious attacks made upon them by Senator Hill. The only direct allusion made by Mr. Mills to the Senator from New York was in connection with the income tax, which Mr. Hill had declared to be socialistic, anarchistic and sectional. Mr. Mills said he had never heard that Mr. Hill when governor of New York had called on the legislature to

repeal the imcome tax in that state, and as’ked if such a tax was fair one f or the State of New York, why it not also a fair on© for the United States? • • • “The Press Claims Company,” of this city is in trouble, which is not surprising to those who know the manner in which it has been doing business. Its man-, ager, Mr. John Wedderburm is I charged, in a bill filed in court this week by Wm. R. Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco

Examiner, with several sorts of wrong dealing. Mr. Hearst asks that a receiver be appointed for the company and that Wedder burn be restrained from interferin'any way with its affairs. He says, in his bill, that he was a partner with Wedderburn in the establishment of the “Examiner Bureau of Claims,” which made arrangements with the Poineer Press, of St. Paul, Minn., and Omaha Bee to prosecute claims for their subscibers; that Wedderburn without his knowledge organized the ••Press Claims Company” and maintained it at the expeso of the “Examiner Bureau;” that he has refused to refund money in accordance with contracts; that lie has created a large indebteness, including a note for §<B,ooo. signed without authority with the firm name; that he has injured the reputation of the San Francisco Exam, iner by the mismanagement of cases put in his. hands, and by sending out circulars oftening prizes for inventions, charging competitors an initial fee of $5. Rather a formidable list of charges.