People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1895 — TO DIVIDE OFFICES. [ARTICLE]

TO DIVIDE OFFICES.

HOUSE PATRONACE CAUSING A LIVELY SCRAMBLE. C*ngrM«in»n Aldrich of Illlnol* Think* the K»*t I* Hinted for Too Manx I’l nm» — Want* More of the Good Thing* for the W**t. Washington, Nov. 21. —The contest for congressional offices is growing more spirited, and friends of the several candidates show increasing anxiety. The contest over the house offices Is becoming sharp and bitter. Congressman Aldrich, of Chicago, who is recognized as a leader at the headquarters of General Henderson, of Illinois, candidate for clerk of the house, says: "The two states of Kentucky and Pennsylvania have largely monopolized the offices of speaker and clerk, having an aggregate of fifty-two years to their credit, while no elective office has ever gone west of the Mississippi river, save to Minnesota, with one postmaster. The Eastern and Middle states have had the lion’s share, having furnished the speaker and eJerk for eighty-one years. These states in the, next house will have ninety republican members, and without contest, will have the speakership. "It is now proposed to make a ‘combine’ that will give to two of these states, besides that of speaker, the important office of clerk, and also that of doorkeeper, which last two offices have nine-fenl hs of the patronage of the house, while the Eastern and Middle states furnish less than four-tenths of the. republican membership. The Southern states in the Forty-seventh congress, with a republican membership of fourteen out of a total republican membership of 150, .were again given that office. The Western states will have |2l republican members in the next house, and have had but thres out of thirty speakers, and two clerks, with one term each, out of twenty-two, "The Southern states will have a liepublican membership in the next house of thirty-three, nearly two-fifths of the Eastern and Middle states membership, and yet it is intended by the proposed ‘combine’ to completely ignore those states. The West should have the second office of the house on considerations of geographical propriety, which have always governed in the organization of the house, as well as in al) national conventions of ixith parties; while the Houth, with its steadily increasing liepublican representation, should have, as in the Forty-seventh and Fifty-first congressf’s, the office of doorkeeper. “When the speaker has come from the Eastern or Middle states the clerk, has corne from the West or South. When the speaker was taken from a Hout hern state the clerkship went to a Northern state, as Illustrated In the last two congresses, In which the speaker and doorkeeper were from Southern states, the clerk from a Northern or Middle state, and the sergeant-at-arms and postmaster from Western states. "The claim that Pennsylvania, is entitled to the clerkship Is absurd. That state presents as a candidate a gon tieman who served one term, and who, It is stated, without denial, refused a reTiomfnatlon, with the pledge that he should be the clerk of the next house of representative, if It was Republican. Have the Republican members of the house of representatives of the Fiftyfourth congress surrendered their functions and privileges In respect to the selection of their officers to a United States senator from, and a private citizen of, the state of Pennsylvania, in order that these two gentlemen might arrange the local politics and patronage of that state to their liking?”