People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1895 — WASHINGTON GOSSIP. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON GOSSIP.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE WILL TREAT OF. Recognition of the Cuban Insurgents Not Likely to Be Recommended—Our Position on the Venezuelan Qaestlen — The House Elections. Washington, Nov. 27.—A cabinet officer has been found who is willing to make a positive statement about the assertions of the sensational press as to the attitude of the president toward Spain and Great Britain. Referring to the statement printed in a New York and a Philadelphia paper, that the president will recommend that Cuba’s revolutionists be recognized as belligerents, he said that the statement is without foundation. This officer is in a position to know, and he said that, while he could not tell what tjie president would say in his message on the Cuban question, it was pretty sure that he would not make any such recommendation as that the Cubans be recognized as belligerents under the present state of affairs in that island.

He also denied that Secretary Olney in his much-talked-about letter addressed to the British minister of foreign affairs “insisted” on Great Britain settling the Venezuelan boundary dispute by arbitration. To have made such a demand, this cabinet official said, would have been tantamount to a declaration of war in case Great Britain refused, or else it would put the United States in a very humiliating position The president has no right to “insist” on anything of the kind, without the authority of congress, and, while Mr. Olney’s letter was a strong presentation of the importance of settling the dispute by arbitration, there was no “insistence” about it. These questions will form a part of the message, and will give the foreign affairs committee an opportunity to bring the subject before the house, and also that of Hawaii, in the form of a report, which will probably contain some spirited remarks in reference to the course of the administration on foreign questions. As the members begin to arrive the weakness of the house combine for the offices becomes more apparent. This combine was formed 'last spring, the plan being to secure the pledges of the different state delegations in behalf of McDowell for clerk. The essential feature of this combine was that in each instance the member of the delegation promised the support of his state to the eastern candidates of the clerkship.

Mr. McDowell was to have certain offices in the patronage under the clerks, sergeant-at-arms, postmaster or doorkeeper. The members who undertook to pledge the delegations from their states to this combine movement were in each instance, of course, the sitting members. This was notably true of Michigan, Nebraska and Missouri, the western states from which the eastern candidate particularly looks for support; but it happens that in the delegations from those states there are many new members in this house who are not a party to this pledge to a combine, and who also were not a party to the promise of the combine that they should receive their share of the offices. It is quite natural that, upon arrival here, and ascertaining how matters are going, they should inquire where they are to receive their share of the patronage. The answer to their inquiries is that they have not been considered, and that the votes of the delegations of their state are to be delivered by the older sitting members, who are to be paid in offices. These new members very naturally pre not pleased at the exhibition of this boss rule, and do not relish the idea that there is a boss in their delegation who has the authority to contract for the delivery of their votes, and it is owing to the doubt of the ability of these several state bosses to deliver the votes of the solid delegations thatihe weakness of the combine has become apparent. » The fact is that in a number of the Western states the new members absolutely decline to recognize the bargain which was made by the sitting members of their delegations last spring to deliver the vote to the candidate of the combine. In some instances the new members are io-open revolt and declare themselves outright for Henderson of Illinois for clerk. It is said that the sitting Republican members of the Minnesota and the Nebraska delegations have discovered that they not only cannot deliver the solid vote of the delegations to McDowell, but that they find themselves the leaders of a minority faction in their states. The new members refuse to recognize the validity of boss rule.