Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1902 — WASHINGTON GOSSIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WASHINGTON GOSSIP

This Congregg has been fruitful in producing more scandals than any in recent years. Early the other morning another was added to the list While entertaining a number of congressional friends at his home a prominent lobbyist was liberal with wine, and a western Senator imbibing too mnch became fighting mad. He was seized with an uncontrollable desire to do something, and for awhile enacted the part of a bull in a china shop, demolishing rare bric-a-brac and doing damage that amounts to about SSOO. It was necessary to summon the police to restore order. The drunken rowdyism broke up the party, however, and the host, while deploring that the evening’s entertainment had been marred by the fighting Senator, had his indignation, soothed to a degree by the friends of the Senator guaranteeing him '"against loss through the destruction of his bric-a-brac. The influence of the Senator was sufficient to suppress the case with the police and he afterwards settled for the damage done. The Navy Department has its plans practically completed for the four big warships just authorized by the new naval law, and to bear the names of Louisiana, Connecticut, Tennessee and Washington. The distinctive features of the new ships are the strength and the arrangement of their batteries and a greater thickness in armor. The battleships are to have a displacement of 16,000 tons and will be built for a speed of eighteen knots. Their batteries will consist of four 12-inch guns, eight 3-inch guns, twelve 7-inch and twenty 3-lnch guns, and a large number of smaller weapons scattered over the ship. The armored cruisers are to have a displacement of 14,500 tons and a speed of twen-ty-two knots. Their batteries will consist of four 10-inch guns, sixteen 6-inch and twenty-two 3-inch guns and a large number of smaller ones. r Chairman Dalzell of the special committee of the House which investigated the charges in connection with the purchase of the Danish West India Islands submitted the report of that committee. After detailing the charges of bribery and showing that Captain Christmas had repudiated the alleged report on which the charges were based, the committee sums up'the results of the investigation as follows: “That there is not the slightest semblance of evidence that any member of Congress, either directly or indirectly, was offered or received any bribe, or was paid any valuable consideration of any kind or character to vote for or assist in procuring the proposal, adoption or ratification of a treaty of sale of the Danish West Indian Islands to the United States.”

The census bureau has issued its report on printing and publishing in the United States for the census year 1900, showing a capital’of $292,517,072 invested in the 22,312 establishments- reporting for the industry. This sum represents only the live capital utilized, and the value of the land, buildings, tools, machinery and implements. The value of the products of the industry is returned at $347,055,050, to produce which involved an outlay of $36,090,719 for salaries of officials, clerks, etc., $84,249,889 for wages, $55,897,529 for miscellaneous expenses, including rent, taxes, etc., and $86,856,290 for materials used, mill supplies, freight and fuel. At the close of business Saturday the available cash balance in the treasury had reached the sum of $195,470,222, a high record, almost unequaled in die history of the government. The treasury surplus of receipts over expenditures for the current fiscal year, eleven months of which have now elapsed, stands at $76,400,719. This is within about $3,000,000 of the large treasury surplus at the end of the last fiscal period. It Is expected that the surplus at the en<Tof the current year on June 30 will not be less than $90,000,000, and the treasury officials believe it may reach $100,000,000, as predicted by Secretary Gage a short time before his retirement from office.

The Department of the Potomac, G. A. R., has a candidate for commander-in-chief of the order. He is John McElroy, managing editor of the National Tribune of Washington. Mr. McElroy has been a member of the organization for thirty-six years. His military record covered the period from October, 1862. to the close of the war. He was a prisoner at Andersonville and other places. The amount of obviously erroneous information received at the census office in reply to the inquiries addressed to manufacturers was astonishing. Many of the schedules revealed upon their face a purpose to mislead and deceive, while many others showed an obvious misapprehension of the significance and importance of the questions asked. But it was easy to detect such deceptions. Maj. i'Enfant, the carrying out of whose plans has made the city of Washington the finest national capital in the world, was never properly compensated for his splendid services. He died in poverty in 1825 and was buried by private charity. > a—sGeneral orders for the establishment of the army war college in Washington have been issued at the War Department. A house next door to the temporary White House will be used by the college until the buildings at Washington Barracks can be constructed. A Western Congressman tells this story on himself, stipulating that his name shall not be used: He was nominated after a hard fight and telegraphed to his family: “Now you can paint the house red.” When be reached home the next evening be found that his boys had taken him at his word and covered everything —house, fence, hen coop, barn and even trees—with a coat of carmine. By way of rubbing it in they charged him 1160 for the job, but he felt so good over his success that he paid the money.