Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1905 — BACK IN THE CAPITAL [ARTICLE]

BACK IN THE CAPITAL

PRESIDENT AND FAMILY RETURN FROM OYSTER BAY. Citizens of Washington Welcome Him —Executive Is in Robust Health - Will Immediately Take Up Numerous Problems of Government. Washington correspondence: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Roose and their three younger children, Ethel, Quentin and Archibald, returned to Washington from Oyster Bay Saturday, evening. The President was browner and apparently lustier after his summer on Long Island than when he returned from hunting bears in Colorado last .spring. He was a picture of physical health and strength. The swimming, boating, horseback riding and camping out, with which he diversified the routine of his life at Sagamore Hill, have conditioned him to a degree that will render his prospective labors comparatively easy. The President’s reception by the people of Washington was decorously but none the leSs sincerely enthusiastic. Washington loves ail Presidents. 11 never neglects an opportunity to pay homage to whomsoever happens to be the occupant of the White House. It is not an exaggeration to say, however, that President Roosevelt occupies a warmer place in the hearts of the residents of the capital city than his predecessors. They like him for his youth, his audacity, his initiative and last, but not least, his willingness to be a good neighbor. Their admiration for him visibly increased after the successful culmination of the peace negotiations at Portsmouth, and Saturday night’s monster reception was undoubtedly due in part to a desire to pay tribute to him for having initiated that act in behalf of peace.

Fifty Thousand Cheer His Arrival. Perhaps 50,000 men and women were assembled in Pennsylvania avenue, between 6tb street and the White House. In any other city than Washington, where civic pomp and pageantry are on display nearly all the time, such an assemblage would have been provocative of a crush. Here, however, the police have a method of maintaining order that is as effective as it is admirable. The White House was reached about 6:40 o’clock and the President, after shaking hands with the various attendants who were congregated under the porte-cochere, went in. Mrs. Roosevelt appeared to be as pleased as her husband again to get into touch with her servants and cordially shook all their hands. The President said he was glad to return to Washington and Washington seemed equally glad that he had returned. The absence of the chief executive and Congress combined from the national capital, involving as it does an almost complete cessation of executive and legislative business, except that of the most routine character, produces a void which can only be appreciated by those who have to. exist in the characterless atmosphere. The President said he would settle down to work, taking up in their order all of the numerous problems of government which are now pending b fore him. One of the first things he will do will be to appoint a new public printer. The Panama Canal, with its multiplicity of important details, will occupy much of the President's time and attention. After the commission of international engineers returns to Washington from an inspection of the physical problems presented by the route which has been selected the President will make up his mind as to whether Congress will be required to provide for a lock canal or a sealevel canal.

He will take up the Czar’s proposition to reconvene The Hague tribunal and select those American citizens who will represent the United States there. Also he will begin immediately the preparation of his annual message to Congress, which will contain among other things his views on the question of railway rate legislation. So far as can be ascertained the President has not materially altered the views which he expressed in his last message on this subject. It is known, however, that he 4s disposed to believe that legislation more liberal in its bearing upon the railways than the Esch-Townsend bill can and ought to be devised. This subject will, be thoroughly thrashed out between now and the time the message is ready for submission to Congress. All of the Senators and Representatives whose committee assignments invest them with special powers and duties in connection with railroad legislation will present their individual ▼lews to the President They will tell him what, In their judgment, can be done and what is impassible, and urge, in behalf of everybody concerned, that he avoid lending himself to the unreasonable clamor of professional lobbyists posing as agents of reform.