Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1907 — WASHINGTONG GOSSIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WASHINGTONG GOSSIP

Evidence of the use the general pubtt; is making of the great Library of Congress is to be found in the record of visitors to the building during the last fiscal year. The visitors numbered about 812,000. This was a daily average of 2,243 in the 362 days on which the library was open to the public. The only days o.n which the great bronze doom-'were ctosed throughout the twen-ty-four hours were July 5, the funeral day of John Hay, July 4 and Christmas. Almost a double force is required for the building, which is open virtually day and evening the year around. The largest number of visitors in any fine day was 5,284, in April, and the smallest 444, on one of the hottest? days ia July. An idea Of the size of this library may be obtained from the statistics for last year, which showed a gain in the number of volumes of 34,626, bringing the number of books On the racks up to 1,379,244. This to,tal of books, pamphlets, maps and chart's and pieces of music added last year was 81,385. - Some of the postal improvements advocated in Cortelyou’s annual report are the parcels post, postal savings bank, postal telbgraph aud telephone, abolition of railway speed subsidies, additional subsidies to South American and Australian steamers, low-rate postal notes and the creation of a new office, that of deputy postmaster general, with permanent tenure, who would act as a sort of business manager for the entire service, besides certain reforms in salaries and accounts. The Postmaster General takes the high ground that postmasters should not be appointed as rewards for political activity. As to the deficit, he says lie is less concerned-about that than about efficiency of administration and thinks it unreasonable to charge any one branch of the service with responsibility for the deficit.

A plan for holding and developing coal lands in the Indian Territory belonging to the government has been made public by Secretary Hitchcock. A large corporation is to be formed, in which the Indian tribes and the government are to control the stock, the mines to be operated by employes or leased on a royalty. It will be the first time in our history that the government becomes a stockholder in a private corporation. The life of the company is to be hventy-five years, with option of contL'i'u&'ut-*; or •salt, avlte of, that period, the directors to be the President of the United States, Secretaries of the Interior, Treasury and Commerce and Labor, Commissioner of Indian Affairs and a member of each of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes.

Senator Hale of Maine made the declaration that two-thirds of the revenues of the government are now devoted to the payment of inheritances from past wars and expenditures for future wars. He called attention to the Arguments of the army promoteis that it was no use to have an army unless you have guns and fortifications, and now that $100,000,000 had beei} appropriated for sea coast fortifications, the argument was, “what is the use of having guns and fortifications unless you have men?” Thus, he said, 4t—was the eonstant pressure of the army to aggrandize itself first for men, then for guns and then guns and then men. On account of this vast expense, Senator Hale said it was impossible to get appropriations for the marine, for river and harbor improvements and for public buildings.

Secretary of War Taft in his report on the Philippines asks Congress to support an agricultural bank by authorizing the Philippine government to a dividend of 4 per cent on $10,000,000, this being the plan which proved so successful under Lord Cromer in Egypt. He says the business conditions in the islands, especialy In the sugar and tobacco Industrials, continue, and that the storm of last year destroyed $4,000,000 worth of the hemp crop. Work is proceeding on a system of water-supply for Manila and on the sewerage system. The complete pacification of the Island of Luzon is reported with the capture or surrender of the ladroue lenders, the only disorder now being in Leyte and Samar.

The House adopted a resolution indorsed by Miller of Kansas, directing the bureau of corporations to investigate the causes of the high price of lumber, and particularly whether this is due to the existence of a combination in the form of a trust or otherwise. The house also called upon the Secretary of the Interior to give an account of all public lands withdrawn or reserved from entry. In A reCept report of the bureau'c* navigation It is shown that 93 per cent of the enlisted men in the navy are native-born Americans, and tbnt during the year forty-three per cent of the men qualified for re-enlistment did reenlist It Is highly desirable that the man behind the gun be a man of experience. and It is best that th«r man who may be called upon to fight should be born upder the flag' that floats above his thin.