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The Commoner.
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y Washington Letter
Washington, D. C, December 30. The very
brief session of congress prior to the Christmas
holidays has been, of course, marked by but lit
tle actual accomplishment. Only on Thursday,
the 19th, was the house equipped for business
by the announcement of the committees. Prac
tically all the work in the house is dbne by
committees, and until they are chosen nothing
except sparring for a record can be accom
plished. Speaker Cannon has changed the per
sonnel of the old committees very slightly. Per
haps there is hardly more than one point at
which the new allignment has created some talk,
and that is more satirical nhan serious. The
speaker has long been fulminating phrases in
antagonism to the president. It happened that
this fall, owing to the defeat of General Gros
venor, there was a vacancy on. the most impor
tant committee in the house, namely the ways
and means. "Whereupon the speaker appoints
to that vacancy the president's representative
and son-in-law, Mr. Nicholas Lorigworth. Peo
ple about the capital are laughing about the
bitter antagonism between Cannon and the pres- '
ident. Other committees are almost unchanged.
All have a fair working majority of republicans,
but the minority members have been selected
in accordance with the views of the minority
leader, John Sharp Williams. They say that
only one of Mr. Williams' nominees was turned
down and that was for reasons personal en
tirely to the speaker himself.
The real work of the session will begin
when congress reassembles on January the 5th.
It will assume two forms, the democratic mi
nority will endeavor to have some real work
done; the republican majority will do its best
to avoid having anything done . which may affect
the course of the presidential election. There
are to my certain knowledge at least six bills
introduced for the repeal of the duty on wood
pulp. One or the other is approved and urged
by every newspaper in the United States, prac
tically speaking. Not one, if I can trust the
statement of a republican member of the ways
and means committee, will ever get before the
house. John Sharp Williams himself, the author
of one of the bills, says that there is not the
slightest likelihood of its ever coming up for
passage because it might be the opening wedge
for general tariff revision. Doubtless, however,
it may bo debated under some such subterfuge
as tacking an amendment upon some bill of
utterly foreign purpose and then debating the
amendment.
Nor is it likely that the question of appro
priations for rivers and harbors will get into
the house this year. Speaker Cannon settled
that when he appointed Representative Burton,
late administration candidate for mayor of
Cleveland, chairman of the committee having
that bill in charge. Mr. Burton is the most
bitter- opponent of interior waterways that con
gress holds. What he can do to prevent appro
priations for this purpose will count for more
than all the speeches that the president made
during his trip down the Mississippi river to
the bear hunting grounds of new Iberia. Nor
Ib it likely that there will be any currency legis
lation. In his message the president said that
he had assurances from leaders in both house
and senate that work had already been begun
on the preparation of a measure to correct the
evils which had led to the present panic. But
when challenged last Wednesday by Senator
Culberson, the republican leader in the
senate, Senator Aldrich, said that nothing
yet had been determined upon and that the
committee would proceed very slowly towards
its conclusions. That is the diplomatic way of
expressing it on the floor of the senate. What
they say outside of the senate is that nothing
will bo done whatever. The case Is somewhat
analogous to the standing joke here about the
possibility of prohibition in the District of Co
lumbia "It hasn't an enemy on the floor of
either senate or house, and not a single friend
in the cloak rooms."
In brief this session of congress will be
one of much debate and little action. It will
be devoted to making material for the good of
either party and supplying as little for the benefit
of the enemy as possible. Of course in a sense
the democrats have the advantage. They are in
the minority and can continually press the re-
publicans to act. The bills they introduce, the
speeches they deliver can " be judged by the
people of the country. The republicans mean
while, torn- by factional dissension, controlled
by many powerful- interests, are in a state
which makes it impossible for them to put
forward and carry through a coherent plan of
legislation. They dare not touch the tariff,
even at so small a point as the tax upon wood
pulp. They dare not touch the currency be
cause no three of their leaders agree upon a
plan for its reform. They dare not go further
with the railroads because out of their legisla
tion in the last congress came a panic which has
done incalculable damage to the country with
out the legislation having in the slightest de
gree affected the evils it was intended to cor
rect. When in answering Senator Culberson's
argument in favor of a resolution for an in
quiry into the causes of the panic, Senator Aid
rich said that the panic was due to no act of
commission or omission on the part of the legis
lative branch, the people in the galleries noted
the emphasis he laid upon the word "legislative
and laughed.
In. an editorial in the Evening Star of Wash
ington, December 19, appears this paragraph
and the Star has never been accused of being un
duly friendly to Mr. Bryan or the issues for
which he stands: "As for the Bryanites the
men who started with the Nebraskan are with
him still, and could not be bought or coaxed
away from him they will be on hand in force
and panoplied in all devotion and enthusiasm.
Never fear about them."
After all isn't it worth while that a cause
should enlist soldiers of every degree about
whom a spokesman of the enemy can say that
they can be neither bought nor coaxed away?
It is not Mr. Bryan alone, but the issues which
he represents and so forcefully expounds, that
have given him this solid phalanx of adherents
and supporters.
Prophecy is always a doubtful line of en
deavor. But people in Washington who know
something about the politics being played from
the White House are saying now that the next
six weeks will see some politics played within
the republican party that will amaze the coun
try. The general impression is that Secretary
Cortelyou will retire or be retired and that
G. von L. Meyer will succeed him. Mr. Meyer
has been postmaster general and has won some
justifiable fame as a, strenuous proponent of
the parcels post and the postals savings banks.
What the department of the treasury would
think of a postal savings bank advocate at its
head is yet to be determined, but it might go
much further and fare worse.
The really interesting part of the story,
however, is the assertion that Hon. Edwin A.
Merritt of New York, one of the most acute
and practical politicians of that state, a man
who never sees a civil service law without
throwing a brick at it and usually with a de
structive motive, is to succeed Mr. Meyer as
postmaster general. As Mr. James L. Clarkson
is already in office in New York, as Mr. Quay
is long since dead, as Boss Cox of Cincinnati
seems content to handle the civil service of his
own town without branching out into national
affairs, President Roosevelt could not more effec
tively give the lie to his old professions of civil
service reform than to make Ed. Merritt post
master general. Perhaps now that the story
has been made public, he may not do it. But
nearly every wire out of Washington tonight
will carry the statement that such is his plan.
Only a week or ten days ago the eminent
reformer of Boston announced he was done with
reform and with politics; he -was going to at
tend only to his own personal and business
affairs. How hard it is after all for a man to
determine -what is going to happen to him. Four
days later he called at the White House, pre
sumably by invitation. Emerging thence he
allowed himself to be held unwillingly by the
newspaper correspondents who gather about the
door to the executive offices. In the presence
of all this publicity he was unable to adhere
to his purpose of retiring into seclusion, but
announced that he would make a dash into poli
tics. He said he had 430,000 correspondents
throughout the United States and he was going
to weld them into a coherent whole for Roose
velt -of New York, and Johnson of Minnesota.
It must be at least said for Mr. Lawson that
he has a moderate amount of originality. He
isn't quite as striking in his suggestions as Mr.
John Temple Graves, who wished Mr. Bryan to
rise and nominate Mr. Roosevelt in the demo
cratic convention. Certainly he falls far be
hind the brilliant souls who are suggesting a
ticket of Roosevelt and Bryan. Anyhow his
VOLUME 7, NUMBER 51
suggestion has some novelty? His 430 on n .
respondents represent quite a force in th ,?
try. If they have all been winninK on th T"
he has sent out on copper SS other gmblin
stocks, they surely ought to follow him wh
the greatest docility to the support ol Mr . rJosS
velt or any other candidate. itoose-
A cotton planter in the district near th
home of John Sharp Williams spoke today about
the trouble that the planters were haviS X
selling their crop-or pick is the proper word
to use in reference to cotton. Said he: "I have
seen the time -when cotton sold for from four
to five cents a pound. Today the price ranges
about eleven cents. But when you sell it you
can not get any money for it. I do not believe
that in my part of Mississippi if I offered cotton
PWoCeonS ,CS? I C.0Uld get ifc' Eleven cents
credit is all right, but you have to take scrip of
dubious value which sometimes the storekeepers
in the neighborhood will not accept. We planters
have to carry our hands all through the growing
season. We guarantee their accounts at the
store. We issue them rations. We furnish them
cabins. Sometimes even we mortgage our
plantations in order that the labor may be sup
ported and we may have no lack of it when
picking time comes. I don't pretend that we do
this for purposes of philanthropy; we do it for
business. But when we have done it, and when
we have our crop picked and this is a big
crop this year and when the price is right and
the mortgage falls due and the banker wants
cash and the store keeper wants cash, and we
have nothing but cotton, we begin to wonder
what Is the matter with the financial situation
in the United 'States."
That is just one of many stories I have
heard from southern men within the last week.
WILLIS J. ABBOT.
CORPORATION MUZZLES
Mr. Bryan, in New York, said that it was
a calamity that so many of our great metro
politan papers are owned by somebody whom
we do not know. -So, Mr. Pulitzer calls on
him for names. Mr. Bryan has just said he
didn't know the names. Certainly Mr. Pulitzer
should not have felt hurt at the statement. Mr.
Bryan, however, went on to say: "Many of
them are not exploited as newspaper enter
prises, but as adjuncts to exploit other enter
prises. It has come to be recognized that many
of our great dailies, not all, are for sale to the
highest bidder." Not for sale but already sold.
In not only New York, but over the country,
there are few regions where some prominent
newspaper does not stand out as one of that
class. Ordinarily, it is a good newspaper. As
a rule, it advocates popular policies, but when
the opportunity affords, it stands as an opponent
to progress and a defender of soine vested in
terest, which controls the newspaper solely for
that purpose. Knoxville Sentinel. r.
YE MILLS OP YE GODS
Ye mills of ye gods grind very slow, but they
grind exceedingly . small,
And soon or late it is ye fate
Of mortals all, be they little or great,
To take ye sack upon ye back
To ye mills of ye gods for grinding.
Ye mills of ye gods grind very slow, but ye stonea
are never still;
As .runs ye river towards ye sea,
As ye wash of ye waves along ye lea, ,
Grind ye mills of ye gods incessantly
And never lack for ye grinding.
Ye mills of ye gods grind exceeding small and
likewise exceeding true;
Ye stones are set, and ye grist you get
Depends on ye grain you take to ye mill
Be it hard or soft or dry or wet,
Ye grist will prove in ye grinding.
What grade o' grain do you take to mill? What
does your sack contain?
Is it blighted by rust or mouldy with must?
Is it "Durum" or "smutty" or stained by
' rain?
Be on your guard and see that ye card
On ye sack on your back
Read "No. 1 Hard" lest ye meal
be marred:
For your grist, you will find, de
pends on ye grain
You take to ye gods for
grinding.
rJ. R. Caldwell in Northwestern Miller.
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