Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1882-03-15
From Our Regular Correspondent ]
Washington Letter.

WASHINGTON. ID. c., March 10. 80.
Congresses come and congresses 60, but
the reek of the Potomac swamps goes on
forever. Since Washington has become
beautiful city with paved streets more
solid and smoother than the sidewalks of
other cities, with marble palaces as
massive and graceful as the Tuileries.
with dozens Of parks that require only q
little more growth to make them Elysian
groves, with statues and fountains that
discourse history or babble o. green
fields y; and murmur the loves Of nymphs
Ergo, qua quinn tia SIM, il is great
pity that these Potomac swamps that
mingle curse with every blessing. and
spice this fair banquet with the dust of
DEATH" cannot be mopped up. Congress
could do it with its little appropriation;
but congress is guest who abldes here
but two years, subsisting chiefly on whis-
ky and quinine, voting Chinese anti-immi-
grafton bills, anti.Mormon bills, aHnts'
sisters and cousins bills, innaling all the
time the reek of these swamps, until their
blood blackens and their sinews crack.
Cut this out and send it to your member
of congress, and maybe he will send you
a package Of garden seeds.
The malaria fats would have been long
since improved if it were not for the lobby.
There is always this monster ready to
strangle any good measure that il cam OF
convert to its gain.
The trouble with the plan now recon-
mended for the removal Of these swamps,
placing the work under the control of the
secretary of war, is that there is no plum
der in it. There is not a penny in it for
the lobby. and it shuts out host of greedy
spectators and land grabbers, who have
long had scheme to turn these swamps
into solid land, and sell it in lots at i'm
mense profit.
The lobby, especially opposed to the
speedy and only honest obliteration Of
these swamps, is company of Maryland
land grabbers. the star route plunderers
and heterogeneous crowd of lobby high
waymen, held together by the hope Of
plumber.
There is measure before congress now
which, if it shall become law. will do
more practical good than any measure
that has been before this body for years.
l mean the bill to constitute a court Of
private claims. 1t has been the case for
years that legislation of broad and
national character has actually been crowd
ed out of congress by host of private
claims-some just, some jobs, but all of a
character too petty to be considered by the
national legislature. 1t is proposed to
refer all these private matters to a court
especially created for their adjudication.
In this way congress will be relieved of
work that has heretofore occupied nearly
one-third af its time in committee and in
the two houses. Moreover, the lobby will
receive powerful blow. Nearly nine
tenths of the private claims that come
before congress are of character that
will shrink from the light Of judicial
investigation, and court will easily be
able 10 hear the tenth claimant and decide
his claim on principles of law and equity.
The result will be that large crowd Of
lobbyists will steal away from Washing
ton, and there will be much less moral
and political malaria about the corridors
of the House and Senate.