St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-02-19
The Democratic National Convention.
and the Efforts Being Made to
Capture 1t.
Grsb for the Surplus Geneva Award--A
Bill for the Extension Of the
Bonded Period.
Democratic Presidential Aspirants--Mor-
rison and Harrison Tariff Ideas
Clash.
rsnecial Telegram TO the Globe I

cOInmlLL6e on puDllc UulIulnSS. Inc cOmmltt
has placed the bill in the hands of Represen-
tatiye Worthington to report to the house at
the first opportunity. The committee also
recommends appropriations of $780, 900 for a
public building at Patterson, N. j.; 5000, 900
for Troy, N. Y; $1,000 for
Lancaster, Pa; 100000 for La
Crosse, Wis, and $780, 600 for Keokuk
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL AsPIRANTs.
Some Of the Democratic aspirants for the
presidency have chosen to show themselves
in person as, Mcdonald, of Indiana, and
Eaton, of Connecticut, have done openly
courting attentions from senators and repre-
sentatiyes and holding confidential confer
ences with the Democrats who assume the
role of king makers. Flower, of New York.
and Hewitt, of the same state, have had
trusty men here working up their booms and
now Morrison's winsonic missionary has
come to for the Pickering flame Of
enthusiasm for the Illinois states
man. w. T, Dowdall, of Peoria
arrived to-day and spent some time with Col
Morrison. He told the colonel that he had
assurances that Kentucky, Iowa and Illinois
would back Morrison for the presidential
nomination. Dowdalls says he is here for
the purpose of looking for the best man for
vice-president on the Morrison ticket for the
Illinois state ticket. He asserts that with a
strong active state ticket, full of young blood
and energy, and earnestly in favor of tariff
reform, with tariff reform platform and Morri-
son for the presidency, Illinois would be safe
for the Democracy. If this should be done,
Dowdall proclaims himself ready to back his
opinion with any reasonable amount of
money. He thinks that Morrison has de-
cidedly the best chance for the presidency
LOST OPPORTUNITY.
An opportunity to pass bill providing for
the retirement of the trade dollar from circu-
lation was lost to-day, in consequence of a
scramble between two commissioners and
particularly between Mr.. Bland of silver dol
lar notoriety and Mr.. Ermen-
trant, of Pennsylvania. The coin
age and the currency committees
respectively recommended that the trade dol
lar be redeemed, but Bland induced the
House to take the bill from the currency
committee, and gives his commission on
coinage exclusive control of the question.
The currency commission had intended to
move to-day to pass the bill under a suspen-
sion of the rules, which would have been
agreed to with few dissenting votes. Mr.
Bland's commission, having gained control,
merely asked the house to fix day to con-
slider the bill. Cries went up on all sides for
the bill to be put up on its passage at
once, but Bland objected because he
feared that if trade dollars were redeemed
and treated as bullion it would in some way
result in checking the coinage of cart wheel
dollars, depreciate silver bullion and afford
an excuse for entirely stopping the coinage
of the standard dollar. Mr.. Townshend, of
Illinois, also got in a word of opposition to
the exchange of trade dollars
for standard dollars at par
He thought they ought to
be redeemed at their bullion value, because
the trade dollars had been repudiated by the
banks and so deprecated that they had come
into the hands of spectators, whom this bill
would benefit at the expense of the people
If other business does not crowd it out of
place the question of retirement of trade dol
lars will be considered by the house on the
18th of March.
THE GENEVA AWARD.
Ex-Congressmen Wilson and Mark Fl.
Dunnell and some other gentlemen appeared
before the house judiciary committee this
of 7;
mitted by them to supplement the act of
1882, for the distribution of the Alabama
award. As congress has persistently refused
to distribute the greater part of this award
among the class of claimants for whose ben
eft it was made by the Geneva tribunal, and
has indicated fixed purpose to give it to
persons who made no claims
before the tribunal or whose
claims were presented there and
rejected it has occurred to certain persons
who lost floating property during the war but
whose claims are not covered by either Of
the acts already passed for the distribution,
that they ought to get the scope of the dis
tribution expanded sufficiently to take them
in. This proposed bill provides that the
words confederate cruisers" shall be con-
strued and held to include for purposes of
said act, any and all vessels or expeditions,
proceedings or acts done by persons in the
name of, or acting in the interest
Of, or by the authority of the
late confederate government or any
of its officers by which the vessels or cargoes
of loyal citizens of the United States were
attacked, captured or destroyed, and that the
words s'high seas,'' in said act, for the pur-
pose thereof shall be construed and held to
include any waters within the admiralty
jurisdiction of the United States, where the
tide ebbs and flows. The pirates of the
Chesapeake, so called, were pretty active and
destructive in the early part of the war. One
case mentioned before the committee this
morning was that of a vessel that was
compelled by stress of weather
to anchor in Chesapeake bay about
fifty miles above the capes. During the
night squad of rebels went out to her in a
small boat, captured and burned her. In an
other case party of dozen young men of
this city, having southern sympathies and a
uesiIe ior auveutures eHparkeu d1 Daltlu1ore
on steam er regularly plying between that
port and Fortress Monroe, and after the boat
had got well down the bay, covered the cap
tain, pilot and engineer with their revolvers,
took charge of the boat and ran her up one
of the Virginia rivers and delivered her up
to the rebels. Of course these acts of
piracy were not the acts of
confederate cruisers upon the high
seas, as those terms have hitherto been de-
fined, much less were they the acts of the
only cruisers for which the Geneva tribunal
held England liable, and for the indemnih-
cation of whose acts the award of $15, 5,00O,-
600 was made. But the proposed bill would