Bridgeton pioneer. (Bridgeton, N.J.) 1884-1919, 1886-07-29
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
WASHINGTON, July 26, 1886.


House of Representatives has spent
portion of the week, one would say
that members are not anxious to do
anything important, and are in no
hurry to adjourn. They spent one
whole day in filibustering roll calls,
through an effort to give precedence to
the bill imposing a tax of two cents a
pound on oleomargarine The bill
slipped back to the bottom of the cal
endar at the end of the struggle. but it
had prevented action on more impor-
tant measures.
The bill to prevent anybody making
or inventing anything that will dimin-
ish the price of butter, or the greasy
bill'' as it is called, got up before the
House next day again by some strata
gem, and was hustled through as it
came from the Senate. 1t will now go
to the President. Thousands of poor
people in all parts of the country, who
for the first period in their lives are
able regularly to annoint their bread,
wait with anxiety to see what Mr..
Cleveland thinks of it.
The Fall election promised to make
many changes in the House of Repre-
sentatives. There are a few members
who can come back to Congress as
long as they wish to, and who avail
themselves of the privilege, but there
will be a general shaking up among
the majority Many have declined
denomination. some have failed to be
renominated already, many more will
yet fail and many more will be beaten.
The Presidents order that subordinate
Government officials shall not take
part in political conventions, will, it is
said, seriously affect the chances of
several members, whose official friends
have already been chosen for delegates
to conventions.
Within the last two weeks almost
every member of Congress has received
from one to twenty letters asking for
blanks etc, that the writers may make
application for pensions under the
Mexican Pension law. The truth Is,
the Mexican Pension bill has not yet
become law, and probably will not
this session. The Senate and House
have differed about the bill, and it
cannot reach the President until they
agree. Speaking of pensions reminds
he that there are now more men on
the Government pension roll than
were ever at one time in the Confed-
crate army. Pensions are curious
things. There are upon the pension
lists over three thousand survivors of
the war of 1912, and over eighteen
thousand widows of the 1912 soldiers.
During that war the army averaged
about thirty-five thousand all told,
officers and enlisted men, and the
whole number of killed and wounded
only amounted to five thousand six
hundred and fourteen. Yet on the
first of July six million dollars appro-
priated for pensions to survivors, wild
ows, minor children. and dependent
relatives on this 1912 roll became avail
able. OF revolutionary pensioners
there are few widows and minor chill
dren who linger still, but the revolu-
tionary pension roll has nearly ceased
to exist. All pension lists show in the
course of fifty years a small beginning,
rapidly increasing and slowly decreas-
ing until within a century it is wiped
out. If no war occurs in the next half
century, the wealth of the United
drain on its Treasury, and of payment
upon the National debt, will be some
thing fabulous.
For the sake of the people in the
back districts, it is too bad that the
bill to establish agricultural expert
ments stations was killed in the Senate
almost without a chance for discussion.
This measure was secondOnly TO the
oleomargarine bill in attracting the
bucolic fancy. Every Congressman
with a rural constituency has intro
duced at least one of these bills during
the session.
A party Of tourists from Boston on
Saturday visited the famous snow arch
in Tuckerman's Ravine, on the side of
Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
After lunching, a young lady named
Pierce, and Sewell Faunce, aged Is
years, ventured to explore the arch,
when it suddenly fell with crash
carrying down both. Miss Pierce was
rescued alive, though dangerously in