Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-28
THE NEXT HOUSE.
The Speakerhsip COntest-Who the Can
didates Area Quadruple Fight.
What VIII be Done with Carlisle and Mills.
Order Applying Civil Service to the
Railway Mail Service.
Special to the Gazette.

N-S oea-SNeN-
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21.-As it is now
| conceded the next house will be Repub-
ican gossip is thus early INDUCED in as
to the speakership and the important
committee chairmanships. The contest
for speaker is q Quadruple one, with
Reed, Mckinley, Cannon and Burrows in
the field, and they are all more or less
active, the silent worker, however, is
Mckinley. He is not man of buster,
but for good, honest, plain work he is far
ahead of his competitors. Then too he
has the advantage of a prestige earned at
Chicago, where he remained steadfast TO
Sherman, and refused to allow his own
name to be used for the presidency when
he had good winning chance. Joe
Cannon is aggressive and has
the name of being the Re
publican watchdog of the treasury.
He has had many years experience Oh the
appropriations committee, and is an able
and ready debater, knows the rules of
the house thoroughly, but is not so mag
netic as Mckinley. Burrows is some
what of an orator and Il little inclined to
be autocratic like his namesake, Julius
Caesar. He is big burly man with a
voice like q steam calliOpe, whose lower
tones seem to come from the soleS of his
feet. His candidacy is, if anything, less
formidable than any of the other COM
petitOrS. Reed is the widest known can
didate and has been in the chair fire.
quently. He is n big boy, and reminds
one of Billy Backus, character in one
of Lolita s plays, with pedagogical
tendencies. Reed is the most sar-
filings his rhetoric with scintil-
lations of wit and whitening irony
as best suits the occasion. No one ever
simply Tom Reed, and will be
ways called so. He has
lways received the complimentary
vote for the speakership from
the Republicans since the Democrats
captured the house, and it will be very
hard on him if he does not receive the
vote next session when it means some
thing. Still yOn can get odds that he
will not, if you choose to bet on him.
Next after the speakership comes the
Craftsmanship of the ways and means
committee, and gossipS are already busy
about that. Will Judge Kelly get it?
The present indications are against him.
He is Il grand old man, has been i'll the
house thirty consecutive years, and, at
seventy-five years of age, is still able to
make a good speech and be heard all over
the house. But he is still too
old for a leader of the house
and it is safe to say that the Republican
speaker will appoint some bright, active,
wideawake Republican who is in accord
with the present position of the party in
the matter of tariff revision. Apropos of
the ways and means committee, it is in
teresting to know what will be done with
Mr.. Carlisle. He win have to be proyi-
ded for on the committee, and there will
be some embarrassment in placing him.
He would prefer to set at the head of the
Democratic minority of the ways and
means committee, but Mr.. Mills will
probably not be willing to addicate the
place which properly belongs to him. If
they cannot get the position they desire
on the committee which will frame the
next tariff bill, they would prefer to go
on some minor committees.
The order made by the president apply
ing the civil service rules to the mail
service brings between five and six
thousand employees of the government
under the protection of the civil service
laws. There has been some comment
upon its being made at this time, pOliti-
cal opponents of the administration al
leging that the president has done it to
prevent the new administration from
making 'clean sweep AS a matter
of factG this action has been in contem-
plation by the president for several
months. The yearners for the tlesh-pots
denOunce the extension of the civil service
system to the railway postal service as a
sham reform. This is bosh. The presi-
dent was only restrained from issuing the
order i'll order to ascertain its probable
effect upon that service. Whatever else
may be said against Cleveland, he cannot
be truly charged with established rules
for the tenure of office i'll partisan
spirit Mr.. Harrison will find the civil
service on a very different footing from
that upon which it stood under Grant and
Arthur, and it is believed by those who
know him best that he will not be driven
from his pledges to still further develop
the spirit and letter of the law.