Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1890-11-27
Washington Letter.
lFrom our Regular Correspondent.I

be for long time to come the center OF
political activity, and Washington news
promises to be more important and in
teresting this winter than at any other
time since the war. In little more
than a week the second and final session
of the Fifty first Congress viii convene,
and already a majority of its members
are here busily engaged in comforting
and determining what is best to be done
with the various important questions
which are to come before them and also
in making political plans for the future.
Every republican is deeply interested
in what will be done at this session of
Congress, for its action or nonaction
will. to great extent. determine which
of the great political parties of the
country will enter the national contest
two years hence with the greatest pros
pect of success; it will have to decide
whether the Federal election bill is to
become a law or not; it will be called
upon to sgy whether the currency of the
country shall be largely increased
through the freq coinage of silver, as
the silver men have fully determined to
bring that subject up again; it will have
to make the Congressional apportion-
ment made necessary by the increase 10
population shown by the Eleventh CEN
sus; it will have to decide whether any
notifications are necessary in the new
tariff law; it will in all probability be
called upon for some additional recipro-
city legislation in order to give the
country the greatest possible benefit
therefrom, And these are only por-
ton of the interesting questions that
will be brought before the republican
majority in the present Congress for
adjustment, and what is left unsettled
at the expiration of the tifty-frst Con-
oress is certain 10 remain in that con-
dition until the next President, and the
members of the House of Representa-
tives of the fffty-third Congress are
elected.
Another thing, which will add much
interest to the Washington political
news of this winter is the cat and dog
scramble that has begun among the
democrats over the Speakership and the
other officers of the next House of Rep
resentatives. This fight will be a long
and bitter one and it will bring out in
strong light all of the numerous factions
which compose the nondescript body
commonly known as the democratic
party, and it will make wounds that the
most skillful surgery cannot heal be-
fore 1892. There are already about
twenty candidates in the field and about
one-third of them are claiming that they
will be actively supported by that great
democratic mogul, ex-Presidedt Cleve-
land. He cannot support them all, and
when it is known, as it is certain to be,
whether formally announced or not
which of them he really favors, look out
for free fight of the most bitter kind
and when the fighting begins keep
your eye on Hill and anti-Cleveland
democrats, for every one of them is pro-
vided with a weapon that is as danger
Gus politically and the daggers welded
by the members of the infamous Malta
are physically, and they will use them
for all they are worth. This Speaker
ship contest will also practically decide
the head of the next national democratic
ticket, and the moves and counter
moves that will be made cannot fail to
be intensity interesting.
Still another source of interest will be
the visits of the prominent republicans
of the country, who will come here to
confer with members of Congress and
the administration, for the purpose OF
clearly mapping out the next Presiden-
tial campaign and reaching conclus-
ion as to who will be the best man to
lead the republican party to victory
the fact is now generally recognized by
all shrewd republicans that it is not to
be a question of personal preferences,
but of who is the man that will receive
the votes of the entire republican party
only such a man can win, and when
the best informed men of the party
have decided upon the man it is expect
ed that he will be nominated by accla-
nation.
Superintendent Porter of the census
bureau has received from the state of
Louisiana the strongest official proof of
the correctness of the Federal census in
that state. 1t is the result OF the state
census, taken by the state authorities