Los Angeles herald., 1890-04-22
The Worlds Fair Bill Passes
the Senate.
Thirteen Votes Cast in OppOsi-
tiOn to 1t.
Vest Was the Principal Opponent OF
the Measure.
A Naval Review Is Included in the Bill
But Columbus Is Not to Have
Statue.
Associated Press Dispatches. |


today, among the bills placed on the
calendar was the Senate bill to provide
additional associate justices for the Su-
preme Court of Arizona.
Reagan introduced bill to repeal all
the laws for the retirement of all army
and navy officers from active service on
pay.
Plumb introduced a concurrent resolu
ton directing the Secretary of the
Treasury to increase the treasury pur-
chase and coinage of silver bullion to
the maximum amount authorized by
the act of February 2S, 1878, and gave
notice that he would ask for it's consid-
Grafton tomorrow. The Senate then
took up the House Worlds Fair bill.
The only amendment reported by the
Senate committee was the insertion of
new section providing for naval re-
view in New York harbor in April, 1893,
and unveiling statue of Columbus at
Washington.
Vest spoke at length in opposition to
the bill.
Vest asked whether there had been in
the whole contest for the fair anything
that elevated or digniied American
character at home or abroad. Ii they
were to assume patriotic standpoint,
or if the idea was to illustrate national
life on the four hundreth anniversary OF
America, why was it not done in the
name of the people of the United States
without contests and squabbles over the
location. Why had there been sort Of
an auction between the cities as to which
@tax foil
the smallest expense on the Govern
ment? If it was to be national mat
ter why did not the nation itself, with
overfowing treasury, take upon itself
the expense. The whole matter
from the beginning had been simply an
advertising scheme, and basis OF mu-
nicipal rivalry between the great cities
of the United States. In this connec-
ton Vest read extracts from magazine
and newspaper articles, and commented
upon them as scandal to American
name and American attributes. He re-
ferred to Chauncey Depew's speech be-
fore the Senate committee, and to his
mention of the town of Peekskill as his
birthplace and as the center of a
larger population than that Of which
st. Louis was the center, and
said Mr.. Depew's modesty had forbid
his going any further to show why
Peekskill did not aspire to the site of
the Worlds Fair. He (Vest) suggested
that after that great act OF parturition
the vital energies of Peekskill were ex-
hausted, and that she had remained
ever since in state of innocuous dis
uetude. [Laughter.] Mr.. Vest read
from book, gotten up in the interest of
New York, poem, the nature of which
was a satire on Chicago's wide extent of
recently annexed territory. The follow
ing verse is a sample OF it.:
The shades of night were falling fast,
AS Ger Kansas prairie passed
youth of presence gaunt and thin,
But vast the shoes he travelled in,
Had driven ninety miles that day,
Nor seen a shed where he could stay;
Oh where am |, at last he groaned;
passing stranger softly moaned:
Chicagol
The reading of these verses produced
great merriment in the Senate.
Mr.. Vest insinuated gently that the
poet was Mr.. Depew's. For eighteen
months he (Vest) had been engaged in
the humble task OF attempting to dis
cover why the meat products of the
great States of the West We're SO de-
pressed; that the cattle-raiser did not
receive pay for his corn, his grass, his
oats; to say nothing of his time and at
tention. Ii his constituents could go to
Chicago in the great stockyards, amid
the believing of cattle and grunting of
hogs, they would find what had be-
come of their cattle, and how their
profits were lost to them; or, if they
went into the wheat pit at Chicago, they
would find mid the believing of bears
and roaring, OF bulls (presided over by
"Old Hutch"), what had become of
their wheat oftar Tn
Chicago the foreigner could see all the
emergencies and perils of the coming fu-
ture; he could see the first strain on
American institutions based on uni
versal suffrage. He would find there a
restless and dangerous foreign popula-
ton. For himself he did not
object that foreigners should see
that phenomenal city of the great
West, but as Senator he could
not give his vote for bill creating an
exposition in any city of the United
States. He believed as a practical busi-
ness man that it came too soon after the
great Paris exposition. In his honest
judgment the people outside of the
cities engaged in the contest did not
care anything about the exposition.
Had the time come when in this country
the people had to be amused with shows,
in their condition of great pecuniary
distress, of unjust laws and outrages
perpetrated upon them?"
German offered an amendment to
strike out the provision for a naval re-
view, and insert an appropriation of
$500, 900 for a material building in
Washington as a repository of antiuui-
ties OF the Western Hemisphere. Re
jected.
Cullom said Chicago would make the
fair grand success, and manifest her
appreciation of the great honor con-
ferred upon her. When the name of
Chicago was mentioned the Senator
from Missouri tVest) seemed to be
seized with kind of hydrophobia.
He (Cullom) did not know what harm
Chicago had ever done the Senator.
The Senator said his people were in
doubt as to whether they would go to
Chicago or Hades, and this raised
question which place the gentleman rep
resented. But the people of Missouri
would be at the exposition by tens of
thousands, whether the Senator liked it
or not.
Blair suggested that the city of Hades
was Democratic city. Blair was op-