The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-10-07
Present Vocation OF the Various and
Numerous Candidates for the
Speakership.
Not Much Will Be Done Until
After the Election In
November.
The Fight Likely tn Prove n Memorable
Ono In the History OF Such
Contests.

mouse turns up In washington, anu LIB
presence ia made the thesis OF many news
paper dispatches and letters to the effect
that the fight is already on. The speaker
ship fight is really begun only upon the
skirmish lines. The various candidates
have chosen their lieutenants in the contest
from among the members OF the last con-
gress with whom they were upon intimate
terms. The candidates and their lieuten-
ants are interviewed whenever opportunity
offers. There have also been letters written
to the large men in the democratic party
who will serve their first terms in the next
house. These letters have been written by
the candidates or their lieutenants with the
special object in view of catching the vote
of statesmen about to bud. No replies,
with an exception here and there, that are
in any way commital have been received.
The man who is about to become con-
gressman usually has the opinion that if
there is stored up all knowledge in any one
person on the face of the universe that per-
son is himself. He thinks that he has but
to arrive at the national capital, take look
over the city from the west front of the
capitol building and be ready to settle any
Il
speaker of the house. He ia not going to
commit himself to anybody. He wants to
be sought after. And he will be sought
after, too, until speaker is elected, when
he will drop out of sight with plunk.
Nothing will be done in the fight until af-
ter the November elections. The various
candidates are out on the stump in different
PARTS of the country and are doing the best
for themselves and incidentally for the
party. The November elections will deter
mine whether the country at the present
moment really wants the free coinage of
silver: and they will also determine whether
it is the ser timent of the people of the
United States that the tariff question will
be again reopened. or whether it be allowed
to rest as it is without the disturbance to
business which invariably follows the form
ulation and advocacy OF a new tariff bill.
Upon the lines laid out by the elections
in question each candidate for tho speaker
shin aust. to q greater or less extent de-
termine his course. As there will be but
about month between the popular cleo
tions and the election of a speaker, it will
be readily seen that in that short time
there must be much hustling and hurrying
| to and fro.
The fight will be one memorable in the
history of the country-one which has no
precedent that could in any way compare
to it for uniqueness. The results of the
election will not be cold twenty yfour hours
before every candidate will have opened
headquarters in Washington, which will
be thronged by people interested directly
or Indirectly in the result of the contest.
and by that motley crowd of politicians
which is drawn here at the beginning
of every new congress. and who have
ever Micawber-like eye to the
possibility of something turning up. This
crowd, owing to the peculiar character of
most of the new members of the house, will
be larger in number than it has been since
the war and it's component parts will par
take more OF the picturesque. There is
danger, indeed, that the infusion of
hayseed which will be brought here in the
hair of SO many rural members and their
constituents who will come OH to see that
the thing is done properly will result in an
epidemic of hay fever, even although win
ter will by that time have pretty we'll set in.
| Joking aside, however, the people of the
country may look for some unusual and
very interesting doings while the necessa-
rily but phenomenally hot contest for the
speakership of the next house is going on.
| There will be a hurly .burly, and more will
be known about the outcome when the
hurly- -burly is done than is known now.