The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-03-09
ON. POWERSlN APBT
He Sends an Insulting Telegram
to Chairman WASHINGTON.
HE MAKES A SERIOUS IMPUTATI0N
On Mr.. Washingt0n's Character as Gentle
man and Legislator-he Received q
Prompt and Short Answer.
HERALD BUREAU,
Cor. 18th and G Streets, n. w.
WASHINGTON, d. c., March s. J

Judge Powers, of Salt Lake, and Chair
mau Washington, of the House territories
committee, have been having a spirited cor
respondence by telegraph. 1t has grown
out of the recent argument which Judge
Powers made before Mr. Washington's
committee, and although it is limited to but
two brief kilograms, they make, as you will
see, very lively reading
When Mr.. Washington went up to the
House this morning he found the following
telegram awaiting him:
SALT LAKE, March Z.
Hon. J. z. Washington Chairman of the House
Committee on Territories Washington D. C.
Ihave received the published arguments be-
fore your committee on the Game bill. All
reference to the pamphlet 1 submitted as part
of my argument is omitted Do you think that
fair, even though you favor the bill? Wire an
answer at my expense.
(Signed) o. W. POWERS.
MIR. Washington, who Is native of Ten
nessee, and one of the most agreeable and
charming men in public life, was hotter
than pepper when he read Judge Powers
dispatch. He regarded it as a serious
imputRtion upon his character as q gentle
man and q legislator, and l suspect if the
judge had been in Washington instead of
Salt Lake, Mr.. Washington would have
hunted him up and said some things to
Mr.. Powers that the latter might not have
liked. AS it was, his only recourse lay in
replying to the Judge by telegraph, and
this is the answer he sent him:
WASHINGTON, d. c. March s.
To Judge Powers, Salt L AXE. Utah:
If your telegram intimates that 1 revised
your remarks and suppressed any part OF them,
it is too insolent 10 deserve reply. If the
stenographer omitted anything you are re-
sponsible for that, because you did not remain
and personally revise and correct your own
speech as the others did.
(Signed) j. E. WASHINGTON.
The sending of this dispatch seemed to
relieve Mr.. Washington's mind and when l
saw him little later he was as smiling
and good natured as ever. Perhaps. too,
he found some comfort in striDging the
dispatch out and thus making the tele-
graph tolls as heavy as possible, for !
ought to add that he took the Judge at his
word and declined to prepay the message.
MIR. Washington explained to me that he
could not account for this action of Judge
Powers. His intercourse with the judge,
he said, was quite as pleasant as it was
with that of the other gentlemen who ap-
peared before the committee, and he could
not understand why Mr.. Powers should
take him to task simply because something
the judge wanted inserted in his speech
had failed to appear there. He also added
ironically that he could not see any reason
why any part of the judges speech needed
suppression for it certainly was not Of
sufficient Importance to justify any
body in eliminating any portion Of
it. He said that he had looked over
Judge Powers argument after it ap
peared in print and he had failed to detect
that anything was omitted unless it was OIL
page thirty four, where Mr.. Powers made
the statement that he desired to file ex
tracts from a speech he made in Salt Lake
on the Goth of August. 1890, showing the
manner in which the Mormon people con
trolled affairs there. Mr.. Washington
recollects that during his speech, Judge
Powers held in his hand a pamphlet which
he wished to file as part of his remarks
Judge Powers stated, however that ht
could not file it at that time as 1t was thu
only copy he possessed and that he wanted
to use it in his argument before the Senat,
committee on the following day MIR
Washington says he never saw the pam.
phlet again, and would not in fact have re
called the circumstance but for the Judge!
hasty and iIl-tempered telegram