The herald., 1893-09-07
GENERAL WASHINGTON NOTES.
The Presidents Health Said to
Be Excellent.
How Speaker Crisp Called Down Ex-
Speaker Reed.
The Ways and Means Committee and
the Tarlff-Col. Q. p. Lincoln's Lat
est Play Gossip About
Adjournment.
Regular correspondence 10 the HERALD.

WASHINGTON, Sept. l, 1893.
President Cleveland, in accordance
with the announcement made when he
left Washington. just after the extra
session met, is back at his desk in the
White House, and his appearance is the
best refutation OF the many silly sensa-
tional stories that have been published
within the last week about the danger
GUS condition he was in. He probably
never dreamed, when he was having
those two troublesome teeth extracted
and their liberated roots cut out, two
months ago, that it would by-and-by
grow into an operation in which the
greater portion of his jawbone would, in
the mind Of the sensational writer, have
/ to be cut away in order to remove the
terrible cancerous growth. In short, it
was but another version OF the familiar
old story of the man who vomited three
back crows. President Cleveland is not
sick, and he has not been sick since he
left Washington. In fact, there were
few days while he was away that he did
not perform some OF his public duties,
as the records in the Office of his private
secretary will show.
The passage OF the bill for the uncon-
ditional repeal of the purchasing clause
OF the Sherman silver law by the house
has focused public attention upon the
senate, where financial speeches are now
the order of the day. How long the sem
ate will talk before voting is question
that will be answered differently by nine
out of every ten in Washington. Two
weeks is the shortest time given by any
one, and the longest goes away up in the
| months. An agreement of some sort
will have to be reached before vote
can be taken, and the silver senators de-
clare they will make no agreement, un-
less the Voorhees, bill, which has been
reported as substitute for the Wilson
bill that was passed by the house, is
amended in a manner satisfactory to
them. The Democratic leaders, how
ever, are confident that an agreement
will shortly be reached.
Procastination may be the thief of
time, as the old school adage says, but it
isn't getting chance to steal much of
it from the house ways and means COM
mittee, which has buckled right down
to the tariff question with the determi-
nation to report reform tariff bill at
the extra session, or very early in the
regular session. While the committee
is not disposed to encourage long-drawn-
out hearings of every Tom. Dick and
Harry who may think themselves tariff
experts, it will grant proper hearings to
all parties who by reason of their promi-
nence in lines of business that may be
affected by change in the tariff have q
reasonable right to be heard. The hear
ings will begin Monday and end Septem-
Der goth.
Speaker Crisp did very unusual,
although not unprecedented thing, when
he called Representative Richardson of
Tennessee to the Speakers chair and
descended to the floor OF the house to
reply to theunjust and uncalled-for at
tack which, speaker Reed made upon
the new rules of the house. Mr.. Reed
was surprised, and before the speaker
got through, disgusted to find himself
justly held up to the Bcorn of the house
and the country for having falsely
claimed that the new rules were in the
line of the notorious rules with which
he gagged the house of the 51st con-
gress. 1t is not the first time that Mr..
Crisp has proven himself more than a
match for the Maine blusterer, and it
will not be the last. The difference be-
tween the new rules OF the house and
the notorious Reed rules is precisely
that. between the government of the
United States and the government of
Russis-the new rules put the authority
for shutting off debate in the hands of
the majority of the houee, where it
alone belongs, and the Reed rules put it
into the hands of Reed, making him
more of an autocrat than would be
tolerated in any legislative body OF the
world.
1t is queer how some things work. 1t
is low said that Col. Chas. P. Lincoln,
who was deputy pension commissioner
under Raum, and who haa lately gained
some notoriety by publicly announcing
his intention to test in the courts the
right of the commissioner of pensions to
suspend pensioners, except in cases
where fraud is proven to have been
used in securing the pension, got the
echeme up for no other purpose than to
boom his candidacy for commander-in-
chief of the GAR. at the coming en-
campment of that organization at Indi-
annapolis.
1t is regarded as significant that
Speaker Crisp should have attached "If
l am in Washington on that date" to his
acceptance of an invitation to deliver q
short address at the centennial celebra-
ton of the laying of the corner stone of
the capitol, to be held on the 18th of
September. 1t is taken to mean that
the speaker thinks the extra session
may adjourn before that date, and con-
sequentiy that the senate will be prompt
in acting on the Voorhees, bill.