Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1894-04-20
From our regular correspondent
WASHINGTON LETTER.

To him. He has never had doubt
that the counting OF the quorum would
eventually become one of the fixed rules
Of the House, no matter which party is
in power. If he felt any surprise at all
at the action of the democrat caucus in
directing the committee on rules to
prepare a rule providing for the count
ing of members present and not voting,
in order to make quorum, it was not
because the caucus had come around
to his ideas but because as many of
forty democrats should have voted
against the proposition. While the
republican members of the House are
thorough believers in tAe principle of
counting a quorum it is not yet certain
that they will support the rule reported
by the committee on rules, or that they
will vote at all to help the democrats
get quorum to adopt it. The princi-
pal reason for this uncertainty is that
the caucus resolution also directed the
committee to report rule TO compel
the attendance of absent members. 1t
will depend upon how the democrats
intend to accomplish the proposed
reforms what position the republicans
will take.
Another democratic senator has
placed himself in the doubtful column.
Senator Smith, of New Jersey, in his
speech on tariff bill, which Senator
Quay correctly called "measure OF
mingled malice, compromise and
sectionahsm, renewed the old shivers
which Senator Hill sent up and down
the spines of the free traders last week.
1t has been agreed that the debate on
the bill as a whole shall end next Mon
day, Then the contest over the indi-
vidual schedules will begin and the
fighting will be forced by the republi-
cans from the first to the last. The
democratic managers of the bill are in
doubt as to the status of at least six
democratic senator's, not TO mention the
successor to the late Senator Vance, of
North Carolina, who died here Satur-
day night.
Senators Hill and VOORHEES,, no longer
speak when they pass each other. The
cause is the remarkable raking over
Hill gave Voorhees, in his speech. They
speak of each other to their personal
friends in such endearing terms as
"blatant demagogue" and TRAITOR"
and each refers sarcastically to the
others gall in considering himself a
presidential possibility. Voorhees, calls
Hill traitor because in Difference to
the almost unanimous sentiment of his
state he refused to support the tariff
That refusal is the one
act of Hills since he became member
of the senate that was not tainted with
He was sent TO the
senate to care for the interests of the
state Of New York and for once he did
t,.although he had to oppose his own
party to do it. Hill hits the bulls eye
when he calls VOORHEES, a demagogue.
He has never been and never will be
else. If any one doubts this
let him read the speech with which
VOORHEES, opened the tariff debate.
One democratic congressman has
provided himself with shelter form the
great political cyclone of next Novem-
Der, and many more of them would like
to do the same. The man referred to
is Barnes Compton, who got into the
House in '92, by the ''skin of his teeth,
as the saying goes, from the Fifth
MARYLAND district, and who was several
days ago nominated by Mr.. Cleveland
to be collector of the port of Baltimore.
He knew he couldn't be reelected so he
utilized his pull to grab a nice fat
federal office which he could keep until
after the Inauguration of republican
president in 1897.
1t is charged here that Mr.. Cleveland
was not only cognizant of the corrupt
bargain said to have been made by the
free-traders with the sugar
trust, whereby the trust is to be allowed
to fix the sugar schedule of the tariff
bill just as it wants it in return for
helping the free traders to push the bill
the senate, but that he sug-
gested the making of the bargain.
No Washington jury ever rendered a
more popular verdict than that which
gave Miss Pollard $4,000 as damages
in the breach of promise of marriage
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