The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-05-31
PROVOKING DELAY.
The Government Printing Office
Site Still q nseIected.
Senator Henderson FavOrs the
Baseball Ground.
IN A CHAOTIC STATE.
The Union Pacific Railroad Mat
ter Very Complicated.
IN A CHAOTIC STATE.

large class of bills has been waiting on the
action of that committee, and those which
authorize the construction of bridges across
navigable rivers are considered especially
important because the season for that kind
of work is well advanced, material is said
to be phenomenally cheap and skilled la
borers by the thousand are eager for en-
ployment. After q very unusual DELAY
Senator Ransom named the last day Of
May for meeting Of the committee, but
neither he nor any other member would
give any positive promise of final action
soon. Most important of the waiting bills
is that providing for the Hudson river
bridge from Now York city. It will be re-
membered that the first bill was vetoed by
the president, and the house passed an
other framed with the utmost care to meet
every objection urged in the veto. The
preliminary surveys and sOundings should
even now be in progress, and the condi-
ton of the money market makes this a
most favorable time to negotiate the securi-
ties.
Tho Printing once Site.
There is also a provoking delay as to the
new government printing office, though
everybody agrees that there ought to be
speedy action. Pursuant to vote of the
house its committee on public buildings
and grounds some time ago selected for
site the government land near the fish
commission building and on the same
square as the Pennsylvania depot but the
enJ site and hopes TO bring the senate to
its views Senator Manderson of the com
mittee, however, prefers the baseball
ground, but would accept the present site
if an agreement could be reached, while
the senate, having voted once for the
Malone lot, is naturally reluctant to give
it up.
The reconsideration Of that vote moved
by Senator Harris over month ago is still
pending Meanwhile the retained en-
ployees in the present building cannot en-
joy their good fortune for dread of a catas-
trophe, and the hundreds who have been
discharged are moving all they can get at
with appeals for reinstatement or places
elsewhere. The women in particular make
affecting pleas and often throng the lob
bies, but these are times when the force is
being cut down in almost every depart
ment, and the rule is-Once out permanent
~ out, or at least for a long time.
"Great Cry, Little Wool"
Senator Kyle's resolution declaring it
the sense of the senate that the United
States should not use force to restore
Queen Liliuokalani and would regard the
influence of any other government as an
unfriendly act did not excite SO much
interest as was expected The senate took
it rather coolly, in fact, and speakers on
both sides assumed as a matter of course
that all Americans agreed with the reso-
luton If one may judge from the dis
cussion and the absolute silence about it
in the conversation of mem bers, the Ha-
waiian question has ceased to be an excit-
ing topic. The same, only much more So
may be said of the much heralded conven-
ton of the Pan-American Bimetallic
league, which was notable for the absence
of almost every body who had been adver-
tiSed to be present. In place of the alleged
hundreds of delegates from Spanish Amer
lea and the far west, there were dozens
of letters of regret along with q pain
ELL hot
the writers would have come if they could
have raised the money. There were, how
ever, enough present to organize, abuse
the administration to the taste of the most
frantic ants, listen to able argument
in favor of a grand transcOntinental rail
road paid for by new greenbacks and pass
some spicy resolutions. Perhaps the dele
gates did not know it, but the government
is in a fair way to own q transcontinental
railroad in spite of itself, for every prop
osition before the committees looking to-
ward settlement with the Pacific railway
companies has been fought with such Wig
or that the matter is now a little farther
back, if any odds, than it was at the be-
ginning of the session.
In Chaotic State.
President Huntington seems to have al
most convinced the house committee that
the bill they had favored will not do at all,
and the senatE committee is very slow in
taking to the plan which he presented be-
fore it. He has maintained, and others
before the two committees continue to
maintain, that to retire the first mortgage
bonds it would be necessary to tax the
shareholders, of whom there are some TO-,
600, and take the property out of their
hands. The last figuring is to the effect
that a mortgage bond issue of $11O, OOo 600
at az per cent would cover the debts of
the road, including that to the govern
ment OF course the government would
have to guarantee this issue before it
would float
Some very curious testimony was devel-
oped by the inquiry as to how soon the
road could expect a great local traffic, and
some surprising opinions were given by
far western men. Mr.. Huntington claimed
that the trouble had risen through the loss
of business by competition and then gave
powerful reasons for believing THAI there
would be no more competing roads built
because the matter had been overdone, and
the revulsion would keep capitalists out of
it for many years He also thought that
long before the time of the proposed mort
gage bonds ran out the Joaquin valley
alone would contain 10, 900, 600 people, and
that all the far west would be so thickly
settled that people would laugh at such
trifie as this debt. So far as a common man
can see, the whole matter is still in chaos
The journalists have not been able to
stew much fun out of the investigation of
the senate bribery matter, although Mr.
E. J. Edwards, who wrote the article in
the Philadelphia Press which started the
Investigation, was examined at great
length by the committee. The whole affair
has been conducted with an awful serious
ness. and the witnesses have kept their
counsel and obeyed the instructions of the
committee much more than is usual So
far as can be seen, no one in or out of con-
isr INN cod nv