Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1894-06-08


T.. =. Mails Amended SO as to Ex.
Ciude ..Traim Stealing'' as n Pc
nal Offensc-The Worthless Anti.
Trust Law-EnlOe's Amen d ment.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, May 25, 1894.
President Cleveland on his return
to Washington found radical change
for the better in the tariff situation.
Senator Teller, after his very sensible
speech, telling the Republican Sena.
tors that they no longer had any re.
sponsible excuse for delaying the final
vote on the bill, clincbed his argu-
ment by forcing test vote on a mo-
ton to lay the bill on the table. That
motion received the vote OF every Re-
publican present, % in all, and every
Democrat present - among them
Senator Hill-35 in all, voted against
it, as alzo did three Populists. That
vote removed the last vestige of doubt
about the passage OF the bill, and
leaves Republican fllibustering with
out a leg to stand on, the Republicans
having claimed that they were justi-
fled in using the tactics they did by
Democratic opposition to the bill.
They will now be given a last chance
to agree upon time to take the final
vote. Should they refuse, the bill will
be forced to vote. There is a feeling
of relief to know that the end is in
sight.
The Senate Committee has con-
cluded the taking of testimony in the
bribery case, and it is believed that
the report will state the belief of the
committee to be that Butte attempted
to bribe Senators Hunton and Kyle.
The committee is now taking testi-
mony concerning the sugar trust and
its alleged relations with Senators.
The House Committee on Naval
Affairs has begun the investigation OF
the Carnegie armor plate contracts,
authorized by the resolution this week
adopted by the House. 1t will proba-
bly, be lcng one, as it covers all the
armor made by the Carnegie com.
panies from the beginning of their
contracts with the government.
Senator Welsh, of Georgia, was
naturally very much surprised when
he learned that the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers regarded his
bill against any stoppage or inter-
ference with trains carrying mails as
being aimed against them, and, after
telling the Senate that as a journey.
man printer his sympathies were and
always had been with the laboring
men of the country, OF whom he was
proud to be one. he introduced an
amended bill, which he thinks cannot
possibly be misconstrued by anybody.
The title of the bill is To protect the
United States Mails" and it provides
that any person who shall rob or at
tempt to rob or maliciously obstruct
or retard for the purpose of robbery
the passage Of the railroad train on
which the mails are carried shall be
punished by imprisonment at hard
labor not less than one nor more
than twenty years.
Attorney-General Olney, in answer
to a resolution adopted by the Senate
last week, asking what action had
been taken against the trusts under
the act of July 2, 1890, has furnished
the Senate with the record of suit
begun against the various firms COM
posing the sugar trust, which was dis
missed in the u! s. Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania, with
costs against the government, ap-
pealed TO the Circuit Court, which
affirmed the action OF the District
Court, and which is now before the
U. S. Supreme Court on appeal. Mr..
Olney does not say so, but it is inferred
from his communication and the &C.
companying documents that he con-
siders the much-talked. about Sher-
man antitrust law a worthless one.
Other people suspicioned as much
when it was first proposed by Mr..
Sherman as substitute for q more
stringent measure proposed by Demo
cratic Senators.
Coxey, Brown and Jones are in Jail,
and the deluded men who followed
them are on the verge of starvation
The lesson should not be lost.
Whether freedom really shricked
when Kosciusko fell is a matter about
which practical folk have doubts, but
no practical working Democrat should
have any doubts about throwing up
his hat and giving three cheers and a
tiger for the Democrats in the House
who had the moral courage to support
the amendment offered by Represents
tive Enloe, to the Legislative and
Executive appropriation bill, striking
out the appropriation for salaries, ETC.,
OF the most colossal public sham of
the age-the Civil Service Commits
sion, Commission which, although
authorized with the best inteutions to
make it fair and impartial, has been
operated from the first day of it,
existence to the present time as ma
chine for keeping Republicans in
office. Mr.. Enloe has offered thil
amendment several times when this
annual appropriation was before the
House, but never until now has he
succeeded in getting it adopted, ant
even now it is not certain that it viii
stay adopted, as the vote-lO9 to IL
was taken when the House Was sitting
as a committee OF the whole, and th'
Republicans have given notice thai
they viii Call for separate yea ane