The Press., 1896-04-02
Washington Letter.

Washington, March 3Oth, 1896.
 The game of president making is getting hotter every day among the republicans. The democrats and populists are merely spectators, waiting to see if the game will turn. up any opportunities for them to take advantage of. Although four rive candi- dates are named, the republicans are really divided into McKinleyites and anti McKinleyites, and the fight has narrowed down to Mckinley against the field The McKinleyites still claim that his nomi- nation is assured, but it is easy to see that they have become badly frightened at the terrific fight which his opponents are making on him. Unless the politi- clans are all mistaken in the situation, the St. Louis convention promises to be the scene of as spirited a series of contests as took place at Cincinnati twenty years ago, and resulted in the turning down of Blaine and Grant and the nomination of Hayes. Certainly the republican situation to-day resembles in many respects that which existed in the early spring of '76. The contest over the platform, especially the financial plank, may be quite as spirited as that over the candidate.
 Senator Hill, of N. Y, has introduced a bill which had it been fathered by pop ulist, would have been met with con- certed cry of "ridiculous" The bill au- thorizes and directs the secretary of the treasury to detail sufficient number of revenue cutters to provide for the safety of the participants in and the spectators at international sailing regattas. There would be just about as much common sense in bill directing the secretary of to detail a company of infantry to pro- tect the umpire at each and all of the games of base ball that may be played be- tween American and Canadian clubs.
 If members of Congress were not hard headed and difficult to convince, the state ment of ex-Senator Warner Miller, presi- dent of the Nicaraguan Canal Company, to the house commerce committee, would have left no doubt of the philanthropic reasons of the ex-Senator for wishing Uncle Sam to guarantee $100,00O ,O00 of bonds to be issued by the Canal company nor of the prejudice of the government commission which made a report which did not accord with the figures of the Canal company. MT. Miller also tried a little high and lofty business, by telling the committee that the canal company had never asked for congressional legislation, and that all itnow wanted was for congress to say whether it intended to take control or not, as private capital could easily be secured if the intention of this government not to interfere be plainly made known. That sort of bluff is worse than useless Those who know anything at all about the scheme know that it was because of the failure to secure private capital that the plan of having bonds guaranteed by the government was brought forward
 It is difficult to get facts enough to say positively whether the reported intention to rush bill through both branches of congress during the last days of the ses- sion, to add $1 barrel to the internal revenue tax on beer, is true or is only a ruse of the lobbyists employed by the brewers to look out for their interests in congress, to make their employers believe they are earning their money. More than year ago Speaker Reed, in a speech