The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-07-16
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

MR.. EDIToR:-"Wa abiding William" is
the rather uncomplimcntarv name that
has been applied to Mr.. Mckinley by
prominent members of his party, because
of his lightning changes of mind in con
nection with that special message to Con-
gress asking for authority to appoint a
currency commission. One day he would
tell the prominent members of his party
who called to protest against his sending
in the message at this session that he had
made up his mind to withhold it until t, g
regular session and make the recon men
dation in his annual message, but the IL 'Xt
day. when the agents of the banking IT.
terests put the screws to him and reminded
him of his campaign promises and their
campaign contribution, he would al
nouncc to them that the message should
go in. He kept this up for several days,
much to the disgust of those who applied
the epithct of "wabbling William to him
and did not finally decide the matter until
Secretary Gage, the personal representa-
tive of the bankers, had secured the
assistance of the rest of the Cabinet to
help brace his backbone up. The author
ity to appoint currency commission i'll
not be given to Mr. Mckinley at this SEES
sion of Congress, nor at the next. 1t is
possible that bill creating such COM
mission may be passed at the next session,
but it will not give Mr.. Mckinley the
choosing of its members. If there is to be
such commission, the silver democrats
will see to it that it shall not be packed in
the interest of the single gold standard.
Mr.. G. E. Somers, who was Sergeantat
Arms of the Kentucky Senate at the tim
that Gov Bradley ordered out the militia
to preserve order, and who is conce lied to
be good authority on the politics of his
state, is now visiting Washington. In re-
ply to questions, he said: THE silver dem
ocracy, which is the regular democracy,
will win by $4,000 majority. Our majori
ty may be much higher for the democrats
are determined to administer a stern re-
buke to their enemies within the party as
we'll as without. The present state add
ministration has been rank failure, and
the voters will take advantage of the com
ing election to give it a Fitzsimmons' blow.
BY 1900 there wont be left enough of sim
gle gold standard democracy in Kentucky
| to utilize as a historical reminlscemce."
The republican Senators and Represen-
tatives have succeeded in convincing Mr..
Mckinley that something must be done
| for their office seeking constituents, and
tive order removing number of desirable
| Federal positions from the control of the
civil service rules Mr.. Mckinley was
not hard to convince. as he has been as
anxious as anybody to let d,wn the bars
| to the offices, but, having always posed as
| a civil service reformcr, he wanted Con-
gress to order him to act. There are req
sons-substantial, too-why Congress has
| not done so, and is not likely to do so;
hence his agreement to act independently.
The death of Senator Harris, of Tennes-
see, whose funeral took place in the Sen
ate Chamber on Saturday, removed 4
| striking figure from the arena of National
politics, one whose ideas of personal in
| tegrity were as oldfashoned and straight
| laced as his ideas of party fealty, and who
| didn't have one set of ideas for public use
and another set to govern his private ac
tons During his half century of public
| life, Isham G. Harris was credit to his
State and to the democratic party, and
was never guilty of an act that even his
most bitter political enemy-he had no per-
sonal cnemes-could cast suspicion upon.
Having said that MUCH it is needless to
add that Senator Harris died poor man.
The democratic Senators and Represen-
tatives. who are members of the Confer
| cnce committee on the tariff bill. know no
| more of what that committee is doing than
the rankest outsider does. The rcpubll-
cans informed them as soon rs the Confer
| ence begun that they wished to fight their
differences out among themselves without
having anybody else present. and, OF
| course, the democrats retired and will re-
main out of the conference until sent for.
| The republicans evidently regard Jones,
| of Nevada. as one of themselves, as he
| not only was not asked to retire, but is
| taking a very prominent part in the con-
| ference as an able assistant to Senator
| Aldrich in championing the interests of
| the sugar trust 1t is said the republicans
| expect to reach an agreement by the mid
! die of the week If they do, the tariff bill
| will become law tefore the end of the
week, and Congress will at once adjourn.
| The Tariff conferees, we are assured,
are having most a IN o IL l o
time and have reached an agreement up
on everything except the points on which
their was disa Sreement. As these in
clude most of the important features of
the bill, the achievement of the conference
NAV be estimated. On one or two items
at issue between the two houses the con-
ferrees are said to have adopted figures of
the House and thus to have assured the
rejection of their report in the Senate.
While the Senate amended some of the
worst features of Mr.. Dingleys compost
ton, it added others of its own even worse
than Dingley ventured on, so that there is
not much to choose between the two YER
sions. The whole tariff is SO oppressive
and at the same time so worthless as
revenue measure that it would be really
relief to the country if it failed at last.
Meanwhile the uncertainty continues
and is likely to continue. The sugar
schedule is still subject to amendment
and speculation in sugar stocks is boom
ing Phj'ol"'phjo Times.