The Press., 1897-01-28
Washington Latter.
washinntnn. Ian. 1ath. 1sg7.

= the bid which has been made to the govern ment for the Union Pacific Railroad than appears in the official statement of At torney General Harmon concerning the foreclosure proceeding against that road | That Is why he offered the resolution, which was adopted by the senate, direct ing the Attorney General to inform the senate whether he had made any deal with what is commonly known as the re- organization committee of the u. r. Railroad, respecting the foreclosure of thegovernment lein thereon, together with the amount that the said committee Is to bid in the event of the foreclosure. He is further directed to furnish the senate the full text of the agreement, together with the names of the members of the committee and his authority for entering on he foreclosure proceedings and for making such an agreement. There is a suspicion that the bid made to the govern ment represents the present U. F. manage ment. No proceedings can be taken against the Central Pacific road and the branch lines which owe the government money, before next January, and not then unless they default in their payments.
 The senate was sensationally inclined during the past week. In the first place it held session every day, something 1t has not done before at this session, Cyni. cal people say, however, that 1t wasn't  on the account of public business, but on account of fight between two Washing ton electric light companies, and the pro- ceedings during the "morning hour" seemed to bear out what the cynical say. In the next place, senators on the foreign relations committee made public speeches protesting against public pressure being brought to bear upon them to hurry up and ratify the arbitration treaty. But the greatest sensation of all was the reading of 8 protest against the Nicaragua Canal bill which is now before the senate, made by foreign minister, This was very unusual thing. The protest was from the recently recognized minister of the Greater Republic of Central America, and was sent to Secretary Olney, who in re- turn sent 1t to Senator Sherman, chairman of the senate committee on foreign rela- tiOns, who had it read in open senate. The protest says in effect that Nicaragua will not recognize any contract made with the canal company, which 1t considers to have forfeited all the concessions 1t ever had and closes by inviting the US. govern ment to open direct negotiations with Nicaragua for the building of the canal. The very nature of this communication is such that senators believe it to have been inspired by Great Britain. Senator Morgan made red hot speech about it, and there will be more. but it has killed the canal bill, and 1t may be found that it has ovarshot the mark and also killed the arbitration treaty.
 Civil service reform circles have been interested in an incident that will probably be investigated by congress. A $500 position as translator was to be filled In the war department, and the civil service commission advertised that applicants would be examined and required to trans. late into English technical military work in French, German, Italian and Spanish to do typewriting in all these languages to do prOof-readiDg and prepare manu. scripts for the press; to be familiar with modern library methods, the classification of books, cataloguing and indexing with the English language, literary composition etc. Miss Maud Stalnaker, young lady of Washington D. O., was the only one able to pass the remarkably crucial ex- animation, and was duly certified by the civil service commission as the only one eligible, but the war department refused to appoint her to the vacancy because she is! a woman.
 They are telling good joke on ''Uncle Joe" Cannon, chairman of the house com mittee on appropriations, around the capitol. When his name was first men. tioned as a senatorial possibility, Uncle Joe assumed an attitude initiating Ajax in his great defying act and said grandi. loquently: My duty is here!" or words to that effect, which wore duly telegraped and printed in the Springfield papers fol the benefit of the members of the Illinois legislature. Later, when the legislature appeared to be in deadlock, "Uucle Joe" concluded that duty called him tc Springfield. He started. He got as fal as Pittsburg, where he saw in news. paper that Billy Mason had captured the senatorial plum. He went no further but caught the next train for Washington and has ever since been trying to keep anybody from finding out that he really started for Springfield.
 The national headquarters of the Ameri- can federation of labor are now per. manently located in Washington, and open for business, with President Com pers and Secretary Morrison in charge. The headquarters are located in an office building near the treasury department. MT. Gompers says the federation was never in a more fourishing condition, I