The St. Johns herald., 1898-01-01
WASHINGTON LETTER.
MT. Mckinley Has Surrendered
 His Position.
} -1- Regular C3rrespe8tent.

WAsul1l T0N- Decor uer LS, 1897.
 Mir. Mckinley has surrendered to tu,
 anti-ciyil service wing O. the republican party, land has promised to rernoye tin
 bars to some thousands ot offices by IS
 suing an executive order anEUl!!ng ;
 large portion of the extensions of the
 civil service rules made by Mir. Cleve-
 land. This is just what was expected
 when the antis developed so much
 strength in the house. Mir. Mckinley
 has always deferred his own opinions to
 those of what he considered the con-
 trolling element of his party. He
 couldn't stand the threats that were
 made to him by senators and represent
 atives of what would happen in con-
 gross after the Christmas recess, if he
 didn't open some of the offices to hun
 gry republicans.
 A glance at what was accomplished
 during the two weeks that congress was
 in session, before adjourning to January
 3, shows that the republican talk about
 rushing things at this session was only l talk.
 Mir. Nathan B Scott, of West Vir-
 ginia, must have undergone radical
 change since last spring, when he an-
 nounced publicly that he would not &C.,
 cept the position of commissioner of in-
 ternal revenue unless the deputy collec-
 tors, gaugers, etc., were taken from un- der the civil service rules. AS no change
 has been made in the civil service rules, although one has been promised, and the nomination of Mir. Scott to be con- missioner of internal revenue was among those sent to the senate just before ad
 journment for the holiday recess, it is natural to presume that MT. Scott's mind dld the changing.
 Hon. 4. P. Greeley, acting commis- sioner of patents, who has been instru- mental in riddiEg the patent bar of its most u1torious crooks, is now gunning for some ot the minor crooks--tho=s men claiming te h= patent attorneys who induce inventors 10 pay them to secure foreign patents on their inven- tions by making them believe that the foreign patent can be sold as soon as ob tained, when they know absolutely that any foreign patent granted on the inyen- tion would be invalid and unsaleable.
 The National Board of Trade, which held it's annual meeting in Washington, after telling congress just what it's du- ties were toward every imaginable sort of legislation, indorsed the work of the little Monetary Comms sion" before knowing what that work was, a mark of confidence which neither congress nor the people will repeat when the wonderful financial bill brought forth by the commission" is laid before con- gress. The commission has completed it's work-it was really completed before they met-and adjourned sine die, after calling for a assembling of the Indian apols gOld-bug convention in that city on January %. But the wildly impatient public IS not to be kept waiting until then to learn the exact nature of this great work of finance; members of the commission" say it will be ready for in congress when that body reassemb bies January5. Meanwhile the substance of the bill may be found by the curious in the bill submitted to the House Committee on Banking and Cur rency by Secretary Gage.
 Some things are funny enough to make a horse laugh For instance, at almost the precise moment that Senator Chand- Ter was solemnly protesting in the sen ate against Senator Stewards assertion that the administration af 3Tr WcKin- ley was for the single gold standard, Secretary Gage was telling the House Committee on Banking anu Currency that the administration was in favor ot the maintenance of the present gold standard at all hazards.
 It seems a bit strange that what IS likely to prove to be the most far-reach- ing legislation of congress, previous to the holiday recess, or for that matter, of the entire session, should have been en- tirely overlooked by all of the eagle l eyed newspaper correspondents, as well as by about nine out of every ten sena- tors and representatives until the bill | it had been passed by the house and the senate and sent to Mir. 1 Mckinley for his signature, which it, of course, will get, as it is an administra- ton scheme to try to make up for the utter failure of MT. John w. Fosters effort get England and Canada to agree to stop pelagic sealing in the Pa cific. The bill purported to be merely a measure to stop pelagic sealing by Amer ican citizens, and as such, received lit- tie attention, but it stops much more than that. It stops the greater portion of the mammoth income of the rich Londoners who control the secret pro- cess of dying sealskins, and it stops the profits of tho Canadian sealers, because