The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1899-02-03
OUR w ASUINGTON LETTER

w AsHINGToN, d. c., January 30th.
Mr.. EDITOR: Anti-imperialistic senti-
ment will have full swing in the Senate
this week, rs nearly every Senator who
opposes and who has not already spoken
intention to speak The treaty of Peace
will be voted upon February 9th, and the
chances favor its ratification, because
nothing would be gained by rejecting it.
a motion to reconsider would be made by
by one of its friends, and it would require
a majority to table it. That majority its
| opponents have not. SO, if it were re-
| iected February 9th, all Mr.. Mckinley
would have to do would be to call an eX-
ira session of the Senate, in March, when
it would be promptly ratified.
Within the last week Mr.. Mckinley has
been personally harshly criticised in both
| House and Senate and in each body enc
| of his critics was republican. In the
House, Representatives Jerry Simpson and
Johnson, of Indiana, jumped on him for
bowling to public opinion, right or wrong;
and in the Senate, Senators German and
| Hoar gave him fits for declining to furnish
the Senate with copies of the instructions
given to the Peace Commissioners.
Senator German has never posed as an
alarmist, but he never fears to speak the
| truth because it may be alarming. Just
hnfn I,. l,r
sion appropriation bill, which carries
S145, 100000 Mr.. German made a speech,
! calling attention to the fact that although
it was estimated that the war with Spain
would add 10000 names to the pension
roll, unless our troops were recalled from
the tropics before the sickly season, no
provision, whatever, had been made in
the bill for the increase. Mr.. German
concluded with this significant pre- diction
| ''W thin three years from this date the
pension roll will amount to $t65, 100000
If you add to that the cost of maintaining
your army zone thousand dollars MANI,
the American republic will, in the year
1900, expend more for its army and pen
sioners than any other nation on the face
of the earth. That is fact, which the
American people will have to face, and
| they ought to know now, in advance, what
is coming to them, if the schemes and pro-
jects which are being forced upon us are
carried out"
The attempt of the republicans to get
| democratic support for the Hull bill, which
will be voted upon tomorrow, by amend
ing it SO as to make any increase of the
regular army above $4,000 discretionary
with the President, was not a success. II
made no real change. The democrats
proved by their votes for the first war APP
| preparation that they were not afraid to
trust the President, but that did not
change the principle of the party against
the concentration of authority in the
| hands of one man. Such concentration
does no harm as long as the right man eX-
ercises the authority, but who can say
when the wrong man will come along?
The change was not made for effect in the
! House, where partisanship will put the
bill through, but in the Senate where its
fate Will be very much in doubt, unless
| the support of Senators who are now in
clined to oppose it can be secured. The
subterfuge was so palpable that Represen-
tative Loud, of California, a republican,
made hot speech against it, plainly tell
ing his party associates that they could
not hope to catch suckers with such bare
hook.
Gen. Miles is still piling up evidence,
official and unofficial, that the beef fur
nished our soldiers in Cuba and Porto
Rico was unfit to eat. He has already
about convinced everybody, except mem
bers of the administration and of the War
Investigating Commission, that his charge
was true, but they seem determined to
stick to it that the beef was good.
Secretary Algcr put another slight upon
General Miles in connection with the find.
ing of the Eagan court martial The army
regulations provide that the finding of a
| court martial shall be forwarded to the
Secretary of War through the command
ing general of the army, but Alger in
structed the Judge Advocate to ignore
Miles and hand the finding to him directly,
and it was done While nobody outside
the Court and officials can swear what the
verdict was, everybody is certain that it was
guilty, and that the sentence was dismissal
from the army In handling this verdict
Mr.. Mckinley would better be careful or
he will sign his own political death war
rant; the people have decided that Eagan
should be punished, and if Mr. Mckinley
exercises his authority to shield him, he
will find that he may have the punishment
to bear himself
Senator Butler, in presenting a resolu-
ton of the North Carolina legislature for
the election of Senators by vote of the
people, called attention to this being the
twenty fourth lie gislaturc to adopt such a
resolution, and said that constitutional
amendment ought to be at once adopted
citing the several existing deadlocks and
scandals in legislatures as an argument in
its favor