The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-01
Special Dispatch to the Standard.

| Special DlSpdIcn TO the SLdnQarQ.
/ Helena, Dec. 31.-This has been
! busy, but uneventful day in legislative
/ circles. The speakership fight between
Stiff of Missoula and Day of Helena is
practically unchanged and by common
| consent the senatorial contest is virtu-
ally off until that is over. Both the
| senate and house democrats will hold
caucuses Sunday to nominate the Off
GERS of the respective bodies. The re-
publicans will probably not go through
the formality of caucuses, they are so
few in number. Notwithstanding the
suppressed excitement over the senate
! rial war, all the democratic members
are fraternizing in a spirit of good fell
| lowship.
Senator Carter arrived from Wash
ington on Friday mornings train, wear
| ing "a silk hat and a suave smile. The
senator grows more dignified as he
grows older. Not that he was ever
lacking In dignity but his dignity now
| is of an affirmative rather than a neg
ative type. His silk hat, of course, has
something to do with it. Then he
walks with a slow, measured stride,
the gait of a man who considers him
| self sef-contained and well-balanced,
superior to the follies and frivolities of
| the generality of mankind, but tt.t, in
his broad charity tolerant of other
peoples imperfections. The senator,
however, has too much hard sense to
let his dignity verge into pomposity.
| OF course he came to Helena at this
time on private business Notwitn-
standing the epidemic of grip in the
East, the senator has not returned to
| Montana for his health. For month
rumors have been flying about the
state that Carter was going to throw
the IA republican votes to Clark, On
the theory that it would disrupt and
disorganfze the democratic party and
| render certain his reelection in 1900.
Carter is very emphatic in his denial
| of these imputations. He swears there
| is nothing in them. He says such a
procedure would cover the republican
party with disgrace and infamy, and
that any republican who votes for
| Clark will be forever branded as a
| traitor and a boodler, and be politically
| and socially ostracised just as the re-
publicans have been who voted for
Clark in 1893. The senator says Tom
Marshall is the logical republican can
didate for senator, and he hopes and
expects and fully believes that the -e-
publican members will stand by Mar
shall, or some other good republican,
| from first to last. That is what Tom
Carter says. And still the Clark people
keep claiming several republican votes
at the start and the whole bunch at
the finish.
| AS soon as the two houses have or
| ganized at noon Monday an adjourn
ment will probably be taken until Tues
day noon, when Governor Smith will
read his message to the joint assembly,.
The governor has completed the docu-
ment, but of course it's contents are
secret. 1t is believed that he will re-
new the recommendations he made two
years ago for the creation of a state
railroad commission. The governor is
an earnest advocate of such a board
| and SO is State Treasurer Collins. Regu-
larly the last four or five sessions, bills
| providing for such an establishment
have been introduced and regularly de-
feated. The railroads, with new
branches and extensions in contempla-
ton, don't want to be hampered by any
legislation additional to that now oper-
ative. The railroad companies say they
want free scope in Montana a few
years more for the unrestricted i'm
provement and development of their
various systems, and that that will
mean much for the improvement and
development of the state itself. On the
other hand, they say, if subjected to the
caprices of a state board of railroad
commissioners, however liberal the act
creating it might be, railroad enterprise
in this state will be hindered, and the
extension of the Burlington, for in
stance. hopelessly deferred. That is the
railroad argument. Governor Smith
and those who agree with him think a
railroad commission would insure the