The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-01-21
GROSvENOR RAPS SIMPSON
For His Support of the EAST Mail -
Subsidy.


Washington, Jan. 21-The proceed
ings in the house yesterday were enliv-
ened by a wordy duel between Mr..
Grosvenor (O.) and Mr. Lewis, the pic
turesque member from Washington.
During the discussion of a private bill
to refer to the court Of claims the claim
of Cramp & Sons, the Philadelphia ship
builders, for damages from the gov
ernment for delays incident to the
building of the warships New York,
Massachusetts, Indiana and Columbia,
due to the failure of the government to
deliver armor plate and other mater
ials on time, Mr.. Lewis got the floor.
The history of the Calm was thor
oughly exhausted during the debate
which Mr.. Lewis (Dem., Wash.), enliv-
ened by making the bill the text for an
attack upon the general methods of
government contractors. During the
war with Spain, when the country was
confronted with an enemy from with
out, traitors, he said, threatened from
within. These contractors, who should
have upheld the government in the hour
of its peril he declared, declined to bid
against each other. In some cases they
had furnished, he said, E'rotten and de-
cayed food which had been prepared for
the Chinese-Japanese war" 1t was
moSSed and blue, putrid and corrupt,
but it was sent to our soldiers at the
front and they periShed from it as from
the plague. These men had earned the
ignominy. reproach and contempt of
congress. If he were attorney general
he should arraign before the grand
jurors of his country those who had fur
nished poisoned food to the army, those
who had sold armor plate to the enc
my and those who had sold coal for the
use of the enemys fleets, and he would
convict them of treason and have them
shot, as Napoleon did, or have them
imprisoned, as Grant did.
SIMPSON MIXES IN.
Mr. CfronSor (POn Kan ram TIxad
upon the peculiarity which always Sc
cured a hearing for large claims in the
house bill and which often kept the
modest but often meritOriOuS claims in
the background. This was especially
true, he said, of these bills to reimburse
big contractors. The report on the pend
ing bill, he said, argued that Cramp &
Sons should be reimbursed because of
the great efficiency of those ships as
demonstrated by their service during
the late war. Was it claimed that these
ships took part in the sinking C Ger
vera's ships? he asked. What part had
the New York played at the battle of
Santiago? She was not in it. She never
caught up. daughter.) Then there was
the Columbia and the Massachusetts,
neither Of which was there. The only
ships which had cut any figure in the
destruction of the Spanish feet besides
the Brooklyn and the Texas was the
Oregon. The builders of that magnifi-
cent ship were not here asking for
bonuses. said Mr.. Simpson.
MIR. Bingham (Rep., Pa.) called the
attention of the gentleman from Kan
sas to the fact that the Union Iron
Works had a claim pending
In conclusion Mr.. Simpson said he
had no complaint to make against the
members from Pennsylvania who were
pressing this bill. He readily under
stood their position. Men were not elect
ed to congress in Pennsylvania, they
were selected by corporations and they
were compelled to carry out the wishes
of these corporations. "They must do
that to hold their jobs" said he, amid
laughter.
Mr.. Grosvenor CRep., o.. replying to
Mr. Simpson, recalled the fact that this
corporations was yesterday on the floor
advocating "a cold blooded, clean cut
contribution to one of these soulIess,
consciousness corporations, which, as
the Populists so delighted to say, de-
fed the laws against trusts. He re-
ferred to the appropriation of $25, 900 for
fast mail facilities from Kansas City to
Newton, Kan, in the posroffice ap-
preparation bill.
Mr.. Simpson interrupted to say that
the railway which was to receive the
appropriation did not ask it. The ap-
preparation was for the benefit of the
people of western Kansas, not the rail-
road.
Mr.. Grosvenor, amid laughter ex-
pressed his great amazement that the
gentleman had sought to give to a cor
poration that which it did not want.
G.aupht0r0