The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-02-22
Washington Letter.
from our Regular Correspondent.

Washington, February II, 1S99.-
Quite SIS sneaky as its attacks upon
Gen. Miles is the attempt of the ad-
ministration to make it appear that
democratic Senators are trying to
force an extra session OF Congress by
opposing legislation for large
standing army. 1t is the duty Of
democratic Senators to act in accord
with the wishes of their constituents
and in resisting by every coDstitu-
tional and parliamentary method
koown to them such vicious legis!a-
ton they will be doing exactly that.
They have nothing to do with calling
an extra session of Congress; that is
strictly Presidential prerogative.
A feature of the red hot debate in
the House on the offering Of the
Hepburn Nicaragua Canal bill as an
amendment to the Sundry Civil bill
was short but strong speech in ia
vor OF the bill by Representative
Bailey, of Texas, who said he sup
ported the amendment because it
provided for direct ownership of TIE
Canal by the government, instead of
partnership with a private corpora
ton. Some bitter personalities were
thrown around during the debate.
Car Reed and his henchmen III the
House opposed the amendment, and
most Of the democrats favored it. It
was ruled out on point of order,
and the House under the lash OF
Gar Reed sustained the ruling by a
vote of l27 to 100.
The disposition of the McEnery
| Joint resolution, which was this week
adopted by the Senate, by vote OF
26 to %, by the house committee on
foreign affairs, will speedily show
whether the resolution was adopted
as part of the game by which a
sufficient number Of votes were OBJ
taiued to ratify the treaty, or not.
The vote in the Senate indicates that
it was The Bacon substitute, which
was defeated by the vote of the Vice
President, the Senate being tie,
really has meaning; it pledged the
United States to treat the Philippines
just as it is already pledged to treat
Cuba. The Philippines could be
held forever and day, as the saying
is, under the McEnery resolution, if
it were law.
Representative Lewis, of Washing
ton, in the course Of short running
debate on the item in the sundry,
civil bill which appropriates S22,000,-
900, to pay Spain for the Philip
pines, pointed out the important and
interesting historical fact that Spain
is the only country on earth that has
ever repudiated its treaty obligations.
In 1852, after the English had taken
the Philippines, Spain made a treaty
in which It agreed to pay England an
amount equivalent to sl0,000,0OO to
regain possession of the islands. Eng
land gave up tie islands under that
treaty; but Spain has never paid a
cent of the money promised.
Representative Grosvenor, of Ohio,
chairman of the republican caucus,
this week named the committee OF
members of the next house, who are,
in obedience to caucus direction, to
prepare financial bill to be pre-
sented to a caucus Of the republicans
of the house, in the next Congress.
The make up of the committee leaves
no doubt that the bill it will prepare
will be whatever sort of bill Mr.. Nc
Kinley may wish to have jammed
through. One of the shrewdest men
in political life said of the probable
work OF this committee: 'AIy pre-
diction is that the fnancia, bill that
is likely to become law at the first
session of the next Congress, whether
that be an extra session closely fol-
lowing the close of the present ses-
sion or the regular session next win
ter, will not meet the wishes of Sec
retary Gage and other extreme single
gold standard advocates Next year
will be Presidential year and Mr.. Nc
kin!ey IS very willy politician. In
my opinion, he will try to make that
financial bill dodger, and he will
have plenty of assistance from the
members of the house who have a
strong silver element in their dis
tricts.'
The average democrat in Congress
would much prefer that Secretary