The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1899-09-01
Washington Letter.
From our regular Correspondent

| w doUlDSVOA LIZ w. ]ANS'
Secretary Root is giving The country
striking exhibition of what can be
accomplished by hustling, even in the
month of August, which has got to
be so generally recognized in official
circles as vacation time. He has caus-
ed everything connected with the send
ing of the volunteers to the Philip
pines to be advanced considerably from
the first estimates, and it is now prac-
tically certain that the last OF the first
ten regiments will be landed at Manila
not later than October, and arrange
ments have already been made by
which the other ten regiments, the or
der for the enlisting of which was only
issued several days ego, will reach Ma
Mia within a week, before or alter, OF
Dec. l.. No troops took the field any
where better equipped than these men
will be, or better provided in every res
pect for campaigning in the tropics.
They will all be armed with the Krag-
Jorgensen rifle, of which the War De-
partment now has a full supply, and
amply supplied with smokeless ANU
milton. When all the troops get over
there will be more than 10000 men in
the Philippines. It is not believed
that so many men will be needed to Je
the fighting, but Secretary Root in
tends TO have them there so that every
town taken from the Filipinos can be
held, instead of abandoned, as in the
last campaign. If there is as much
hustling at the other end as there has
been at Washington, the campaign
will be short and decisive
Secretary Wilson, who has just le-
turned from a western trip all the way
to the Pacific coast, upon which he
went to study agricultural conditions
so as to make the work Of the Agricul
tural Department as helpful to the
farmers in that section as possible, says
the talk about sentiment in the west
against the Philippine policy of Presi-
dent Mckinley is all manufactured
in the east, and that he did not meet
a single "anti" west of Chicago, altho-
ngh he met hundreds of men, in all
stations of life. He found the farmers
all through the west, and
especially so in the corn Lett. He
says the wheat crop Of that section
will be little short, but that the crop
Of corn and oats and other farm pro-
ducts are enormous. Speaking of the
sentiment in the west,
Secretary Wilson said "The people of
the west understand this question bet
ter than do those of the east. They
know that Dewey was sent to the
Philippines to protect our large and
growing trade with the Orient. We
have labored to build up a trade with
China and Japan, and when the war
began Spain had fleet in Oriental
waters ready to attack and destroy our
commerce. She also was ready to en-
courage privateering, and Dewey went
to Hongkong to be ready to protect
our shipping. He destroyed the Span
ish fleet as the safe way to prevent it
from preying upon American merchant
ships. Had the battle resulted in
victory for Spain rather than for Dewey
the Spanish fleet would have crossed
the Pacific to attack our western ports.
The people out west realize that
Dewey's victory and the subsequent
events which transferred the Philip
pines to the U. S. have given an extra
ordinary impetus to the commerce of
this country with the Orient. At all
the Pacific ports the docks are piled
up with goods awaiting shipment to
the Orient, and we have not ships en-
ough to carry them. The people OF
the west regard the Pacific as an Am
erican lake, which should be covered
with ships carrying the American flag
and | don't know but they are about
right. Why went on one big ship,
loading at Tacoma, and found in the
cargo lumber, wheat and flour from
the state of Washington; butter and
eggs from Iowa and Michigan; fruit
from California and Oregon; steel from
Alabama; cotton goods from the Car
olinas; bicycles from Chicago; notions
from New England, and something
from more than half the states in the
Union. This cargo was bound for
China and Japan, and it represented
every section and nearly every branch
of industry in the U. S. 1t showed me
more clearly than had ever seen be-
fore the general interest we all have in
this Oriental trade"
D r.. ,ss. cATARRH