The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-17
THE SPEAKERSHIP
Conflict is Between the East
and the West
As to Who Will Succeed Thomas
b. Reed.
WEST is ENTITLED.
An Immense and Vital Stake at
Contest.
Powers of the Speaker Outlined
by ingalls,.

q. ]. ingalls, in New York Journal)
1t may be taken for granted that the
president will convene congress in extra
ordinary session this year. The date is
not fixed yet but will probably be not
later than October. 1t would be earlier
were not September in Washington usu-
ally so suffocatingly hot and dry that all
tasks are perfunctory.
This is the session when the issues OF
the next national campaign will be made
up. Both parties will play for position
The nominating conventions will be held
before midsummer, 1900 and congress must
make the platforms beforehand.
Mckinley expects to be nominated for
a second term. No doubt he viii be;
Whet her he is elected or not viii /, depend ,an9
can senate and house OF representatives
The Republicans will be at a disadvant-
age, because they have the affirmative
is done or omitted upon all the vast and
novel questions occupying the public mind:
are asking for bread and will not accept
a stone.
proposes to retire the greenbacks and put
the gold standard into the statute book;
with. the army scandals to be taken into
onization to be considered: governments
for Porto Rico. Cuba, Hawaii and the
Philippines to be established; revenue pro-
vided to meet the annual expenditure of
half a billion dollars, al LOT Whlch VIII
from October to June will be none too
long.
The Republican majority in the senate
will be large, but the margin in the house
will be narrow. To succeed. the Repubii-
cans must be practically unanimous in
support of the policy of the president, and
an unfriendly speaker could tnwart and
retard or defeat every measure proposed
by the administration The POLITICAL for
can party. therefore, has an immense and
vital stake in the contest
been inimicaI to the president from the
outset. he has not yet resigned ms scar
he will He has gone to Europe to medi-
! tate. The ancients had a saying that
but not their mind. Qui trans mare cur
rent. coelum non animom mutant. Mr..
Reed will retain his opinions about the St
| and the Philippines While he saunters
through London and Paris and walks the
| streets of the Eternal City. Should he
conclude, when he comes back. to become
/ a candidate for speaker, Bingham and
Dalzell and Henderson and Sherman will
| him a more dangerous and formidable an
| tagonist. for Mr.. Reed is not a magnani-
hath joints, but none for courtesy. His
legs are legs for necessity, not for fieX-
However. politics is the science of com
promises and Nj; Mckinley Is the most
! for its tenant since Lincoln. With, Reed
the field crisis W0Pad De Tine
has no inclination to force issues. He
| is to pillow around a stump rather than
| break a singletree:
practice law in New York it is a recent
decision. for he has just begun his elev-
enth term in congress He is not emf
attorney at the age of 26. entered con-
| gress at IS, in 1917, and has been engrossed
| in public affairs the greater part of his
| life. Fifty thousand dollars a year would
| be ample compensation for a juriSt and
| advocate of highest renown, which Mr..
| Reed is not. 1t looks more like politi-
| cal retainer and this suspicion is intensi-
| fled by the affecting gossip about the
| speakers poverty and his desire to make
| provision for the protection of his family
| from want, which is commendable, but
| diverting.
| Equally ludicrous is the suggestion that
J by removing to New York Mr.. Reed be-
| comes a presidential possibility. He never
had any serious following. even in New
England and if he leaves Maine his pOlit-
! ical career will be extinct. Instead of be-
! ing merely the shelf, he Will be in a
Sarcophagus.
Eliminating Mr.. Reed and assuming that
at the ripe age of 60 he intends to aban-
don politics and study law the problem
of the organization of the house remains
intricate and perplexing to the administra-
ton which must abstain from interfer-
| ence or estrange elements that needed to
be propitiated.
The speakership is a great office and
! has been held, especially in later times, by