Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-06-21
Especial washington Letter.

The truth is that the government Is
becoming topheavy with superduous
and wasteful commissions.
Another example. The Sioux City
and Pacific is one of the numerous
railroads subsidized by the govern
ment. 1t owes the United States $4,-
100000 1t pays or 5 per cent divi-
dends, but claims to be too poor to pay
the government what it owes, and with
| effrontery that is sublime it proffers a
| paltry $S0O,00O in full settlement In
stead of foreclosing and selling it con-
gress has just passed bill creating the
inevitable commission and gives the
commission carte blanche to settle on
any terms it sees fit!
Senator Harris of Kansas, who help
ed build the Pacific railroads, says the
road is easily worth the debt and clam
ored in the senate to compel it to pay
in full, but the Republicans laughed
him to scorn and set up its commission
to rob the government of part or all of
the debt of S4,200,000 How do the
taxpayers of the land like such a caper
as that? Why should a private citizen
have to pay his debts and why do sub
sidized railroads escape paying theirs?
Senator Mark Hanna took it into his
noddle the other day that he was de-
batter and would with debaters stand.
| He kept that idea in his noggin for the
| space of about three minutes, when
| Senator Benjamin R. Tillman disabus-
ed his mind of that hallucination at
once and forever. Armor plate was
the theme and it cannot be mentioned
on Capitol hill without it being almost
necessary for the police to send In a
riot call. On that particular subject
| Tillman is the boss rioter Mark
| thought to squelch Tillman by quoting
| the testimony of some eminent jobber
somewhere, but Tillman retorted fero-
eiously: 1T shows how INSCRIPTIONS
men get to be when they get to be mil
lionaires through trusts. They not on
| ly get to be liars, but thieves Also
After two or three more short passages
at arms Mark in agony of soul ex-
claimed, II appeal to the senator, as
am tyro here. to give me half a
chance" AS Tillman is generous as
well as brave he could not resist
Marks piteous wall and let up on him.
The Republican swashbuckIer.
But if Mark is a mere punching bag
for senators in debate in the private
confabs of his party he swaggers like
the typical swashbuekler. A Republic
an congressman told me recently with
great glee how Mark disposed of Gov
ernor Theodore Roosevelt of New York
when that redoubtable soldier, states
man, orator and autobiographer visited
Washington lately. as the newspapers
told the tale. to prevent the administra-
ton from taking him vi ct armis and
fastening him to the tale of the McKin-
ley presidential kite for the purpose,
as the colonel governor r-autobiographer
thought, OF saving Mckinley from de-
feat. But this Republican congress-
man put a different color on the whole
story. "The truth is" quoth he, that
Roosevelt really wants the vice presi-
dantial nomination, but wants to give
the performance the appearance of
forcing him. SO Teddy came down to
see the bigwigs In general and Mark
in particular. So he broached the
question to Hanna, who replied I be-
lieye I have heard your candidacy
quietly mentioned In a timorous way
by a few persons, but the matter is not
taken seriously. Your name would add
no strength to the ticket True, be-
lieve you were mixed up somehow in
the Spanish war, but that affair was
so Insignificant that it hns passed from
the public mind and is completely for
gotten. Your career as governor of
New York has not strengthened you In
the public mind. and your candidacy Is
an Impossibllity. Consequently, con
tinued the congressman. TEDDY re-