The Harrison times., 1901-03-02
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From Our Regular Correspondent.

Credit will be due to democrats i'll
Congress for whatever reduction of
war taxes the country gets The
republicans fully intended to kill the
bill in conference. but when they
found ont that all of the democrats
in the House, and enough republi-
cans to make a majority, were
the leaders at once ordered that a
compromise be patched up in confer
ence between the House and Senate
bills. That compromise will not, of
course. in any sense, be a democratic
measure, but it will make some
reduction in war taxes that would
not have been made, if the demo-
Gratis had been less aggressive.
All the extravaganza of the re-
publican Congress is not connected
with big appropriations. although
they make the most fuss and are
naturally heard the most of. During
the debate on the General Deficiency
Bill, it was shown that sinecures
were thick as peas in a pod. 1t was
shown that committee clerks, the
moment they do any real work, use
their pull with members to get extra
pay therefor, and that they have
been succeeding in getting much
money in the shape of gratuities
simply because nobody made it his
business to oppose these petty raids
on the public fund. The clerk of one
committee claimed, and will get ST.
600 extra for reading proof of testi-
mony taken by his committee; clerks
of the Pension Bureau, detailed TO
help the Pension committee, of
Congress, are presented with $500
each in addition to their regular
salaries, and clerks who have cop
led few pages from the Congress
Ional record, in regular office hours,
given from $500 to So, 900 each for
extra work. A little dialogue be-
tween Representative Cannon,
Chairman of the House Committee
on appropriations, who reported
the bill, and Representative Loud, of
Cal shows how carelessIy the items
are scrutinized before they are
presented to the House Mr.. Loud:
who is William L. Stiles, who is to
receive an appropriation as a
messenger for the Committee on
AccOunts?" MIR. Cannon: "Well if
God doesn't know him any better
than l do, he is lost" 1t has
recently become known that a man
has for long time been dra wing
salary as clerk of one of the import
ant committees of the Senate
Foreign Relations-Who did not
even come to Washington during
the session of Congress, to make a
bluff of doing the work which was
performed by two assistants.
Another method of extravaganza,
which has f1ourished under this
is connected with
the enormous expenses piled up by
some of the departmental bureaus.
For instance, when Congress provid-
ed for the Bureau of Animal Industry
of the Department of Agriculture, it
provided for one Chief. at $4,000
year, one clerk at $500, and twenty
at $1,000 a day. The
of that bureau during the
last fiscal year, as shown bv the
official figures, have grown to nearly
a million dollars, as follows:
Salaries S769.329.16, travelling
$50, ,647.s5, Miscellaneous
S1O1, 634.4S.
Senator Tillman may have opened
the way for many Southern
veterans of the Mexican war to get
on the Pension rolls, when he sue
ceeded in getting a bill pensioning
Jim Thomas, a Mexican veteran,
which had passed the Senate.
through the House, by swearing
that not another private pension
bill should go through the Senate
until it was passed. 1t is claimed
that its passage is practically a re-
peal of the law, barring those Mexi-
can veterans who sympathized with
the Confederate cause from the Pen
sion rolls.