The Winslow mail., 1901-03-14
a BILLION AND A HALF.
How the Contents of the Treasury
Are Being Voted Away by
Republicans.

The watchdogs of the treasury in
Washington are said to be consider
ably worried by the looseness with
which the two houses are voting away
the contents of the treasury.
They have been makIng rough
calculation which gives $3.50, 1000, go as
the grand total likely to be appropri-
ated during the present session, and
over $1,50O,O00.O00 as the aggregate for
the present congress.
This will be a record smasher Not
so many years ago the whole country
was filed with Indignation and gave
the republican party terrible jolt
because congress appropriated some
thing over $1,000, 100000. The people
made things unpleasant for the states
men of the "billion-dollar congress"
But now comes a congress which
adds onehalf to this tota,, and no
great noise is made about it. The
people seem to be getting used to
mountainous expenditures. They
seem to have made up their minds
that prodigality has come to stay and
that it 5 IDLE to make any protest.
The watchdogs may growl, but who
cares? They may point to the fact
that even the enormous total for the
present congress includes nothing fer
the Hanna-Payne shipping grab. and
not dollar for the Nicaragua canal,
which it is now admitted will swallow
up some $200,O00,000 in the construc-
tion, not to speak Of quite possible
losses from lack Of traffic after COM
pletion nor of still vaster expendi-
lures liable to result from interna-
tional computations. But the people
seem to take only languid interest.
Many of them. indeed, are urging con-
gress on to these greater extremes of
prodigality.
Wei, as Sairy Camp observes, 'tb EN-
as wants to be tittiwated must pay ac-
cordin'.' The American people are
paying roundly for the "tittiwation"
of their vanity, and to outward appear
ances they are paying very cheer
fully.
Their cheerfulness may be due, how
ever, to their blind acceptance OF the
teaching of their preternaturalIy wise
republican schoolmasters that the
money which congress appropriates is
paid by stupid foreigners or rains
down from the skies or gushes up
from wells.
One of these days depression and
headache will come upon them again.
They viii discover that they have been
deceived. They will perceive that they
are the ones who furnish the money
to pay for the ''tittiwation" and that
the investment is not remunerative.
They will learn that they have been
contributing more millions to the
miIIionaires and impoverishing them
selves.
1t wiz be a sorry day for the
learned republican doctors of econom-
les when the people wake up and see
realities in place of dreams. And we
may think ourselves fortunate if they
do not go to another extreme and
punish not only those who have de-
ceived them, but those also who have
accumulated wealth in legitimate
ways and by the exercise of their own
CH0i SiCS anu tHCl O"H genius AOl
causing two blades of grass to grow
where but one grew before"
People who have been robbed by
confidence operators may not stop to
make nice distinctions when they
come to themselves. With the spirit
of resentment strong upon them they
may flock to the standard of some
prophet" like Prof. Heron as Euro
peans in days gone by focked to the
standard of Peter the Hermit or as
Frenchmen later threw themselves
into the bloody excesses of the great
revolution and the reign of terror"
Chicago Chronicle.