The age-herald., 1902-03-31
Washington Day bY Day

of eminence who are on the inside or public life nere ridicule the proposition that the Senate will hold up the rivers and harbors appropriation bill as Kind of bludgeon with which to beat the House into supporting the ship subsidy bill. It is maintained by some of these eminent men that perhaps the Senate ought to do that very thing-ought to eoerse the House into passing a bill of the Senate which is for the good of all the nation; but, they say, the Senate will do nothing of the kind.
 So say those who are competent to speak, and assuredly there is reason in their contention. The Senate would not be likely to place itself in the untenable position of withholding a bill Of the House. which passed that body unanl- mously and to which there is no where any respectable opposition, in order to force the House to accept a Senate bill against which six of the Republican ma jority voted and which is powerfully op- posed throughout the countryside ship subsidy bill, o-wit. Before the Senate the Houses river and harbor bill Is stand ing upon It's merits, and so will the Sen ate's ship-subsidy bill stand before the House.
 The Senate committee Is expected to re- port the rivers and harbors bill in an amended form this week, the various amendments being in the nature of in- creases which will, it is ascertained from ,--e best possible authority, aggregate probably ten million dollars. Thus the bill, which as it passed the House car ried s60 OOO,OOo, will in all probability pass the Senate carrying about SOOOO'OOO. It will then be referred to a conference com mittee on the disagreeing votes of the two houses, and just what the conferees will agree upon it would be worse than fool ish to guess.
 The House conferees will be Chairman Burton and Mir. Reeves, Republicans, and one Democrat of the rivers and harbors committee, while the committe on the part of the Senate will consist probably of Senator McMillan, one other Repuoli- can and one Democrat, probably Senator Vest, the leading Democrat Of the com mitte on commerce having the bill in charge. Senator Frye is chairman, but as he is the presiding officer of the Sen ate he will probably yield his privilege as conferee to Senator McMillan, second on the commerce committee. This con- ference on the disagreeing votes is not likely, it is believed, to be prolonged or contentious. It is maintained that the joint committee will refer very largely to the views of MT Burton, who Is con- fessedly the best informed man on river and harbor improvements in the whole of Congress, and moreover he Is a man held in the highest respect by Republi- cans and Democrats alike. At present the public does not know anything of the precise itemized increases being made by the Senate committee, but If the figures were completed and published nobody could know MT. Burton's views regarding any of them; though there would be grounds in Mir. Burtons speeches in the House for some fair guessing. Still 1t would not follow that he would insist on the bill becoming law as it was pass ed through the House. Indeed such in- sistance on his part would be in the high est degree improbable. In the committee
 
 to prevail something of the rule of give and take out of which is likely to come a happy agreement Meantime all specu- lation is idle, apart from the perfectly trustworthy information here given for the first time that at present there is prac- tical certainty that the bill will pass the Senate carrying something like So0oO,0oO.
 
 One of the most singular conditions Of the times is the apparent general political indifference to the free silver movement within the Republican party, and equal ly singular is the almost complete ab sence of expressed Democratic interest in silver" about which we heard so much for four or five years, beginning in 1896.
 Previous references in this correspond ence to this new silver movement as evil denced by the statement made by Con- gressman Hill, Republican, of Connecti- cut, that in the past two years the Re publican administration had coined more silver than was ever coined during any similar period under the Bland-Allison law, is surprising enough: but more sur prisng and of vastly more interest are the terms of the subsidiary silver bill in- troduced by MT. Hill, sound-money Eastern Republican, which was dealt with in this place a few days ago. This bill reads
 That the Secretary Of the Treasury is hereby authorized to coin the silver bull lion in the treasury, purchased under the act of July IA, 1890, into such denomina- tions of subsidiary silver coin as he may deem necessary to meet public require ments, and thereafter, as public neces- sties may demand, to recoin silver dol lars into subsidiary coin; and so much of any act as fixes a limit to the aggregate of subsidiary silver coin outstanding, and so much of any act as directs the coin age of any portion of the bullion purchas- ed under the act of July 1S 1890. into stan dard silver dollars, is hereby repealed
 "The Secretary of the Treasury is here by directed to maintain at all times at parity with gold the legal-tender silver dollars remaining outstanding; and to that end he is hereby directed to ex- change gold for legal-tender silver dol lars when presented to the treasury in the sum of $5 or any multiple thereof; and all provisions of law for the use or maintenance of the reserve fund in the treasury relating to United States notes are. in the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, hereby made applicable to the exchange of legal-tender silver dol lars"
 This bill has the most cordial support