BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-06-13
GOSSIP D NlsIillIlIl.

Every appropriation bill has passed
he House except the General Defcien-
" Bill which is purposely delayed until
/ few days before adjournment in order
o gather up all the missing threads.
There have already been passed our
argent deficiency bills at this session /;
sometimes the number of these runs as
high as six. 1t is singular fact that
he departments should so frequently
call upon Congress for deficiency appro-
priations when, during the absence of
Congress for fully half the year, they
have to get along without anything of
the kind. The fiscal year, it may be
explained, is now nearing an end, and
so appropriations regularly made are
the more likely to be exhausted than in
the first five months of a new fiscal
year when Congress is generally not
here.
But this is remarkable showing for
the appropriation bills, and contrasts
favorably with some former sessions,
when these measures had to be rushed
through at the last moment "under sus-
pension of rules" and with degree Of
carelessness which opened the way for
the insertion of countless items having
no legitimate place there. It is highly
in the public interest to get the appro-
priation bills along in good season, and
to debate them deliberately, as has been
done in the House this session. Nor
is the Senate much behind. 1t has pas.
sed all the great appropriation bills
except those for the Military Academy,
the District of Columbia, and the naval
establishment. Several of these which
have gone through both houses are still
in conference or hanging up elsewhere
on the road to the White House. :
No provision has yet been made for
the omnibus public building measure ;
in itself it is not an appropriation bill,
since it merely authorizes the Secretary
of the Treasury to enter into contracts
There are three ways in which the ex-
penses involved may be provided fer ::
each house might authorize it's confer
|ence committe on the Sundry Civil Bill
to treat of matters not in the bill as it
passed either house-which would per-
NIT the insertion of the items necessary
for the new public buildings during the
coming fiscal year. Or these might be
made part of the General Deficiency
Bill, which will gather up the odds and
ends just before adjournment. Or tits
not too late to pass a special appropria-
ton bill.
Congress has decided not to print the
Jefferson Bible. The reason assigned
is that it will be done by private enter
prise, and that there is no need of
using Government money for something
outside publishers are willing to Under
| take. The common-sense reason which
Senator Perkins has given for with
drawing the Pacific Gable Bill is in
the same line he finds that a private
company is already laying such cable
and promising terms satisfactory alike
! to the Government and the commercial
users. 1t should be noted, however,
that but for the Governments stirring
around it is possible that private enter
prise would never have taken hold OF
either of these enterprises In the case
lof the Jefferson Bible the agitation
lover its publication has furnished the
necessary advertising-no inconsider
able part of the cost Of putting any book
on the market-and but for this awak
ening of public interest it is doubtful
whether a collection of Biblical quota
tions made by Thomas Jefferson would
have had very large sale. Now, its
success is assured. In the same way
the Commercial Gable Company may
have seen that if it did not get to work
the United States Government, in this
new era of expansion toward Asia
would surely do SO.
The Lands family seem destined to
figure prominently in the next House
lof Representatives there will be at
least two brothers among its members
and possibly three. Since young Fred
lerick Lands has won the nomination
in the Republican district now repres-
lented by Mr.. Steele, a third brother
residing in Chicago, and Democrat,
kenesaw Mountain Lands. is talked
LOT for nomination there by his own
party The last-named Lands was the
first known in Washington, where he
became deseryedly popular as the
secretary of Judge Gresham during the
second Cleveland Administration He
aas since been practising law.
The secret of the success of the three
Landises seems to be their affability
and alertness. Their father was a
country physician in Hamilton County,
Ohio, where all of the children except
the youngest were born He died in
1906 three days after his son Charles
was elected to Congress. Their mother
j still living. Since 1875, however, the
family home has been in Logansport,
Ind. where Frederick Lands was born
in 1876; he attended the public school
of Logansport and the law department
of the University of Michigan. He
served as a reporter in the Washington
bureau of one of the indianapolis news
papers during the Spanish war. He is
familiarly known as "Buckskin,' because