The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-18

A
 IVY When congress, after its holiday
 KW frolic, reconvenes in the first V eek of the new year, the wheels of leg islation will run as fast as ever they can be driven under the Reed rules specially designed to promote expedition By that time the various committees will have provided an immense quantity of raw material in the form of appropriation and other bills that are deemed of major im- portance and debate upon them will be cut down to the minimum. The object In view Is to avoid the necessity of a spe- cial session of the Fifty-eighth congress which the republican leaders are anxious to avoid and those of the opposition have little or no interest in having summoned This Is the programme that has been. agreed as a result of the informal talks and consultation among the dozen men in both houses who practically determine what the law-malxing power shall and shall not do to an extent which those that never studied the machinery find 1t difficult to believe possible under our governmental forms. If late in January the situation should be of a character to make a special probable, the power of the caucus will be invoked and the meausures to be enacted G ded upon. This will. of course, mean the legislative death of all the other bills that clog the calendar The senate judiciary committee is the body in the upper house from which trust regulation bills. which the president so loudly proclaimed last summer and fall | should be enacted, must come if they come at all. The gentlemen who make up that powerful little conclave are not doing anything on the subject. Among them the preponderant opinion Is that it would be a waste of time and effort ta enter upon the discussion between now and the fourth of March. that the attempt | to put any kind of a bill through under | the unrestricted debate rules of the sen ate would be absurd. If the house Of rep | resentatives can agree upon a measure | of restraint and regulation that seems | just and adequate the senate will not be slow to act upon it, but for the reason in- dicated it will not itself assume the ini- tiative.
 Washington has what is known as an 'Oldest Inhabitants Association" the | name of which is sufficiently descriptive of it's membership. The most venerable of them can not recall the time when the White House was from the social and fashionable point of view so resplendent as it Is at present. The receptions ban quets, luncheons, teas which mark the opening of the reconstructed old edif1ce, are superb in every way and fashiona- ble old bachelor who goes everywhere, tells me that there is marked improve ment in the wines set out on state occa- sions. He does not consider the President as an expert in vintages, and thinks that | in the first purchases after his accession, l MT Roosevelt must have been badly fool | ed and cheated.
 In diplomatic circles there is q good deal of quiet congratulation over the result or the Venezuela affair. l mean, of course. among the European members or the corps As to the Central and South Amer ican members of the body, they are far from happy The reason of their disqui- | etude uneasiness or whatever else 1t may be called is that their respective coun- tries are almost all indebted to Europe. and they apprehend that the day of reck- oning will not be long delayed They be. lieye that the Anglo man-Italian com 1 bination will stick together, and that the Venezuela precedent will be followed from time to time for years to come. Many members of congress take the same view of the matter and foresee trouble ahead for the United States.
 The dispatches lo sehSa'iohai he" spa pers from this city. which represent the i President as "fghting.' or determined to fight vigorously, for the adoption by congress of this or that favorite policy of his do MT. Roosevelt very great injustice. He is. of course, anxious that his recom- mendations. as many of them as possible, should be accepted, but he is not in bell 1 icose mood with respect to them now
 however he may feel in the future. Con- cliation is the game he is playing, the making of friends, not enemies and all his powers of persuasion are put forth to that end Neither senators nor represent atiyes can be bullied, and MT. Roosevelt has too much sagacity to attempt to do anything of the kind. Andrew Johnson
 was the last President to venture upon that insanity and endeavor to build up a
 party of his own. All know what became
 of him, President Johnson, 1t will be re- membered. made a stumping tour or the