The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1904-12-23
WASHINGTON LETTER.

lake Rla@Cs IL kSSa41t~ Ws1~sS - - -
Pension building. where it has been held
for quarter Of century. The House
wants it in the Congressional Library
building; and a few members Of both
houses want to assign to that function
the rotunda and corridors of the Capitol.
1t is the unanimous desire that the in
auguration shall be the most memorable
of any ever held. Some prominent ci;i-
zens desire the erection Of special build
ing either for temporary or permanent
use, but that plan for Gen. Grants |
second Inauguration failed utterly and
made the celebration very poor affair |
Either the Capitol or Library is adapted
to the purpose. The latter is already
lighted abundantly, and would neither
need nor permit decoration. The
Capitol rotunda and Statuary Hall
can be illuminated with dazzling bril-
liancy, almost in an hours notice.
In each building there are corridors
by the mile, tinted walls and frescoed
ceilings. The exits and entrances of both
are perfect, and there are cloak rooms
abundant. Some Senators are opposed
to Library on the ground that the fine
building would be injured; but in what
way the fine building could be injured by
ever SO large throng, is beyond concep-
ton. 1t would be no more exposed TO
injury than it is every day and every
night till ten O'Clock. The Inauguration
ball held in the vast spaces of the Library
would be brilliant and magnificent
affair.
The President has succeeded in stirring
mp all parties in both houses of Congress
on the subject of extravaganza in govern
ment printing and in favor of its sum-
mary reduction. Representative Lands,
chairman of the House committee. says
that millions of dollars could be saved by
rigid supervision of the matter sent to
the public printer. He says ''at least one
third of the printing could be cut off, saw
ing millions of dollars to the government.
There are thousands of tons of stuff
pAiutSo 1nf shS SotSAuAShs Pi1uSAnS
Office in the highest style of the art,
that are not worth the paper they are
printed on" Among the principal Of
tenders in this respect are the Geological
Survey, the Bureau of Ethnology,
and the Smithsonian Digest. Hun
dreds of thousands of volumes are
distributed that are never read or even
opened, some of them illustrated
with multitude of the most expensive
colored engravings. Many books are
so abstruse and even occult as to be quite
beyond the general comprehension and
the Geological Survey boasts that it has
published bulletin so reconcile that
only three men in the United States
can understand it. and only six persons
have ever called for copy! Think of a
great volume on the Charleston earth
quake with hundreds of photo-lithographs
printed four years after that event, and
containing no valuable information in adj
dition to unpublished in the newspaper
at the time!
~
Senator Stewards bill increasing the
salary of the President to 500, 600
year, that of the Vice-president
to Sac. 900 that of the Speakers of the
. House to $40 900 and that of Senators
and Representatives 10 $1,000 seems to
have run against snag. A ringing pro-
test is heard from all parts of the country.
1t is held that men should not be encour-
aged to seek the highest places under the
government by money reward. Great
honors go with them, which are above
price. Senators and Representatives are
required to spend here only about one.
third of the time for which they are
elected; the other two-thirds can be de-
voted to their private business here or at
home. And this is country of many
opportunities. Perhaps salaries will be
raised when the presidents, vice-presi-
dents. senators and representatives get
into the habit of resigning because of in.
adequate compensation. Members ofthe
House of Commons, in England receive
no salaries whatever.
~
All summer long, day and night, an
insensate little locomotive has been haul |
ing hundreds of cubic feet of dirt from
one end of the U. S. Capitol to the |
other. But now the little iron horse |
has been banished and hundreds of
jaded. CALLED aud underfed horses
are compelled to finish the work with
overlooking. stalliug and beating. The
occasion of this is that Senator Hale of
Maine has come back to the capital and