Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1904-04-08
From our regular correspondent.

From our regular correspondent.
WASHINGTON, d. c., Mrsch 81.
The hallucination under which some
Congressman have harbored that they
would be able to get home and tackle
their imperiled fences early in April
seems to have been got rid Of. The
appropriation bills have been pushed
along rapidly by the concurrence of
both parties, but there are numerous
other questions that arise every after
noon to plague them. There are
good many truants already. and when
l looked into the House yester day
fOur.fifths OF all the seats were vacant.
Representative Campbell, young Re.
publican member from Kansas, WAS
hammering away to provo that pro.
lection was the life OF the American
people and that the tariff was not at
all the mother OF trusts. Representa-
tive J. r. Williame, Dem, ILL.,, whose
name has been loudly and frequently
mentioned as the candidate for the
Presidency, spoke at length on the is.
sues of the campaign. He prodded
Iowa members by dissecting the cele.
brated idess"; said that Republicans
as we'll as Democrats had learned by
this time that tariff high enough to
keep out imports will keep in exports
that no country lie going to buy always
where it can never sell; that trusts
are safe unless there is q change OF
party; that every department of the
government 10 honey .combed with cor
ruption, and that the Republican
party is the guide to public plumber.
Interested parties in Washington
are still making desperate effort to
have Congress fasten civil pension
list upon the country. 1t ought to
fail. II clerks who have been at gov
eminent desks for many years at =
much higher salary than is ever paid
other clerks Of the same class and q
good deal more than the ministers or
schoolteac hers of the country get, or
the average farmer, are so imprOvident
that they cannot save enough to live
on by the time they are sixty or sew
enty, they are estopped from asking
the government to take care of them.
II all the superannuated. in Congress
and in departments, could be peremp.
torily retired, and new blood given a
chance to show what it could do, pub
lie affairs would progress with in
creased satisfaction and Congress
would not have to indulge in 20 much
talk.
Secretary Taft has advertised him.
self extensively as "the Filipino-'
friend" He has talked some powerful
talk in their behalf, till the President
shook his head at him. He has been
ever since he came home as rampag-
eous as q roaring lion in the demand
that the coastwise laws should not be
extended to the Philippine Islands be.
fore July, 1909. With much gesticu-
lation he has contended that it would
be robbery of the Filipinos; that this
traffic can be done much more cheaply
and quickly in foreign vessels than in
our own, and that to give the Amer.
lean vessels q monopoly of it would
place a destructive embargo on the
trade and practically ruin the com.
merce OF the Philippine islands in both
directions. Our vessel owners declare
competition to be ga cut-throat alb.
surdity"; what they want is monopoly.
Before this bill was put on its passage
in the Senate, Secretary Taft fairly
boiled and seethed and roared at the
injustice to the suffering Filipinos in
vOlved in it, and declared that there
was no limitation to exorbitant rates,
no guaranty OF satisfactory service, NO
check on the shipping monopolists
whatever. But the bill was rushed
through. Taft could have prevented it.
But Senators Lodge and Hale honey
fugled and hypnotized him. They
told him that if he would be good and
not rally any administration Senators
against them. they would extend the
time to July, 1905, and that before this
date they would reduce the Philippine
tariff to twenty-five per cent. of the
| Dingley rates. He jumped at the hol-