Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1905-08-02
WASHINGTON LETTER,
From our Regular Correspondent.


Washington, ID. G. July 27,1905.-
Assistant Secretary of State Pierce
has returned to Washington and
reports that the arrangements for the
reception Of the foreign peace ENJOYS
at Portsmouth are we'll under way and
that everything will be ready for their
reception early in August Secretary
Root is actively interested in preparing
for the reception of the peace delegates
and there will be some informal visit
Department and the negotiators before
the two parties to the controversy meet.
This government has arranged to bear
all the expense of the meeting so far
as furnishing the building at the Navy
Yard and similar incidentals are con.
cerned
The crop investigation in the Agri-
culture Department is beiug vigorously
pushed. The special grand jury which
is investigating the case has had
number of witnesses before it and it is
promised at the conclusion Of its work
that it will be able to find indictments
against more than one person both for
conspiracy to defraud and for bribery
and the acceptance of bribes TIE
President is very earnest in the matter
and it is very fair conclusion that
any persons guilty of completely in the
frauds are going to be severely pun
| ished
The Agricultural Department today
| issued the revised acreage for the
cotton belt This was a report that
had been prepared inder the supervi-
sion of ex statisLician Hyde with the
assistance and prompting Of the dis
missed assistant Holmes. The figures
were naturally subject to suspicion and
! figured IA red uction in acreagre of 149
per cent instead of IL. 4 per cent as in
the doctored report. 1t is stated that no
effort will be made to collect fresh data
| from the field as these figures are not
subject to suspicion and it is not
thought necessary to 60 to the extra
expense.
The announcement that the Porto
Rlcan had held a mass meeting demand
ing a different form of government
with more of native control and less of
American influence in it was not any
great surprise in Washington. The
action of the delegates had been for
Swallowed by the officials of the Bureau
of Insular affairs for some time. It is
not thought however when the resolu-
tons of the meeting come TO the war
Department which they will do in the
course of time, that they will cause
any great stir. The discomfort mani
tested at the meeting does not repre-
sent the feeling of majority of the
population, so the officials here saw.
and it is certain that conditions of all
sorts, business and sanitary, are in
better shape now than they have ever
been in the Island.
Both Porto Rico and Cuba have
shown the effects of American SANTA
ton which is doubtless little irksome
to the islanders, and so thoroughly has
the disease of yellow fever been stamped
out during tbs American occupation
that it is no longer felt necessary to
maintain strict quarantine against
Cuba and Porto Rico in the summer
time. This may be responsible in some
measure for the outbreak of yellow
fever in New Orleans, which has set
the Marine Hospital Service here
humming like a swarm of bees. The
officials seem to have been lulled into
false security by the good conditions in
the two great islands Of the caribbean
and allowed the fever to creep in from
South American Ports. Surgeon Gen
eral Wyman does not think that the
southern outbreak is serious this wear.
but several of the officials in the
Marine Hospital service have already
received severe carpetings for not hav-