Middletown transcript., 1905-12-30
WASHINGTON LETTER

A.
Rear Admiral Sunds, the superinten.
dent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis
was in Washington an entire day thin
week in conference with the Secretary ol
the Navy over the eradication OF hazing
from the Academy. 1t seems that tire
cadets have taken the very time of all
others when they were likely TO turn the
attention of Congress to themselves TO
break ont i'm several fresh places at once
with ''hazing," running, and fist fight
ing, all of which are contrary to the rules
of the Academy. The latest hazing case,
that of Midshipman Kimbaugh, came
near resulting fatally as did the fight be-
tween midshipman Meriwether. There
have already been two bills introduced in
Congress to severely punish hazing and
fighting at the Academy, and the superin-
tendent, who himself is all admirable old
officer, hasdone his best to keep the matter
within bonds and not have the abhorered
civilians of Congress come poking around
the school on an investigation trip. In
desperation he has put the matter up to
Secretary Bonaparte in hopes that the lat.
ter would take drastic action and expell
the two cadets in question. But Secretary
Bonaparte has passed the matter along to
the Judge Advocate General of the navy
to see whether he has the legal right to
summarily dismiss cadet, and the re1ult
will be if few more OF the midshipmen
are killed or MANNED by the gentle code
in existance at the Academy, that Con-
gress will take the matter into its rude
civilian hands and turn the ancient acad-
emy wrong side out and shake it, to the
great benefit of the academy.
~
There was the first tilt of the session
this week between the House and Senate
over the right Of the Senate to inaugurate
financial legislation. OF course as any
school boy can tell, the Senate has no
right under the constitution to inaugurate
financial legislation of any sort. Yet in
the past few years it has been much prone
to this sort OF thing under one guise or
another, principally in the way of amend
ing House bills. The House has been
fretting at what is considered usurpation
of authority, and this week the question
came up fair and square on the Panama
Canal Bill. 1t was not serious matter at
all. but there was a principle involved.
The House passed the bill with clause
putting the Panama Canal on the same
footing as the other government two per
cents. to make themselves available for
bank circulation. The Senate calmly cut
out this provision passed bill Of its own
originating on the subject and sent it back
to the House. Then the House rose in
its might and by rising vote of 256 to 0
it threw out the clause of Senate making.
This will cause some little delay though
not much in the final passage of the bill.
But it has established the principle that
the House was after and the chances
are that the Senate will be little more
careful OF the dignity OF the lower house
in future. OF fcourse it may lead to fight
later in the session and in that case the
House has the constitution on its side.
But then as the immortal Tim Campbell
said, "What is the constitution between
friends?"
***
The ways of managing editors are past
finding out and truly the managing edi-
tors seem to have run mad of late ON the
subject of personal journalism. which is
polite way of referring to newspaper work
that sticks its nose where it has no busi-
ness. One of the latest and worst exam
piles followed on the official announce
ment the other day of Miss Roosevelt's
engagement to RepresentativeLongwo
Many of the Washington correspondents
were inundated with demands for special
stories. But the limit was the case of one
local man who received telegram as fol-
lows: "Wire Immediately 1000 word in
terview Nick Longworth's views on race
suicide" Needless to say the story has
not been sent yet.
~
The Bureau of Chemistry of the Agri-
cultural Department has discovered new
doge of the foreign houses importing food
stnffs into this country to evade the law.
The Bureau has been able to control for
eign adulterated foods better than those
of home manufacture as it had chance
at the original packages at the port of the
entry, whereas there is as yet no federal
pu,e-food law under which it can operate.
One of the fayorite practices of the French
was to send scraps and stalks of
to this country as best French
The Department of Agri-
culture forced the importers to liable them
in large letters as 'tpieces and stems" nm
der the penalty for false branding. But
the French canneries have taken
to sending the scraps without brand or
lahle of any sort and as they were not
branded they could not he said tn have