The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-12-14
From our Regular Correspondent.

From our Regular Correspondent.
Washington y. c. Dec. n, zoos.
Ofcourse there is nothing much
thought or talked OF in Washington
these days excert the news and the
new bills introduced. Since the
speaker was sworn in on the meet
ing of the House there have been
, little over 5000 bills presented in
the House and Senate. OF these
it is said that about 400 stand some
show of passing 1t will be nearly
200 by the time the session closes
and of these few will be of national
interest. Many of the bills are old
regulars, private claims and the like
that come up at every session and
have been before Congress for
generation with no more Of show
of passing now than they had on
the day they were first introduced.
Others are bills of interest to only
particular locality, aud then there
are scores of bills all covering the
same ground. There are half
dozen Railroad rate bills, several
pure food bills and other measures
duplicated many times over. Some
are bills introduced Oy the oppon
ents of the very measures they are
supposed to represent, for instance,
one pure food bill is the creation of
clique of manufacturers who have
anything but pure food legislation
at heart and hope merely if their
bill passes it will throw the enforce
ment Of the law into a department
that has little interest in it and will
make the measure die a death of
inanition.
a#.
There are barely half a dozen
measures in which the country at
large is really interested. Chief OF
these are the Panama Canal and
the Rate Bill The Panama Bill
which will appropriate $40, 500, 900
tor the immediate work on the CAL.
al has already been taken up in the
House by unanimous consent and
there is every prospect that it will
be passed before adjournment for
the Christmas holidays. AS to
what rate bill will get the right of
way is more debatable question.
The Townsend bill has been intro
duced again in little different
form from the EsCh-Townsend bill
of the last session and there is the
bill of the Interstate Commerce
Commission which has been amend.
ed by the Senate Committee on In
terstate Commerce. There are al
so six other bills to the same end,
none of which have received the
stamp of unqualified approval from
the White house. In fact the Presi-
dents message was beautifully va
que Oh this important point and it
lett the matter of rate control al
most as much up in the air as it was
before the message went i'll. There
is good deal of talk that the Presi-
dent is already trimming on the rate
question and that he is willing to
take the best thing that offers in
that line. Certain it is that the
message made no concrete recon-.
mendatlon, but as III all the other
paragraphs of its 20, 900 words, was
devoted to moral precepts and gen.
erallties which Congress might
be assumed to have acquiesced in
which as a matter Of fact they have
not lived up to in the past by a
good deal.
Nv
There are a good many bills
already introduced that indicate
tendency to centralize affairs under
federal control. Representative
Hearst of New York has bill for
the federal control of telegraph
lines; Representative Murdoch has
another for the control of life insur-
ance companies by the Treasury
Department; another is for the con-
troll of corporations doing either an
inter state or a foreign business,
several measures are to prevent
money contributions by corpora
tions to campaign funds and two
to prevent the unlawful use of pri-
vate cars on railroads tor the pur-
pose of covering up rebate giving;
another is to establish parcel post
a,l o.AtIAr 60