Amador ledger., 1906-07-13
Washington
Letter.
(From Our Regular Correspondent.
Washington D. c.. July 7, 1906

Congress and the president are tax
ing leave of each other in a much
better frame of mind than could have
been expected from their meeting last
year. There has been conflict of
strong personalities and both sides
have won their points to a certain
degree while the public on the whole
has been the gamer. The president
legislation that he believed was need
ed and that there was serious doubt
if congress would stand. He has re-
moved the postmasterships from the
realm OF federal patronage, and thus
done more than any other president
ever dared to do to antagonize the
individual members who looked on
these offices as the last remnant OF
the fast disappearing currency with
which to pay political debts.
He has forced through the rate bill,
and while there may be some features
of the measure that could be improv.
ed and doubtless will be improved in
time, it is vastly in advance of no
Legislation at all, and that was what
was looked for fortnight before con-
gress met. The tree alcohol AII has
gone through, promising to help the
farmers of the whole country and to
help the public greatly against one
form of fuel eXtortion. The state
hood bill has been a compromise but
has brought satisfaction and dignity
to two cnmmonwealths and would
have brought it to four, but tor the
unreasonable opposition to the mea-
sure in congress. The pure food bill
is a law, and meat inspection has
been added where it was sorely need
ed and where the public did not even
suspect that the need existed.
Altogether it has been most not
able congress and one that will
necessarily go down in history as a
monument to the foIceful personality
of the executive aside from the per-
sonal triumph of the peace conference
and numerous other smaller matters,
any one of which would have been
enough to make an administration
notable.
While one is looking over the retro
spect, it is as we'll to take note of the
remarkable series of national scandals
and exposures, all of which, the ex-
posures at least, were more or less
due to the fearless initiative of the
president. 1t was the most deplor-
able series of public scandals that a
nation has ever suffered, but it was
infinitely better that the evils SHOULD
come out, than that they should
eat at the national life in secret.
There were first of all the postal
scandals. They we're more than half
suspected by those Sin the known
before official attention was ever
called to them. But when they we're
once brought to the attention of the
president, the word was passed that
they we're to be ferreted out without
fear or favor and this was done, re-
sulting IN more than a score OF pro-
secutions and half as many jail
sentences while the end of the legal
proceedings is not yet. But the de-
partment itself is cleansed and
chastened as department seldom
has been before.
The crop report exposures followed
with remarkable swiftness resulting
in an entire reorganization of that
branch of the department of agricul-
ture. The awakening of the public
conscience was helped by the insur-
ance exposures in New York which
while not directly under federal
supervision, we're along the line of
the same work. Then there we're the
inquiries, into the beef combine by
the bureau of corporations, resulting
in the famous 'immunity bath''
farce and then the swifter and more
remarkable exposures of the NellI-
Reynolds report. Side by side with
these were the investigations of the
bureau of corporations and the inter
state commerce commission into
combinations of the coal and oil
carrying roads and these like the
others will be followed by a series of
prosecutions that have already been
outlined and that promises to be very
effective in their execution.
1t may be stated that the good re-
suits coming from these Investigations
and prosecutions are more indirect
than direct. The mere knowledge
that the law was on its track was
enough to force the dissolution of the
paper trust. The coal roads have
already begun an internal overhauling
on their own account, now they find
the public knows how rotten we're
some of their conditions.
The suits against the tobacco trust
nave already resulted IN some good to
the industry at large, and 1t may be
taken for granted that no corporation
managers are going to venture very
far inside the penitentiary when they
know that there is a watchfuI eye and
a ready hand to shut the door on
them If they trespass over the line.
The rumor on Friday that there was
a possibility of congress adionrninp