Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1908-04-02
Washington Letter

This congress SO far has been long
on oratory and short OH action. Be-
Ing an election year, every member
apparently wants to say what he
thinks about the various matters,
SO that the record may go out to his
constituents and they can see what
their Representative has been do
ing. 1t does not always happen that
everything that is said is printed,
or that what is printed has been
said. There is that delightful con-
occasional courtesy, extended to
those who are in good grace, of an
unanimous leave to print, which
means hat after member has S. id
a few things he gets leave to extend
his remarks in the record, and can
then take his speech home and pre-
pare it at his leisure, of course not
forgetting to put in the thunder
Gus applause and Cheers where
they look best Hon. ''Bill' Sui
yer of New York. who would just
as leave fight as eat, got some heat
up the other day because he didn't
get that unanimous leave to print,
and he served notice on the House
that hereafter be was going to OBJ
ject to anything going on the record
which had not actually been said.
That brought things around lit
tie, and it's a dollar to doughnut
that Sulzer extends his remarks
next time. Representative Will
liams, the minority is tired of the
do-nothing tactics of the majority
and proposes to force action on
some important measures that are
really important, by starting a
filibuster that would tie up every
thing, unless something was done,
and done quickly. The result is
the majority got scared and now
every session the seats are filled
and no absentees. AS it stands
now. the deinoci attic minority will
get the credit throug hout the coun-
try of forcing the republican ma
jority to do something, which was
all Williams was working for.
1t seems to be the style just now
for everybody with a grudge against
the president to get up and start
something. There is not a day
that passes that does not see from
one to three congressman are in
their seats and flay the chief ex-
ecutive, their main grudge seeming
to be the Capitalization of power
in that office and the dictatoriai
manner OF the president. 1t don't
count tor much, but it shows the
temper OF the present congress.
The republican situation appears
to be running along smoothly with
TAFT making steady progress. Ill
inois is holding out strong tor
Cannon, and it is being confidently
asserted that after the first ballot
at the convention the votes for
other favorite sons will be turned
toward Cannon, which will give
him great strength.
1t is felt here that the Republi-
cans will surely make a mistake If
they nominate Cannon, as they
need their strongest man at the
helm for the coming campaign, and
Cannon, while strong, is not the
strongest man OF the party 1t
looks now as though the contest
will be a stubborn one and long
drawn out before ID man is finally
nominated, unless the convention
should be brought to sudden close
by the unanimous nomination OF
Roosevelt, which would not be at
all unlikely. On the democratic
side things are very interesting.
Bryan evidently has the solid south
behind him, the larger part of the
west and considerable OF the east.
1t is no secret, however that
Hearst's Independent league does
not propose to back him, If nomi-
mated. That league controlled over
400, 600 Votes in tour states last
year. They claim they are going
to control a million votes IN the
coming election. 1t is popularity
supposed that most of their streng III
" i'll be drawn from the democratic
party, but there are those here
who phrophesy that both the great
parties will be hit equally. Bryan
, will, no doubt. try to affect some
} arrangement with Murphy of New
York, in desperate effort to carry
. the Empire state. Without tina
state he will have hard time
: johnson, of Minnesota, is not get
! ting the delegates he expected, blu
he is not out of the race by goot
deal.