The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-05-26
Speaker CannOl Telegraphs Ab-
sent Members to Return.
There Must Be Currency Legis-
latiOn Before Adjournment.
WORKING TOGETHER.
He and the President Uni ed OIL
the Proposition.
BarthOldt of Missouri Joins
Them With a Club.

Washington, May 26.-With about
twenty representatives and six or seven
senators on their way home under the
impression that the business of this
session of congress was over and an
adjournmen ent in sight, the hardest fight
of the session is on. The president and
Speaker Cannon are working together
for the first time this session. At last
the speaker is convinced that
If congress adjourns without enact
ing some important legislation there
will be trouble ahead for the Repub-
lican party at the polls and he is de-
ternined that a currency bill shall be
passed before there is an adjourn
ment.
Even Speaker Cannon now is per-
suaded that the president knew what
he was talking about last fall when
he told the congressional leaders that
they must pass a currency bill at this
session. The basis of the compromise
proposed is a ombination of the AL
drich and Vreeland bills. The details
have not been definitely decided upon,
but they will be of this general char
acter: The limit of emergency cur
rency that can be issued will be In
creased from 500 million dollars. the
amount prescribed in both the house
and the senate bills, to $50 million
dollars; it will be provided that so per
cent of this can be issued by banks
organized into clearing house assocIa-
tions, with commercial paper ana 9TH
er securities as a basis for the notes.
The other so per cent to be issued by
finacial banks upon state and mu-
nicipal bonds deposited with the
treasury
He Grows Insistent
The speaker has been growing more
and more insistent on action. Today
he went beyond anything that has yet
been done. The talk of an immediate
adjournment already had been met
by him with a notice that the house
probably would not be ready for that
motion for some days yet. He has
Republicans telling them to hurry
back TO Washington and then he
caused 1t to be known that there would
be no adjournment until action was
had on this currency proposition.
Meantime every agency of the speak
er was at work on the insurgent Re-
publicans. who have prevented the
adoption of the Aldrich bill by the
house. in the effort to bring enough
of them into line to obtain an agree
ment that would be accepted by the
senate. The legislative programme is
complicated by the attitude of the
Democrats, who all along have opposed
the Vreeland bill in any of its nu-
cratic senate leader, has added to the
complication by announcing the un-
alterable opposition of the Democrats
to anything except the Aldr1ch bill He
said that bill was bad enough, but it
was distinctly the smaller of the two
evils and it was all that his side would
accept.
Senator Teller, a member of the
finance committee, Joined in this dec
laration, and coupled with it was the
hxy fn toll
If necessary to prevent the senate from
acting on anything like the Vreeland
bill. OF course, if the Republicans
were united and determined to pass the
Vreeland bill in the senate they could
do it simply by sitting still and making
the Democrats do all the talking with
a continuous session. But they are very
far from that pitch of desperation vet
A new financial Warwick has ap-
peared in the house side, loudly pro-
claiming that he was entering the lists
of his own volition and without having
been inspired by the speaker This
was Bartholdt of Missouri He bran
dished dreadful weapon and asserted
that he would use it to the limit unless
there should be action for currency re-
lief. Mr.. Bartholdt is the chairman of
>the house conferees on the public build
ing bill. The conferees have agreed,
and the senate has adopted their re-
port. There remains nothing for con-
gress to 90 but to send the bill to the
president for signature, except to have
Bartholdt submit that conference re-
port in the house and have it adopted
there, which it would be with a whoop
But Bartholdt has the report buttoned
up tightly in his inside pocket and he
asserts that he will see the bill buried
and every man who is interested in it's
passage kept at home for lack of votes
before he will make move to submit
that conference report unless a cur
rency bill is passed.
And Bartholdt. backed by the speak
er, has the power to make good his
threat There is no power which can
compel him to submit his report to the
house.