Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1908-12-16
NO. 81
NEWS AT U. S. CAPITAL.

Congress is in session at Washington,
says our correspondent at the u. S.
| capital. Since it's last adjournment,
many notable events have occurred.
Their meanings and their leanings
are discussed by members and SEN
in clubs and at other places where
statesmen, politicians and journalists
are gathered together. The session
will continue until the fourth or
March and terminate with the re-
markable administration of Theodore
Roosevelt
| Congress is under veteran and ex-
perienced control in both the House
and the Senate. There are great
questions before the country calling
for much debate and deliberation,
but Congress, it is said will confine
its work principally to the approp-
| ration of funds for the expenses of
government and will introduce little
| If any new legislation. President
elect Taft will be inaugurated on
March the fourth and soon after will
| call special session of the Sixty-first
Congress. The work of the special
| session will be confined exclusively to
| the revision of the tariff The testi-
mony taken before the Ways and
Means Committee will be perfunct-
| orily spread before the House at
| special session, but no one expects
| that the business of the session will
be affected by this testimony which
has been so deliberately taken.
There were reports during the
election of conciliatory disposition
on the part of Senator Foraker from
Ohio, but this was before the Hearst
exposures and the Roosevelt repud-
iation. He has now arrived in Wash
ington and it is said he has a huge
knife up his sleeve which he wifi un-
sheath when the Brownville debate
inst. The antagonism between the
Senator from Ohio and the President
is well known and a sensation is
looked for when Mr.. Foraker shall
rise in the Senate.
Since it was discovered by Column
bus, Hayti has been one of the worlds,
cauldrons of trouble. The Spaniards
cruelty conquered the aboriginees.
Then the buccaneers more cruelty
robbed and decimated the Spaniards.
Then came the importation of hui
man cattle from Africa with two CEN
turtles of anarchy and degenery The
island has sometimes been an empire,
so-called, or republic in name, but
at the present time, it is impossible
to indicate its political classification.
Matters could not be worse if the
idle and criminal colored population
of the United States were shipped
bodily to the Island.
The commissioners of the District
of Columbia have recommended to
Congress to change the inauguration
day of the President and Vice-Presi-
dent from March the fourth to the
last Thursday in April, the day on
which Washington was inaugurated.
Many of those who have attended the
Inauguration on the fourth, includ-
as well as representatives of countr-
les, have called attention to the dan
ger to all of the many thousands of
persons from the severe weather pee
uliar to the fourth of March. The
Governors of many states, as well as
many representative men, have APP
proved the proposition for a change
of date, while the press of the coun-
try has almost universally comment
ed in favor of the change.
Notwithstanding the continued inn
provement in weapons of warfare,
peace declarations and arbitration
treaties are continuously made and
the outlook for peace on the planet
was never better than now. An arbit-
ration treaty has been made and duly
signed between Argentina and Brazil.
Recently a declaration amounting
to a treaty was signed by the
United States and Japan. 1t is an
nounced that negotiations have been
begun to secure an arbitration treaty
between Argentina and the United
States. How much better than build
ing battleships! There is, however,
something that would go still further
to insure perpetual and profitable
peace throughout the world and that
is an abandonment of commercial
warfare. 1t is not only our country,
but our good northern neighbor, Can
ada, in which the cost of living has
been increased fully fifty per cent.
Wages have advanced in canada, but
they have not kept pace with the adj
vance of prices for food, rents and