Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-11-20
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From Our Regular Correspondent.

WASHINGTON LETTER.
From Our Regular Correspondence
Washington, ID. c., Nov. 14.-Just
now politicians, of whom there are
many in Washington, some of them
distinguished, are engaged in specula-
tions with reference TO the outcome of
tariff tinkering, electing United States
Senators from New York, Ohio, Iowa
and other States. They are also trying
their hands at Cabinet making for the
President-elect. 1t is predicted that
Myron p. Herrick, former Governor of
Ohio, will be nominated for the Secre-
taryship of the Treasury. 1t is believ-
ed that Mr.. Garfield will remain in his
present position as Secretary of the In
terror In such case there would be
two Cabinet Ministers from Ohio, but
there is recent precedent for such an
arrangement for has not President
Roosevelt three Cabinet officers all
from the State of New York in Root,
Cortelyou and Straus. The old idea
that Cabinet Ministers must be picked
out with delicate consideration for
Geography might as well be abandon
ed. When the right man is willing to
serve for ten thousand dollars a year
and such fame mingled with reproba-
ton as the place may afford him and
his wife he ought to be nominated by
the President and confirmed by the
Senate whether he halls from Nevada
or Rhode Island or any intermediate
state. 1t is pretty well understood that
Secretary Root will be sent to the SEN
ate from New York after March the
fourth next as successor to Senator
Platt, president of the United States
Express Company on the floor of the
Senate and opposer of the parcels post
and any program in the postal service
that will be in any way interfere with
the exorbitant and oppressive profits
of the express companies. Postmaster
General Meyer has just completed his
yearly report from the Postoffice De-
partment from which it appears that
this department is nearly seventeen
millions in arrears. A more humiliat-
ing and disgraceful condition cannot
be shown in Russia, China or any
country on the face of the earth. The
Postmaster General is in no way re-
sponsible for this condition. He has
again and agaiu besought Congress as
body and Congressman as individuals
to enact a measure which will not only
make the Postal Establishment a self
supporting institution but will make
it source of revenue to the Govern
ment. There are over thirty thousand
rural route employees tramping the
country with small packages of letters
and papers. This year few dollars
added to the salary of each will increase
the expense of rural mail delivery about
three millions of dollars. If as the
Postmaster General has urged reuters
were permitted to deliver parcels weigh
ing from one to eleven pounds at cost
of a few cents each it would wipe out
the deficit Of fifteen millions or more
and make the postal service self sus-
tanning as is the patent office. 1t is a
disgrace to this government that this
has not long since been done and that
agents of the Express Companies on
the floor of the Senate and the House
of Representative with the abbrevia-
ton Hon. prefiXed to their names have
stood in the way of such salutary and
necessary legislation. All European
countries have long enjoyed and profit
ed by the benefits of the parcels post.
1t is working beautifully in what some
consider the half civilized countries of
the Orient, but owing to the superior
power of the Express company's lob
byists in the vaunted freest and best
government in the world the American
citizen is denied its benefits. When
Secretary Root instead of Platt shall
represent the wealthiest and populOus
state in the union it may be predicted
that there will be something doing.
He is not military man but during
his service as Secretary of War he sue
ceeded in having legislation enacted in
the teeth of the old fogy generals that
was not short Of revolutionary. Since
he has been Secretary of State the Con-
sular Service has felt his vitalizing and
purifying touch and the Department
of State which was cobwebbed with
red tape and clogged with hum drum
fogyism has been placed ON an effective
rational working basis. 1t is impossi-
BILE that such man in the Senate can
be quiescent or useless much less venal
and obstructive like the man he is ex-
pected to succeed. There has been
wonderful change in politics and poll
ticians during the seven years which
will be known perhaps in the future as
the beginning of the Rooseveltan re-
y
the work and it will not be arrested by
the departure of the President for
Africa. What change for example
has come over the spirit of politics in
New York as demonstrated in the cleo
ton, for the second time, of such man
as Governor Hughes elected as he was
in the teeth of the fiercest opposition
of the machine politicians. Eight
years ago Secretary Root would have
stood no chance Of coming to the Sen
ate from New York. Now he will take
his place as the most conspicuous rep
resentative in the American House of
peers and if he does not begin at once
like Senator LaFollette to make him.