The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1909-01-15
WASHINGTON LETTER
MATTERS OF GENERAL INTER
EST FROM THE CAPITAL

That the remaining less than
two months term OF President
Roosevelt's presidency is to be
tempestuous sailing if the House
ana Senate can make rough sea,
is evident. After all it may be
their love for the President that
inspires the plan On the part OF
the Congress to round out his
term with a strenuous life in az
cordance with his known tastes.
1t is believed that the Presi-
dent enjoys nothing better than
contention, and whether it is big
game in Africa or big game at the
Capital, it is all M to him. The
President cannot make important
appointments except by and with
the consent of the Senate, and his
appointment to the Public Print
ing Office of Mr.. Donnelly is held
up in the Senate, and it is UNDER
stood that Senator Depew, Elkins
and Aldrich will make objections
to this appointment. On what
grounds does not yet appear.
The course pursued by the
House of Representatives with
reference to that portion of
the Presidents regular annual
message, which contained the
offensive structures on the secret
service matte will probably be to
strike from the records the Ian
guage in the message considered
to be offensive to the dignity of
the national legislative body. 1t
is also said that those parts of the
Presidents special message on the
9Th inst c~riticising Representatives
Tawney, Smith of Iowa, Shirley
and Fitzgerald will also be ex-
plunged. The House may amend
the Presidents message by strik-
ing out, erasing, blotting, expung-
ing and otherwise o~bliterating the
words on the particular piece of
paper, which the President sent to
Congress-, but as Byron says,
"What is writ is writ" 1t has
been published in at least ten
thousand newspapers in the
United States, and translated into
several languages. 1t is very
widely believed to be deserved
and any such action by the House
will, of course, be equivalent to a
censure Of the President, and such
pronounced censure as has not
been known since the days of
President Andrew johnson and
will doubtle IS be accompanied by
oratical TRADES by both Democrats
and Republicans, but there is A
difference between the time of
Andrew Johnson and the time of
Theodore Roosevelt and a vast
difference in the popularity of the
two men, although they have in
some respects similar characters
tics. The country sends to Con-
gress a vast body of men to do
certain legislative work. The
majority of these men are not
here to work but are here with
their families, or without them on
a pleasure trip, very much such a
pleasure trip as attracts people to
the seaside, or mountain resorts
or to Europe. But a small portion
of the time of the majority is de-
voted to legislative business. II
it were known how so-called
statesmen fritter and waste their
time here, few of them would be
returned. 1t is a well known
maxim that employees without
supervision, will not use their
best efforts for the work of the
employer. Members of Congress
are no ex ception to this rule. Ii
the Government should appropri-
ate a hundred millions OF dollars
a year for overseers or detectives
to keep Congress to it's work and
then some more detectives to keep
the detectives to their work, and