The Hawaiian gazette., 1909-07-09
LONG SESSION
inks MANY
By Ernest G. walker.
(Mail Special to the Advertiser,


great fidgeting among the Congress. |
sional iunketeers, as the hot summer !
days wear by. Strange as it may seem,
there is authority for the statement
that never before have so many junkets
been organized under one guise or an
other and never before were 50 many
senators and representatives getting
things ready for trip hither or
thither at the government expense as
this summer. They have to arrange
those things more carefully nowadays,
when public sentiment is decidedly
hostile to junkets by Congress but all
the same the Congressman get the
trips, by hook or by crook and in these
latter days the Congressman have be-
come very ingenious in working out
schemes by which the government pays
for the summers travel.
During the last two years visit to
the Panama Canal, in fact two visits
or three visits, have become favorite
Congressional junlSet. The statesman
at Washington, who wants sea trip
at government expense, suddenly be-
comes greatly concerned about the
progress of the Panama Canal. He
gets something sent out to the news
papers in the district about his inten-
tion of going down there to see just
how things are going anyway. He has
to pay his railroad fare from Wash
ington over to New York and return,
which costs only about SIS and, apart
from that the Congressional junketeer
is in clover for from three to four
weeks. He can easily get a pass over
the government steamship lines to the
isthmus, in fact is about the only
American citizen who can, and once ON
the isthmus he is taken care of in
fine fashion and at very little cost. He
returns after fine vacation, bristling
with ideas, which nobody in Washing
ton cares a pickayune for. He imposes
an interview or two upon his constit-
uents about the canal and then settles
| down to the same old routine. But
the professional vacationists at govern
ment expense, who hold down jobs in
| Senate and House-most of them are
| in the House-do not care to go to
Panama in summer. They reserve that
annual for the holidays or for the win
| ter months after Congress has ad-
journed.
The luscious junket of this summer
will be out to Seattle. Some 80 or 40
| Congressman are going to see the Alas
ka fair at government expense anC
| they are getting everything organized
SO that there will be no hitch about
getting the expense bills approved.
| The exposition authorities have been
extending invitations and lot of pa
triots who draw $500 a year and per-
| quisites from the Treasury are -bounu-
ing with expectations of free rides,
L., Nd frnn
cigars for about month of the Con-
gressional recess. The Exposition may
i have to foot some of the bills, bur IL
makes no difference to your Congress
sional iunketeer. 1t is the free fare
that concerns him and he cares not
who pays the score.
The Conservation Commission and tine
Internal Waterways Commission prom
Use to yield junket or two before the
summer is over. Always when com
mission is launched on new idea, the
commissioners simply yearn to see how
it is done in Europe and they are no,
satisfied till they have galloped up anc
down the continent at the expense OF
the United States. Undoubtedly the
vouchers which have been turned il
for these sightseeing trips of Commits
sioners in Europe have cost this gov
eminent first and last many millions
of dollars. And the new Commission
are still heading for Europe as ener
getieally as ever. A party interested
in the study of conservation and i'm
provement of waterways expects t.
sail soon after Congress adjourns witt
the usual contingent of clerks an'
stenographers, always persons who ar
the personal friends of the Commis
sions who have some sort of persona
pull.
Orators in Last Throes.
Tho thrift orators are apnarentlY i