The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-03-26
SHORT STORIES OF
NATIONAL CAPITAL
BRIGHT GOSSIP OF WASHINGTON
D. c., ON MANY AND VARIED
SUBJECTS.
Fight Against Speaker Cannon-The
lrate Patsy Williams-Reindeer
Mail Routes.

! and the old rules, that marked the
| opening of the sixty-first congress, was
a good thing for the telegraph COM
panies and a bad thing for the stem
ographers that handle the correspon-
dence of the members of the house
1t is estimated that not less than 1900
kilograms were delivered at the offices
of members of the house daily for five
or six days preceding the fight in the
house, and it is stated that 80 pei
cent Of these kilograms referred to the
great fight.
Flight Cannon like hi" one of the
messages read and many more were
worded in a similar fashion.
Most of the letters that poured in
urged the members to vote for free
dom in the house. Many of the con-
gressmen had letters struck off OH the
mimeograph with blank space for the
salutation. These letters set forth the
| attitude of the various congressman
and it kept the clerks busy merely put
| ting in the addresses and sending them
out
| There is general impression that
when Champ Clark, minority leader,
announced. whether you win or VIC
win, the jig is up with the house ma
chine" he spoke with voice of true
| prophecy. For many years there was
| incessant complaint in both the repub-
| lican and democratic cloak rooms and
an occasional attack on the Reed rules
but without the slightest effect. This
year several changes have been car
ried through and the strength mus
tered by revOlutiOnists is regarded as
i an indication that further changes can
| be wrought when the need for them is
| made clear.
| 1t is the work of the youngsters in
| the house, the same sort of an element
| that has so disturbed the rule of the
graybeards who have for so long held
supreme control of the senate.
Uncle Joe'' is said to be in a frame
of mind that may impel him to even
up scores with the men who went off
the reservation, when he comes to make
up his committees.
| 1t is expected one Of the speakers
chief diversions in his leisure hours
as he sits out on his porch at Danville
| next summer and inhales the fumes Of
| his long black cigar, will be to study
/ out nice places for the insurgents. Pre-
| sumably the Hon. Vic" Murdoch, of
| Kansas will come in for a place on
the important committee on ventilation
| and acoustics and "Gussie" Gardner
| of Massachusetts, will be allowed to
keep a sharp eye on such business as
may come before the committee on the
dispositions of useless executive pa
| pers.
At any rate, just now there is lot
of talk of getting even. Not long ago
it was announced that certain repub-
| licans had banded together to take the
| tariff off fish and thus get Insurgent
Gardner into the list Of undesirable
| citizens up at Gloucester. 1t may be
| that the lapse of six months or SO will
tend to soften the asperity of the speak
| ers temper. STILL most of the insur-
gents say they went into the fight over
the rules and the speakership without
regard to whether they got good COM
mittee assignments.
| The Irate Guide.
The guides who steer visitors about
! the capital and describe to them the
wonders Of government buildings and
historic spots, are not at all pleased
with certain innovations recently put
| in force at the White House. They
are not allowed to accompany their
visiting charges into the east room or
the corridors of the mansion, and fire.
uuently, when the tourists leave them
| for this trip into the interior of the
presidential home, they forget to re-
turn to their protection and profit
| One of the maddest of the irate
guides is PATSY" Williams, a thin
brown-faced little fellow who has been
| showing visitors about Washington Tor
! 20 years He believed the new rules
were made to operate against him per-
sonalIy, and frequently stands outside
! the big front porticO to rev.le the ush-
ers within the building. They are
| the robbers who have taken the bread
and butter out of my mouth he cries.
| When President Taft came in, and
replaced the uniformed policemen at
the front door with white shirted, Sill
yer buttoned negro buffers, Patsys
wrath was given another lift. Look
there. look there he exclaimed, when
he brought his first party of tourists
past the door and saw the colored men
! SIdnOluR DeLlLQ Tic glass POA Ne~-'
progress of modern improvements!
Black men at the door of the White
Housed"
Reindeer Mail Routes.
| Reindeer mail routes will soon be
| the regular means of carrying the
mails over the frozen fields of the Arc
| tic regions, if the bureau of education
develops it's present plans. The bureau
| is a sort of universal legatee" for all
| things pertaining to Alaska, and the
reindeer industry has grown to such
| proportions that it will soon be COM
| mercial factor there.
Renders already carry the mails
south from Point Barrow to Inland riv-
er, a distance of several hundred miles,
every winter The reindeer mail is the
only way the people of the northern
port have to communicate with the OUT
side world when the sea is blocked
with ice. 1t has proved very success
f1I because the reindeer can travel a