The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1910-12-29
Letter from Washington.

Gays. Politically there are importans tlmes IN
most of the States of that neck OF the country
and the real genuine Yankees who hnger are
in small minority.
The Maine people at Washington, OF course.
have not gone away on many political errands'
although naturally they are not averse to get
ting into touch with the situation - 1t exists
for the Democrats who are 30 soon to come into
legislative and executive powers at Augusta.
The big Republicans of Massachusetts. Rhode
Island and Connecticut have been anxious to
get back and bear hand in the election of
United States Senators. In Maine the Demo-
Gratis have to grapple with that problem and
their Republican brethren are only interested
lookers-on.
Neither of the Maine Senators expects to be
in the Pine Tree State during the holidays.
There is winter enough to be had in Washing
ton. where snow and ice still impede the going
on the asphalted streets and where there con-
tinues to be a bracing New England chill in
the air. Representative Swasey has been tarry-
ing at the Capitol and shows no haste at get
ting back to old Oxford county for the holi-
days. Representatives Burleigh and Guernsey
are both at their homes in Maine and will re
main there till it is time to come to Washing
ton again for the resumption of the session.
There will be at least one new Senator from
New England to keep the Democratic Senator
from Maine company in the ne xt Congress. AS
New England Senators generally make some
mark in Congress, Washington takes special
note about the new men elected from that Sec
tion. Accordingly the dispatches from Au-
gusta and Providence will be read with avidity
in official Washington as the legislatures of
those two States assemble jointly and begin to
ballot.
1t may be that the new Maine Senator will
have three new colleagues from New England,
for lively contests are under way in Massachu-
sets and Connecticut for the respective togas
of Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Morgan
G. Bulkeley However, he will be the lone
New England Democrat in the Senate and will
have eleven New England Republican col
leagues He will sit on the left hand side of
the Senate chamber, as one faces the Vice
President, and his eleven Yankee friends will
all be on the other side of the center aisle.
The Taft administration is likely to be sig
nalized for extensive postal reforms. The
to the Pacific, great industrial concerns the
country over, the patrons of the postal service
generally have been identified in some part
with the agitation of decade. 1t has all been
in the direction of more generous postal laws
and more effective service. There are men
who claim that demands for changes in postal
operations, which get closer to the doors of the
masses than any other phase of national gov
ernment, have had not little to do with re-
cent political upheavals
In any event, the President is Fastening
with postal reforms and is urging more legis-
lation. He is almost entirely responsible for
the postal savings bank law which Congress
enacted at the last session and which will be
put into operation in every State of the union
bank will be established in each State for the
present, it is only a question of time when
there will be more. The Department is pro-
ceeding slowly because it wishes to make no
mistakes of magnitude to discredit the law.
The President, as is quite understood, is
prodding Congress to enact rural parcels
post at this session and there is some prospect
that it will comply. Members of the National
House all the way from Maine to California
have been dropping into the House Committee
on post offices and post roads to ask that some
provision to this effect be put upon the post
Office appropriation bill.
The ocean mail subsidy amendments, provid-
ing for payments to American vessels which
carry mail to ports on the southern continent,
is also in the same line, although it does not
come quite close home to all the people as
some of the other postal innovations. The
President has lately taken that matter up
vigorously and bill is being framed by legis-
lators in whose ability to get favorable action
from the House and Senate he has great con-
fidence.
Then the post office reorganization bill, the
outgrowth of years of careful investigation,
is being considered in the House. 1t is very
important measure, comprehensive it its scope
and calculated to make the department a
modern business institution right up to the
minute. 1t will hardly become law at this
session, but it will be given such an impetus
eAat 10 SiidCtucAt USAoIc Tie CLOSE OIL the
Presidents term is not improbable.
Before Representative Burleigh left for
home on account of the critical illness of his
son Lewis and his daughter-in-law, Mrs Lewis
Burleigh, with typhoid fever, he had a confer
ence with Census Director Durand and few
days ago the latter forwarded to him a bunch
of statistics touching upon the new apportion-
ment law. The third district Congressman is
interested not only in getting an apportionment
which will allow Maine to retain four members
of the House but he is also resisting the
efforts of few New Yorkers and others to
postpone the enactment of such law till the
next Congress.
Gov Burleigh had the organization of his
part of the fight pretty well in hand before he
left for Maine. The latest and most compre-
hensive figures from the Director of the Cen
sus, however, have bearing upon the matter
and Gov. Burleigh wished to have thorough
understanding of that data before he returned
to Washington to renew his campaign. He
wants to know how the various plans for ap-
portionment will affect various States and will
try to frame up the plan as to bring just as
many State delegations as possible to the sup
port of Maine.
Apparently the next House must have about
43O members, as against 391 now, if the Maine