The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-02-23
GOSSIP FROM
 WASHINGTON
Interesting News Notes Congressma Long
 worth's Two Marmosets.


 worth's Two Marmosets.
 Washington. Feb.22.-These are hal- cyon days for the ready letter writer.
 If the flood of communications to Congressman protesting against any increase in the postal rates on second class matter should continue the trou- blesome deficit of the Postoffice De- partment might be wiped out without any special legislation. Every mem- Der of the lower house is receiving from 250 to 300 letters a day from con- stituents on this and other subjects now pending before Congress.
 Next in popularity with the corre- spondents after the postal question comes the tax on oleomargarine. Folks in the dairy districts are protesting against repeating the tax, and letters just as vehement from the South ask that the tax be repealed. ''It is just as good as butter,' wrote man from Texas to one Congressman, "and pro-. test, sir, against this class legislation" "Oleomargarine is a fraud read the next letter the same Congressman open ed, "and is a rank imitation of butter. Every dairy man in the United States asks that the tax be retained.''
 Then comes the postal savings bank proposition. Many letters objecting to
 
 even written on the same kind of pa per, and the suspicion is strong that they emanate from some particularly interested financial quar- ter.
 'Repeal the corporation tax" demand other letters received by the score from all parts of the Union. Sbip subsidy, the making of Commander Peary a rear-admiral and the conservation of natural resources come in for their share of epistolary attention. Then there is Women's Suffrage. The suf- fragettes have a well organized lobby here, and they have started flood of less chain plan. Mixed in with these come letters asking for seeds. 'Im- peach Judges Grosscup and Pollock is the text for others. Many of the letters have come in response to ap- peals to write to your Congressman at once" printed in the various maga- zines.
 The visitor looking into a Congress mans office, finds the tables, desks, chairs, and floors filtered with letters, and the Congressman's clerk and sev- eral stenographers busy pounding out answers Several of the most harass- ed have installed duplicating machines guaranteed by their makers to simu- late typewriting perfectly, and form letters are printed thereon adapted to various subjects.
 When it comes to large and expan- sive enterprises in the structural line there is no man for the job like Scott Rep. w. Va.l Chairman of the Sem ate Committee on Public Buildings. Scott observed one day that the Gov ernment pays about $350000 annually in Washington for the rental of build ings, some of which reflected no credit on Uncle Sam, and that the old gentle c,17n1 of c h JY11Tl lnTa. tant departments in buildings in which he held title. He figured on the best solution of the problem and evolved what is probably the second biggest building project in the>-history of the United States. The capitol cost s15,- 900 900 and he has introduced. a bill in the Senate to give it effect. The Scott building is to afford shelter for the de- partments of State, Justice, and Com merce and Labor. These departments are paying 900 a year for the use of privately owned buildings and yet their work is carried on under the greatest difficulties. The Department of Justice occupies seven buildings and the law library is located half mile from the Attorney Generals of flee Clerks are in many cases oblig- ed to work at desks placed in railways and, in two buildings, part of the force perform their daily labor in base
 
 Justice, of great value, repose in the main building of that branch of the which was originally an apartment house and is finder box.
 The priceless archives of the State Department are in the State. War and Navy building, a fine structure that was rated f1reproof many years ago but hardly approaches the safety of modern structures. If those papers should be destroyed Uncle Sam's dip- lomacy would have no more symmetry than an aeroplane after putting into 2 lightning express. Many of these questions drag along for The Newfoundland fish cries question is older than the govern ment and it has not yet been answered. It bobs up now and again and the Sec retary of State. before engaging in barley, must read every word his pre- decessors have said on the subject speaking, Uncle Sam with his record burned would fare i'll indeed.
 Ire Department of Commerce and Labor is established principally in a large block designed for business pur- poses It, too, has valuable records, including the trust-busting informa- ton gleaned in- various investigations For all these reasons Senator Scott 1 has planned to place the three depart ments in a marble masterpiece of arch itecture to cost the millions aforesaid and to occupy five squares between 14th and 18th streets and Pennsylvania avenue and the Mall. The site adjoins 1 the parking south of the treasury and had been acquired by the government l
 Everybody agrees with the Senator that the thing ought to be done but all the members of Congress will not vote for it. A good many of them