The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1911-04-29
DEEP GLOOM Pre-.
Walls IN SENATE
Especial to the Silver State)

hustings with togas still unrumpled,
demand the best committee assign
ments and aspire to display their
oratory before they have been year
in office. With senatorial courtesy and
diplomacy the elder statesmen bow to
these demands, but in unaccountable
ways things go awry and confusion re-
suits.
The new congress is an unevenly
yoked and ineffective team. In the
house business is proceeding swiftly,
and but for the many things which the
new masters there find in need of over
hauling, there would be a cheering
prospect of summer vacations spent at
sea and shore, or on the Chautauqua
lecture platform.
In the senate, how different. Recog-
milton has dragged slowly. The assign
ments to committees have seemingly
been more difficult to negotiate than
an early insurgent demonstration in
which a dozen Republicans caucused
and brought in an ultimatum regarding
committee plans. They were told that
they should get their hearts desires.
The Democratic insurgents held a
similar gathering and found that they
held all the trumps, but when they
had reached a working agreement with
the Democratic regulars and had elect
ed Senator Martin, an alleged corpor-
alton sympathizer,to be leader of their
minority caucus, they found it mat
ter for surprise that he should appoint
to vacancies on the steering commit
tee such men as Bankhead and F1etch-
er, whom the insurgents declared to
be very good friends of the railroad
tnt Tho ata mi Zoo
promptly credited by the insurgents, or
progressives, in both parties, with the
intention of packing the committee ON
interstate commerce so that no legis-
lation hostile to the railroads could get
out of the committee at this session.
Perhaps, too, they argued, the com
mittee on privileges and elections
would be so organized that any dis
tasteful measure referred to it, such
for instance, as the one providing for
the direct election of senators by the
people, would be gently smothered and
never allowed to see the light
Starting out with the assumption
that they could compel what they con
sidered fair treatment, il soon come
to this, that any important committee
assignments have been received with
great thankfulness by the Republican
as well as the Democratic insurgents.
The former have been declaring for
some time that the agreement to recog-
nize them in the makeup of important
committees has not been carried out in
good faith. They are very wroth, and
as most of them are good fighters,
with punch in either hand there
are prospects that the senate will be
some rather lively developments both
before the scenes and behind them
Senatorial Gift Giving.
During the past few years there has
grown up in "that greatest deliberat.
i've body in the world,'' the United
States senate, pleasing and, let us
trust, harmless practice of making
gifts.
Sh-h no; not bundles of bonds, mind
You, or iewelry, or farms in Texas, or
such things. Nothing so opulent or
500 Grass.
just when it began is difficult to
say. but il seems to date from the time
when Senator Jonathan Bourne, who is
generally believed to eat from gold
plates every day and to shed gold
pieces as he walks, came to Washing
.on and tried to give everything he
possessed. He used To hand out dollar
cigars to the correspondents, who be
ing used to the brand found him con
genial. Then he took TO sending boxes
of big rosy Oregon apples to his sena
torial associates, who always accepted
with pleasure and promptly cut down
nsekeening allowances. Next came
Senator Frank f. Flint, who caused to
he sent to his fellow senators boxes of
lrssiors California oranges, and he was
promptly assured with grateful
tina, ks, that it was the finest fruit that
ever grew and, as the vice president
lsclared in "A note of thanks which was
view private but which was whispered
aravnd Just the same, "was food and
drink and a nights lodging That
- about the limit of appreciation in
Utica.
Then Senator Page. not to be out
dore hy western openhandedness, sent
around cute little boxes of Vermont
maple sugar guaranteed under the pure
food and drug act of course not TO
contain any vulgar sugar from the
cane or corn, and Senator Oliver, of
Pennsylvania, one of those steel mag
rae, contributed to the senatorial
larder nice little sacks of buckwheat
flour. These things naturally helped
to make life more bearable in Wash
ington and they We're deservedly
popular.
What more could be wanted after
these ministrations to the material
ard aesthetic requirements of mang
1t would seem AS if everything except
few pounds of chops had been pro-
vided for, and were Representative
Kent, of Kentfeld, in the senate
(where perhaps he ought to be) he
could readily supply this need from his
Nevada cattle ranges, although he
might think il better taste to let a SEN
ator from Nevada do the honors for
the state. Nixon or Newlands of
course could contribute few pounds
or rich ore, or Reno divorce, but it
occurred to Senator Bradley of Ken
tucky, that something still was lacking
and SO his dusky servitor made the
roapds with axslspdx