Connecticut western news., 1911-03-02
INTERESTING GOSSIP
 OF STATE CAPITOL
Problem of the McDonaIds Still the Absorbing Topic at Hartford-New Haven Judgeships Fight Continues to Attract Public Attention.

Hartford, March 1.-The great ques- tion of the moment in general assembly circles is what the Senate is going to do. with the governors nominations of state commissioners. He very clearly played a card hard to handle in nominating Burton Mansfield for insurance >com- missioner. That matter will have been settled by the time this reaches the eye of the reader, no doubt, but it is safe to say that the nomination will have been approved. There are enough senators who feel that the Republican party oan- not afford to permit anything else, to make it seem certain that will be the outcome.
 It is figured that to endorse the selection of Democrat for insurance commissioner on the ground that Governor Baldwin has found an ex- perienced and thorougly qualified candidate will strengthen the Repubi- cans in refusal to approve his nomi- nation of Democrat to succeed High way Commissioner Macdonald, for whose place he cannot find man with the same qualifications.
 It is to be 8 light all along the line. The governor made that clear to some Republicans who went in to see him last week thinking there might be the possibility of a compromise. He said to them in effect that he was going to name Democrats for every office where and was going to play the game straight. He knows how to play it. too. Why, he and the late Lynde Harrison made a lot of the rules the boys are still using, in the days when Simeon Baldwin was at the head of the old New England roads forces and Harrison was looking after the New Haven's interests.
 The governor may readily have a split in his own party to face when he names "a Democratic highway commissioner. as he is going to do as soon as the insurance commissionership Is settled; he has the man picked now. Some of his advisers have done their best to have him re- appoint "Jim" Macdonald, but he can't see it. Senator Mahau the Democratic Senate leader, went t) him with the request that he send for Macdonald and discuss the affairs of the highway department with him, but the governor said he didn't care to see candidates. Senator Mahan would like this office himself but can't have it. He wouldn't take it, however. as long as there was a chance for MaoDonald.
 It is expected that when the nomi. nation for this office is considered in the Senate Mahan will be for Macdonald, whether he works to get his fellow Democrats into line or not; indeed, the story goes that he has given his word to vote for him, himself. Macdonald is in the midst of a great piece of work and it is, changing horses while crossing a stream to put in another man to com plete it. His best asset is the fact that, though millions of dollars have passed through his office in the last ten or a dozen years, the breath of suspicion doesn't attach to one cent of it. There isn't another state highway department in the country of which that can be truthfully said. That's some recomend ation.
 Macdonald has been criticised and knocked and he hasn't had much to say 
 (CQntinued on Eighth Page)