The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1911-05-13
HOW De MOCRATS
ARE Reforming
At WASHINGTON
Jobs Abolished Long Enough to
Put a Party Man In
MANY INVESTIGATIONS
Committees Given Big Corps Of Assis-
tants With Good Salaries
Attached

Washington, May 11.-An attempt
to tell what congress is doing, what 1t
is trying to do what it is likely to do
and what it would really like to do is
very much like rolling an empty bar
rel down hill and trying to shoot into
the bunghole. One may guess right
occasionally, but it is more a matter
of luck than of intelligence.
Since the passage of the free list bill
last Monday the House has rather sim
mered down and is putting in few
days this week in economizing. This
it always has at heart, and never loses
sight Of During the occasional lulls
in the raid on the tariff the House
leaders will call hurried council of
war and draft and rush through a res
olution abolishing the Office of some
clerk or janitor or doorkeeper some
where. Then they will send a man
to throw out the late incumbent and as
soon as he comes back and reports
they will re-establish the Office and APP
point some good democrat who has
been waiting out in the corridor since
the Fourth of March. The abolition
of the office at once is advertised in
print for campaign purposes, but the
fact that it was at once re-established
is carefully secreted. So much for
reform in the concrete.
By resolution adopted Tuesday jobs
carrying about $4,000 in patronage
were abolished-for a few days Dur
ing the next campaign they will tell
you how they thus cut down the pay
-. 1. srrl, ..Tl ftsft,
They will likewise tell you that they
established ewtney-seven investigation
committees to unearth the facts as to
how the country has been plundered,
but what they will keep quiet about
is that all these committees are given
clerks and messengers and steno-
graphers and other necessary employ
es sufficient to swell the monthly pay
roll far beyond what it was before
they began monkeying with it in the
interests of economy and reform. How
ever, if these smelling committees dis
cover that the administration has been
robbing Uncle Sam to the extent of
millions of dollars a month 1t will be-
money well spent If they do.
It is utterly useless and rather more
than foolhardy to attempt an approx
imately correct guess as to what the
House democrats will do or attempt
to do in respect to further tariff legis-
lation Today they know as little
about it as anybody. They are in
continual conclave and conference
among themselves. Tentative plans
are agreed on one hour, only to be
abandoned the next. They are now
wholly at sea over the wool schedule,
though some compromise may be
agreed on and the result put under
way any day or hour. Every day
brings clouds of rumors, each one Of
them farther from its predecessor
than the poles, and through the fog
and dust the very heavens are obscur-
ed An afternoon paper today says
that Bryan has decided in favor of a
fifty per cent duty on wool. In TWEEN
ty-four hours the free wool cohorts
will be announced as riding rough
shod over everything. Today, from
the standpoint of Washington, Bryan
is the most influential democrat liv-
ing, by far, and is thought to be in
creasing in influence continually. Gov
Wilson is a good second, with the
others also running in the dim dis
lance.
The grangers have been and are yet
here by the thousand this week, clouds
of them from every state in the coun-
try containing a grange organization,
and every last man of them is bitterly
against reciprocity and the president
for his attitude in forcing it from first
to last. If they continue in the same
mind for eighteen months, with no
intervening issue to defect their
wrath, the public career of the presi-
dent is closed. People from a dis
lance have no actual idea of the say.
agery of the opposition to reciprocity
among the farmers from east to west
Whatever may be it's justification OF
real lack of it, whether they have a
correct idea of what it may accomplish
or not, the fact remains that nearly al
the farmers of the country who care
to make themselves heard at this dis
lance are ferociously opposed revenge
fully opposed, to the bill. Hundreds
have literally shaken their fists in the
faces of the senate finance committee
and promised to hunt down all anC
sundry who have had or continue tC
have any hand in promoting the inter
csts of this measure. Their temper
is incandescent, and, like radium, prom
ises to hold its heat.
All this adds to the gaiety Of a
least one nation and to the anxious
half hours of an executive with ram
functions House and two or dozen il
vestigating committees on his ack ant
at his heels. Not to mention Mexico
and a few other small matters. o
course Mr.. Taft holds in all honest,
that it is better to be right than to b.
president-again, but with the grang
ers and democrats and-secretly-th'
insurgents insisting that he is not ant