St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1911-12-20
NEWS FROM CONGRESS
Bill Asking $50, OOO,O 900 For Better
Roads-PfOspect For Popular
Election.

Exactly $S0,0O0,OOO in appropria-
tions by congress during the next
five years is proposed in a bill intro
duced in the House of Representa-
tives by Representative Prouty of
Iowa, who advocates national and
state cooperation in road construc-
ton and maintenance He plans that
congress appropriate and apportion
among the various states So 100000
in 1912; 100000 in 1913; $15,-
100000 in 1914; $20,000,000 in
1915, and $30,000,000 in 1910. The
federal expenditure on each road is
limited to one-half the total cost.
Taft Seeks Light on Pensions.
In anticipation of having to pass
on the Sherwood "do1lar-a-day" pen
sion bill, President Taft directed
Pension Commissioner Davenport at
Washington to make a thor
ough investigation of the bill
and to report as soon as possible.
Estimates of the increased expendi-
ture from the capitol range as high
as SIS, 100000 but the president is
not content to take these figures
without an examination by pension
authorities. 1t has been stated fire.
quentIy that, although his political
friends affect to see danger in. such
action, Mr. Taft will refuse to APP
prove the Sherwood bill. If he does
disapprove the measure the figures
obtained through the pension bureau
could be used in an argument he
wished to make to congress against
the bill The measure has passed
the House, but has not yet come up
in the senate.
Popular Election of Senators.
The prospects for the amendment
to the constitution providing for the
election of senators by the people,
instead of by the legislatures, are
highly encouraging. The amendment
is now hating in a conference COM
mittee of both houses of Congress,
and it has been said that the COM
mittee has been unable to agree on
an amendment satisfactory to both
houses. and that this disagreement
was symptOmatic of irreconcilable
divisions in congress. The STUN bling
block has been the BristOW amend
ment put on to the resolution in the
senate and imposing federal super
vision of the election of senators.
This has been obnoxious to southern
democrats. It is now declared that
they are today fairer in their atti-
tude and, rather than have the resO-
luton amending the constitution
fail, they are willing to assent to
the BristOW amendment or some
thing closely akin to it. AS con-
sequence, those who have at heart
the passage of the resolution feel
much encouraged and are saying
that they expect to see the matter
settled soon after the holidays.
Monetary Commission.
A tentative decision has been
reached in the monetary commits
sion, which it is said, is to be unani-
mously accepted, on the question
bearing on the number of directors
to go upon the proposed national
reserve association. The plan &C
cepted provides for board
of 46 directors, one for each
reserve district representing the
bankers therein and an additional
director from each one of these re-
serve districts representing the bus
mess men, this director not to be an
officer of any bank. The federal
government is to nominate seven
directors, the heads of the depart
ments of agriculture and commerce
and labor to be included in this
number, and then nine directors will
be elected by the banks voting on a
basis of stock ownership, not more
than one director to be from any
one district. 1t is believed by this
method of distributing the directors,
no one part of the country will be
able to obtain a preponderating in
fiuence in the national association
and it is further believed that this
style of distributing will particularly
remove the fear of the control of the
association by Wall street and the
East The method furthermore
decentraIizes the association greatly.
The question tentatively solved has
been one of the hard ones for the
commission to reach an agreement
upon.