Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1912-03-14
Congressional Notes

affairs, introduced a bill appropriating
$4,000 to enable President Taft to
enter into negotiations with foreign
governments with a view to consider
ing plans for a worldwide inyestiga-
ton into the cost of living.
Acknowledgment was made that the
house agricultural committee knew
virtually nothing of the public domain
and was dependent almost entirely on
the chief forester for information on
which to base appropriations. The
confession was forced during the de-
bate in the house on the forest ser
vice items in the agricultural appro-
priation bill.
American participation in general
arbitration of international difficulties
is a dead issue so far as concerns this
session of congress, and probably for
many years to come, according to gov
ernment officials, who summed up the
%senate's action in stripping the pro.
posed arbitration treaties with France
and Great Britain of their vital fea-
lures.
Democratic members of the senate
committee on finance. decided to-stand
by the steel tariff revision bill passed
by the house.
Senator Bristow's bill for presiden-
tial preference primaries in the Dis
trict of Columbia was adversely re
ported from the senate committee OF
the District.
The resolution ratifying the Taft
arbitration treaty was adopted in the
senate by a vote of rs to 8. The sec
ond amendment was one submitted
by Senator Culberson eliminating
from arbitration questions of national
honor and traditional doctrines of the
United States, previously enumer
ated. This was defeated, As to 81
The French treaty, which was identi
cal, was ratified by unanimous con
sent.
At a session of the house commit
tee on banking and currency it was
decided to divide the investigation Of
the money trust between two sub
committees, each to have the services
of a special attorney.
Jail sentences for women who veal
aigrettes were advocated before the
house agriculture committee by Johr
G. Speaks, Ohio game warden.
The house unanimously passed q
resolution calling for an investigation
of the alleged shipping trust" by the
committee on merchant marine and
fisheries.
The house has passed a joint res
olution authorizing the secretary OF
war to accept from citizens of Ten
nessee, approximately 5000 acres
near Tullahoma, Tenn, for use as a
maneuver camp for the national guard
of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North
Carolina and South Carolina.
Charging that wealthy lumber com
panies were seeking to have the gov
eminent clear their %cut-over timber
lands, Representative Fitzgerald OF
New York succeeded in eliminating
from the agricultural bill in the house
an item of $1,000 for the investiga
ton of such lands with especial ref
erence to making them available fol
agricultural purposes.
The house passed the Jones bill
comforting American citizenship upon
people of Porto Rico. The Porte
Rican bill was denounced by former
Speaker Cannon. Representative Stay
den of Texas (Dem,) opposed the bill
for other reasons He attacked the
constitutionality of depriving the Por
to Rican Of citizenship or Of giving il
to him. He said he was in the unique
position of being opposed to both
sides of the argument.
Because of the serious condition OF
his eyes, Senator Hepburn of Idaho
has given up his work in the senate
temporarily and has gone to Atlantic
City. He expects to remain there al
least a month.
Representative Thistlewood intro
duced a bill appropriating $4,000 fol
repairing the government roadway
from Mounds, Mound City and from
the Cache river bridge to the national
cemetery near Mound City, ILL.,, with
a good quality of gravel Or broken
stone.
Investigation of the alleged ship.
ping trust, reaching into every phase
of ~transoceanic and coastwise trans,
portation, with possible combinations
between the great ocean steamship
companies, Conferences and com.
bines'' with the transcontinental rail
roads, will soon be inaugurated by the
house committee on merchant marine
and fisheries.
The entry of the free sugar bill in
Inc senate will make three tariff re
vision measures pending there, the
steel and chemical bills are the 9th.
ers. All OF these will be adversely
reported by the senate finance com
mittee.
A bill which would permit actors,
travelling men, railroad men and 9th.
ers absent from their homes on cleo
ton day, to vote for presidential cleo
tors in the state where they happen
to be was introduced by Represents
tive Carey of Wisconsin.
The house committee on interstate
and foreign commerce, after having