The Colorado statesman., 1923-02-10
SESSION NEARING CLOSE BUT
PASSAGE OF THE MEASURE
STILL is IN DOUBT.
HOPE RESTS ON FARM BLOC
There viii Be No Extra Session In tho
Spring, So II Seems Certain the SOL
diers' Bonus Bill Must Wait Another
Year.
BY EDWARD 3. CLARK

now and 1t will be over, the finale hav-
Ing as companions either veal or woe
for the proponents of certain national
legislation. There seems to have come
additional information that there Will
be no extra session of congress In the
spring.
Newspaper correspondents here
sometimes wonder whether the coun-
try gets tired of reading about spe-
cific pieces of legislation and of their
chances for success or failure. When
one realizes, however, that such
measure as the shipping bill is one
upon which congress has fought for
years on years, 1t seems likely to men
on the ground that the country must
have not only the interest of economics
and politics in the thing but the inter
est of curiosity as to what is going to
happen.
One day it Is said here that the ship
ping bill has no possible prospect OF
passage; another day and one or two
of its leading proponents say that they
see something more than CLEAN OF
light of hope coming through the win
dow In the wall in the future. Luck
lily for the regulations of the local
soothsayers, not one of them has dared
to say definitely that 1t Is to pass or
that it is to fail. Now that rural cred
Its legislation has been allowed to
nudge the shipping bill off the floor of
the senate, temporarily at least the
hope of the friends of subsidy Is that
there will be kindly recognition on the
part of the agricultural credits phalanx
of the favor shown in giving the farm
ers' needs first place, and that In graf
itude ship subsidy will be given
Mace in court with chance of YER
dict.
Bonus Must Wait a Year.
Only a few weeks before the end
comes, and seemingly there will be
neither time nor, so to speak, room for
any legislation of any kind except rur-
al credits, subsidy and the supply bills.
Adjusted compensation for the veter-
ans of the World war, otherwise known
as the bonus, must wait for another
year.
President Harding has declared that
will pass one coupled with legislation
which will enable the government to
raise the money to meet the require
ments of the measure. There is moth
ing vet to promise that such legisla-
tion can be agreed upon. 1t Is known
that the administration still prefers
what Is known as a sales tax to meet
the bonus case, but a sales tax has
Its opponents In congress in both par
ties and they are numerous enough
probably to defeat the project.
1t seems likely also that all con
gressional attempts to propose some
thing which the administration can dc
to help out matters in Europe will be
abandoned until the new congress shall
meet. Washington Is watching with
interest and something like fear the
results of the French incursiOn into the
Ruhr. If France, acting without her
allies In the last war, shall succeed
in making an arrangement with Ger
many satisfactory to both countries
it may be that the French will get
what they want and that the Ruhr In
vaslon will prove a success instead OF
the failure which freely was prophe-
sled.
Story Tells French View.
A great Frenchman has been In
Washington recently. He explained
the French viewpoint better than II
could be explained otherwise when he
told little story of his aged mother
He said that she asked him why 1t was
difficult to get Germany to pay France
what WAS owing her. adding that In