Evening star., 1943-08-01
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

Half century ago Congress had been
called into special session by President
Cleveland to take
Special Session steps to alleviate the
OF Conoress growing panic of 1898.
Congressman were
coming In reluctantly, for the weather
was hot and they had assumed when
Congress adjourned, that they would
be free for the summer The Star of
August 2, 1893, commented: The Rep
resentatives and Senators are still coming
in slowly, apparently desiring to post
pone as long as possible taking up the
work of Congress- Every one seems
to have his mind fixed on the
work of the session with very serious
appreciation of the responsibilities upon
him. - With the arrival of new men,
bers it becomes more and more apparent
that there is q disposition to take a con-
servative view of things and to prevent
violent discord If possible. The idea
of a compromise with very liberal con-
cessions on the part of silver men seems
to be uppermost."
The general opinion at the time was
that silver men had caused the crisis,
an opinion strengthened
Couses four years later when the
Ofpo,;r free silver issue split the
Democratic party wide
open. Yet Senator Teller of Colorado
put up plausible argument to Star
reporter when he spoke for publication
in The Star OF August 2, 1893: THE
trouble does not arise from any lack of
confidence in our currency. What the
people are doing is boarding money.
They are putting it away in safe de-
posits and stockings and everywhere else
where they can keep it safely. This
shows truly enough that they are not
afraid of the money, but they are afraid
of investments. I" If these banks that
have failed throughout the country had
had silver dollars with which to pay
their depositors they would not have
broken" Other commentators pointed
out that they would not have broken
If they had had any kind of dollars, in
particular all the dollars that they had
War in the Orient, held strong pos
sibility, was averted when the Siamese
government yielded to
War Averted an ultimatum and settled
In Orient the boundary dispute in
favor of France. French
gunboats had got past distractions, sailed
up the Mekong River, and were blockad-
ing Bangkok. The Star of August 2, 1898,
in cable from London, reported: Sir
Edward Grey, parliamentary secretary of
the foreign Office announced in the
House of Commons this afternoon that
the French blockade of Bangkok had
been raised today" The news was not
we'll received in Britain where sympathy
for Siam prevailed. There was much
acrimonious discussion in Parliament,
and lot of uncomplimentary, if not
actually unparliamentary, observations
were made in that body. Siam, alias
Thailand, is now larger than ever in
area nominally, since presentation OF
additional territory by Japan. and any
British sympathy for Siam is micro
scopic.
AT frequent intervals The Star carried
accounts of the wonders of the Worlds
Fair In Chicago, and the
Joponese issue of August 3. 1898, was
phoenix largely devoted to the de-
scription of a Japanese
temple in the Windy City: The japanese
Ho-o-den is one of the most interest
ing sights in ali the wonders of the
fair. It is the home of the Hoo, or
Phoenix, the national bird of Japan,
with the head o. a cock, a sparroWs
beak a neck that moves like a snake,
etc 1t ascends 5000 miles in the sky
and never appears in Japan except when
a good Emperor is on the throne" Ap-
parently there must have been great
scarcity of good Emperors in Japan for
the past half century for 1t has not been
reported seen in that time.
Under the heading Iron Horse" The
Star Of July 20, 1893, ran long illus
trated article a b out the
Iron modern" locomotive and its
Horse great speed, often 60 miles
an hour in stretches. The
fastest train took five hours between
Washington and New York, comparing
very favorably with today's schedules,
and in one respect, was far superior.
Every passenger got a seat