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Show Washington Letter. Coogres or at least a goodly portion thereof, is j jst at present making a conceited con-ceited bluff on the silver question With a treat flourish of trumpets bills-for bills-for the repeal of the present law have been fevorably reported to the Houe and to the Senate,. and people who only loak at the outside .of things may believe be-lieve that the silver law is really to be repealed ur modified. But those familiar with the undercurrents of thing congressional con-gressional know that the passage of either of these bills would be the greatest great-est of surprises to Congress, Individually Individual-ly or collectively. The reasons for this make-believe policy are easy to locate, The principal one Is Mr. Cleveland's alleged al-leged desire to have the silver law re pealed, or at least that portion of it compelling tha monthly purchase of 4-500,000 4-500,000 ounces of silver. This is the lever that makes the democrats active; they wish to stand well with the incoming in-coming President : in order that their constituents may not get left out iu the cold. The eastern republicans are naturally nat-urally opposed to silver, and in addition they are being stirred to activity by the great business interest of the big cities, which loudly demand tha repeal of the silver law. This being the situation why wiil there be no silver legislation? is a natural query. Simply because, leaving the House entirely out of the question, there are enough Senators who will oppose It to prevent its going through the Senate, and the men who are making the loudest noise on this question are perfectly aware of that fact as anyone else maybe who cares to Interview In-terview the Senators from all parts of the south and northwest; they make no secret of their intention to defeat silver legislation and even if they cannot con. trol an actual majority of the Senate they can easily, under the Senate rules, talk the proposed bill to death, and, mark the prediction, they will do it, if a serious attempt is made to pass it.which is doubtful. There is soma very plain talk in the minority report of the House committee on commerce, on the bill authorizing the inter state commerce commissioners to allow railroad pooling iu their des-cretion. des-cretion. whicn was prepared by Repr6-sentativestLind Repr6-sentativestLind of Minnesota, and Mal-lory Mal-lory of Florida. "It is," the report says 'the first measure that has ever received receiv-ed the sanction of a committee of the House to make legal and enforcible nt law contracts for tbe'divlsloo of trr.TI:-, it proposes iu legalize railroad wrecking and stock speculations by authorizing not only agreements for the division and apportionment of earnings among the cr.rriers themselves, but also by authorizing author-izing the carriers to devide and appar-tion appar-tion these among other carriers. Under these provisions stockholders will be as much at the mercy of the railroad managers man-agers as will the public,, The Standard Oil Company, the dressed beef combine and other monoplies can obtain rebates by contracts enforcible in the courts, instead of by stealth as heretofore. The bill takes away the only safeguard that we have bad heretofore against railroad extortion." If an attempt ia made toj pass this bill there will probably be some still plainer talk on the floor of both House and Senate, j The House has put itself on record as favoring the election of Senators by direct di-rect vote sf the people, by paising the joint resolution authorizing the change but if the .determined opposition by the republicans of the House is an indication indica-tion of the position of the republican Senators on the question its prospect fer gertlug through the Senate is not so good as its friends might wish to be. Senator Peffer not only wants Senators, Sena-tors, but also President and vice-Presi-dent elected by popular vote and he made a long and able speech on the sub ject this week, showing that he had made a deep aud careful study of the subject. His speech lost much of the attention it mignt have received, because be-cause of the arrangement of business before the Senate,which compelled hi m to deliver it in sections, a little every day for several days. The Chicago people who are here iu the interest of an amendment to the World's Fair act of the last session of Congro-s. permitting the opening of the exposition exposi-tion on Sunday, haye, to nse a sporting expression been "fought to a standstill'' by the opponents of Sunday opening. The house committee having the matter mat-ter in hand, of which Representative Fnborrow. a Chicago man, is chairman, is a'most unanimous in favor of Sunday opening, bot opposition has shown it. self in so many quarters that the matter will not be pushed jnst now. A number of Senators have expressed most positively posi-tively their beiief that it would be an impossibility to carry the Sunday opening open-ing through the Senate, even If it gets through the House, Still, shrewd m :u-aemeut :u-aemeut may do much in the confusion of the clooiug days of the session. The house committee on territories has made a favorable report on the bill introduced by Delegate Caino for the admission of Utah to Statehood. |
