32 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
| THE | 
National Capital 
Events of Interest from the Seat of 
Government 
By J. E. Jones 
The Breeze Bureau. 
Washington, June 23, 1914, 
“GoLtp H1iLL CONSOLIDATED.” 
There is a gold mine in North 
Carolina in the same county in which 
Senator Overman lives, and if it is 
true, as the Senator has declared, that 
the records of the mine show that 
$5,000,000 worth of ore was taken 
out of the mine, the Senator would 
indeed have been a very poor citizen 
had he not bought some stock in 
“Gold Hill consolidated.” Senator 
Chilton of West Virginia, is also an- 
other owner of the stock. All might 
have gone well, and the Senators 
might have shared their profits and 
losses with the other stock holders, 
had it not been for the fact that their 
stationery was used—quite by acci- 
dent, they explain, to put out some 
praiseworthy comment concerning 
this particular gold mine. Thereup- 
on, “tips” are said to have been whis- 
pered about, and the stock soared 
sky-high. Finally it was published 
that there was a little corner in gold 
mining stock among Senators and 
other high public officials. Then it 
was discovered that the stationery up- 
on which the mining stock boom was 
exploited contained the names of a 
number of other Senators who enter- 
tained bitter prejudices against min- 
ing enterprises, and two of these were 
Senators LaFollette and Cummins. 
Senators Overman and Chilton are 
high in the esteem of the country and 
the national Capital, and they have 
started an investigation in the Senate 
which they declare will show they 
have done nothing improper. Sen- 
ator Chilton says that it ‘“‘all goes to 
show what will happen to a Democrat 
when he gets to fooling with a gold 
standard. If he would stick to the 
old sixteen to one he would never 
have anyone question his methods.” 
In further explanation it appears that 
the wisdom of Senators does not ex- 
empt them from the common fate that 
befalls many men. Senator Chilton 
adds: “TI want to say that I will yield 
second place to nobody in having 
money invested in gold mines. 1 
have some in holes in Washington, 
in California, in Colorado, in Georgia, 
in South Carolina, in Virginia, in 
North Carolina, and probably in sev- 
eral other states. All my life I have 
fostered the idea that possibly I 
might get out of my habit of not 
having enough to pay my bills by 
making a strike in a gold mine . They 
have always looked attractive to me, 
and inasmuch as I] have so much 
money in holes of that kind, I want 
to go to that kind of a hole to get out 
the money which | have invested.” 
THe TrapE CoMMISSION. 
The Administration trade commis- 
sion bill has been presented to the 
Senate by Mr. Newlands of Nevada, 
and President Wilson says that it and 
other anti-trust legislation must be 
passed at this session of Congress. 
_ The President declares that the worst 
thing that could happen to business 
would be to keep it guessing as to leg- 
islation. He therefore insists that 
there must be no compromise, and 
that the present Congress must com- 
plete the Wilson program and give 
the trust legislation to the country. 
According to the President big busi- 
ness is in the same condition as a 
patient afflicted with a disease that 
needs a capital operation. He says 
that the sooner it is over and the pa- 
tient allowed to have a long rest, the 
better 
Senator Newlands in submitting 
the report in favor of the Adminis- 
tration trade commission, told his col- 
leagues in the Senate that the country 
desired such a measure. He declared: 
“Had such a commission been organ- 
ized contemporaneously with the 
Sherman law the conflicting questions 
relative to trusts, monopolies and un- 
fair competition, would have been as 
thoroughly settled by this time as have 
been questions relating to transpor- 
tation, through the action of the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission.” The 
Senator added that the changing in- 
cumbency of the Attorney General’s 
office has made uncertain the attitude 
of previous administrations. He as- 
serts that the so-called “inquisitorial 
methods” of the present bill are not 
greatly in excess of those now posses- 
sed and for years exercised by the 
Bureau of corporations. “The power, 
of course, must be large,” he adds, 
“but the exercise of power will not be 
against honest business, and will be 
against business outlaws, and will be 
persuasive and correctional, rather 
than punative, so far as well inten- 
tioned business is concerned.” In the 
opinion of Mr. Newlands, the country 
is passing through “a period of de- 
pression, which is partly the result of 
world-wide causes, and partly the re- 
sult of necessary readjustments, fol- 
lowing important economic changes.” 
He says that the railroads are being 
affected, as are many other classes of 
business, “ but it is merely tempor- 
ary.” And that, if you please, is 
practically the view of the Adminis- 
tration concerning this new legisla- 
tion. 
INcoME 'TAx IN TROUBLE. 
The Secretary of the Treasury in- 
sists that the new income tax has 
teeth in it, and he has an army of 
assistants who propose to close the 
jaws of the law upon the income tax 
dodgers throughout the country. 
Somebody has been miscalculating 
very badly, or there are mote poor 
people in the United States than has 
been generally supposed, as the in- 
come tax will fail by $21,000,000 of 
providing the revenue expected of it 
by the framers of the new tariff law. 
The Treasury Department “experts” 
estimated that the taxes on individual 
returns would be $24,000,000 more 
than has been produced. The govern- 
ment “dragnet” has therefore thus 
far got little more than half what it 
had expected. The Democrats, while 
patting themselves on the back be- 
cause of their magnificent legislative 
achievements of the past year, are 
worrying themselves sick because of 
the lack of necessary revenue. 
Don’t ForcetT THE QUOTATIONS. 
Senator Reed Smoot has been com- 
pelled to explain that he was not 
guilty of plagiarism in his Memorial 
Day speech at Arlington cemetery. 
The Senator had the quotation marks 
in all straight enough, but they did 
not sound when the newspaper re- 
porters took down his speech, and 
therefore an open letter was printed 
broadcast accusing the Mormon 
Apostle with having swiped the ideas 
of one James T. Darling. The Sen- 
ator made a satisfactory explanation, 
and calls attention to the fact that the 
speech, as printed in the form of a 
public document, contains the proper 
quotation marks, and before the quo- 
tations, the words: “well has it been 
said.” 
Records of the Columbia Country 
Club show that Bristow of Kansas is 
the worst golfer in Congress. Presi- 
dent Wilson and former President 
Taft are rated as” “meditm syeme 
in this same class appear the names 
of Senator Penrose, and Representa- 
tives Prouty, Shreve, Gillette, Town- 
send and Wood. In the “hopeless” 
class are Senators Walsh, O’Gorman 
and Representatives Walsh, Tuttle 
and Kent. 
FACING THE PROBLEM. 
Father—What! You want to marry 
my daughter? Why, sir, you can’t 
See her! I can hardly do it my- 
self. 
Suitor (blankly)—C-can’t we chip 
in together? London Opinion. 
