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2 Champ Clark*s Washington Letter. Hon. Champ Clark, member of Congress for the Ninth Missouri district, was born in Kentucky in 1850, and for twenty-two years held the record for being the youngest college president in the United States. In his varied ca reer he worked as a farm hand, clerked in a country store, edited a country weekly and practiced law. He was permanent chairman of the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis in 1904. He is now serving his sixth term as a member of Congress. The multimillionaries of Rhode Isl and are in a deadlock. It may or may not be broken before this letter is in print. The matter in controversy is the election of a United States sena tor, and two Republican multis want it. Senator Wetmore has tried the senatorial poco and wants some more. Colonel Colt thinks Wetmore has had a quantum sufficit perhaps more than a quantum meruit, and wants to taste it himself. So these two plutocrats have tapped their barrels, and in Lit tle Rhody, everything is merry as a marriage bell. While the two multis are waging this war of the barrels the “boys” are having a good time and would be delighted to see the contest continue till the roses bloom. In Rhode Island the people have lit tle to do with running the government. If they did it would be Democratic. Some astute persons have expressed a doubt as to whether they really have a Republican form of government n Rhode Island, such as the federal con stitution requires. As it is 28 per cent of the votes elect a majority of both houses of the legislature—a condition growing out of the fact that the basis of representation is about the same now as a century ago. It is all based on “towns.” In the lapse of time the population of some “towns” has grown so and the population of others dwin dled so that the thing has come to be preposterous, but it suits the pluto crats to a “t.” All they have to do is to round up the 28 per cent who are so situated geographically as to con trol both houses of the legislature. With the other 72 per cent they need not bother. The basis of representa tion is a constitutional provision and cannot be amended except the legis lature is willing—which of course it is not. * In Earnest. Evidently the Roosevelt third term boomers are in dead earnest, and they are going at it systematically and with nerve. They are out in the open fight ing for their man against all comers. They are publishing a magazine en titled Limelight in aid of their movement. Certainly that paper is correctly named, for if ever there was a man who loved to bathe himself in the limelight it is the Hon. T. R. It is published in Chicago, the Windy City—another observance of the pro prieties. Limelight claims that its idol is now filling his first term. If that be true then the idol himself did not know what he was talking about when he declared that the present term is his second. Limelight seems to have a corps of boomers judiciously located about the land so as to give to the third term movement the appearance of being widely diffused, geographical ly speaking, and it fills its columns with more or less heated communica tions from these boomers. Os course most of them belong to the “bread and butter brigade—’’that is, to those hold ing ofllce under the administration or those who hope to do so. It ought to be stated that there are some who are whooping it up for a third term for Roosevelt under the delusion that the country would speedily go to what Mr. Mantallni was wont to denominate ' s “the demnltloß bowwows” if Roosevelt should lose his «rip on the helm. Poor souls! The government’s life of prog ress depends on no one man, thank God! And if all the officeholders in America were to die today, in a week or two their places would be filled with men just as capable. Whatever else happens in this land of the free and home of the brave, the breed of officeholders will not run out. Ex-Governor Durbin, of Indiana, an other statesman out of a job and in hopes of getting one, has been In Washington lately throwing ice water on the Fairbanks boom and screeching for a third term for Roosevelt. The ex-governor thinks he knows that the plain people are wild for Roosevelt and that if he is not given a third term they will be in the condition of Rachel mourning for her children and refusing to be comforted because they were not. They do say, however, that the reason why Durbin is against Fair banks and for Roosevelt is that he Is ambitious to be V. P. himself. Now, the gossips who say that may be wrong, but folks have a habit in this world of piecing two and two together, thereby making four. Another notable feature of the situation seems to be that Senator Beveridge, of Indiana, is not tearing his shirt for Fairbanks, another case of green eyed monster. Beveridge believes that he is himself of presidential stature, and he doesn’t want Fairbanks to get it for fear it would militate against his own chances. So far as 1 know, Beveridge has not openly declared for a third term, but the chances are that he would declare in favor of a third, fourth and fifth if he supposed it would kill off Fairbanks and let him self in. There is still another class scream ing for a third term for Roosevelt con sisting of people whose appetites con stantly crave sensations. They may not anaptly be termed sensation to pers. If a man should hapen to be elected president next time who would attend strictly to his own business, pursuing the even tenor of his way without brass band accompaniment, these sensation topers would perish from ennui, for they have been on a jamboree ever since Roosevelt became president. “Atlanta, a Small City.” The Chicago Post flippantly refers to Georgia’s capital as “Atlanta, a small city.” What will happen to the unthinking mortal who made that un fortunate fling will be a-plenty and then some. By the time Colonel Clark Howell, Colonel John Temple Graves, Colonel Leonidas Felix Livingston and the rest of the Atlanta boomers have polished him off he will be a spectacle for men and angels. His grandmother wouldn’t know him if she met him in the big road, so thoroughly will they disfigure him. And he deserves the punishment he is to receive, richly deserves it. He has almost committed sacrilege. He exhibited wretched taste. He will find himself in a “woe ful plight,” to use Grover Cleveland’s third best phrase. Measured by num bers of people, when compared with Chicago, Atlanta is a small city, but measured by brains Atlanta looms up with the best and biggest of them. Chi cago has many multimillionaires, but she never produced a Henry W. Grady, THE WEEKLY jfeFEERSONIAN and if Georgia had done nothing else than give Grady to the world she would deserve well at the hands of mankind. Atlanta is one of thriftiest and most progressive cities in Amer ica. Commercially she holds a splendid strategic position. Some fine morning the world will suddenly comprehend the fact that in the future the growth of wealth and population in this coun try will be in the south and southwest. Atlanta understands that fact now, and she is preparing to reap a rich, re ward. No city has more diversified manufacturing interests, and diversity of such interests as enables a city to weather the storm when panics come, as they will come till the end of time. Naturally the region south of the Poto mac and the Ohio, including Missouri and the southwest, is the richest under heaven, which fact will sooner or later be apparent even to those dullest cf vision. What’s more, the southern and southwestern people are beginning to develop their marvelous resources, and Atlanta is doing her full share in that great work. A Terse Paragraph. I have in these letters frequently re ferred to and quoted most excellent and illuminating excerpts from the rural press. The opinions of country editors are not so widely read as the editorials of the big metropolitan pa pers, but in the end the sum total of *.he influence of country papers is greater than that of the great dailies. Out at Fulton, in my district, is a young editor, Mr. Ovid Bell, who con ducts the Fulton Gazette, a tiptop pa per. He is a thoroughgoing Demo crat. At one time he served as secre tary to Hon. Richard Parks Bland, which in itself was a liberal education in Democracy. Bell has been a mem ber of the state committee; also its secretary. Recently that paper con tained this editorial paragraph, which should be an eye opener to his readers. Mr. Bell says: “The Kansas state senate, composed of thirty-seven Republicans and three Democrats, passed a resolution the other day instructing the Kansas dele gation in congress to ‘use all honora ble means’ to revise the tariff on steel and lumber. Twenty-one Republicans voted for hte resolution and one of them debating it, said, ‘No wife buys a dish pan and no farmer a nail or piece of barbed wife that does not pay tribute to the steel trust.’ The funny part <>f the performance is the admission of the fact that the tariff is responsible for the trusts. Ordinarily a Republi can politician does not admit the rela tion of the tariff to the trusts. Any of them will agree that the buying public pays tribute to the steel and lumber trusts, and they go further and agree that the beef trust, the leather trust, the farm machinery trust, the woolen goods trust and the cotton goods trust levy tribute from the peo ple, but somehow they fail to connect cause with effect. Light seems to be breaking on Kansas Republicanism, however.” De Armond’s Remedy. Judge David A. De Armond, of Mis souri, the most sarcastic of mortals as well as one of the ablest members of the house, has turned his mind to the exactions of the Dingley tariff bill and from his inner consciousness has evolv ed a most excellent plan to educate people on that subject—if he could only get it into operation. But there is the rub, not only with De Armond’s scheme, but with any other looking toward Improving our condition. His plan is simplicity itself. It’s nothing more or less than to pass a law re quiring that the amount of tariff on any article shall be placed on that ar ticle in plain words and figures when it is offered for sale. That would be fair to all concerned —to manufacturer, seller and buyer; also to Uncle Sam — but because it is fair is precisely the reason that the ways and means com mittee as now organized will not touch it with a forty foot pole. What the tariff barons and their supple tools most dread is a fair deal on the tariff. The tariff gong could not drum up one-tenth of the votes of the United States if De Armond’s bill were enact ed into law. Once a lawyer told his client that he should have justice, whereupon the astonished client yelled “That’s exactly what I do not want!” So with the stand patters. The last thing they desire is fairness, justice or an even chance. The law has made them rich by enabling them to fleece their victims. If De Armond doesn’t look a little out, he will render himself persona non grata to the barons, but he doesn’t seem to care a baubee about that. Queer sort of man, isn’t he? Others think they are sitting in heavenly places when the tariff barons smile on them, but Missourians are an independent race and generally do and say what they please. Increase of Salary. Florida has only three representa tives in the house, but they are all strong men —Sparkman, lamar, and Clark. There are always so many Clarks in congress that they are usu ally called by their Christian names more frequently than others except the Smiths, Joneses, Browns, Andersons and Williamsons. So the Florida mem ber is always Frank Clark to his fel low members. He is a handsome, ca pable man without fear. What’s in his mind he says, and he says it with force. He has a clear, bell-like voice, a great advantage in such a large and tumultuous assembly as is the house or representatives. Whether a person agrees with Frank Clark or not, he must admire his courage. He was once United States district attorney and holds up his end of the hand spike in the house, to use an old time ex pression familiar to the ears of those reared in the timber regions. When the question of increasing congres sional salaries came up, Frank Clark came out boldly in favor of it and made a speech which convulsed the house and galleries and which was largely exploited in the papers. Enough voted for the proposition to pass it, but few spoke in favor of it, and most of those who did spoke apolo getically. Not so with my namesake from Florida. He put it on grounds of justice and manfully stood by his guns. He has a tender heart. Some per sons conveyed to him the information that the lunatics in St. Elizabeth’s asylum are malterated. He promptly introduced a resolution of investiga tion and forced it to its passage. He was placed on the committee on inves tigate and has put in a vast deal of work on that subject. All sorts of tactics were resorted to to prevent the Investigation, but Clark, of Florida swung on like a bulldog till he got it. n No Extra Session. There is talk of an extra session of congress, but there’s no extra session going to be held. Os course the Wash ington people want it, because it helps the town, but senators and representa tives do not want it, and President Roosevelt dislikes to have congress on