Washington Correspondence

Special Capítol News Co. Correspondenre. Washington, D. C, Marcli 27, 1S94. Judge Chipman, who so long and so well represented the Detroit district in the lower house of congress, had backbone enough to speak and vote against his party when he thought that party wrong. His successor, Prof. Levi T. G riffin, is just that same sort of a man, in that respect. In the desperate effort his party has been making for the past ten days to unseat Mr. Joy, as the sitting member from one of the St. Louis districts, and seat the democratie contestant, Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Xjriffin dared to oppose the committee report. He did it, too, in a vigorous speech of, twenty minutes, in which he told his fellow-democrats that he could and would never vote to oust Mr. Joy, and would not, and then he kept his word by voting in favor of allowing the republican to retain his seat. Some of the judges of election had carelessly neglected to put their initials on the ballots, as required by the new law of the state, with which they were not yet familiar, and it was by throwing out nearly one thousand such ballots that were cast for Mr. Joy, that Mr. O'Neill's right to the seat was claimed. Mr. Griffin said he could never vete to disfranchise nearly a thousand voters of Missouri, and for no fault of theirs - and he didn't. Twelve other democrats voted with him in favor of allowing the republican to retain his seat. It is very rarely that a member votes against his party in a contested election case, and being a new member, Mr. Griffin's bravery is all the more apparent. As before announced, Mr. Griffin will take up the work Judge Chipman had on hand when he died. One of the late congressman 's pet measures was a bilí to prevent alien laborers from coming to the United States to work and then carrying their earnings to their Canadian homes. Mr. Griffin is preparing to introduce a bilí something like the one Judge Chipman introduced on that subject in the last congress but failed to pass. His bill will provide for amending the present alien contract law so that persons living along the Dominion border cannot -cross back and forth each day and work in the United States, and yet continue to reside in Canada. If men wish to work in America, Mr. Griffin proposes that they shall also live in America, all of which is good logic. Mr. Griffin proposes that persons, firms and corporations who employ across-the-river help shall be subject to pay a fine of $500 for each person so employed. He will also provide that residents of Windsor who accept employment in Detroit, may be arrested and tried in the courts of that city and fined $50 each. Such a bill is bound to pass sooner or later, if not during the present congress. All the democrats in the Michigan delegBtion are back and on duty again, and have been remaining in their seats to help hold the democratie quorum for action on thecontested election cases, when one or two desired to be elsewhere. Mr. Weadock had promised to be home for a few days before and at the time of the city election in his city, (Bay City). He did not, however, feel at liberty to go when his party so much needed his vote, and so was obliged to let the election go by without his presence or ballot. As many of the roll calis taken during the fiibustering on the contested election cases showed just the necessary 169 votes required to constitute a quorum, it is plain to see that Mr. Weadock's vote was needed here more than his ballot in Bay City. Senator Stockbridge expects to go with his wife on a trip to California. They will leave here in a few days and travel in a leisurely and easy manner. He will be sent about one month (while the senate is discussing the Wilson tarift" bill), But Mrs. Stockbridge will remain longer if the climate proves as beneficial to her health as they hope. The long expected river and harbor bill is born at last. While the Michigan members didn't get one quarter as much money as their districts really needed, they expressed themselves as fairly wel! satisfied. They aré glad that they were not cut off entirely, without a shilling, as they might have been, and admit that even one slice of bread is better than no bread.