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GENERAL NEWS NOTES OF THE DAY. Congress met yesterday witli three months remaining in which to complete the legislative plans of the first administration of President Wilson. With prospect of a line-up so close in the next House that Democratic control will be in doubt, administration leaders hope to enact the more important part of their program before it is endangered In the Sixty-fiftli Congress. Foremost is completion of President Wilsons railroad legislation program, left unfinished at the last session witli the passage of the Adamson law. The remainder of the program, which the president will press, includes supplementary legislation to prevent such a nation-wide railway strike as was threatened last summer, or, in fact, a lockout, until the situation has been investigated. Second in importance to the railway situation comes the agitation for a restriction of shipments of foodstuffs to Europe. Thousands of petitions asking for an embargo have been received by members of Congress and at the White House. In every case it is argued that the increased cost of living in the United States demands a restriction of shipments abroad. So far as has been disclosed President Wilson and members of the Cabinet have no idans for acting on the subject, but it is known that various members of Congress intend to push the subject, and it may develop a fight. Chairman Fitzgerald of the appropriations committee already has announced his intention of introducing a bill for a food embrago. Women suffragists, renewing their fight for passage of the Susan B. Anthony amendment to the Constitution, have laid all the lines for their campaign, and it is possible that their demands may be crowded into the short time Congress has to deal witli an important budget of legislation. Prohibitionists, no less ardent than the suffragists in their demand for a federal amendment, arc expected to begin their fight anew. Ninety-six million dollars expenditure by the City of Chicago in the next nine years for subways, elevated railroad extensions and ji general reconstruction of the surface lines is recommended by the expert traction commission in an incomplete draft of its report to be made to the city council tlds month. The commission recommends a charge of two cents for transfers from surface to elevated trains. The report calls for an expenditure of ,-553,000 the first three years. A two-track subwav for elevated trains under State street from IStii street to Chicago avenue and thence west to the tracks of the Northwestern Elevated Railroad company is recommended. A second subway is recommended for Washington street, Michigan avenue and Jackson boulevard, to connect with west side street car tunnels under the river. The first subway would cost 0,350,000, and the second ,1S1,750. The commission recommends the merger of all subway, elevated and surface lines under legislation to be sccuied at Springfield. The traction fund, which now amounts to more than 8,000,000, will be expended for subways if the report of the commission is adopted. The steamship Carolina of the Goodrich Transit Companys fleet, fast on Stony reef, lay helpless yesterday in the fog nine miles south of the entrance to Sturgeon Hay Canal and two miles oft shore. The vessel went aground at 0 p. m. Sunday as it was nosing its way slowly northward. A wireless call for help reached Manitowoc, which in turn, communicated with the life saving station at the entrance to the canal. A boat was sent out and the five passengers and members of the crew of seventy-five were brought in safety into the city of Sturgeon Bay. An Amsterdam dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph Company says, the passage of the home army bill caused a panic throughout Berlin last week when it was realized that women would be forced into the factories.
