Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1882 — Keifer's Committees. [ARTICLE]

Keifer's Committees.

The Washington agent of the Associated Press has undertaken a defense of Speaker Keifer’s Committee appointments. He says that there are fifty-two Chairmanships distributed among the Republicans, of which the East with 66 Republican members has 20, the West with 71' Republican members has 28, the South with 10 Republican members has 4. Pennsylvania, with 19 Republican members, has 6 Chairmanships ; Ohio, with 15, received 5 ; Illinois, etc., etc. The design of all this is to create the impression that the utmost fairness was used, geographically, at least, in the distribution of these places. What would be said of a guardian who would distribute fifty pieces of money among his ten wards and claim that it was a fair division because each received five pieces, though John’s were fifty-dollar gold pieces ard James’ were but copper coins? Now, it is, notorious that the number of really important committees may ba »cqunted ‘ on one’s fingers. Chief of -these is the Committee on Ways and Means, Perhaps the Associated Press defender of Speaker Keifer’s Cameron committees will explain why the Chairmanship of this committee was given to a Pennsylvanian; why he was reinforced- by two Pennsylvania members, and why no New Yorker and only one New Englander was placed upon this committee. He packed it with protectionists and subsldy-grant-ers, but he was not obliged to go to Pennsylvania for these., They could be found in • the delegations of other States. Mr. Keifer’s committees throughout escape gross partiality in their composition only when they are unimportant. The Cameron hand that made Keffer Speaker is visible in every committee of importance. .In the important oemmittees of Way* and Means, Appropriations, Banking and Currency, Coinage, Forbigrt* Affairs, Naval Affairs, and Pennsylvania has ten members, New York six, and all New England but five. This geographical inequality would not matter if the best use had been made of the material obtainable, but there was a noticeable desire upon the part of the Speaker to place strong men of the opposition in positions where they can be least useful to the country.— Chicago Tinies.