Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1884 — THE HOUSE OF LORDS. [ARTICLE]

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Every Senator to Have a Clerk. [Washington Dispatch.] The American House of Lords, as the Senate is called since the Chicago Tribune’s editorial on the subject appeared, is making long strides in the assertion of its privileges. A resolution was adopted to-day which gives each Senator a clerk to be paid out of the public purse. This is a privilege which no member of the British House of Lords enjoys. "It is true that the Senators cannot make the addition of $6 daily to their own salaries, but they will each have a private secretary. There is little doubt that the House will vote the necessary additional appropriation each year to the Senate’s contingent fund. The House in every case of contest for years has succumbed, although there has frequently been danger that an appropriation bill would fail because the Senate would not yield. The total additional cost will be about $35,000 annually. The change from SI,OOO annually to $6 per day during the session will not make any material difference in the aggregate. One effect of the resolution will doubtless be to make the scramble for Chairmanships less active. The Senator who can have a olerk at Government expense wholly to himself may think that he is better served than to accept a Chairmanship, where it is possible that his clerk may have some publio duty to perform.