Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1886 — NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS. [ARTICLE]

NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS.

Brief Summary of the Proceeding's of Congress. A bill to provide for the control of the reservation at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the distribution of water was introduced in the Senate on the 9th in st. The Senate passed bills appropriating $359,000 each for public buildings at San Francisco and Portland. $200,000 for San Antonio. $150,000 for Pueblo, Fort Smith, Dayton, and Zanesville, and SIOO,OOO for Atchison, Sioux City, Oshkosh, and Vicksburg. A bill passed to sell the old site of Fort Brady, in Michigan, and erect a suitable building in a new location. The Speaker laid before the House the response of the Secretory of the Treasury to the Blond resolution. Referred. The Secretarj- says; "I have received the inquiries addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury by the House of Representatives in their resolution respecting the silver balance and circulation, and beg leave to say in reply that I will, with all due diligence, make full answer to the same. I am for the moment delayed by the current business of the department, and by a special endeavor to promote exigent reforms in the levy and collection of duties on imported commodities, by affording some information thereon in season for the advantage of the sub-committee of the Finance Committee of the Senate, which has requested the same and which I am happy to say is about to undertake an early examination of the difficulties set forth in my annual report in respect to the collection of revenue at the Custom House at New York.” The Speaker also laid before the House the reply of the Secretary of the Treasury to the resolution asking for a statement of the amount applied to the sinking fund during the fiscal year ending June 30,1885. Referred. The Secretary gives the following figures: Bonds, principal, $45,588,150; interest, $271,607.32; fractional currency, redeemed, $15,885.43. Total, $45,875,702,75. The Eustis resolution calling on the Secretary of the Treasury for information as to the refusal of the Assistant Treasurer at New Orleans to receive shipments of silver and to issue silver certificates therefor, was the theme of a protracted debate in the Senate on the 10th inst. Senator Call defended the action of the Treasury officials and Senator Plumb criticised it. Senator Coke attacked the Treasury Department vehemently, saying that the Treasury officials, while ostentatiously taking credit for suip irting the public credit and executing the law, were doing everything in their power to accomplish a directly contrary result. He made no war on the administration, he said, but he believed that a public office is a public trust, and in the position taken by him he executed the trust conferred on him by the people whom he in part represent d. Senator Teller praised the D<m>eratie members of the last House for “resisting the effort of the incoming Demo ratic President to discredit silver.” He comment id with severity on the statement made by lhe President and Secretary Manning, that it had 1 een possible to force only $50,006,0J0 in silver into circulation when ;9J,000,000 of silver cert sic rtes and $50,000,000 in silver coin were in the hands of the peopl ■. Mr. Georg" defended tho administration, after which Mr. Eustis said that he had telegraphed to Mr. Roach at New Orleans to ascertain the purpose of the bank shipment of silver, and had received this reply: ’’Shippers sought to get rid of excessive silver by shipping to the Sub-Treasury and asking that silver certificates therefor should be turned over to their New Orleans correspondents. The Sub-Treasurer declined to receive from express company because, first, he doubted the propriety of the Treasury becoming intermediary between country and city banks; second, for lack of clerical force. I feel assured that provision for sufficient clerks would remedy everything.” The matter finally went over. The House met, adopted resolutions eulogistic of Gen. Hancock, and immediately adjourned. Mb. Mitchell of Oregon introduced a bill in the Senate on the 11th inst. providing for the repeal of all treaties permitting the coming of Chinese to the United States and prohibiting their coming, except in the case of diplomatic oind official personages. The Senate passed without amendment the House bill for the payment of the “Fourth of July” claims and a bill regulating the promotion of West Point graduates. The Blair education bill was called up in the Senate, and Senator Morgan (Ala.) delivered a long speech against it. He called it a bill to tax the honest, hard-working man in order te educate the children of the drunken, loafing vagabond. Forty of the sixty millions of people in the United States were dead-beats ana nonproducers, and the tax imposed on the remaining twenty millions, he said, would foot up $lO a head. The constitutional ground for the bill. Mr. Morgan continued, w r as said to be found in the “general-welfare” clause of the preamble to the Constitution, Such an. application of that clause simply meant that you could pull down the man who got up by his own exertions, in order to put up a drunken loafer who would not exert himself. Senator Morgan characterized Senator Blair’s idea as one involving the right of Congress to educate the children of the several States without the consent of the States. The Senate adjourned to Monday, Feb. 15. In the House, Mr. Bingham, of Pennsylvania, asked leave to introduce a bill granting a pension of $2,000 per annum to the widow of Gen. W. S. Hancock, but Mr. Beach, of New York, objected. The House passed the bill to enable national banks to increase their capital stock and to change their names or locations. The Fitz-John Porter bill -came up in the House, and Mr. Havnes, of New Hampshire, opened the debate with a speech in its support. Mr. Steele, of Indiana, followed Mr. Haynes and opposed the bill, declaring that General Pope’s famous order could and should have been obeyed by General Porter. A map of the scene of military operations in question having been hung upon a support in the space in front of the speaker’s desk, Mr. Steele pointed out with a cane the movements of the various commanders. During the delivery of the speech Mr. Steele was interrupted at times by General Bragg, who took occasion to question the speaker’s statements, and at the close of the speech the two had a brief controversy over the circumstances attending certain movements at the battle, during which General Bragg said: “I find that those who were not there know very much more about it than those who were.” Mr. Steele replied: “In reply to J|iat I have read the reports of as distinguished soldiers as ever did battle for any cause who were there.” Thebe was no session of the Senate on the 12th inst. In the House of Representatives, after the reference of a large number of Senate bills to the appropriate committscs, the Speaker proceeded to call committees for reports of a private nature. At the conclusion of the call the House went into committee of the whole (Mr. Hammond, of Georgia, in the chair), on the private calendar. The Speaker laid before the House of Representatives, on the 13th inst,, the reply of the Postmaster General in response to the resolution calling for information as to whether the eight-hour law is now applicable to letter-carriers. The Postmaster General states that there is no department regulation prescribing the number of hours during which letter-carriers are required to work, and the eight-hour law has not been deemed applicable to letter-carriers, because they are not regarded as “laborers, workmen, or mechanics.” The opinion that the law is not applicable to letter-carriers was, the Postmaster General is informed, promulgated from the department before his incumbency of the office, and no change has been decided since. Adverse reports were submitted from the Committee on Postoffices and Post-Roads on bills to enable the people to name their Postmasters ; to regulate the naming of postoffices; to facilitate the delivery of mail matter. atia Messrs. Swinburne, of Now York, end Wolford, of Kentucky, spoke in favor < f, and Mr. Houk, of Tennessee, against the Fitz Jih i Porter bill. The Senate was not in session.

The first archaeopteryx, the fossil remains of the oldest-known bird, which seems to form the connecting link between birds and reptiles, was discovered in the lithographic slate of Solenhofen in 1861. Another specimen, recently found in the samo locality, has been sold for $5,000 to the Berlin Museum.