Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1886 — CONGRESSIONAL. [ARTICLE]

CONGRESSIONAL.

The Work of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Senate passed an anti-Oklahoma boomer i bill on the 17th inst. It provides for the punishi meat by fine of not more than SSOO and imprison- , of not more than one year, or both, of persons I going on Indian lands with the purpose ot oceu- , pying the same. Mr. Hoar introduced a bill ■ providing for the erection of a monument at Washington to General Grant. The sum appropriated is $250,000. The bill was- sent to the Committee on Library for consideration. Senator Morrill introduced a bill providing for the establishment of an educational fund by setting apart each year the receipts from tho sale of public lands over and above the expenses of the land office, together with one-half the amount received from railroad companies, under the provisions of the Thurman act; such fund to be apportioned to the several States end Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population between the ages of 5 and 20 years, the interest on the sum apportioned to each State and Territory to be paid to its proper officers each vear for educational purposes. The Blair educational bill was discussed and amended. In the House of Representatives Mr. Murphy, of lowa, from the Committee on Railways and Canals, reported a bill providing for the acceptance by the United States of the proposed grant of the Illinois and Michigan Canal for the construction of the Illinois and Mississippi River Canal. The bill was placed on the calendar. The House passed bills providing that all settlers within railway limits restricted to less than IGO acres, who make an additional entry under the acts of March and July, 1879, shall be entitled to have the lands covered by the additional entry patented without any further cost or proof of settlement and cultivation, reducing from 8 to 5 cents the fee for money orders not exceeding $5, and making allowances for clerk-hire to postmasters at first and second class postoffices cover the cost of clerical labor in the moneyorder business. The Fitz-John Porter debate was continued in the House, Messrs Laird and Oates supporting and Messrs. Kelley and Thomas opposing the bill. Mr. Thomas said that ho believed the bill to tie wholly unconstitutional, and that its passage would be an insult to the living and an outrage to the dead. Mr. Oates bases bis argument upon bis personal knowledge of the incidents of Aug. 29, 1862, and was listened to with great attention. He thought that McDoweJl was more to blame for not interposing to prevent the union of the forces of Longstreet and Jackson than Porter was. Mr. Edmunds, from the Judiciary Committee renorted the following resolutions to the Senate on the 18th inst. They were accompanied by a long report, a liberal abstractor which was given in these columns some days ago- “Resolved, That the Senate hereby expresses its condemnation of the refusal of the Attorney General, under whatever influence, to send to the Senate copies of papers called for by its resolution of the 25th of January, and set forth in the reports of the Committee ou the Judiciary, as in violation of his official duty and subversive of the fundamental principles of the Government and of a good administration thereof. Resolved, That it is, under these circumstances, the duty of the Senate to refuse its advice and consent to proposed removals of officers, the documents and papers in reference to tho supposed official or personal misconduct of whom are withheld by the Executive or any head of a department, when deemed necessary by the Senate and called for in considering the matter. Resolved, That the provision of section 1754 of the Revised Statutes declaring that .persons honorably discharged from the military or naval service by reason of disability resulting from wounds or sickness incurred in the line of duty, shall be preferred for appointments to civil offices, provided that they are found to possess the necessary for the proper discharge of the duties of such office,' ought to be faithfully anti fully put in execution, and that to remove or to propose to remove any such soldier whose faithfulness, competency, and character are above reproach, and to give place to another who has not rendered such service, is a violation of tho spirit of the law and of the practical gratitude the people and Government of the United States owe to the defenders of constitutional liberty and the integrity of the Government.” The report recites the fact and circumstances of the removal of Mr. Dustin and the appointment of his successor as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. It declares that it has been the uniform practice of the Judiciary Committee, since the passage of the tenure-of-oflice act, to call upon the heads of departments for all papersand information in the possession of the departments touching the conduct mid administration of the officer proposed to be removed, and the character and conduct of the person proposed to bo appointed. This has been done with the unanimous approval of all the members, although the composition of tho committee has boon during the period sometimes of one political character and sometimes of another. In no instance until this time has the committee met with any delay or denial in respect to furnishing such papers and information, with a single exception, and in which exception the delay and suggested denial lasted only for two or three days. The precedents are cited and discussed at great length. It was agreed that no discussion of the question should take place until the minority of the committee had prepared and presented their side of the question, and for this purpose they were given until Monday, the Ist of March. The House of Representatives, by a vote ot 171 to 113, passed the bill to restore Fitz John Porter to the army. An analysis of the vote shows the following result: Veas— Democrats, 155; Republicans, 15; GreenbackDemocrat, 1. Nays—Republicans, 111; Democrat, 1; Greenback-Republican, 1. Din ing the closing hours of the debate the galleries were crowded, and the groups which surrounded the speakers showed the deep interest felt by members on the floor. Phelps, of New Jersey ; Curtin of Pennsylvania; and Bragg, of Wisconsin, were the principal speakers, all of them advocating the passage of the bill. Considerable excitement was caused by a heated altercation between Bragg and Cutcheon. The Blair educational bill was discussed again, in tho Senate on Feb. 19. Senator Evarts supported the bill. Senator Ingalls opposed the bill as a Southern measure. He saw no reason why the common schools should be turned over to the Federal Government, and he criticised the South for calling on the General Government for aid. Senator Hoar denied that the bill was a Southern measure. He himself drafted the first of these education tells ten or fifteen years ago. The measure was a Northern idea, supported by Northern sentiment. Only three Southern votes were given to the first bill of tho kind. Senators Wilson (Md.) and Harris opposed the bill on constitutional grounds. They objected to interfwence on the part of the General Government with the schools of a State. Senator Morrill, from the Committee on Finance, reported favorably Senator Butler’s bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to deliver, upon satisfactory proof of ownership, to the claimants thereof, the silverware, jewelry, and other property deposited in the Treasury by the Secretary of War in June, 1869, as property captured by the United States army during the late war, and providing that all such property remaining in the Treasury for two years after tho passage of the act shall be sold at public auction, and the proceeds of the sale covered into the Treasury. Tho Senate passed bills to remove the political disabilities of Alexander P. Stewart of Mississippi, Thomas L. Rosser of Virginia, and E. G. Butler of Missouri. A resolution was introduced directing the Secretary of War to report the facts of the murder bv Mexican tioops of Capt. Emmet Crawford, of tho United States army. In the House of Representatives, Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania, delivered a long speech on the silver question. Hu defended the course of the President and Secretary Manning in the management of the nation's finances, and regretted that his party colleagues had not left it to the Republican sido of the House to attack the administration. Ho declared the charge that these officers wore under the influence of capitalists to be unfounded. They had violated no law and had conformed to the very letter of the statutes. They had, indeed, recommended the suspension of the silver coinage, but who could say that this advice might not prove to be wise and conducive to the public good? Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, renewed his request to have printed in the Record a review of the testimony in the Fitz John Porter case, prepared by Judge Advocate Holt. Mr. Bragg, of Wisconsin, whohad previously objected, said that, as the battle was over, he was in favor of a general amnesty, and would make no objection. The request was granted.