Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1886 — CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

CONGRESS.

What Is Being Done by the National Legislature. The bill to increase the pensions of soldiers’ widows and dependent relatives from $8 to sl2 a month passed the Senate on the 16th inst., just as it came from the House. Senators Morrill, Cullom, Maxey, and Dolph addressed the Senate on the Duskin resolutions. Senator Morrill supported the resolutions in a very brief speech Senator Cullom made a long argument in support of the resolutions. The refusal of the Attorney General to furnish the papers called for by the Senate, he said, was a denial of the right of the Senate to inquire into the management of a public office. Senator Maxey opposed the resolutions. However much the issue might be disguised, he said, the real object was to ascertain the President’s reasons for suspensions or removals of officers. Complaint, he said, was made in that majority report that 643 suspensions had been made under this administration. The complaint made by the peoole, Mr. Maxey said, was that there had not been ten times 643 removals. Bills or resolutions were introduced in the House to pay to Mrs. Thomas A. Hendricks the salary of the Vice President for one year, to establish postoffice savings banks, to provide for a conference of American nations on a common standard silver coin, and for a commission to investigate the war claims of loyal citizens of the border States. The House passed, under a suspension of the rules, a bill for the closing of the business of the Alabama Claims Court; also the Senate bill authorizing the Comptroller of the Currency to permit the receiver of a national bank to use the trust funds for the purchase of property upon which the bank holds a mortgage or other evidence of indebtedness.

Mr. Van Wyck offered the following resolution in the Senate March 17: “Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be directed to examine the nature and extent of the alleged use and destruction of timber on the public lands adjoining the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, particularly by the Montana Improvement Company, and report what, if any, additional legislation is necessary to protect timber on the publit domain, and that the committee have power to send for persons and papers.” The resolution was agreed to The Chair laid before the Senate the new electoral count bill. Mr. Hoar addressed the Senate on the bill, and at the conclusion of his remarks the bill wUs passed without division. Mr. Dolph addressed the Senate in support of the Edmunds resolution. Mr. Coke and Mr. Wilson, of Maryland, spoke upon the resolution, and then Mr. Beck jook the floor in opposition and he and Mr. Edmundahad quite a wrangle upon a question of order, during which Mr. Edmunds moved an executive session. In secret session a motion was entered to reconsider the vote by which R. S. Dement was confirmed as Surveyor General of Utah. In the House Mr. Burnes, of Missouri, reported back the urgent deficiency appropriation bill, with Senate amendments. Concurrence was . recommended in some amendments, and nonconcurrence in others. The report w.as agreed to. Mr. Dorgan, of South Carolina, from the Committee on Military Affairs, reported a bill to replace unserviceable ordnance issued to the militia of States and Territories. Mr. Peel, of Arkansas, from the Committe on Indian Affairs, reported back a Senate bill granting the right of way through the Choctaw and Chickasaw lands to the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company.

When the Duskin resolutions came up in the Senate on the 18th of March, Mr. Van Wyck moved that these words be added to them : “And in all such cases of removal tho matter of confirmation shall be considered in open session of the Senate. ’’ Mr. Brown, of. Georgia, opposed the resolutions and made a long argument to show that tho power of removals is vested by the Constitution in the President alone. Mr. Spooner, of Wisconsin, followed Senator Brown with a long argument in support of the resolutions. The power claimed by the President would enable him, at his will, to shut out the sunlight of investigation from the public offices. He did not think that because papers were written by private citizens they were therefore private papers. Their contents determined their character. Tire Senate passed without debate the bill providing for a commission of five persons to investigate the al-coholic-liquor traffic, its relations to revenue and taxation, and its general, economic, criminal, moral, and scientific aspects ; also the bill providing for the study in the schools of the Territories and the District of Columbia of the nature of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics. In the House, the Cosbmittee on Ways and Means made a favorable report on a bill to authorize tho establishment of factories for the manufacture of tobacco exclusively for exportation. Bills to establish a national live-stock highway, for the relief of heirs of cavalry recruits killed by guerrillas at Lawrence, Kansas, and to authorize tho retirement of I.ieutenant William P. Randall, of Xhe navy, as a lieutenant commander, passed the Senate March 19. A bill was introduced to increase to $650,000 the appropriation for a postoffice at Minneapolis. Mr. Spooner, of Wisconsin, continued bis speech in support of the Duskijr resolution ins the Senate. He maintained that the tenure-of-offico act is unconstitutional. In discussing the civil-service views of the President he declared that “honest partisanship is honest citizenship." Every man suspended from office, he said, had a right to know why he was suspended. Senator Spooner did not suppose tho President meant to submit his fellow citizens to serious injustice, but the system he had adopted in the matter of suspensions inevitably tended to cast a shado.v on the honor of honest men. Senator Saulsbury (Del.) opposed the resolutions. The President had suspended, upto the time Congress met, only 643 out of 17,000 officials subject to his control. Notwithstanding this magnanimity, President Cleveland’s nominations had been allowed to slumber for now three months without action, because the Republican side of the chamber had set to work deliberately to devise some scheme to prevent tho removal of their partisan friends from office. Senator Saulsbury said tho Republicans bad converted themselves inti an obstruction party, hindering the due exercise of executive power. The House of Representatives passed a bill directing the Secretary of War to grant an eonorable discharge to Francis 11. Shaw, who was a captain in the Fifty-tiifth Illinois Infantry, and was summarily dismissed by General Howard for misbeijav or before the enemy. The bill to pension the widow of the late General Hancock came up in the House, and was strongly opposed by Mr. Price of Wisconsin. On the question of passing tho bill the vote stood 25 to 4, Messrs. Price, Zach Taylor, Johnson of Indiana, and Winans voting nay. Mr. Price then raised, the question of no quorum, but the previous question was ordered on the bill and it went over.

There was no session of the Senate on March 10, and the House devoted the day to speechmaking on the free-coinage bill.