Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1888 — NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS. [ARTICLE]

NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS.

What Is Being; Bone by the tional Legislature. Mr. Hoar, from ths select committee on the celebration of the centennial of the Constitution, reported in the Senate, on the 6th Inst., a joint resolution providing, in addition to such, other celebration as may hereafter be provided for, “that the two houses of Congress shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives; that the Chief Justice of the United htates shall deliver an oration.” The resolution was adopted. Mr. Platt addressed the Senata In opposition to the tariff views expressed in the President's message. Mr. Carlisle resumed his duties as Speaker of the Houseafter a two weeks’ absence. The Lowry-White contest was decided in favor of Mr. White, the sitting member, by the decisive vote of 187 to--146. Forty-seven Democrats voted with the Republicans in favor of White. Among the bills and resolutions introduced in the House were the following : By Mr. Chipman, resolutions of the Detroit Board of Trade in favor of a postal telegraph; by Mr. Landes, for a. public building at Olney, HI.; by Mr, Lawler, to protect the consnmers of butter by requiring wholesale dealers to pay an annual tax of SSOO and retail dealers to pay an annual tax of tl; also to repeal the oleomargarine tax; by Mr. Caswell, for a public building at Racine, Wis.; by Mr. Baker, directing the Committee on Military Affairs to inquire into the expediency of the Government purchasing the site of Old Fort Chartres, Illinois ; by Mr. Peters, for a public building at Hutchinson, Kan.; by Mr. O’Neall, for a public building at Vincennes, Ind.

Mb. Sawyer, of Wisconsin, introduced a bill in the Senate, on the 7th inst., providing that, all Eoldiers who served at least ninety days in. the late war and were honorably mustered out or discharged on surgeons’ certificates of disability shall be entitled to receive the Bams bounty to which they would have been entitled had their full term of enlistment been served out. Mr. Stockbridge, of Michigan, introduced a bill refunding to pilots, engineers, and mates of steam vessels, or their heirs, the license fees which they have paid since the law was passed in 1864. Licenses hereafter are to be free. He also introduced a bill making it obligatory upon every sort of steamer to carry at all times a full complement, of licensed officers and a full crew. The law now applies only to passenger steamers. The Senate also adopted a resolution directing the Commerce Committee to inquire intothe right and expediency of Congress assuming control of the erection ot bridges over navigable waters within State limits. A bill togrant a pension of sl2 per month to army nurses was reported favorably from tbe Senate Committee on Pensions. The House of Representatives adopted Gen. Weaver’s resolution calling on the Secretary of the Treasury for derailed information relative to the recent policy of thedepartment of purchasing bonds with surplus money and to the present policy of depositing, funds in a large number of national banks. The House also adopted the resolution of Mr. Landes calling on the Secretary of th» Treasury for information regarding the amount of United States bonds and notes in circulation, when the act of 1878 limiting their issue waa passed, and whether any have been lost or destroyed since. Among the measures passed by the House were bills providing for the punishment of bank-examiners for false reports or suppressing facts in their reports; to abolish the minimum punishment in in-ternal-revenue cases, and authorizing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to compromise cases under the law; to amend the law prea.ribing the death penalty for willfully casting away vessels so as to allow punishment by fine or imprisonment if there is no loss, of life. The Committee on Militarv Affairs reported a bill authorizing the President to apSoiut and retire Alfred Pleasanton as a Brigaier General. The Foreign Affairs Committee, reported tbe diplomatic and consular appropriation bill. It appropriates 51,403,867. Mr. Tillman, from the M ilitary Committee, reported the military academy appropriation bill.

The bill directing the Secretary of tho Treasury to omit all duties upon importations of animals for breeding purposes, whether imported for the importer’s own use or for sale» passed the Senate on the Bth inst. It provide*, that the fact of such importation shall be a. sufficient defense in any pending action. Messrs. Stewart and Mitchell advocated the passage of the bill allowing the sale of oertain mineral lands to aliens. The House qf Representatives passed the bill making bills of lading conclusive evidence in certain cases. It. ■provides that whenever any common carrier or its agent signs and delivers any bill of lading, purporting to be for merchandise received by such carrier for transportation from one State to another within the United States or to any foreign country, such bill of lading hi tho hands of any bona-fide holder, for valuable consideration, who acquired the same in theusual course ot trade without any notice of any defect therein, shall be conclusive evidence that the goods described therein wereactually received by such carrier in the manner and for the purpose therein stated. When the bill requiring the subsidized railroads to maintain and operate separate telegraph lines came up in the House of Representatives on the 9th inst., Mr. Anderson, ot Kansas, the author of the bill, vigorously supported it. The railroad companies had bartered away their franchises bjr entering into a contract with the Western Union by which the railroad companies refused to perform their telegrapnio: services, and by whicn they gave the Western Union absolute monopoly over the western-, half of the continent. Through the genius of the most unscrupulous pirate of the century,. Jay Hawk Gould, that monopoly had bee i created. The pending bill was simply a proposition to inject a little bit of God’s burning justice between the people and Jay Gould. The. people of the country were praying for relief from the merciless grind of the most extravagant, enormous, unscrupulous, piratical set of incorporated scoundrels on the continent. This, bill was a square blow between the eyes of Mr. Gould, the Western Union monopoly, and. each of the Pacific Railroad companies. In the Senate Mr. Manderson, from the Committee on Printing, reported a joint resolution, for the disposition of undistributed copies of the records of the rebellion, the reports of the. tenth census, and the reports of the Public Lands Commissioner. The resolution gave. rise to some discussion, but was finally passed. The Committee on Indian Affairs reported favorably the bill providing for the oj eaing to settlement of the Sioux Indian reservations in Dakota. The President sent the following nominations to the Senate : Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, to be Marshal of the United States forthe Northern District of Ghio; J. Marion Brooks, of California, to be Attorney of theUnited States for the Southern District of California,

Mb. Pebkins’ resolution, directing the Postmaster General to report to the House regarding the complaints from the West because of’ defective mail service, and -whether the unsatisfactory service resulted from the employment of inexperienced and incapable employes or insufficient appropriations, was passed bythe House of Representatives on the 10th inst. The House passed the Senate bill authorizing the appointment of Andrew D. White as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and the> bill granting right of wav through Indian Territory to the Choctaw Coal and Railroad Company. Favorable reports were made on a bill to create an arbitration board to settle the differences between the United States and Texas, regarding Greer County, Texas, and the resolution calling on the Secretary of AA ar for in- * formation relative to the alleged obstruction, of the Wabash River-by a bridge of tbe Louisville and Evansville Railroad Company, The Senate was not in s e66ion. _______ We would add to the foli owing clipping by saying that there is noshing in winch a mother can afford to be unsympathetic. His mother's boy—the boy whose mother appreciates her son’s skill in rowing and swimming, as well as his progress in his studies, is likely to grow into the courteous man that every one likes. In the recently published education report of the English Government it is recommended that in planning school houses the arrangement should be such as * to admit the light over the leftshonlders j of the scholars. "