Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1894 — A RADICAL INNOVATION. [ARTICLE]

A RADICAL INNOVATION.

To Elect Federal Senators by the Ballots of the People. A Washington dispatch says: The utter incapacity of the Senate, as demonstrated in its treatment of the tariff bill, has led to a scheme changing the manner of choosing this co-or-dinate branch of Congress. As now constituted, these officials are chosen by the Legislatures of the different States. As pioposed it is meditated to have them voted by the State at larges the same as the commonwealth officers are selected. In the House of Representatives Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, reported favorably a resolution to amend the constitution to allow the Senators to be voted for directly bv the people. The House of Representatives of the Fifty-second Congress passed unanimously such a resolution. The necessity for the passage of such an amendment to the Constitution has increased rather than diminished since that time. Indeed, each year adds to the strength of the argument that the Senate should, by a change in the mode of it; election, be made more sensibly responsible to the demands and voice of the people than heretofore. The present Congress has greatly intensified this feeling, and the change seems to be demanded by every consideration of propriety and justice.