Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1897 — BUT FEW NEW LAWS. [ARTICLE]

BUT FEW NEW LAWS.

ANALYSIS OF WORK OF THE EX. TRA SESSION. House Passes Tariff Bill in Response to Request of President McKinler with Little Delay, but Senate Hold* It Many Weeks, Done at Washington. The Senate Saturday, by a vote of 40 to 30, act-epted the conference report on the tariff bill. Within an hour President McKinley had signed it, and the measure was law. The President sent a message to the House recommending a currency commission, but no action was taken. At 0 o’clock Saturday night, the extra session took final adjournment. , The extraordinary session of Congress which lias just closed was called by President McKinley two days after he took the oath of office. It met at noon March 15. The special message transmitted by him on the opening day explained the deficiencies in the revenues, reviewed the bond issues of the last administration, and urged Congress promptly to correct the then existing condition by passing a tariff bill that would supply ample revenues for the support of the Government and the liquidation of the public debt. No other subject of legislation was mentioned in the message, and the tariff bill has been the all-absorbing feature of the session. Three days after the session opened the tariff bill was reported to the House by the Ways and Means Committee, and thirteen days later, March 31, it passed the House. It went to the Senate, and was referred to the Committee on Finance. The Republican members spent a month and three days in preparing amendments submitted to the Senate May 7, and exactly, two months later, July 7, it passed the Senate with 872 amendments. The bill then went to where, after a ten days’ struggle, on July 17, a complete agreement was reached .by which the Senate receded from 118 amendments and the House from 511 J The others, 243 in number, were compromised. The conference report was adopted by the House July 19 at the conclusion of twelve hours’ continuous debate. The report was taken up in the 1 Senate July 20 and adopted July 24. The tariff bill was signed by the President the same day.

Congress did not devote its attention entirely to the tariff, though it did subordinate everything else to this one measure. The four appropriation bills which failed on March 4 last in themselves would have compelled President McKinley to call. Congress in extra session even if the necessity for a revision of the tariff had not existed. Those appropriation bills were the sundry civil, the agricultural, the Indian, and the general deficiency. These bills were introduced and passed by. the House in the identical form in which' they existed at the time of their failure, of enactment into law at the preceding. Congress, but they were amended in some important particulars by the Senate, and when they finally became laws contained more or less new legislation of interest and importance. Some New Appropriations. The general deficiency carried a provision accepting the invitation to take part in the Paris exposition in 1900, and appropriated $25,000 to defray preliminary expenses, and appropriated $150,000 for a new immigrant station at New York to replace the one destroyed by fire. By fur the most important piece of new legislation in the bill, however, was that limiting the cost of armor plate for the three new battleships to S3OO per ton. In case the Secretary of the Navy should find It impossible to make contracts for armor within the price fixed, he was authorized by this provision to take steps to establish a Government armor plate factory of sufficient capacity to make the armor.

In the Indian bill, after a severe struggle in both Houses, the question of sectarian schools was settled by the following declaration of the policy of the Government: “That the Secretary of the Interior may make contracts with contract schools apportioning as near as may be the amount so contracted for among schools of various denominations for the education of Indian pupils during the fiscal year 1898, but shall only make such contracts at places where non-sectarian schools cannot be provided for such Indian children, and to an amount not exceeding 40 per cent, of the amount so used for the fiscal year 1895.” The question of opening to entry the rich gilsonite deposits in the Uncompahgre reservation in Utah was also compromised by opening such agricultural lands as have not been allotted to the Uncompahgre Indians on April 1, 1898, to entry, but reserving to the United States title in all lands containing gilsonite, asphalt, or other like substances.

In the sundry civil bill the most important new provision was that suspending the order of President Cleveland setting aside about 21,000,000 acres as forest reservations. *1 he law also includes a general scheme of legislation for the Government and protection of the forest reservations of the country. i The Republican leaders of the House decided at the opening of the session to pursue a policy of inaction in order to throw the responsibility for delaying the tariff bill upon the Senate, and therefore the committees were not announced until the close of the session, and only urgent matters were considered. Fifty thousand dollars was appropriated for the relief of American citizens in Cuba at the solicitation of the President; $200,000 was appropriated for the relief of the Mississippi flood sufferers; a resolution was passed authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to transport supplies contributed for the relief of the poor and famished in India; and $50,000 was appropriated for the entertainment and expenses of the delegates to the universal postal convention, which met in Washington. The only extensive pieces of general legislation enacted by this Congress, except the tariff bill, were the laws to prevent collisions at sea and to place in force regulations to prevent collisions upon certain harbors, rivers and inland waters of the United States, and the bill authorizing the President to suspend discrimina-f ting duties on foreign vessels and commerce. The Senate, not being confined.as to the scope of its legislation, dealt with a number of important subjects both in and out of executive session. One of these, which attracted world-wide attention, was the general arbitration treaty negotiated by President Cleveland with Great Britain. After exhaustive consideration, despite the great pressure brought to bear upon the Senate by religious and Commercial bodies throughout the country, the Senate rejected the treaty. The Hawaiian treaty of annexation negotiated by President McKinley was still unacted upon when Congress adjourned. In open session after much debate the Senate passed the Cuban belligerency resolution, a bankruptcy bill, including both voluntary and involuntary features, and the “free homes” bill. But none of these important questions received consideration in the House.