People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — ITS WORK. [ARTICLE]

ITS WORK.

A Review of the Doings of the Fifty-Second Congress. Six Hundred and Sixty Measures B#» came Laws—A List of the Most Important Ones. RECORD OF OOHBKEBS. W asbiboton, March CL —The silver and tar* i* questions, the anti-option bill and reduction oi appropriations were the leading topics of consideration by the Fifty-second congress, which expired by constitutional limitation at 12 o'clock noon Saturday, and secondary only in Importance to these matters were measures relating to the world’s fair, equipment of railroads with automatic car-couplers, national quarantine and immigration, Behring sea and Hawaiian annexation. Nothing of an affirmative nature, except te prevent two items in the McKinley act taking effect, was actually accomplished so far as respects silver, the tariff or anti-options, the notion taken on each of these questions in one branch of congress being negatived by the notion or nonaction of the other branch. Pat on the Statute Books. Approximately 425 house and 235 senate bills and joint resolutions became laws, making 800 acts put on the statute books as the result of the work of congress. A majority of these measures were of interest only to individuals or localities, being for the relief of citizens, for the bridging of streams, for the District of Columbia, for rights of way, etc. An unusual proportion of the claims bills was for the relief of southern men. The house passed in round numbers 825 bills, of which 200 failed of passage in the senate, and in the neighborhood of 625 bills passed by the senate failed in the house, including a long list of public-building bills, many private pension bills and other measures involving increased expenditures. Vetoed by the President. Three bills were vetoed by the president, vis,, to refer the McGarraban claim to the court of olaims (a second McGarrahan bill failing of notion In the house), to amend the court of appeals act and in relation to marshals in the United States courts in Alabama. This last bill became a law by passage over the veto. Senator Hoar stating that it had been vetoed through a misunderstanding of its provisions. The president subjected three bills to a “pocket” veto and two other bills failed of engrossment in time for presentation to him. All were of comparatively small importance. Futile Investigations. The pension and census offioes, the whisky trust, Panama Canal and Paciflo Mail companies, the Watson-Cobb charges, the Pinkerton system and Homestead troubles, the Magerickpnd Spring Garden bank failures, the Ellis island immigation station were investigated by congressional committees, but nothing came of the reports submitted. Didn’t Reduce Expenses. The result of the agitation of the necessity for a retrenchment of expenditures is not apparent in any considerable change in the aggregate appropriations carried by the-national supply bills, for they amount to about as much as In the Fif-ty-first congress, laws on the statute books preventing some large reductions which otherwise possibly would have been made, while the decreases which it was possible to effect were offset by increased appropriations for pensions and rivers and harbors. The condition of the publlo treasury, however, though it did not result in the Fiftysecond congress getting below the billtondollar litriit, undoubtedly influenced legislation to a considerable extent and prevented the authorization of many proposed new expenditures for improvement of the public service, for public buildings, payment of claims and for other purposes. A notable instance of the operatfon of this influence is seen in the fact that not a single publio building bill passed the house and It was only by putting a number of them on the sundry civil appropriation bill that any appropriations whatever for public buildings were secured. Struggle Over Silver. The silver question was kept steadily before the attention of congress by the alternate efforts of the advocates of free coinage and of the repeal of the Sherman law. The coinage committee of the house in the first session reported a free-silver bill, which, after an exciting debate, was saved from defeat by the casting vote of the speaker, but was> afterward filibustered to death, the friends of the bill failing to secure the signatures of a majority of the democrats to petition for a closure rule in its behalf. The senate then passed a free-coinage bill, but when the free silver men renewed their fight in the house they were outnumbered by fourteen votes, and, of course, failed. The anti-silver men met a similar fate in their efforts to secure a repeal of the present law, the senate refusing by a decisive vote to consider it, and the house killing the Andrew-Oate bill by declining to vote so as to give its friends the parliamentary right to move closure on it, without which it concededly could never be forced to a vote in the closing hours of the congress Tactics Regarding Tariff - . On the tariff the dominant party in the house adopted a policy of attacking the McKinley act In detail largely for political reasons and partly for the reason that in view of the political complexion ot the senate it was practically out of the question to pass a general tariff-re-vision bill through the senate, while special measures might stand some show of passage. The result was the enactment into law of two bills continuing block tin on the free list and fine linen at 35 per cent ad valorem. Under the McKinley act large duties were to take effect on these items in the near future. Other separate bills were passed through the house, only to be pigeonholed in the senate, as follows: Free wool and reduction of duties on woolen manufactures, free cotton bagging, ties, gins and*cotton bagging machinery; free binding twine; free silver lead ores, where the value, not the weight, of the silver exceeds that of the lead in any importation?; free tin plate, terne plate, taggers’ tin, and the limitation to 8100 of the amounj, of personal baggage returning tourists may bring into the United States. The anti-option bill passed both houses, but was killed by the refusal of the house to suspend the rules and agree by a two-thirds vote to the amendknent put on the bill by the senate, the opponents of the measure maneuvering so as to prevent Mr. Hatch making effective his majority in favor of the measure and forcing him at the last moment to try suspension of the rules. The pure-food bill, the running mate of the anti-option bill, passed the senate, hut was never able to get consideration in the house. World’s Fair Legislation. World’* fair legislation comprised the grant of 82,500,000 in souvenir half-dollars in aid of the fair, the closing of its gates on Sunday, the appropriation of various amounts foKdiflerent fsfir purposes and the passage of sundry acts of a special nature and minor importance. A!n automatic car-coupler bill shorn of its djastic features was enacted into law, as was also a national quarantine hill increasing the powers of the marine-hospital service to meet the threatened dangers from cholera, and an immigration law imposing additional restrictions on immigration, but not suspending it entirely. The senate averted the bill over the Behring sea seal fisheries by ratifying a treaty of arbitration. It also ratified extradition treaties with Russia and other countries, but still has before it a treaty of annexation of the Hawaiian islands. The opening of the Cherokee outlet was provided for in the Indian bill under a clause appropriating 88,295,000 for its purchase from the Indians, 8295,000 to be paid in cash, and 88,0U0,000 in five equal annual installments. Some Important Measures. The following are the more important Riiv« which have become laws: The car-coupler bill; the Chinese exclusion; the national quarantine; immigration to grant an American registry to two Inman line steamships; to pension survivors of the Black Hawk and Seminole Indian wars; to increase the pension to veterans of the Mexican war; the inter* mediate pension bill; the eight-hour bill tor adjustment ot accounts ot mm

who have worked over time: to enable the president to enforce reciprocal canal arrangements with Canada; to pension army nurses: to increase the pay of crews at life-saving stations; the omnibus lighthouse and fog signal bill; to amend the interstate commerce law so as to meet the Gresham and Counselmaa decisions and correot other defects in it; to amend the law is reference to bills of lading so as to increase and make more clear the responsibilities of transporters: appropriating *O,OOO for the preparation of a site and the erection of a pedestal for the Sharman statue; to establish a military board to review courtmartial findings; for the examination of officers of the marine corps and to regulate promotions therein; for the completion ot allottment of lands to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes; to make the secretary of agriculture eligible to the presidential succession: to authorize the establishment of a branch national bank on the world’s fair grounds; the poor suitor’s bill: to repeal the life-saving projectile law so far as concerns vessels navigating lakes, bays or sounds exclusively; to enable the centennial board of finance to wind up its affairs; to Increase the pay of privates in the hospital corps; to permit enlisted men to be examined for promotion to second lieutenancies; to accept the bequest of Gen. Cullom to West Point academy; to give commanding officers in the army the power to remit or mitigate the findings of summary courts-martial; to extend for two years the time within which applications may be made to remove technical charges of desertion against Mexican war veterans; terminating reductions in the naval engineer corps; to establish a court of appeals in the Distrlot of Columbia; to incorporate the American university at Washington; to establish a military post near Little Rock, Ark.; to provide for the collection and arrangement ot the military records of tne revolution and war of 1812; to authorize the secretary of the treasury to obtain designs for public buildings from local architects who may also be employed to superintend their construction; to authorise the entry of lands chiefly valuable for buildingstone under the placer-mining laws; to admit duty free the wreckage of the Trenton and Vandalla, presented to the king of Samoa; for the permanent preservation and custody of the records of the volunteer armies; to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi near New Orleans; to extend the seal-protecting statutes to the North Pacific ocean; directing the secretary of war to investigate raft-towing on the great lakes; to amend the general land-grant forfeiture act of the last congress so that persons entitled to purchase forfeited lands under that act may have four years from the date of Its passage; to provide for the punishment of offenses on the high seas and making important amendments in the present laws: permitting suits to be brought in the district courts and court of claims against the United States for land patents within six years from the date at which right of action accrued; for the trial in the court of claims of charges of fraud alleged against the Well and La Abra Mexican awards, and establishing a standard gauge for sheet and plate iron and steel. Some Appropriation Bills. There was some legislation effeoted on appropriation bills, the most important being as follows: Closing the world’s fair on Sunday and granting the fair 82,500,000 in souvenir half-dollars; authorizing the construction of one new cruiser, one line of battle ship and three gunboats; appropriating 8300,000 for expenses of the International naval review; prohibiting payments By government officers for transportation over non-bonded branch linos owned by the Pacific railroads, lines leased and operated by the Union and Central Paciflo not being included, however; abolition of army contract surgeons; making the action of second auditor final on all back-pay and bounty claims, except an appeal within six months to the controller; for the collection of railway export statistics; for the replacement of civilian Indian agents by army officers; extensions of the contract systems to a number of important river and harbor projects; to stop the gauging of liquors from rectifying bouses: the Cherokee outlet purchase, and an appropriation of $25,000 for a dry dock at Algiers, La. Election Contests Settled. The senate passed on two election contests in favor of the sitting members. Dubois (Idaho) and Call (Fla.), the contestants,bolng Claggett and Davidson respectively. The house unseated Stewart, the republican sitting member from a Pennsylvania district, and gave the place to Craig. In the NoyesRookwell contest from New York it refused to follow the recommendations of the elections committee that Rockwell, the democratic sitting member, be unseated, and by a majority vote confirmed Rockwell's title. In the cases of MoDuflle vs. Turpin from Alabama, Reynolds vs. Scbonk and Greevy vs. Scull from Pennsylvania and Miller vs. Elliott from South Carolina the elections committee ,reportad in favor of the sitting menfbers. Some Bills That Failed. Among the senate bills not heretofore mentioned which failed to pass the house, were the following: Tp Authorizing the secretary of the navy to transport contributions to the Russian famine sufferers; extending the free delivery of mails to small towns; to Increase the pension for loss of limbs; in certain cases of depth, to establish a marine board for the advancement of the interests of the merchant marine; for a uniform standard of classification of grains; authorizing surveys tor ship canals to connect Lake Erie and the Ohio river and Philadelphia and New York; several maritime bills to carry out recommendations of the maritime conference; to exempt American coasting sailing vessels from state com pulsory pilotage fees; a Mississippi river levee bill; to reorganize the artillery and infantry services; declaring phosphate lands to be mineral; toreclassify the salaries of railway postal clerks; to create a national highway committee (a good roads bill): to exfempt Veterans from competitive examinations in the classified service. Among the house bills not previously mentioned which failed to pass the senate, were the following: For the admission of New Mexico and Arizona to statehood; the New York and New Jersey bridge bill; to provide a local government for Utah; to correct a clerical error In the McKinley bill, making chocolate dutiable as confectionery; to promote the safety of national banks by forbidding loans to bank employes (failed in conference, the senate tacking on amendment to permit national banks to issue circulation to the full extent of bonds deposited); to define and punish blackmailing; forbidding discrimination against the evidence of witnesses on account of want of official rank in applications for pensions; several bills amending the court fee system for the relief of settlers on unsurveyed government lands lying within certain railway grants; to regulate the education and citizenship of Indians; to establish lineal promotions in the army (failed in conference); abolishing minimum punishment in internal revenue oases; making of Indians 21 years old, who have attended government schools for ten years; to give claimants fSr pensions or other army claims and their attorneys the right to examine all papers in their case on file in the departments. Many other measures of importance failed to get the indorsement of either house, including bills for the creation of a subtreasury system; for an extensive system of fortifications; for a uniform system of bankruptcy; for the taxation cX federal notes and the repeal of the tax on state hanks; to transfer the revenue cutter service to the navy; for an alcohoiio liquor committee; constitutional amendments making the president ineligible to reelectton. changing th<* time of meeting of congress, and for women suffrage; an Irrigation of arid lands bill; the Nicaragua canal bill; to permit railroads pooling (beaten on the test vote); to establish postal savings banks; for an income tax; to refund the cotton tax; to repeal the mailshiip subsidy act, and to repeal the federal election laws.