Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1898 — CONGRESS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CONGRESS

The House, by 184 to 11, on Wednesday passed a resolution for the election of Senators by popular vote, and refused, 48 to 90, to consider the Senate bill restricting immigration. Mr. Loud called up the postoflice appropriation bill as passed by the Senate and upon his motion the House refused to concur to the Senate amendments arid asked a conference. The House then went into committee of the whole to consider the Senate bill amending the revenue law providing fsr the disposal of abandoned imports turned over by '.mporters to the customs officials. The bill was passed. The Senate spent the afternoon in discussion of the so-called railway arbitration hill. A House joint resolution declaring the lands within the former Mille Lac Indian reservation in Minnesota to be subject to entry under the land laws of the United States was agreed to. After a prolonged discussion the Senate on Thursday evening passed the bill “concerning carriers engaged in interstate commerce, and their employes”—popularly known as the railway arbitration bill. The most important amendment to the measure was that offered by Mr. Hoar (Mass.), which provides that courts shall issue no injunction against railway employes which shall compel them to give their personal, service to a company against their will. On the final vote only three Senators were recorded against the hill. A bill was passed removing all disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution on persons who were at one time engaged in rebellion against the United States. The debate on the war revenue measure was begun in the Senate on Monday. In the House the conference report upon the bill authorizing the sending of food and arms to Oubaus was adopted. A bill was passed providing for an increase in the force of the adjutant general’s office. The House joint resolution appointing William J. Sewell of New Jersey, Martin T. McMahon of New York, John L. Mitchell of Wisconsin and William H. Bonsall of California members of the board of managers of the national home for disabled volunteer soldiers was called up and passed. The President’s veto of a bill conferring upon the court of claims jurisdiction to retry the ease of the representatives of Isaac P. Tice against the United States, brought in 1873 to recover $25,000, the alleged value of certain meters to measure the quality and strength of distilled spirits, was sustained. The Senate bill to establish an assay office at Seattle, Wash., was passed. The House also {Kissed, with amendments, the House bill to ratify an agreement entered into in 1892 between United States Commissioners and the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache Indians to open for settlement the reservation of these Indians in Oklahoma.

Considerable progress was made l»y the Senate on Tuesday in considering the war revenue measure. A bill was reported from the Military Affairs Committee and passed providing that the pay and allowance of the volunteers enlisted in the United States army shall In-gju on the day of their enrollment at the State camp. The latter jMirt of the day was devoted to eulogies upon the late Representative Seth L. Milliken of Maine. The House held a brief session. Two important lulls affecting labor were passed, one limiting the labor of persons employed upon government works and fn government service to eight hours daily, and the other providing for the equipment of a non-parti-san labor commission to consider legislative problems affecting labor. Mr. Corliss (Mich.) called up the House bill to repeal tfie law providing that transmission of the electoral veto of the States to M ushiugtom shall be by messengers. The bill proposes transmission by mud and express. The bill was defeated. Senate bWI providing an American registry for the ship Centennial, now at Seattle, was passed. The House passed a bill to authorize the appointment of a non-partisan commission to collate information and to recommend legislation to meet problems presented by labor, agriculture and capital.