Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1886 — CONGRESSIONAL. [ARTICLE]

CONGRESSIONAL.

The Work of the Senate and Hoflfie . • i- r~ • x.. r 1 at Representative*. Tttfi. postofflio appropriation, bill was reports/! to tho Beuate on tho 26th of April. Washington ■C. Whitthome, (Tenn.), the sucoessor of Judge Jackson, was sworn, and took, hts soat. Senator Van Wyck (Neb.) addressed tho Senate in support of tho interitate c bill. Hts speech consisted liiainlv of. (qi arraign in >nt of Jay Oould and C. P. Huntington, who had, lie salii, aooortHnz to thetr cnrti testimony, moved ou Btato Legislatures, tho court* and Congrats, unblushiuglv'purchasing judges and legislators. Senator Blair jN. 11.) addrj&setl tho 8.-uata in support of his proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting tne manufacture or sale of alCohollc Iniubrs as his speech he said that it was 1 -as possible for tho Republican party to rouiain permanently three-fourth* for prohibition and one-fourth against it than it once was for tho nation to remain pennon -ntly one-half slave and onehalf free. W. T. Dowdall was nominated to the Benato for Postmaster at Pooria, Illinois. In tho House of Representatives, Mr. Springer introduced a bill£o establish a department of lalvor. witri a eominl-Hioner and two assistants, tho expense not to exceed SIOJ.OJO per annum. Tho Committee on Pacific Railroads reported to th < House the bill formulated by tho sub-com-mittee providing for an extension of seventy yeara of the bonded debt of the Pacific Railroads to the Government, The bill makes provision for tho payments of the iudebtedneis of the Pacific Railroads to tile Government after tho following plan: To the present debt is added tho intorrst thatwouiil acerue during the lifetime (elovon yearsi of the existing bonds, assuming that no furthsr payments are made by the companies, and the total divided into 140 equal payments, which are represented by a sortos of bonds falling duo semi-annually, tho last bond maturing seventy years after issue, fho average annual payments by tho companies would roach nearly £4,(530,000, which, it is estimated, would amount to asutu gretvtn than the principal of tho dobt before tho existing bonds would mature. ’i'QE Chair laid before the Senate, on the 27th ult., a communication from the Clerk of the House of Representatives of the State of,-Ohio, transmitting a transcript of testimony taken by a committee of that House, and the report of the same committee on the subject of charges against the official integrity of certain members Of that House in connection with tho election of the HOn. Henry B. Payne as United States Senator. Mr. Payne at once rose.in his seat in the Senate and entered a most emphatic denial of charges and invited, tbe most exhaustive scrutiny "of all 1 is acts and cf his private correspondence. The whole thing, he said, was an attempt to circulate baseless, gossip and scandal, everything substantial in the way of charges having been discredited and disproved by the testimony. He was willing to leavo the matter with the Committee on Privileges and elections of tho Senate, to which committee it was referred. The Senate passed bills allotting lands in severalty to the Indians of the ltouna Valley Reservation, California; appropriating ?300,000 for the extension of the White House, and authorizing the building of railroad bridges across the St. Croix River, between Prescott, Wis., and Stillwater, Minn., and across the Missouri River at or near Kansas City, Mo., at or near Council Bluffs, lowa, on tho line of railroad betweon either Clay or Jackson County, Missouri, and the county of Wyandotte; Kansas, pear Atchison, Kansas, at or near Saline ' City, Mo., near St Chatles, Mo., at or near St. Joseph, Mo., and near Chamberlain, 1). T. The Senate has confirmed the nomination of C. W. West as Governor of Utah. In the House of Representatives Mr. Breckinridge introduced a bill to reduce the number of internal revenue officers and to amend the internal revenue laws. The House Judiciary Committee reported adversely a bill to prohibit alieiiß from acquiring titlo or owning lsnds within the United States.

The postoffice appropriation bill was discussed in the Senate on the 28th ult., the bene of contention being the amendment appropriating £800,003 _ for carrying -South -and Central American, Chinese, and Australian mails and authorizing the Postmaster Genera] to wake, after due advertisement, contracts for five years with American steamships. The House of Representatives debated the river and harbor bill, and passed the bill providing that hereafter no alien who has not declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States Shall be granted a license as pilot, engineer, mate, captain, or other officer on any steam vessel carrying the flag Of the United States. Mn. Beck (Ky.) spoke for three hours and a half in the Senate on the 29th ult. in opposition to the subsidy clause of the postoffice appropriation bill. Mr. Hale (Mo.) addressed the Senate in favor of the subsidy amendment. The Senato passed the 4th of July claims Lill, with an item of SCV.OOO for the heirs of Ayres ,1\ Morrill, of Mississippi, for supplies furnished the Union army during the' war. In tho House the amendment of Mr. Hepburn, of lowa, to the river and harbor bill, that the appropriation for tho Missouri River shall be expanded under the direction of the Secretary of War without the intervention of the Missouri River Commission, was defeated. A bill was reported to the House providing for the reception of trade dollars .at their face value in all payments to the Government, or for exchange at the Sub-Treasury for standard dollars, to be transmitted to the mints as bullion. Mr. Hall (Iowa) gave notice that ho would call up the Campbell-Weaver contested election case May 4. The Committee 011 Public Lands reported a bill to grant the right of way through tlie public lands to any canal or ditch company formed for the purpose -of irrigation, -zir-:. .... ; —- The postoffice appropriation bill occupied the attention of the Senate on the 30th ult., and Mr. , Hale, of Maine, finished his speech in support of the subsidy amendment. Mr. Brown, of Georgia, tdso spoke in favor of it. The bill to make Omaha a port of entry was vetoed by the President for the reason that at that place the Government does not have the necessary officers for the appraisement of Merchandise and the collection of duties. The President sent the fallowing nominations of Postmasters to the Senate: At Brooklyn, N. Y., -Joseph C. Hendrix; at BaltiMore, Md., Frank Brown, vice L Parker Vesey, resigned ; at Shippensburg, Pa., J. A. C. McCuno; at Washington, Kansas, James S. Vedder. In the House of Representatives the Committee on Indian Affairs reported favorably a bill giving the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railroad the right of way through the Indian Territory. The House rejected an amendment to the river and harbor bill offered by Mr. Warner (Ohio), providing that toe appropriation for the improvement of the Mississippi River shall be expended" Under the direction of the Secretary of War instead of the Mississippi River Commission, and providing for a Congressional committee to investigate the work of tho MississippiWti ver Commission. The House refused, by a vote of 33 to 129, to strike out the levee clause.