Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1886 — CONGRESSIONAL. [ARTICLE]

CONGRESSIONAL.

Work of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Tax reports in the Payne elea£:on case came up in the Senate for consideration on July 21. Bei|tW Pugh, in advocacy of the position taken by flimself, Bcnatois Saulsbury, Vance, and Enstls. contended that there had boen no express belief or suspicion on tho part of any member of the committee to the effect that Mr. Payne was connected in the remotest degree with anything wrong, criminal, or innuorof'jn his eloctlon, and that no further investigation of the charges should be ipado. Senator Hoar presented the views of himself and Henator Frye. He argued , that such an * investigation was due to Senator Payne, and contomleJ that tho charges were made by individuals and- bodies of sufficient weight to compel the Senate to investigate them. Senator Logan Jook the floor to reply to the argu* ment of Senator Hour and to sustain the views expressed in the report signed by bimself and Messrs. TeUer and Evarts. Senator Logan quoted from the Cincinnati Commercial Qazette an article against himself and Senators Evarts and Teller, speaking of Mr. Evarts as a representative of coal oil in the Senate, and saying that Toller was not worth talking about. Continuing, he read from another extract a statement that Senator Camden, "whose intimate relations to the Standard Oil Company are well known.” had telegraphed to prominent Democrats that only six more votes were wanted to carry the Senate, and that tljey were prepared to pay (foO.UOJ each for them, and said: "Isay that any man who Will publish such an infamous slander and such a villainous lie as that upon honorable members of his own party is unworthy of recognition anywhere.” Senator Logan then detailed the course of the Ohio Legislature in electing Senator Payne, and afterward in investigating tho charges against its own members. There was not, said the Senator, in the evidence taken before the committee of the Ohio Legislature one single iota of testimony implicating Mr Payne, directly or indirectly. Senator Teller (Col.) next took the floor and said he was not, on trial. He had no defense to make either to the people of Ohio or any other State. The committee had kept steadily and. truthfully in the line of the precedents. Tho State of Ohio had made no demand of the Senate. What had newspaper clamor to do with the question whon it came to the American Senate? He believed tho Ohio uowspuper convention was called for the purpose of compelling recreant Republicans to forswear themselves and perjure themselves in the interest of political success. In the House Mr. ! Morrison's concurrent resolution, reported from the Ways and Means Committee, providing for the adjournment of Congress on July 26, after being opposed by Mr. Reagan, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Bayne, Mr. Hepburn, and Mr. Willis, was passed by a vote of 145 to 30. Then a struggle arose for priority of consideration between the i interstate commerce and the Northern Pacific forfeiture bills, which was resolved—yeas 142, nays 99—in favor of the former. The Payne election case was the subject of another debate in the Senate on July. 22. Senator Teller said, in regard to the resolutions presented by the Ohio editors and the extracts from the Democratic papers declaring their opinion that the election was procured by corruption, that it was an attempt to -compel by a convention of political editors the determination of a political question. Senator Sherman said he rose to perform tire most disagreeable duty of iris life. He had khown his colleague (gayne) since he had arrived at the age of manhood, and he believed that, whatever corruption had occurred in the process of the election, no knowledge of such corruption was brought to his colleague. He believed also that If the investigation were granted his colleague’s honor would not be touched l.y the testimony that would be produced. There was a general belief in the State of Ohio that thq election of his colleague not with his knowledge) had been accomplished through gross fraud and bribery. Whether or not sufficient evidence had been laid before the committee of the Senate it was for the Senate to say. But certainly sufficient evidence had been Bent here to put the question on its inquiry. Senator Frye, in supporting the minority report, said the question was whether bribery and corruption hod been used, an 1 not whether the Senator from Ohio had himself been a participant in it. Bills for public buildings at Clarksburg, W. Va. : Springfield, Mo., and Nebraska City, Neb., were passed by the Senate. In the House of Representatives Mr. Hatch 1M0,), from the Committee on Agriculture, reported the oleomargarine bill, with Senate amendments, and with a recommendation that they be nouconctirred in. It was referred to the committee of the whole. Mr. Hoar’s resolution for an investigation of the election of Mr. Payne was defeated in the Senate on July 23, the vote standing yeas 17, nays 44. In discussing the Payne case, Mr. Hawley (Conn.) argued in favor of an investigation. He said the demand for it was not a matter of rumors or of newspapers, hut it was a great outcry from an outraged people, if there were any truth whatever in these declarations from the Legislature and from the Democratic papers. He certainly could not see how, in justice nnd dealing with the question on bread considerations, the Senate could refuse to order an investigation. Senator Evarts (New York) closed the debate in an argument against further investigation. It was not td.be doubted, he said, that the Senate was master of the question presented, aud was under rio law br restriunt. eXCept 'thnTlmpcTsed by the Constitution. But, by the Same reasons, the ' scope and boundary of the Senate's mastery and duty were limited and fixed by- the same firm instructions of the Constitution. TEB Senate had no power and no right to investigate the conduct pf 'on? political party at the request of another. It bad no power to investigate the discords of a party at the request or invitation of faction of that party. It had no power to measure, to estimate, any right or wrong that did not touch the ext ?rit and authority and scope and result that was measured to it by the Constitution. While tho Senate, continued Senator Evarts. should have great deference for a great State of 3,000,000 of people, no constitutional distinction-e«v»kl-be drawn betw u&v-such a State and one the size of Rhode Island or Delaware. He then quoted Senator Bayne’s letter to the Chairman of the Ohio Legislative Committee, . inviting and challenging the most thorough and rigid scrutiny, and offering for inspection his private correspondence and books of accounts, and Chairman Cowgill’s reply that if there was any testimony tending to inculpute him il’ayne) in any degree with auy questionable transaction his request would bo acceded to. Could any person, he asked, require a more early, a more prompt, a moro universal proposition from the Senator? - The - fact that 7 the Ohio Legislative Committee did, not call on Mr. Payne was a proof that jt did not consider there was anything before it which .required—his examination. It was , clear that from one end of Ohio to the other, in all the agitation of the subject, no imputation had touched the Senator.' He was right, then, in saving that the Senate must discard that vioW of the emitter from its consideration. The oleomargarine hill, as amended by the Senate, passed the House of Representatives by 174 yeas to 65 nays. The sundry civil appropriation bill, with the silver certificate amendment, passed the Senate on July 21. The amendment reads as follows : “And the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and required to issue silver certificates- in denominations of 61, 62, and 65; and the silver certificates herein authorized shall be receivable, redeemable, and payable in like manner and for like purposes as is provided for silver certificates by the act of Feb) 28, 1878, entitled ‘An act to authorize the coinage of the standard silver dollar and to restore its legal-tender character;’ provided, That said denominations of 61, 62, and 65 may be issued in lieu of silver certificates of larger denominations in the Treasury, and to that extent said certificates of larger denominations shall be canceled and destroyed." The House of Representatives passed a naval appropriation bill amounting to 66,425,000, and the sundry civil appropriation bill. The earthquakes recorded in 1835,. according to Mons. C. Detaille, numbered ‘246, of which only six were felt in North America. January, with 49 earthquakes, had the greatest number for any month, and October, with 11,. the smallest To kill infants was thought an abominable sin by the ancient Teutons, bnt among the Homans and many other nations it was quite a common practice, and hardly blamable to kill them, especially girls.