Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1887 — WORK OF CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

WORK OF CONGRESS.

Summary of Measures that Have Become Laws or Been Defeated. The Number of Bills, Resolutions, Etc., Introduced in Both Houses. 7 ■ l i, , -■ . *. [Washington special.') The total number of laws enacted by the' Forty-ninth Congress was, approximately, 1,431, of which 1.093 originated in the Houso nnd 338 in the Senate. Two' hundred and sixty-four ot these became laws by.the expiration of tho constitutional ten days limitation. Fifty bills failed to become laws, owing to tho adjournment of Congress, ufne of them at the close of tho first session. There were 132 bills vetood by the President, or twenty-ono more than had boon vetoed from the foundation of tho Government down to tho beginning of this Congress. Of -tho vetoed bills ninety-four originated in tho House and thirty-nine -iii tlio Senate. But one private bill, that granting a pension to Joseph Romoiser, and one public hill sos the election of a Government building at Dayton, Ohio, succeeded ill passing both houses over the President’s veto, although several othep} obtained the requisite two thirds vote in tho Senato, only to fail in tlio House. Of the 1,053 Houso billß which b. came laws, 275 were of a more or less pujilio nature. Of tho remaining 778 bills igranung pensions or reliof to specially designated personsi, pg; became laws without the approval of tho President. The following is a list of more imiiortant House bills which have become laws : To forfeit tho Atlantio A pacific Railroad land grant ( to increase the pensions of widows and dependent relatives from S 8 to 812 ]or month; the Dlngley shipping bill; to require the Pacific roads to pay tho cost of surveying and conveying their laud grants and subject the land to taxation so soon as tho companion are entitled to , them; to increase the naval establishment; to pension tho Mexican war veterans ; the oleomargarine act; to authorize the transfer of Highwood tract, near Chicago, to the United States for military purposes ; to protoct homestead settlers within railroad limits ; to enable national banking associations to Increase their capital stock and change their name and location; to grant a license to towing vessels to carry a limited number of persons in addition to their crews; to forfeit the "Baok-Bono'’ land grant; to reduce the foes on domestic money orders for sums less than *5; to extend the immediate-de-livery system ; to prohibit the passage of local or special laws in the Territories ; to provide for closing up the business of the Court of Alabama Claims ; to establish additional life-saving stations; for the construction of 'additional lighthouses ; extending the free-delivery system to towns of 10,030 inhabitants ; for the sale of the Cherokee reservation iu Arkansas ; to amend tho statutes so as to require brewers to give bi nds for three times their estimated monthly tax; for the issue of postal notes in sums less than *5 ;to validate the general laws of Dakota regarding the incorporation of insurance companies ; to provide for the inspection of tobacco, cigars, and snuff, and to repeal section 3151, of the Revised Statutes; to make St. Charles, Mo., a port of entry; to allow underwriters to be recognized as consignees of merchandise on abandoned vessels ; to restrict ownership of lands in the territories to American citizens ; to amend tho act dividing Missouri into two judicial districts, and to divide it into eastern and western divisions ; to prohibit Government employes from hiring or contracting out the labor of United States prisoners ; to amend the duti-able-goods act so as to allow merchandise to be transported in bond on passenger trains in safes, pouches, and trunks, and in parcels ;to amend tho act prohibiting tho importation and immigration of foreigners under labor contracts ; for an additional associate Justice of the Supvetno Court of Wyoming ; provtd-' iug for the location of a branch soldiers’home west of the Rocky Mountains; for the relief of the Jeannette sufferers ; amendatory of tho act dividing Illinois intaj'ndlcial disfi iots, and providing for the holding of terms of court at Peoria ; relative to contested elections ; to loan articles in the Government departments to the Minnesota Industrial Exposition; to regulate the jurisdiction of United (States Circuit Courts ; for the adjustment of land grants nnd the forfeiture of unearned lands; to add a number of cities to tho list of national bonk reserve cities, and to allow a part of tho reserve to be kept in cities other than New York; for the relief of settlers on the public lands in Kansas and Nebraska; 10 provide for bringing suits against tho Government, for the erection of public buildings at Los Angeles, Cal., Springfield, Mo-,!81.P.a5.0, Tex., Santa Fe, N. M., and Jefferson, Tex.; t < iuoreasu thu limit of cost of public buildings at Peoria, 111., Galveston, Tex., Clarksburg, W. Va, Keokuk, lowa, Chattanooga,, Tenn,, Detroit, Mich.; for the completion or improvement of public buildings at Dallas, Tex., Des. Moines, lowa, Jackson, Tenn.. and Hannibal, Mo., for the purchase of additional ground for the building at Fort Wayne, Ihd.; for the purchase of a site for a Federal building at Ban Francisco, Cal, Forty House joint resolutions became laws, tho principal ones being as follows : Directing tho Commissioner of Labor to make an investigation as to convict labor; authorizing the Secretary of tho Interior to use certain unexpended balances for tho relief of the Northern Choyennes of Wyoming; to authorize the President to protect Amorican fishing and trading vessels and Amorican fishermen iu Canadian waters; authorizing an investigation of the books, methods, and accounts of the Pftdflo railroads. Of the total number of bills which passed the Senate 320 becarno laws, including 115 of a public and 205 of a strictly private nature. .The following is a list of the more important: The Presidential succession bill-; tho interstate commerce bill; for tho retirement and recoiuage of tlio trade dollar; tho electoral count bill; for tho allotment of binds *in severalty to Indians ; to repeal the.tenure-of office act; to increase the* annual appropriation for the militia; to establish agricultural experiment stations ; to legalize the incorporation of trades unions ; authorizing the transmission of weather sej>orts through tho mails free of postage; . topincreaso. the pension for los3 of an' arm or leg ; tcT ifideniinTy ttnr*CßlilsS'(r fOTf I! losses sustained by tho Rock Springs (Wy. T.) riot; for tho reliof of Texas, Colorado. Oregon, Nebraska, California. Kansas, Nevada, Washington Territory, aud Idaho ; authorizing th(resale i f certain Government property in Chicngo; for the holding of terms of the United States Courts at Bay Citv, Mich.; to remove the charge of'deseition from the records of soldiers who re-enlisted without h iving received discharge’s on account of first enlistment; to establish two additional, land districts in Nebraska; to amoud the laws relating to patents, trade-marks, and copyrights ; to extend the time for the completion of the record suit the Court of Alabama Claims ; to credit Kansas with certain money on ordnance account; to bridge the Mississippi River at St. Louis; to allow receivers of national banks to buy in tnist property on the approval of the Comptroller of the Currency; to prohibit the importation of opium; for the erection of public buildings gt fan Antonio, Texas. Houston, Texas, Oshkosh, Wis., Fort Smith, Ark., Owensborough, Ky.,- and Milwaukee, Wis.; to increase the limit ot cogt for public buildings at Oxford, Misß., and Denver, Col. ; for tho completion of public buildings at Fort Scott and Wichita, Kansas. Tho Senato billß vetoed were thirty-nine in number, eleven being of a public ami twentyeight of a private character. The public bills vetoed were as follows : To quiet the titles of settlers ou the Des Moines River lands (passed over the vetb in the Senate, but failed of tha necessary two-thirds: in the House); for the erection of public buildings at Zanesville, Ohio, Lafayette, Ind., Sioux City. lowa, Dayton, Ohio (passed over the veto iu both houses), aud Lynn, Mass.; to extend the provisions of the immediate transportation net to Omaha, Neb.; to grant railroads right of way through the Indian reservations in Northern Montana. The ninety-three House bills vetoed included eighty-seven private hills and six bills of a public nature. Tho. public bills vetoed Were : For the erection of Federal buildings at Springfield, Mo., Duluth, Minn., Asheville, N. C., , and Portsmouth, Ohio; to distribute 813,T00 worth of seeds among the drought-stricken people of Texas: to grant pensions,^ l dependent soldiers and dependent relatives of deceased soldiers. - that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, ami believe that we. are as much touched as by th% genial influences of summer. — Emerson. Ir is the glorious prerogative 1 of the empire of knowledge that what iAgains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power; all its ends become means; all its attainments help to new conquests. — J)aniel Webster.