Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1887 — THE FIFTIETH CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

THE FIFTIETH CONGRESS.

On the 14th the Committee on Flections retorted to the Senate in favor of Chits. J. Faulkner, elected at a special nea-don Of the Legislature, as agaimt Daniel 11. Limas, appointed by the Governor, as U. 8. Senator from West Virgin* v ia. and Faulkner was sworn in. A hill was in trodueed to protect Innocent purchasers es patented articles. Morrill’s bill th fegulat* Immigration nas taken up, and the Senator advocated t,hetpns»ttt;eof the bfil. Its main object was to have .the chamber of frirefgn Immigrants ex kinined flrtthy the U. H. Cotoni (it the ports of deparprtfe instead of at the port of arrival. The foreign idea, be said, was that theU Sited 4 8ja|j»_ Trivited fit eTm irSlgrn t ion, regardless of thtf char-

acter of the immigrants; but the American idea was ti'at it rcully never offered an asylum to convicts, to irreconcilable enemies of law and order, or to the openpauts of the Old World’s insane asylums and workhouses. The doors were lett open only to persons of good moral moral character, The,- fact that nearly 5,00;',000 immigrants had come to this this country within the la*t teu year*, proved that the question was one of very great Importance. The great American, principle of free admission of immigrants w*s not proposM to be ’ abandoned; but the prinoiple had always been on the condition that the immigrants should be of good moral character and should bo able to support themselves. Seventy per cent i f the population lof Boston was composed of persons., of foreign birth and foreign parentage: eighty percent, of the population New York and nine-ty-one per cent, of tho population ,of Chicago, and these figures might'be aggravated by futare immigration. By the census of 1880 the population of foreign birth anfffs'arentaee was about IS,SOO,OOOj_AUd the immigration sin e then 4.5;4,C*0, so that, without including the children born oI foreign parentage since I*Bo, that was now in this country a foreign population of 19,340,00#, er neatly one-third of the entire population, k*- The Senate devoted the 1 th largely to routine business. Stewart’s bill to provide for tne issue of coin certificates to circulate as money was taken up and that Senator spoke in its favor. A resolution was taken up,: offered some days ago, directing the Attorney General to investigate the issue of a pntent to Magnus Swenson, last October, in connection with the manufacture of sugsr from sorghum, and, if invalid, to commence suit to have the patent canceled, the poiDt bei-»{ that Mr. Swensbn was an employe of the grl-. cultural Department while making the experiments out of which the patent resulted. Adopted Bills were iutrodu'ed in the Senate on the 19ih, to i equiie a residence of five years in this country before an alien can become, a eitizen or vote; granting pensions to Union prisoners iu confederate prisons; providing a pension boss the day of discharge from service of so'diers wbojlost 'a limb; to extirpate boinapious p europneumonia, foot and mouth disease, and rinderpest among cattle. The Blair educational bill was favorably reported to the Senate. Senator Pugh offered a resolution declaring that to revise and amend existing internal tax and tariff - laws was the most impoitant and pressing business before Congress, and that the Senate would concur in no joint resolution for final adjournment until after the passage of suck re medial laws. Mr, Pugh made a lengthy sj/wli in.jsupport of the resolution. “The House transacted no business.