Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1888 — THE FIFTIETH CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

THE FIFTIETH CONGRESS.

The Senate, on the 17th, conaidered the bill admitting Dakota] u a State, the debgte taking apolitical range. Thirty-fire private pension bllla were paued. Alao tbe hill appropriating WS,OOO far the relief of tbe Omaha tribe of Indiana in Nebraska, The Hotue went Into committee of the whole (Mr, Springer, of Illlnola, in the ebalr) for tbe conrideration of the tariff hill. No opposition Waa made to Mr. Mills’s motion to this effect/ Mr. Mills began hi* apeech by saying that tbe great increase of duties made dnring the war had been, at the time they were made, stated to be only temporary. Yet a quarter of a century later these duties were higher than they were daring the war, and they now averaged 47.10 per cent on imports. The income tax had been impoied to meet war expenses. It was gone. It was a tax on wealth, and the $72,000,000 annually realised from that source wm swept away. Bnt the war tax on clothing, On food, on implements of labor, remained, and the war was still being prosecuted against tbe people—a fiscal war—exhausting in its demands, snd every effort to remove or lower that taxation had been resisted and defeated. Tbe Democrats had been taunted with the charge that they had failed to reduce taxation. This charge had been made by the minority, which had been guilty of preventing action on the many bills brought Into the House by the committee on ways and means. Mr. Mills turned his attention to the woolen manufactures and argued that tbe public at large was injured by the present exeesslve tax and nobody beneflltedT ~ Mr. Kelley (Pa.)took the floor in reply: He* said that tbe enactment of this bill would instantly paralyze the enterprise aDd energy of the people. - Under the baneful influence of such a law the report of the census of 1890 would announce the overthrow of our manufacturing supremacy and the reduction of our commanding commercial position to that of colonial dependence. 11 was seduously designed to produce these dire results, and nicely adapted for its purpose. It wis confessedly a partisan measure,and was framed in tbe interest of a party whose leaders appeared to be oblivious to the overwhelm ing social and economic chaDges wrought by the abolition of slavery. By patting wool on tbe free list It would abolish sheep husbandry, destroy the immense capital embarked therein, and impoverish the more than a million men who own flocks or aro employed In their care, and by working this ruin it would diminish the supply of cheap and health ful animal food now furnished by wool growers to the mining and manufacturing laborers of tbe country. It would also render the production of American tin plates and cotton ties impossible by placing those articles on tbe free list with wool. By tbe transfer of these and other products of ooal and iron ore to the free lirt, and by reducting tbe dutv on steel rails, structural iron, and many other forms of iron and steel sufficiently to withdraw protection from them and permit foreign producers to flood oar maikets it would, though it maintained existing dnties on coal and lion oie, close a majority of the bituminous coal fields and orebanks which are now giving profitable employment to hundreds of thousands of laborers, not only in tbe Northern slates, but in tbe South, and turn them adrift without prospect of other employment elsewhere than in cotton and eom fields The gentlemen whir framed this bill couid brook neither modification nor discussion of its provisions by their associates in the committee were with two exceptions representatives of what was slave territory The bill was an anachronism; it had no relation to this era, it belonged to the saddest epeeh in onr national history, the period between 1834 and 1865 During that period slavery dominated our national councils and guided the administration of onr national affairs, in hostility to national interests and in the Interest of free trade twice threatened war. It was in the interest of free trade that war was threatened in support of the doctrine of nullification, and it was in the interest of free trade that the country was involved for more than four years in a fratricidal war. In the Senate, on the 18tb,the eommftieeon foreign relations reported adversely the Biddleberger resolution providing for open sessions of tb& Senate dnring the consideration es the fisheries treaty. Tbe bill to admit Dakota as a State was considered. Mr. Sherman made a speech in favor of its admission, and reviewed the Hays-Tilden presidential election troubles. Mr. Vest replied and was followed by Mr. Hawley. The House passed labor bills as follows: to establish a Department of Labor; and tbe MU to create boards of arbitration for the settlement of oontroveraies and difiertneea between hater State common carriers and their employes. The Senate, on the 19th, resumed consideration of the bill to admit South Dakota aa a State, and the bill was passed by a strict party voteayes 26, nsyg 23. The Honse devoted the day to appropriation bills, bnt without action of any kind. In the Honse, on the 20th, alter the Senate amendments to the military academy bUI had been concurred in, the Indian appropriation bUI was taken up. Mr. Bandall’a motion to strike ont tbe Choctaw judgment section waa lost aid the bill waa then passed. After a short fight tbe House went into committee of the whole on tne pension appropriation bilL The debate was of a general character and extended to other subjects besides pensions. A lively little time was had on a charge by Mr. Henderson (la,) that Commissioner Black bad issued a pension certificate to the Hon. W. R. Morrison, who had applied for It, and who immediately returned it. The discussion, however, developed nothing of Importance. General debates having closed, amendments were adopted that widows’ pensions showed date from tbe time of the husband’s death, and authorizing aU 0. & officers to administer all oaths necew- ry in pens'on oases free of charge. The committee then r se and the bill was passed appropriating 180,280,000. The river and harbor bUI was then taken np, bnt without making any DTovresses. Neither the Senate nor'Houte transacted any business on the 23d, aside from routine.