Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1888 — THE WORK OF CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

THE WORK OF CONGRESS.

Saturday at 1 o’clock the first session of the- Fiftieth Congressclosed. It has been the longest continuous session in the history of nearly a century of Congresses, having lasted 321 days. The longest previous session ran 332 days, ending September 30. Apart from the protracted but interesting discussion of the tariff question in both houses, and the unparralleled dead-lock in the consideration of the bill to refund the direct tax, the session has been remarkable in several ways, but in none more than in the enormous number of measures introduced to both branches of Congress. In the Senate 3,641 bills and 116 joint resolutions w.ere presented, and in the House the record ran up to the unequaled figures of 11,598 bills and 230 joint resolutions, making a grand total of 15,585 measures introduced in one session. In the Senate 2,394 measures were reported back from committees and placed on the calendar, a much larger proportion than in the House, where 8,306 measures of the total number of 11,828 introduced still slumber in the committee rooms. Among-themeasuresof public interest that have become laws are the following: The bill relating to permissible marks on mail matter; for the division of the Sioux Reservation; for a conference with the South and Central American nation; limiting the hours of letter-car-riers; making Lieutenant-General Sheridan General of the Army; to establish a Department of Labor; foran international maritime conference; requiring the .Pacific railroad companies to maintain telegraph lines; to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States; for the establishment of rules in respect to the Sault'Ste. Marie and other canals; to create boards of arbitration to settle controversies between common carriers and their employes; to prevent the return of Chinese laborers to this country; to aid State homes for disabled soldiers, and changing the date and meeting of the Electoral College. In the next stage, that is, in confeience between the two houses, are two bills of the first, importance, namely repealing the pre-emption and timber culture law, and providing a general homestead law and declaring a forfeiture of unearned railroad land grants. Pending before the Senate is the House tariff bill and the Senate substitute. The Senate passed bills to divide Dakota and admit the southern half as a State, and to aid common school education (the Blair bill), but they never reached the House for action. In the Senate the'same thing can be said of the following bills, which passed the House: The fisheries retaliation bill, whose passage was recommended by the President; authorizing the issue of fractional silver certificates; allowing the regulation by States of railways chartered by the United States.