Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1893 — CLOSING HOURS GF THE SENATE. [ARTICLE]

CLOSING HOURS GF THE SENATE.

Vlce-Presidennt Morton'* Farewell Address. About 1 o’clock Vice President Morton delivered his farewell address and declared the Senate of the Fifty-second Congress adjourned sine die. Mr. Morton said: Senators—The time fixed by the Constitution for the termination of the Fiftysecond Congress has arrived, and I shall soon resign the gavel of the President of the Senate to the honored son of Illinois who has been chosen as my successor. I can not, however, take my leave of this distinguished body without offering my most grateful acknowledgments for the honor conferred by the resolution adopted, declaring your approval of the manner in which I have discharged the duties of the chair, and expressing my deep sense of the uniform courtesy and kindness, even in critical and complicated situations, extended to me as the presiding officer by every member of this body. If I have committed errors you have refrained from rebuking them, and Lhave never appealed in vain to your sense of justice and have ever received your support My association.with the representatives of the forty-four States of this great Nation in this chamber will be among tho most cherished memories of my life, and I can express no better wish for my successor than that he may enloy the same relation of courtesy and kindness, that have never been limited by party lines or controlled by partisan affiliation, and whleh have so happily marked my intercourse with Senators. And now, Senators and officers of the Senate, from whom 1 have received so many good offices in the discharge of my duties, accept a feeble -expression of my grateful appreciation of your kindness, with my heartfelt wishes for your future welfare, happiness and prosperity in life. Vice-President Stevenson was then Introduced tothoSenatotiMsald: Vice-President Stevenian'a Speech. Senators—Deeply impressed with a sense of its responsibilities and of its dignity, I now enter upon the discharge of the duties of the high office to whicEl have been called. lam not unmindful of the fact that among the occupants of this chair during the hundred and four years of our constitutional history have been statemen eminent - alike for their talents and their tireless devotion to public duty. Adams, Jefferson and Calhoun honored its incumbency during the early days of the Republic, while Arthur, Hendricks and Morton have, at a later period of our history, shed luster upon the officce of President of the most august deliberative Assembly Known to men. I assume the duties of the great trust confided to me with no feeling of selfconfidence, but rather with that of grave distrust of my ability satisfactorily to meet its requirements. I may be pardoned for saying that it shall be my earnest endeavor to discharge the important duties which lie before me, with no less impartiality and courtesy than* ofj firmness and fidelity. Earnestly invoking the co-opera-tion, the forbearance, the charity of each of its members, I now enter upon my duties as presiding officer of the Senate. As he closed his remarks he directed that the proclamation of the President convening the Senate in extraordinary session be read, which was done. The new Senators were then sworn in. The credentials of Judge Martin as Senator from Kansas were accepted, and ho was sworn in as Senator without contest or objection The usual inaugural bail was given at the Pension Building at night