Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1879 — the Democratic Majority in Congress. [ARTICLE]

the Democratic Majority in Congress.

Mr. Randall was elected Speaker by just one majority. To secure this result it was necessary to send out for the lame, and halt, and blind, and retarded Demohratio members from all sides. One man from the Pacific Coast spanned the continent in the style of Puck, proposed to “ Put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutea?’ 3 '" > Special trains, bolted meals, and sleepless nights were endured under this pressure of partisan zeal to secure a Democratic majority for the reorganization of the House. A paralyzed member was kept in' reserve to meet lha dreadfuL wnergencv of a possible. defeat O’Reilley, the Brooklyn Aiderman and Congressman, was forced, much against his desires, to surrender the superior honors and emoluments of Aldermanic life for the mere trifle of (tr.OOO a year and the empty privilege

of a seat in Congress, in order to fill up the quota necessary to elect a Democratic Speaker. Every Democrat wa* coaxed or bullied into a yorittce of personal or sectional prejudices, and, after all had been whipped into line, there was a bare majority of one for Randall and Demo-Confed organization . „ T , Aftdr this experience, the DemoConfed managers concluded that their margin of votes in the House was altogether too small to protect their party rule from accidents. The absence of a single member at any time might put the most important partisan measure in jeopardy. Even Democratic Confressmen get sick sometimes; they ave been known to get drunk; sometimes, but not often, they die; the privilege of their position protects them from arrest, but, nevertheless, there is a constant danger of one or. two members dropping out, and this ordinary occurrence might occasion extraordinary distress \vhere power is held by so frail a tenure as one, two or even three majority. Hence the very business at which the House Democrats set themselves was to enlarge their majority. There was only one way to do this, viz.: By turning out Republicans who had been elected and seating Democrats who had not been elected. No time was lost in going at this work, and Mr. Bisbee, o l Honda, was the first victim. The admission of Hull in place of Bisbee is a flagrant outrage, and in defiance of all law and right. In the last Congress, when the Democrats had a majority in the House large enough to rely upon, they did not dare to oust Mr. Bisbee from his seat, and subject themselves to public criticism, till the very closing days; then they admitted his opponet, Finley, as a means for giving tho latter as well as the former, the salary attached to the place. But, in the present Congress, the Democrats need tho vote of Bisbee’s Democratic contestant, and so admit him at once more ado. Hull has no lawful nor rightful claim upon the seat. His pretended election by thirteen majority was secured by barefaced frauds in two counties in his district. These frauds have been proved up beyond any doubt, and some of the persons who perpetrated them are now under indictment. The Florida Supreme Court (Democratic) had pa’ssed upon the case, and canceled the certificate of election which had been issued to Hull. This canceled certificate was Hull’s single claim to admission, but it was enough for the Demo-Confeds who wanted to increase their majority. It was in vain that Messrs. Garfield, Frye, Hiscock, and others expounded the true status of the case. It was iu vain that Belford, of Colorado, reminded tho Democrats that he had been excluded by them from the last House, though he held a Governor’s certificate of election which had never been canceled or disputed. The Confederates cared not for law, precedent, justice, or consistency; they felt the necessity of increasing their party majority, and for that purpose, and without other justification, they voted in an indicted ballot-box stuffer, Hull, who was not elected, and voted out Bisbee, who was elected. This action, at the very opening of Congress, is significant of the poiicy which the Demo-Confeds propose to follow. Their policy is to be not merely partisan but bull-dozing. There is to be a servile submission to all the caucus mandates. There is no indication that a single Democrat, elected and classified as such, will resist anv part of the bull-dozing programme. Democrats in the Illinois delegation, like Bill Springer, Sparks, Morrison, Townshend, and even Singleton, will be as servile as the most rabid Bourbon from Mississippi or Alabama. They all voted for Hull’s admission. The vote on the Florida case shows, however, that the Democrats have been counting without their host whenever they have reckoned upon the Greenback vote in helping them carry out their dishonest party schemes. As the Greenbackers started out independently in the Speakership struggle, so they seem inclined to act independently in other matters. Only one 6f them (Ladd, of Maine,) voted with the Democrats. Greenbackers of Democratic antecedents, like Wright, of Pennsylvania, and Stevenson, of Illinois, voted against the Democrats in this partisan matter, and, of course, Greenbackers of Republican antecedents, like Forsythe, of Illinois, and De LaMatyr, of Indiana, opposed the partisan outrage. This Greenback vote warrants tho expectation that the Greenbackers will act together independently and fairly in all questions outside or their special hobby; but they will scarcely be a factor in legislation,, for, in a few days, the Democrats will have unseated enough Republicans to render their own majority ample and reliable. —Chicago Tribune.