Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1902 — Congress. [ARTICLE]

Congress.

An animated and prolonged discussion was precipitated in the Senate on Monday, over the right of army officers to efitjeise utterances made in the Senate or elsewhere on the conduct of affhirs in the i Philippines. At times it became somewhat acrimonious;' officers in the Philippines being taken sharply to task for statements attributed to them in dispatches from Manila. The House adopted a resolution calling for documents relating to the old training ship Vermont, which was placed ont of commission last summer, and also passed a bill to provide for the compulsory attendance of Witnesses--before registers and receivers of the general land office. A bill propriate SIOO,OOO for establishing homes for the teaching of articnlate speech to deaf children was defeated. Philippine debate grew so bitter in the Senate on Tuesday that prsonal encounters were narrowly averted. The storm raged for three hoars, and the chairman was kept busy maintaining order. After years of patient effort commercial organizations and business men were rewarded by the Senate passing the bill for the creation of a department of commerce and labor. The measure goes to the House in substantially the form in which it was introduced. The most important change is in the name of the department. As originally suggested it was to be the department of commerce and industry., No material opposition in the House is anticipated. Its quick passage is confidently expected. A bill to permit the extension for twenty years of the charters of national banks was favorably reported by the Senate committee, on finance. Just before the adjournment of the Senate Senator Spooner introduced, a substitute for the Nicaragua canal bill.

Senator* Cullom, as chairman of thernromittee on foreign relations, virtually appealed to the Senate on Wednesday from the decision of his committee on the question of reciprocity treaties. Broadly, he took the position that a treaty is the supreme law of the land, superseding acts of Congress, and that the constitution the President by treaty ratified by the Senate can do anything Congress can do. For an hour the Senate had under discussion the qiiestion whether a censorship of press dispatches exists in Manila. The debate for a time was veFy spirited. The Secretary of War was quoted as saying that no press censorship now existed in the. Philippines, and a letter from Gen. Greely, chief signal officer of the army, was presented by Mr. Beveridge of Indiana, making the statement officially that there was no censorship and that “the press is entirely free.” It was contended by the opposition that censorship did exist in the Philippines, and that copies of every news dispatch filed with the cable company were filed with the military authorities.

The House on Thursday passed the bill for the creation of a permanent census bureau. The friends of the civil service law. Who were opposed to making ihe employes of the bureau eligible for transfer or retention, were overwhelmingly defeated. By the terms of the bill the permanent organization will succeed the jwesent temporary organization July 1, 1902, and all" empTo.ves bh the TorHsr Trptrrr the date of the passage of the act will become eligible for transfer to other departments or retention in the permanent organization. The bill also provides for a manufacturing census iu 1905 and for the collection of certain speciifl statistics annually. A bill for the protection of the lives of miners in the territories was also passed. The session of the Senate was entirely void of the tumultuous scenes which characterized the sessions of the foregoing three days. After the Philippine tariff measure was taken up at 2 o’clock Mr. Tillman delivered a speech devoted almost entirely to a discussion of the part his State took in the war for the independence of the colonies. Incidentally he referred occasionally to the pending bill, drawing morals, as he said, for the benefit of the majority that they might be npplied to the Philippines.

An extended speech on the pending Philippine tariff bill was delivered In the Senate Friday by Mr. Morgan of Alabama, who devoted particular attention to an amendment he offered to the bill the previous week. He maintained that the enactment of tho bill as it stands now would not be a constitutional remedy for the situation the measure is designed to relieve, but said with the adoption of his amendment the bill would stand the closest scrutiny of the courts. The Alabama Senator did not discuss the political phases of the Philippine question, devoting* his entire speech to a consideration of the legal aud constitutional questions raised by the presentation of the tariff measure. An hour and n half was devoted to consideration of n bill to increase the salaries of judges of United States courts, but no action was taken. The Honse prepared to defend itself against what it considers the threatened invasion of the Senate of its prerogative in the matter of revenue- legislation by directing the ways and means committee to investigate the subject and report to the House its conclusions. The action was the outgrowth of the agitation in the Senate of the claim that reciprocity treaties nffecting the customs revenues can be negotiated without the concurrence of the House.

The House on Saturday, after the transaction of some minor 'Tmsiness, which included the passage of the Senate bill to prohibit the sale of firearms, opium nnd intoxicating liquors in the New Hebrides, devoted the day to eulogies on the life nnd public services of the late Representative Brosius of Pennsylvania.