The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1848-06-24
WASHINGTON, June %, 1913.
The N[erican IreatY-Tne Senate

Inc NlertcdN 1fedty-IHe senate.
Lieutenant Gardner is expected to arrive here
this evening, or tomorrow, with the ratified
treaty of peace betwee this country and Mexico
1t will be Immediately published by authority, and
the people of the United States will have the salts
faction of reading over, on Saturday or Sunday
next, what they read three months ago in the
Herald. All this is very stupid and very silly
The Senate should abandon the attempt to work
in secret. 1t is impracticable. Everything of in
terest will be dvulged to the people, if the body
were to erect braZen doors to their chamber, de-
iberate in whispers, and enact penal laws against
the press without number. The American people
do not send their servants here, and pay them be-
rally, in order that they may play the master
Senators seem to regard their term of Office as
one heightened saturnalia, during which they have
license to play all manner of antics, and to treat
the people as slaves. The impotence of attempt
ing TO keep from the people until now, the treaty
ratlhed three months ago, is really amusing. II Is
time that an order that pretends 10 the high pre-
rogatve of keeping the people of the United States
IN dire suspense on subject In which the national
welfare was so deeply involved, were stripped of
It's mask. 1t this were done, the people would soon
learn to look with scorn on what they now
gaze upon at distance with a sort OF pious
awe. TAey would find that for one man
who enters that body IN order to promote the
OF honorable ambition, there are men who creep
in by sordd means, for the most sordid purposes.
1t is not my wish to bring the senate in contempt
with the people There are stl thank God,
among its members, men brave and pure, and hon
orable-such men Mr.. Foote, Mr.. Lewis, Mr.
Calhoun, MIR. Butler--but they are entirely over
Swallowed by the rank and prurient growth of
noxlous weeds, that rise up among and around
them. Who does not know, that to the smallest
attachc of the most iaconsiderable legation near
this government, the senate is a subject of
rldicue with lis chairman OF the committee on For
elgn Reatonsl and is there bankers clerk in
Wall street who could not give clearer exposition
of the financial condition of the government than
the chairman OF the committee on finances! To
everybody having stake in the public veal, 1t
should be matter of deep anxiety to the senate
worthy of great nation--to see the small
politicians who atpresent ntest the chamber, sue
ceeded by men of honesty and abllity--to see the
sordid money-changers cast ont of the nations
Legislative temple; and those invested with senate
rial functions, who do not require the adventti-
tous aid of secresy to maintain their proper digni-
ty. Let young men be sent to the national coun-
ellis Those who have spent their youth in profit
gacy and their manhood in sordid schemes of az
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. should not be permitted in their
old age to infect the legislation of the coun-
trya with the moral leprosy of their lives, or
stamp it with servie imbeclity. Instead of load
ing the statute book with odious penalties against
the press--penalties which never can be inflicted
let the senate throw open Its doors all occasions
except such as obviously demand secret delibera-
ton; and further, let 1t dlscountenance the dscre-
dltable habits that have crept In among its MEM
bers All the penal enactments that the counsel
of the senate can Frame will not make people re-
spect the body so long as II has such members as
ut present disgrace il. In several democratic
States the wings have united with few dlsre -
table democrats to send to the senate the most
obnoxious man in the democratic ranks. For
party purposes to thrust upon the senate such men
as flanagan, sTumey, Cameron, and others of
that stamp, and who owe their election TO such ex-
pedients, is baseness deserving the execration of
the whole country.
In regard to this Mexican treaty, the senate
plays most ridiculous part before the people. In
a day or two II will probably go through the So
Tenn fooery OF publishing the document, as if for
the first timc and the two superannuated journals
in this city WILL with much pomp and crcum-
stance, Introduce TO the public paper which il
has known for months 1t was laughable to hear
that body had no official knowledge of the terms
OF the treaty, and therefore that its legislation in
regard to Texas was to be based on an absence Of
all information az to the boundary of that State as
established by the treaty with Mexico. Was ever
anything more absurdl
most Infamous imputation on the northern
and southern press, appears In the Presidents or
gan OF this morning. A communication from the
post office department alleges that the paragraphs
in the northern and southern papers, in relation to
the stupid squabbe between the Richmond Rail-
road Company and the Postmaster General "are
probably prepared and paid for by those Interested
in the railroads." The Insolence with which the
Postmaster General, and his hired claguers, have
braved the public scorn, by attempting 10 screen
that functonary from the indignation which his