The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-23
THE "C0NGREsSI0NAL GLOBk0

THE "CONGRESSTONAL GLOBE"
AMONG the minor sins of Congress is the
practice of permitting members to print in
the Congressional Globe speeches that have
never been delivered upon the floor of either
house. This evil gradually grew out of the
apparently harmless custom of revising
speeches before publication for the purpose
of correcting those little grammatical mac
curaces and inelegancies of language that
even the most polished orators cannot alto
gether avoid in extemporaneous speaking
No one would object to this custom if it
could be kept within bounds; but, like the
franking privilege and other matters
that were well enough as origi-
nally intended, the revision of speeches
for the Globe has grown to be an outrageous
nuisance that calls for reform. Members
we're not content merely to correct their
speeches, but they began to put into them
new matter that sometimes altered their pur-
port entirely, and then the next step was to
obtain the permission of the House or Senate
to print speeches that had never been de-
livered The pretext for this abuse was that
by granting such permission the time of the
Senate and House was not taken up by long
and often irrelevant orations delivered for
buncombe, and that the real business of Con-
gress was thereby less impeded than it
would be if every member who
wished to "place himself on record
were required to address the House in per-
son. The consequence of this arrangement
is that the Globe in no respect represents the
proceedings of Congress, and it loses all
value as an historical record. A great ex-
pense is also entailed upon the taxpayers of
the country for no other purpose than to
| crafty the vanity of members and to adver-
tise them with their constituents. The abuse
| of the privileges of the Globe has at length
grown to be such an evil as to elicit very
! decided call for reform, but members of Con-
gress are 10th to part with any of their per
| quisites, and notwithstanding the unanimous
| opinion of the press of the country, the GUS
tom of printing unspoken speeches" in the
Globe will be likely to continue indefinitely
unless some unusually outrageous occurrence
renders it necessary for Congress to take some
decided action for the sake Of its own dignity
and credit. 1t is the last straw that breaks
the camels back, and the straw in this in
stance is Hon. William Mungen, Democratic
member of the House of Representa-
tives from Ohio, who has achieved a
temporary notoriety by printing in the Globe
an indecent and abusive TRADE against the
administration and Senator Sumner. The
attention of the House was yesterday called
to Mungen's speech by Mr.. Dawes, of Massa-
chusetts, and in the usual roundabout way
of settling such matters by Congress, reso-
luton was adopted instructing the Committee
on Rules to inquire whether Mungen had not
violated the privileges of the House, and
whether the speech should be allowed to &c
into the permanent form of the Globe This
discreditable affair has impressed upon the
average Congressional mind the necessity fol
preventing such occurrences in the future
and the probabilities are that both houses
will adopt rules prohibiting the official pub
lication of speeches that have never been de
livered before them, in which case Munger
can die with the satisfaction Of knowing tina
his life has not been spent entirely in vain
but that he has been the means of bringin!
about reform of one of the many abuse
that are permitted to exist by our nationa
Legislators in spite of the protests of the peo
pie they profess to represent