The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-08
ADJOURNMENT OF THE LEGLS-
LATURE

The true object of just governments is to
secure the life, liberty, and happiness of the
people governed. So says the Declaration of
Independence. The true object of the
anomalous sort of government that is typi-
fed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, how
ever, is to harass, plumber, oppress, deceive,
vex, betray, and impoverish the Commen-
wealth. The proceedings of the body which
has fortunately just adjourned are essentially
more like the DEGREES of gang of robbers,
or the harsh edcts of body of hostile con-
querors intent on parcelling out the Com
monwealth to their favorites and followers,
than the laws of wise and benevo-
lent legislators. In a working session
of sixty-fve days, more than four thousand
bills were introduced and nearly fifteen hun
dred were actually passed and sent to the
Governor. Yet, of all this batch, it would
be difficult to find one law out of hundred
which even pretends to promote the general
welfare, or to aid, even remotely, in pro-
noting the real interests of the citizens of
this Commonwealth, while the real intent in
nearly every bill is to grant special privi-
lege of some kind to a favored individual,
which he can scarcely ever exercise without
inficting a corresponding injury on one or
more of his fellow-men. So great was the
rage to rush through these acts of spoliation
that the legislators even begrudged the time
consumed in an attempt to learn their con-
tents, and many of them were read only by
their titles. There is something inconceivably
monstrous in the idea that any body of men
should be empowered to compel obedience to
long series of laws which they do not even
stop to read. This is tyranny in its worst
shape, confounded by deplorable carelessness
and confusion, and if the people continue to
countenance such an outrageous system, the
time is near at hand when every vestige of
good State government will be destroyed.
One fortunate circumstance has saved the
people from a series of expressions which
otherwise would have been intolerable. A.
quarrel between the Governor and the Legis-
iature occurred at the commencement of the
session. The legislators refused to print
the usual number of extra copies of the
Governors message or to increase his salary,
and Geary, in turn, has avenged himself by
a free uso of the veto power The check
thus imposed, conjoined with the resolute
action of few members of the
House and Senate who were faithful
among the faithless, have saved the State, for
the time being, from financial ruin, and the
people from long list of villanous oppres-
sions which would otherwise have been i'm
posed upon them.
What has been done, with the concurrence
of both branches of the Legislature and the
&c ho1 apnuOh Rut Nub would
have been done if few fortuitous circum.
stances had not interposed to save the State
from intolerable Affections was infinitely
worse, and the voters who last fall reelected
men who had previously gained an infamous
notoriety may congratulate themselves thai
they have accidentally been rescued from
many of the evils which their faithles'
favorites desired and endeavored to inflict.
For the manifold mischiefs of the existing
system various remedies have been proposed
Even the newly elected Speaker of the State
Senate referred to this subject in the speecl
he delivered yesterday, He suggested that {
Joint resolution be adopted by the Legislatur,
prohibiting the consideration of any bill
which has not been printed. This precautior
should of course be adopted, but as the pres
ent legislative rules have VIGOROUSLY beel
formed for the express purpose of facilitatin
the passage of iniqui tous bills, we have littl
hope that any future Legi stature will be cor
trolled by higher motive. The real remed
must be sought in the first instance by tn
election, for at least one year, of legislator
sufficiently faithful to the people t
propose constitutional amendments that wi