Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1870-06-10
The F"oI.ty.first Congress

From the Chicago Tribune.
Congress is drifting serenely into
the warm days of early summer,
with record of having done moth
ing worth doing, and with a strong
probability that it will do nothing.
1t has done nothing, did we say? 1t
has admitted the State of Mississip-
ri, because its Senator's name was
Revels. 1t has excluded Georgia, be-
cause its Senator's name was Bull
lock. It has matured, with great
labor, in the House, and killed, with
small consideration, in the Senate, a
most excellent Census bill, which
would have redeemed the census Of
1870 from the MANY absurdities and
short comings OF that of 1860. Both
Houses have since been passing
patchwork and piecemeal bills to
remedy the blunder committed 10y
the Senate in killing the carefully
elaborated Census bill which was so
much needed. Our next census,
therefore. like our last. will give
crude and often deceptive and false
returns relative TO the number of
persons sustained and the amount of
capital employed i'm agriculture,
manufactures and mining, and few
or none whatever re alive to the CAPT
tai and labor employed, and annual
earnings of industry in transpOrta-
ton. trade, mercantile pursuits, and,
commerce. domestic and foreign.
Whether such bill will be passed as
will give the Western States now the
increased representation in Congress
to which their population entities
them, or whether this justice will he
deferred till after the next Congress
shall he elected. we do not know.
But we expect that this measure, be-
ing one of simple justice, will be de-
ferred.
Three months having been spent
upon a Tariff bill without reaching
the middle of it. may confidently be
predicted that this question must go
before the people for instructions he.
fore Congress will be assembled
capable of handling it. We had
hoped that the simple, unemharrassed
policy of reduction of taxation to the
amount of from fifty to a hundred
millions might. at least, be embodied
into law during this session, but we
see no prospect of it, nor has single
step been taken, nor will there be,
toward a resumption of specis pay
ments.
We may be thankful, however,
that Congress has escaped some very
grave plumbers, which il has Jealous
ly been urged to fall into. 1t has not
yet consented TO send press gang
into the banks to compel them to
lend money at 4 per cent, thing it
was thought emineutly wise, i'm
some quarters, to do. IL has not
bought San Domingo, nor Cuba. nor
st. Thomas, nor the Sandwich
Islands, nor New Zealand, though
terms might have been made for all
of them, and 1t has made fewer fool
ish and wicked appropriations OF
public money and public lands than
its predecessor. Still, its whole SEES
sion has been unrelieved by the pros
pect of a single important measure,
by solitary debate that rose above
the common. place, and, with one or
two exceptions, by even really able
speech. 1t has discovered that three
or four of its own members, all OF
whom happened to be carpetbaggers.
were venal and corrupt, and has ex-
PEELED q portion of them. How
many more deserve expulsion is left
in painful doubt. In short, the pres
ent Congress has been a transition
Congress-elected on the issue of re-
construction, and called to act upon
questions economical and financial
on which it has been adrift, with not
the first elementary principle OF
economy or finance defined or agreed
upon. A discussion in the Ecumeni-
cal Council on the best modes of re-
ducing the ores of the precious
metals, would evince not more hap.
Ply ignorance Of the question than a
debate on the laws of taxation and
its effects upon commerce and pros
duction when undertaken by Con-
gress elected solely on the anti slave
ry issue.