New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-07-02

1 SAA0o4@~'
We con1sA 70 no os1t ssnss q pleasure
or pride in sesing the hesitation, not to
say reluctance, With which the national
Senate passes the bill abolishing Congress
sional franking. This abomination has
endured so long without excuse or cause
that it is wonderful to find a Republican
Senate SO contemptuous of the virtue and
common sense of society as to ponder to
petty estimates of personal cost in dis
Guessing on national grounds an efete and
senile practice. all the public good and
expediency Of which long ago went out
with stage travel, the oid-fashioned naval
fights, horse boats. and finder with flint
and steel. Are Senators SO blinded by
the meanest of human interests the merely
sordid-as to be unmindful that this is an
age of Lucifer matches, steam palaces,
rams, Pullman's, and three cent letter
postage? ! se'tt so e 4
When their predecessors in that great
body, and our forefathers, in the better
days of the Republic, established franking,
it was as unavoidable and necessary a. the
laws prescribing crime The Congress-
man could not near so well dispense with
such privilege as the housekeeper with the
statute against burglary; not SO much be.
cause letter postage was twenty-five cents,
as because it was not required to be pre-
paid. Had those greater men Of that
more ignorant age been practically as wise
as we, they would, in place Of the Con-
gressional frank. have required prepay
ment Of postage, so that the thousand or
two public-spirited patriots Of Congress
sional district, who wrote semi-daily or
semi-weekly, or semi.monthly to their
member concerning nothing, might have
been led to abridge the practice in consid
Grafton of the cost. Imagine in that day
the honorable members each morning
finding from q wooden quart to barrel
measure of letters on their respective
desks, and the postman awaiting postage;
and consider that of the whole, not let.
ter was Of the slightest interest or worth.
Wonder how many days would have been
necessary to install universal fight from
Congressional hall and national capital to
their homes of safety, and how indispen-
SADLY the private station would have be-
come the post of honor. Indeed Congress
would have been q national republican
impossibility. The government would
have wilted from such ultra disregard of
the laws of political health.
We have yet to consider the other side of
the franchise; that is, the right of honor
able members to circulate gratuitously
speeches and debates. A grave Senator
argues with too much gravity to leave it
tensble as a joke, that this is an indis-
pensable means of public education. OF
course, there may be no free schools
somewheres, but in such cases reading
qualifications, adequate to the proper en-
joyment Of Congressional buncombe,
would not be overstartling nor much
prevalent; and an important moral reform
ought not to be impeded by considera-
ton of SO much insignifcance as the cost
of such circulation at present charges. 1t
might be calamitous not to circulate, but
the calamity would fall most heavily on
the member, affecting deeply, perhaps, the
integrity of his amore proper, while his
constituent would bear being spared with
fortitude in a cause of such interest to the
country.
Seriously there can be no live pretext |
for perpetuating this abuse. 1t is heavy
wrong, and is condemned by the mouth of |
that prescriptive tolerance it invokes. Its
arguments can be received only with con-
tempt, coming from the Federal Senate
and involving considerations too mean for
the pettiest tradesman, and too impudent |
for practiced charlatans. The forbearance
of the people during many years, in
the face Of an abuse SO gross INDUCED in
a quarter so high, is the very warrant |
thrust in their faces to-day by honorable |
Senators. This is the less excusable, be-
cause it is the exercise Of power in |
their own hands. II follows on naturally,
as one excess follows another after the
recent increase Of salary bestowed on
themselves by their own generosity,
leaving .honor out Of the case, lev
cling congressional pride to the
role of traffic, and leaving the |
great party of the people, the Republican
party, to foot the penal cost Of these indi-
vidual transgressions. This from the |
Senate, too, in which all men look for pu-
rity Of purpose; from body supposed to
cit in an atmosphere of principle where
justice dwells and the highest truth abides, |
giving the world, as we have thought, one
serene example of moderation in the exer-
else Of power and wisdom in the promul-
CATION of laws; such example as the world |
needs more than any world we know of or
which is likely to be known.
1t il not nearly so important that the
Postmaster General tells us. the govern
ment will save five millions year by the
repeal of the ranking law as that Re-
publican Senate should be composed of
gentlemen. We have even INDUCED the
hope that only great men sit in that body,
but those among them who are insensible
to the delicacy of the position we have de-
scribed, and to the grossness of the argu-
ment we have recited, can hardly be said
to be great, or to answer even the social