The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-29

ADJOURNMENT OF THE SENATE
The Senate of the United States adjourned
. on Saturday, after having performed the
work for which it was called together, by
ratifying the treaty of Washington without
amendment, and after having afforded an
admiring world considerable entertainment
by low comedy performance entitled SuS-
tanning the Dignity Of the Senate, which, ap-
parently, was more amusing to the public at
large than it was satisfactory to the principal
actors. large portion of the time of
the Senate which should have been
passed in the discussion of the treaty was
devoted to vain attempt to discover how
the document was made public, and, after an
infinite amount of bluster and violent threats,
which did not appear to have very terrifying
effect upon the newspaper correspondents
who had insulted the dignity of the Senate,
the investigation ended about where it
began. The correspondents, who had
the sympathies of the country with them
throughout obstinately refused to tell what
the Senatorial inquisitors desired to know, and
the upshot of the whole matter was that their
release was ordered on Saturday, and the
Senate adjourned without sustaining its dig
nifty. The moral of this whole affair is that
extra judicial investigations of any kind are
intensely repugnant to the people of the
United States and to the genius of our repub-
lican institutions, and the power which some
of the Senators claimed to punish contuma-
cious witnesses by unlimited confinement, on
bread and water, in the common Jail, is one
that ought not to be exercised in a free
country like this. In all cases of punishment
for contempt the synpathies of very large
portion of the public are always with the
sufferer, even in very extreme cases, where
punishment seems to be we'll deserved, for
the good and sufficient reason that there is
proper feeling that no citizen ought
to be punished by fine or imprisonment
except after trial and conviction in open
court. This feeling has been intensified by
the multitude of investigations which have
been ordered by the Senate and House of
Representatives during the past few years,
many of which have evidently been prompted
by other motives than desire to serve the
public interests, while nearly all of them have
been conducted as if the desire was not to
elicit the truth, but to establish foregone
conclusions; witnesses have been brow beaten
by Congressional rHfians, and have been re-
euired to make categorical answers to ques-
tions artfully prepared for ooncealing the
truth; and in a hundred ways the practice of
conducting Investigations by Congressional
committees has been abused and brought into
discredit. is sincerely to be hoped that
the late performances of the Senate will have
the effect OF putting a check upon the desire
some members or Congress are afflicted
with to demand inrestigations upon every
imaginable pretext, AMI the farce that has
just been played out ouglt to convince some
of the "grave and reverend" that the Senate
is not the omnipotent body thy imagine it to
be, and that newspaper men know how to
keep secrets, even if Senators douot.
For the prompt manner in which the
Senate performed the real work of tn, Senate
the nation has good cause to be Thankful.
The treaty concluded by the Joint Com.ais-
sion has given satisfaction on boOl
sides OF the Atlantic to all bu
few irreconcilables, who would no
have been satisfied with anything 1t il
honorable to both parties, and it provides fo
q peAceable adjustment of differences tina
were likely at any time to precipitate con