The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-06
MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1871.
TIE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE

TIE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE"
The Congressional Globe was among the
subjects which came to the surface momenta-
rily during the closing hours of the Forty
first Congress. Mr.. Prosser, who halls from
Tennessee, was anxious that such members
rs had not received complete sets of the Globe
should be furnished with them. Mr. Prosser
not having been elected member of the
Forty-second Congress, doubtless was anxious
to secure complete set for himself, to hand
down to unborn generations of Prossers as an
heirloom. But the resolution which he pre-
sented for carrying his 1884, 900 swindle into
execution failed to obtain the two-thirds vote
required for the suspension of the rules, and
Prosser must devote $43 of his own money
t. the purchase of his heirloom, or else de-
prive his descendants of its custody.
1t appeared that, when the
salary of Congressman was increased,
some fifteen years ago, to its present stan
dard, provision was inserted in the act
whereby the right of members to complete
sets of the Globe, heretofore enjoyed, was
abolished. And yet, in defiance of this pro-
vision, it appears that the members of the
three preceding Congresses had complacently
voted themselves the complete sets of the
Globe which their predecessors had solemnly
declared they should not have, and it was on
this thrice-repeated violation of the law that
Mr.. Prosser based his argument for another
infringement
1t is true the amount involved was small
when compared with that involved in many
of the schemes by which our national legisla-
tors are accustomed to swell their compensa-
ton. 1t was mere trifle, IN fact, by the
side of the burden shouldered upon the couu.
try by the scandalous abuses of the franking
privilege. Yet, if we are ever to have
policy of economy inaugurated, it must begin
with these trifes. The whole business of the
publication of the debates of Congress needs
an overhauling A specious attempt at refor-
nation was made during the earlier period of
the Forty-first Congress, but nothing came of
it; and, as Mr.. Latin showed, the Globe had
become O greater expense to the country
during the past two years than ever
before. The debates of the Thirty-third
Congress, from December, 1858, to March,
1856, were compressed into a single volume,
while those of the Forty first Congress will
make eleven volumes, and cost the Govern
ment nearly half million dollars. 1t will be
worth the while of the new ongress to devise
some scheme by which return to the stand
ard of twenty years ago can be made, approxi-
mately at least. The saving of a mere hun
dred thousand would not be distasteful to the
people. The tinkering to which the reports
in the Globe are habitually subjected renders
that cumbersome periodical practically worth
less, and if the debates are not to be printed
as they actually transpire, it would
be quite as we'll not to print
them at all. If nothing is to be
done in the interest of economy, something
should surely be yielded to veracity, and
every man who takes the floor be handed
down to posterity ccrbatim ct Rteratim.
Those windy barangues which are written
merely for publication in the Globe, and are
never delivered, should likewise be shut do wn
upon, for the sake of both veracity and
economy, and no member should be allowed
hereafter to put on record a single word
which is not uttered on the floor of the house
of which he is a member. The Congressional
Globe affords the revenue reformers of the
Forty-second Congress good beginning, in
the only line in which revenue reform is
possible-that of the doing away with all ex-
penditures of the public money which are
useless, if not worse than useless.