The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-11-01
The House Committees.

In the selection of the committees of the
House Mr.. Randall seems to have been
governed solely by the desire to throw the
entire control of the popular branch of our
national legislature into the hands of the
South. The South has the chairmanships
OF twenty-five committees out of forty-fiye, of
which twelve are the most important in the
House. To the West are given seventeen
committees while New England has none.
The purport of these selections cannot be
mistaken. The business of the House is
done almost entirely in committees, and the
course of committee is dictated by its chair
man. The instances in which the House
takes any matter out of the hands of the
committee to which it is entrusted are very
rare. So it will be seen that the shaping of
legislation for two years to come, so far as
the House has discretion, is in the hands of
traitors but lately pardoned. 1t is now easy
to see to what influences Mr.. Randall is in
debted for his election to the speakership.
Mr.. Randall has bought the support of the
South with the following chairmanships:
elections, Harris, Virginia; appropriations,
Atkins, Tennessee; banking and currency
Buckner, Missouri; commerce, Reagan, Tex
as; post offices and post-roads, Waddell,
North Carolina; judiciary, Knott, Kentucky;
claims, Bright, Tennessee; public expendi-
lures, Thatcher, Missouri; private land
claims, Gunter, Arkansas; Indian affairs,
Scales, Georgia; naval affairs, Whitthorne,
Tennessee; foreign affairs, Swami, Mary
land; territories, Franklin, Missouri; rail-
roads and canals, Schleicher, Texas; educa-
ton and labor, Goode, Virginia; revision of
the laws, Walsh, Maryland; coinage, weights
and measures, Stephens, Georgia; patents,
Vance, North Carolina; public buildings and
grounds, Cook, Georgia; accounts, Roberts,
Maryland; expenditures of the treasury de-
partment, Glover, Missouri; expenditures of
the war department, Blackburn, Kentucky;
expenditures of the post office department.
Williams, Alabama; Mississippi levees, Rob
ertson. Louisiana; printing, Singleton, Mis-
sissippi.
The chairmanship OF the committee on
Pacific railroads falls to Mr.. Potter of New
York, who is understood to be an anti-subsidy
man. Mr.. Randall, for all his reckless par
tisanship, did not dare to give the position to
an avowed advocate of the most extensive
and shameless raid upon the Treasury which
has ever been attempted. But he took good
care to give majority of the committee to
the friends of the Texas Pacific job and to
place second upon it Mr.. Throckmorton of
Texas, the strongest supporter OF the subsidy.
As for the chairman, he can be easily taken
care OF, for his partisanship is so strong that
his assent will be given to any measure which
commands the support of a majority of his
Democratic colleagues. The other schemes
ofplunder are well looked out for. Bright of
Tennessee has under his charge the vast horde
of hungry claimants from the South. Atkins
OF Tennessee will look out for the appropria-
tions. Under the convenient excuse of pro-
noting internal commerce, Reagan, the Post
master-General of the old Confederacy, will
take care that liberal sums shall be voted
for improvements in streams where the
only business done is the taking of trout by
wandering sportsmen. Those unrepentant
rebels, Blackburn of Kentucky and Whit
thorne of Tennessee, will guard against the
possibility that the war and navy departments
may be well enough equipped to meet and
suppress new rebellion. Alexander Fl.
Stephens, the rebel Vice-Presdent, takes
charge of the cheap dollar, the coinage OF
which will injure our honor and credit more
than did the defeat inflicted upon US by his
constituents at Rull RIM Az for the rast tho
infationists and the Southern claimants have
CONTROL of it all, and we shall be fortunate
if we escape without the passage through
committee and through house of the bills in
troduced Monday, promoting reputation.
notification, imitation, Southern claims, sub
sides and other unclean things which the
'reform' Democracy have fastened to claim
as their own in the very opening days of the
session.