The Portland daily press., 1877-10-31
Washington News and Gossip.
THE COMMITTEES.


The striking point about the Committees is
that the South is given great preponderance.
having eighteen chairmanships, while the
West has nine aud the East only We, and
none of these in New England. OF the fnan-
cal committees, the banking and currency
goes 10 the West and the ways and means to
New York. The East has, besides the latter.
only the Pacific railroads, agriculture, manu-
factures and mines and mining. The West
has only the banking and currency public
lands, District of Columbia, war claims, mill
tary affairs, Territories, Presidential elections
and two minor committees; all the rest 90
South. The two changes causing the most
talk are the removal of Morrison from the
ways and means and S. S. Cox from the bank
ing and rules. Few wonder at the selection of
anotner 10 place OF Morrison, but putting Mr.,
Cox off the rules in addition to his main COM
mittees is generally criticised. The ways and
means is moderate-tariff committee the
banking and currency for modification Ger.
Ialnly, and ~ probably repeal of the resump-
tion act. The appropriations is economical:
military affairs against increasing the army:
coinage, weights and measures for silver dol
lar with full legal-tender attachment
AN AVALANCHE OF BILLS.
The House was crushed under an avalanche
of bills Monday, and was actually obliged to
adjourn till Wednesday 10 give the clerks time
to make up the journal. Eight hundred and
forty-ive were introduced and read by their
titles, the reading consuming five hours. This
is the highest number ever introduced in one
day before in the whole history of Congress
The highest number ever reached before has
been about six hundred. One member intro
duced thirty bills. The old members seemed to
think best to have their measures on the cal
andar early, and were quite prominent in pre-
senting bills. 1t Is quite impossible to present
anything but general description of the bills
The majority of the Western members seem to
feel it necessary to put in their bills for modify
ing or repeating the resumption act and for re-
monetizing silver and the Southern members
dealt most largely in internal improvements
and claims. There were many bills to repeal
the bankrupt act Two complete bills revising
the tariff were presented, one from Mr. Willis
OF New York and one from Mr.. Morrison. One
OF the old members of the banking and curren-
cy committee, himself for resumption under
the present act and against silver, saws the in
dications of Monday point to the certain repeal
OF the resumption aot and the restoration of
the silver dollar, so far as the House can con-
troll the matter.
THE SILVER DOLLAR MEN DISAPPOINTED.
At six o'clock Monday after the announce
ment of the committees Mr. Bland, as leader of
the silver dollar men in the House tried to force
the House to consider his. bill under a suspen-
sien of the rules, but the thoughts of dinner
were too much for the silver men, and Mr..
Bland could not muster enough for roll call
The dearest friends of a restored dollar were
much disappointed, but the vote was in no
sense a test. They are sure toI have strong
support whenever the measure.is brought up az
the proper time.