The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1878-06-29
Speaker Randall and the
West and south.
IN. o. Democrat.

members of Congress are left to
contemplate, as the result OF their
singular infatuation of MIR. Randall,
the defeat of every scheme looking
to the protection and advancement
of the interests of their particular
sections, and especially all those
measures which were devised for
the special benefit of the great
Mississippi Valley. In the mis-
carriage of all these measures the
hand of Mr.. Randall is plainly WISH
BILE, but specially is it SO in the
Brazilian mail contract. This meas
IRE, in which the great West was
vitality interested. owes its defeat
to an arbitrary ruling Of his as
Speaker, which was an abuse Of
his office and authority SO scandal
Gus as to occasion universal re-
mark and very just denunciation
from the friends of that measure.
When Mr.. Randall, of North Caro-
lima, the chairman of the Postal
Committee, from which the bill
was reported, endeavored to call
up the bill for consideration of the
Senate amendment making the APP
preparation for the Brazilian steam
ship line Speaker Randall refused
arbitrarily to hear him, saying that
the bill was in the hands of Can
non, IL minority member of the
committee and bitter Radical, who
had opposed the bill III committee
with the utmost persistence and
bitterness, and chiefly because it
was regarded as of peculiar benefit
to the South.
What right the Speaker had
to assume that a bill WAS III charge
of any member of a committee
Ot1er than the chairman does not
appear; but to forbid tre chairman
of ii committee calling up BID on
the ground that 1t was il anybody $
hands, much less those OF mi
norlty member known to have Bit
terly oppose it in committe, was a
scandaloas outrage aud an arbitra-
ry abuse of power which merits
unmeasured denunciation. 1t sim
ply means that Mr.. Randall was
opposed to the measure, and deter
mined to use and abuse every means
at bis command to accomplish it's
defeat. Such man is, as gen
eral proposition, unfit for the high
position of Speaker, and he has
certainly not acted even with hon.
esty and candor towards the ma
jority of the men who placed him
in the Speakers chair.
At the time of Randall's capdi-
dacy we suspected his disposition
towards the South and West, and
opposed his election. His candi-
dacy, it will be remembered, was
most disingenuous and uncandid.
We attracted attention to this fact
at the time. and appealed TO the
South and West to stand together
for the protection of their mutual
interests. Our own choice for the
Speakership was Hon. Milton Say
Ter, whose views with reference to
the great interests of the West and
Southwest were pronounced and
met with our full Endorsement
Yet We were willing to accept any
Western man holding the same
views. We believe no Eastern
Democrat could advocate these
measures without sacrificing him.
self with his own constituency, and
we had a special distrust of Mr.
Randall.
The extreme ea,nestness with
which lis candidacy was urged by
the New York Sun, whose hostility
to the South and West is not less
pronounced than that of the Inter
Ocean, first aroused our suspicion
The Sun asserted most positively
that MIR. Randall was pledged te
oppose all the schemes for the i'm.
proyement of the Mississippi, the
levee bill, the Texas Pacific bill
and other measures looking to the
internal improvements of the Wesl
and South. But, in opposition tc
these averments of the Sui, the
Galveston News published n state
nent, purporting to be authorized
! by Randall himself which fatl,