Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1880-07-02
WASHINGTON LETTER
from our regular Correspondent.l
WASHINGTON, June 81. 1880


Congress has quietly folded its tents
and departed 1t was the'most decent
and orderly winding up of session /
have ever witnessed. Instead of noisy
and disagreeable night sessions, and d
grand scramble, the business was kept
well in hand and cleared up without
haste or confusion. The closing days
witnessed the attempt, as usual, to
'sput through some little jobs, but
they all failed. The lobby, what
there is of it, goes away dissatisfied
and unhappy. But the lobby since
the Democrats have controlled Con
gress is but small affair, without in
fuence enough to be worth compari-
son with that of few years ago, DUR
ing the era of good stealing, when
Garfield and Blaine and other Radical
luminaries were pocketing stocks and
$4,000 fees. The present Congress
has been strictly honest, as was its
predecessor, and it is amusing to hear
the friends of liberal appropriations"
groaning over the parsimonious habits
of the Democrats and contrasting these
with the glorious days when broad
and liberal minded statesmen psed to
"make things howl in the last hours
of the session, and when the House,
instead Of adj ,urning early on the
last day, used to sit all night and rush
through jobs to the tune of sometimes
millions in the closing hours. 1t is
not surprising that the jobbets, bum
mers and lobbyists are solemnly per-
suaded that the country would go to
the dogs should the Democrats elect
their President.
But while this happy relief from the
lobby and its enormous jobs is source
OF congratulation to the American
people, there is still one feature of
closing session which touches the
heart and enlists the sympathies Of the
just man. There We're many care
worn, anxious faces among the throng
in the corridors of the Capitol on
Wednesday last; many to whom the
fleeting hours of the session were filled
with deep concern and anxious sus-
pense There are some who have
long been supplcants for their just
dues, for money honestly owed to them
be this rich and powerful Government
and which they need to lift the heavy
burden of poverty and declining years.
Many of these will G., to their graves
long before their claims will be adjust
ed, not because of any inclination on
the part of Congress to do them
wrong, but because it is simply i'm
possible, amid the ever increasing
pressure of such business, to find time
for the consideration of ball the claims
presented Until there is some tribu-
nal created for the express and sole
purpose of investigation and deciding
on claims of the character to which
observation-disclosures claims, having no
connection with damages or loss in
flicted by acts or incidents Of the war
we must SO on doing cruel injustice
to many good citizens, keeping the
old, the poor, the wretched out of
small sums that belong to them
Some of these claims are thrown out
or Systematically rejected by the de-
partment that should pay them, and
the funds misappropriated to some
other purpose. while the only appeal
is to Congress. Its a national shame
that these things exist, and the sooner
a remedy is found and applied, the
better it will be for our selfrespcct as
a people.
n