Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1881-05-05
How are the People to Know Under
What Laws they Live2

How are the People to Know Under
What Laws they Liver
National View.
There is Il law prohibiting banker
from becoming a member Of congress-
How does this tally with the fact that in
the last congress there were l44 nat
ional bankers and men interested in
banks.
Right here we have something to
say in regard to the manner in which
laws are made, affecting the most i'm
portant interests of the people, while
the people remain as utterly ignorant
of those laws as though 10 enactment
had been made. How many people
who voted for members of congress
last fall, knew the existence or bearing
of one-fourth the laws changed in part
or altogether enacted by the men, or
their prototypes for whom they were
voting? Not one out Of five hundred
of them knew. And us legislation is
and has been carried on it is impossible
that they should know. Bills are in
troduced one session and drag through
perhaps half-dozen, as the men inter-
ested in them desire otherwise, for it
is true that in numberless casses mem
bers forced by some eXigency of the
times or urgency of their constituents
introduce bills which they themselves
covertly controvert. Even where
this is not the case, bills drag through
dismal series of referrings and call
ings. There is no record Of them
open to the public save that found in
the Congressional Record, and that is
issued in limited numbers, each con-
gresham supplying his constituents at
about the rate of one in five hundred
voters. OF these the men who receive
the Record containing the introduction
of bill seldom see that containing its
passage or defeat, and thus the Record
as at present issued, serves no purpose
for the general information of the peo-
pie. Fully one half the voters in every
congressional district is composed of
agricultural men, who as rule read
t%oir iVo r'Tro InooI ' "nror ~ rho rfr citv d,ilv
ulon S,ioa ~ lV0 oi P"r a",not arr,rd :n,oo !,
uo,o ,.t ,'o', ",,u U' on1 o IoonI 'no oro,
.ol'U' U,''v, ',i,n nr ,' i,no w ono dmnot
n,"1t rm"1 no,w ,,osao, e ;uto law, Iurir% w%olo
nnmnra"s ooO p''''' INV ~"
Uni M v''i Lo,u ,,, tho ,,oo,lo to rrov,
,nllnr o, ',hot uo% ,,",s @ thoy I FT Iiye9 Thov Io
nt I, I,o, mm' Vow ,"% is II iniordo6 thov sLouIG m
I, .oS m"' w., a. ,Ii, ,,or,, ;onor,nno w lios t,o
nn,,o,',,a mUm 49, " Vr'io iou,,,n, ouor hnnost mnn
and the moietv of orr LEGISLATORS who
oro not bankers nre LAWYERS
Uos history aver shown a nponle 81
hefooIod to ihcir own destruction ms
have hoon thn noonIn or this so.cnllcd
free Americn9 Frpe2 In thc nomeof
MI that word means in what arc thcv
free9 m % Thore is n hioh sounJipg rhyme
ovtont which INNS in this wise!
','o ,''.,, ..t ',', a,,,, -, ,',n I NV, ,,iu
WVSpDW snpow-"Ecs @ SjII raIl upon NON the "S sod 3D..
But executes frccman's will
AS lightning does the will of God"
This is euphOnious in words, grand in
idea, perfect in rhythm, and lie in its
application. For the very reasons we
have named, it is lie; and the vote of
the people has been made to clench the
enactment of laws of which they never
heard, which had they heard of they
would have denounced, and had they
understood, they would have abhorred
them as much as they did the old lie
of lineal monarchies of which these are
the very essence and offspring.
We demand that this STYLE of lepis.
lation he swept from among our evils.
of which it is the verv Pandora's box,
and we appeal to the neople themselves
TO disabuse their minds from this
Ignorance. Lepislation to be the ex.
positor of the will of the people must
be enacted by a majority, and that a
direct two.t6irls majority. or it is nm.
constitutional and invalid, Are tbe
people voting even Indirectly by the
mouths of their so.called representa.
tives when those REPRESENTATIVES
present proiected laws for action Inv
congress of which that neonle never
heard SO much as the initial word
much less have ever had placed before
them its ideas or its aim for their con.
-, - 7,