National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-03-23
An Extra Session.

The opponents of an extra session say,
among other things, that the minority
will obstruct legislation, and that it may
be difficult to keep quorum in session
any length of time. Well, what will
happen in December? Contests for seats
must be settled; the appropriations for
the next fiscal year must be made; an
apportionment bill and q funding bill
passed; our attitude toward the
Panama De Lesseps scheme decided,
and other questions OF grave
importance considered. An accident
or two during the summer might change
the political complexion of the body.
Now it has members who were never
elected. Why not begin the struggle for
their displacement? Why not organize
this spring, and have the standing COM
mittees appointed? If there is to be a
grand campaign of filibustering the sooner
it beginssthe sooner it will end. Let US
realize the fact that both Houses are so
evenly balanced SIS to render it highly I'M
portant for the majority in each to COM
menee the long struggle for the proper
consideration of necessary public business
whichis inevitable. The Bourbon element
of the Democratic party may drive away
from its ranks in such a contest the more
patriotic and reasonable of the Senators
and members, who now act with it more
from habit than from inclination. If the
mouthing of Hill and the braying of
some of the lesser lights in the last House
are not precursors of better day for the
Republic then all signs fail.
We are upon the eve Of great events.
The issue of the day, and the one which
will force aside ali others, and may finally
obliterate party lines, is whether beaten
party shall strangle the Government in
Congress. The extra session of the last
Congress was the salvation of the Nation.
The revolutionary conduct of the BOur-
bons aroused the people to the fact that
events had scotched the snake, not killed
it. Now, with the Executive Department
in good hands, the test is to be made anew of
the willingness of the Bourbon Democracy
to submit to the inevitable and allow the
wheels of Government to reyolve. The
desperation of that faction may lead it to
new assaults upon the public tranquility
and the general good. If its purposes
were voiced by Hill, of Georgia, and the
few who so impertinently lectured and so
ftlriously raved at General Malone last
week, then an extra session is simperatively
demanded. Common prudence dictates
that the worst shall at once be known OF
these enemies of freedom of action, these
intolerant and arrogant representatives
of the absolutism known among its own
adherents as the Solid South" Better
that now, than next December, they
should unfold their banner Of obstruc-
ton. The remedy for the evils they will
seek to visit upon the country Will be
found III their own excuses, and the in
dignation they will create against them
selves in their own ranks in Congress
and among the people of the Ma
ton. We regard the present condition
of the legislative branch of the Govern
ment as fraught with danger to the pub
lie welfare, and trust that the President
may call it together shortly, in order
that doubts as to the practicability of do
ing business at all may be removed. Let
the disease be brought out at once on the
surface, and the great medicine of public
opinion will readiust the situation. To
this end VIC favor an extra session.