The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-10-11

control the president nor the senate in the
discharge Of their respective constitutional
duties. II Messrs. Conkling and Plat had
not betrayed their trust, President Gar
| field would probably not have been assas-
sinated, and the republicans, with Senator
| Davis vote, could have elected a president
of the senate. 1t is not becoming in a
party which has lost an advantage because
| of the reereancy OF its own chosen repre-
sentatives to appeal to the other party not
to use the power which that recreancy has
placed in its hands. There can be little
doubt we think, that if upon the assem-
bling of the senate he.republican senators
entitled to vote were in majority, they
| would elect a republican president even if
they knew that his first duty would be to
swear in newly elected senators who would
give the majority to the democrats. We
| can hardly expect our political opponents
to be more forbearing, and they viii I'M
doubtedly elect democratic president of
the senate"
Again these same partisan papers of little
calibre are loud in their announcements of
the manner of the choice of the president
pro tenn. The senators-elect should be
first sworn in and then let the whole body
elect the presiding officer, is the advice
they offer. That the majority of the body
should effect its organization as it sees fit
is to them political crime of the highest
magnitude, when that majority is an oppo-
sition one. Harper's Weekly disposes of
that argument like this:
1T is curious that there should have
been any discussion of the order to be OBJ
served at the meeting of the senate, be-
cause the twenty eighth section of the re
vised statutes provides that 1.-THE oath of
Office shall be administered by the presi
dent of the senate to each senator who
shall hereafter be elected, previous to his
taking his seat" No senator newly elect
ed can take his seat until he is duly sworn,
and he can be duly sworn only by the
president of the senate. If there be no
president of the senate, no newly elected
senator can be sworn. 1t would seem,
therefore, to be demonstrated, as clearly as
anything can be demonstrated, that the
senators who have been duly sworn are
alone authorized to organize the senate,
and should at once perform that duty.
Nothing else can be done until that is
done.
The argument against this course, drawn
from the fact that the newly elected sena
tors when sworn may change the party
IdJUIIty Ol TIC SSHdlc, may IAuucHCt TIC
vote of some senators of the organizing
majority, but if not, it certainly ought not
to delay organization, If, however, such
fact be a reason that senators should dis
regard their party feeling, it would follow
by similar reasoning that where the cleo
tions of an intermediate year show popu
lar majority against the party majority in
congress, that majority should renounce
it's party action. This seems to US fund
amental misconception of republican rep
resentative government"
The whole of the matter simply is, the
democrats have majority of the senate.
1t is the right and duty of that majority to
organize the body. Every precedent was
in favor of choosing one of their own num-
Der as president. There is no reason to
suppose that the republicans would have
done anyway differently had they had the
power. 1t would have been worthy of re-
mark had they done differently than what
they did. The republicans can howl about
the matter if they desire; what they think
or say is matter of very trifling impor
lance, but the democrats throughout the
land will approve of the course of their
representatives and sustain them in what
they have done