Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-03-11
Gun wAsHrNsros LErrEn.
LEGISLATION BY LoBBY-MAssEE RAIL
ROAD CONcEPTIONS-DEBP
REELECTION.
tFrcm cum reguIar correspondent.l

gFrcm cur regular Correspondent
This Congress WAS evidently not
preordained to tinker the tariff or
reform the revenue laws, and, if
the American people want anything
done in this line, they will have to
elect a Congress, two years hence,
pledged to do the work. and, what
is important, make that Congress
keep its pledge. This is not easy
to do. for, the moment Congress
comes to Washington, it no longer
inhales the ozone of its district, but
sucks the rich malaria of the Cap
ital. This il a metaphor, but it
means that representative is no
longer entirely under the influence
of his constituency or the.sentiment
that elected him, but under the in
fluence of the lobby. The lobby is
hydra, devil-fish sphinx, and
boss. 1t has variety of shapes
and costumes, and its methods are
bribery, witchcraft, and corruption.
do not say that every congress-
man will succumb to one or all of
these methods, but a sufficient
number will suecumb to give the
lobby the balance of power in our
national legislature. During the
last ten years, public attention has
been much diverted by partizan
politics and and effete issues, and
this diversion has enabled the lob
by to entwine its endless coils like
the mighty serpent which, in the
vision, crushed the universe to-
gether. If the lobby had but one
head and one lust it would be more
dangerous than it is, but like polit-
ical parties, it is somewhat rent by
divisions and is often forced to
pool its issues' in order to approach
its ends.
The most important questions
when Congress assembled were the
revision of the tariff and a reduction
of taxes. The first question has
been indefinitely postponed or bur
led In a committee. 1t is safe to
say that the present Congress will
not change the internal revenue
laws. Meanwhile, the national i'm
debtedness is being reduced at the
rate of nearly $3.50, 200 per year,
and, if this rate of reduction is kept
up, but little of the debt will remain
ten years hence.
The most gigantic scheme recent
ly proposed by the lobby is trans
continental railroad, to be subsi-
dised by extensive land grants in the
interest of the Labor League. The
proposed object of the movers OF
this scheme is to build road that
monopolists cannot gobble, and one
that is 10 be run in the interest of
the people and not of capitalists.
The idea is good, pity that it is and
can be only an idea.
Captain Eads, who opened the
choked mouth of the Mississippi to
commerce, aud built iron-clads dur
ing the war in less time than it
takes a country cobbler to make a
pair of shoes, is still urging his
plan of a ship railway across the
continent through southern Mexico.
The plan looks too big for human
accomplishment, but that is the
way every big thing has looked un-
til IT has been accomplished. If
Captain Eads can muster a more
powerful lobby than the present
transcontinental railroad nagnateo,
who are opposed to all competing
plans, whether by Panama or
southern Mexico, we may yet live
to see the dry lard navigation for
ships on wheels.
WASHINGTON, D. c., March :, 1882.