The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-05-05

It has unhappily become customary
TO dcnounce Congress when it adjourus,
and the organs of the party which has
controlled Congress are in the habit of
meeting the denunciation with feeble
apologies and deprecations. But not
even these win be brought forward in
behalf of the Forty-seventh Congress.
As Cromwell said of the Tory Parlia-
ment after he had dissolved it: "There
was not dog to bark at their going"
This Congress leaves no sp0logists and
no friends.
1t is one of the anomalies of our sys-
tenn that a whole session of Congress
may pass before the elected representa-
tives of the people can come together to
execute the will of the people. At this
last session the first effort, we believe,
has been made to remove this anomaly
by legislation. 1t is natural that the
effort should now have been made, for
the anomaly has never before been SO
| glaring and so mischievous. The sec
Ond session of the Forty>seventh Con-
gress has been held in defiance of a d.
rect, emphatic and almost unprecedent-
ed condemnation by the people of the
acts and omissions of the first session of
that body. 1t is not worth while, per-
haps, to attempt to apportion among
measures or among men the exact share
of discredit into which the first session
brought this Congress. The acceptance
of man so tainted as Robson as the
leader of the majority, and of Robeson's
man Keifer as the Speaker, excited
public disgust which was deepened by
Robeson's selections for committees.
He put himself at the head of two inn
pOrtant committees, one of them the
Committee ON Naval Expenditures, in
which it was commonly believed that
he would take advantage of the expert
ence he had acquired in the Navy De-
partment of the manner in which he
could most easily break into the Treas
ury. He. put a colorless member, Mr..
Hiscock, at the head of the Committee
on Appropriations, and Mr.. Hiscock
soon acquired color, and very dark
color, as man who could be trusted
not to scrutinize appropriations pro-
vided only they were lavish. He put
Reed, OF Maine, at the head of the Ju-
dietary Committee, though Reed had
no standing whatever as a jurist; and
Reed-speedily showed that it was not
necessary to be lawyer but only man
of business in order TO extract profitable
opportunities from what had always
been thought committee of much
honor but Of few commercial chances.
Reed contrived to have the question of
the forfeiture of the land grants to the
Northern Pacific Railroad referred to
his committee, and to prevent for two
sessions any legislation looking towards
forfeiture. Without saying that Reed |
was bribed. we may see that Reeds re-
ports and Reeds action were worth an
enormous sum of money to the corpor-
alton in question, and that any man,
lawyer or layman, who would father |
those reports and take that action with |
out being hired to take it would be a
very great fool.
Of the measures jobbed and log
rolled through the first session by these
men the River and Harbor bill excited
the most intense Indignation. But it
owed that distinction to chance rather
than to any supremacy of demerit. 1t
took great amount of money out of
the Treasury at single haul, it was
pushed through Congress in the face of
ontspoken public disapproval and it en-
countered the Presidents veto. But it
was no worse or more profigate than
the lavish appropriations for public
buildings, or than dozen other acts
for which it became the scapegoat. In
fact, the palm for impudent rascality
probably belongs to the treatment of
the Northern Pacific question by the
majority of Reeds committee, who.
with the help of Keifer, has prevented
the question from coming before the
House at all. The solemn sham of the
Tariff Commission was also among the
efficient causes of the public indigna-
ton, but for this the President must at
least share the responsibility with Con-
gress. He might have appointed
Commission which would not have been
a sham. II
Whatever the causes, the fact remains
that the Forty-seventh Congress met for
its second session under 3 burden of
popular disgust such as no previous
Congress has ever had to carry. and
which had already changed its efficient
majority into weak minority of the
Forty-eighth Congress. The second
session has done nothing whatever to
relieve the odium the Republican party
sustained from the acts of the first, and
The last act of Congress was fifty enough
the helpless adoption of tariff Of ,
which not one Of its advocates pro
lessed to be able to forctell the results
either upon revenue or upon business.
IN II. World.
Tnadoruhir 4. <Lo ~