Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1883-01-05
WASHINGTON LETTER.
tFrom Our Regular Correspondent

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WASHINGTON, d. c., Dec. 80, 1882.
Congress is normally in session this
week, but there is no quorum and no
transaction of business worth talking
about. Performances like that of last
week relative to the holiday recess go
far to destroy whatever lingering re-
spect might exist in the public mind
for our national legislature. Resting
under popular vote Of censure, bur
dened with rush of grave duties, starv-
ing claimants knocking at the doors
for justice, and the country laborlng
under war taxation and the hearding
of Treasury reserves, both houses dali
lied and trifled with the adjournment
question, both shirked responsibility
and both practically left the question
to settle itself. The house, after weak
ly protesting that it was in favor Of
working through the holidays, compro-
missed with its own sense of decency
and agreed to take a recess. The Sen
ate, sternly refusing to agree to the re-
cess, quietly dissolves into a small mass
meeting, and Senators who voted
against the holiday vacation betake
themselves to the depota, grip-sack IN
hand, and are on their way out of
town before the vote is cold. Some
voted Mo- on the recess resolution
with railroad tickets in their pockets,
while carpet bags containing a change
of socks, aoer collars and coplous
TASKS OF whiskey reposed under their
seats. There is no vehement popular
objection to holiday recess. Custom
has made this form Of congressional
evasion OF duty familiar to everybody.
But the hypocritical pretence of an in
tenuon to work which half conceals a
precipitate flight of the pretentious
Congressman does arouse certain
popular disgust which great industry
hereafter cannot allay.
The department clerks and employees
are out OF tumor with Congress, and
lay at its door the ills of which they
now complain. 1t has been the GUS
tom for years to close the departments
at IL O'Clock during Christmas week,
thus giving the employees half holi-
day. But this year owing to the action
of Congress, tits said, some OF the Cab
met officers decided not to follow the
custom, and the clerks who have to
stick to their desks are accordingly un-
happy. Some busybody, turning
over some ancient and dusty files the
other day, discovered a law IN existence
commanding Government employees
to work ten hours day in summer and
eight hours in winter Much conster
nation was caused at the Treasury,
where there is great difficulty in getting
them to work five hours and a half a
day. The law had been enacted IN
1896. Nothing further has been heard
about it, but while it is unques,ionably
true that the hours of labor have been
shortened everywhere since 1896, yet
five hours and a half is not much work
and although the pay of a Govern
ment employee is not high. yet as a
rule the work is tri1ing. One way to
reform the civil service would be to
make 1t less attractive to that large
class of the community who are always
on the lookout to get something for
nothing. They have "a pinched and
hungry existence, it is true, but they do
an amazingly small amount of work.
There is somewhat OF a nervous feeling
among certain clerks in the internal
revenue bureau in consequence of the
action of Congress abollshing
internal revenue taxes. Abollshing |
the taxes viii throw them out of their
places. Some of them smelling tn.
battle from afar have already instituted |
for getting transferred to
other branches of the Treasury De-
parlment. Certain census Office clerks,
who some time since we're afraid that
the finishing up of the census would
displace them, have gained hope that
the census bureau will be maintained
as regular bureau of statistics of the
Treasury Department.
The United States Supreme Court
was the arena for an old-fashioned for.
ensic display just before the holiday
adjournment. Mr.. Corkllng was here
and made another of his greatest eff.
torts" in the celebrated tax case of the
Central Pacific Railroad 1t is now
Two years since the ex-senator has
been heard in extended remarks in
Washington, and the Supreme Court
chamber was Gro ded with ladies and
gentlemen anxious once more to lister
70 HIM. Probably Mr.. Conkling never
spoke with better or more effect. It's
understood that Il the railroad wins the
,ase his fee will be $4,000. He de-
ivered a constitutional argument of
several hours length, and told precise
y how the fourteenth amendment came
o be adopted, and labored very hard
o make it apply to the case of his
lientc When ha had Ea:aLai l