The Evening critic., 1884-02-12
Attempting Too Much by Legislation

Our perturbed friends, the capitalists
and employers of labor throughout the
country, whose deputations are visiting
this city in alarm at the threatened action
of Congress, which may ruin them and
bring disaster to their numerous employees,
must bring little philosophy to bear in
their cases. Some allowance should he
made for the well-meaning but ill-trained
gentlemen who have been sent up to the
Capitol of the Nation to make laws for the
rest of their fellow-citizens. A majority
of them know little more of the science and
art Of government than can be picked up
in the common schools, supplemented by
experience in conducting or settling the
ordinary disputes and petty dealings Of
their neighbors. They have much to learn
when they get here, and in their behalf it
must be said that they generally apply
themselves diligently to their tasks, all
though much diverted therefrom by the
opportunities of ofiice-seekers and claim
hunters and social meetings.
The average Congressman intends in
reality to be public servant. He opened
wide his ears, before starting for Washing
ton, to catch the faintest murmur of n
| grievance. In some districts he hears that
| the farmers are being eaten up by an in
| iquitous high tariff; in Others the mechanic
or factory hand is suffering by the competi-
tion. Of foreign pauper labor. One dreadful
Iumor comes to him that the banks are
| gathering in all the money another out
cry goes out that but for the railroads
charges his constituents would be happy
another thinks it is the tobacco or whisky
| tax that prevents the community from be.
| ing comfortable. He resolves to have all
these things corrected by new law, and
him generally by lawyers without reputa'
bic practice, doctrinaires, or speculators
| The process is so simple and easy of right.
| ing wrongs and reforming the world by bill
and resolution that it seems pity not &C
pass them into laws in hurry. 1t is only
when these efforts at legislation come to bS
discussed In their practical application, and
their effect on business and vested rights
that the embarrassment begins. Here the
enlightenment of the Congressman is in
order; and good deal of that kind of in,
struction in the National School is going on
at this time.
The manufacturers are threatened with
loss by tariff bills; the banks are threatened
by tax bills; the ship.owners are threat
ened by free ships; the railroads are threat
ened by regulation offares aud freight by
statute; the railroad builders, who were
promised land grants, arc threatened with
having the offered inducement withheld
upon mere technicalities which an homes
man would be ashamed to resort to; th
telegraph companies arc threatened will
competing lines, to be built out of the pub
lie Treasury, and so on through the list.
In a morbid desire TO show economy il
some department. of the Government, Con
gress is willing to strain the National homo
in another, and to open the door TO create
evils than those to be abatod
For example, in the matter of land grant
1t must be admitted that with tho few OK
ceptions where farmer settlers pay cash 70
the public lands for actual homesteadl
there is an enormous robbery of the publ
domain. The railroad builders are abou