St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-04
Senators Pendleton and Beck
Ventilate the Educational
Bill in the Senate.
The Bill Claimed to Be Fraught Witt
Danger to the Southern States
Especially.
Senator Beck Shows that by Reducing the
Tariff the Southern States Can
Educate Their Illiterate.
The Indian Appropriation Bill Make
Rapid Progress in the House
of Representatives.
The Senate.

BY Senator Black, joint resolution of the
general assembly of Kentucky, urging in
creased compensation for the members of
the life saving station at Louisville.
By Senator Wilson, joint resolution of
| the general assembly of Iowa, urging that,
/ in view of the rapid absorption of public
lands fit for settlement, congress may take
immediate steps to recover the unearned
portions of lands granted to railroads.
By Senator Hoar, petition of 5000 citi-
zens and soldiers in the western states, con-
nected with the national league, praying that
a pension of at least eight dollars be given to
each hon orably discharged soldier and sailor
in the late war.
Bills reported faYorably and placed on the
calendar: For the erection of a public
building at Sacramento. To give the assent
of congress for the construction of free
bridge over the Cumberland river at Nash
vile. To authorize the construction of q
bridge over the Missouri at White Cloud,
Kansas.
The following bills were introduced and
referred:
BY Senator Conger, to provide for the gov
ernment and control Of the Sault ste Marie
canal.
By Senator Call, to provide for the estab-
lishment of silk culture bureau.
/ A resolution was agreed to instructng the
committee ON library to inquire into the ex
pediency of purchasing from the Lewis fam
lily for the United States, the sword worn by
Washington on the occasion of resigning the
commission to congress.
The senate then took up the education
bill
Senator Pendleton addressed the senate.
He said his judgment was clear as to what
should be done, but his sympathies and SEN
sibilities were impelling him in another
direction. This was a bill to appropriate
S105, 900, 900 for education within states, the
money to be expended through a series of
ten years. If $500, 600, 900 sufficed for the
expenses of the government heretofore ad-
ditional taxes must be levied to meet this
expense. A tax on tobacco or whisky pro-
duced within the United States, or on iron,
or something else imported into the United
States. The government of the United States
had no independent fortune. 1t had not a
dollar except what was contributed
in taxes by the people,
and if we were wise we would in the first
section of the bill, impose tax which the
second section eXpends. 1t would have been
well, if, in this bill, the first section had said,
on all wooden goods, or on all iron and steel
manufactures imported into the United
States, and all whisky and tobacco maniac
tured in the UnitsI, States, the taxes hereto
fose imposed should, for the purposes of this
BILL be increased by SO much per cent. He
sympathised fully with the object of the bill,
recognized the suffering and losses expert
onced by the southern people, and appre-
ciated the statements made by DR.. Mays
and others, and had heard those
statements with feeling of honest
pride, that the people of the south were
brethren of ours, co-heirs in the same liberty
and worthy members of the same free gov
ernment Pendleton could not find in the
constitution any authority for a bill of this
Character. The senator from New Hampshire,
Blair, had said the government had power to
perpetuate itself. He held that the education
of the citizen was necessary to the perpetua-
ton of our form of government. In making
that statement the senator had gone far be-
yond the tenth amendment to the constitu-
ton. The government had no such power to
perpetuate itself as was intimated by the
senator from New Hampshire, if, within the
limits of the constitution, no power could be
found to enable the government to
perpetuate itself. The government must
feel, even though the alternative should be
the death of the government He had dill
gently looked into the constitution, but
could not find there the grants invoked by
the supporters of the bill. If illiteracy was
fatal to the right exercise of suffrage, it was
as fatal in states able but unwilling to edu-
cate their children, as it was in those unable
to do so, and if this bill were correct in prin-
ciple, congress would have to educate the
children of the unwilling states as well as
those states unable, and if instead of
being illiterates the uneducated
people had become vagrants throughout
the separate states, would it be the duty of
the federal government to 60 into the states
and establish soup houses for them? Pendle-
ton inquired, where was the limit to the
power of the government, if this bill were
rightly founded, notwithstanding the acute
ness which the senators had displayed in
arguing that because the government may
give land it could give money. Pendleton
could not see the force of the argument. But
supposing the bill right in principle, what
sort of a feast were the southern states invit-
ed to! The statement to the southern states
was, ''you are needy and ought to have this
money, but your habits have been such that
according to the proposition of Pen
dleton's colleague, Sherman - you shall
give guaranty" 1t looked very
much like saying to them, you shall
put your hands upon your mouth, and your
mouths in the DUST in order to be entitled
to this money. Give up your autonomy,
abandon your home rule, abandon the edu-
cation of your children" For what! Merely
that there should be taken out of the treasury,
anc given these recipients the very money they
had put into it. These recipient states, he
would discard the words of the southern and
northern in this connection, had paid this
money by taxation into the United
States treasury. If instead of col
lecting surplus Of one hundred
millions a year, the government were
to collect only 10, 100000 and if the ex-
penses of the government were properly
economical, the people of the states would
have in their own pockets the wherewith TO
educate their own children. Instead of first
collecting it from them in taxes, and then
giving it back in the form provided for in
this bill, the course indicated by Pendleton
would meet every exigency, and would not
violate the constitution. Referring to the
remark of Senator Lamar, that liberty was a
consummate blessing vouchsafed to those
who were brave, faithful, courageous and en-
during. Pendleton said he agreed
with that sentiment, but would
say, he thought it dangerous expedient
to seek to make the people of the south to
look away from their own self reliance, away
from their willingness to labor and to wait.
Senator Beck said, he had at first regarded
the bill under consideration as a sentimental
proposition, which was unlikely to be seri-
ously considered, and even now no idea it
would meet with favor at the other end of
the capitol. There was one way in which to
enable the people of all the states to educate
all their children, and that was, to reduce
taxation. One of the purposes of this bill,
Beck believed to be, to enable the Republi-
can party to enter the coming
canvass, and oppose the demands of