Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-12-07

The Plain Dealers Enormous Innocence"
The Cleveland Plain Dealer tries to make
u. feel sorry for chsracterizing as ''enor-
nous Innocence its proposition that the
republican majority In the senate should
elect president pro tempore from the dem
ocratic minority. In the course of its solemn
and awful preachment at the GLoRE-RE
PUBLIC. it rebukingly says:
Well, perhaps II was Innocence on the part
OF the Plain Dealer 10 presume that there was
any unSeifishness, any fairness, any sense OF
proprety. any patriotism. any instinct higher
than selfish greed for Office, in the republican
party"
Come. come, now, Plain Dealer. you are
taking entirely too gloomy view. BE
cheerful. or else you will find it difficult To
be candid. You allow-don't you'-that
it is pretty customary for the majority party
in legislative bodies to choose the presiding
officer from the majority side Did you ever
know democratic majority 50 ''unseltiSh"
r. to fail 10 do that thing? Where would
he ANY fairness, any sense of propriety'
in asking majority Ia do otherwise?
The majority party of house of legisla-
ture Is responsible for all its Legislative
acts. Its officers-its organs of action
are potent factors in this responsibility.
The presiding officer has powers that no
majority party can afford To commit to a
member of the minority. Ii would give il
I self away by doing so.
7 Well. the Us. senate Is republican. The
J republican majority in it will be held re-
spanSble before the country-and the dem
ocratic party will see that it is so held-fol
( whatever the senate does or fails to do
Would then, the Plain Dealer-come now,
or right that this majority. which has 81
much at stake. which has its character a
stake. which has its very existence at stake
should go over to the enemy and borrow /
leader TO lead it into mistakes. and snares
and plots for its destruction? We think w
were heading in the right direction when w
spoke of such a proposition as ''enormou
innocence"
The senate has no call 10 send its thought
outside of its own chamber 10 find its right
and duties. Ii has no call TO calculate out
side contingencies. 1t has no call 10 con
template its presiding officer In any othel
capacity than that Of president pro tempor'
of the senate 1t should not elect him witt
reference 10 some other position that h
might be summoned out of the senate {,
fill. in case the incumbent of that position
should be disabled or should die. Tht
senate has nothing TO do with anything o
that kind. 1t should not be considered a.
.It,cting a president of the United State
when it is electing its own president.
The senate is republican. 1t will be hel,
accountable to the country for all its act
as republican. Its presiding officer is thu
principal and most efficient instrumen
whereby it acts. Ii would be ''enormou
innocence for the majority party deliber
ately 10 select political enemy for that In
strumeut-give its enemy an az 10 chop OF
it, own head.
/ The senate elects its president not fo
Z contingencies that may never arise: il elect
I him for actual duties; and the party tina
has the responsibility for the senate's act:
always chooses him. and always choose:
/ him with express reference 10 that respon
bility.
Therefore We are still free 10 maintain
/ that the Plain Dealers proposition wa:
| enormous innocence or else an enOrmou,
/ Joke: and if the p. ID. had not broken ou
I in lis half-coumn OF doleful sound, W,
should have always supposed it to he tn,
LATTER