The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1885-02-20
The Egis & Intelligencer
Bel Air, Md, February 20, 1885.
OUR wAsHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON. Feb. 18th. 1895


Congress for the past week has been the foot
ball of obstructive dilatory and mischievous
cranks. Appropriation bills and other important
If not Indispensable legislation have been delay
Well, who cares? Let an extra session be called.
h member Of Congress =, Is paid 5000 year and
in his rural home, he draws his pay all the same.
We pay Congress to make laws. 1t Is desperate
They are wretcheJ shirks; they seldom pull to-
gether except on a motion to adjourn, but since
alleged work be Continuous throughout the YEAR. yea
1t would be better to pay them by the day, and
only when they are in their seats. When mem
Der fails to answer to his name on roll-call dock
his wages. If he is tardy, require him TO bring
written excuse from his wife. If these whole
some rules were enforced there would be less
absenteeism, less skipping around the corner,
less solitary and informal adjournment TO the
restaurants rest In the basement OF the capitol. The
ssGss Nth call them
them bummers and loafers. Interested chiefly in
their private ambitions and pleasures. and utter
ly Indifferent to, or ignorant OF, the needs of the
great interests which they are sent to represent
Congress is not up with the times 1t is not at all
progressive. So far as l know parliamentary
methods and procedure are not much better now
than when Rome was a Republic 1000 years ago.
plan has been devised to call the roll by cleo
tricty, and the register instantaneously the vote
of every member, but the old and tedious plan
OF calling the ayes and nays is still followed, con.
Stunning great portion of the session.
An extra session will probably be called early
in April. 1t is said that the Democrats desire TO
avoid an extra session on political grounds but
time legislators should rise above mere petty
expediency and do their duty without fear. In
the end this would prove to be the broadcast and
II will be remembered that eight years ago the
petty Michigan accident who occupied the Vice
Presidents seat in the Senate, assumed that he
was the proper person to declare who was the
President of the United States. Worked by Zach.
Chandler. John Sherman, Morton. and other des-
perate consprators, this puppet had much to do
in making the deplorable makeshft of the cleo.
toral commission possible. will mention that
his name was Ferry. for perhaps the reader has
forgotten his NAME as has the world his existence.
Senator Edmund's, the present Vice President,
recent much discussed announcement of the
appearance" of the returns Is political denial
II tbs@ BY FL s
Edmunds was ready, by any means. as he after
wards showed, when a member of the court which |
his party. This man is profound and able law
yer. but he is as conscienceless and as cunning |
as James G.. Blaine.
Der of the Cabinet of President Cleveland. He is |
earnestyurged by influential Democrats through
out the country. Senator Pendleton does not |
man may be appointed The objection has been |
made that he is too old, but he is younger than
Gladstone Bismarck, or Moltke. He is ablest
the portfolios of State, Finance, Justice or the
INTERIOR 1t is no dsparagement of Others TO say |
that he is the most profound lawyer that has
been in public life since the war; he is thorough
iy posted in home and foreign questions While |
a member of the Senate he exercised without |
arrogance, and through voluntary recognition |
OF his superiority, the functions of leader and |
counsellor TO the Democratic side. There were |
able Democratic Senators around him, there |
were Lamar, Beck. Vest, Mcdonald. Pendeton,
Vorhees, Hill, Morgan and others who might |
have led, had they not with one accord trusted to
the learning, the wisdom, the eloquence and the |
patriotism of 1.-THE grand old man."