St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1885-03-12

about the eight men who are to have
so much to say in running this govern
ment for the next four years. Besides
the ''heavy" reading on the pages re-
ferred to, there will be found letter
about Florida from Elk Editor Harris,
another communication from Michi-
gar, very interesting agricultural de
partment, besides two little poems
and one or two first-class squibs.
The Inefficiency Of Congress.
1t has long been apparent that Con
grcss does its proper work with great
difficulty, and with less and less salts
faction To the country. No Congress
ever gave such sound reasons for dis
satisfaction, or showed such unmistak-
able signs of paralysis rs that which
adjourned last week. They are unjust
who charge it with being either stupid
or dishonest; seldom has it been sur
passed either in ability or honesty
The trouble, we believe, is organic
rather than personal.
When Congress met, in Decemb er,
l1S3, we had been suffering for two
years from industrial depression; the
productive capacity of our factories
had outrun the demand of the home
market; creditors had learned from
hard experience that they could not
hope for Justice from distant debtors
until Il national bankrupt law was re-
enacted; the compulsory coinage of
silver portended financial trouble if
not national disaster war taxes were
needlessly continued. for the preceding
Congress had abated them less than
3 per cent and we were nearing anoth-
er presidential election withourany law
to regulate what might prove to be
disputed count.
Under these circumstances the cOun-
try had right to expect some legisla-
ton which would lessen the burden Of
taxation, aud give it a wider market
for its products, do justice between
creditor aul debtor regardless of state
lines, and insure it against the posi-
bility Of danger from a disputed
count. None of these things have
been done.
More than this, the necessary APP
preparation bills were delayed till the
last hours of the session, and then
passed in such haste that it is fair to
assume that no member of either
House, unless he was one of the con
ference committees, which finally
compromised the differences of the two
Houses-eould know for just what he
voted when he approved these great
supply bills. The president of the
Senate, Mr.. Edmunds, and Speaker
Carlyle, did public service in direct
ing attention, in their farewell address
before the two Houses, to the increas-
ing inability of Congress to meet the
just demands of the people, and to the
dangers of hasty and ill-consIdered
legislation. We may be sure they
would not thus have published the de-
fects of Congress if these had not be
come so serious as to require Immediate |
consideration.
That the chief causes of the trouble |
are not in the individuals composing /
the two houses, nor in the particular |
party which happens to control either,
is proved by the fact that the same
state of affairs, though in varying de- !
gree, has been seen in Congresses of !
different personal and political char
acter. The House is far more inefii- /
cient than the Senate, and some of the [
principal causes of that inefficiency |
are the following: Its size-325 mem |
bers makes it too unwieldy for the |
rapid and safe transaction of its prop |
er business which increases with our ]
population and wealth. Speaker Car
lyle says:
"None who have not bad actual ex-
perience, can fully appreciate the diff !
ticultieS of transactIng public business
IN "a body as large rs this. In the first /
Congress the House of Representative
consisted of only siXty-seven mem
bers- less than the present mem Der
ship of the Senate. Now there are
}25 members besides the delegates
from the territories. From the organ
izatiOn of the government to the close
of the Twenty fifth Congress Ia period
of fifty years. there were introduced
into the House, as shown by its records,
: "a bills, while during the present
Congress there has been introduced /
: .G-}U-almOst as many as during that
half century. At present each one OF
our general appropriation bills en-
brace as much money as the whole
amount of the net ordinary expendi-
ture of the government during the
first nine or ten years of its existence.
aud the specific objects to be investi-