Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-03-31
Congressional Fiddle.Faddle.


The people of the country have been
wearily waiting for four months for Con-
gress to do something to justify its assem-
bling. AS yet it has been barren of results;
though there are many signs that there is a
league forming for final descent upon
take fifteen or twenty million dollars from
the treasury for rivers and harbors and
seventy or eighty millions more for the dis
tributive plunder of the Blair educational
bill. 1t may be true that the less legislation
we have from Congress the better; no new
laws are better than bad ones and since Con-
gress shows neither disposition nor capacity
to deal with the great subjects of tariff
revision and silver coinage, it may be that
its time cannot be more harmlessly en-
ployed than with such debate as occurred
in the two Houses yesterday.
1t is submitted. however, that fiddle
faddle of this sort, too frequent in our halls
of legislation, is calculated to bring Con-
gress into disrepute and create wide
spread popular disgust and distrust. In
the House, for instance, Houk, of
Tennessee, gets up and berates the admin
istration and the turning out of lot of
crossroads postmasters down in his state
and the turning in of lot of others, as
cribing it to the influence of g a man who
had paid himself salary out of the child
ren's school fund for two years after he
went out of office" Then ensues wrangle
like this
Mr.. McMillin-To whom does the gentle
man refer =?
Mr.. Houk-You know Just as well as any
body else on earth l have the record, if you
come round privately.
Mr.. McMiilin-I insist that when man
goes to assasainate chararter-and this is
unmitigated assassination-he should have
the boldness to do it like man.
Mr. Houk--I have the boldness to tell you
privately, or to meet il in any other way.
Mr.. McMillin-No man ought to attempt
to do that indirectly which he has not the
boldness to DO directly. ] undertake to say
that the man he Is attempting to reach is the
equal of any man he can boast of, and will
not, under the rules of the House, say how
far ne Is the superior of this individual Mr..
Houk) In all that constitutes manhood. Mr..
HOuk suggested that there were plenty OF
men on Pennsylvania avenue who were the
superiors OF his colleague. Mr. McMillin
would express the opinion--if IL were par
liamentary-that there were men in the peni-
t6ntiary who were the superiors of his col
league; and Mr.. Houk had no doubt his
colleagues superiors had been hanged in
prisons.
Over in the Senate the other day Logan
was understood to say that Hale's opposi.
s tion to his army increase bill was inspired
by the opposition of "others." AS Hale
Is held to be " Blaine's bub," everybody
thought Logan was driving at his old col
league, and the newspapers echoed the sus
picions and voiced the whisperings of the
Senate chamber. Yesterday Teller got the
noor, and after proceeding to maui Logan
TOT always displaying his military record
ana prowess, he touched him up for his
Language about the combination of sena
tors and others against his bill Then
they got into long controversy owe,
what Logan said, over what this
Record said he said and what it failed
70 say he said. Thus it went on for som,
time. And of this sort is great deal q
the proceedings in Congress. 1t neye
was any better the ordinary legislature
worse. Most men who are sent TO tbes
naeemblages seem to lose their heads whe
they get upon their feet. They forgt
what they are sent for. The public min
md business are kept in constant unre.
= because Of the doubts as 10 what Congre.
will do. There Is great pile Of combust
~ material on hand all the time waitiI
~ nnme fool to drop the match and ever
7 ~ q two there is more or less OF conf
G1ofion and much turmoil until 1t is extil
& onl1hod.
1he few good, sincere men who 60