The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1886-05-15

MEMORIALS TO CONGRESS-.
How Right of Petition is Exercised
BY Citizens.

oy SitsACmSs
New York Start
The two houses of Congress are
being treated to a great assortment
of memorials of the manufactured
order-that is, printed blanks sent
out from the literary bureau of the
interest to be served, filled up by
citizens, societies o. lodges and for
warded to their Representatives
just now the temperance memorials
are numerous. They are neatly got
ten up and backed by the printers
ready for folding. On the back is
tabular statement classifying the
signers--as "lawyers, 5; doctors, 10;
preachers. 7; merchants, IA; school
teachers, 81" etc. The memorials
against the Dunn Free Ship bill are
also numerous. The policy adopted
by the ship carpenters and other
ship builders unions is to send
these memorials in blank to
the local trades organizations all
over the country in every branch of
industry. These have reached Con
gress by hundreds and are still ar
irving by every mail.
The dairy interests are now very
active in the petition business. The
committee on agriculture is accumu-
lating vast quantity of dairy litera-
ture explaining in severe language
the damage that is being worked
upon the great dairying industries
by the bogus butter, bogus cheese
and other bogus people who come
into conflict with legitimate dairy
interests in the markets. The great
number of these dairymen's memo
rails and the diversity of their prep
aration show that they do not, as
the others, spring from common
source, but are the spontaneous ex
pressiOns of local communities,
meetings and organizations. If pub
lie sentiment is ever to be indicated
by the right of petition, Congress
cannot fail to be impressed that
there is very formidable public SEN
timent in favor of taxing limitations
of dairy products and requiring
them to be labeled and sold for
what they are, and not what they
are pretended to be.
The anti-free ship memorial says;
Should this bill be allowed pas
sage, it will sign the death knell of
the only means Of support of
hundreds of thousands of families of
skilled mechanics and laborers, and
completely crush the ship building
business of the United States.
This petition is drawn in pretty
much the same strain that memorials
from highly protected industries are
drawn in, received earlier in the ses-
sion for the benefit of the ways and
means committee They are all in
fused with spirit of more OF less
desperation, and some contain
threats about what will be done if
this or that industry is injured by
congressional legislation. 1t is a
fact worthy of note that industrial
memorials are almost invariably of
the manufactured order, and that
petitions from the glassworkers, for
instance, in New Jersey are dupli-
Gates of those from Wheeling, Pitts
burg or Louisville. This fact great
ly diminishes the moral effect of the
communications. They are, as a
rule, hastily glanced at or shutiied
over as q deck of cards, when hand
ed by the committee clerk to the
chairman or members Of the commit
tee, only to be returned to the clerk
for filing in the committee archives,
with, perhaps, remark about the
new industry of manufacturing pub
lie sentiment. Some other member
it is just as likely to be Colonel
Morrison as Reed of Maine-would
reply that the infant industry should
have congressional Legislation in its
interest to shut out foreign compe-
tition, for fear that the market may
be overstocked and values decrease
1t is not to be inferred from this
that dae weight is not given by the
nations representatives to petitions
by citizens reciting their grievances
and wishes, but it is undoubtedly
true that the manufactured memorial
business has been so carried to ex
cess that papers of this class have
not with the busy committee mem
Der the weight that a crumpled
greasy and discolored ledger sheet
or legal cap of half page and TWEEN
ty or thirty apparently genuine sig
natures would have