Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1890-10-31
Why Democratic House Should be
Elected.


|
The public good demands the over.
whelming defeat of the Republican
party next month for several reasons
1.-The Fifty-frst Congress has been
extravagant. Its appropriations are
S65, ,OO0,O more than those of the
previous session of Congress, and $685.
600, 900 more than the last long session
OF Congress, although no appropriation
was made for the payment of pensions
under the new dependent pension law,
and this will amount to about $6O,-
O0O, 900 Il year.
U-In all the contested election
cases, but especially in seating Langs-
ton, who was defeated by Republican
opposition, and the worthlcssness OF
whose case was exposed on the floor
of the House by Mr.. Cheadle, a Re
publican, and in seating Miller from
South Carolina, and in unseating Mr..
Breckinridge, of Arkansas, the Repub-
licans oil the Fifty-first Congress
showed themselves to be partisan and
unjust beyond precedent, and in their
greed for power without conscience or
scruple.
III.-The rights of local self. govern
ment have been attacked and the au-
tonomy of the States undermined by
an election bill passed in the House
which will put it in the power of the
party controlling the national execu-
tive to pack the House of Representa-
tives. In effect the result of this will
be to defect the Constitutional provis-
ion that the House shall be the Judge
OF the qualifications of its members,
and make clique of party bosses in
Washington the judges.
IV.-The Republican majority in
the Fifty-first Congress, with the
Speaker at its head, has been guilty OF
every abuse OF power that majority
can commit. Members of the miner
ity have had the floor refused to them
when they rose to points of order, and
the right of appeal from the Speaker
to the House has been denied to them.
The opportunity to offer amendments
has been refused to them. The most
important and far-reaching legislation
has been rushed through the House
with ridiculously inadequate time for
debate and with practically no
opportunity for amendment.
V.-The House has sustained the
Speaker in the usurption of powers
which had meyer before been conferred
on any Speaker and which no Speaker
had ever before assumed, and has de-
MED the right OF the minority, often
exercised and defended by Republicans
to compel the majority to furnish its
own quorum when attempting politi-
cal legislation; every check and safe
guard that has existed for the protec-
ton of the minority, and for the pro-
lection of the country from the un-
scrupulous partisanship of the major
ity, has been broken down.
Win the Encouragement OF tax
alton, every interest of the Govern
ment on the one hand, and of the in
dividual on the other, has been sacri-
feed to the interest of trusts and indi-
viduai capitalists. The tax which
the people have paid on sugar, and
which went to the Government to pay
interest and pensions and salaries and
defray the cost of public works, has
been remitted, while the taxes paid by
the public to the glass trust, the lin
seed oil trust, the lead trust, the steel
beam trust, the starch trust, and q
dozen other trusts have been main
tanned, and in most cases increased.
In place of a small tax paid to the
Government on tin plate there has
been substituted large tax, not one
cent of which will 60 to the Govern
ment, and the capitalists who propose
to absorb the whole of it will be able
to import all their laborers from
Wales, for, there being no Tin plate
manufacturing in this country, per-
sons who propose to manufacture it
may import all their operatives.
The Fifty-first Congress stands pre-
eminent in its efforts to attack the
foundations of popular government
within its own walls and at the polls,
and in the unanimity and enthusiasm
with which it has sacrificed the inter
ests of the country to the exigencies
of the party, and the welfare of the
people to the enrichment of the
plutocrats.