The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-07-31
SENATE PROCEEDINGS.


Duty on Ch1oroform Reduced-3Ieeting
Hour Made Earlier.
WAsHINeToN CRY, July 30.-In the Sem
ate Sherman offered an amendment to the
deficiency appropriation bill. which was
referred to the committee on appropria-
tions, appropriating $50, 600 for marking the
boundary line between the United States
and Mexico. and called attention to its
urgency.
The resolution offered yesterday by
Sherman. fixing the daily hour of meeting
at 10 q. M, was taken up. Cockrell said he
would support the resolution, and wanted
to give few reasons why. Some staunts
had been made recently by the senators
from Rhode Island and Maine (Aidrich
and Frye) about delay ON the part of the
DemocratiC minority. He wanted those
senators to see the relative amount of work
done in the two houses. The Senate had
up to the 2Sth Of July passed 946 bills, and
400 other bills had been acted on by COM
mittees and had been indefinitely post
paned, making the whole number of Sem
ate bills actually disposed of 1,44l That
was considerably more than one
third Of all bills introduced in the
Senate. No such record had ever been
made before. In the House, out of over
10000 bills introduced. there had been
passed S65. mere fraction of the whole
Out of the whole number of Senate bills
passed the House had only passed 231.
while of House bills the Senate had passed
618. How. he asked. had so much work
been done in the Senate? Had the minor.
ity been wasting time by interposing OBJ
jections or by unnecessary discussion Z
Had the minority consumed the time. as
the majority had done under the last adj
ministration, criticising the executive or
pleading the civil service law to prevent
the removal OF Democratic officials before
the end of their terms of Officer Nothing
OF the kind. Had not the bills for the ad-
mission of Idaho and Wyoming as states
been allowed by the minority to pass. al
though every one knew that neither of
them had sufficient population to entitle
them to a representative in the House
Those bills were passed only through the
inconcelvable forbearance and consery-
atism of the Democratic min
were criticised the moment they wanted a
little explanation and little light on the
tariff bill. II there was Democratic ma
jority in the Senate and II it had made an
attempt to pass bills for the admission of
New Mexica and Arizona as states. the
senator from Maine (Frye) would have
pranced up and down the center aisle, and
the senator from Vermont tEdmundsl
would have roared like Gagged lion and
screamed like chained hyena flaughterl
against the action of the Democratic ma
jority. Why, he asked, had not the House
disposed of more bills than it had disposed
of? For the reason that it had ignored in
its organization ald in its changed rules
the fundamental principles of parliament
tary discussion. He quoted from letter
written by Thomas B. Reed in June. 1856.
1t would be remembered, he said. that
Reed was once q member of the House of
Representatives. One of the sentences in
that remarkable production was in these
words: "Full, free, frank discussion. is
the very life of intelligent action" An
other sentence was: Needless suppress
sion of discussion is tyrannical, whether
done by king or majority" He chal-
lenged any Republican senator to show an
instance where the Democratic minority
had attempted any unnecessary delay.
The resolution was then agreed to.
The tariff bill was then taken up,
and Morrill, addressed the Senate. He
said that the ill-natured denunciation of
American manufacturers by oratorical
free traders indicated that they preferred
the prosperity of foreign manufactures to
those of their own country. and that they
would compel the latter to manufacture as
cheap as any foreigner and pay no higher
wages or abandon their business. The real
purpose was finally to break down and de-
grade the present scale OF wages of Ameri-
can workmen. Coming to the question OF
agricultural depression, Morrill, said there
was a giut of misiEformation disseminated
on the subject and concealment of the fact
that the rrices of farm products were de-
pressed throughout the world. The only
remedy within the reach OF the American
farmer Is positive protection against for
eign competition, and such encouragement
to other ayocations as would increase the
consumption of their production. He as
serted that in 1883. had it not bean
for the duty. of 20 cents q bushel
on wheat, India would have snatched the
markets OF New York from the state of
Wisconsin, as well as from all other West
ern states Farm mortgage Indebtedness
had been grossly exaggerated. and he un-
derstood, as the reports would show, that
the farm mortgages In Kansas and Maine
we're less than one-quarter OF the amount
which had been represented. The charge
that American farmers were In debt more
deeply than the farmers Of other countries