The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-23
FREE SPEECH IN CONGRESS.

Free speech Is supposed to exist in every
part of this country and to be an essential
part of our institutions. Freedom of
speech is talked of by our orators, sung by
our poets, and boosted by our historians.
1t is freedom duly and unduly exercised by
individuals in every part of the country.
Yet there is one place in which it does not
exist, and that place is the United States
Congress.
1t has been supposed that in this place,
at least, the right of free speech would not
be invaded or abridged. So great a parody
on American institutions as the denial of
free speech to the peoples representatives
in Congress, has never been either feared
or anticipated; yet. sucn7a condition exists
there today. The people are not given
hearing through their representatives. By
reason of the new "rules'' debate on
any measure may be limited to a
few hours or minutes, or it may
be cut off altogether. Such case has just
occurred. The Senate had made some four
hundred amendments and over to that cum
bersome document the MCKINLEY tariff
bill, and it was reported back to the House.
MIR. MCKINLEY offered resolution from
the committee on rules, relieving the
House as committee Of the whole from the
duty of considering the bill, and providing
only for two hours of general debate on it;
and the resolution was passed, the Demo
Gratis voting against it.
The Senate amendments to the bill could
scarcely be read in two hours, and to limit
debate on them TO that time was not only
burlesque on legislation, but crime
against the American people, through the
denial of the right of their representatives
to be heard on the question before the
House.
Thus the Republican majority not only
deprive the Democratic minority of the
right to discuss this most important meas
ure, but also to surrender their own right
to vote upon the separate provisions of the
tariff bill by delegating the whole of it to a
conference committee and then voting on it
as a whole as soon as the committee makes
its report.
The power to levy taxes is thus expressly
delegated to a committee of six or seven
and even the privilege of discussion upon
| the action of the committee is practically
shut off by the limitation of the general de-
bate to two hours.
A measure of such vast Importance and
of such sweeping consequence should be
debated for weeks before being placed upon
its passage. 1t is known of course why the
Republicans do not care to discuss the bill
| the overwhelming defeat that awaited them
/ in any full discussion of the seperate sec
tons of the bill is sort of music they dc
not care to face. They pretend that the
country has already listened to the tariff
discussion and has passed upon it. while as
a matter of fact not even the Congressman
! themselves are fully acquainted with the
measure they propose to rush through
without debate. 1t was not tariff discus
sion, but the want of it, that lost the las
election to the Democrats; but that dis
cussien, imperfect as was, resulted in
majority of one hundred thousand for tariff
reform. 1t will now be the duty of the
people to discuss that subject among them
selves, since their representatives hav,
been denied the right to do so in the hall
of legislation. Truth will not suffer b,
discussion and investigation, and the de
lenders of truth have never been known il
history to cut off debate on the question a
issue.