Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-02-03

Reaching For q Majority.


Reaching For q Majority.
Speaker Reed relieves his pent-up feel
ings with an explanation. He has done
what he has done for the public good
and for the benefit Of his party. The
Democrats In Congress who resist him
are healthy fellows who are drawing
their thirteen dollars a day for doing
nothing. The Republican flock for which
he IL caring is sickly lot which Is forced
10 gather together into the House In
solid phalanx to keep the healthy
Democrats from running away with 1t
and even then they cannot muster
enough for the work, as they only have
three over quorum and there are more
than this number bedridden with their
illnesses or caring for dying wives.
Common humanity, Speaker Reed says,
commands that they be allowed to alb
sent themselves and this therefore con-
sequently commanded him to make a
quorum by some other means than the
presence Of q Republican majority.
He thought he had the thing nicely
arranged when he prevented the estab-
lishment Of rules and counted In the
Democrats to make the quorum, as
no speaker before him had ever done.
He was not even embarrassed by this fact
that ten years ago the Democratic
party was In the situation in the
House that the Republican party
holds now, with majority too
narrow to secure quorum from its own
membership and by the further fact
that the Republican members then re-
fused to vote, and took their Sl3 day
without doing any work for 1t, as the
bad Democrats are doing now. Nor was
Speaker Reed deferred from counting a
quorum now by the fact that he and
Blaine and Garfield aud the other ora
tors Of the minority then had protested
that representatives not voting should
not be counted for quorum.
The Democratic speaker made no at
tempt to SO count them; but Demo-
cratic representative, Randolph Tucker,
OF Virginia, proposed such a rule for the
government Of the House /; and 1t was
warmly debated, with the result that
the Democratic majority refused to put
the Republican minority under the
stress of this rule but decided that the
minority Of the House thereafter as
Heretofore, should retain the power of
refusing to make up quorum.
One would think that after this deliber-
ate decision, the question would he re-
garded as settled ;and that those who had
been In the minority then and whose
demand had been yielded to, would not
themselves, upon the first occasion when
their exigency called fer it have
changed the practice and have taken
that advantage Of their opportunity
now which had not been taken Of them
then. And certainly the speaker OF
the majority party now cannot do that
which the party cannot decently do.
Speaker Reed cannot do at all that
which he has undertaken, without
violating law as well as decency. II
would have been simply dishonorable fol
the party to take an advantage of the
Democracy to-day which the Democracy
declined to take of it, under like circum.
stances, ten years ago. 1t is In the
speaker Of that party lawless as well as
dishonornble. 1t was not for him 10
count quorum to adopt the new rule Of
procedure, by which he sought to choke
of the healthy Democrats who were
imposing on the frail Republicans. The
responsibility of the procedure could
only have been properly assumed by
the Republican majority after full dis.
cussion under the rules.
Speaker Reeds statement that what
he has done was prompted by the fact
that the Republicans In the House have
but three above quorum, and they
unable to be present, needs no comment
to establish fully In the public mind
that the need for partisan control of the
House and no sharp sense of public duty
has animated this revolutionary move
ment and that it is a bold attempt to
force working majority Of Republican
members, by obtaining the power
to expel Democratic members and by
exercising II to the needed extent, before
the rules of the House are submitted to
1t for adoption. There is hardly an at.
tempt made to throw a veil over the fact
that there is bold effort to establish
Republican supremacy In the House
for the benefit of the party and particu
larly Of the party chiefs who are gun
ming for game that the control of til,
House is needed to capture.
The speaker of the Republican party
In taking this position before the coun
try has surely misconceived the intelli
gence and sensitiveness of the people
We hear on some sides EXPLANATIONS OF
impatience at the lack Of popular indig.
nation with which this revolutionary
attempt seems to have been met but
there is, in fact, no lack of the disappro.
baton which will, in due time, bear its
fruits. 1t il so evident that the Republi.
can speaker has undertaken more than
he can accomplish, and that the country
awaits the outcome with interest rather
than anxiety. The Republican majority
y not likely to get away with the Dem
ocratic minority in its talons. 1t is toe
big thing to carry Off in such fashion
- that proposed, and the effort will be
disastrous TO the buzzards.
Canadian Annexation.
The talk of Canadian annax.,;o,,