Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-02-12
The TRA,,s,ENT MaJoR,TY.
Desperate Efforts Of the Republicans In
Congress to Rush Matters.

Congress to Rush Matters.
The question that is now agitating
Congress is one that is apt to arise, and
that generally does arise. whenever a
House ssholding over is to be succeeded
by ono of a different political complex
ion. When the Senate and the Presi-
dent are of the same politics as the out
going House, there will be an effort to
crowd into the session between the
Congressional election and the next
4sh of March legislation favorable to
their party, and correspondingly often
sive to the minority about to become q
majority. This latter party will of
course resist such legislation by using
all the expedients for delay with which
parliamentary law furnishes them.
That is to say, the last session of
Congress under the condemnation of
the people will necessarily be flibus-
tering session. It is perfectly idle for
the members of the transient and pre-
carious majority to complain of this, as
they are rather foolishly doing at pres
ent. Every man of them knows per-
fect1y well that he would be doing the
same thing if his party were in oppo-
sition, and an appeal to the people is
futile when the question at issue has
just been submitted to the people
and decided against the MAORI
ty in the existing Congress Yet
this is what the Republicans
have been doing in both houses.
Senator Aldrich read the Democrats a
solemn lecture upon their criminal con-
duct in ''flibustering" to prevent the
passage of bill intended to put the
control of elections to Congress in the
hands of agents of the Republican
party, and in the House Mr.. Mckinley
has been doing the same thing, and has
further been guilty of the absurdity of
calling himself and his fellow-Repub-
icans ''agents of the popular will
OF course, this is nonsense. The Re-
publicans are the agents of the popular
will of November. 1888, when the
people did not know what use they
were going to make of their agency.
Since the people found out, the Repub-
licans in Congress are the discredited
agents of the popular will, and they
would be the discharged agents but for
the curious anomaly in our system by
which discredited Legislature is al
lowed to go on for four months exer-
cising functions of which the people
have shown their will that it should be
deprived.
OF course, such condition gives rise
to filibustering But the anomaly and
the injury of it do not lie in the danger
of fiibustering. They lie in the danger
that discredited and desperate party
may be able to foist upon the country
legislation that the country has re-
jected, in spite of all that filibustering
can do to prevent it. That is the
real offense against the principles
Of representative government, and it
is that offense that the Republicans in
Congress are trying to commit. 1t is as
idle to complain of this as to complain
of filibustering. If the Republicans
were in the minority they would fill
buster to prevent the passage of bills
hostile to their party. If the Demo
Gratis were in the majority we have no
reason for supposing that they would
not use their power as the Republicans
are using theirs. It is only fair, how
eTer, to say that the Democrats have
not shown in National politics that be-
lief in a divine right of their party to
govern the country, without regard to
what the country may think about it,
which Republican leaders have so often
exhibited and acted upon. In a gen
eral way, however, either party will do
in its own behalf whatever it is per-
mitted to do, unrestrained by any thing
short of positive law.
The real grievance is the anomaly
that makes it possible for defeated
party to go on acting as if it were the
victorious party. Complaint of this is
not idle, and ought not to be futile. It
is not altogether clear just how this
anomaly came about. 1t is not en-
bodied in the constitution, and the cas-
ual circumstance that the early in
augurations of the Presidents hap
pened to be fixed for the 4th of
March is probably responsible for
it. A hundred years ago a
journey from the most remote part of
the country to the capital was long
and tedious business, and before begin
ming his service Congressman elect
needed time to put his private affairs
in order. Perhaps four months was
not too long time for all this, but it is
an absurdly long time now. Inaugural
ton day can not easily be changed,
since the constitution secures term of
four years to the President. But there
is nothing to prevent an amendment of
the statute by which the Representa-
tives shall take Office, as all other of
fce-holders do, on the first of January
succeeding their election. The consti-
tutional provision that Representatives
shall be chosen every second year is not
a guarantee of term of two full years.
1t would be easy to provide that mem
bers of the House 1egislated out of of
flee by the reform should be paid in
full The present House would be
cheaply gotten rid of at that rate Such
an amendment would not only do away
with the most serious flibustering BY
taking away its motive; it would do
away with the much more dangerous
and dsgraceful spectacle presented by
a Legislature voted out of office contin-
uing to exercise its functions in def
ance of the popular will.-N. Y. Times
THE DEFEAT OF ANARCHY.
Frustratton Of q Foul Plot to Overthrow
Popular Government.
By vote of IS yeas to 81 nays the
force bill has been put aside. The