The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1892-01-06
Tho Speakers Troubles and Failures.

The Speakers Troubles and Failures.
1t Is not worth while to criticise
Speaker Crisp's assignments minutely.
His supporters are doing that with sufli-
Client vigor and acrimony. A large ma
Jority of his chairmen, remarkably
large majority Of the chairInen of i'm
- Want committees, are from the South,
but\pe was forced TO handle the tools
that he had, and out of an essentially
Southern party he could not make u
northern organization to save his life.
Representatives of less than third
Oh the whole people have now much
more than half of the power, that is
what the voters determined upon a
year ago, for it is of the very essence of
Democratic supremacy.
No one doubts that the ways and
means committee is expressly arranged
to prevent the framing of any general
tariff bill, and Mr.. Springer will be sus-
tanned in that purpose by those who
wish to make the tariff question as little
important as possible next year, and to
shut out Mr.. Cleveland from the presi-
dhtial nomination. On. this very
ground the shaping of the committees is
savegely attacked by other Democrats
besides Mr.. Watterson. The appropri-
atoms committee is relatively strong,
and will help Mr.. Holman to carry out
his ideas of economy. The committee
on coinage, with Mr.. Bland as its head,
Is Enthusiastically for free coinage of sill
yer, and will do what it can to carry out
the ideas of Mr.. Crisp's faction in that
respect. The committee on commerce,
with Mr.. Mills as its chairman, is of no
practical importance, but the commit
fees w hIph haVa oha roo IF the GREAT an
preparations, the river and harbor, the
pensions, the war and navy committees,
are in such hands that liberality toward
the South at least may be expected.
But it is absurd for some of the
Speakers friends to complain that he
has selected for many of the important
places men who have not shown their
fitness for such work hitherto. The
criticism has in truth a curious force,
for the Speaker seems to have carefully
avoided in many cases the men who
have been charged with a particular
duty or branch of work under previous
organizations, and has set them to other
work, while selecting other men for the
places they were supposed to be best
qualified to fill. Beginning with Mr..
Mills, whose friends thought he knew
more about the tariff than any body else,
the Speaker found Mr.. Springer for the
committee on ways and means, and set
Mr.. Mills to other and unfamiliar du-
ties. In precisely the same way most
of the Democratic members who have
been active in the work of particular
committees in past years are carefully
sent to other committees to see what
they can do there.
The friends who berate Mr.. Crisp for
this seemingly whimsical selection for
get one important fact. The Democrat
ic party under every previous organiza-
ton of the House has been a dreadful
fsAlure IN the conduct of business. If
Mr.. Crisp had the good sense to recog-
niZe this fact he only needed courage to
''shake them up" all around. 1t is a
supreme justification of Mr.. Crisp's pc
culiar selections that the active Demo-
Gratis in the House, with whom he has
been associated for years, and whose
capacity or incapacity he has had abun-
'dant opportunity to Judge, have in fact
been tried in places for which they
proved they were not fit. That WAS at
least sufficient reason for trying them
in other places for which. perchance,
they might have some sort of fitness.
If anybody supposes that this expla-
nation is offered in humor or in jest, let
him remember how things were in the
House when Mr.. Carlisle or Mr.. Ran
dali was Speaker. Let him try to recall
q single important committee which did
its work thoroughly faithfully and in
telligently.-Ne York Tribune.