The Portland daily press., 1892-08-02
JUST AS PREDICTED.
The Democratic Majority Tied Up
By Its Own Rules.
HOW THE DEADLOCK in CON
GREsS WAS BROUGHT ABOUT.

Objector Holman is PAIRING Cheese as Us
uaI and Few Malcontents Are Help
ing Him-World's Fair Money the
Cheese-House Studies in JagoIogy-
Mr.. Watson's Charges Seem To Be
Weaker than Water-Other Washing
ton News.
NEW YORK, August IA washington
despatch to the Press says: When will
Congress adjourn? is one question dis
cussed in Washington today. Congress
might have adjourned week ago with
out detriment to the country, even if
with some disaster to its routine busi-
ness, had the majority of the House
been able to carry out its will. That is
just where the majority finds itself i'm
potent, and that is just where the rules
of the last House, framed by ex-Speaker
Reed and denounced by Democrats as
arbitrary and like the edicts of czar,
show their superiority.
1t was early in this session when Mr..
Reed, as the leader of the little but de-
termined band of the Republican minor
ity, undertook to warn the majority rab-
BILE of the trap into which they would
certainly fall Mr.. Reed showed clearly
that, under the new rules, the House
might at any time be tied by a factious
minority into state of being unable to
J. I,o4, J.o+,1
verified by events a dozen times, but
history SO conspicuously as at this mo-
ment.
The situation is this: The Sundry
Civil Appropriation bill, carrying the
money for a great number of essential
branches of the government, is tied up
between the two ends of Congress. And
why? Simply because the bill contains
an item of $5,000,000 for the World S
Fair at Chicago, an enterprise to which
the faith Of the nation is pledged, and
failure in which
Would Mean Disgrace
to the United States. The House, oy a
distinct majority, has declared in favor
of this appropriation, but little band
of flibusters, led by the cheeseparing
Holman and abetted by Amos Cum
mings, are able by dilatory motions to
block all business and to threaten the de-
feat of the Sundry Civil bill itself.
Neither branch of Congress can ad-
journ without the consent of the other,
and Senator Allison, chairman of the
appropriations committee Of the Senate,
and other senators have emphatically
declared that the Senate will not adjourn
until the sundry civil bill has passed. The
Senate has been without quorum for
several days, and that is why Senator
Sherman has introduced a resolution re-
calling all absentees. The fight cannot
last long, but whether or not the World S
Fair appropriation passes, the present
situation will serve its purpose.
Outside of this feature, the single in
teresting spectacle of the coming week
promises to be the effort of the House to
prove that it is not
Body of Habitua1 Drunkards.
For this unwelcome task the House has
to thank Farmers Alliance Representa-
tive Watson, who, like most men of his
class, is given to drawing general and
sweeping conclusions from exceptional
instances. Mr.. Watson started out to
prove that the entire Congress was ha-
bitually intoxicated while discussing
public questions. Appalled, at the size
of this contract, Mr.. Watson now wishes
to prove that Representative Cobb drank
whiskey out of a cup while addressing
the House. 1t seem doubtful whether
Mr.. Watson can prove even that. And if
he should it would not seem to prove
anything else.
The truth is, and everybody in Wash
ington recognizes it, that Mr.. Watson is
trying to get himself exploited as ma
tional figure by being expelled from the
House, and then, by posing as a martyr,
securing reelection from his district,
| where he happens to be just now very
| unpopular. Watson started out in this
Congress declaring that the whole
country was going to ruin because a
| farmer in Georgia hadn't money enough
to bury his dead baby. Everybody who
heard that speech felt sorry for this in
dividual instance of poverty and distress,
and Mr.. Watson could have raised big
| purse for that sad family out of the
pockets of his colleagues, except those
| of his fellow agitators
But Mr.. Watson, in trying to advertise
his book and get money into his own
| pocket through the indecent efforts of
Jerry Simpsons son, who acted as book
agent on the floor of the House, has Of
Tended the self respect of the body of
which he is a member and which has the
power to expel him.
Mr.. REEDTO THE OBJECTOR.