Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-08-18
THE RECORD OF THE SESSION
Hampered by the Results of Republican
Legislation.

THE RECORD OF THE SESSION.
Hampered by the Results of Republican
Legislation.
The first session of the Fifty-second
congress began amid republican predic-
lions of disaster to the democratic
party and ended with graceful recorni-
ton of the wish Of a republican presi-
dent
Its work Will oe the subject Of much
controversy and necessarily an issue of
no small Importance in a national cam
paign which involves the election of
now house OF representatives as well as
that of Il president and vice president
For this reason Judgment of its acts
VIII be influenced morestrongly than in
intermediate years by partisan inclina-
tons 1t is obvious, however. that no
better or fairer method of Judging its
performances from a political stand
point than by comparison with its re-
publican predecessor can be devised
This is a test which democrats will
welcome and to which republicans
must submit
The democrats of the house did their
best to Tighten the brrdens of taxation
on the people and industries of the
country. Under the lead of the ways
and means committee a bill was passed
making wool free, in the hope of re-
viving the dropping wooden manufac-
turing interests and encouraging the
wool-grower.
The same bill abolished the ccmpen-
satory duty on wooden goods. The re-
suit of this would have been the cheap
ening of clothes which had been made
much more costly by the Mckinley
law.
Another bill made free the binding
Irvine used by the wheat-growers and
the cottoE-ties used by the planters of
the south.
Another made ore containing both
silver and lead free, the purpose being
to cheaper one of the most common
articles of domestic and industrial use.
The bill to reduce the enormous Nc
klniey tax on tin-plates would have
put an end to a contemplate fraud, and
would have saved the people of this
country from 10000, 900 to SIS, 600 O0O a
year.
When these tax-relief bills reached
the senate the republican ma jority
promptly piceon-hoIed them. In the
interest Of certain manufacturers OF
of wooIcEs. they denied the people
cheap clothes.
in the interest of the cordage trust
they refused cheap binding-twine to
the wheat-growers-
In behalf of the hoop-iron makers
Pittsburgh they insisted upon dear
cotton-;ics for the southern planters.
To help the makers of plate they re-
-, = - -
the people who buy dinner-paiIs, pots,
pans and rnofng-tin, and retained the
tax that increases the price of canned
goods and has already closed up score
OF canning factories, depriving labor of
its work as well as making food dearer.
m brief. all of the bills which the
democratic house passed for the bene-
fit of the people were killed by the
senate.
The house dealt with the free-coinage
measure honorably and manfully. The
democratic majority, realizing that its
first duty was to the people who elected
it for the purpose of reducing taxes,
defeated the effort to force it to the
front.
Besides attending to its Legislative
work the majority in the house exposed
Raum's ubiquitous administration of the
pension office and showed the president
to be his protector.
The material results of the session
will not be of great advantage to the
country for the simple reason that re-
publican legislation of the billion dollar
congress. Z republican senate and a re-
publican president have prevented the
democratic house from carrying out the
reforms desired by the people
The political situation is unchanged
by the session. 1t remains what it was
in the campaign OF 1880. The democrats
have Il led to reduce expenditures, but
they could not They have tried to
abuses in the pension bureau, but they
have been met and overcome by the
presidents obstinate adherence to a
scandalous administration. Above all,
the democrats have tried to abolish
some of the evils and to tighten some
of the burdens of the Mckinley
tariff law. They have attacked some
of it's most fragrant abuses and some of
the worst trusts it has engendered, but
the friends of trusts and monopoly con-
troIled the senate and sat in the white
house, and the efforts of democratic
tariff reformers were lost except as
they show to t0e country that the party
is still bent upon accomplishing the
task which the people assigned to it in
1S9o-N. y. World.