Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-08-01
WORK OF THE FIRST SESSION.
Review OF the Business Done by the
Lawmakers.

WASHINGTON, Aug After a session
0! eight months the first session of the
Fifty-second congress Is about TO end and
81 review of its work may prove interest
ing The house devoted the first two
months Of the session 10 the discussion
and adoption Of a code OF rules, after
which the regular business was taken up.
Bills 70 the number Of 9 6S1 have been in
troduced in the house and referred to COM
mittees. OF this number .1l5 have been
reported ana placed on the calendar, about
45D OF which have passed the house. The
most important measures outside Of the
genera. appropriation bills were the Chi
uese exclusion act, the intermediate" and
army nurse pension bills, the bill to en-
force reciprocal trade relations with Can
ado, to add the name of the secretary of
agriculture 10 the cabinet officers, who
may act a president il certain contingen-
cies
Some Bills That Failed.
The Bland silver bill failed in the house
as did also the free coinage bin which
passed the senate; the several tariff bills
passed by the house failed in the senate,
as did also the bills providing for the adj
mission of New Mexico and Arizona
states. Among the most important meas
ures passed by the senate and not acted
upon by the house We're the following: To
facilitate the settlement claims.for arrears
and bounty; the pure food bill'; toincrease
the rate OF pension FOL certain cases of deaf
ness; for the better enforcement of the inn
migration laws. i large number of public
building and claim bills passed by the
senate also failed in the house
zFs--- Actual Business Done.
Four hundred ana :hree bills have passed
both houses and been sent to the president
for his signature. There are twenty of
these bills still under consideration by the
executive, lie vetoed two and permitted
three to become laws without his sigma
ture. 1t was a great congress for invcsti-
cations, most of them being for the manu-
facture of campaign thunder, for this Is
presidential year. Both senate ana house
had committees trying to find out the ri
feet of the Mckinley bill on the industrial
classes, and in both cases the majorities Of
the committees found it out to their own
satisfaction and so did the minorities. And
the reports differed widely as the views
of the two parties on the tariff.
some Other Investigations.
TIL en- there was the investigation of the
sweating system by a house committee
which dIi not finish taking testimony;
the pension Office inquiry, where the
Democrats reported General Rium so
thoroughly bad that they asked the presl-
dent to dismiss him and the RepubncanS de
clared that Raum was straight as line
and nothing the matter with his conduct
of the pension bureau. The census in
vestigation began so late that it WAS not
concluded The civil service reform COM
mittee found "a nugget ut Baltimore which
enabled it to charge that w anamaker
knew his employees were violating the law
and yet kept them on the roll
The Cases of Contest.
There were only six cont ested election
cases and four of them were acted upon.
The only one of note was that of the TWEEN
ty-eighth New York district. This was
notable from the fact that the house cleo
tions committee reported in favor of
Moves the Republican,, but the house re-
| jected the report and gave the seat to the
Democrat 1t was a case in which Senator
Hill took great interest
Bills for Tariff Reform.
About 20O bills to amend the Mckinley
| act in the direction of lower duties, to
| create an income tax and of the sub-treas-
ury kind were sent to the ways and means
| committee The committee took final
| action on about dozen measures only,
| the most important of which were to
| place wool on the free list and to reduce
| the duty on wooden goods; to admit free
| of duty bagging for Cotton and machinery
| for manufacturing bagging; cotton ties
| and cotton gin 5; placing binding Irvine,
| tin plate and wo rks of art on the free list
/ Al Il. feat TO- ,f loa