The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-07-29
THE DEMOCRATIC RECORD.

1t must be painful for our Democratic
friends to read the comparison, pub
lished in Mondays Boston Journal, of
the work of the House during the first
session of the present Congress, the
fifty-second, having Democratic
majority of $50, with that of the cores
ponding session of the preceding Con-
gress, with its small Republican
majority.
With majority of $50 the Democratic
party had every advantage for placing
itself upon record as party of progress,
and of ability. That majority gives the
Democrats their own way. Read the
disgraceful result of the labors of this
majority, and the incapability of DEM
ocratic body to hold the reins of the
government will be most clearly shown.
The first session now nearly finished, of
the present Democratic Congress has
record of broken promises, and failures.
The only bill, with the exception of the
appropriation bills, passed by the Demo-
cratic House worth mentioning are the
following; The bill to exclude the
Chinese; the bill to pension all soldiers
of the Seminole war and other Indian
wars, nearly all the survivors being
southern men; the one to increase the
pay of the life saving crews; to admit
two steamships of the Inman Line to
American registry; to provide for retail
alton on Canada; to pension army nurses,
to establish lineal promotion in the army;
| bill for providing for the better control
| of National banks in regard to loaning
| money to Directors and officers; and to
add the name of the Secretary of Agri-
culture to the cabinet officers who may
act as President in certain emergencies.
| ha oh ,e 1,,N Gov a rtx
as but a few of these few bills are of
Importance.
This record shrivels into insignifcance
when placed beside that of the first
session of the fifty-first Congress when
the small Republican majority was
opposed, every inch of the way by the
| Democratic mob who so persistently
fought Speaker Reid and his fellow
Congressman.
The following, says the Journal, is the
record of the Republican House: "In
the first session of the last Congress,
among the 1850 bills which became laws,
were the following: The Silver bill
which, whatever may be now said of its
merits, was the means of preventing the
imposition on the people of the country
of free coinage act; the Administrative
Customs act, which put stop to the
undervaluation frauds which the late
Senator Beck estimated to amount at
that time to 10 per cent. of the entire
customs revenue; the Mckinley Tariff
act, which revised the entire customs
laws in such way as to cheaper the
prices of everything but farm products
and to increase wages and enormously
extend our foreign commerce; the Dis
ability Pension bill, which took 5000
| t,,fa line l,a nd i
relief to many thousands more, the Anti
Lottery law, which broke up the most
extensive gambling institution in the
world; the Antitrust law; the Worlds
Fair bill; the Shipping Act, under which
the country is now establishing first-class
lines of ocean steamships; the Meat In
spection bill, which has resulted in
bringing about the removal of the pro-
hibitory restrictions on the importation
of American pork to European Nations !;
the bills to admit Idaho and Wyoming
as States; the one to create Court of
Appeals and relieve the Supreme Court,
the business of which was four years be-
hind; the Land Grant Forfeiture bill,
the Original Package bill, made necessary
by decision of the Supreme Court; the
one to carry out the provisions of the
International Maritime Congress; several
bills to promote the efficiency of the en-
listed force of the army, under which
acts desertions have decreased one-half
the Private Land Court bill, to settle the
conflicting claims in regard to land
grants in New Mexico and elsewhere
the one to amend the Contract Labor
law so as to include foreign laborers
coming here under contrat; amending
the Eight-hour law; prohibiting the EN-.
ployment of convict labor on Govern.
ment works, and numerous other
measures which became laws at that
session.
In addition, the House passed at that
session large number of other i'm.
portant bills, some of which became laws
! at the next session. but which would
have passed the Senate at the first
session had it not been for Democratic
, obstruction in that body. Among those
measures thus passed by the House wert
these: The International Copyright
I bill, bill to repeal the timber culture law
the bill for fair and honest elections, thu
, Compound Lard bill, the Bankruptcy
} bills, laws for the protection of miners
) to prevent the products of convict laboi
! from being used in any of the depart
J ments, to exclude convict labor ol
Z Government works, for the transfer o.
the revenue marine service to the Nav.
! Department, and several hundred othe
bills"
, Such is the record in Congress of tn
0 two parties. The shameful record of tn
Democratic party will be hard one fo
5 1t to face during the coming campaign.