Los Angeles herald., 1892-09-01
WORK OF CONGRESS.
REVIEW or THE SESSION BY CON-
GRESHAM WILSON.

COnEro6b Ayiu A~cs ->~'
The work of the recent session of con-
rress has been ably summarized by Hon.
William l.. Wilson, of West Virginia, as
follows:
The fundamental creed Of the Demo
cratic party is that we are to work out our
prosperity more by individual effort than
by laws of congress. 1t is not believer in
high government or in plentiful legislation.
1t seeks to confine federal legislation in
the field prescribed for it by the constitu-
tion, and it seeks to confine all Legislation
in limits where it cannot invade the indi.
vidual freedom of the citizen. To Judge a
Democratic house, therefore, we must con-
slider not the quantity but the quality of
the work it has done.
With an adverse senate and an unfriendly
executive, it would have been mere brava.
do for the Democratic house to enter upon
any thorough course of reformatory legis-
lation. 1t sought to relieve the burdens of
the taxpayer and to stimulate American
industry and commerce by repeating the
most oppressive taxes Of the Mckinley bill.
Having decided through its committee to
attack that bill in detail. rather than by
a general revision, it passed in turn six
tariff bills as follows: Putting wool on the
freel list and reducing the duties on woolen
goods; putting binding twine. cotton ties
and cotton bagging, as also machinery for
making cotton bagging, on the free list:
repeating duties on silver-lead ore and tin
plate, and limiting the amount of wearing
apparel that can be brought into the coun-
try free Of duty. These six bills make up
"a substantial measure of relief, and they
carry the benefits Of tariff reform home to
the working peopleof the country. They
would have been followed by other bills
had not the senate shown its determination
to ignore all Of them. They led to u DE-
bate, especially-the wooen and tin plate
bills, that evoked a large number of very
good tariff reform speeches, excellent con
tributions to tine campaign of education
Any attempt to throw ridicule on them as
not being a substantial fulfllment of DEM
bcratic promises to the people is met by an
assertion Of a prominent Republican mem
Der of the ways and means conmitte that
they amount TO virtual repeal OF the
Mckinley bill.
In the amount of It's expenditures this
house has not been able to reduce as much
as it expected the appropriations Df the
Fifty-first congress- because it could not
SO enormously to our annual budget To
be frank, the dependent pension bin of Mr..
Reeds congress added many millions to
our yearly appropriations, and, as;all men
know, pension legislation never goes back
ward. So with the subsidy and bounty
bills of that congress, which tbSs house
was powerless to repeal
But while it has met honestly the re-
quirements OF these laws the house has
been in the main careful of it's own ex-
penditures. 1t has passed no new public
building bills. 1t has passed fewer private
bills carrying appropriations than any
recent congress, and its private pension
bills haveSbeen more carefully scrutinized
to separate the good from the bad
On the silver question dale house declined
to pass the Bland bill and refused to take
up the Stewart bill. Ewn those who be-
lieved that there was in these bills some
potential benefit to the people must admit
that the Democratic party could not have
comrritted itself to face coinage at the
ratio proposed in those bills without
throwing AWAY every prospect sof success
in the presidential campaign and becoming
for the time being almost % southern and
sectional party. 1t was the highest politi-
cal sagacityS whatever rn5Eht. have beengthe
merits Of the proposed legislation, to avoid
step certain to disrupt the party: and
with that disruption tlrnlly and pernzss-
nentlg to.seat in power the protected pin
tocracy, with. full oppcyfunitysto plumber
the people with new tariff billssand tostib-
jugate themwth force bsils. The present
housedoes not suffer ia any point in com
parison withcthe last 1t EIas had code of
rules snd an administration tof it's rules
that did not become aEtocraticDr partisan,
and the rights of it's snaall minority of Re
publican and third party members have
been uniformly respected
1t has been,notably free from acrimeni-
Gus debates, and it's records nowhere show
wronged minority which marrsd the ,pro-
ceedingssof the hast house
have never known house in which
there has been iess buncoIahe gfartisansde-
batting Or one in which there was ,fess
effort to manufacture campaign material
on the eve of national election.
II the house has been thwarted blythe
senate in its general work aud IA it's efforts
to lessen the bumlens of the people, itlhas
given proof of lis, desire to alo both, and
has been always tender in adding new
charges upon the itreasury.
1t did not increase taxes. 1t passed MO
subsidy bill. 1t voted no bcmnties. 1t
passed no bills to overthrow electionsin
the states. 1t vacaheh no Republican seats
for Democratic contestants, except in one
y case, and that upon "a practicaily unani-
zmous commdttee report. 1t did not rob the
minority Of their rights or servilely sur
render it's own rights into the hands of its
speaker and it's committee on rules. If
under firm discipline and recognized lead
ership it might have done all that it did
more expeditjously and Shave added other
and even wiser measures of relief and re-
form, it still kept it's work fairly abreast
with the progress of the senate, and it
showed once again how much safer for the
country and how much nearer to the people
is alDemocratic house tsaar one which rep
resents the great special interests of the
country. Those interests demand legisla-
tion Tor their own benefit, and demand it
so imperiously that parliamentary law,
traditional usage all the safeguards of free
legislation and Of free elections must go
down before them. The people of the coun-
try cannot again safely trust the house Of
representatives to the Republican party.
What Fixes Wagess
Republican protection is justAded by it's
authors and promotes solely upon the as
,a1mad pra1p6 that bapofstc 4.ha work