The Portland daily press., 1892-08-06

the leaders abdicated, but they we're
determined that nobody else should
reign. Given wonderful power by the
people, power which might have en-
abled them to carry out any plan for the
relief of what they called the down
trodden people, they deliberately put the
veto into the hands of one-third, and in
most cases into the hands OF less. and
relapsed into imbecility. Not one
measure above the dignity OF rye straw
will mark the annals of the House OF
Representatives OF the Fifty-second
Congress. In history it will present all
the dead level of a Dutch landscape with
all it's windmills. but without a trace of
it's beauty and fertility. The only pic
turesque object which will break the
sky line will be Mr.. Holman draped as a
statue of Economy, standing on the rail
road-crowned summit of tile Lawrence
burg embankment trying in vain with a
spy-glass to find any trace of the river
the embankment was intended to con-
fine. Indiana, however, and the appro-
priation will be in full view.
When this House met great hopes were
entertained that strict economy would
reign. The man whose reputation was
the highest was placed at the head of the
Committee on Appropriations, and the
great duty of reducing to an honest level
all the expenditures of the government
was entered upon. Mr.. Holman, the
great high priest of the new. dispense
ton, disappeared from mortal view for
many days, and finally reappeared with
a calm, stately and beautiful self-deny
ing resolution proclaiming the principles
of honesty, just as though they had been
newly discovered and were, for the first
time in the history of the world, to be
put into practice 1t was solemn mo-
ment. Everybody felt that the high
water mark of human virtue had been
reached, and, under the awe-inspiring
impressions of that day, they were treat
ed as scoffers who suggested that after
high water came the ebb. l hate to tell
the sequel; but, alas, the scoffers were
right. Never since that hour have the
Democracy looked so grand, gloomy and
peculiar as on that Pentecostal day when
the Holman proclamation of economic
virtue was administered to them, and
they resolved how bad others had been,
and how good they themselves would be.
1t is sad to be obliged to add that now,
after the results have been reached, we
find that the suuandering Republicans
appropriated 453 millions at the first ses-
sion of the Billion Congress- while the
economic Democrats have appropriated
over 500 millions at the first session of a
Congress that certainly can never be
called a Nickel Congress-" Would it
be in the nature of an insult TO the fallen
to propose to the Honorable Mr.. Holman
of Indiana sum in the rule of three?
II the expenditure of 463 millions made
us of the Fifty-frst Congress 'srascals,"
what precise epithet would do jnstice to
those who have appropriated 5000 mil
lions? 1t really looks as if this country
was too big to be measured in some half
bushels.
There have been two reports of the
Committee on Elections, one in favor of
the Democrat and the other in fnvor of
the Republican. The House Endorsed
and sustainedit its committee in unseating
the Republican, while it rose above party,
voted down its own partisan committee
and kept in its place Democratic Mr..
Rockwell, probably believing that the
declaration Il am a Democrat is in the
United States, as it is in New York, a
better certificate of election than the
votes of the people.
On this action of the House, deliber-