The Portland daily press., 1893-07-11
Amends to Speaker Reed.
New York Tribune

Republicans will not be expected to
look without smile and, indeed, several
different kinds of a smile, upon the nerv-
Gus twitching which has seized those
Democratic statesmen who feel them
selves especially charged with the re-
sponsibility for the action of Congress
on the silver repeater. This nervous
twitching takes possession of these
statesmen whenever they contemplate
the subject of the Congressional rules.
If there is any proposition to which, by
their own acts, they are all committed,
whether the are free traders, free silver
men, Mugwumps, Jeffersonian Demo-
Gratis, Jacksonian Democrats, old-fash-
Toned Democrats or what not, it is to
the proposition that organized obstruc-
ton on the part of the minority to the
will of the majority is necessity to lib
erty and a fundamental principle of the
Democratic party. The blood of the mar
tyrs has consecrated this doctrine.
1t was avowed deliberately, not as a
matter of impulse. 1t was an unneces-
sary thing to do. No party exigency,
sanely considered, compelled it. The
Republicans of the List Congress sought,
as Republicans ever do and as Democrats
don't, to carry out the pledges they had
made in their party platform. They
wanted to legislate. They had the ma
cation. But they had not taken the
first step before the entire Democratic
minority arose, declaring that theyintend-
ed to prevent any and all Republican.le
lation by obstructive maneuvres. The
hand of the Speaker interposed to thwart
this rash, un-American resolution, and
the House, expressing his acts in rules,
effectively required that opposition to a
pending measures should cease when it
had been fully and fairly debated. The
minority was compelled to abstain from
dilatory and obstructive motions, and in
asmuch as the highest expression of
each members will was his vote, no
power above OF behind that was allowed
to any one by the misuse of parliamen-
tary devices. The result was that the
51st Congress legislated.
There is no doubt that Speaker Crisp
and the Democrats of the succeeding
Congress nightly desired to continue
these rules. They had every opportunity
of doing so. The Republicans were then
in the minority, but they asked for them
selves only what they as majority had
been willing to concede to the Demo-
Gratis. But the Speaker and his advisers
lacked the moral courage to make the
confession that would have been required
of them if they had adopted the Reed
rules. They preferred to legalize
obstruction, and afterwards to
put it down, when they could, by arbi-
trary rulings from the chair. But they
are now approaching a task which is too
much for speaker to undertake I'M
aided. He knows this, aud all others of
his party interested in the performance
of the task know it too. One by one
they are appearing in interviews declar-
ing that the Reed rules must be adopted.
They must choose between the humili-
alton of confessing fault or the humili-
alton of making an utter failure of legis-
lation. They would better make the
first confession, and make it quickly and
completely. Republicans, as we said
before. may smile little, and call to
mind the wild scenes in the House four
years ago when its entire Democratic
contingent were packed in the aisles and
crowded around the Speakers desk,
shaking their fists in his face and calling
him a tyrant and a car. But this is a
small matter in comparison with the
neceSSitv of nasSiDO the repeal bill.