Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-09-21
FORCE BILLS FATE
May Follow the Repeal Bill to
Its Death.
COMMENTS ON REMARKS OF DUBOIS

A Curious Situation in Congress-Both
Houses Engaged in a Similar Struggle at
the same Tine-Hot Time in the House
Resulting in the Report of the Election
Law Repeal BiII-The Speakers Rulings
and the Republican Criticism.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2l-The situation
in congress is becoming decidedly dramatic
For the fast time in the history of the
government the spectacle is presented of
both houses in deadlock on different
lines at the same time, and each prepared
to enter on struggle OF physical endur-
ance to accomplish the purpose which the
majority III either chamber has in view.
The difficulties the house will encounter
in the preliminary stages of debate on the
elections law repeal bill are likely to prove
much less serious than those with which
the Senate has been struggling for four
weeks, and with which it will go on
| struggling for probably some weeks longer.
The struggle in the house is simply to Sc
cure quorum of it's own members and
keep them In attendance and the commit
| tee on rules, aided from the chair by the
speaker, will do the rest.
That Reference to the Force BilI."
The debate will probably be long and
very bitter and all the resources of parlia-
mentary strategy exhausted to de-
lay, but there is clearly de-
fined outcome in sight inthe
house. II is far different in the senate
An incident in the debate in that body
| has been productive of much grave com
, ment outside the chamber as perhaps in
dicating a serious possibility. When Du-
bois rose instead of Teller to pick up
Voorhees, gage of battle, after comment
| ing on and criticising Voorhees, remarks
he asked whether the silver repeal bill
might not eventually be beaten by the
| same indirect means that proved fatal to
the force bill. AS Dubois truly said the
senate never voted on the latter bill, for
under one OF the peculiar rules of the SEN
| ate the bill was one day simply displaced
| by the reappovtionment bill AS unfinished
| business after occupying that position for
| fifty days. Thereby it fell to the foot of
the calendar and was never more heard of
| in Legislative sense.
| Significant Remark by Dubois.
Dubois remarked significantly that even
| the silver senators might eventually be SO
| overcome by administration influence as
| to be found supporting the Democratic
senators in their effort to pass the bill to
/ repeal the federal election law. That was
the remark that disturbed soTne OF the
| older senators. And the inference they
| drew from it is that the silver senators
| hope to pfotract the debate until the
| house has passed the Tucker bill and then
| join hands with the southern Democratic
senators in voting to take it up in the
senate and thus displace the silver bill
exactly as was done with the force bill.
Everything Else Has to Wait.
| Meanwhile in both houses all general
| legislation will remain suspended until q
conclusion is reached on the two topics
daily becoming more closely entwined with
each Other-the repeal of the Sherman law
and of the federal elections legislation
| The introduction of bills goes on, but the
committees simply receive them in per
functory way and pigeonhole them for 6
future day. Some pessimistic ohlookers
are inclined 10 think that if Chairman
! Wilson, of ways and means, is able t.
carry out his present intention of intro
ducing a tariff bill by Nov. that measure
will be just about in time to take the plac,
of the two topics now engrossing atten
|