Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-12-11
Mr.. Morrill's Severe Comment on
Nine Senate Bills.
ALL INTRODUCED BY SENATOR PETER
The EphemeraI Party Now Called
the PopuIist.
SENATORS NOT MILLIONAIRES

Some Marvellous Senatorial Bills and
Quack Panaceas for Real and Imaginary
Grievances hold in my hand nine Senate
bills, which i have been directed by the
committee on finance to report adversely,
and ask for their indefinite postponement.
In order that the Senate may have some
conception of these bills / shall ask the
clerk to read the list"
All the bills were introduced by Senator
PETER of Kansas, and provide for the issue
of great sums of greenbacks for various
purposes. The Senator continued: 1T is
hardly necessary to say that these hungry
bills, big, bigger and biggest, nine of them.
asking for nine or ten times more money
than there is now in use by the whole
world, were unanimously reported adverse
ly by the committee on finance. Nothing
more, as the committee conceived, could
have been expected, save brief post mortefn
obituaries. The bills, many of them may
have been reluctantly introduced by re-
quest, and therefore not very tenderly
nursed even by their able and eminent
godfather. Responsibility for such ecden-
tricities ought not to be asked of Senators,
and should any member be charged with
their real authorship / hope he would be
able to plead in defense an alibi.
No Reason for Their Introduction.
with no reasons offered for the intro
duction of these multitudinous billion-dollar
report would appear to have been that
they were all death-stricl1en from an over
| dose of the legal-tender nostrum at their
| birth, administered by the accoucheur.
| One OF these bills proposed an issue of
| legal tender money forty times greater
per capita than any we have ever had.
Another to purchase all the silver bullion
| that may be offered at one dollar and
| twenty nine one hundredths cent per
ounce, though it fetches now In any
| ma kat m Ciy rv- fxxrn
| Figuratively speaking, the bills were all Of
| one brood and Of the same father, birds of
| imitation, none game, none worth a charge
of powder, but legislative dodoes, unlikely
| ever TO be seen on the earth again.
| Il do not suppose there are more vagaries
| or political tomfooleries put anoat here
than in other countries. Occasionally they
| come forth here without fatherhood, frisk
| about through the dog days, and then dis
| appear leaving no bubble in sight to show
| where they sank. We also have some
pushing fanatical theories wearing the
| mask of political reform, and as sure to
give the world the millennium, and not more
| so, than was the philosophers stone to
| turn everything ii touched into gold.
Minor Political Parties.
Some minor political parties come and
| go like those diseases which aiIiict nobody
| but once. Such parties, usually destitute
| of constitutional stamina, are ephemeral,
and are soon compelled to hoist any flag
and set sail for 'Cowes and a market A
recent example of such ephemera, adver-
| tised with as much technical veracity as
any patent medicine, is the 'populist,' and
leading astray many good men, appears to
| have politically pockmarked and discredit-
| ed two or three OF our sister states, but
the grotesqueneSS on its face is likely to
prove deterrent against its further DOM
| ination.
"Shcrt-lived partisans, fertile in the in
vention and swift in the repetition of de-
rogatoIy slang, aim by its use to defame
| and defeat those Who happen to be in pos
| session of the public confidence. By this
| class of GROWERS the splenetic charge is
made that great wealth has been wrongly
Enthusiastically to Senators-and has
created Astounding rlutocrats, or kings of
wealth, although no entailed wealth under
| our Constitution is allowed, and we have
| no ladders here to the upper regions of
riches not free to all. Here the children of
| the wealthy, trained neither to economy
| nor to labor often exchange places in sue
| ceeding genera tons with the children of
the poor, schooled to industry and frugal
| ity. Thus the tidal ebb and flow of ac-
emulation and dissipation goes on forever.
Those who may be at the bottom of the
wheel of fortune today often rise to the
top tomorrow. Such wealthy celebrities
were Capt. Clapp of Portland, Billy Gray
of Boston, Stephen Girard of Philadelphia,
Garrett of Baltimore and Corcoran OF
Washington, all reckoned among the
| 'wortEies' of their day, received few or no
political decorations. and the Astors, VAN
derbilts and Goulds of our great CONNER
cial metropolis appear to be equally ne
elected, or possibly equally destitute of po-
| litical ambition.
"The financial fortunes of nearly all of
our Presidents were limited, and the for
tunes of those foremost in popular favor,
like jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln
and Grant, were especially limited.
Not a Body of MiIlionaires.
Persons of moderate wealth, living gen.
erously, often have their estates largely
| Ar n -
long-eared political donkeys many have
supposed that the Senate of the United
States was a selected body of millionaires,
| when, perhaps not more than two or three
CT its eighty-odd members have any valid
| title TO that much-envied epithet OF OPP
probrium. Though few We're born with a
silver spoon in the mouth the most part
of the members achieved in early voca-
tons some substantial success, and yet
1t is probable that large majority of the
body would be unable to maintain their
families in Washington during the ses-
sions of Congress but for their salaries.
They have the blessing CT Agur, neither
poverty nor riches.
1T is also to be feared that we are
overstocked with amateur cobbers, ca ger
In every emergency TO bring out from
the profound recesses of their vest pockets
ready-made constitutional amendments,
adapted, when slightly fabricated, TO their
own peculiar circumstances.
Madison, a statesman for all time, never
dreamed how hippantly the Constitution,
made by him, and signed by Washington,
might be blasphemcd or botched and per-
verted. Rich in her country's historic fame
as the old dominion may be she can ill
afford for cheap pinchbeck bijoutry to
impeach and discard her ancient and price
less jewels, that on the outstretched fore
finger of all time were placed to sparkle
forever.
The tariff was claimed by those IN
power to have been excessive on foreign
trade and productive of too much revenue,
but the protracted agony and Caesarian
delivery of the tariff reform bantiing and
the progressive treasury deficiency thus
provoked far transcends the sentimental
agony of a surplus which long ago ceased
to veX any financiers. 1t is always some
thing too much, whether surplus or a de-
ficiency. Two years ago some thought We
had too much McKinlcyism. More now
think we had too much wisconsin. The
tariff pendulum swings to and fro between
protection and free trade, firing out even
the President in dreaming dreams, alas, of
iron and coal"
Mr. Morrill, then discussed the financial
situation and the question of silver, crops
and prices. He concluded by saying:
Party Duty.
II do not imagine that any political party
long exists without some defects, and one
CT the highest duties of their members