St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-02-16
A CONGRESS OF ENcAPABLEs.

The Fifty-third congress will be
known in history as the Congress of
Incapables. As a Democratic body
it was incapable of putting into eff
feet the chief purpose for which the
people chose it. 1t was not able to
frame and adopt a revenue tariff.
They went in on plain promise and
demand to eliminate protection from
our fiscal policy, and incubated an
act saturated with protection. The
legatee of a vicious monetary sys-
tenn, it has shown itself utterly in
capable either of formulating a pol
icy of its own or of adopting those
which the administration has COM
mended to it. While the incapacity
to frame a tariff in accordance with
the promise of the party and the
command of the people is chargeable
to the Democrats, that which has
produced a succession of fiaScoS in
the attempt to reform our currency
system is shared by both parties
about alike.
The defeat of the latest currency
measure removes all expectation of
any remedial legislation at the hands
of this congress-. There is nothing to
hope for in it's successor. Enough
has been shown in this session to
show that the lines of cleavage run
athwart both parties. In the SEN
ate the ultra silveriteS are strongest
in the Republican wing. In the
house the divergence of views among
the Republicans is so radical as tC
preclude unification on any safe
course. The result will be two more
years of drifting, without rudder or
sail, with a mutinous crew on a sea
beset with shoals.
What more or better can be ex-
pected when candidates for con-
greSS are selected without the least
regard to the duties they have to
perform or their fitness for it? Min
nesota is no better or worse in this
respect than any other state. Take
the next delegation in congress from
this state, and it is an average of the
entire body of senators and repre-
sentatives; not one of them, except
ing, perhaps, McCleary, is the best
equipped man of his district or of the
state for either representative or
senator. In the house TaWney has
shown himself to have no higher
view of public matters than those
which are connected with eggs and
barley. Kiefer's conception of a con-
CHEESEMAN'S duties is limited to
starch, potatoes and appropriations.
The third-rate lawyer from the Sew
The Sixth district member will sup
ply only the fireworks of rhetoric.
The congressional jobs in which Min
neapolis is so heavily interested will
have faithful guardian in Fletcher,
and nothing more. The representa-
tive OF the Third district has from
his youth regarded his shape and ap-
pearance as all the capital that is
necessary for a statesman, and re-
CARDS the drudgery essential to quail
flying one to properly perform the
duties of representative as being
utterly unnecessary for him. In the
senate Davis is a gaudily painted
ship under full sail, without a rud-
der, driven hither and beyond by a
fervid and uncontrolled imagination.
Nelson has already abundantly prov
en- himself capable ofmaking jettison
of conviction and principles to save
a worthless cargo of political ex-
pediency. With the remaining states
averaging with Minnesota the Fifty
fourth congress promises nothing but
a repetition of the incompetency of
tho E1iftu-tbir5