Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-05-06


representatives who can vote On the
floor of either house.
In a less distinct and conspicuous
| way this is also true of every committee
which is ordained by the rules of either
house. The foreign relations, the war,
navy, and postoffice departments, and
all other branches of the service and of
legislative action, are left without the
guardianship of standing or select COM
mittees because committee or a pre-
siding efficer of house refuses to obey
the mandates of the constitution, ex-
pressed in rules adopted by the senate
or house of representatives, as the case
may be.
The refusal of the senate for more
than thirty days, for no other reason
than party jealousy and political enter
prise, to place the newly elected sena
tors on the existing committees, is
nothing less than to deny to the states
they represent their equal voic in the
senate.
And the refusal of the speaker of the
house of representatives to appoint any
committees except such as have juris-
diction of ways and means, rules and
appropriations, with the object and
purpose of conhning legislation to Ger.
tain bills of appropriation and to the
subject of tariff taxation, deprive all
persons and all parts of the country
interested in other matters of their
right of representation as effectually as
if the members of the house chosen by
them were expelled from the body.
This palpable breach of constitu-
tional duty, resulting in the most reck-
less usurpation of the zone man power"
is attempted to be excused on the
ground that the present extra session
of congress is convened for special
purpose and to meet special emergen.
cy in the finances of the government.
If such an emergency exists-as it can
not exist with an available fund in the
treasury of SI22, ,4o5, 600 on April 1st,
above all actual demand liabilities-to
confine legislation to the single object
of meeting such emergency by the en-
actment of an iron-clad bill for provid
ing legislative bounties for favored
classes under the false pretence of
''protection'' for the whole body of the
people against foreign competition, is
only an aggravatIon of the absolutism
which inspires this bold and defiant US
urpation of the zone man power"
Our cons titution contains no hint or
toleration of the idea that the president
by conyening congress in open session
to meet any emergency of government
can limit Its power or restrict its duty
to certain specific subjects of legislation.
He may, on proper occasions, convene
either house in secret executive session,
but the proclamation under which the
present extra session is called is for an
open session of congress III which it
must be left at liberty to exercise all
its constitutional functions and powers;
else it is no congress. Congress has
not this liberty because the speaker of
the house of representatives and the
party in the senate refuse to organize
those bodies by the appointment of
committees or by filling vacancies. In
the house all the committees, except
the committee on rules, are either idle
or they are without a membership.
Those that are organized are without
any business to attend to, and the other
members of the house meet once in
three days 10 enact the farce of fur
ther adjournment for three days.
1t seems impossible to say that this
disorg rganization of congress is not the
fault of the membership of the house.
yet in one sense that is true. In the
humiliating sense that the speaker of
the house is an autocrat, whose party
followers do not dare to resist his au-
thority, this dangerous submission to
tyarnny now governs the house and the
country. Congress has now but one
line of action, and that is prescribed
and defined by the house. which is un-
der the absolute control of the speaker,
so that nothing can be done for the
country that he does not assent to.
When the behests of party organization
and the rewards of party allegiance
demand the submission of the repre-
seaatives of the states and the people to
the unouestioned will of a single man,