The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-05-26
THE LEGISLATURE.

the session of the Legislature is close
to it's end, unless extended. The Sen
ate finished with commendable speed
it's consideration of the appropriation
bills, while it is the general impression
that the House has dawdled good
deal. Just at present it has a violent
attack of economical grippe, and in
some instances has been nearly bent
double with the cramps of stinginess.
Inmany respects the Legislative body
is a study. President HOsmer should
have taken the advanced students of
Oahu College, in relays, and with
regularity, to these Legislative ses-
sions, in order to give them object les
sons in the business of making laws.
If they did not obtain much instruction
in the theory and art of chow to do it,
they would have have obtained much
experience and practice in the art of
chow not to do it,"
The community would do gross in
justice if it did not recognize the value
of the services of intelligent, industri-
GUS men in both Senate and House.
Some of them have made decided sacri-
fees in accepting legislative office. Their
contribution to the good of the cOun-
try should be and must be recognized.
The faults of the legislative body are
those usually found in bodies of this
character composed of men without
party ties. At the beginning of the
session, the members of both branches
refused with some Indignation any
government leadership. Every mem
Der seems to have carefully read the
political novel; eco it alone, or every
man his own Boss" This was especial
1y the case with the 'rosebuds" of the
House, many of whom felt very con-
scious of profusely exhaling sweet leg
islative odors of knowledge. The
Ministers were insulted to some eX-
tent Each member of the Cabinet
was treated as if he were the niger
head in the side show of the circus,
and the members who had a high duty
to perform SHE'D missiles at him.
Quite too many of the members
spent their time in posting notices
all over the Legislative garden warn
ing the Cabinet to keep off the grass"
or mo Ministerial dogs permitted to
battle in this pond"
The consequence is that the Minis
tiers, instead of acting as leaders of
the dominant party, as they do in
other countries, have been in the pO-
sition of kites without any tails to
them
If the members of the Legislature
had chosen to study their relations to
the people. and government, they
would quickly have discovered that
they were illustrating the political
plumbers, and errors of the members
of the modern French Republican AS
sembly, which refuses to trust the
government, and vainly attempts
crude, disorganized parliamentary gov
eminent, in which every member is
the hero of the political novel we have
quoted, go it alone, or each man his
own Boss" If each branch of the
Legislature would, out of it's cOntin
gent fund, purchase for each member
a copy of France" recently written
by ]. E. C. Bodley, a writer of much
power, there would appear before
them, in rather a CHASTITY way, the
strange inconsistent, and at times
Iudicrous acts of the legislative body
re Il
ed on the principle of no party lines,
as it is here.
Indeed, in reviewing the doings of
the Legislature, up to the present
time, the ruling idea seems to have
been, especially in the House, to re-
gard the Executive departments as
not above suspicion, and at any rate,
not worthy of party leadership.
While the government generally
announced it's policy, in the opening
of the session, it did not take the
usual means, commonly adopted in all
countries, of organizing a machine"
to carry through its policy. 1t is not
enough to declare a policy. 1t is just
as necessary to hitch up legislative
teams that will pull it through
The government did not do this,
the members of the Legislature did not
choose a leader out of their own body,
nor has the American Union party
tried to enforce several very valuable
measures, contained in its platform,
through want of a leader.
This general aspect of the Legisla-
tive body does not call for any severe
criticism. 1t is an old story in politi-
cal growth. 1t shows how a body of
men almost unconsciously are doing
here, just what other bodies of men
have done elsewhere. under similar
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