The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-03-31
THE LATE ESS

The last congress was the worst that
ever sat, because it was the most waste
full and displayed more recklessness and
less actual ability and judgment. Its
extravaganza was marvellous. 1t voted
away in n session more money than
would have carried on efficiently in all
departments Of the government, includ-
ing army, navy, foreign service, every
thing, under President James Buchan-
nan, for twenty years. Think of that.
Stand aghast! The present government
is no more the government established
no more the government of the great
fathers, Of Washington and jefferson,
than the present liberal, constitutional
government of Great Britain is the gov
eminent of the Plantaganets or of
Charles |, and James III. 1t is not only
most wasteful, ~portentious and extrav-
agant, but it is gr~avitating swiftly to-
wards the cataract of Capitalization,
and then the Man on Horseback and the
Empire. The last congress-, both ses-
sions, wasted an immense amount of
time in buncombe legislation and local
f1ddling, the bane of all latter-day de-
Lucrative American legislative bodies.
The statement of the enrolling clerk
shows that during the sessions of the
Fifty-f1fth congress not less than 49,
463 bills were introduced. Of this total,
only 1,457 became laws. The senate
| passed LIB measures, but only SIT
found favor in the house. OF the 1,0S1
house bills which reached the senate,
however, but 1877 failed. The actual
| output as compared with the amount
of grist taken to the congressional mill
was something trifing. And yet pro-
| ably the failure is a blessing, for pro-
badly the great proportion Of the bills
introduced were chaffy and d~ispicable.
Prince Hal said of Falstaff's account at
Dame Quickly's-"But one half-penny
worth of bread to this intolerable deal
of sack" The application is easy.
The wildcat extravaganza of the COZ
| gress, and its violent departure from
| all old-time ideas of safe economy, have
provoked widespread condemnation.
The record is most damning and the
| late congress was indeed the most reck-
! less of all, and there have been bad ones
| that have preceded it. The able Phil
adelphia Record, the chief democratic
newspaper in Philadelphia and by far
| with the greatest circulation SAID tnlS
| of the defunct body that went out like
a dying tallow-dip, spluttering and
sinking:
THE 55th congress has left a record
| which will not soon pass from the mem
| cries Of living men and which may be
| held up to future generations as a mon
itory example of free government run
mad. There has been no limit TO the law
ishness of outlay short of the imperious
| demands Of huge corporations or the
promptings of official WITNESSES or par
| tisan chicane. Under the pretense OF
patriotism and in the sacred name of
liberty the American people have been
| plundered, outraged and plunged deeper
into debt by their recreant representa-
tives in the federal legislature
| However reckless, corrupt and unfaith-
J full subsequent congresses may prove
to be, there is one comfort in the
| thought that the last house of represen-
| tatives is deaG and can never have a
| possible resurrection.