The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-05
MORRILL, IN A sATiRIcAL MOOD.
Extracts From an Authorization Speech
in the Senate Four Years Ago.


in the Senate Four Years Ago.
Senator Morrill, of Vermont, who died
a short time ago, could on occasion
deliver a speech which would keep his
colleagues on a broad grin all the while
he spoke. One of the Vermorter's best
efforts was a speech delivered in the
senate four years ago. He announced
his topic to be Some Marvellous Sena-
torial Bills and Quack Panaceas for
Real and Imaginary Grievances" The
speech was called forth by the intro
duction of a great many wild-eyed
financial measures, and the senator
called attention to the fact that if enact
ed into law they would call for a gov
eminent expenditure of something over
1893 800, 900, 600. In the course of his re-
marks the senator said:
ut is hardly necessary to say 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, We're unani-
mOusly reported adversely by the COM
mittee on finance. Nothing more as
the committee conceived, could have
been expected save brief post-mortem
obituaries. The bills, many of them
may have been reluctantly introduced
by request, and, therefore, not tenderly
nursed, even by their able and eminent
godfather. Responsibility for such &C.
centricities ought not to be asked of
senators, and should any member be
charged with their real authorship I
hope he would be able to plead in de-
Tense an alibi.
with no reasons offered for the in
PRODUCTION of these billion-dol bills,
a sufficient reason for the adverse re-
port would appear to have been that
they We're all death stricken from an
overdose of the legal tender nostrum at
their birth, administered by the ac-
coucheur. One of these bills proposed an
issue of legal tender money 40 times
greater per capita than any we have
ever had; another to purchase all the
silver bullion that may be offered at
$l.29 an ounce, though it fetches now
in any market only 81 cents per ounce.
Fisuratively speaking, the bills We're
all of one brood and of the same feath-
er-birds of imitation, none game. none
worth charge of powder, but legisla-
tive dodoes, unlikely to be ever seen on
the earth again. No one who reads
! these bills will need to be further bored
by arguments for their condemnation
without benefit of clergy.
Il do not suppose there are more
Vagaries or political tomfooleries put
atloat here than in other countries. DC
cas!onally they come forth here with
out fatherhood, frisk about through dog
days, and then disappear, leaving no
bubbles in sight to show where they
sank. We have some imposing financial
theories wearing the mask of political
reform and sure to give the world the
millennium, and not more so than was
the philosophers stone to turn every
thing it touched into gold. The eager
ness of many politicians and of some
parties in the minority to obtain as
cendancy in the control of public affairs
leads them to present pretentious and
fite-fying platforms for popular sup
port, which, after the gusty winds If
a single season, only fatally bewitch an
! tiquated office-seekers, wire-puIlers
| with no wires to null and few iuye-
| nile cranks tarrying at Jericho. Chi
| cago Chronicle