The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-04
Circulation statement.
MIR. Hays Donation to Britain.

Before our Senators and Representatives
come to forget everything except their
prayers. in the orgies of the inauguration
season, we beg them TO go into retreat for
one Sunday and spend it in solemn medi-
tation upon the rapid and sinister changes
which have been wrought in our institu-
tons during the past four years!
We urge them TO recall the time when
the House of Representatives wax de-
Lucrative body, jealous of its c9nstitu-
tional rights and privileges. and then con-
template it now in its lost estate. Once
it was a palladium o. American liberty;
now 1t is slot machine for Mr.. Hanna!
Starting with the suppression of the pop
ular branch of our National Legislature
under the despotism of Thomas b. Reed
a sequence of other serious and deplorable
events will at once occur to the mind of
anyone who will indulge himself in a
look backward. In the early spring of 1895.
Congress with hearty good will and conf
dence, placed an emergency fund of fifty
million dollars at the personal disposal
of the President. The Senate by resolution
last year asked for an accounting As far
paid to that request During a recess of
Congress last summer the administration
engaged in an executive war; in China
a war which the Hon. George F. Edmunds,
high authority on constitutional and in
ternational law, declared to be unconsti-
tutional. In order to evade the duty of
calling Congress in extraordinary session
TO authorize war the Administration chose
TO assume that the invasion of China. the
battles al Taku and Tientsin. and the
storming and capture OF Pekin did not
constitute war There never has been the
smallest room for doubt that the Chinese
expedition. while fully justified by the cir
cumstances. resulted in a state of war
which imposed upon Mr.. Mckinley the
mandatory duty of calling upon Congress
for a bill Of relief for compulsory viola
ton Of the Constitution and for means to
continue hostilities. Not one word Of ex-
PLANTATION or apology has ever been offer
ed to Congress for the usurpation of its
war-making prercgatiye by the executive
branch Of the Government
We might remind the distinguished
statesmen whom we address of many other
things: Of the defiance of the Corstitu-
tion by the House when it bowed before
storm of female hysteria and refused to
swear in regularly-eiected and accred-
tied member from a Western State; also
of the Porto Rican scandal, and other
matters which are too thoroughly in the
public mind to require mention a. this
moment. Finally, We desire to ask close
attention to a particularly fragrant as
sault upon the authority OF the Legisla-
ture, involved in the alienation of a large
piece of the national domain by the mere
Individual act of the Hon. John Hay That
functionary, without deigning to ask au-
thority from Congress, practically has
ceded about two thousand square miles of
rich gold territory. developed and settled
by American miners. to Great Britain.
At the State Department it is called a
temporary arrangement" but, at the
same place. it is said that it will post
pone consideration of permanent bound
airy line for many years.
We hope that careful thought and study
will be devoted to this remarkable de-
parture from precedent and custom-if the
act should not be more strongly charac-
terized. Who is John Hay. that he should
have the power. by a mere exchange of
notes between himself and a foreign di-
plomat. to put the Government of The
latter in actual and. as it will turn out.
perpetual possession of territory Ameri-
can beyond any possible doubt? II be Gan
thus treat the public domain as his own
in fee simple, in the case of Alaska. what
Is to prevent his giving Great Britain
port and hinterland in the State of
Maine by another modus yiyendi? Pos
sibly the answer may be made that Con-
gress has not the power to cede the real
property of the American people to a for
eign power; and. that, therefore. il must
reside somewhere else; and where better
than in the author of Little Brooches ?"
II is a grave question, and one -mong
many grave questions. 1t is time that
people OF thought and influence were con-
sidering how long it will be at the present
rate OF progress. before all the powers of
our Government will be in effect vested
in its executive branch, and the revolu-
tion in our institutions become thereby
oonpiete2