The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-08
Congress and the President.

New York Times.
 The Fifty-eighth Congress, which adjourned the morning of the Presi- dents inauguration, is notable for the large amount of importan tlegislation proposed to it and the insignificant amount which it enacted.
 Commencing its legal term of exist ence in March, 1903, and called togeth- CT Tor an extraordinary session in Mo- vember to take the necessary action in the matter of reciprocity with Cuba, that action and the appropriations for the navy are the most serious things that can be placed to its credit or dis- credit. During its two years of ex- istence there has been much agitation of the tariff problem, most of 1t origi- hating In the more or less vague sug- gestions of MT. Roosevelt's speeches and his personal consultations with members of the two houses. There is no doubt that he at one time had a pretty strong though not very definite desire to see the tariff adjusted to the changed needs of the country or that there was a considerable sentiment in favor of such adjustment in the New England States and in the States of the Northwest. During the latter part of the Presidential campaign and in the month following, those who were nearest the President gave intimations amounting almost to assurances that the matter would be taken up during the short session, but the resistance of the interests favored by the tariff was far too strong. and the President yield ed rather readily in a matter that ap- pealed neither to his clear convictions nor to his moral sense, which is some- what rudimentary in economic ques- tions.
 The inaction of the Congress in an- other direction, that of the fixing of rates by the United States Govern ment, was not so complacently regard ed by the President. In this he was very urgent, and he succeeded in get ting the House to adopt his views, but nor is 1t probable that at any time the President really expected that he could move the profound inertia of that body. Indeed, the feature of the life of the Fifty-eighth ! Congress is the steadily increasing development of the resistance of the Senate to what it's members of both parties regard as encroachments by the President upon the prerogatives of the Senate. In the matter of appointments they have been compelled to surrender, but they placed on file at the close of the session a vigorous and not too respectful con- demnatioE of the doctrine of an imag- mary recess on which Mir. Roosevelt had depended for his authority in issu- ing commissions to nominees whom the Senate had refused to approve. In other measures they were more open and more stubborn in their practical opposition. They forced the President hastily and without much regard for his dignity to abandon completely the absurd project he had set on foot in Santo Domingo. and they amended the arbitration treaties in express defiance of his none too seemly public an- nouncement that he would not present their amendments to the foreign gov ernments concerned. minor incl dent, but one of considerable signif- canoe, in which the House also took part, was the passage of an amendment to the Indian appropriation act, forbid ding the payments to sectarian schools from the trust funds in the custody of the government, which the President had previously assumed to authorize. The feeling in Congress on this sub of one of the friends of the prohibition that the only valid objection to it was that 1t was in the nature of an impair ment of contracts and interfered with the payment of political debts.
 Of course. 1t would be easy to exag- gerate the importance of the differences that have arisen during the latter part of the term of the Fifty eighth Con- gress between the members of the ma jority and the President. It is true that these differences involve pretty serious principles of the construction of the Constitution in some cases, but the President, with all his vigor and determination in the pursuit of his aims, is very shrewd student of public opinion. If he should find that the people will stand by the Congress, he will not withdraw from his line of &C., ton; he will change and forget It. No politician of our time has shown great CT alertness than he in this most con- yenient device, and the earnestness with which he can follow an altered course tends naturally to wipe from the public memory the fact of its altera- tion. The real significance of the de- velopments of the last two years will appear when Congress reassembles next December.