Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1906-11-10

or are engaged In Otner DuSinooo 20 siAS
district. All this am convinced is not
for the benefit or advantage OF the
electors who are supposed to be repre-
sented here by these men.
II believe our representatives ought
to come here for the sole purpose OF
representing the people who sent them'
and that the way to accomplish it is to
send fresh lot for each congress, so
that the interest of our representatives
may not be weaned away from those
whom they come here to serve.
'.When men are kept in congress for
a long term of years they acquire 2
position in national legislation that en-
ables few of them to control the policy
of both houses, and congress is thereby
robbed of its representative character.
1t no longer is representative, it seems
to me, but becomes autocratic and ex-
tremely fergetful of the people.
Certainly congress sitting for one
term only would never think of Rrovid-
ing itself with marble Office buildings OF
such magnifcence as to overshadow the
most voluptuous period in the history OF
the Roman empire.
"Stern simplicity and unfaltering at
tention to duty are the hallmarks OF
living and progressive republic. These
luxuries, procured by the expenditure
of vast sums of the peoples treasure,
are too suggestive Of the nymphs of the
bath and the decline of great nation
to please a plain citizen who knows
from liberal experience that economy is
and always must remain the true source
of wealth and power.
"The iron hand of strength, as ex-
emplifed by our magnificent navy, gives
me great satisfaction, for in order to
have peace you must have the power to
produce it; but these private palaces
for congressman do not leave pleasing
picture in the mind, If congress has
come to regard them as necessity,
after doing without them for more than
100 years, why will it not come to need
hotel at government expense by and
by? Or carriage for each member?
Or tailor? Or, indeed, fortune for
each member and senator out of the
public treasury? 1t is no longer step
from one of these things to the other
than it is from what congress actually
needs to these marble Office buildings.
''They tell me that congress had the
pure food bill before it for seventeen
years before it was allowed to come to
a vote. Does anyone think that would
have been possible with congress
elected for one term and not longer? Il
is perfectly apparent to me that a bill
of such high merit as that could only be
killed from session to session by msr
who have been here long enough to gel
control of the machinery of Legislation
in such way as to head off the new
member with nothing but his duty t.
his constituents before him.
''They tell me it was many years ag'
that the supreme court struck the rate
controlling power from the hands of tn
Interstate commerce commission, ant
yet if it had not been for the ,acciden
that gave us such president as Mr.
Roosevelt, they say no railroad rate bil
would have been passed even at thi
time. How can you account for such
situation as that if it is not done by tn
men who have been in congress so lon
as to be able to handle the body? Surely
an entire congress, fresh from the pee
pie, with no hope or expectation of re
manning here any longer, would hav
. heard the demands of the people for re
lief without having to be held up to ii
work through the happy accident of a
+ unusually strong man in the Whit
: House.
''They say the free alcohol law, f(
: which the people have been asking fl
e many years, was forced through by M
k Roosevelt in the same way, and that
q was passed even then only by forcin
: the hand of Senator Aldrich. That Alt
a rich was opposed to it and had been fl
d so long that no man can remember tt
time when he was not.
o ''Now how does it happen that SCI
d ator from the little state of Rho(
e Island could hold up measure like TIL
t for so long a time when the people 6
e over the United States were asking Fl
e it? Could he have done it if he hi
S been sent here for one term onl.
Hardly. But he has been here, by VIII