The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1910-07-01
WASHINGTON.
Legislative and Gem
eral Topics from
the Capital.

Iune IS, 1910.
With the adjournment Of Congress. a
brief review of what legislation has been
accomplished will be in place. and it will
be found that the record of the present
Congress has seldom, if ever, been ex-
celled in the number and in the import
ance of the bills passed Thirty-six
thousand bills were offered during the
SeSslon-twenty-se thousand bv the
House and nine thousand by the Senate,
to say nothing of hundreds of resolutions
on variety of subjects. In no previous
session have so many bills been pre-
Sented.
With reference to those reform move
ments which have become known as the
bills of the Presidents program, there
are many instances of accomplishment.
Perhaps first in importance is the es-
Enlistment of postal savings banks.
Then revision of the railroad laws
involving the creation of commission
court.
The admission of the States of New
Mexico and Arizona as separate States.
raising the number of sovereign States in
the Union to forty-eight
A very important bill was that giving
to the President unlimited authority to
withdraw public lands for conservation
purposes. Under this act the President
was granted power to withhold lands
from settlement, and to conserve the
water power, and at the same time the
act provided for the agricultural entry
OF coal lands, which will open to settle
ment, it is said, as much as sixty million
acres, reserving at the same time the
coal right to the government.
The increase of the navy, while not
including many ships of the first-class,
was significant in the fact that there was
appropriations for two battleshps of
p, 900 tons each. These are to be armed
with I4-inch guns, which it is said will
make them more formidable than any bat
tleshlps on the seas. There were appro-
priations also for four torpedo.boat
deStroyers, two golfers and four subma-
rlnes, and an increase of three thousand
seamen was provided for in the bill
The Publicity Campaign Bill is consd-
cred one of great importance, in that can
didates must within a short time after
election publish the amount of campaign
contributions.
A bill authorizing an appropriation of
twenty millions in certificates of indebted
ness to continue reclamation projects was
passed.
Also bill creating Bureau of Mines.
A bill appropriating $3.50, 600 for the
support of Tariff Board was another of
the Presidents bills that had much oppo.
sition before it was finally passed.
Bills looking to the suppression of
traffic in white slaves; providing a new
tariff system for the Philippine Islands;
promoting prohibition in the Hawaiian
Islands; creating commission to con-
slider economics in the management of
the National Government, were other
important enactments.
About $500, 900 was appropriated for
the raising and removal of the wrecked
battleship Maine in Havana Harbor,
Cuba.
Among the measures which failed to
pass. although it was well known that
the President favored them, was a Ship
Subsidy Bill an anti-Injunction Bill
bill for new form of government in
Alaska and also in Panama; also bills to
create Bureau of Health; providing in
creased rates of postage for second-class
mail matter and to establish the Appa-
lachian Forest Reserve.
Taken all in all. this has been a re-
markably strenuous Congress- and there
is no doubt but that a record has been set
which will be a stimulating example to
succeeding Congresses. Apart from the
reformative and progressive legislation
above referred to- Congress has in con-
spicuous way reformed itself as DELHI
erative and parliamentary body. 1t has
taken power from the Speaker. 1t has
reformed its system of conducting bust
ness, and its organization for work is
more effective now than it was at the
beginning Of the session. The Speaker
has been removed from the Committee
on Rules, and new rule has been
adopted which, it is thought, will prevent
Withholding bills by committees when
such bills have the approval of the ma
jority of the House of Representatives,
without regard to party.