The National tribune., 1911-02-09
WORK OF CONGRESS.
A Great Deal of Important Leg
islation Will Be Enacted Before
Adjournment.


be enacted into law before Congress
adjpurns. Some of them will be enact
ed upon the appropriation bills as mat
ters that have to do with the diSburse-
ment of Government moneys An in
stance in point is the extension of pos
tai savings banks.
Postmaster General Hitchcock has
been at the Capitol much of late talk
ing to Senators about the Importance
of more money for that purpose. He
has gotten together some data about the
cost OF operating these banks, based on
the experimental banks now in opera
ton. Before long he and the Secre-
tary ofEthe Treasury and the Attorney
General, who comprise the Board of
Trustees for the postal savings banks,
want to put in number of postal banks
in numerous towns and cities where
there is large foreign population.
These are towns where the postofiices
have a record for large business in in
ternational money orders.
Something will probably be done at
this session for a bill, which Secretary
MacVeagh has urged, to permit import
ers to pay customs duties by certified
check. Now this is not allowed under
the law. Customs duties must be paid
in legal tender, and that causes i'm
porters no little annoyance. Green
porters no little annoyance. National
tender. There have also been restrictions
about depOsiting receipts from customs,
the policy being to keep those in sub
treasures. More freedom has been al
lowed regarding the receipts from in
ternal revenue, altho the reason for the
discrimination is not easily given.
Tho Army and Navy.
Considerable legislation for the Army
and the Navy Is in prospect. Quite an
addition to the corps of Army engineers,
whose officers have supervision over riv-
er and harbor improvements and who
are also building the Panama Canal,
seems now in fair way to be author
lied, and perhaps also a material adj
dition to commissioned officers in other
departments of the Army. The Navy
will not get so much, altho Secretary
Meyer is to have authority to conduct
his administration of Navy Yards and
Navy Bureaus on the new plan, of his
own making, for another year.
While Congress has been reluctant to
give legislation this year, it will be
found, when the time comes after
March for summing up, that a great
deal has been done in meeting the re-
quests of people in Washington and
outside of Washington.
Members of the Cabinet have been
stepping briskly toward the Capitol
They are greatly Interested in the end
of-the-session stir. Measures of great
import 10 the administration of their
respective Departments ''are up"
Sometimes the Cabinet officials go
thither themselves to attend committee
hearings OF. to confer with Congression-
al leaders In these times the House
leaders are not much disposed to go
down to the Departments and tarry in
cabinet
There has been a noticeable change
in this regard. Time was when your
member of the Cabinet could manage
much of the legislation in which he had
CONCERN from the broad desk where he
administers Departmental affairs His
annual report was given close consid,
GRAFTON. When committees had heard
him or his, representative there was a
10 carry out his wishes to a
considerable extent .
ats The Cabinet and Congress.
For ore reason or another this is
not SO true now as it used to be. Fig
uratireiy speaking. your member of the
Cabinet must now go to the Capitol
hat in hand. The leaders of the Sen
ate and the leaders of the House, to
be sure visit the members of the Cab
met. Early in the session they drop
around, on some leisure days, to talk
in a friendly way and learn little
something about the Governments re
quireme1ts Of Congress But when it
comes to framing bills and getting
items upon appropriation bills, the COM
expect the Cabinet members
to look out for themselves. These mat
ters are not arranged so much at pri-i
vate conferences. 4
The loyal Administration leaders mayll
be just as willing now as in former
days, but the cold facts are that Con-
gress is not as willing. 1t has bucked
so much at demands from the Secre-
tary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, 1
the Postmaster General. the Secretary
of the Interior, and SO on, that the Sem
ate leaders and the House leaders have
grown timid. In the earlier days stick
lers for the old-time properties, which
bespoke the independence of the exec
utiye and the independence of the leg
islative branches, inveighed to little
purpose. The Chairmen of big commit
tees, in charge of Departmental meas
ures, laughed at criticisms. They went
ahead and carried thru the Depart
mental programs.
During this Congress, which has now
lasted almost two years, there has been |
of the Departments all along |
the line. There is hardy a Department
which has not been attacked vigorously |
ON the floor of the Senate and the floor
Df Lnc 1tDuSe time diltt tfiIit dSdiIi Hc
attacks have not always come from po-
litical opponents. Ceasure of unduly
large expenditures really reach back
to the Departments.
Congresses Responsibility.
OF course, Congress has its share of
the responsibility. 1t must vote every |
dollar of the public expenditures. Ses- |
sion after session the policies of the |
Navy Department have been under fire. |
Dissent from the established order of
things has penetrated to the Naval Com |
rnittees of Senate and House. This is |
true in a less degree, of Army expendi- |
lures 1t is particularly true of the |
of Agriculture. For four
or five years Republicans as well as
have been sounding alarms
about the increasing expenditures there. |
These, efforts, even when they seem to
be effective generally prove cumulative
in their impressions upon Congresses.
While il has been quietly done, this
Congress and, the one before it have
worked revolution in the accountable
ity of Departments and their Cabinet
heads to legislative authority. Lump
sum, appropriations for indefinite pur-
poses, have been eliminated. Nowadays
the supply bills describe in black and
white, better than before, just what
money is O1be used for. Bureau chiefs
useda to vie5'for lump-sum paragraphs,
giving them tens of thousands, and even
Off thousands, of Government
funds which could substantially be ex-
pended at their discretion. The crea-
tionspf deficits, at which Cabinet officers
and Bureauy chiefs attained the pro-
icienGy of experts during the Mckinley
and Roosevelt Administrations has