The Newport plain talk. (Newport, Tenn.) 1909-1939, 1911-03-09
WORK OF THE
LATE CONGRESS
Short Session Was a Specta-
cular One Throughout.
BUT LITTLE ACCOMPLISHED
The Effort to Unseat Senator LOr-
inner Occupied a Great Portion
of the Senate's Time -Distin-
guished bp Revision of Tariff.

gUSneQ Dp REVISION on drlH.
4 Washington, March Sin the
retrospect the sixty.tirst congress,
which expired by the constitutional
llasdtation al noon Saturday, appears
to have been distinguished by three
things: The revision Of the tariff in
the so-called Payne-Aldrich bill, which
was passed at an extra session in the
snmmer of 1909; the large amount of
important legislation, mach of it upon
the recommendation Of PresidentlTaft,
enacted at the regular session of 1909
IA, and the exceedingly small product
af the "short session. so-called, now
closed.
The interval between the last two
sessions was marked by the political
npheaval registered at the general
election of last November, which
changed large rep2hlican majority
into still larger democratic majority
in the house of representatives, cut the
sepublican majority in the senate al
most to the vanishing point and in
cidentally effected striking changes in
TIE senate personnel.
! In strong contrast with the support
which the Taft administration received
from the republican majority in the
matter of legislation ia the regular
session of l9O9-l0 is the fact that at the
present session the majority has been
legislating, but not united; the recipro-
city agreement was passed in the house
by the aid of large proportion of
democratic votes, while in the senate
the aft in the majority between the
'regulars" and the insurgents has
been an important factor in its side
tracking and in the consequent sum-
moning of the extra session.
To this division in the majority was
largely due the most dramatic feature
of the previous long session-the pro-
tracted and sensational conflict last
spring, which ended in material
changes in the rules of the house gem
orally interpreted as "the throw of the
speaker, and which, after a bitter
fight lasting many hours and includ.
ing one all-night struggle, stopped only
just shcrt of the actual unseating of
Speaker Cannon. While the acrimony
between regulars and insurgents neith-
er began nor ended with the battle
over the rules, that was its most con-
.spicuous episode and there has been
little peace between the factions in
either house.
SENATE SENSATION.
In the senate the most sensational
feature of this session was the unavail-
ing effort, in which the insurgents
were most active, to unseat William
Lorimer as junior senator from Illinois
on the ground of alleged bribery in
connection with his election by the
legislature of that state in the spring of
1909. The echoes of that battle are still
reverberating and its bitterness added
friction to the closing hours of the sem
ate session.
Another important recent action of
the senate was the defeat of the resolu-
tion embodying proposed amendment
to the constitution of the United States
to provide for direct election of sena-
tors by the people.
This resolution received more than q
majority of the senate, but il needed
two-thirds vote and fell short by only
four votes. Had the senate passed it,
the house almost certainly would have
done so. The friends of this PROPOSE
ton entertain little doubt that it will
pass the next congress and go to The
states for ratification or defeat
The output of this session in the way
Continued on Fage u