The Washington times., 1912-08-24
CURTAIN TO FALL
At CAPITOL At END
OF SESSION TODAY
Statesmen Leaving for
Home-Records for
- Verbosity.
Continued from First Page.)


Company was a trust and that II
should lie paid for It's service on the
mileage basis, as are other terminal
companies handling mails across
bridges.
The preadjournment scene about the
Capitol are not unlike those of preced-
ing years. The animosities of debate
are forgotten in the lying hours OF
session; a sort of good fellowship pre-
walls and most any fellow can get
bill through today If there's nothing bad
about It, Republicans. and Democrats
are taking their last verbal potshots at
one ar other on the eve OF a great cam
paign, but the performance Is more or
less political byplay and these are many
good fellows on both sides of the cham
ber whom no one wants to see defeated.
Many Face Fight.
There is always more or less se4ti-
ment about an adjournment of Con-
gress, particularly in the House, where
the friendships are closer and more nu-
merous and where the members face re-
election or defeat every two years.
Every member in that body with the
exception of very few who do not seek
return, leaves for home today to begin
a fight for his political life.
Some of the veterans have hard
struggles ahead; some of them are de-
stined to come back to the Sixty-third
congress-; others will fall victims to the
vlcissitudes of politics and changing
public opinion.
always has it's sentimental side. Legis-
lators who have grown fond of each
other say good-by with a hearty hand
snake and the hope for good luck back
nome. Partisan rivalry is submerged;
it's sort of man to- man farewell and
the lump comes in many a throat as it
did in the old days at the commence
ment exercises in the little red school,
Syne" and a lad wondered II his pal
would be there next term.
For more than eight months the
members of the Senate and House
have worked assiduously. The ses-
sion has been marked at times by
great bitterness of feeling and con-
stantly by political maneuverirg.
many important bills have failed to
become laws. Because of the differ
ent complexions of the House and
Senate a great deal of constructive
legislation has ended in debate, and
the war of words is today transfer
red to the hustings.
The session of Congress which ends
today has been the "talkiest" in the his
tory of the Government. The COM
pleted Congressional Record of the ses-
sion will number approximately 1900
pages. 1t is the longest Record of them
the first session of the F1ftieth Con-
Eress, whose members delivered them
selves of words sufficient to fill 9,6l6
pages
December until october 20. This ad-
tourns in August, and yet verbose
statesmen have distanced the oratorical
feats of their predecessors OF twenty
four years ago.
Millions of Words.
The Record when complete will con-
tain about 26,0oO,OO0 words, and the
nerves of the official reporters are
somewhat frayed on this, the last busy
day of the sassion.
No statement is yet available as to
the amount of money appropriated by
the first regular session of the Sixty
second Congress, but a careful esti-
mate shows that this is still a billion
dollar country. Despite the attempts of
the Democrats to economiZe, 1t is ap-
parent that the billion mark has been
reached or very nearly SO. Probably it
has been oVertopped.
The appropriations of the last session
of the SiXty-first Congress were $1,O2S,-
100000 in round figures. Democrats on
furrie dperUsal of the appropriation
budgets as they are whipped into shape,
believe they will beat this record per-
haps by SIS, 100000, so it's still billion
dollar Congress.
Numerous Deadlocks.
Much of the work of the session has
been devoted to the consideration of
tariff bills and the annual appropri-
alton measures. The fact that the
House was Democratic and the Senate
and President Republican has brought
numerous deadlocks both on tarif
and appropriation legislation, and
when the end of the fiscal year came
on June 80 1t found the larger budgets
still pending either in the Senate or
House or in conference.
President Taft twice vetoed the leg
islatiye appropriation bin and once
drafting Of these required time and
occasioned some hard feeling.
The Democratic House passed six
bills to revise the tariff. Not one of
them becomes a law and millions of
words of oratory and many months
labor comes to naught, unless the
Democrats can convince the country
during the approaching campaign that
the party should be given complete
power, in order that 1t may be un-
trammelcd in It's determination to re-
wise the Payne law.
The tariff bills passed by the House
include those revising the wool, cot
ton, steel, chemical and sugar sched-
ules and companion measure to the
sugar bill which proposed an extern
sion OF the excise tax.
Passed In Senate.
The Democratic-insurgen coalition
in the Senate was responsible for
sending the wool and the steel bill
to the President. He vetoed both of
them. The sugar, excise tax, and cot
ton bills died natural deaths in con-
ference. and the chemical bill failed
of passage in the upper chamber.
The House has also passed several
bills affecting labor which failed of con-
sideration in the Senate. Chief among
these is the Sulzer bill for the creation
OF Department of Labor, the Clayton
anti-injunction BILL and the Clayton
Dill providing jury trials in cases of in
direct contempt of court.
Democratic spellbinders are now pre-
pairing a summary of the legislation
which 1t attempted to put through the
present session, and the hustings will
ring with Democratic denunciations of
the Senate and the President.
The bills that failed ultimately caused
much of the talk" of the session. Prob
ably 100000 words were wasted on
measures which are now defunct.
The same statement applies to the
first, or extraordinary session, of the
StXty-second Congress, which was called
in April, 1911, by President Taft. and
which worked until August 22 1911, on
Canadian reciprocity and various tariff
lS Inl,