The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-12-27
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
A new legislature is about to con

A new legislature is about 10 con-
vene.
"Convene' is good word.
1t sounds weighty and sonorous and
frock-coated and silk-hatted and ora
torical and leading with-prayer the
while the lobbyists deploy in the off
ing.
Convene" is always used to des-
crbe the beginnings of legislatures,
religious bodies and women's conven-
tons.
1t sounds well and means nothing
in particular.
Like a lot of other things.
Reflect on the number of people
that sound we'll but mean nothing in
particular.
Many of them nothing at all.
Very few people think
If they did we wouldn't have so
many legislatures.
Or perhaps none at all.
When you stop tc take one good,
long look, a legislature is ridiculous
thing.
More or less.
Perhaps our national one, more, our
state one, less.
Be that as it may, this country
could get on for the next fifty years,
perhaps century, if we had none.
Congress is joke.
What, in the name of heaven, is it
that Congress does?
A lot of men meet once or twice
off, CT n
to tinker with the tariff, rise to object
call each other names, stand each 9TH
er off by a two days speech, adjourn
out of respect and adjourn for a re-
cess and adjourn until the next time
and adjourn to go home and adjourn.
If pushed to the wall could you, off
hand, mention any law that Congress
has passed within the past ten years
that has affected you personally or
sons?
You couldn't do it.
Don't they fuss by the month about
the wool schedule?
And then what does it amount to.
Does one person in ten thousand
know what the wool schedule is or
care about it if they know?
Does one congressman in ten, or
fifty or one hundred.-or any of 'em
for that matter-know anything about
the tariff.
Isn't it a fact that when the politi-
clans run out of anything else to talk
about and throw at each other they
pull the poor old tariff out of its hole
and begin to wigwag it from the CAPT
toll halls?
Why do they have extra sessions?
Why don't they do what they ought
/ to do at regular sessions?
Why don't the people rise up and
ask Congress to get down to bust
ness and do something or quit?
The people could do it.
They know that Congress is not
only a joke. but tradition, an illu-
sion, make-believe. sham, an ap-
lpearance of something that isn't.
! All the work Congress really does
that amounts to anything is to pass
the appropriation bills and thus ena-
Bile the country to keep going.
Or that portion of it represented at
| w dSlllnS ION.
If they really got down to business
on a business basis this would take
them about a day
The whole thing is miserable
farce.
Government as it is operated is a
comedy.
A burlesque,
- hn
ture one better.
But what law can YOU point to that
has been passed within the past de
cade Of which you have any knowl-
edge either of its intent. text or oper-
ations?
| Perhaps only the local option meas
ures which have been banded back
and forth from township to county.
! And even at that, what good have
either doneo
/ Haven't their beneficiary provisions
/ been nullified by the politicians
They might have been, or might be.
good
But they're not.
Because everybody is animated by
self interest
There isn't one legislator, either
state or national, that goes to the leg
islative halls for a really altrurian, a
patriotic, humanitarian reason.
! Most of them do it for the salary.
/ And. in the case of the state, be
cause ii is diversion,
It's lots Of fun to go mp 10 Indiana
polls. stay sixty days al the expense