The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1912-08-30
CONGRESS SESSION !
IS ENDED AT LAST
MOST COSTLY AND VERBOSE DE-
Li6ERATIoNs IN THE HISTORY !
OF THE UNITED STATES.
vEToEs BY PRESIDENT TAFT
MARKED COURSE.
The Expenditures Will Foot Up Over
q Billion Dollars-Last Sessions
Expenditures Were ST.
10000 900.
Another session of congress passed
into history SATURDAY. night

Another session of congress passed
into history Saturday night.
Despite promises of retrenchment
in public expenditures the house. in
conjunction with the senate, man
aged to run up appropriations far in.
excess of the billion dollar mark.
At the last session of congress-.
expenditures footed up to $1,026, 000,-
600. The house leaders have not
yet given out their figures, but they
claim the appropriations chargeable'
to them will be just little over q
billion. However, It. may reach q
much greater total.
Kept Long After Midnight.
Congress was kept in session until
long after midnight because OF Sen
ator La Follette's insistence that a
vote must be taken on the Penrose
campaign contribution fund resolu-
ton 1t required quorum to ad-
journ in the face of an objection and
this could not be secured for several
hours. The situation was most un-
usual.
The session was long on converse
tion The printed record will en-
brace about 26,000,000 words, cover
ing 1900 pages. The senators and
representatives who comprise the
present house and senate will go
down in history as the most verbose
statesmen of all time. The nearest
competitor was the first session OF
the fiftieth congress, the members OF
which contributed millions of words
and filed 5000 pages.
The session also was a record
breaker in the number of bills pre-
sented. Nearly $4,000 bills of various
sorts were introduced. OF this num-
Der the house contributed $4,000 and
the senate the remainder. A great
proportion of these bills slumber in
committee rooms and will never be
heard from again.
Few Constructive Laws Made.
With the exception of the bill pro-
viding a form of government for the
Panama canal zone and prescribing
regulations for the conduct of the
waterway, the session has been de-
void of constructive legislation on
large scale.
Big issues have been debated, but
without result. This was due In large
part to the fact that the house and
senate are antagonistic politically.
Much OF the time of the house was
devoted to the consideration of tariff
bills prepared by the Democrats. Six
such bills were put through the house.
They were all passed by the senate.
Two Of them were sent to the presi-
dent and vetoed. None of them
reached the statute books. With the
veto of the wool and steel bills the
Democrats abandoned hope of tariff
revision. President Taft has set his
face against revision, where revision
does not conform with conclusions
based on scientific inquiry in advance
Labor Legislation Failed.
The house passed several bills af--
fecting labor which failed Of consid
Grafton in the senate. Chief among
these Is the Clayton bill providing
for jury trials in cases of indirect
contempt, the Clayton anti-injunction
bill and the Sulzer bill proposing the
creation of department of labor.
The session was prolific of vetoes;
by the president. He wrote his dis
approval on at least IL bills including
the wool and steel tariff bills and the
legislative bill which was vetoed twice.