The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04
SESSIONS MAY GO THROUGH SUMNER Pessimists Predict Longest
 Congress in Years THE TARIFF MEASURES Members of Both Parties Want to Make Speeches to Send Home Through the Congressional
 Record
By JONATHAN WINFIELD


 summer time and statesmen dread the stuffy atmosphere of the House and Senate chambers.
 | The predictions of the member, how ever, will most likely prove to be true. There are slight prospects now for any thing like an early adjournment of the present session and some of the repub- licans are beginning to charge that the democrats, in charge of the House, are purposely delaying the game for polit- ical effect.
 The House holds the whip hand just at present, so far as adjournment is concerned. because all tarim legislation must originate in the lower body, and this is to be essentially tariff session. It looks like August or September al- though some of the democrats, when they arrived in Washinton at the begin ming of the session, were so optimistic as to say that everything would be over | in June.
 The calm and leisure1y manner in which both houses have proceeded thus far, however, has banished all such hopes. Congress has been in session nearly two months but not a tariff bill has been passed The Senate is taking things so easy that 1t has been meeting daily al o'clock and staying in ses sion but a few minutes each day. The House has remained in session several hours each day, but the record of ac- tual accomplishment is not very encour- aging for an early adjournment. Republican members believe the dem ocrats are planning a clever scheme to wage during the summer months, claim of the House Instead of taking the stump during the sumer months. claim the republicans, the democrats will con tinue to peg away at the tariff in Washlnton. The country will duly note these efforts of the dem ocrats to re- wise the tariff; there will be plenty of campaign thunder in the newspapers and in the Congressional Record.
 The democrats, of course, deny that they will keep Congress in session just for the purpose of making campaign thunder The country, say the demo crats, is demanding tariff revision and will be content to have Congress re- main in session until next winter if such a protracted session is necessary to obtain relief from the burdens of the Payne tariff law.
 When Representative Mann, astute politician and minority leader, reached | Washington last December he issued a statement predicting that there would be more perspiring statesmen In Wash | ington this year than ever before. MT. Mann was so pessimstic as to say that | Congress will be here next October. In
 fact he indicated that it would adjourn
 barely in time to permit the members to go homo and vote in the national elections next November
 Representative Underwood the ma iority leader and chairman of the ways
 and means committee which holds the l | eli ion, .f ff.. power to frame tariff legislation, re-
 fused to take such sorowful view of 1 the situation. MT. Underwood thought the session ought to close in June just before the national conventions. Now the talk has changed. Mir Un- derwood still says he hopes to get away in June, but the rank and file in the | House have about resigned themselves to spend the summer in Washington. | far removed from the cooling breezes of seashore or mountain. It is now sug
 gested that when the national conVen- tions are held the house will be right i'll the midst of it's tariff tinkering. and | that two weeks recess will have to be taken in order to permit the members of Congress to attend the conventions A convention wouldn't be conven- tion unless the politicians of both houses who want to have something to say in the quadrennial task of nam | ing a presidential nominee,
 The democratic tariff revision pro- gramme is yet in it's embryonic state | But one tariff revision bin has been re- | ported to the House and the Senate finance Committee hasn't begun to think of tackling the tariff.
 The ways and means committe must yet thresh out the sugar schedules the wool schedules, the cotton sched . ule and others-all of which require days of time. Then each bill must be brought into the House, and a. this is campaign year nearly every member | is going to demand the right 10 say something about the all absorbing top | ic of tariff revision, upon which subject | both parties will go to the country in November, This means that the speech es will be long and that there will be scores of orations on every tariff meas | ure.
 Speeches will be made for circulatio | through the Congressional Record: the country will be flooded with arguments
 for and against sweeping revision of schedule K, the work of the investi- | gatng committees of the House must 1 be threshed over for the benefit of the
 voter. The republicans. of course, will play the same game as the democrats, although the republicans are now on
 the defensive in the House and are
 making claims that the long session
 is being designed for the benefit of the
 democratic donkey
 No mater who comes out on top, t
 Is now practically assured that this will
 be one of the most heated and protract-
 ed sessions Congress has ever held.
 Coming as it does on the eve of |;
 presidential campaign, no advantage
 will be overlooked by either party and
 the perspiring solons will stay in Wash
 lngton until October if they become
 convinced that the country is watching
 them and that it wants the tarifr agi-
 tated above eVervthine alSe