The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-12-21
RECESS WELCOMED.

Congress is to have the usual Christ
mas vacation; President Wilson is 60
| ing to some point on the Gulf Of Mex
| leo to recuperate, and Secretary Bryan
lis due to mako two or three speeches
in the west early in the coming month.
There is much reason to hope that for
the next two or three weeks at least
majority Of the news items coming g
over the wires will not carry the Wash
ington date line.
The people of the country have had
surfeit Of debates in congress-and
then some. We have had three extra
sessions in rapid succession and endured
so much oratoEy and argument on the
tariff, the currency, reciprocity, trust
busting and other subjects which agi-
tate the minds of the politicians if not
the voters, that it has seemed at times
as if perpetual motion had been dis
covered by chance at the national
capital.
Debates in the senate and house
rarely, il ever, have any effect upon
the votes cast for or against any par
ticular measure, Some speeches are
made for home consumption and in
such cases the local papers are fur
nished with advance copies to be dove
tailed in when the Associated Press
carries a line announcing that Repre-
sentative So.and-So also spoke.
Tom Reed once said Of long-wind-
ed Democratic member Of the house
that he could not open his mouth with
out subtracting something from the
sum total Of human knowledge. There
be many budding statesmen like unto
the base against whom the brilliant
speaker launched his shaft of sarcasm,
At least there are many who, if they
do not subtract anything from human
knowledge, certainly do not add any
thing to it.
Debates in congress are nearly al
ways partisan. It is only necessary
for one party to introduce a bill to
arouse the opposition, and it doesn t
make any difference If the proposed
legislation is good, bad or Indifferent,
it will be assniled with as much energy
and logic as the opposition can COM
mand, usually much moro Of the former
than the latter. The effect Is wear
ing upon the nerves and temper, not
alone of those who perforce are com
PEELED to listen, but upon those who
look to their party leaders for inspira-
tion as well. Many a senator or rep
resentative makes pitiful failure when
he rises in his place to oppose bill
simply because the other side intro
duced it.
In his essay on Samuel Johnson, Lord
Macaulay wondered chow 1t chanced
that man who reasoned On his prem
ises 30 ably, should assume his prem
ises SO fooishly" and then after call.
ing attention TO the same inconsistency
in other writer's he has this to say re-
garding the legislative efforts of some
lawyers who became members Of par
lament:
1t is the same with some eminent
lawyers Their legal arguments are
intellectual prodigies. aboundlng with
the nappiest enalogies and the most
refined distinctions The principles
Of their arbitrary scicnce being once
admitted, their statute book and the
reports being once assumed as the
foundation OF reasoning, these men
must be allowed TO De perfect mas
teTs OF logic But II a question arises
as TO the postulates upon which their
whole system rests, II they are called
upon 10 vindicate the funda mental
maXins OF that system which they
have passed their lives in studying.
these very men often talk the lam
Gpage OF savaSes and children Those
who have listened TO a man OF this
class in his own court, and who have
witnessed the skill with which ha
anaiyzes and digests a vast rnass of
evidence, or reconciles q crowd of
precedents which al first sight seem
contradictory. scarcely know him
again when. few hours later, they
hear him speaking on the other side
Of Westminster hall In his capa CITY
OF legislator, They can scarcely be-
neve that the paltry quirks which
are family heard through storm OF
coughing, and which do not Impose
on the plainest country gentleman,
can proceed from the same sharp and
vigorous Intellect which had excited
their admiration under the same roof.
and on the same day
The same criticism may be pertly
made of eminent lawyers In congress.
They ofttimes show wonderful legal