The Nome daily nugget., 1913-11-13

| 1 eral hundred men. the servants of the people of the United States who drawn down large salaries and other emoluments for attending to the leg islation of the country. Of course these high priced gentlemen do not all have the same ideas In regard to the kind of legIslation to bs indulsed In. Neither do the constituants who send them there and that is one reasoH why it takes 90 long to get anything. good or bad. through congress.
 Just now, however. because the two or three different interests which sf- feet Legislation are stsllins around try. Ing to gain time or to prevent certain national isues from coming up these honorable gentlemen who are sent to Washington to legislate and are paid good deal too much for legislatlng and who make botches of what they do iegislate half the time. are absent ing themselves from the halls of con- gress in order to prevent the very legislation that they arc supposed to have been sent there to enact.
 If these honorable gentlemen could only be paid by the day for days work or K-But we were not going to write about that.
 What is bothering us now is that while certain members of the senate of the United States are absentins themselves from the capital. except on pay day. there is always e quorum on pay day. there is 6 good deal of impor- tant Legislation that is hanging fire. Probably there is legislation that is important to e good many sections of the country laying away in desks and pigeon holes just because the men who are working for the people haven't any time clock to punch and don't have their pay docked when they fail to do a days work. but the legislation that Is most important to Nome and which is being held up for lack of quorum to vote on it is the bill which Congressman Albert Johnson had in- troduced and which appropriates twen- ty thousand dollars for Nome's relief.
 Here we are with the city treasury practically empty and a long hard winter ahead of us. With the mall trails dangerously isolated for lack of roadhouses. with bridges to build and people to feed and keep warm and al little appropriation of twenty or thir- ty thousand dollars would do 1t all. perhaps. and 1t cannot even be con- sidered by the high priced idlers in Washington, and why forsooth? Be- cause if there was a quorum present In the senate of the United States they might have to consider questions of vast importance to the nation that have been laid before them by the president elected by tho people who is trying to have the ideas of himslf and the majority of the people. whom hc represents, made into laws.
 It doesn 'tmatter whether all of the honorable servants of the people be- lieve that the laws wanted by the president are good laws or not. This country is governed by the will of the majority and no man who is sent to congress. whether by that majority or by the minority has 6 right to block legislation of any kind by absenting himself from the halls of congress.
 If 1t were only possible to dock tho tho pay of these patriots and to dock the pay of their several and numer- ous clerks. stenographers and secre- taries for the days that they are not on the job VIC would not have things like the consideration of the approprla- tion for the relief of Nome held up month after month for lack of quor. um.
 The idea of only paying for the leg isiation that VIC get is not bad one and it would certainly insure plenty of legislation of one kind or another and some of 1t might be good. But here again 1t would take an act of congress to make this Ethiopian dream possible and congress isn't going to pass any bill that will make 1t get busy and stay on the job.