Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-10-16
Democratic "Achievements.'

gress." It is a recital of everything
done in the last year and a half, good
and bad, but each and every per-
Torrance is claimed to be the very
thing upon which the vitality of the
American people depended. or course
these are achievements" if you look
at them right, but to the thinking man
who sizes up the situation for himself,
some of these achievements" stand
out accusingly of the methods en-
ployed and the results to be ex-
pected from their adoption.
Some of our readers may need TO
be reminded of the unprecedented
course of events. Never before, we be-
lieve, has the legislative function OF
government been so nearly dead let
ter, and so completely under the domi-
nation of the executive as in the dem
onstration at Washington in recent
months. Congress has been plastic in
the hands of the party leader at the
White House to a degree that has call
ed forth the ridicule and the indigna-
ton of the intelligent classes of Am
erica. Called together with the above
purpose of fulfilling party pledges by
a reduction of the high cost of living,
through freer trade relations with other
nations, this body of men, controlled
by a party majority wholly under the
thumb of the party dictator, Mr.. Will
son, has succeeded not only in bring
ing distress upon the country, but also
in rspudiating the pledges of the ma
jority party in convention and on
platform.
The tariff reform job about which
Democracy now brazenly boasts as an
achievement" has closed our mills,
made millions idle. reversed the AM
erican trade balance. increased the
high cost of living sent adversely into
millions of American homes, and has
betrayed to this generation the entire
folly of the tariff-for revenue doctrine.
Subservient to the man in the White
House. the majority party in Congress
has resorted to the secret caucus. de-
NAL OF debate, and application of gag
rule. BY these means they dealt the
blow to American industries. They cut
off customs revenue, and abolished
prosperity which had reigned in the
land for many years. BY the same
currency reform. Weary months have
passed in endless, aimless, ill-advised
attempt to achieve" something which
the people could not understand and
would be led into believing was for
their interests.
The daily grist of trivialities and
personalities months ago resulted in a
popular demand that Congress ad-
journ. Every day the demand has
grown insistent. The country and the
law makers themselves were weary
and Disguised with the grind of 1t.
round to which they were held by the
man at the helm. Their hearts and
their minds were elsewhere. Drastic
rules were required to maintain a
quorum, but still they have been held
week after week and month after
month, and the achievements" is a
pitiabie record of incompetence. in
difference to public duties, and des-
perate determination to throw in
something to fill the measure of time,
and set away to their homes and away
from the farce of it all.
The Brooklyn Standard Union, re-
viewing the record of the session just
closed, says 1T is a record of wreck
age. session Of subserviency to the
President, mass of undigested leg
islation." Here is the way it de-
scribes 1t:
AT the end of nineteen months the
country looks upon a mass of crude
and undigested legislation, such as
never before has been put upon its
statute books, of which no one, even
Of the abiest administrators dare I'M
dertake to put into effect. The coun-
try finds itself face to face with a
gigantic war tax bill for which, in
spite Of the attempt to put 1t off on
the European war, there Is neither ad-
equate excuse nor occasion. In fact,
about the only redeeming enactment
Of the whole session was the defeat
Of the great river and harbor pork
barrel bill by the sturdy and cour-
agecus opposition of two Republican
senators. Burton and Kenyon, through
the falling off in customs revenues
consequent upon the European war
gave the Democratic senators an ex-
cuse for economy of which they were
quick to take advantage.
THE old flag and an appropriation; :"
yalorization Of cotton. salmon in cans
though why those in the sea should be
excepted Is not easy to perceive
peanuts, almost ANY old thing" for
which there is no market; a Hetch
Hetchy grab; improving" dry bitches
into navigable waterways; toothless,
trustbusting statute, public buildings
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