The Coconino sun., 1918-10-11
CONGRESS CONTROLLED
 BY SOUTHERN STATES
Northern and Western Demo- crats Stand Small Show Under
 Present Rule.

l The South controls the Democratic party. The Democratic party controls Congress. Therefore, the South con- trols the nation in practically all of its important legislation, as it also controls the nation in practically all Of its administration in the present war. These facts receive renewed at tention now on the eve of the coming congressional elections. They seem to be worth reiteration and little de- tailed study.
 To understand the sectionalism that prevails in the assignment of the chairmanship of committees of both Houses of Congress under a Demo- cratic administration, the basic facts must be first considered. Of the 52 Democrats in the Senate (there are A Republicans), 30 represent the so- called "solid South" and eight others were born in the South, so that in the Senate there 'are> 38 Democrats who are sympathetic and responsive to Southern interests.
 Of the 75 committees of the Senate, about one-third are useless and prac- tically do not function at all. Of the 21 chairmanships assigned to Repub- licans all of them belong to this list. None of them are any importance. | Nearly every important committee in the Senate has a Southern Demo- crat for it's chairman. Among these are the committees on appropriations, commerce, District of Columbia, fi- nance, immigration, interoceanic can als, interstate commerce, judiciary, manufacturers, naval affairs, postof- fices and post roads, as well as anoth- CT committee which is at any crisis in the parliamentary affairs of the Sem ate the most important of all-the committee on rules, of which Lee Overman, Democrat of North Caro- lima, is chairman.
 An analysis of these chairmanship assignments shows that for the most part Senators from Southern states are holding monopoly of the direc- tion of practically all important na- tional policies and all legislation af- fecting the activities of the nation. They direct the raising of revenues, appropriation of money, control of finance and banking, shipping, educa- tion and labor, agriculture and immi- grafton, canals, railroads and other forms of transportation, army, navy, public health and other national af- fairs.
 When Northern and Western Demo- cratic Senators have been given chair manships, with only two notable ex- captions, the business has been pe- culiarly local to their sections. For instance, Senator Ashurst of Arizona has been given Indian affairs, Senator Phelan of California, irrigation and reclamation, a peculiarly Western af- fair, and Senator Henderson of Ne vada has mines and mining, also largely Western affair.
 In the House of Representatives sectionalism and Southern domina- ton is even more pronounced than in the Senate.
 There are 61 House committees and the chairman of 42 of them is a Southern Democrat. Democrats. from the North and West, representing 31 different states, have been allotted only 21 chairmanships-and these are of minor character. In other words, Northern Democrats representing two-thirds of the states in the Union and even a much greater proportion of the population, wealth, industrial, agricultural and business interests, are cut off with only one-third of the chairmanships in the House of Repre- sentatives.
 Even the chairmanships allotted to the Southern Democrats are very "close corporation" Out of 61 House chairmanships, 34, or over half of them, are kept within the Democratic membership from nine Southern states.
 | Never in the history of this republic has the power of determining national policies ever been concentrated in the hands of few men or so monopolized by handful of states. It unpleasant ly reminds one of the manner in which, by similar methods, the state of Prussia is able to dictate to the en- tire German empire, regardless of the will or wishes of interests of the other states of Germany.
 The feeling and attitude on this sub. ject of the Southern Democrats was expressed by Representative Whit Martin of Louisiana on April 25 last when Speaker Clark was considering being appointed to the vacant Mis- , souri senatorship. In the New Orleans