Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-12-06
THE r SESSION

THE EXTRA SESSlUN
THE EXTRA session ..of con-
4 gress expired ten minutes be-
fore high noon on December 4,
when it must expire by limitation
because the regular session begins
at that time. The extra session
was called by President Harding
to take action on three administra-
ton measures before the regular
session began in the hope that they
could be passed and got out of the
way promptly and so permit the
regular session to busy itself with
appropriation bills and other legis-
lstion. The regular session ex-
pires by limitation March 4, so it
has only three months in which to
clean up its business. After March
4 the new congress is in office,
though it will not meet in regular
session for a year yet, unless the
president calls it in special ses-
SIGN, a thing that he very much
hopes he will not have to do.
Of the three measures which the
president hoped to get action on at
the special session, two are dead.
The Liberian loan of five million
dollars was killed by an adverse
vote in the senate in which the ag-
ricultural bloc and the progressives
Joined with the democrats to de-
feat it. The anti-lynching bill was
also killed by the surrender of the
administration republicans to dem
~ocraric filibuster, so that they
could confirm some 100 republi-
can pie eaters who were in a hurry
to get on the pay roll. The third
measure, the ship subsidy bill,
which was reall, the main reason
fo- the special session neve got
considered at all by the senate,
though it was forced through the
hose in a badly battered condl-
ron by umerou amendments
which boiling republicans, aided by
the democrats, tackled on to it. One
OF the most important of these and
+ the one that worries the ship own
ers most is that the fifty million
dollar bonus is to be dependant
on an annual appropriation of on
eress which may refuse to appro-
pirate any year, and so the bonus
rniq'.t stop any time and surely
would stop if the democrats got
control of congress next year. The
administration aims to tie up the
treasury for 10 we S to come TO
this payment.
Manned and bait ed as the sub
sidy bill is as it comes from the
house. the senate will now take it
I'D for debate in their chamber. 1t
seems at least doubtful whether
the utmost efforts Of the president
and the republican leaders can put
the measure over, but they will try
hard. They succeeded in pulling
the Newberry election owe by sim
liar pressure and none out of the
Y republican senators who voted
for Newberry and went before the
people at the late election lost
rheir seats. One of the other three,
Henry Cabot Lodge, just nosed in
by a bare plurality. Some repub-
Iican senator's who are being urged
by the president and their party
leaders to vote for a subsidy for
ship owners have this experience
of the Newberry cas- in mind, and
fear the after reckoning with their
constituents at the next election,
We'll they may do SO for we are
persuaded that a large majority
CT the voters are opposed to giving
the owners Of ships the right to go
into the taxpayers pockets to
make their business pay them 10
per cent dividends. That is what
the bill proposes to do. It may
pass the senate as the Newberry
seating resolution did, but the re
publican leaders will live to regret
it and a democratic congress will
wipe ii off the statute book in two
years from now Whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad