The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-02
THE PROGRESSIVE PROGRAM

Republicans of the house for the com. sng congress has some features about it that are at first sight attractive such as the correction of abuses II present procedure. For example, 1t ls their express intention to abolish "spe. cial privilege-entrench in legisla- tive power, in abuses of our parlia- mentary rules and in stacked com nlittees." This, of course, Is blow directed at those Invisible influences which sway some lawmakers to do the will of those private interests to which they are secretly pledged rather than to serve the people whose votes placed them in position of power. , Alabama witnessed the results of such entrenched privilege during the recent session of the state legislature, when many measures of public benefit were stifled, mutilated or defeated because the stragetic positions on committees were occupied by those who placed the public welfare in secondary place. That similar situation exists in con- Rress in an even more marked degree is proved by the paucity of beneficial laws in recent years. It is the charge of the Progressive bloc that "vital leg islation is killed in committee, and IS never allowed to get to the floor of the house for a vote.'
 As an offset to blockades in com Ynittee, there will be offered resolu- ton authorizing one hundred and fifty members by petition to call out of committee any desired measure. An other resolution would authorize any member of the rules committee to bring a measure to the floor of the house when the chairman of the com mittee has held it up for fifteen days. The rest of the platform is mixture of good and bad. There is support of tax revision, the bonus, child labor amendment, lower freight rates, farm relief measures, modification of the power of courts, especially in injunc- tion and contempt cases and lat tempted legislative function by the ju- dietary" government control to pre- vent profiteering, and uniform presi- dential primaries. This program is more or less of hodge-podge in some respects, and contains some curiously inconsistent doctrines, showing an evi- dent effort to placate ordinarily in- harmonious elements in the Progress sive group. Perhaps the group should be named malcontents rather than pro- gressives, for disagreement is not nec- essarily progressive.
 The fatal feature of the Progressive program is the purpose of holding up all other legislation until the program is considered and until the regulars meet their demands" In other words in order to put through what they consider a reform, the Progressives will resort to that worst abuse of all legislative abuses-the filibuster, the means by which minority, while un- able to obtain the passage of its own measures, yet will prevent the passage of all other measures, regardless Of their merit and public value, out of spite. If congress desires to turn to the remedy of congressional abuses, congress should start with the filibus- ter and render it impossible ever again for an obstructive handful to frustrate legislation and defeat the will of the majority. The Progressives reveal their fundamental unsoundness by their willingness to make use of the most objectionable abuse of all to gain their ends. Through that very sentiment do, they forfeit much of the public confidence they might otherwise merit. There is no guarantee that they do not seek merely to replace one set of abuses with another set better cal culated to serve their own ends.