Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1924-03-28
TINE TO LEGISLATE.

Senator Caraway, OF Arkansas,
apparently is much aggrieved |
because The Star and other
newspapers have criticised the
Senate for permitting its various
Investigations to delay and ieop-
ardize legislation vitality neces-
sary to the welfare of the coun-
try. And he seems especially |
hurt at the suggestion that de-
sire to make political capital has
prolonged the inquiries and Ia
ken them far afield from their
proper purposes and into paths
which can lead nowhere but to
petty scandal and title tattle.
The Star has not complained,
and it knows of no reputable
newspaper which has com
planned, because wrongdoing has
been disclosed. All decent men
have been shocked by their dis
closures, but any regret this
newspaper has expressed has
been that the wrongdoing exist
ed, not that it had been uncov
cred.
The Star has commended the
energy and skill of Senator
Walsh in uncovering the indica-
tions of the Fall Doheny corrup-
ton and in helping to transform
these indications into legal proof
upon which our criminal and
civil courts can act. 1t has rec
ognized the great public service
rendered by the investigation,
but it has asserted, and now re-
asserts, that cheap politics has
been played, and that at times
and in spots the inquisition has
degenerated from a cleansing
and purifying of national foul
places into partisan or factional
competitive oil singing, with the
dominating purpose not SO much
to put criminals into the peni-
Tertiary as to put some partisan
or favored factionist in the White
House.
And the Star has not been a Ae
to applaud the campaign in so
far as it pursued without dis
elimination those accused of
guilt and those conceded to be
guiltless; in so far as it failed to
differentiate between bribery,
fraud or conspiracy to defraud
and differences of opinion in
constituting a law or in shaping
wise public policy, and in so far,
for example, as it made no dis
tinction in vigor and venom of
assault between a Fall and a
DENLY, and even attempted to
bespatter an honestly cooper
ating Coolidge.
The Star thinks that the work
effectively initiated by Senator
Walsh will with the quick dis
posal of the issues affecting the
Attorney General be completed
so far as wholesome results are
concerned, and that the time is
at hand when further prosecu-
ton must in the public interest
be left in the main to the crimi-
nal courts, while the national
legislature, quitting time-con-
Stunning and resultless crimina-
ton and recrimination in discus
sion, resumes its basic function
of legislating wisely and con-
structively. There is vitality inn
portant work of this kind for
Congress to do.
A further inducement to the
Senate to turn from grand jury"
work to that of legislating re-
specting the vital concern of
over a hundred million people
may be found in the discovery
that even slight bungling by
the congressional Investigators
may give the investigated an i'm,
munity bath and thus facilitate
the escape from punishment of
the guilty, and that this danger
forces confession of impotency
whenever a witness under sus-
picion refuses to testify.
The Star has no serious com
plant against senators of any
party or faction because they
have sought reasonably to CAPT
talize the disclosures for partisan
or factional advantage. So long
as politics and human nature are
as they are nothing else is to be
expected. What The Star has
complained against is that at
times the making Of political
capital has seemed TO be the par
amount purpose of the inquisi-
tions, days and weeks being de-
voted to the merest piffie. And
in the meantime the legislative
business of the government suf-
fered - Washington Star.
We agree with our;brothers of
The Star that it is time for Con-
gress to get busy with legisla-
ton and pay more attention to
the interests of the people than
seeking to make political capital
for the coming Presidential cam