Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-09
BY WILLIAM HARD.

bx WILLIAM HARD
The prospects growing out Of last
Tuesdays national political slaughter
and extending straight through the
coming years to the presidential inau-
guration day Of 1888 are now the OBJ
jects of intense consideration and cal
culation by all true, devoted Washing
tonians. The National Capital rings
with the cries Of offlceholding and nom
who all have large maps and weather
forecasts whereby their favorite fac
tions can take OF into the air from the
mud and muddle of the present con-
gressional situation, produced by last
Tuesdays events, and fly to success in
the impending future.
Faces Special Session Question.
The first problem Is whether or not
there will be next Spring special ses-
sion of the new Congress which emerged
last Tuesday from the national electo-
raj struggle. There are insurgents in
the Senate who would like to see such
special session. 1t is within their
power to force 1t. All they need to do
is to talk some one appropriation bill
to death In the regular session Of the
old Congress, which begins on the first
Monday of next month and which
and unavoidably at noon on the 4th
day Of next March.
The appropriation bills which viii
be under consideration in this immedi-
ately approaching congressional session
are for the fiscal year beginning on the
1st of next July. II senatorial in
surgents care to pick out the Navy De-
partment appropriation bill, for In
stance, and make long speeches about
<Irf,, TAI
Enforcement Commission while the bill
Is on the floor, they can easily keep It
on the floor till the Senate clock strikes
IL on March next. Then the Presi-
dent, in order to have money with
which to maintain the Navy during the
| fiscal year from July /, 1891, TO July l,
1882, will be obliged, no matter how
much he may regret and resent it, to
summon the Seventy-second Congress
into o special session, which will plague
him all next Summer.
PrOgressives Want Action.
The arguments in favor Of such a
course by the insurgents have to do
with the whole general strategy Of the
so-called progressives Of both parties
for the whole period intervening be-
tween now and the coming together in
1882 of the two major party national
at 1t, the Hoover administration and
the Republican organization In the
House of Representatives have been
''reactionary" and, as Senator Shipstead
of Minnesota seems to express It, senile
and doddering and wholly unable to
keep abreast of new necessary ideas for
the economic improvement Of the coun-
try. Beneficial legislation, accordingly,
in the progressive" view, Is In arrears.
Much such legislation, of a progress
sive" mold, has long inhabited the COM
mittee rooms of both the Senate and
the House. The progressive" idea "a
that this legislation, in numerous bills,
should be dragged out of its pigeon
holes and brought to a vote in b Con-
gress which would be willing freely TO
debate it and possibly pass 1t.
Continuous Program PurpOsed.
Some ''progressives" calculate that II
the Seventy-second Congress, with q
Democratic and insurgent Republican
coalition abundantly and completely
controlling both houses, should begin TO
enact progressive" legislation in q spe-
cial session next Summer and keep on
enacting 1t in various successive forms
straight through the regular session Of
the succeeding Winter right into the
Spring Immediately preceding the ma
ttonal conventions of 1892, there would
then be in the minds of the electorate
OF the whole country progressive
legislative program which might 20 far
toward coloring both national party
platforms and also far toward affecting
the outcome Of the presidential election
OF the ensuing November In progress
Sive" sense.
That President Hoover might veto a
great many features of such progress
sive" legislation would not emharrass
either the tnsurgent Republicans or the
Democrats. It would, in fact. Simply
enable them to claim with increased
loudness that they had demonstrated
the President and the Republican party
to be agents Of the predatory interests"
and tools Of the Power Trust" and
errand boys Of Wall Street" and 50 on
through all the remainder Of such
phrases.
Wet Issue Is Important.
Whether, however, q special session Is
forced into existence next Spring or not
there Is not the slightest doubt that in
the regular session Of December of next
year a program of embarrassing pro-
gressive" and remedial" legislation
will, indeed, be laid by the Congress on
the doorstep of the White House in the
course of necessary effort to prove to
the country that II It wants progress"
1t must get rid of Mr.. Hoover. This Is
the method that was tried by the
Democrats with considerable success on
President Taft and it inevitably now
viii be tried on the present Republican
President. T'hereupon, however, Mr..
Hoover will be found, according to all
our best calculators here, to be carrying
lucky or unlucky jewel which was not
in Mr.. Taft's possession That jewel Is
prohibition.
Let Mr.. Hoover be as "reactionary"
as any progressive" can make him out
to be. and the drys, nevertheless, ac-
cording to their present known inten-
tons. VIII rally TO him as their one
pofentiAl central aAYinr from a nofen-