The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-14

feEer E0SOn the proposals are legislative chestnuts that didn't get roasted or pulled out of the fires of oratory in the last session, or the session before that or the one be- fore that. The chances are that nothing will happen to 90 per cent or this legal litter in this session either.
 You might expect that in war time, all these proposed bills pre- sented before the most historic session of Congress would be of tremendous import, all necessary to the winning of the war. The hard, cold fact is that most of it is utter ly trivial and you have to look through column after column of f1ne type listing these bills by title before you find something that is really important to anyone except the individual congressman who in troduced it or the individual pri- Vate citizen who would benefit from the bill, if Congress were to pass it.. DOGS, DRYS AND
 DRY CLEANING
 Take few samples:
 From the Hon. Usher l.. Burdick of Williston, N. Dak., bill to pro- hlbit experiments on living dogs in the District of Columbia.
 From the Hon. James J. Heffer- nan of Brooklyn, N. Y, a bill to provide free laundry and dry clean ing service to members of the armed service while on active duty.
 From the Hon. U. s. Guyer of Kansas City, Kan, a bill to prohibit within the District of Columbia the manufacture .. sale or pos session of any spurious, vinous, malt, fermented and all alcoholic liquors whatsoever
 From the Hon. Clinton P. Ander- son of Albuquerque, N. Mex, a bill to authorize a per capita payment of $10 to the members of the Santa Clara Pueblo of. New Mexico
 From the Hon. John Lesinski of Dearborn, Mich., a bill to grant pensions to certain llnremarried widows of Civil War veterans who were married to the veteran sub- sequent to June 26, 1905.
 From the Hon. Mrs. Margaret Chase Smith of Skoowhegan, Me-, a bill for the erection of memo rialy to .. Maj. Gen. Henry Knox.
 From the Hon: Fred A. Hartley of Kearney, N. J., a bill to regulate boxing contests in the District of Columbia.
 Now most of these world-saving proposals don't get reported in the newspapers, and it's just as well. They are not news and they will most all die a-bornin'. Yet they are all important and the congress Sional obstetricianS in their com- mittee room legislative lying-in wards must pay attention to every one of the brain-children thus con- ceived.
 DEMOCRACY AT WORK
 Reason these seemingly petty proposals are important is that this is democracy and the mere fact that all these trivialities can get consideration of kind in the halls of Congress is proof that democ- racy is at work. For in a democ- racy, theoretically, every Joe Doakes is considered important, even if he's screwball.
 The legislative machinery in democracy must grind every pro- poSal thrown into its hopper. Out of these 1900 bills and resolutions presented to Congress on its open ing day, not more than 180 may ever be passed by Congress. The theory is that the deserving bills will be passed and the bad ones won't. Maybe that's open to question. A lot of time and effort have to be wasted in rejecting the bum ideas, and in war perhaps it is wrong to be con- cerned with such trivialities.
 But bear in mind that in Nazi Germany, where they don't waste time over such nonsense, no mem- bers of the Reichstag would dare ever propose that $10 per capita be paid to the relatives of the peo- pie murdered at Lidice or that the Juden in the ghetto of Berlin be given the protection which Con- gressman Burdick would extend to the dogs of Washington.