Year: 1874

Inc tE1nanClaE bkunueES ol tnc Au-


ministratiOn Boldly yDepOuneed-Ths
aMOst severe Arraignment OF the


Party Ever Heard In Congress.


Prom the Chicago Times.


WASHINGTON, Feb. 12s@The sensation
in Congress to-day has been the severe ar
raignment of the Republican party by the
leader of the House. The verdict, there
fore, of the Republican members of Con
gress ON Mr.. Dawes financial speech, made
this afternoon, Is generally unfavOrable to
the chairman of the Comrnittee of Ways
and Means. Although the financial speech
es of the Massachusetts, member have often
been very unpalatsble'to his associates, il
is probable that none Of them ever caused so
much dismay on his own side of the House.
Judging by the remarks of Republican
members on It tonight, Mr.. Dawes speech
has been fatal TO him as leader. He IS
charged with a morbid desire to create
sensation and stsrtle the country. As the
leader of the party in the House for some
time back, they allege that he is more
responsible than anybody else fer the
very state OF things which is protested'
against. ssHe does this every
year, say his felIow-republicans, and it is
always the hardest thing we have to answer
on the stump. We shall have to meet and
answer this speech next fall" A few mem
bers seem to be disposed to take up Mr..
Dawes and stick by him In his assaults on
the policy Of the government, but the mem
bers who are rot sure of their districts are
intensely stirred up by bis sweeping state
mentS, and lament the making Of them.
Ii was noticed that, az the close Of his re-
20 Al, 10 lta1 ,nsl
strict attention, no member advanced to
congratulate him, to signify appreciation to
what he had said. The repres entatiyes
from Connecticut and New Hampshire
were especially dismayed by the drift Of
Mr.. Dawes argument, and the manner in
which he exposed the rottenness Of his
party. On one or two former occasions
Mr.. Dawes has come to grief or the stump,
on account Of his freedom Of criticism Of
the administration on the floor of Congress.


To-day it was significant that he said
little or nothing about the responsibility Of
the executive for the squandering of the
money Of the people, but seemed to lay the
whole responsibility upon the shoulders of
a Republican Congress, where, indeed,
most of it belongs.


An arrangement was made on the Repub-
lican side to lay aside the special order,
which was the free transmission of printed
matter through the mails, and take up tine
bill for repeating the duty on matches,
which had beenTeported fromthe Ways and
Means Committee without recOmmenda-
tiOn. Mr.. Dawes spoke for two hours and
proceeded to make


THE MOST SEVERE ARRAIGNNENT
Of the Republican party which las ever
been uttered by any public man. He went
at once into the general question Of the
condition Of the government, and showed,
first, that the last Congress had appropri-
ated So 100000 more than the Treasury
Department can have the means at its COM
maud to pay. Reviewing the acts Of the
last Congress, he showed that the reductions
Of internal revenue and customs dues made
by it will cause a reduction in the receipts
of the Government of S44,363,313 "a du-
ring the present fiscal year. He asserted
that the goods upon which the reduction
had been made had been imported this
year TO the amount Of more than hundred
millions in excess Of any previous year,
upon which he claimed there would have
been a corresponding duty. He gave Sec
retary Boutwell, a puff for having warned
the House, in 1872, that it was reducing too
freely. In regard 90 the present state Of af-
fairs, he argued that the internal revenue
receipts were likely to be quite up TO the
average during the remainder Of the fiscal
year, but he held that it would never do to
increase the internal taxes to meet the cur
rent expenses Of the Government. To do
so would be to acknowledge that their hold
on power was weakening. This was ter
rible blow to his Republican friends, but
no one undertook to answer him. He said
they must abandon the idea of increased
taxation, and intimated the duties on teas
and coffee must be restored, and the duties
on other goods raised to enable the Treas
ury to meet the deficit of next year.


Having proceeded thus far, Mr.. Dawes be-
gan an analysis of the expenditures of the
government to show the extravaganza
which has characterized Congress and the
Executive for the past four years. He
knew, he said, that nothing was so unpOpu-
lar as specified retIenchment, nothing so
popular as general economy. His task was
a thankleSs one. Nevertheless, he ap-
preached it boldly. The rottenness of the
civil service, the wasting Of millions an
nually on the employment of useless Off
GERS, the wastefulneSs of the pension Off
GERS, the avenues of extravaganza left open
year after year, in the permanent appropria-
tions, the spending of such immense sums
on public buildings, the magnifying Of the
duties of the pOstotiice so that it does
general express business, were thoroughly
expOsed-as thoroughly as they could be in
a speech covering so much ground. He was
frequently interrupted by questions
from restive members, who could not
bear to have the delinquencies to
which they had consented, exposed. This
was particularly evident when he read a
letter from a person who had had the Of
fee of appraiser at the inland port of Evans
vile, Ind, stating that he drew a salary Of
5000 a year for three years, dong 10
work at all.


Speaker Blaine occupied a seat beside
Mr.. Dawes throughout his speech, and
seemed to be anxious to prevent Mr.. Dawes
from going too far, as he took occasion to
remind him occasionally Of facts in favor
Of the government.


The Western and Southern members, es-
pecially the new ones, are very angry at
Mr.. Dawes, for they know that his speech
will prove an unanswerable argument in
the hands Of the opposition next autumn.
Probably four score of the Republican
members recognize their political death
warrant in this speech.