Year: 1873




the politicians or to protect the interests OF
the people.


LAST DAYS OF TIE FORTY-SECOND CON


GRESS.


Counting Saturdays, Congress has twelve
working days left. There are, we believe, just
that number of appropriation bills yet pending
This statement fully sets forth the present
condition of legislation before both Houses of
Congress some of it is as imperative as any
appropriation bill can be; and other measures
run down the scale with varying degrees of
importance. A short session is always hurried;
this one has been fevered with the Credit
Mobilier inquiry and in the excitement which
has constantly prevailed in the House, there
seems to have been almost. a paralysis OF other
activity. The Committee Oh Appropriations
have done their work well. Several OF their
bills were ready before the session opened In
December; but both House and Senate dalhed
with these specially imperative measures, and
here we are, in the last fortnight of this Con-
gress, with only one or two of the less impor-
tant appropriations provided for; all OF the
great bills to furnish ways and means for car
rying on the Government are yet IN suspense.
Congress will need night sessions and longer
days to get through with this indispensable
work


OF the more prominent measures which have
occupied the time of Congress, only one or
two have become laws. The abolition of the
Franking privilege is about the only act of
Congress which will stand out prominently in
the history of its doings, so far as anything
has been DONE There have been no changes
in the Tariff; and the proposed amendments
to the Internal Revenue law, asked by the to-
bacco men, were partly granted by the House,
but have advanced no farther. There has
been some reduction in the force OF Internal
Revenue employees; but nothing has been done
to strengthen the reformation OF the ClYl
Service. Loyal Southern claimants have been
as numerous az ever in Washington; but their
claims have not been pertinaciously pressed;
the Presidents disapprOval of two OF these de-
mands has dampened the ardOr of this class of
petitioners. Legislation affecting Amnesty and
Ku-Klux has been postponed for the present
and enforcement bills have received whole
some check from the Louisiana troubles.
Nothing has been accomplished toward re-
organization of the Customs Service and only
a few desirable changes have been made in
the Indian Service The distribution of the
Geneva award is yet unfinished, the House and
Senate having each passed different bill pro-
viding for that work. Another provision of
the Treaty of fWashington-the fisheries clause
vet remains without the necessary legislation to
carry it into effect. We have escaped
threatened avalanche of steamship subsidies
and railroad jobs. Many of these are waiting
for the rush and confusion of the last hours
of Congress which may give them chance to
slip through unObserved. The Postal Telegraph
scheme, the French SpOlatiOns bill, and several
measures which have excited much needless
and wasteful debate, are hung up for this
session.


This session will be memorable for three
Investigations which have attracted great
attention throughout the country; these are
the Credit MObiler, the Louisiana contested
elections, and the Caldwell case. OF these the
first has excited Congress and the nation; the
second has not yet terminated, and the third
has resulted in verdict OF "Guilty, but
recommended to mercy" A fourth investi-
gation--that of Senator POmeroy-has but just
begun. Party lines have been more strictly
drawn in the Senate than in the House. In
the former body the reorganization of the





shelving the Liberals who had prominent
places was an early and significant indi
cation of the temper of the ma
jority. At the first of the session there
was a goodly exhibition of industrious in
tention but it soon became discouraged On
the 18th of November THE TRIBUNE made a
survey of the field, summed up the work be-
fore Congress, and showed exactly what might
be expected of it. The result has been a sin
gularly complete justification of our predic-
tions. If the estimate of the achievements of
the session was any too sanguine, the short
coming may be justly charged to the account
of the Credit Mobilier excitement, which has
often been too great to permit any healthy
work in Congress. With dozen appropriations
and the Geneva Award bill yet before Congress
Ito say nothing of the report of the Credit
Mobilier Investigating Committee), we do not
see how Congress can dissolve on the Attn
March next without great rush, much hasty
legislation and more crude work TO be added
to it's not altogether brilliant record.