Show THE DYING COKQBE83 We do not mean by this heading that the legislative branch of the government is in a perishing condition con-dition but that the fortyseventh term ef that body is drawing to a close this naturally causes those who are affected and controlled by its acts to look back in contemplation contempla-tion of its achievements its failures fail-ures and its intentions To give either in detail would involve more of research labor time and space than the subject is worth so a passing pass-ing mention of some of the more conspicuous points will have to suffice suf-fice and these even will be confined con-fined to the work of the present session This should go down to history as the best illustration of how not to do it yet unfolded to the American people the most of the time having been spent upon a tariff bill for revenue rev-enue without the onlyand which in their ardent desire to make it comprehensive and minute to the last degree the lawmakers have already caused to be so ponderous and perplexing that nobody will read the bill through when it is finally passed unless perhaps the President may see fit to waste some of his time in so doing It will readily be understood that a measure which attempts to enumerate enu-merate every article passing or likely to pass through the customhouses custom-houses would be a weighty and tedious document even if it did not also embrace within its vast sphere of verbosity customary formulas and time honored phrases peculiar to that kind of thing but when the two are placed together in extenso the result can be but faintly if at all imagined by the uninitiated un-initiated Everything conceivable conceiv-able from a steam engine to a darning needle and from a bale of cotton to a ball of twine is provided pro-vided foror rather against in language fully elaborated and amplified Sometimes a grave and reverend Senator will arise in his seat and and with due formality of style and dignity of expression move to make a reduction of one hundredth of 1 per cent ad valorem in the duty on chewing gum upon which a learned and lingering debate de-bate arises upon the necessity of protecting the American gum industry in-dustry from servile competition with that of the cheaper labor of the old world and finally a com promise is effected by means of which the reduction is made to read the onefiftieth of 1 per cent and thus it goes All this tends to give renewed impetus to the efforts of those who claim that protection does not protect pro-tect and that more things are protected pro-tected than necessary even if it does As between extreme high tariff on one side and absolute free trade on the other there should certainly be a happy medium not merely as to the sums agreed upon but the articles themselves them-selves some being taxed and others notbut Congress is either unable or unwilling to occupy such ground Those comprising its two houses are as a rule either radical high tariff men or radical free traders it is impossible that both can be right while it is not only possible but probable pro-bable that both are wrong Meantime Mean-time the bickering and sputtering over the bill goes along and may continue till the end of the session This may be a slightly exaggerated exagger-ated but it is not an unjust epitome epi-tome of the work of the second session ses-sion of the Fortyseventh Congress It will die unregretted the only probable cause of sorrow being that the date of its demise was placed so far along in the year |