Show A WBA6 CONGRESS I 1 The close 1 ofa eeasfon of Congress extending ex-tending over a period of more than eight months and the net results of the sessions deliberations will again remind the American people that they maintain the most expensive legislative I body m the world and that the laws i poor in quality as many them are cost more per word than the statutes of any Bother civilized nation on the globe It is astonishing if not astounding that over401 men to lay nothing of the other hundreds of clerks secretaries and otherlcmplayecs can put in so many months and be active all the time and accomplish so little It looks as if the aim v > ere to bam boozzle the people to make a display of doing much while really doing little or nothing The show is made in the 13202 measures that were presented This is 1 an average of 33 to each Senator and JUpfesentativet The members send home these 13202 bills and resolutions covering all subjects and make their constituents think they ere alive to the need A tho country and are working themselves to death in the interest of their employers The work performed is eeen in the 937 measures which have become law Oat of every talriectfbills introduced twelve were thrown in for show and ono for service of fifty bills passed only one is general in its provisions pro-visions the fortynine being purely private pri-vate and personal in their operation There are really not thirty bills among those enacted during the eight months session in which the general public is in the least interested If the country could be made to fully understand how Congress + fritters away the time how little it really does and how much noise and fuss it makes over doing that little the sentiment in favor of reducing the number of Representatives to aworking body and limiting the sessions ses-sions to brief periods would be much more pronounced than it is The membership mem-bership is too large the rules are so numerous and intricate that it is an east matter for one who understands them to delay and even prevent legislation legisla-tion but the great evil lies in the fact that men go to Congress to air their politics and work for reelection rather than to perform the duties for which tlIe were nppo ted they were appointed tOne t-One would think that the members who separated on Thursday would be ashamed to go home and show themselves them-selves to their constituents Not baIt n dozen Senators and Representatives have done their whole duty to the men who sent them there and to the country coun-try Those who hadthe ability to do o were afraid to act lest their political prospects might be injured and the many were content to take matters easy troubling themselves about nothing noth-ing beyond letting their constituents know that bills had been > properly introduced in-troduced and the seeds from the Agricultural Agri-cultural bureau fairly distributed This fang been the weakest Congress of many years and its real work is of the least importance It woulant take many such resuUless sessions to call forth a howl that would revolutionize mattersia the legislative branch of government gov-ernment |