Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/254

 236

��A BIT OF NEWSPAPER HISTORY.

��aside from the appropriation bills that came before the Forty-fifth Congress for consideration, was a bill granting relief to the soldiers and sailors of the war of 1 8 1 2 ; a bill to reimburse the trustees of the College of William and Mary for property destroyed during the late war ; a bill for the relief of soldiers and sailors who served in the war with Mexico ; a bill " to authorize the free coinage of the standard silver dollar, and to restore its legal tender charac- ter, " known as "the silver bill ;" a bill reorganizing the government of the District of Columbia ; a bill providing for the reorganization of the army ; a bill in relation to Pacific railroads ; a bill to revise the patent laws ; a bill to prevent the introduction of contagious and epidemic diseases into the United States ; the Geneva Award bill ; a bill to restrict Chinese immigra- tion, and many others of greater or less importance. Of the few alluded to above, the bills relating to Mexican war pensions, the army reorganization, the Geneva Award, the revision of the patent laws, William and Mary College, epidemic diseases, and Chinese immigration, all failed to become laws — the latter being vetoed by the President. All the rest were ap- proved except the "silver bill," which

��was passed over the President's veto, and thus became a law. Of measures political the " Potter resolutions " in the House, and the appointment of the "Teller Committee" in the Senate, were the most important. In the House the Potter resolutions were debated for several days, and " filibustering " re- sorted to to defeat their passage, which was finally secured by just a quorum, the Republicans refusing to vote. The history of these political committees being so well known, and their appoint- ment of such recent origin, it is not deemed advisable to further allude to them here.

The third and final session of the Forty-Fifth Congress closed amid scenes of considerable excitement, at noon on the fourth of March, 1879, leaving two appropriation bills that failed to pass. These were the army, and the legislative, executive and judi- cial bills, upon which the conference committees could not agree, and so re- ported at the last hour. The amount involved in the two bills aggregated about $45,000,000; and the Forty- Sixth Congress, like the one of which a brief mention herewith closes, com- mences with an extra session to remedy the failure.

��A BIT OF NEWSPAPER HISTORY.

��The recent retirement of Messrs. Carleton & Harvey from the proprietor- ship of the Argus and Spectator news- paper at Newport, is a matter suggest- ive of far greater interest than usually attaches to changes in the control of county papers in our state. These gen- tlemen — Henry G. Carleton, and Mat- thew Harvey — had been editors and publishers of this paper for a period of nearly forty years, assuming the pro-

��prietorship January 1, 1840, and retir- ing therefrom April 1, 1879. It may be safely asserted that the entire histo- ry of the state furnishes no other exam- ple of equally long-continued, uninter- rupted newspaper proprietorship and editorial management combined. And not alone from its long duration and unchanging character may the journal- istic career o,f these men be regarded as remarkabfe and unique. Entering

�� �