Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/59

 CONGRESSIONAL PAPERS. NO. II— THE SENATE.

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��derives its name, there is always "room for one more" — appropriation. On the "•Omnibus" bill, if anywhere, the watch- ful lobbyist, is able to get his little amendment tacked on, and trusts to the chances of the hurry and confusion of final adjournment to put it- through. Failing in this, all his hopes are blighted.

In the House there is never a session to which the public is not admitted. Even during a '"call of the House" when the doors are locked and members can get in only under the escort of the Ser- geant-at-Arms, or his deputies, the pub- lic are admitted as usual to all the galler- ies. In the Senate, the "'Executive Ses- sion" bars out everybody but Senators and a few officials sworn to secrecy. Here, at least, no prying reporter can penetrate, and only by skillful cross- questioning of Senators, or in some in- stances by downright bribery of suscep- tible officials, can the proceedings in "executive session" be ascertained. Nev- ertheless State secrets do leak out in spite of all precautions, and generally the statements elicited are so distorted, that it may fairly be questioned whether it might not be advantageous to entirely remove the ban of secrecy in the highest legislative body of a Republic.

The writer is not among that numer- ous class of people who believes that the Senate of the present decade has been an essentially weak body of men, and that all senatorial capacity, intelligence, and dignity was confined to the times of the famous triumvirate. Clay, Webster and Calhoun. Washington "society" abounds in "seedy" croakers of the ancient regime who sigh— between drinks— for the "good old times," and lament the

��present "degeneracy" of Congress in gen- eral, and the Senate in particular. Such men never realize the fact that they are merely the sunken rocks whose only use is'to measure the depth of the wave of progress that has rolled over them. The Clays, Websters, Calhouns, Napoleons and Bisinarcks, are the kind of men who flourish once in a century. They impress their characteristics upon the statesman- ship of a century. In all the common practical details of every-day legislation, many men of less pretensions, unknown to fame, are infinitely their superiors. Fancy Daniel Webster in "conference" on the Legislative bill, wrangling over a coal-heaver's salary, or a doorkeeper's wages ! or Henry Clay fixing up a post- route bill providing for a tri-weekly mail from Pumpkiuville Post Office to Grasshopper Gulch! And yet all such legislation is just as necessary as Web- ster's reply to Hayne, or his letter to the Austrian Minister. Indeed, it is abso- lutely indispensable. As the country grows larger, as it extends its vast net- work of railroads, canals, and telegraphs ; as it increases ^ts capacity for produc- tion, and consequently its need for a bet- ter market ; as its foreign and domestic commerce expands or contracts in ac- cordance with the laws of trade, all these problems of tariff, revenue, inter- nal improvements, transportation and navigation, must of necessity claim the legislator's most careful attention. On their successful solution depends the wealth and material prosperity of the country. To solve them needs clear- headed, intelligent, practical, common- sense men, and of such I believe the American Senate to be mainly composed,.

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