Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], March 26, 1910, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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If I
I Goodwin's Weekly I
jfl Vol. XVI SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, MARCH 26, 1910 No. 23 H
' The Battle In The House
fl IV I ANY people have wondered why such a
fl 1 VI clmax could come in the House of Repre
B sentatives as was witnessed there last Sat-
B urday. The reason is that there is no other just
IS such body as our House of Representatives in
jB all the world; no other body governed by such
B rules; no other body where the speaker has such
B power.
B The Senate is composed of two members from
B each state. Rhode Island has as many Senators
B as Texas, though were Rhode Island pulled up
fl by the roots and placed on the broad back of
H Texas, it would not amount to "rising ground."
"fl By the Action of a theory the Senate represents
fl the states, where the smallest and poorest has
B equal voice with the greatest and most populous.
fl Thus in the Senate Delaware counts for as much
B as New York. As Daniel Webster, in his most
fl famous speech said: "This a Senate, a Senate or
fl equals, of men of individual honor and personal
fl character, and of absolute independence. We
fl know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.
fl This is a hall for mutual consultation and discus
Si sion, not an arena for ue exhibition of chain
B pions."
rfl! But the House is made up of a body of men
fl that go there as the direct representatives of the
B people; they are elected directly by the people,
I while the Senate is one remove away from the
B people and is elected by state legislatures. But
B the people are divided into parties, and that rul-
B ing parties may have the power to enforce such
legislation as it desires, extraordinary "powers
B have to be given to the man who presides over
fl the House, and at least a moral restriction is
B put upon members to, on all normal -occasions,
fl act with their fellow-partisans. In that way mem-
B bers often vote for measures which they do not
fl entirely approve of, subjecting their judgment
B to the consensus of judgment of their party. But
B the Republicans in the present House were
B elected on a platform which promised the people
' B a new and lower tariff than the Dingley tariff.
B When the present tariff was submitted to the
fl House, a careful analysis of the different sched-
B ules made clear that, while many reductions had
fl been made, on many of the articles which most
fl nearly concern the consumers of the country, and
B articles which before were amply protected, pro-
B nounced increases had been put on. Some of the
fl Republican members were not only bound by
'B their platform, but by direct pledges to their own
H constituents, and, moreover, their outraged sense
'H of justice caused them to refuse to support the
vHj measure. They were at once put down as insur-
B gents. When they tried to be heard the speaker
-flj would not see them, and he, working with the
W majority of his party, finally drove the measure
' thouglf and it became a law. But it left a world
H of heart-burnings and awakened bitter crimlna-
H tions. In addition, the speaker displaced them
H n committees. So when the House re-convened
in r)ecemDer last this antagonism soon revealed
K itself. The majority of the Republicans in the
; House, ably backed by the speaker, instead of
TWk trying to do away with the antagonism, and seek-
ing to win back the recalcitrant members, tried
to crush them. This naturaUy aroused" intensi
IB fled antagonism, the friction increased daily, un-
,l t!1 li culminated last Saturday in an open battle,
il wnJcn was a daisy, and resulted in passing an
order that new rules for the government of the
S House should be framed, and that the speaker
flHflBBBfiBBflflflHMHflBHHHfli
should have no part in the framing. Then a mo
tion was made to oust (or accept the resignation
of) the speaker. A part of the so-called insur
gents, having been all the time earnest Repub
licans, seeing that if that motion prevailed, tha
logical sequence would be to elect a Democrat a
member of the minority party in the House
speaker, voted against the motion, and thus saved
the speakership to Mr. Cannon. But he was too
much enraged to appreciate this devotion to party
principles on the part of those members, and
taunted them with being defeated, which is an
indication that he lacks the generosity and cour
age of a real hero and bodes more clashing in fu
ture. But the scrap somewhat cleared the atmos
phere of the House, and we will all hope will lead
to good results. In our judgment these are days
when President Taft should be getting busy.
Wonderful Egypt
THEODORE ROOSEVELT has never permit
ted his imagination to have much influence
over his life. He has ever been striving for
practical results, and his inspirations have gen
erally been reduced to problems and subjected to
such tests as the mathematician relies upon for a
solution. But during the past week if his soul
has not been stirred by some new emotions; if
he has not seemed to hear the whispers that lin
ger as the ages roll away, then there is nothing
beyond this world, and the centuries as they
pass hold no secrets in their grasp.
For he has been in that land where the peo
ple, thousands of years before traditions crystal
lized into history, emerged, first upon the earth,
from "barbarism into the first elements of civiliza
tion, and there, alone by themselves, progressed
until within them the arts and architecture were
born, then a religion grew into form; then, turn
ing their eyes upward, out of the order of the
heavenly bodies, the first lessons in mathematics
were evolved, and finally the creation of armies
and the first "setting of squadrons in the field"
was made a reality. And this was all so long
ago, who can comprehend the time?
For centuries they wore no clothing; for cen
turies their best residences were meager huts of
clay; for ages they toiled on until finally kings
and priests were born, and men rose up so sa
gacious and so splendid of achievement, that
though there was no history to record their ex
ploits, the traditions of them, which were handed
down from generation to generation, finally took
their places in history. They evolved a written
language and began to leave their records upon
their monuments and temples, and thus they
grew and established dynasties, and built pyra
mids, obelisks, temples, learned navigation and
sailed the seas, and it was all so long ago that
the nation was worn out centuries before the
coming of the Saviour, for since Cambyses, with
his Persians, swept over that land 600 B. C, that
nation has never had a king of its own people.
That when the nation was growing, it had all
the graces of modern nations Is clear enough. Is
not the tomb still pointed out of their great
Queen Nitocris, she who built the third pyramid;
the magic of whose smile drove her lovers mad,
so supernatural was her witchery, and whose
naked spirit still haunts the pyramids which she
built. Then that long -array of kings and fight
ing men; the hieroglyphics which tell of their
deeds still set the pulses of heroes bounding.
Then the wrecks of what they left, Memphis,
Thebes, and a dozen more great cities all this M
came out of. barbarism, all grew upon a narrow ,fl
strip of soil surrounded by deserts, all arose, cul- lfl
minatcd and went into decay in years so remote, 'fl
that science itself can but guess at the date of its '"1
beginning. M
And Mi Roosevelt has been amid these scenes M
and these memories during the past week. More H
than once he must have rubbed his eyes and H
asked himself If he was not dreaming, and only M
been reassured as he saw the temples and pyra- H
mids around him and the wonderful river rolling M
below even as it was rolling when old Remesis M
was marshalling his armies on its banks and 'J
dreaming of the glory that was to be his for all
time, never once dreaming that his mummy H
would be carried away to be a curiosity i iic" f'H
which, In his time, was not known to i nil- t
dren of men. Surely the ex-President must have j H
been impressed as never before. Surely he must ' IH
have more than once said to himself: "It was
here that tyranny had its birth and fulfilled all H
its desires, only to perish from the decay inner- VH
ent in itself. There Is nothing enduring after B
all but 'liberty and eternal justice.' " H
A Good Scrap B
A SCRAP like that in the House of Repre- B
sentatives last Saturday has many compen- B
sations in the public mind. The country B
had about concluded that the hook worm had B
taken possession of Congress, or that the sleeping r
sickness had become epidemic in Washington. j B
The country had a reason for this belief. It had -
a good many. It will do no harm to mention a , fl
few of them. ijl
(1) The Panama canal is being hurried to com- M
pletion, but were it ready for business today, we H
would have no ships to pass through it, save a few M
war ships, and they would have to take along H
some chartered foreign ships to supply them with i M
coal, and Congress does not seem to be doing M
anything to restore to the country its lost mer- M
chant marine. M
(2) By our legislation of 1873 and 1893 we
have closed quite half the ports and peoples of the H
world against our exports, and by the same legis- I
lation we made it possible for the Orient-to sup- H
ply us with iron, steel rails, cotton and woolen II
cloths and a multitude of other articles, at one- 1H
tenth what our own artisans can supply those lH
things for, and when these facts have been laid jfl
before Congress, the sleeping sickness has seemed ill
to suddenly seize the whole body of both houses, 1H
and the only response which the President has H
seemed able to make has been to smile. HI
(3) Wo heard two years or more ago, that a Ml
committee was engaged in drafting a currency H
system for the country, and that the chairman of SB
that committee, Senator Aldrich, had expressed jnH
the wish that he might be able to present a sys- ll
tern of finance for the country that would be so RH
nearly perfect that it would act like moving the , IB
previous question and shut off all further debate Hfl
There are some people who have been ungener- IB
ous enough to express the belief that the Senator 9M
has both the hook worm and the' sleeping sick- flS
ness. II
(4) Every little while some gentleman throws
off his drowsiness long enough to rise and express Ifl
the conviction t iat the government ought to con "5
Berve our natural resources ,and no other gentle-
man has had the strength to express the opinion pi
that every such gentleman is the lineal descend- "As