When Congress Should Meet

A bilí is now pending in the house of representatives, introduced by Mr. Crain, of Texas, providing for a change in the date of meeting of congress. According to its provisions, should it become law, congress would meet on the first Tuesday after the 4th of March, following the congressional election, thus bringing the new congress together five months after election, while the issues on which it was carried are still "live" and energized by the enthusiasm engendered by the campaign. It is also provided in this bilí that a session of the old congress shall be held, beginning on the 3rd of February succeeding the presidential election for the purpose of counting the electoral vote, but for the transaction of no other business. The advantages which would result from these changes are apparent. As the law stands today, the new congress does not meet until thirteen months after election, and in the meantime pledges to the people have became dimmed, and the issues on which the election was carried have become comparatively old. The old congress in the meantime has been legislating, perhaps,in a diametrically opposite direction from what the people have ordered. The result is that the government is never abreast of the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box, but is following along more than a year behind when not absolutely thwarting the popular demands. Under the present law, when congress does assemble, thirteen months after election, members who do not wish to obey the popular mandate, put forward the specious claim that public sentiment has changed and no longer demands the fulfillment of pledges made more than a year before. In this manner they become practically independent of the declared will of the people and are responsible to nobody. Had Mr. Crain's bill been the law of the land in 1892, who doubts but that the pledges of the democratie platform would have been redeemed ere this and the country enjoying all the resuhing advantages? Then, after a reasonable trial, if the advantages were not what was expected, the people would be in a position to intelligently decree a change. At no time since the war have fundamentalprinciples separated the parties to the degree that such issues did in the last general election, and after a long educational campaign the voters decreed a radical change in our tariff laws. Up to the present time nothing has been completed in the direction of this reform, and it is now argued that the people have changed and no longer desire the reform then ordered. In the meantime the old laws which the people repudiated have been in full operation, and no trial whatever has been given the new policy. Thus is advancement made exasperatingly and needlessly slow. The present majority should abolish the foolish law which regulates the time of meeting of congress, and place in its stead one which would not permit the issues of a campaign to become ancient history before the representatives of the people meet to give them consideration.