Let Congress Do Its Work

There is less jubilation üian there was in the camp of the stalwarts. Their leaders are not happy under the impending oonsideration of the supervisor and impartial jury law which will begin when Mr. Hayes signs the veto which thebackers of ttrant have already drawn up and sent to the W li ite House. All along tlie stalwart line ascends aloud cry for the adjournmentof Congress. ïhat cry, we opine, will not be answered to-moirow or next week. Certainly it will not be answered until the stalwarts permit the Treasury to reply to Mr. Bayaid s resol ution of inquiry about the emoluments of Davenport which the Senate adopted nearly six weeks ago. Congress is urged to adjourn on the pretext that the pendini? discussion of the silver question is liarmf til. Every sensible man of business knows U-at tt ia mnst iipneMcial. inasmuch as it brings out clearly tlie merits of the , contiicting ideas and enables the country to pass judgment intelligently on , the irguments of tlie gdvocates of those ideas. Of govemment by uppression we have liad enough. It is high time that we should have a govemment based on that f reedom of discussion which in a government by ballot is essential to law and order. If the credit of the United States cannot endure a free discussion in Congress of the silver business, self-govemment among us must indeed have become a delusion and a sham. If our public life is f uil of demagogues and charlatans and rogttós let them all come up into the light of day and show themselves in tlieir true colors. Let us know who they are and how many there are of them. If the statemanship, gooil sense and honesty of the country cannot deal witli them safely.certainly the gag and the bayonetcannot. 'llns is a government ot' the people, be it understood, first, last and always. It is not a government by any special class of citizens or preordained rulers in wliom the land must put its trust and be dumb. Especialty in relation to the electiou of members of Congress must there be popular discussion and popular action, as well as discussion between the executive and legislature departments of the Government. The people must inquire de novo whether there is any real and necessary distinction between the mode of electing persons to carry on the government of one of the States and the mode of electing persons who are to represent the State in a congress or assemblage of members from all the States. In a recent address made by Congress by eighty-six members of the lower branch of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, fifteen bers of tlie upper brancli anu cenain State offlcers, these sentences occur: "If you shall be oL opinión that State elections ior members of Congress can in any case be overseen or the State laws be enferced by Federal officera consistently with theConstitution, we cannot object to a system of supervisión which promises to check false voting or exposé false returns. The appointment by the Federal courts of good, honest and lawful men as supervisors of election at places where they themselves have a right to vote, and with power properly limited, might reultbeneficially, Butwe protestjagainst all laws whicli place the right of suf frage at the mercy of unprinciplei hirelings sent upon voters by corrup agents of the (reneral Adrninistration t,o nromote its interest." There is no necessity for sucli a "system of supervisión" or for lts application at this time. The Federal Goveriimentcaimot overseejor execute State laws. That Government is supreme within it own proper junsdiction, but -within the proper junsdiction of any State of this Union it is as powerless as Russia is. Everybody concedes that the Government at Washington may "make" new regulations of its own for electing Representatives in Congrss, and may entirely divorce and separate the work of electing such Ilepresentatives, as to timo and place, from the work of electing other State officérs, but this has not been attempted. So too each State may prescribe a separate day and a seperate registry for members of Congress. Palse votmg and false returns of voting must be suppressed, but so long as State laws and State regulations stand the State alone must suppress them. When Congress makes a new system ot lts own Congress can and will be lelt to execute that system as best it may. So lans?, however.asthe present tion stands Congress can never emuowei Federal courea to exccuet its system by appointing and cominissioning F.ederal offlcers, and that these Pennsylvanians should have seen. It is the President who is to commission executive offlcers. Have these Pennsylvanians ever read the petition adopted at the Hanisburg conference in September, 1788 ? The present Congress must fairly meet and consider these fundamental questions, and so must the Exeeutive. Mr. Hayes will no doubt use the veto to prevent a total repeal, but nevertheless he must be brought to meet and consider Democratie modilications, such as taking wnv t.iiP. lmsiness from the Federal cominissioners. That is vital. If the Government at Washington insists on executing State laws, let it provideexecutive and not judicial persona for the woik. Cpngress makes the laws, the Executive executes the laws and the courts expound the laws and give iudgment upon them. But under the Havenport system the courts flrst execute, then expound, then administer and then give judsment. If candidates for Congress wish private Inspectora or private challengers or private watcbersof the returns, toba paW by the Federal Government, then iet eaeh candidate nomínate one snch person at each poll and let him be appointedby State authority, but don t drag down the Federal courts to the work of selecting and appointing lor both parties. An illustration of the ,,mrViT,(T nf the uresent system was brought out day before yesterday, during the trial of Clerk Davenport before Clerk Lyman, in the testimony of Mosher, an agent of Davenport, who swore that by cominand of the latter Mosher complaining betore uavenport against 3,100 registered voters in one lump. In other words, Davenport as Chief Supervisor coniplaincü before Davenport as a Federal magistrate, then Davenport issued his writ cominanding the Marshal to arrest, then Davenport adjudicated, and hnally Davenport imprisoned the voters m Smust compel LLL pass on such an amendment to section 2,018 as will rid ballot-boxes fot State officers and ballots indorsed f or State ílicers oí the interferancc; oí Federal hired electioneerers. Washington must be made to keep its fingera away from ballots with whlch it has no more concern than with ballots cast in England for a member of Parliament. The fees to be paid to chief supervisors under section 2,031 must be limitedby a maximum amount, and there must be a provisión that no chieí supervisor or supervisor can be a holder of any other office, State or Federal, or a cmididate for any office at the votnig place where he is a supervisor. And in addition the whole business of arrests must be upset andjdealt with anew. undi:r the inllexible eondition that no arrest sliall deprive the voter of the right to deposit bis ballot in such eireurnstances that it may be afterwards identifled if need be. Demócrata in Congress must realize tliat they have duties to perform to their party and thoir country irom the efficiënt and patiënt discharge of which thoy cannot be exonerated by stalwart waila over the hot Weatber, nor yet by silly complaints that the country is tired of a discussion which must be carriedon and carried out to its mate issue.