NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering WRANGLING over a series of filibusters, turning down progressive measures long demanded by the people, rushing through large appropriation bills, and still unpleasantly...
...At the present time there is a movement to nationalize monopolies and the question is to be put to a referendum within the year...
...Carter's defeat for re-election came within one day of the time he voted for Lorimer, a Democrat, H. L. Myers, succeeding him...
...Seventeen Senators Out While the Republicans will retain nominal control of the Senate, the actual changes are far more sweeping than in the House...
...It is not proposed to wait until the combine secures vested interests in this country...
...Electric Trust Attacked The United States Department of Justice has begun its expected attack en the electric light trust with the filing of suits against thirty-five manufacturers of incandescent electric lights in Cleveland...
...It makes the statement also that the combine sells 80,000,000 lamps a year for an aggregate price of $18,000,000...
...Taliaferro of Florida is scheduled for early appointment to the national military commission...
...Shortly after the Owen filibuster, Senator Bailey of Texas, angered by what he termed the populistic tendency of his party colleagues in favoring the initiative, referendum and recall for Arizona, sent his resignation to Vice-President Sherman...
...Chicago Primary Successful Chicago Republicans on the 28th proved the worth of the primary election law when they nominated Charles E. Merriam, long known for his honesty and ability in municipal government activities, for mayor...
...The resolutions resulted from a well-authenticated report that the Argentine officers were encouraged to let their contracts in this country on the promise that they would be given access to valuable naval secrets possessed by the Navy department...
...for the new House will be under rales that will make it impossible for him, even if so minded, to exercise absolute domination over committees...
...the permanent tariff commission bill...
...that it had been obtained through bribery of members of the Illinois legislature...
...Merriam got just half the Republican vote...
...The present labor administration, which is seeking to build up Australian trade from within and which sees in the spening of the Panama canal a golden opportunity for the country, has notified the American meat barons that they cannot gain a foothold in Australia...
...Australia Bars Trusts With the lessons of America before its leaders, Australia has taken decisive action against the admission of American trusts...
...In the new House there will be 228 Democrats, 162 Republicans and one Social Democrat...
...The Vice-President refused to accept it...
...Montana Elects Senator The Montana Legislature, after a dead-lock lasting two months, finally elected a United States senator on the 2nd in the person of Henry L. Myers, a Democratic "dark horse...
...The vote, 46 to 40, was taken after a long and dramatic fight...
...salary, $7,500...
...The usual charges of vote-buying, illegal voting and wholesale "repeating," now so familiar in all Chicago elections, followed the primary, but there has been no serious investigation...
...News Worth Remembering WRANGLING over a series of filibusters, turning down progressive measures long demanded by the people, rushing through large appropriation bills, and still unpleasantly mindful of public censure of the Senate majority because of its 46 to 40 "vindication" of Lorimer, the Sixty-first regular session of Con- . gress came to a close March 4. Immediately after adjournment, the announcement came from the White House that a special session would be called before April 4. At that time both houses will reconvene with a more pronounced change in membership than at any time since the Civil war...
...Now there is speculation as to the status ©f Bailey's senatorship...
...Ballinger Resigns Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger on March 7 resigned his office and President Taft accepted the resignation...
...One is that of the thirty-five Republican members who voted for Lorimer, ten will not be in the Sixty-second Congress...
...The campaign preceding the primaries was bitter in the extreme...
...He will be without the czar-like rule of Cannon...
...But Senator Overman voted against Lorimer...
...On March 6, Oscar W. Lawler, assistant attorney general in the Interior Department, also resigned...
...Lorimer Keeps Tainted Seat Big Business won a victory in the United States Senate on the 1st, when, through its representatives in that august body, it directed William Lorimer of Illinois to remain in his seat...
...March 4 saw the passing of the "old guard...
...This measure will come up for action in the extra session...
...Of the thirteen Republicans, eight will be succeeded by Democrats...
...Knox Must Show Letters The United States Senate on the 27th passed the La Follette resolution calling upon Secretary of State Knox to furnish copies of all correspondence between the State department and the officials of the Argentine Republic relative to recent battle-ship contracts awarded by the South American nation in the United States...
...Senator Overman was to have been a member of this commission...
...The result was that the new resolution was killed, and both territories now must wait longer for admission...
...Senators Aldrich and Hale also are on this commission and will continue to serve...
...resolution for direct election of United States Senators, and Canadian reciprocity legislation...
...Colquitt...
...The special session also will have placed before it the Canadian reciprocity agreement, which failed of passage in the Senate...
...The Australian meat dealers have a tremendous trade in the Philippines and in Asiatic ports and with the opening of the Panama canal they will be able to extend their trade to great advantage...
...The minister of trade and customs, R. W. Best, on the 27th issued a memorandum in which he says that representatives of the American meat trust have been seeking a footing...
...In his letter of acceptance, President Taft paid high tribute to Ballinger, and said "I do not hesitate to say that you have been the object of one of the most unscrupulous conspiracies for the defaming of character that history can show...
...Edward F. Dunne, who polled only fifteen hundred less votes than Harrison, has filed notice of a contest and there probably will be a recount to decide whether Harrison really is the nominee...
...Frazier, Money and Taliaferro said farewell to their Democratic colleagues...
...Uncle" Joe Cannon, for eight years Speaker of the House, will sit with the members...
...Fabulous amounts of money were spent by the "big business" candidates and their paid followers guarded every booth on primary day...
...When Representative Fitzgerald, who had the bill in charge, found that it could not be passed, he withdrew it...
...Robert E. Peary on the retired navy list with the rank of rear admiral and extending the thanks of Congress for his discovery of the North Pole and other important achievements...
...House Blocks Tariff Board On the last day of the Sixty-first session the House refused to pass the bill for the permanent tariff commission after it had passed the Senate...
...Taking the famous Norton letter as his proof that the President had misused his power, Senator Bourne pointed to the Lorimer case and in comparing that scandal with the President's action he said: "One transaction is as dishonest, as corrupt and as depraving as the other, but the latter is more dangerous, more insidious, more pernicious, because it strikes at the very foundation of free institutions, sets a precedent for corrupt methods in all official life and marks the beginning of dictatorship and decadence of the nation...
...The memorandum says: "The government is determined to take immediate and drastic action to discourage, and, if necessary, to prohibit its operation in Australia...
...The best that his proponents could do was to juggle with the election figures and to argue that there were not enough corrupt votes to taint his membership...
...The clearing of the Montana situation leaves but two states without their new senators, New York and Colorado...
...The roll-call brought out facts that have been well impressed...
...In the Sixty-first Congress the House held 219 Republicans and 172 Democrats...
...When they finally had succeeded in bringing to their aid enough votes, they pressed the issue, and won...
...The Texas governor also refused to consider it when so importuned by Bailey's friends, and in the end the Democratic Senator was induced to change his mind, chiefly on the plea of his supporters that it would be a national calamity if he were to leave Congress...
...Forest reserve establishment in Appalachians...
...Deaths in the Senate will contribute still more to the changed conditions...
...Other Republicans who left the upper branch of Congress were Beveridge, Bulkeley, Burkett, Burrows, Carter, Depew, Dick, Flint, Kean, Piles, Scott and Warner...
...Aside from the failure of the permanent tariff commission bill, the next most important thing which the Senate failed to bring about was the direct election of members of that body...
...Recodification of judicial code...
...Ballinger gives as his reason, ill health...
...Taliaferro did not vote on the Lorimer resolution...
...One of the sensational incidents of the closing hours in the Senate was the filibuster of Senator Owen who desired to get the Senate's approval of the new Arizona constitution...
...Those absent or not voting were Aldrich, Terrell, Frazier, Taliaferro and Lorimer...
...The Republican majority will not be more than ten...
...NEWS NOTE — Both the Senate and the House on the 3d passed the bill placing Capt...
...that of the Democrats was 147,096...
...What Congress Did When both houses of Congress finally adjourned at noon on the 4th, it had brought about these results: Fortification of the Panama canal...
...The National Electric Lamp company and the General Electric company are charged with being the keystone of a trust having connections in every part of the country...
...The notification closes with the statement that the government will not tolerate the "repetition in Australia of the scandalous and merciless methods characterizing monopolies in other parts of the world...
...The total vote of the Republicans was 108,536...
...Senators Aldrich of Rhode Island and Hale of Maine went back to private life...
...Lorimer secured thirty-five Republican and eleven Democratic votes...
...New York's legislature still is deadlocked over Depew's successor...
...Appropriations for building of foreign embassies...
...On the 28th the vote on the resolution was 54 to 33, The vote was just four below the two-thirds necessary for passage...
...The killing of this bill was preceded by a filibuster that stirred up a near riot...
...Walter L. Fisher was appointed to succeed Ballinger...
...Champ Clark will take his place...
...The referendum, initiative and recall features of the constitution were objectionable to several Senators, especially Bailey, and they pleaded with Owen to raise his obstruction to the consideration of the big supply bills...
...Owen, however was obdurate and gave way only upon the promise that there should be an immediate vote upon the admission of Arizona and New Mexico...
...On the day preceding the vote on the direct election resolution, Senator Bourne, who fought all through the last session for the direct election principle, charged that President Taft had deliberately intimidated members of Congress by the use of federal patronage...
...he is supposed to have been paired on another question...
...In the Chicago primaries there were six Republican candidates for mayor and three Democrats...
...Gallinger and Smith (Maryland) will be awarded with memberships on the commission which will supervise the Appalachian forest reserve...
...If the Democrats who voted for Dunne, turn to Merriam in the election, as it is hinted they will do, Merriam will have a fair chance to win the office...
...Senator Burrows, who was chairman of the committee that whitewashed Lorimer, retires from the Senate through action of the Michigan legislature, but he will continue to draw $7,500 a year as member of the monetary commission...
...For more than two months the Lorimerites placed every obstacle in the way of a vote on the unseating of their champion...
...They are: Bulkeley, Burrows, Carter, Depew, Dick, Flint, Hale, Kean, Piles and Scott...
...Appropriations for two new battleships of Dreadnaught type...
...Myers was not even an avowed candidate and his name was not mentioned until the twenty-seventh and last ballot taken on the day of his election...
...Twenty-two Republicans and eighteen Democrats voted against him...
...Carter is to receive a $7,500 berth on the Canadian water boundaries commission...
...the bill seeking to raise postage rates for advertising sections of magazines...
...The promotion and the retired pay of the new rear admiral are to date from April 6, 1969, the day upon which Peary reached the pole...
...The ablest lawyers in the Senate had given their conclusion that Lorimer's election was not an honest election...
...The government charges that the companies all are banded together in a combine in restraint of trade and that they have gained control of 97 per cent, of the country's supply of lamps...
...Bailey then wired his resignation to Gov...
...In the Sixty-first Senate it was almost two to one...
...The Democrats nominated Carter Harrison, who was mayor for several terms preceding the four-year term of Busse...
...Plums for Lorimerites An aftermath of the Lorimer episode includes "plums" for members who voted in Lorimer's favor...
...In all, twenty-two new faces will be seen in the upper House...
...The Sixty-first Congress failed to pass: The Sulloway pension bill, which sought to add $50,000,000 to the pension rolls...
Vol. 3 • March 1911 • No. 10
