BY CHARLES J. BAYNE.
The close of the old year and the beginning of the new finds the civilized world in a state of parliamentary deliberation, with the establishment of additional parliaments in various dependencies as one of the leading subjects of deliberation. The lawmakers of practically every nation in the two hemispheres are now in session, so the discussion of budgets and the agitation of reforms furnish ever-changing subjects of public interest.
The American mind has been moving forward from its varied and conflicting analyses of the recent elections to the concrete measures which will be introduced in Congress, and still it is unable to fix its attention definitely on serious subjects while the holiday spirit is in the air. Members of Congress themselves feel that they are merely in Washington for a few days to outline a program for a later date.
New York Globe
“NOW TO BUSINESS.”
The President’s Message.
Congress convened on the first Monday in December, and on the following day the President’s message was transmitted to that body. It is generally agreed that Mr. Roosevelt’s communications to the federal law-makers are increasingly partaking of the nature of open letters to the American people rather than being definite suggestions to the House and Senate of the measures which should be enacted at the current session into law. The present document is no exception to that rule. It is largely made up of homilies which recall the waggish comment of Tom Reed about “Roosevelt’s delightful enthusiasm over his discovery of the Ten Commandments.” Such is practically the view of The Washington Herald, for instance, which says that “Congress will regard the counsels of the President as the obiter dicta of a distinguished publicist, awakening the public conscience, but without special bearing on the work of the present session.”
The forces of reform were delighted to find him advocating a law prohibiting corporations from contributing to campaign funds, the failure to pass which during the first session of the present Congress, when reform was in the air, was the subject of considerable criticism. It is pointed out that he does not now go so far as to advise that all contributions shall be made public. He is quoted, since the transmission of his message, as favoring a return to the large insurance companies of the funds they contributed to the last Republican campaign, and this has brought forth the question from his critics: Why disgorge only the contributions of the insurance companies, when the funds belonging to stock-holders, as well as to policy-holders, have been used by various corporations to influence elections?