Judge — December 8, 1928 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Editor, Norman Anthosy Lame Ducks Again IENNIALLY the ghosts of our political fathers B return to haunt the halls of Congress and gib- ber with glee over the joke they played on us they invented our crazy clectoral system. Biennially the nation is mildly shocked by the spee- tacle of men were defeated at the November election trooping back to their seats in December. Lame ducks, they make legislation limp. when who e and House are dotted with men who are ready marked for extinction on March 4th, Some were thrown over by their own parties at the pri maries. Some were rejected at the polls and are to be replaced by men of the opposite party. Some few chose not to run again. But all of them will cast their votes throughout the present session. They are no longer ple to their constituents. Their hopes of political preferment now rest, not with the people, but with the party leaders, Traditionally the lame duck is a docile creature. When the party whip cracks, he flaps his little wings and waddles in the indicated direction. He quacks about the White House stoop and supports administration meas- ures in the expectation of being rewarded by appoint- ment to a judgeship, a commission or a bureau And the lame duck is but one of the phenomena of irresponsibility in our government. Is it any won- der that so many citizens bewail the return of Co: gress to Washington? Short and Merry Guone sessions of Congress are always merry ones . —if you like to laugh at that sort of thing. Read Mr. Coolidge’s final message and give a guess as to how many of these mighty problems can be solved between now and the fourth of March. Boulder Dam has to come up in the Senate right away, and it involves the whole great fight on power. There are eleven appropriation bills, adding up to the biggest budget ever known in peace times. Farm relief is essential, not so much for the sake of the farmers, who are used to waiting, as for the sake of the politicians who want to get rid of that old bugaboo so that Mr. Hoover will not have to redeem his pre-election promise of a special session. Upward tariff revision is den setts and Rhode Island. There is the Kellogg treaty renouncing war and, nded by Massachu- Dramatic Editor, George Jean Nathao of course, its twin sister, the cruiser bill designed to give us a navy second to none. It just can't be done. Everybody in Washington knows that some of these measures must be shelved in order that others may be debated and passed. The quandary is, which? "That's where the log-roller id the filibusterer in their licks. You vote for my bill and I'll vote for yours. Or, if you won't agree to bring up my bill, I'll take the floor and keep on talking until you do, or until the session ends. For the paramount fact is the brevity of the ses- sion. It begins on December 4th and must expire by limitation on March 4th. Only three months, with the holidays intervening. Everything left un- done then must go over until next December, when the Congress we have just clected will meet for the first time, unless called in special session. This is why the short session is invariably rife with half-baked legislation, extravagant approp tions and other ridiculous antics of the political ani mal at his worst. Pass the Norris Amendment O*= simple device would abolish the lame duck, the short session and the long delay between the election of a President and his inauguration. The Norris Amendment would bring in the new Congress and the new President in January, only two months after election, Time after time this reform has been urged as a means of giving us a more responsible government. In the last session it came close to acceptance. Today, with the evils of the ancient system more evident than ever before, the Norris Amendment should certainly be passed. *_ * A OTHER blue law has faded. Massachusetts, neient citadel of the Puritan, has voted to per- mit Sunday sports. It would be a great mistake, however, to interpret this as a sign of a general growth of liberalism. bition the good old commonwealth has. ly registered her protest and she was one of the two northern States that went for Smith. But the credit for this broad-mindedness, we suspect, must go to the newer clements in the population, and not to the descendants of those tight- lipped folk whose other progeny trekked out to Kansas and Ohio and made the Middle West the world capital of intolerance, RW. comicbooks.com