EDJUN1110

On a regular basis Congress passes a bill or resolution that flies beneath the media radar especially when major issues have captured the attention of voters.

Many of those 'unsung' bills reveal things about this country that say a good bit about where we came from and what it took to get us here.

Such a bill is HRES 1121 that congratulates Clinton County and the county seat of Wilmington, Ohio, on the occasion of their bicentennial anniversaries.

While any municipality turning 200 is an event, a look at the involvement in US history of Clinton County is quite an eye opener if you like banana splits, and have respect for those who took extraordinary actions to right wrongs.

To begin with, the County was created to provide land as a reward to revolutionary soldiers. But when the Civil War loomed its population grew due to migration from some southern states by those who could not tolerate slavery.

Intolerance for slavery was not left behind by those new residents; they established in Clinton County a station on the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War, and a destination for thousands of persons escaping slavery and seeking freedom, the resolution explained.

And, it turns out that the banana split was invented in 1907 at Hazards Drug Store in the town of Wilmington, Clinton County. ##

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Historical Highlights

from the Clerk of the US House

An appropriations bill prohibiting gender discrimination

June 11, 1870

On this date, the House narrowly passed an amendment to an appropriations bill prohibiting gender discrimination in the compensation of clerks hired by the federal government.

Under the prior law, female clerks earned less than half the salary of similarly employed men. The bill’s final passage (78 to 74, with 78 Members abstaining) reflected the contentious debate surrounding the measure.

In February, Samuel Arnell of Tennessee first suggested that female clerks be paid an equal wage; the House rejected his and similar amendments amidst sarcastic barbs and jeers.

Representative Anthony Rogers of Arkansas objected to “these ladies running about the streets and lobbying with members,” predicting that “the upshot of it…will finally place the whole administration of Government under female management.”

Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois countered “that it is unworthy of the manhood of this House and the spirit of the age” to pay women lower wages. Other Members noted that many working women were Civil War widows whose wages were their only means of support.

The Senate eventually amended the bill to include an equal pay clause. When the measure returned to the House, the Appropriations Committee adopted the Senate amendment; however, the committee effectively weakened it by adding language promising the equal wages only to future employees and by freezing the number of clerkships on the payroll. The compromise lured support from Members originally concerned about the additional cost of the pay raises, tipping the scale in the close vote.

Supporters were optimistic about the amendment’s future effect. “What we call civilization from age to age has brought to man wider freedom, yet little relaxed the iron subjugation of women,” Arnell intoned. “I see in the removal of this disability immediate reform in our social life.”##