g bill, facts and figures
exhibiting recent progressive development of trade in Newport News,
and information showing the growing dependence of world trade upon the
development of an American merchant marine, he urged the passage of
the shipping bill, with legislation to subsidize an American marine
that would assist this nation to recover her former position upon the
sea. While pointing out causes underlying the decadence of the
merchant marine, he enumerated also the conditions which at that time
favored its certain development.... He was, therefore, committed to a
vigorous prosecution of any constructive plan leading in that
direction.

In the Fifty-second Congress, H. P. Cheatham logically discussed the
anti-option bill,[93] a measure defining "options" and "futures,"
imposing special taxes on dealers therein, and requiring such dealers
and persons engaged in selling specified products to obtain a license
to do so. Speaking in the behalf of the agricultural class of people
whom he represented, Cheatham set forth the disastrous economic
effects that dealing in "futures" and "options" has always had on the
farming class in fixing the price of cotton and other commodities. As
a measure contemplating an adjustment of this most portentous evil in
the industrial life of the nation, he urged the passage of the bill
then under consideration.

RACIAL MEASURES

In the case of some of the Negro Congressmen measures designed either
to promote the welfare of their race or to give publicity to its
achievement commanded precedence over all others. Many offered
petitions and bills providing especially for the benefit of Negroes.
Benjamin Turner, of Alabama, secured from the Federal Government
several thousands of dollars in payment of a claim for damages to his
property during the Civil War. In the Fifty-first Congress, Thomas E.
Miller submitted two measures in the interest of his race.[94] The
first proposed the establishment of a home for indigent freedmen, and
the second sought to authorize the erection of a monument in
commemoration of the Negro soldiers who fought for the Union in the
Civil War.

The World's Columbian Exposition received much consideration during
the first session of the Fifty-second Congress. Henry P. Cheatham,[95]
a representative from North Carolina, during the course of his remarks
on the Negro race urged that Congress make provisions for exhibiting,
at that fair, the facts and statistics of the p