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Show IT DAY INTHE HOUSE Congressman of Today Is a Specialist and the "All Around" Statesman fj is Dying Out. j, gpEEOHES THAT MAKE VOTES , Congressional Eecord and Ita Vast 5 Corps of Writers-How It Is i Oonduoted. . C iVASHrscffON, July 10. It is a hot, n day in tne caPita ' the UniteJ ta6 god I see no reason why I should hustling about for something inter. ing to write of when a panorama ol an nature is spread out before me. ft in the press gallery of the house, een feet above a great floor which ii 1 of desks, chairs and men. Theit , seven rows of desks, each describing ,alf circle. In all there are 835 seats, t not wore than one-third of them are upied. A man is making a speech the proposed federal election law. , is a partisan of the most bitter type i is making a savage party speech. , denounces the people of the seo-,1 seo-,1 of country in which he does not ance to live, as if those people were mastered the business, who know every crook and turn of the legislative path hr, TWblest members f the L i 0f Iowa- talking to me about this the other day. "This "f Vf m.in con" d he, and tt will be the last. I don't care for any more of at. Not that it is unpleasant work, for rt isn't; on the contrary it is rather agreeable. When I first came down here I had the usual notions of a new congressman as to what I was going to do. Of course I quickly discovered that I was a mere boy, an apprentice among a lot of journeymen. I have teamed that if a man is going to make a success in this profession he must devote his life to it. I am too old to take np a new line of business, and hence I shall retire from congress t the expiration of my term. For a young man this part of the public service offers great opportunities, opportuni-ties, and if I were younger and had a seat here I would strive to hold it and to make something of myself." Though Judge Reed is to retire from congress, he has remained long enough to do one act which must have given him much satisfaction. As chief justice of the supreme court of Iowa some years ago he delivered the first "original package" decision, which the supreme court of the United States reversed. As member of the judiciary committee Judge Reed has just written a report in favor of the act, designed to change the whole law relating relat-ing to that part of interstate commerce covered by what is known as original packages. Ihis is the season of the year in which congressmen become nervous. They are afraid their constituents will not renominate renom-inate them, or, if nominated for another term, there is always before their eyes the unpleasant possibility of dufeat at the polls. Every year seventy-five or a hundred aspiring statesmen are thus cut off in the flower of youth, and the reassembling reas-sembling of congress in the full will probably find theiiBual number of victims. vic-tims. At the same time we hear the very congressmen who struggle hardest to be re-elected saying they are disgusted with congressional life. "Why should I give up my profitable business or my great law practice," they say, "to come down here and be an errand boy for every Tom, Dick and Harry in my district? dis-trict? Why should I, who love independence independ-ence as well as any man, be forced continually con-tinually to get down on my knees and crawl before the omnipotent voter?" That is the way they talk, with many an expletive expressive of their disgust, but they he awake nights just the same t hig countrymen, tu is very mucn rited himself , but try as hard as he lT he is unable to produce any excite- nt in others. if the hundred men in the hall not 5re than a couple of dozen are listen-and listen-and they only in an indifferent sort my. In the galleries more attention paid to the orator. Up there it is not well understood as it is on the floor at the honorable gentleman is speaking his constituents. He cares more for printed speech and for its effect upon e voters of his district than for the pression it may make upon his audi-s, audi-s, A house page puts an acute esti-ite esti-ite npon the value of this effort when says to one of his fellows: We'll make something out of that Hch. Bet we can sell 500,000 of them." i'ou see, the pages of the house are Tenants in speeches. They know the lae of an oration better than any one e. A speech which is bitterly partisan good wares in their market. They iow it will be in demand by other con- devising schemes which will make their calling and election as sure as anything can be in politics. Viewed from the gallery on a hot day the house of representatives is not an imposing body. Greatness is here in j perspiration, dignity suffers in neglige, and vanity is sacrificed to all manner of seersuckers, flannels and linens. Cabot Lodge, the aristocrat, has shown us that it is possible for an orator to be impressive im-pressive without white shirt and waistcoat. waist-coat. To the average observer it seems a very dull and commonplace legislative body, often boyish and trivial. But I have little sympathy with that fad which is well nigh universal in Washington Wash-ington of decrying congress as a symposium sympo-sium of small potatoes. Some of the speeches are dull to listen to, it is true, but the great majority of them seen in The Congressional Record are better speeches than the blase Washington newspaper man is willing to admit. And this poor Congressional Record is in my opinion a much maligned publication. publi-cation. It is sized up in the average mind as the incarnation of dullness, as the ne plus ultra of verbose stupidity. But it is really a very useful, and at times a very entertaining journal. As a rule it is worth reading from one end to the other. I read it moro or less thoroughly every morning, as I do the news journals, jour-nals, and aa a reflector of the opinions of studious, often earnest and sometimes very able men I am astonished at the mass of information and evidences of learning which it contains. It is a journal which has four hundred writers, drawing draw-ing salaries of $5,000 each per year, and these men are always at work in one way or another thinking, planning, investigating, investi-gating, writing, talking for its columns. It is absurd to suppose a record or journal jour-nal thus equipped can always be stupid or valueless. Journalists as a rule affect to despise The Congressional Record, but it is worth mentioning that a speech which, printed in The Record, would attract no attention whatever from the newspapers, news-papers, would, if given out as an interview inter-view in advance of The Record, be printed print-ed in full and with display headlines in a dozen or more prominent journals. Notwithstanding its faults and failures, fail-ures, and the many unfavorable conditions condi-tions under which it exists, I believe the legislative service of the United States is on a higher plane than that of auy other nation; that our legislators eclipse in brains, character and industry those of any other country. Walter Wellmax. ! essmen or tne orator s party as a cam-ign cam-ign document. Therefore the pages out among the members and take iers. One member wants 5,000, an-ier an-ier 10,000, and in the aggregate the ders may run up to hundreds of thou-nds. thou-nds. The prices to be paid are the ices set by the government printing ice, but by taking the work to private inting offices they get cheaper prices d pocket the difference. In this little matter of the speech de-ered de-ered to a great array of. empty nches, and this business of selling peches for mailing to voters, we get a inpse of the spirit by which most ngressional efforts are actuated. The ttesman is always posing for the proval of the voter in his state or dis-ct. dis-ct. He keeps his "ear to the ground" at he may catch the first sound of a rage of Sentiment among his people, you want to see with what facility, hat ease and rapidity a great statesman n shift his position upon any public icstion set something at work among p constituents that will change them. I sometimes think that the voters out the country, in the cities, towns and ral districts the very men who will ad this letter, in fact do not realize what extent they are tyrants. It is mmon to talk of the sovereign voter, it nowhere is the sovereign voter such ral person, so material, actual and im-'rtant, im-'rtant, as here in the Capital City. Why, nt all the people of importance in this y spend their time, bother their brains i l wear out their lives trying to please, acate and win favor with the sovereigns ho live away off in the country and rely or never mako their appearance "fl. I think that is why Washington such a pleasant city to live in. The ise for dollars is here less keen than in diitinctively commercial cities, and its place we have the pursuit of popu-rity. popu-rity. This desire to please becomes a ihit, and it is a habit which makes an uiable, companionable people. It is not always the greatest statesman at remains longest in favor among his ple. The trade of catering to the 'pular will, the art of making friend-ips friend-ips and avoiding enmities, some good i able men are unable to master. , "ne of the most able men in public life nent their inability to give careful, Irious study to the questions of the y, simply because they must spend "lr time winning popularity or else be ;wded out of office by ambitious men ao have no public business to attend to. A senator, one of the best known of e members of his branch of congress, nes to my mind. He might be a great desman if he were not determined to ' a great politician. His state is full ambitious men, crowding him closely r front rank, and he knows that if he ''ps for a moment in his efforts to rim on the surface he will quickly "t a fate resembling that of the late 'aented Mr. McGinty. This senator Patently thinks o' nothing else than ;-ansof popularizing himself. Every qra which he utters, every word he 'es, every act of his life is in so far : Possible well considered with a view 1 effect upon his popularity. Thus happens that this gentleman, well ted by temperament and training for parser as an all round statesman, famil-rwith famil-rwith and active and influential in settlement of all great questions, become a m3re specialist in legisla- fact the old race of statesmen ii out. Soon it will disappear reyer. The modern statesman is be-,mttg be-,mttg more and more a specialist. One votes himself exclusively to the tariff, 'other to interstate commerce, a third wtemational reciprocity, a fourth to jja laws and so on throughout the . e list of enduring public questions. reat, comprehensive students of the auiery of government are becoming jw and orators more and more rare. .7? one sits up in the gallery of the 'e of representatives day after day 13 esy to w the truth of the state-r4 state-r4 that tha business of the body we hands of a few men. Thehand-' Thehand-' of men who exercise influence over Progress of legislation are men who , . made legislation their trade during ; S series of years. They are men like j won. McKinlev, Springer, Blount. I rsAa-l3r. Oates, Culberson, Hender- , aowe BurrQwsj Holman.who have |