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Show "Fewer Giants in the Senate Now Re muse There Are Fewer Piamies" By Smith D. Fry . THERE are many instances in various departments of our Government Gov-ernment of long and faithful service by its oflieiala and employes. One of the most striking examples of such service is furnished in the case of Edward V. Murphy, a graduate of the Central High School of Philadelphia, who, with the exception of two years, when he was in the Government service serv-ice in another capacity, has been continuously con-tinuously connected with the official reporting of the Senate since February Febru-ary 13, 1860. a period of fifty-eight years, covering some of the most momentous mo-mentous events in our history. During Dur-ing it occurred the secession of the Southern States; the withdrawal of their Senators and Representatives from Congress; the four years of the Civil War; the victory of the Union arms; the assassination of President Lincoln; the accession of Johnson; his trial and acquittal on the charges of Impeachment; the measures of reconstruction; recon-struction; the acquisition of Alaska; the return of Senators and Representatives Represen-tatives from the South to the halls 'ot legislation; the re-establishment of kindly relations between the sections; the assassination of President Garfield Gar-field and the accession of Arthur; the Spanish-American War; the acquisition acquisi-tion of Hawaii,, the Philippines and Porto Rico; the assassination of President Pres-ident McKinley; the accession of Roosevelt; and, finally, the sinking of the L,u8ltanla and other barbarous acts of the Imperial German Government, Govern-ment, which eventually led to the declaration of war against that nation. Then and Now When Mr. Murphy came to Washington Wash-ington in 1860 the population of the United States was 31,443,321; It Is now, exclusive of our Island possessions, posses-sions, more than 105,000,000. The number of States then constituting the Union was thirty-three; the number num-ber is now forty-eight. There were then sixty-six Senators; there are now ninety-six. The business of Con gress was then confined strictly to subjects of national concern under "the powers expressly granted by the Constitution"; now "no pent-up Utica contracts its powers," for if everything every-thing "in heaven above" is not within the domain t of congressional power, certainly almost everything "In the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth," is regarded by many of our people, and by some of our legislators, legis-lators, as within the scope of congressional con-gressional legislation. In the Thirty-sixth Congress, which began December 3, 1859, and expired March 4, 1861, 1748 bills and joint resolutions were introduced in the " two houses; in the Sixty-fourth Con-gress, Con-gress, running from December 6, 1915, to March 4, 1917, 30,381 bills and joint resolutions were dumped into the leg-islative leg-islative grist mill. The debates of the Thirty-sixth Congress are contained in 5609 pages of the Congressional Globe, then the official medium of their publication, pub-lication, while the debates of the Sixty-fourth Congress, without the voluminous Index, fill 22,392 pages of the Congressional Record, which, with an average of 1740 words to the page, makes the grand total 38,962,080 words! Asked his impressions of the capital city as he first knew It, Mr. Murphy said: . "Dickens had well described Washington Wash-ington as a city of 'magnificent distances'; dis-tances'; and In 1860, aside from the Capitol, the White House, the fine old Postofflce Department building, the Patent Office and the city's superb plan of streets, avenues and parks, designed and laid out by President Washington and the French engineer, L'Enfant, It had little of which to boast. Cattle roamed at will over its unkempt streets, which were scrupulously scrupu-lously swept once in every four years, on the eve of Inauguration day, so that the military and civilian bodies who wished to pay honor to the chosen of the people to perform the exalted duties of the presidency of this great Republic might parade upon Pennsylvania avenue without being blinded by dust or mired in Smud! l Refined Hostesses "But notwithstanding the unkempt appearance of the avenues and streets of the city, the residents of Washington Washing-ton were noted for their refinement and generous hospitality. They were accustomed to meeting not only the members of the two houses of Congress Con-gress and the principal executive offl-cers offl-cers of our Government, but the ministers min-isters and ambassadors of all the foreign for-eign Governments with whom we had treaty relations. Though woman suffrage suf-frage was then a thing unknown and undreamed of, the ladles of Washington Wash-ington were well acquainted not only with national but International poll-tics poll-tics and affairs, and could discuss them In a sprightly and intelligent manner with the statesmen of the day. "The hospitality they dispensed, though refined, was of a simple and inexpensive in-expensive character. The extravagant and lavish entertainments of recent times would have shocked the sensibilities sensi-bilities of the hosts and hostesses of those earlier days as ostentatious, and therefore vulgar. "The great social events of 'the season' sea-son' were, of course, the Presidents 'levees,' as they were termed, to which large numbers of the permanent residents were invited, and many a 'brilliant match' had Its inception at those gatherings, which formed the main topic of conversation anions the fair sex for weeks before and after oir occurrence. "in many material respects Washington Wash-ington has vastly improved, but there could not well be an improvement in - wm w the character of its ante-bellum society, so far at least as the ladies were concerned, con-cerned, for they never smoked, and very few indulged even in a glass of wine at dinner. "The same cannot, however, be truly said of the men folk, for they were somewhat too convivial in their habits. One could hardly ever enter the house of any well-to-do citizen without being invited to partake of the liquid re-. re-. freshments temptingly displayed on the sideboard. As a refusal of the invitation in-vitation would mean an insult to 'mine host,' there is no record of any one ever having offered such an affront. "It used to be said, indeed, that no gentleman had any business being sober after 4 o'clock; which was then the universal dinner hour in polite society. In this one respect the habits of the people have changed for the better, but in all other respects the Washington of the early days, to'those who knew it, will ever remain a sweet and pleasant memory." A Remarkable Record It is a rather remarkable circumstance circum-stance that in all the years since the beginning of full congressional reports in 1848 and in all the millions of folios the reporters have written, a single page of copy has never been lost, although al-though on two occasions such a loss was narrowly averted. On one of them a member of the Senate corps of reporters, re-porters, passing through Lafayette Park, observed on the ground near a bench a loose sheet of foolscap paper. Picking it up, he discovered that it was the last page of the speech of a notoriously absent-minded Senator,de-llvered Senator,de-llvered in the Senate that afternoon. It was subsequently learned that the Senator on his way home, the day being oppressively hot, had sought a seat beneath the shade of one of the great trees In the park and had there revised his speech, but failed to notice that he had dropped one of the folios. The missing page, thus accidentally discovered, was, however, placed in the hands of the foreman of the Congressional Con-gressional Record in ample time to appear ap-pear In its proper place in tfie proceedings. pro-ceedings. Serious results might have followed from another apparent loss of manuscript. manu-script. This occurred in connection with the famous speech of Senator Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, delivered during the Cuban troubles on the eve of the declaration of war against Spain. The Senator had just returned re-turned from Cuba, where he had made u through investigation of the Intolerable conditions which prevailed there, and in this speech, which was really the foundation for the declaration declara-tion of war, he vividly depicted those conditions. It was most important that this speech should appear in the Congressional Record. coming out early the following morning, in order that Senators and Representatives might carefully study it and that the press and the people of the country coun-try should he fully advised of the necessity for the momentous action which Congress was about to take. The speech had been sent to the Senator Sen-ator in his committee room for such revision re-vision as he oared to make. After niMlnlght Mr. Murphy was summoned from his bed by a messenger from the Government Printing OtTlce, who announced an-nounced that many pages of Senator Proctor's speech were missing and that, unless they could be promptly found, the entire address would have to be excluded from the Record. Rapidly dressing and ordering a cab. Mr. Murphy proceeded to the Capitol. After making a thorouch se:ireh in the reporters' otl'ice and finding no, trace there of the missinc manuscript, he sought the aid of the Capitol policemen, police-men, wl'.o are furnished with keys tc I ' 1 f " - f ' - i - J i - ! r ' r ' i -A ' " i "W it " i M f , v- , : r f ; -i 7 Z. rJl. , , , i T 1st- I 1 EDWARD V. MURPHY-"In MURPHY-"In many material respects Washington has vastly improved, but there could not well be an improvement in the character charac-ter of its ante-bellum society, so far, at least, as the ladies were concerned." the various rooms of the building, and asked them to try to find a key to open the door of the Senator's committee com-mittee room. Key after key was tried in vain, when Mr. Murphy directed the door be broken, saying he would assume full responsibility for the act. The door was accordingly forced, when the missing pages of the speech were found strewn in great confusion about the room, some on the Senator's Sena-tor's desk, some on the sofa, some in the waste basket and some on the floor. After hastily gathering them together, Mr. Murphy was rapidly driven to the printing office, where he properly arranged the missing pages, which at 2 o'clock in the morning morn-ing were placed in short "takes" in the hands of the compositors, and the full text of the speech was printed in the Record in time for the early morning morn-ing mails, when it was sent speeding to every section of the land and was in the hands of every Senator and Representative at his breakfast table. The explanation of this unusual occurrence oc-currence was that, after Senator Proctor Proc-tor had revised his speech, he turned it over to one of his recently appointed ap-pointed assistants i:o compare with the original one or two quotations he had hastily inserted, and after instructing in-structing the assistant when that had been done to deliver the copy at the printing office, the Senator left the Capitol for his home, without observing ob-serving that his assistant had been imbibing somewhat too freely. The libations were evidently resumed with more freedom and greater ardor after the Senator's departure; hence the confusion into which the copy was thrown and the failure of the clerk to gather more than a few pages for transmission to the printers. When asked if it were true that the public men of the present generation were inferior to those of other times, Mr. Murphy replied: "Distance always lends enchantment enchant-ment to the view, and we are prone to exaggerate the virtues of those who have gone and to minimize the merits of those who are still with us. It would be invidious to name them, but there are in the Senate and in the House today as able debaters, as far-seeing far-seeing statesmen as any that have adorned those distinguished bodies at any period of our history. True, there seem to be fewer giants now, but that is because there are fewer pigmies, for, beyond question, the average of education and ability in public men has greatly increased." "The Code of Honor" Speaking of occurrences at the beginning be-ginning of his reportorial career, Mr. Murphy said: "On the day when my services in connection with the official reporting of tlie United States Senate began the eulogies on the life and character of David Broderick, a Senator from California, who had b'?en killed while fighting a duel with Judge Terry, were delivered. After addresses by several prominent Collators, Senator Lafayette Lafay-ette S. Foster, of Connecticut, arose and vehemently protested against the Senate paying pub'ic and official honor to the memory of a man who died while violating the laws of his country. Notwithstanding this earnest earn-est protest, which evoked from Robert Toombs, a Senator trom Georgia, an impassioned and eloquent defense of the duello the last occasion, by the way, when the 'code of honor' found an advocate on the Senate floor other eulogistic addresses n the dead Broderick Brod-erick were delivered, and at their conclusion the u -ual resolutions of 'respect and profound reeret' were passed. Se:-,a;or Fot?r alone otln ir. the iu"--;i!ive. This is the only instance in-stance in the history of the Senate when, similar resolutions were not unanimously adopted." . In a reminiscent mood, Mr. Murphy continued: "In 1S60 the rolls of the Senate bore ' the name: of many men who have passed into history. On the Republican side were Fessenden, Hamlin, Ham-lin, John P. Hale, Collamer, Foot, Anthony. Sumner, Wilson, Seward, Trumbull, Simon Cameron and Zach-ariah Zach-ariah Chandler. On the Democratic side were James A. Bayard, Pearce, Douglas, Jefferson Davis, Benjamin, Slide, Mason, Hunter, Wigfall, Clement Clem-ent C. Clay, Mallory, Toombs, Green, Andrew Johnson and others. John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, was also then a member of the Senate, but was bound by no party ties. Eventful Years "The polished Breckinridge, then Vice President of the United States, presided over the body with a grace and dignity that has never since been equaled. The Senate has had many presiding officers as able and as impartial im-partial as Breckinridge, but not one who could compare with him In personal per-sonal charm of manner, ir- courtly bearing, in grace of form and figure. Though exceedingly handsome, possessing pos-sessing the most mellifluous voice 1 have ever heard in man, and almost idolized by his friends, he was free from any trace of vanity. "The Republican party was rapidly growing; dissensions had sprung up in the Democratic ranks; Douglas had' been removed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories (then the leading committee of the body) and Green, of Missouri, had been installed in-stalled in his place; a committee of the Senate, with Mason, of Virginia, at its head, was investigating the circumstances cir-cumstances connected with the raid of John Brown; the right to take slaves into the territories was as vehemently supported on one side as it was opposed op-posed on the other; 'bleeding' Kansas was knocking at the doors of the Capitol Capi-tol demanding admission as a State of the Union; an 'irrepressible conflict' was impending; and the country was on the verge of a mighty revolution. The giants of the Senate had dally combats, and thousands, of interested and anxious spectators watched the varying fortunes of the contestants. Passion and prejudice ruled the hour. One earnest but weak and pathetlo voice, that of the venerable Crittenden of Kentucky, pleaded, but in vain, for some compromise that war might be averted and the Union saved. "But when, after the election of Mr. Lincoln as President, one Southern State after another passed ordinances of secession and withdrew from the Union, and Fort Sumter, had been fired upon, the voice of Crittenden was drowned in the dread clamor for war! That war went on for four eventful years, leaving in its wake hecatombs of dead, thousands upon thousands of maimed men, countless widows and orphans, or-phans, theretofore unexampled destruction de-struction of property and billions of debt national. State, municipal and private. Thank God! I have lived to see the disunited States once more united, the losses and ravages of the war repaired, a higher sense of devotion de-votion and duty to our country and its institions welling from every heart, whether it beats in the breast of a son of the South or a son of the North; and today we stand a united and determined de-termined people, shoulder to shoulder with the democracies of Europe, fighting fight-ing in the cause of civilization and humanity that 'freedom shall not perish from the earth.' " It is a far cry from February 13. 1918. back to February 13, 1S60 5S years, the full life-time of many a middle-aged gentleman and yet it Is just that period of time that is covered cov-ered by the service of Edward V. Murphy on the official corps of shorthand short-hand reporters of the United States Senate. Mr. Murphy was born in Philadelphia. Philadel-phia. Pa., February 15, 1S43. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, graduating with the degree of bachelor of arts in February, Febru-ary, 1860. Immediately he proceeded to Washingon, where his brothers, Dennis F. and James J. Murphy, had achieved a repuAtion as reporters of the Senate, and was given employ, ment by them. In 1S65, during a congressional recess, re-cess, Mr. Murphy served as private secretary to Provost Marshal General James B. Fry. While acting in this position he reported the preliminary testimony in the cases of the persons charged with complicity in the assassination as-sassination of President Lincoln, and afterward assisted his brothers in reporting re-porting the memorable trial by the military commission which soon followed. fol-lowed. A Busy Office The reporters of the Senate, partaking partak-ing somewhat of the character of the Senate itself, have been always conservative con-servative and not disposed to make changes, but when convinced of the utility of new aids to their business, they have enthusiastically adopted them; and so for a number of years their office, with its equipment of electric elec-tric lights, dictaphones and typewriters, type-writers, has presened as interesting a sight and as busy a scene of activity ac-tivity as might be winessed in the laboratory of Edison himself. On the death of Mr. D. u Murphy in March, 1S96, the Senate unanimously selected Theodore F. Sh'.t;y and Edward Ed-ward V. Murphy, then the senior members mem-bers of the corps, as his successors. In considering the difficulties of parliamentary par-liamentary reporting, the element of responsibility should never be overlooked. over-looked. While the work of the reporter re-porter must of necessity be hurriedly performed, it must never be done In a careless manner, for he Is writing history which is to be as permanent as the Government itself. The fidelity with which the congressional con-gressional reporters perform their arduous duties may be inferred from the fact that, notwithstanding the voluminous character of the reports and the haste with which they must necessarily be produced, complaints are very rarely made by Senators and Representatives. The reporter makes no distinctions as to parties or men. He mav and does have his personal likes and dislikes; dis-likes; sometimes he may even have party predilections; but in the performance per-formance of his duties, like tlie Judr. 3 upon the bench, he must be without bias, and never, under any circumstances, circum-stances, attempt to so manipulate his reports that "the "Whig dogs wiU pet the worst of it." Mr. Murphy has been a frequent contributor to the columns of phonographic phono-graphic and other journals, and h:is delivered numerous addresses before shorthand and other societies. One of the most notable of these was his address before the National Shorthand Reporters Association at its sixth annual convention at Chautauqua, X. Y on "The Advancement of tlie Shorthand Profession." 100.000 copies of which were unanimously ordered printed by the association for general distribution. A Man of Affairs Notwithstanding1 the engrossing character of his professional duties. Mr. Murphy has found time to devote his energy to the development of various vari-ous important inventions and business enterprises. He was one of the enthusiastic en-thusiastic little band of shorthand men, of whom he is the sole survivor, who, having faith in the revolution of the art of printing- by the substitution substitu-tion of mechanical for hand composition, composi-tion, stood by and helped sustain Ott-mar Ott-mar Mergenthaler in his long1 and at times baffling struggle to produce the linotype machine, which is now indispensable indis-pensable in the printing business. Since the linotype became a commercial commer-cial success Mr. Murphy has been one of the directors of the company. He i.s likewise a director in the American Graphophone Company, and was one of the pioneers in exploiting the musical mu-sical and commercial graphophone. Ho is also vice president of the National Na-tional Typographic Company, the holding company of the Mergenthaler European patents; and for the la:;t two years has been one of the directors direc-tors of the Kiggs National Bank, of Washington. In recent years he has gradually lessened his labors and has devoted himself principally to the management manage-ment of the office business, transferring transfer-ring the portion of the note-taking formerly done by him to his son, James "Wilmot Murphy, who possesses In a marked degree all the characteristics character-istics which made made "the Murphy brothers" pre-eminent in the reporting report-ing profession. After his fifty-eighth anniversary, In connection with the Senate and his seventy-fifth birthday, Mr. Murphy continues to enjoy robust health and mental and physical vigor. - To say that he has "hosts of friends" Is only to speak the literal truth, for he has in his time gained the esteem and friendship of three generations of Senators and other public men in Washington, to say nothing of the respect and confidence of the shorthand short-hand reporters of America ns an exemplar ex-emplar of what the profession at it best may be. u j |
