Daily globe., 1879-04-23
CoNGREssI0N IL MANNERS.

ASs~~~S 80 S>s~s~AS' /
,nt fraud.
CONGRESSIONAL MANNERS.
Judge Hoar says "the sovereign people of
America are gentlemen" and Wendell Phil
lips unkindly adds to the statement the /
caustic comment, "Before the next centen-
NAL comes round I hope the judges will be
also." Now this is really too bad, especially
when Senator Hoar considers himself enough
of an authority to administer crushing re-
buke to representative of portion of this
sovereign American people, thoughtlessly in
cluded in his gracious compliment. AS the
great opposing political parties are arrayed
against each other in Congress, it is curious
to see the old tactics come into acrimonious
action.
"Plantation manners is the stinging re-
vival which is used with much ef-
feet, and is neat campaign COM
pendium of all the constituents of
the late unpleasantness. It would seem
to be of no sort of use trying to establish a
national standard of Congressional demean
or when the distractions are not only inher-
emily sectional, but temperamental. More
ever, sapient authorities differ widely in
their opinions concerning the behavior of
our public men. When all the evidence of
Congressional department is equalized in the
dispassionate mind, it will just resolve itself
into question of preference as to the es-
pecial kind of insolence to be deplored or
condemned, the hot or cold. Unfortunately,
and unfairly, too, we hear more about the
hot sort, which of itself is efervescent, and
apt to cool off in a generous mood,
but all the partisan sources are imme-
diately charged with it. The telegraphio
dispatches, and the unfagging correspond
ents all give it the party rebound, until the
episode becomes chain-lightning- whisky
and-revolver- -whiplash sort of story. On the
other hand, the cool impudence, the hard,
frgid turbulence of which Roscoe Conkling
is the exemplar, seldom gets reproof, o,
even a mild bit Of description, unless when
it is directed specially at his powerful rival
Blaine. When he sits pairing his finger
nails, or reading intently, or doing any Of
the numberless peculiar acts of rudeness
during the speeches of James the Sun,
struck, why isn't some equally felicitous de-
scriptive compendium discovered for sucl
Northern "manners?' The Conklinl
peculiarities of Congressional con
duct are quite as indigenous t.
the North, and as fully identified
with it's methods of debate in Washington
as those which are SO frequently, and sneer
ingly termed "plantation manners" Th
simple truth is that these sectional manner
are equally reprehensible, albeit We hear g
much more blame of one kind than tn
other, until the constant reiteration make
| the odium an accepted fast in argument
Dynamic parliamentary wrath is grievousl
weak and futile; but is the corrosive acid {
i. hate and cool cynicism any better? We a
, know that tho intangible and unsubstantis
amenities of politeness and good manner
l are as much actual forces in the sum of hi
3 man character as the steam that drives q
, engine. But if our representative Becks a.
t deficient and lapse from Senatorial digni1
3 in quick, flushing anger, so do our own Q:
emplary Conkling, and Hoar, and Edmund
either in the most conspicuous and premed
! tated insolence, or in a cool, unmanly bad
. ering of any parliamentary victim.
> It is tweedle dun or tweedle -dee-temp'
as uncomfortable as fire in political discu
- sion, or vitriol eating up the tissues witho
making much hubbub. Presumably, the
naodus operandi of parliamentary condu
will repeat itself forever at home and abroa
Macaulay pictures an English scene in 1873
ssLord Norleys was whistling and making
= sorts of noises; Lord Maidstone was SO il
. hammered that hope he was drunk. 4
= last, after much grossly indecent conduct,
L which Lord Eliot expressed his disgust
to me, furious outbreak to
= place. O'Connell was so rude
+ interrupted that he used
" expression beastly bellowings. Then rc
It such an uproar as no mob at Covent Gard
=. theatre, no crowd of chartists in front OF
If hustings, ever equalled. Men on both sic
"a stood up, shook their fists, and bawled at
n TOP of their voices. O'Connell ragged like
+. mad bull, and I, while regretting and &C
"a demning his violence, thought 1t nauch
ed ten,lated By the provocatson." Mr.. sena
"a Hoar's s'plantation manners are not SO 81
~ cific after all.