The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-08-04
Concerning Members OF Congress.

Five thousand a year sounds like a
little fortune itself to many man in the
South whose hard earnings annually
fall to $500 or less. But as a rule
Southern men coming to Congress since
the war have come with depleted purses
or involved in debt. To such men life
in Washington is a continual struggle
between motives OF economy and q
laudable desire to creditably represent
their people in social and official life.
Many of them strike q fortunate middle
ground between the prevalent extrava-
gance of the capital and that plainness
which in Senator or Representative is
put down as meanness. Some live in
high style, have q glorious time for a
few years, and unless they strike lucky
speculation in stocks or accumulate by
fortuitous ways, peculiar to certain
classes of legislation, 90 home deeply in
debt, and have TO borrow money for
their next canvass. There are mem.
bers who take cheaps quarters, spend
little or no money on receptl0ns, inca
ters, carriages, etc., take thirty-cent
meals at restaurants, walk mile OF
two to andsfrom the Capitol, or on rainy
days indulge in the luxury OF tlVe-cent
ride in the street cars. Men like these
save a considerable part of their SAL
aries, and at the end of their terms are
richer as well as wiser men. In the
meantime their wives and children
have been living in some country town,
deprived of share of enjoyment OF the
honors the old man gains, and OF the
pleasure of few years residence In the
capitol city. In most instances they
really had better be in the country
though they probably don't think so.
I knew one Senator, brilliant man,
but indolent in habit and shabby
genteel in dress, who drew from bank
at the end of his six years term the
comfortable sum of twenty odd thousand
dollars, accumulations of savings from
his salary. He lived plainly and re-
mote from the Capitol; and would walk
more than two miles to the Capitol
when the thermometer stood in the
nineties. He said he walked for his
health. Once hunted up a certain
member OF this Congress for spt tcial
reasons. he occupies second-story
room on 8 street that might almost be
called No Thoroughfare. The entrance
is through narrow brown door adjoin-
ing the shop in the first story, and at
the top of the dark stairway. which
your way to the first door-the one with
q large square hole in it, near the top,
is his. There are no gas fixtures in the
room. At night the long many-jointed
fixture in the hall is drawn through the
hole in the door, and being doubled back
so as not to interfere with the movement
of the door, is lighted. Long strips o
ancient papering hang down from the
walls in some places, and the furniture
consists of a very plain bed, q few
chairs, square wooden washstand with
hole in the top almost losing the
china bowl and the pitcher. and a small!
painted table, covered with congressional
bills and documents sprinkled with
crumbs of smoking tobacco, stands on
uncertain legs near the center OF the
chamber. The occupant OF this room
receives salary Of S5, 1000 & year. He
will not resign on account OF pecunlary
distress.
Members of Congress have many un-
reasonable demands upon their purses,
merely because they happen to be in
The public service. Day after day they
are importuned. Often an unknown
man asks for money to get back to
Augusta, or Raleigh, or Cincinnati, or
to some other place. Another wants
his check indorsed, another wants q loan
to 90 into business, another pleads his
war record and poverty to extract a
loan. The forms Of demands for money
are as varied as they are numerous, and
scarcely a cent is ever refunded.-
Charleston News and Courier.