Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-24
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.
TIE OPENING OF CONGRESS = SOME
CHANGES.
The Guiteau Trial The New Speaker
The British Minister and Row
He Appears.

w ASHlSGfON, december ., 1901.
The opening of new Congress, espe-
cially the first under new Administration,
marks an epoch in Washington life. This
is more particularly noticeable when, as
now, the scepter in Congress passes from
the hands of one party to the other. Seven
years ago first became an observer at the
capital, just after the elections Of 1874 had
decided that Congress was to become DEM
ocratic in its majority. az don't know
how it will seem" said General Garfield ia
the House gallery one day, when teaching
me to observe and understand the goings-
on upon the floor, 81 don't know how it
will seem when we become a minority in
the House. The tactics of a majority and
a minority are necessarily 30 different. The
majority constructs policy, and the mi
nority attacks and undermines it if it can.
Our side has been constructors ever since
have been in Congress. When we become
the sappers and miners l am curious to
know the success we shall have" He lived
to see
THE SHAM POLICY
!
/ people; lived to hear his own ringing
words, You have tried to shoot the
| Government to death, and now you are
trying to starve the Government to death"
reverberated from every point of the ma
tional compass lived to be the central fig
ure on which the election pivoted when
/ the Republicans returned to power. The
name of Garfield was a pilot-boat that
steered many doubtful Congressman into
| the sunny harbor of reelection. But the
day that saw the House reassemble under
Republican banner brought no visible
memorial of him to us who pressed toward
the Capitol, except the ugly prison-van in
| which the assassin Guiteau had just been
| conveyed to trial, betaking itself into con-
genial obscurity to wait till mid-afternoon
| to receive again its hideous burden. Yes,
there was one other memorial In the
| hands of women pushing their way toward
| the Courtroom as we passed, were the
| blood-red cards of admission, larger than
an ordinary envelope, and these were
headed in black letters,
''GUITEAU TRIAL"
To me they are fearful to look upon; but
they will be interesting mementoes in
future years. The RECORD UNION has
| contained the ablest series of editorials
upon the assassin and his trial that have
seen in any journal. If word of comment
be permissible anyw here, it is that Judge
Cox, who presides, feels fully the in
| decency of the spectacle presented daily by
the prisoner, but he "suffers it to be so
r,th thop I,r,
show of force, lest the sympathies of some
one of the twelve men who must de.
eide his case should be for moment
stirred in his behalf. How women
can sit there day after day, enjoying the
spectacle, passes my understanding. / have
attended twice at different stages of the
| trial, and have felt each time that life was
| too short to have any part of it wasted in
| hearing the free-and-easy, patronizing
| mouthlngs of that utterly worthless man.
But one of the officials tells me that he has
| seen more than fifty of the same female
faces present every day during the trial.
As historic criminal event it is interest.
| ing to see little of it, but very little
| suffices. Mrs. Blaine has been there one
| day, also the French and Swedish Ministers
and their wives. Few OF the prominent
| Congressman attend. General Robinson,
| OF the Ninth Ohio District, said, 81 do
not want to look on the face of the man
that killed Garfield" Senator Warner
Miller says, az wouldn't see the wretch for
| anything" General Arson G. McCook, a
| New York city Representative, and warm
personal friend of the late President, re-
piled to an inquiry, "Not to his trial, but
with the greatest pleasure to see him
hung" There was muca that suggested
THE VANISHED PRESENCE
In the opening scenes of the House. Two
years ago General Garfeld's full-moon face
was conspicuous in the large and powerful
Republican minority; his name was voted
for by them as their complimentary candi-
date for Speaker, and he was one of the
two, Mr.. Blackburn, the ex.guerilla from
| Kentucky, being the other, detailed TO es.
| cort Speaker Randall to the chair. Now
Mr.. Randall, deposed sovereign, shared
that melancholy honor with Mr.. Hiscock.
One year ago when Congress met, General
Garfield, sitting contemplatively at his
Mentor home as Presidential elect, doubtless
| thought with pardonable pride how at the
next opening OF Congress he would be send.
| ing in his message, to be received
| mates in the House. He was a
man to enjoy such an anticipation not
| little, and to realize it in advance for all
it was worth. Instead of this the Clerk, Mr.. !
Mcpherson in impressive tones began to
read sAn appalling calamity has be-
fallen the American people" and the name
signed to the message was another's. The |
! Speakership, too, has been changed in its
| incumbency by the Presidents death, from
Mr.. Hiscock, of New York, who had his
| warm support for it, and who, had there
| been an extra session last spring, would |
have had almost "walk-over in the |
| race, to man more especially acceptable
| to the stalwart wing Of the party, now IN
the ascendency. 1t seemed as if General
Keifer, sitting there, clothed with new and
exalted honors, must have been
AN AsToNIsHED MAN
To himself. Mr.. Hiscock, tall, elegant,
calm browed, stood musingly in the main
aisle, after escorting the winner to his
coveted seat, leaning lightly against the
rod supporting the green baize curtains ;
and his face seemed to say "What shad
ows we are, and what shadows we pur-
/ sue !"
Nearly half the members are new.
Messrs Faye, Hawley, Conger, Aldrich,
Miller and Lapham have been transferred
to the Senate. Messrs. Holman, Hewitt,
Kasson and Farwell-the last named rep
resenting a Chicago district-are promi
nent old members, restored by the muta
lions of politics to the House. Mr.. Far
we'll chose Generald Garfields old seat,
and with his large, round, bald head and
burly frame looks at distance not unlike
his great predecessor The diplomatic
gallery was we'll filed. Seated in the
Presidents reserved gallery, against the
iron network separating the two sections,
I found myself close by the new British
Minister. and observed at my leisure the
difference that might inhere between the
crowd of commoners upon the floor
sturdy, pushing sons of the vigorous mid
dle-class of our citizenship and this ex-
otto among us, the son and brother of an
| Earl, with blood 80 blue that it exhil-
crates our American snobocracy like rare
old wine just to read his ancestral record
in the Peerage, and smack their lips over
4 +ha dead.and mona pnhiliEv xrhoea life.