St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-23

sessions since they were always published
He had read that morning an account of the
proceedings of the day before; and chow
straight they got it," remarked Senator
Cameron of Wisconsin.
"Yes," reioined Sherman, s'they publish
our secret meetings better than they do our
public ones. The proceedings of senatorial
caucuses, too, while not
GUARDED BY PENALTIES
are given to the public when they are i'm
portant enough to warrant publishing. great
ly to the annoyance of the senator's. In a
recent caucus much time was spent in dis
cusslng the subject. Transoms and win
dows of the room were examined to see il
listeners might not be hanging about, and
the suggestion was made to withdraw to the
room of the committee on ommerce, which
being in the upper story and having only a
single entrance, was more easily guarded
1t was then remem bered that the only bust
ness before the caucus was to decide upon
the mem bership of certain committees which
ala not seem to require more than the ordin-
airy degree of secrecy, and which in the
course of things would be male public in a
few days The act which has most deeply
disturbed the senatorial dignity recently was
the publication of Secretary Bayard's letter
on the Barrios movement. The document
had been distributed to senators and most of
them left their copies on the desk at the ad-
journment. Doorkeepers
Er RUSHED ABOUT
from desk to desk gathering up copies hast
lily, but in some way the matter got out and
was found in the papers the next day. The
executive session following the publication
is said to have been unusually interesting.
and the committee on privileges and cleo
tons was directed to take the matter into
consideration and devise ways and means
for preventing the premature exposure of
executive secrets. The proposition was
made to arrest and punish correspondents
who should be found guilty of the publishing
of executive secrets, but Senator Voorhees,
called attention to the experience OF the SEN
ate on former occasion when the suggested
course had been resorted to and resulted in a
failure. There was no law under which it
could be done, he said. Then the suggestion
was made and discussed to pass law max
ing it a penal offense to publish the secret
proceedings of the senate. The proposition
was abandoned upon a suggestion that tine
house Of representatives, which entertain ed
some old-fashioued notions regarding the
freedom of the press and which had its own
opinion of the dignity of the senate, would
probably not concur in the passage of such
a law. Several other propositions were then
made and briefly discussed. One was to
deny access to the reporters gallery to a
representative of any paper which should
publish the proceedings Of the executive
sessions. Another was to employ detectives
to find out how the proceedings reached
THE EARS OF NEWSPAPER MEN
and for that purpose the suggestion was
made that the contingent fund be increased
by $1,000 Senator Mcpherson did not
wholly concur in ali that was proposed to be
done and said in substance that he did not
see that any harm had resulted from the
publication of Secretary Bayard's letter. He
called attention to the fact that its writer
was willing it should be given out and to the
probability that the senate itself would have
given the document TO the press few hours
later had such an act not been rendered un-
necessary. Thereupon the whole matter
was referred to the committee on privileges
and elections with instructions substantially
to spare no pains to ascertain how confiden-
tial documents become public property, and
the committee held its meeting the next
morning. The com mittee on rules had the
same subject under consideration to-day, but
nothing of its proceedings has been known
beyond the fact that it took steps to provide
the senate with the official seal. Senators do
not hesitate to say that they have devised a
plan by which the senatorial secrets will be so
carefully guarded that it will be impossible
for newspaper men to learn anything about
them.