Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-12-21

startling. The noiseless and concrete paved
streets shaded by tall trees still displaying
their aurumnal tints became infused with
rapid, rushing life For time the national
capital was quite Chicagoish. The spot where
Pennsylvania avenue runs into the superb
Soldiers and Sailors monument, and the
granite promenade TO the vast, shining white
Capitol itself, were crowed with hundreds,
thousands of magnificently dressed people
the men displaying tall hats ana any amount
of shirt front, the women with sealskins and
! Worth bonnets
In fact, Pennsylvania avenue as far back
as the treasury and the White House is
damned with fashionable people, all strolling
in the same direction. Whittier and where
forea
To the Capitol! To the reopening of con-
gress!
OF course! 1t is made a holiday, a gala
gay in Washington. The people of the
national capital attend an opening of con-
gress in much the same spirit, excepting the
element of blood, in which the Romans
hocked to the trays of the circus or in which
the Spanish and Mexicans to this day re-
ligioQsly attend the bull fights. For, truly,
it is remarkable show Who would care
Honorable Bardwell Slote, NJ. c., when he
can walk into the Capitol and see many Bard
well Slotes in real llfel Not to insinuate
that our congressman of nowadays have any
of the worse attributes of that fictitious cum
ming statesman. BY no means. But there
are many vino bear laughable resemblance
Co HIM.
Congress has convened. The gavel has
fallen sharply on the speakers desk, the
prsyer has been impressively recited by the
aged chaplain, the roll has been called, the
speaker declares regular business to be in
order-and the grind commences Not that
any work is done on the first day, or the
second, or the third. Who could look up
statistics on the durability Of government
mules when Tom Reed, massive and good
natured, is telling an ininitably grotesque
yarn, as only Tom Reed can, to the up
roarious group surrounding him? Or what
member has any use on earth for the river
and harbor bill when Sunset Cox, as young
now as he was thirty years ago, is telling of
an experience lie had with some guides in
Constantipople when he was Turkish minis
ter9 Not one. They don't even make
pretense, as they afterwards do of being i'm
mersed head over heels in business. Some Of
them walk aimlessly around, their hands
plunged deep in their pockets, thinking about
nothing at all. They are too full Of sup
pressed excitement to think They shake
hands with each other, unconsciously, four
or five times. They work eff on their suffer-
ing colleagues, each and every one of them,
the joke they have been rehearsing all
summer.
But the old heads, the members who have
sat in congress for a quarter of a century or
more, are not in the least excited. They have
seen too much OF it. To them it is quite
trite, commonplace. They have seen presi-
dent after president sworn in in that very
Capitol building; they have seen the ivory
gavel welded by many digniiied speaker
dead-not few of them; they have heard
bursts Of rare eloquence from men long since
forgotten; they have seen young congress
men, newly elected, full of bright hopes and
high endeavors, succumb to the almost ire
sistible temptations Of q legislators fascinat-
ing life in Washington, and become total,
irreclaimable wrecks; is it any wonder that
these men look with amusement upon the en-
thusiasm of man who has only been in con-
gress for one session, or with indifference
upon the surroundings that have wrought
in younger men a fiery excitement that viii
take months to efface7 Hardly.