The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1890-10-23
WHERE THE COPY COMES FROM.

Try 10 Snecr at 1 ne congressional heCOru
az stupid, dull, unreliable daily paper.
But this is merely habit for which there
is no justification in facts. To be sure,
The Record has no telegraphic dispatches,
no sensational divorce cases, and it has no
pictures. But it has much wit in it's broad
columns, many jokes and II few tragedies.
Occasionally murder, like the killing of
Clayton in Arkansas, is reported at length,
and in most graphic style, in its pages.
To say that The Congressional Record is
dull and stupid is to say that the four hun
dred and odd men whom the people send
to congress are dull and stupid, whereas
they are, many of them, the brightest,
smartest, wittiest and wisest men Of their
neighborhoods and states. The men who
sneer at The Congressional Record do not
read that unique daily journal. They are
not familiar with the true value of it's con-
tents.
The congressional newspaper has its re-
porters, editors, writers and correspond
ents just as any other newspaper has. To
be sure, senators and representative are its
only authorized, contributors, but they are
continually making Investigations and ex-
plorations, and asking others to do so for
them.
The copy" for The Congressional Rec
ord is both written and spoken. 1t is sup
posed to be simply record of the debates
of the houses Of congress, but in reality it
is much more. Hundreds and thousands
of pages of The Record are filled with
words which were never spoken in debate.
In the house the "leave to print" is a priv
ilege which has always been much abused.
Under it members load up The Record
with long speeches which were never de-
livered on the floor. In the senate, hap
PLY, this custom has never obtained There
the rule is that everything which goes into
The Record must be spoken by n senator
or read by the clerk, though even here the
rule is strained enough to permit the print
ing of tables and similar extracts which
are indicated" in the remarks of the sen
ator Offering them. 1t is said the only
speech of senator ever printed in The
Record without having been delivered in
the senate was one of the addresses of o.
p. Morton, of Indiana. He was lying IA
tally i'll in his rooms ut the Ebbitt house.
and by unanimous consent speech which
he had intended delivering in the senate
was published in The Record
For the most part the copy for The Rec
ord comes from the official stenographers
OF the senate and house. There are five of
these reporters in each body, and wonder
full shorthand writers they are, too. Opin-
ions differ as to whether it is more diff
cult to report in the house or in the SEN
ate. In the popular branch there Is more
confusion. Often three or four men are
talking at once, and in the hubbub the
stenographer must have Il quick ear and
the ability to write at lightning speed
without looking at his manuscript. The
senate is more quiet, more orderly, but for
that very reason the words come faster.
In IN average hour about Is pr cent. more
words are spoken in the senate than in the
house. 1t is said the greatest feat of re-
porting ever accomplished in congress was
when Mr.. B. F. Murphy, o. the senate
corps, took" Senator Sergeant, of Cali
fornia, for four solid hours, at an average
rate of 1872 words per minute. Think of
taking down forty of these columns in four
hoursl That is what Mr. Murphy did in
following Sergeant, who was the light
ming talker of congress.
In their methods of work the stenogra-
piers have very pretty custom. Each man
goes on the floor to do "a turn" and "a
turn" is not a certain number of minutes,
as is generally supposed, but a certain
number of words AS soon as the reporter
has enough in his note book to fill twenty
pages of type written copy he mods to the
next man on the list and retires to dictate
to his assistant. The reporters can tell
within "a very few words when they are at
the end of their stint, and throughout the
session Mr.. Murphy, for instance, will of
each lOC pages of copy write folios num-
bered to 20, the next man writing folios
81 to 40, and so on. AS soon as the stenog-
rapher's notes have been written out on