Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-09

| HhhOuie hlu OLt6u liDpOSslDle 10 uuucI -
stand what is being said by member
who addresses the house, even though
he have voice like a stentor or fog
horn.
The aisles between the rows OF desks
and also the one which separates the
speaker and the clerks from the mem
bers, are filled with groups of represent
atives talking loudly and gesticulating
wildly. In vain does ponderous Tom
Reed raise his big right arm and bring
| his gRvel humping down. The sound OF
the instrument is generally iuaudible
and both speaker and gavel seem, like a
| deaf and dumb man, to be wholly de-
prived of the power of producing sound
and TO be unable to do anything but
gesticulste.
There is still fresh in the memory OF
the country the disgracful scene enacted
in the house on August 81 last, in which
one Cannon of Illinois used such vulgar
language in one of his speeches
that William f. Mason, his colleague,
walked down the aisle toward him and
saii: 'You - tramp! You would
not use that language if your family
were in the gallery. l want to remind
| you that my wife is in the gallery over
| head, ~ whereupon there eusued between
the two members volleys of language
| which would have made a Billiugsgate
fish woman blush. Two other members,
Wilson of Washington and Beckwith of
New Jersey, then engaged in an alteroa-
ton regarding the dispute between Can
non and Mason. One called the other n
g. liar' and blow passed be-
tween them. Though the senate is more
mindful of the rules of decorum than are
the members of the house, the personal
| character of the senators generally is
| not one whit better than that of the gen.
crafty of representatives. One OF Its
mem bers-one Quay of Pennsylvania
has recently been branded as criminal
by one of the principal newspapers of the
country, and, though challenged by that
| paper to sue it for libel, has not done so,
| nor has he replied in any way to the
attacks made upon him. Neither he nor
any other members of the senate have
responded in any way to the fierce attack
recently made upon them in the house by
| Representative Kennedy of Ohio. At
least one member of the senate has been
openly charged before that body with
REsoRTING TO BRIBERY
and corruption to secure his election,
but his honorable associates voted not to
investigate the charges and it Is moral
certainty that large number of those
now comprising the senate of the United
States owe their seats in that body to the
power of money wrongly nsed to corrupt
and bride legislatures.
That the house is no less openly cor
rupt than the senate will readily be be-
lieved when it is openly charged by many
newspapers that the man who presides as
speaker over that body, recently received
$50, ZOO which he spent in influencing
the voters of his district 10 return him to
congress at the late election.
There has been q wonderful change in
the personnel of members of both houses
of congress since the DAYS of Jackson, of
Webster, of Clay and of Calhoun. They
were then for the most part lawyers
many of them from what were then re-
mote rural districts, though now popu-
lous towns and cities; or they were
military heroes from the then far West,
men who had fought, bled and died at
New Orleans and the Horseshoe, and
had scelped ever so many Creeks and
ChIckasaws, and had been with Sam
Houston at the Alamo and on the Rio
Grande with their rifles in hand, and had
stood on Buena Vista's bloody heights
and had scaled the ramparts of world,
famed Chepultepec. r.ssassssss7
Indeed, they were q queer lots those
members of congress in the old days of
Jackson, Van Buren,, Polk, Taylor, Fill
more, Pierce and Buchanan. Some of
them seemed half horse and half alligator
An amphibious kind OF character.
Others were more gentlemauly men
much given to rough and ready hospi-
tahty. Many of them wore heavy cow
hide boots with spurs attached. The
hair OF some was frizzled and oiled, while
the long locks of not a few seemed virgin
to the touch OF either brush or comb,
though fortunately goodly portion of
their hirsute Rppendage was concealed
by dirty collars reaching above their
ears and as stiff as paste board. Chew
ing tobacco, taking snuff and drinking
whisky were almost universal among
them.
Those who have an accurate recollec-
ton OF the general character Oh our
national legislators in the days have
named will readily grant that
this picture is far from beng over
drawn. Ungrammatical and idiomatio
as our national solons now are, they
were even more so in those days, and
"guessed, - and 'sswanned, - and
calkilated, and "reckoued' and
"swapped' in & way that was simply
appalling to foreigner, while the ma
tional customs of indiscriminate splitting
and hand shaking were even more ram
pant than now.
1t must be frankly admitted that there
has been an improvement in the dress and
personal appearance of congressman
since those days, perhaps in their man
ners also in some respects, but there has
been decided change for the worse in
their morals, their integrity and their
sense of honor. Jackson might engage
in a rough and tumble fight when occa-
sion required; Webster, Clay, Ben
Wade, Fessendeu and Crittenden might
sometimes show q slight exaltation of
spirit as the result of too free an imbi-
baton of corn whisky, but they aud
their associates would never have pur-
chased their senatorial seats, and they
would have loathed and Stunned any
man liable even to suspicion of such
foully criminal act.
Ex-Vice-President Hannibal P. Hamb-
lin of Name, once told me that thirty
years ago there was public bar in the
magnificent rotunda of the capitol, and
that on the last night of a congressional
hor of ha 20 nd