Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-09
SHIRT SLEEVES IN DEBATE.

An interesting sensation was caused IL
the House the other day, when Mr.. Walker
of Massachusetts,, in the heat of the debat.
on silver, took off his coat and wrestled witt
that knotty subject in his shirt sleeves. II
the impartial mind the most remarkable
aspect of the case is that anyone could get SO
warm in discussing silver legislation as to
make it necessary to strip, but it may be re-
membered that Friday was very warm
day, and no doubt the labor of Mr.. Walker
with that abstruse subject was quite
strenuous.
The important phase of the case, how
ever, is presented by statement that Mr..
Reed, who was not in the chair at the time,
was on his way there to make Mr.. Walker
put on his coat, when that gentleman
brought his perspiring and shirt-sleeved
oratory to a close. This raised an in
teresting question as to the power
of the Speaker. We do not think that Mr..
Reed has discovered anything either in the
Constitution or the revised rules forbidding
members to take off their coats when they
address the House, as Bob Ingersoll used to
DO when he addressed Republican mass
meetings. The Speaker is asserted to have
considerable facility in evolving parlia-
meutary law to order, out of the depths of
his inner consciousness; but it would trouble
even him to allege a rule prescribing the ex-
act number of outer garments a member
must wear in order to entitle him to the
floor. Indeed there is every reason to be-
lieve that if the Speaker had tried to sup
press Mr.. Walker on account of his shirt
sleeves, the honorable member could have
stood up for his rights and successfully have
defended the legal standing of his linen in
the highest court of the nation.
As matter of taste and manners, It is by
no means certain that Mr.. Walkers position
would not be stronger than Mr.. Reeds. 1t
is good news that the Speaker has under.
taken to reform the manners of the House;
although it may be doubted whether ne will
not find that much greater task than Great
ing working majority by turning out Dem
ocrats and seating Republicans. But there
should be some sense of proportion in the
reform. Oratory in shirt sleeves may not be
strictly according to etiquette; but the cor
respondents distinctly state that Mr.. Walker
displayed clean linen, while the Speaker has
frequently permitted the display of dirty
linen. Beyond that il has recently been
stated that the expectoration of tobacco Juice
by the statesmen who frame our tariff legis-
lstion, keeps the carpet cleaners of the Cap
ital busy without keeping the carpets of che
House clean. In view Of the newspaper
efforts for the reformation OF the great Amer
ican hog, it would be no more than Just re-
spect TO public demand for the Speaker to
reduce the tobacco chewers to decency before
suppressing an earnest monometallist who
wrestles with silver in his shirt sleeves.
We confess to sympathy with Mr.. Walker.
Shirt sleeves are American and clean shirt
sleeves ought to be sufficient to satisfy the
most fastidious tastes. II these national
features can be suppressed by an arbitrary
Speaker, what has become of our boasted !
liberties7