Omaha daily bee., 1890-09-20
COUNTING a QUORU.u.
The Task Proves a Dimcult One for
Speaker Reed.

WASHINGTON, Sept l9.--ISpecial Telegram
to The b EE 1t was with much difficulty
and under trying circpms tances that Speaker
Reed was enabled to count quorum on two
or three occasions during today's session of
the house, and when counted almost immedi-
ately vanished, so that no substant tia prog
ress was made in the liberation of matters
before that body. After the experience
of yesterday the democrats seemed TO
be afraid that If they came in the
house at all they would find themselves be-
hind doors of such strength that they could
not lift nor kick their way through them
into the freedom beyond and therefore they
studously remained outside of the precincts
of the house the entire day. At no time were
there more than half dozen or eight demo-
Gratis within sight Of the speaker or the
sound of his gavel Some CT the
efforts made by the democrats to es-
cape the scrutiny of the speaker were
laughable Early in the session half dozen
or 50 of them were seen crouching down on
the steps of the gallery over the head and at
the rear of the speaker, where he could by no
possible means catch glimpse of them, but
they were taking no chances aud kept them
selves as far removed from the gallery rail as
possible while criticising every ruling of the
speaker and protesting against the
accuracy of his counts. The
corridors were filled with democratc
con gress men, who, findlu @ themselves in view
of the interior of the house through the win
dows huriedly moved aside in order, as one
of them said, to prevent the speaker from
counting them there When Mr. Crisp of
Georgia challenged the correctness of the
speakers count of a quorum early in the day
and he appointed tellers to verify its cor
r,ectness, Representative Holman of In
diana, who was on the floor, at
attempted to make sneak If he
had succeed it would have shown, of course,
that the speaker was in error, so the speaker
stopped him as he was going through the
door and ordered him to return and pass out
through the telers. This he did in shame
faced way amid the applause of the repub-
hcans. AT one time in the afternoon 15S re-
publican representatives were counted
on the floor and had they remained in
their places for fifteen minutes more Venable
would have been voted out and Prof Lang
ston in on viva voce vote, because there
were enough democratic members on the
floor to order yea and nay vote, but their
carelesness lost the republicans the oppor-
tunity of the day and O'Clock was reached
without another such chance. 1t was stated
during the day that anumber of democratic
representatives. had become tired of this use
less ilibusteringa gandwouldt AXE their seats, but
Mr.. Buckalew OF Pennsy sylvania, who refused
to join his associates In filibustering on the
election bill, was the only one to materialize.
The democrats say the speaker counted door,
keepers and pages in making his quorum,
and one story frequent today was that he
sent page out into the corridors to hunt up
democrats. The boy returned and reported
no one in sight.
Didn't you see the tracks Of anyl" asked
the speaker.
"Well, saw cs.e lrassS,' responded the
boy.
"Whcse was it!n asked the speaker.
81 don't know, but 1t was about so long"
measuring of a distance of sixteen or
eighteen inches with his hands.
"Oh, y said the speaker, that is Buck Kill
gore. Count him, Mr. Clerk -