Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-04-27
DEBATES IN CONGRESS.
REPORTS OF THE PROCEEDINGS
HAVE GROWN.
Reason for the Increase-Many Written
Essays Set in Type Instead of Being
Delivered on the Floor.

are growing or have already grown 50 large
as TO be burdersome and in imminent dan
ger of becoming useless. There are two
specific reasons for this increase, one is the
printing of every trivial detail with stem
ographic exactness, and the other is the
permission in both branches of using writ
ten essays instead of making actual speech
es in debate.
In the beginning of the government, and
for many years thereafter, the habit of
speaking from a manuscript in either
branch of congress was unknown. On
every important measure that came before
congress, on the expediency of which mem
bers differed in opinion, there was an act
aal debate in which positions were affirm
ed and contested with off hand speech. In
every conflict of this kind the members of
congress were, as a rule, in their seats,
many taking part and the mass so inter
ested as TO sit continuously through the
debates.
The habit of speech has greatly changed.
At this time any one who will take his
seat in the gallery of the senate as the
senators assemble will be interested dur
ing the morning hour" which is often
marked by what may be called a sharp de-
bate; but when the morning hour" eX
pires and the regular order" is an
nounced the spectator will very probably
see a gentleman rise and unfold mass OF
manuscript and beg IN to read
He will next see out Of the eighty eight
senators probably seventy-fve and posi-
bly, more, if the senate be full, absent
themselves from their seats and retire TO
the committee rooms to write letters and
transact both public and private business
until the pages shall inform them that the
reading of the manuscript, in progress
when the senators left the chamber, is
about to close.
SATURDAY ESSAYS.
In the house of representatives the spec
tator, when he seats himself in the gallery,
will probably see repeated, as nearly as the
analogy of proceedings in the two branches
will allow, all that has been said of the
senate, with the addition OF habit which
is not extensively, if at all, practiced in the
senate-viz., the permission to print
speeches, not one word of which has been
delivered, and also the setting aside of odd
afternoons, generally Saturday, for debate
only, which means that some one deputed
by the speaker will preside, with the I'M
Outstanding that no business is to be done
and that any member who chooses can
| come there and deliver a speech upon any
subject he may select, whether it is pend
ing before congress or not.
The essays which are thus read on
single Saturday would often fill large
sized octave, more extended in point OF
matter than a volume of Bancroft or Mot
! ley
Few have reckoned the magnitude OF the
increase in the reports. The general pre-
.l,. - L.
creased membership of both branches Of
congress. This accounts for part of the
increase, but it is not sufficient cause for
| the whole.
| The senate is larger than fifty years ago
| by little more than one half-Gfty two
| then, lightweight now The house today
is not one-half larger in membership than
it was fifty years ago. But the volume of
| the reports of either house today com
pared with those of fifty years ago is pro-
| digiously great.
The reports of proceedings in the Twen-
| ty-sixth congress-March 4, 1899, to March
| 4, 1S41-take scarcely one-sixth of the space
| given to the reports OF the Fiftieth con-
| gress.
| But if we go back only half of fifty years
a striking illustration will be found. Take
| embracing the Thirty seventh and Thirty
| eighth congresses, and covering the entire
! period of the war. One would suppose
with an extra session in one of them, dur
ing such period as 1s6l-G5 would be ex-
traordinarily voluminous.
Both houses We're filed with remarkable
debaters, and the subjects that We're con-
hpo n h
! sorbing in interest that almost every sena-
! tor and every representative desired to be
| heard.
STRIKING COMPARISONS.
| As the form in which the proceedings
are reported has changed since that time
the comparison of different periods can be
made with approximate exactness by stat
ing the proceedings in uniform pages Of
| 1000 words each. From March 4, 1861, to
March 4, 1865, the number of pages filled
| by the proceedings was %, 400. Twenty-siX
| years afterward the fiftieth congress con-
vened. 1t lasted from March /, 1887, to
March 4, 1889, and the report Of proceed
| ings filed IS, 800 pages.
In an uneventful period, then, with moth
| ing especially to exercise or disturb the
| country, the number of pages filled by the
proceedings of single congress is greater
| than during the whole period of the war,
| with all its mighty issues at stake.
Other comparisons of interest may be
made readily. One of the most exciting
ongresses-supposed to be one of the most
| important ever held in the ante-bellum
period-was the Thirty-frst, beginning
March 4, lS49, and ending March 4, 1851.
| The compromise measures of 1850, involv-
ing all the phases OF the slavery question
as it then existed, called forth a debate
which for thoroughness and ability has
perhaps never been equaled, certainly
aever surpassed, N the history Of the gov
| eminent.
Men who naturally belonged to former
period-Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton,
| Cass-were there in full vigor, and the
younger men of prestige and power-Sew-
ard, Douglas, Chase, jefferson Davis, Rusk,
| of Texas-were also there in all the strength
of mature manhood.
| The first session of the Tbirty-frst lasted
until Sept. so, and that of the Thirty-third
until Aug. Z, and the proceedings of both
congresses filed only %, 600 pages, less by
400 pages than the record of the proceed
ings of the first session of the Fifty first
congress.
To make comprehensive and most sug-
gestive comparison, let it be stated that
from the Inauguration of Washington in
1889 to the close of the civil war in 1865
the report of the proceedings of congress
for the entire seventy-siX years employed