The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-02-19
CONGRESS- AND PRESS
REMARKABLE CASES OF STATESMEN
DEFEATED BY CORRESPONDENTS.

The Proposed Law Restricting the Rights
Voorhees, and His Critic-The Gases OF
Colfax, Keifer, Hiscock and Others.
| WASHINGTON, Feb. S.-Agsin there is
some friction between the newspaper cor
respondents of the capital and the states
men who sit ia the halls of congress. These
little differences break out periodically
and are sometimes rather sensational. The
present trouble grows out of two incidents
one the passage of a bill designed accord
ing to its title to define and punish black
mailing" but really containing provision
which makes publication for the purpose
of revenge or ridicule" punishable by fine
and Imprisonment. Now. there is not q
newspaper man in Washington or any
where else who cares a rap how stringent
| the law may be against blackmailing in any
of its forms or how dire the punishment.
But all newspaper men do object to the en-.
actment OF a law, under the guise Of an act
against matchmaking, which shall make il
possible for a writer to be fined and i'm
| prisoned whenever public man thinks he
has been ridiculed.
| Such law revives the most odious form
of persecution of the press, and would be
about 800 years behind the times 1t might
| do in Russia, but not in free America. As
soon as the correspondents learned that
such bill had been passed through the
house they took up the fight with deter
mination that the bill should never be-
| come law with the Objectionable line in it.
Their editors have taken up the cause, too.
and from what know of the power Of the
press am willing TO make the prediction
that the Objectionable provision will never
| find its way TO the statute book.
The other incident which has had a ten
dency to set neWspa9 per correspondents
and public men by the ears was an
attack made by Senator Voorhees, Of
Indiana, on the correspondent of Phil
Rdelphia paper The scribe's offense
was the publication CT an article con-
corning the senator which the latter de-
nounced as faiss In this the senator may
be right, and the correspondent may have
made mistake, but it does not appear and
is not charged that the writer was actu-
ated by malice. Newspaper men, there
fore, think the senator went little too far
in denouncing the correspondent as a
scoundrel and all that sort of thing, and
give it as their opinion that If the CORE
spondent abused the license of the press,
possibly the senator has abused the privi-
lege of the floor. Senator Voorhees, first
intention was to ask that the correspondent
who offended him be excluded from the
press gallery of the senate, but it appears
he thought better of this.
For many years a correspondent has not
been turned out of either the senate or the
house press gallery. The last case of the
sort was about twenty years ago, when VIII
liam +. Robinson, who wrote for many
years in the New York Tribune over the
signature of "Richelieu," and who became
widely known as Richelieu Robinson, was
expelled from the house gallery for some
offense against a member. Robinson left
the gallery and continued his work with
out any annoyance, and a year or two later
came to congress and took his seat as .
member on the floor. representing Brook
Ign district.
Last winter a committee of senators
spent several months and two or three
Thousand dollars of public money in a vain
endeavor to ascertain how newspaper cor
respondents obtain possession of the secrets
of senatorial executive sessions. There
was talk Of closing the gallery to news
correspondents for contempt, but nothing
ever came of the matter. AS a matter of
fact both the house and senate are very
generous in their treatment of the third
house, as the newspaper profession in
Washington is sometimes called. In each
gallery two men are hired at the public
expense to attend to the wants of the cor
respondents, besides pages to run errands
for them. The galleries are well supplied
with stationery from the public stores,
telephone is kept in each gallery and room
is afforded for telegraph offices near by for
the convenience of the correspondents of
afternoon papers. In either of these
galleries the correspondents may be seen
any day taking their ease, surrounded by
quite as many of the luXuries and comforts
of life as senators and representatives en-
Joy in their cloakrooms.
The history of congress IA full OF in
stances of the bad feeling which breaks
out periodically between statesmen and
the journalists who are kept here to watch
them and chronicle their doings. Some
times the journalists are at fault and some
times the statesmen. The first row of this
sort was in the first years of the govern
ment, when Matthew Lyon, of Philadel
phia- was tried for sedition under a new
law and placed in Jail His ofTense was an
attack upon the integrity of President
John Adams. While in prison Lyon was
elected TO congress, and when he took his
seat they tried to turn him out on
trumped up charge, but he held his ground.
made a speech in his own defense, hit one
man over the head with poker and fought
duel with another, and held his seat in
triumph.
AS rule when members of congress and
newspaper correspondents lock horns in
personal combat the latter get the best of
it. There is in the newspaper profession
in Washington, rs elsewhere, a strong in
stinct to stand together, and the force Of
the combined gallery" is bigger thing
than the average statesman feels strong
enough TO fight. do not mean to say that
the newspaper correspondents stand for
their fellows right or wrong, but if there
is any doubt In the case the benefit thereof
is generally given to their colleague who
may get into trouble. Newspaper men
would be more swift and sweeping N their
condemnation of Matchmaking journalist
than members of congress eeuLd possibly
be. 1t is true that there are in Washing
ton one or two men who under the guise Of
Journalism carry on a certain sort of trade
In blackmailing or striking" but these
men are not recognized by the members Of
the profession which they disgrace, are not
members of either of the newspaper clubs
and are denied admission to the press gal
leries
In Washington every newspaper man
considers himself good deal OF a poiiti-
clan, ana that correspondents have poiiti-
cal influence, and can use it TO good pur>