Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-12-21
Ina a Sennte Elevator.

There are two SeHSitC elevators. InlS one, which is now guarded by the watch man, is the one which senators use in go- ing up or down to or from the restaurant or their committee rooms. Ii i$ also the elevator which leads to the reserved private galleries, which are used altogether by the families of senators or by persons having cards of admission to those gal leries. Furthermore, it is the elevator which the 200 newspaper men who have right of access to the press gallery find it convenient to use. None of these people was shut out by the new rule. The fam lilies of senators or persons holding cards of admission to the reserved galleries and newspaper men were freely admitted to pass the alert watchman on their way to the lift. Other persons could walk over to the other elevator or go to the stairs. There was no hardship in this upon any one who has right to complain, but still the American citizen refuses to be comforted and lifts up his voice in vigorous and pro fane condemnation of the whole tarnal concern
 The senate has been Il great deal abused for its eXclusiveness, and often these denun- citations have not been just or well founded. The notion having gone forth that the sen ate is an exclusive sort of body, that it is inclined to be ''uppish" and priggish, the popular sense of the proprieties of things in this quarter is the more easily offended. For instance, visitors to the capitol regard another little elevator custom of the senate as downright selfish and contemptible. Whenever a senator gets into the elevator car, he tells the man in charge of the rope whether he wishes to go up or down, and it doesn't make any difference which way the other people in the car want to go, or how long they have been trying to get there, the senator, under the rule, is to be first served.
 In this way, about the luncheon hour it often happens that if a newspaper man or number of newspaper m en start from the basement for the gallery, with senator or two among them, the car stops half the way up, or at the senate floor, and the statesmen alight. The journalists are ready to continue their journey, but here another senator steps in, with his appetite prompting him to reach the basement as soon as possible, and exclaims Down" The elevator conductor has no choice He knows the other passengers want to go up in order to get at their work, but the sena- tors wishes are law, and down he goes Perchance more senators, having finished their luncheon, will come aboard at the basement step, and when they are put of at the senate floor another great states man, with his appetite cooked and prime, will stop on and say Down" again. Once more the journalists are disappointed and after three or four fruitless trips from the basement half way to their destination they are likely to utter few words, which any editor would blue pencil' if used in their dispatches. and to get out and walk up to their gallery.
 While this sort of thing occurs now and then and has its ridiculous as well as its ssrious side, it should be said that large number of senators refuse to avail them selves of this elevator privilege, but quiet ly tell the man in charge of the machine to go on with his regular trip. The senators who do this are gentlemen-and a great many senators are gentlemen, despite the popular notion to the contrary. Human nature has as wide extremes in the senate as it has out in the great world, and there are senators who would feel almost insult ed if the elevator man were to ask them If they wished to be carried up when the oth- CT passengers wanted to go down, while some of their confreres would feel insulted if the slightest hesitation were shown about consulting and obeying their wishes.
 After all, it is more the individual than the parliamentary body to which he be- longs At the house end of the capitol 8 card is frequently hung on one of the ele- vators, For Members and Their Families Only" and no one takes any exception to 1t, recognizing the right of members to secure to themselves, their friends and families immunity from the crowding and jostlinR on days of large attendance in the galleries. The same rule put into force at the senate raises a storm of denunciation- In many ways the senate, with all its tendency to- ward exclusiveness, has been more gener- ous to visitors and to representatives of the press than has the house of representatives. It is only within the past few months that the splendid lobby in the rear of the house -one of the most spacious and beautiful | apartments in the capitol-has been used