Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-01-04

bESlEGINu JlDGh hOlMAN
 dor, but that on the south and back of the speakers stand Is cut of and used as O house lobby, while on the other three sides the great public has free course, and 1t is here the bug flend gets in his work and too often makes himself an object of dread to the member. On the outer side of the cast and west corridors are the most important committee rooms, and many q good natured statesman who hates to say no and suffers in hearing of anothers suf- fering goes from house door to committee fo6m and back as if he Were shot out of catapult. II he hesitates, he is lost.
 Chronics and 1rregulars.
 The importunate are of two classeS-the chronics, whom every old habituo of the capitol knows by sight, and the irregulars. Medically speaking, the latter may be again divided into the acute cases, which will soon recover or prove fatal, and the lingering, highly liable to become chronic. All this has nothing to do with real lob byists or men of business who arc here for practical purposes, or with the thousands who merely visit the city and call on their representative as a compliment. The for mer do their work in committee rooms and hotels, and never, if they understand their business, lounge about the corridors. The latter gaze and finger, toll laboIiously up the stairs instead of using tho elevators, ask questions in timid, hesitating way, and though often amusing are never trou blesome I am often asked such qucs tions as these: Mister, is there any charge for riding up in that thing!" Mister, is that the congress roomf" No one who has been here u month ever ConfusCs one of these with the real bug flend.
 Most harmless of the class is the lately discharged clerk, who is not only known at sight, but one can often recognize him as he comes down the avenue. Thero Is about him that iDdescribable air combined of anxiety, feverish cagerness and blind hope that his member can do something for every minor government employee has his member or congressional patron. The statesmen confess that the present situa- tion Is a real relief to them, for they can say at once, Nothing can be done-the departments are discharging men every day." and the applicant goes away sorrow full. for he Is never a man of great posses sionS. In every conversation of that sort that I overhear the man always has others depending on him." No matter how young and debonair, hc insists that he Is supporting somebody. If the stricken one be lady-well, ladies very rarely get discharged now, and seldom or never call on their members at the capitol. It is considered very bad form. It became scandal 20 years ago and was by degrees drowned down, and now the lady clerk gets some discreet matron or gentleman of influence to talk for her, or as a last desperate resort calls on the member at his home.
 A Few Samples.
 They write letters occasionally, letters | both ludicrous and pathetic. An Indiana | congressman recently showed me ono in AL come to live with her and had a baby, and :! if she, the writer, could secure her former place they could hire some one to take care of the baby, and the sister could then | find something to do. The member was in Q sarcastic mood defeated by some thou sands last November) and returned answer | that if they would send the baby up to him he would take care of 1t, as he was now working solely for his constituents. l So he says, at any rate. It is tho chronics, I however, who rasp the congressional nerves, and at the head of the list is the | "man with a bug (''Fad' has gone out here. It is now "buG.'D Of these tho so | called humanitarians are tho hardest to deal with. Ono can dismiss with contempt I these fellows who want canals dug all | over creation, and all the unemployed set to digging gold on government account, l or freight and passengers carried for noth- | ing, or appropriations made for flying ma l chimes, thistle extcrminatlon and psychic l research, but what can he cay to those | really good people who want all the Indian children put into industrial schools, all the colored children educated by the gen eral government and all the oppressed and distressed of other lands Gust now the Ar menians) relieved by tour moral infiu- ence," to say nothing of that really re- | spectable and not entirely illogical class of \ good people who want to put God in the constitution, establish Christianity by Q law and make everybody virtuous and happy by act of congreSst Jerry Simpson says 1t is a constant wonder to him that eastern people have the face to criticise ! the west, and that 1t is n case where the beam should loo plucked out before the mote Is mentioned, for all his folks wan- Is plenty of good money, and that is a very | practical matter, while these eastern cranks want to get highly moral results out of immoral lawmakers, which Is in sanity.
 Men Who Arc Sought.
 The cold, hard truth is that paternalism Is still strong in our political thinking
 and the events of the last 30 years have caused millions to look on government a: sort of secondhand providence. MT | M0fSe or massachusetts ana MT. Elcklel
 of South Dakota are the special victims o
 all who have highly moral schemes on th' | go. They are both radical prohibitionists
 and being nationally known as such th'
 apostles of morals in all other lines tako fl
 for granted that they can be hitched tC
 any car of moral progress. Mir. Piokler
 by the way, has recently distinguished him
 self by asking that The Record be corrected
 SO far as 1t reported some of his statement
 and adding that the reporters copied wha
 he said word for word, and when he reaC
 it in print he found that he was mistak
 en. MT. Pickler Is doubtless truthful
 Lafe Pence Is most sought by tho Popu
 lists and their congeners, probably bccaus
 he is young in years and very mucl
 younger in manner and spirit, full of on
 thusiasm and as free in a social way as
 happy schoolboy. Jerry Simpson was mucl
 sought by that class at first, but they sooI
 fell into way of letting him alone. HI
 has dry, sometimes sarcastic, way o
 promptly pointing out the weakness il
 any proposition made to him. He make | the defect singularly clear in one shor ] sentence, and even the bug flend prefer