The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-28
TURNING TIME BACKWARD.
How the Day Is Heightened in the
United States Senate.

now 'tne Day Is LengtheneC the
United States Senate.
Captain Isaac Barrett, the veteran as
sistant door-keeper of the Senate, who
died the other day. first turned back the
finger of time on the face of the big clock
in 1874. He has told how it happened,
and his own account of it is more interest
ing, perhaps. than it can be made by
elaboration:
at was on March 4, 1874, that | first
turned backward the hands of the Senate
clock. The Senate then, in what is now
the Supreme Court room, was considering
and voting upon an appropriation bill,
when it became evident that the bill
could not become law before the hour
of noon. Some one suggested to
the President pro tempore - Sena-
tor William P. Mangum of North
Carolina-that the hands of the clock
might be 50 manipulated as to lengthen
the official day. l was sent for, and was
ordered by Mr. Mangum to put the hands
back ten minutes. The Senate clock then
was tall one, and | remember very dis
tinctly climbing up to its face. The time
thus manufactured was sufficient, and the
bill became law. Only Oh rare occasions
was there any meddiing with the clock to
within the last twenty years. Since then
the hands have been turned back at least
once il every Congress"
Captain Bassett had learned to regard
the old desks and chairs of the Senate as
historical relics in his personal care. He
knew the history of each one, when it
was made, who was its first occupant
and by whom it had been used since
it was first employed. He also knew
the vandals who haunt the Capitol. and
who would rend and carry away the
desks of famous men if they could
but find them Captain Bassett would
not impart the information he had, but
he had private marks on desks and chairs
registered in a book closed to everybody.
Mr.. Bassett would prefer to see the chairs
of Cass, Calhoun, Clay, Webster and other
great statesman burned where they stood
than mutilated By the relic-hunter. The
desks are made of the best mahogany and
after the pattern first used when the seat
of Government was established at Wash
ington. Every desk made for the Senate
is still in use. Some of the original chairs
also remain.
During his long term of service, Captain
Bassett has been absent when the Senate
was in session only thirty days, and twenty
of those days had been lost on account of
illness during the last five years. To be
absent moment when he should be at his
post was distressing to the veteran. "When
sickness keeps me indoors" he has said,
''in spite of all my endeavors 10 be cheer
full, am simply miserable. You cannot
understand how | feel. After sixty-three
years of service the idea that the Senate is
in session and | am not there seems awful.
l can picture to my mind the vacant chair,
and of course 1 feel confident that nobody
can perform my duties satisfactorily"
Captain Bassett had private nook in
the Senate room Of the Capitol which few
people ever saw and fewer still had ever
heard of. 1t was near the room of the SEN
ate Committee on the Library, and would
be a very dark little den but for the gas
light. In that room is lot of historical
and antique articles. each of which has a
volume OF "reminiscences clustered around
it. He had the old snuffboxes used by
Senators when the boxes were kept in the
inches on each side of the Vice-PresidenI S
chair; and as they were retired and re-
placed by new ones, Captain Bassett kept
the old ones and labeled them. He also
preserved piece of the cane which Pres
ton Brooks broke over the head of Senator
Sumner. He kept all of these things for
description in a book which he intended to
publish before his death.