The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-24
CONGRESSIONAL DRINKERS
II Is Less Common Than Formerly All
though There Is Yet Room for
Ref0rm--O.d Time S0akS.

Penn in Philadelphia Bulletin.
The House Committee on Public
| Buildings has agreed to report bill
| abolshing the sale of Intoxicating
drinks in the capitol and its purleus,
50 that congress may find it difficult 10
| liquor up Yet 1t is doubtful whether
| public men at Washington are as IN
! temperate as they were In former days.
| ] iind that all the old observers in the
capitol agree that great as the drink"
| Ing now Is. ii is small in extent COM
! Ldred to what it was before the -.
There is less of a demand for whisky,
aud more discrimination in the Selec-
tion of wines. n member of congress
VINO does not touch liquor is not so apt
to lie regarded as Joseph Surface as
he was in the time of Buchanan ana
/ Pierce, and, in fact. Of the administrG-
tiOns of almost all the earlier presi-
dents.
A public man of high estate could not
afford now to have such regulations
for conviviality and potations as Web
ster and Clay had without any serious
loss of popular strength. But any well
known member of congress who goes on
o debauch and shows himself in q pub
lie place under its influence is in dan
ger of having that fact telegraphed the
same night all over the country, and
| in these times there are not many dis
tricts in which such a piece of news
would not arouse the honorable mem
| ber's constituency and be received as
campaign material by his enemies.
The result is that many a public man
in Washington is more abstinent than
he would be from natural choice.
The members of congress in these
days are not all models of sobriety; but
there are few of them that would
have the temerity to appear in the cap
itol drunk. With the exception of
few graceless scamps, the congressman
who are in the habit of drinking take
care to conceal the facts as much as
possible from the public; or, at least.
not to lapse into open inebriety. Such
a man knows well that If he were to
indulge his weakness openly or freely,
he would find all the newspapers,
churches and temperance societies
holding him up to ridicule and con-
tempt. The public, indeed, is no longer
disposed to look upon drunkenness as
an eccentricity of genius that must be
forgiven in a statesman.
SICKLES' ILLUSTRATION.
General Daniel E. Sickles once de-
scribed the habit Of whisky drinking as
1t was practiced by members of con-
gress in the days before the war. Cen
memorable congress which was in eX-
istence during the last half of Buchan-
mans term. 1t Is his belief that the
nervous excitement which excessive
tipping produced in that congress had
not little effect in percipitating the re-
belllon. 1t was a congress of whisky
drinkers. They drank whisky by day
and night. Scarcely a committee room
was without its demijohns. The result
was threats, angry speeches, fights
all caused by whisky. IF the French
assembly, said Sickles, were to drink
some morning one-half the whisky con-
sumed on any one day by that congress
it would declare war against Germany
in twenty minutes
The old Whig party and the Demo-
cratic party in the twenty years before
the war were full of the wrecks of lead
ers whom whisky had demora iized ami
broken down. Wehster's potati0ns We're
notorious, especially i'll thn c'ncia"
years of his life. Clay was addicted
TO indulgence. stephen a. D0u~!cS3
| died in the prime of his life Il victim Of
rum. 1t was in that school that An
drew Johnson formed the habits which
| made him such a spectacle when he
had to cling to the marble pillars of the
capitol when he was inauguratCd as
vice. president. When the southern
fire-eaters wished To friyhten north
ern man they soaked Themselves in
rum. Preston Brooks, when H. assault
ed Charles Sumner with bludgeon,
had nerved himself with strong drink.
Jefferson Davis. when in the senate.
was one of the most notorious patrons
of the Washington bar-rooms. Bril-
liant men of both parties. like Richard
Yates. of Illinois; James 4. McDougall.
of California;; Sargent s. Prentiss, of
Mississippi: Lawrence NJ. Keitt. of
South Carolina. and many others ruin
ed their intellects and shortened tn .ir
lives by habitual debauchery. The
proceedings of the congresses in the
ante-bellum period show that drunken
representatives were such familiar OBJ
jects that it was only when they got
into duels or pummelled one anothe,
in the capitol that they attracted more
than ordinary attention.