The Portland daily press., 1897-01-12


of Maine
Washington, Jan. 1.-THE House of
REPRESENTATIVES of the Nation is not
above an occasional lark, when it finds
an excuse for SO doing. These larks US
ually come on Friday evenings, which
are devoted By the rules to the passage
of private pension bills. To make a
quorum of the House requires ITO MEM
bers, and it is impossible 60 get this
number at IN evening session. Us
ually no one makes the point of no
quorum and SO the House proceeds to
business without trouble. But occasion
ally member who wishes to make
trouble raises the fatal point. This ence
done there is no course left but sto ad-
journ OF procure the attendance of the
absent members. AS by special rule
Friday evening session must end at 10. 30
O'Clock the machinery OF the. House is
not able to find enough delinquents and
get them to the House in time to make
quorum. This has been demon strated
over and over again. But yet whenever
the members present on Friday evening
find the point of "no quorum" rails ed,
they invariably begin proceedings to get
tine attendance Of absent mem bers. 1t is
piece of mischief really. Having come
themselves, they like to set tho sergeant
alarms and his deputies to searching
the hotels for their fellows. So the reso
luton directing the arrest of the absen
tees is passed, the warrants Of arrest are
made out and delivered to the sergeant
alarms, and he sends out his deputies to
catch the members. Last Fri day even
e = to II
taken, three deputies started in hacks to
ilnd the members. OF course most of the
delinquents, especially those who live in
the hotels, know perfectly well what Is
going On and when the deputy arrives
with the warrant he will be very lucky
il he Ii nds the congressman in or anyone
no knows about his whereabouts.
However, on Friday evening three luck
less mem bers, Messrs. StailinGs, OF Ala
bama; KleberR, Of Texas and Woodward
of North Caroline, were caught and
ANONYMOUSLY brought to the House an
presented before the Speaker by the ser
geant-at-arm S.
"You have been absent from the $685.
sion of the House without leave of the
House. What excuse have you to offer?"
says the Speaker to each in turn.
Then each in turn gives his excuse
while the House applauds and often COM
ments audibly on the reasonsbleness on
probable truth of the statement. On
Friday evening Mr.. Stallipgs represented
that be had not been feeling very well,
and the other two said they bad bsen
very busy answering the letters of their
constituents. +
So far the proceedings had been harm
less enough and the approaching adjourn
ment would have terminated all the pro
oeedines against abSentees. But reso
luton was now introduced providing
that tho warrants In the bands Of the
sergeant-Rt-arms should be returnable on
the Tuesday following. This was intend
ed to force the sergeant-at-arms TO arrest
all the abssntees and keep them under
arrest until Tuesday. This would mean
that they ought not to vote on the pro-
ceedings of Saturday and Monday, al
though once mem Ders in such condition
had been allowed to vote. It is evident
that snch complication would be very
troublesome if allowed to continue.
The members present Friday even ing
very readily adopted the resolution; bat
the sergea nt-at-arn.s Of the House is a
careful and sensible man and did not at
once begin the wholesale arrest. He
awaited developments, knowing that 1T
was d pretty serious thing to round up
one hundred or more members of Con-
gress when no, practical or useful ell d
was to be attained. He was justified in
81
very soon rescinded the action of the
night before and absolved the mem bers
from the pei lis of arrest.
sergenut-at-arms b. II. Russell is a
Maine man, native of Oxford county,
and a member of the 1-l0-29 Maine Regi
ment association. He went to Missouri
after the war and is prominent Rep ub
Iican of that state. He has been speaker
of the Missouri legislatures: and is we'll
fitted for the delicate and responsible
duties of his office. He owns newspaper
in Missouri.
The member who caused all the
mischief on Friday evening was Mr..
Constantine ]. Erdman, of the Ninth
Pennsylvania district. He was in the old
college at Gettysburg, Pa., from 1881 to
1865, and later studied law. He was in
the Fifty third Congress, but will not be
in the Fifth fourth. He is one of the few
Democrats In Congress from the northern
and eastern states Since the beginning
of this Coz gress he has made consider
able opposition to a csrtain class of
private pension bills, and has once or
twics before tied up the Friday night
session with the point of no quorum.