The Topeka state journal., 1899-01-06
LAWMAKERS SCREECH
When the Electric Lights Sud-
denly Go Out.

There may be some question as to the
exact location of Moses under similar
circumstances, but the most respectable
lower body of the Kansas legislature
was assembled in representative hall
when the lights went out
They took their departure with
scarcely a minute of warning at $50
o'clock last evening and it was ten
minutes of o'clock when they return
ed.
During the interval of 20 minutes the
house was in darkness. 1t was not in
absolute darkness after the first few
minutes of surprise OccaSiOned by the
failure of the electric lights, for the
members exhausted their supplies of
matches and used the last ones to light
printed bills and calendars and carry
them about above their heads as torch
eS.
The roll call on the supplemental rail-
road bill was in progress at the time
and the doors of the hall were locked
under the call of the house on the
Breidenthal banking bill. There was no
escape for the members from the hall.
and they remained out of necessity and
manufactured pandemonium until the
little electric light globes once more fill
ed with light.
Shouse, Republican, of Chautahqua
county, was on his feet explaining his
vote on the supplemental railroad bill
when the lights commenced to fade. In
side of a minute they were out. and the
mali plunged IN Egyptian darkness. AS
the illumination failed he shouted:
1.-THE lights are going out to cover the
infamy and shame of the Populist
party"
And then there resulted a scene un-
precedented in the history of the legis-
1ation in Kansas.
Members yelled like madmen, beat
upon their desks and stamped upon the
floor. Law makers from the short grass
country exhausted their lungs with coy
ote calls, and members from university
towns replied with college yells. Pop
ulists Wed with Republicans in creating
disorder and confusion and absolute
chaos prevailed.
Over on the Republican side Newt
Try of Bourbon struck a match and
held it high up in the air, Pickering
bright spot in the mass of darkness.
His example was followed by members
in other parts of the hall and by the
few spectators who were in the gal
leries when the lights went out. When
the matches were gone paper torches
were made and burned and in this man.
ner small patches of light were kept go
ing continuously until the incandeScent
globes once more flashed with light.
After the first stretch of pandemon-
ium, the members became more reaSona-
BILE in their disorder and ceased yelling
like Indians, substituting singing and
shouting in the place of that perform
ance. GLORY, Glory, Hallelujah, ""J ohm
Old Town Tonight" were rendered with
the force of dozens of voices. In the
last song sung the words were changed
to "a Dark Time in the Old Hall To-
night"
Il move that Marks of Jefferson be
made to deliver up his joint keys to the
house, shouted some one
tfI move as amendment that he
send out and bring the joints in,' yelled
some one else.
| Calls of a similar nature and demands
| for speeches continued until light was
again supplied. Then the regular order
of business of the house was resumed.
the breaking of a portion of the ma
| chinery of the state house electric light
nIa