Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-23
EXIT SPEAKER REED.

of congress from the First district in tn
hands of the governor of Maine. Speake.
Reed has not only brought to a close
most remarkable career as a dominant
spirit in the halls of legislation, but hi
has likewise robbed the democratic press
of a fruitful topic in speculative politics,
No man in public life has been more Wig
orously assailed than Mr.. Reed, and per-
haps no man has cared less about it.
He is built on that mental plan which
maintains its equilibrium through storm
and sunshine and never yields to the
heaviest gust that may be generated by
the winds1ills of adverse criticism.
during his career as speaker-a career
marked by an arbitrary demeanor in the
enforcement Of rules that often deprived
the minority of the right of free speech
he presided with the dignity of a poten-
tate sitting in judgment over an assem-
Oily OF plgmies. He was an autocrat, and
under different conditions might have
been a tyrant, yet withal he sought to
conserve what he understood to be the
best interests of his country by shutting
off irrelevant debate and suppressing the
cheap spread-eagleism OF the mentally
incompetent de1na gogues who often find
their way into congress as the accredited
agents of political bosses or corporations
with selfish ends to serve.
Reed was remarkably shrewd in his
Judgment of men, and as a rule the fam
doodle orators who failed to catch his
eye suffered justly from the infiction of
his power. 1t is only fair to say that at
times he exercised his authority to the
detriment of fair play, yet history will
accord to him a disposition to make the
house of representatives what it had al
most ceased to be under the rulership
of Carlisle and Crisp-a practical work.
ing body. He did far more than any of
his predecessors in the chair to do away
with the senseless @flibustering tactics
through which a minority seeks to post
pone legislation which their votes can-
not prevent. Under his authority the
house of representatives has become a
legislative body instead of a lyceum, an6
the American people who pay the bills
have profited accordingly.
The only real sufferers from speake,
Reeds arbitrary enforcement of the rlgio
rules of that body We're the highly dis.
tended political windbags who desired
an opportunity to convince their loca'
constituents through speeches in con.
eress, made against time, that latent
genius had blossomed into light. Upon
such Speaker Reed descended with crush
Ing effect. About the only recreation
which the so-called car took during
business hours was to use some easy
mark for a chair cushion and place an
obatl uction across the track of budding
genius. He held to the theory that the
congressman who had nc higher ambition
than to waste the time of the house of
representatives, trying to make a record
as an orator. ought to go out and prac-
tice in the country school houses, and
not obtrude his linguistic abilities upon
the rapidly accommodating salary list of
the federal government.
But with all the criticism visited upon
Mr.. Reed no one questioned his personal
honesty and strength Of purpose until
since it was announced that he had de-
cided to retire from congress and give
his attention to business interests. Then
it was that the democratic press imme-
dlately detected a scheme. They dis
covered that the czar-the austere and
uncompromising autocrat of the house of
rerresentatives-was about to play a joke
on the American public! In the words
of an unepitaphed orator they ex-
claimed:
II smell a rat!
| see him in the air!"
For months past the public has been
regaled with all manner of things that
would happen just as soon as Reed pulled
the string that was attached to his res
ignation, and sailed back into congress
and the speakers chair. after Hender-
son had received enough pledges to elect
him to that position! The democratic
press brooded over these possibilities
until they actually became worried over
the fact that they didn't happen. Now,
Mr.. Reed spoils all their carefully erect