The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-23

session, there is a sentence containing only five words which will DC reuem- tered for years to come by mary citi- zens of this mighty republic with va-' rious emotions. It runs in this wise: Mir. Carter obtained the floor. In very truth he did. and. what's :nore.i he held it for thirteen and ahalf mortal hours and for all that anybody knows would be holding it yet had not the hour of high noon March ended his more or less desultory remarks. His wonderful gift of continuance once more demonstrated the truth Of the famous declaration by Robert Burns: The best laid plans of mice ana pep Att gang agley. @ess ssl
 By speaking thirteen and one-half hours Senator Carter dashedsthe AetEas ruined the prospects and ovegthEeWI the poiitical air castles of dfVassz &&as sn nsa dry ambitious statesmen. aAAF4n RE HE be soon forgotten. That's 0he ok the .ertainties of the futurezE g GU.RG1 UJ
 Senator, Carter's career shows what persistency, pluck, capacity, tact ana ambition can accomplish in this vest ern world. About twenty years ago ne was a book agent, perambutatlng The country selling The Footprints or Time" Since, then he has been representative and Senator in Congress, Commissioner of the General Land Of flee and Chaidman of the Repuolican National Committee. At present ne is president of the National Board or Commissioners of the Louisiana Fur chase Exposition. It is simple trrtn to state that he has discharged With 1e AAsE1ftnn ever held. Nobody believes that the political career of so resourceful Tan is at an end.
 Ii is strange that so little should be said about his gifts as orator and wit for he is both. Senator Chauncey Mitchell Depew and Ambassador Joseph H. Choate divide between them the honor of being the. crack poetpran- dial orator of America, yet 1t is con ceded fact that at a great banquet 'n Washington, where Depew and carter both delivered after dinner speeches, the latter, carried off all the honors' The breezy manher of the Montana statssnla nj made the audience delifA- ous with delight. Certainly that achievement proves beyond the shadow ofsa doubt that as wit his place IS in the front rank. Sa&
 of course Carter's thirteen and one- half hour speech, against the $oV.v 900 rivers and harbors bill was a time killing speech As a rule, speeches or that sort are dry as powder house. Not 90 with Carter's. It sparkles with wit ,shirnmers, with humor and contains ta good deal Of lQgic and philosophy: The very fact that 1t was thirteen and |. one half hours long detere people rom reading 1t. Probably am the only human being living or dead except the proof-reader on The Congressional Record that ever perused it as old man Harper of Kentucky declared that he ran his horse-'from eend to eend." Being a verbal fight against time. 1t goes without saying that much Of it Is fiat. stale and unprofitable, butif all the bright things in 1t had been cuileo out and condensed into speech of one or two hours it would nave made Carter famous and would have, been as widely circulated and universally read as was Proctor Knott's celebrated Duluth speech. There is no wit or humor or hadtnage or eloquence about his exordium, which runs in this wise:
 T have no hesitation in saying in the
  upon which this bill and all river and harbor bill for a dozen years have Teen constructed is vicious and entirely contrary just and equitable prin- 2 lies of legislation. Any Senator who will carefully read this bill and in c1n- function with it the report upon which 1t is based will inevitably be driven to the conclusion. unhappy though that conclusion may be and humiliating 2s II is. that the bill is fran" Donstruct- ed and completed upon he-tlAspioable principle of division and silence. -
 This bill from first srgEis sstyciEsNPaF~ charged with items repugnant to tIe judgment of every Ssna :st. fts Aa sFN' hich every Senator is conscious are IaFk ng in merit and should not he iucprporat- cd in any bill appropriating money from the public treasury
 T fully realize. MT. President, that when a committee starts out to frame bill of this kind it is the ret purpose nf every member of the committee to rrovide for those harbor6 that should he improved in tfe interest of com msrce IT is the purpose of every member of the committee to expend public mony only in the public inter est in this behalf. bat this bill grows from day to day and hour tO Eour until
  t~icts are satisfied to secure it5 pas sage"
 It is to be doubted whether the vl- ci0us system of congressional los roll ing-legislation on the you tickle me and I'll tickle you principle-was ever so clear set forth in 80 few words. Why did he do it? That's a question which has puzzled many persons. Does Senator Carter's public career demon strate that his conscience is so all con trolling that he would not engage in a little log rolling himself? Hardly A long time ago Lord Byron exclaimed, sweet is revenge!" Sursly he ought to have known. for he put in most of his time in evening up scores. Before Byron. Milton, in Paradise Lost" puts into satan's mouth these words: What though the field be lost?
 All is not lost; the unconquerable will And study of revenge. immortal hate. And courage never to submit or yield, And what Is else not to be overcome.
 I have no idea that Senator Carter was animated by immortal hate" bEt without being in his confidence I con- fldently advance the opinion that the study of revenge" was the motive power of his marvellous oratoricaI per formance mot revenge for himself. but revenge for al the arid land region against the Committee on Rivers and Harbors and against the beneficiaries of the rivers and harbors $60, 100000 bill. My guess is that had the sena- 4ors and representatives from the