The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-12
< < < < < 4 4 < | < Y Y " FIRST CONGRESS
 IN WASHINGTON.
} Men and Measures of That Leg } islative Body. e.

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 One of the problems of the Sixth Con- gress, the first to assemble at washing ton in 1900 twas the crossing or the Allegheny Mountains, says Washinston special. A few adventurous and hardy pioneers had even then climbed that greal barrier between civilization and the VII derness and settled in the great North west territory. which had delegate m the Sixth Congress in the person of Wii- liam Henry Harrison, who forty years afterward, in 1s40, was elected President of the United States.
 In the present Congress this great Northwest territory. instead of having one delegate, has twelve Senators and eighty-five Representatives from the populous States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan. Wisconsin and Minnesota. Building national turnpikes over these mountains, two or three hundred miles from Washington, so that the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and lake regions might be settled, was then a matter for the consideration of the Sixth Congress The present Congress will consider the question of the irrigation of the arid lands in the Rocky Mountain region. at that time not a part of the United States, as the Louisiana purchase and the Mexi- can acquisition both occurred afterward.
 The proposition of irrigating the arid plains at the base of the Rocky Noun tains would have astonished member of the Sixth Congress, and the mention in a Presidential message of considering the Porto Rican and Philippine problems and governing those islands of the distant seas as United States possessions would have paralyzed both houses of Congress.
 Congressional Representation.
 The Sixth Congress had thirty-two Senators 112 Representatives, while the Fifty-seventh Congress has 90 Senators and 357 Representatives. In the Sixth Congress the two great States were Vir- ginia and Massachusetts, the former having twenty Representatives and the latter nineteen, Pennsylvania being next in size with fourteen Representatives, while the now Empire State of New York had only ten Representatives. Now New York has thirty-four Representa- tives, Pennsylvania twenty-eight and Virginia and Massachusetts, respectively ten and thirteen.
 John Randolph of Roanoke, was the Republican leader of the Sixth Congress and John Marshall, the Federalist or administration leader, until nominated by President John Adams, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Speaker of the House and President of the United States were then both from Massachusetts lief ferson was Vice-President, hence the two most populous States, Virginia and Massachusetts, had the President, pre- siding officer of both Houses, and the two party leaders in the House. The Speaker of the present Congress, David B. Henderson, comes from a region thai was then a part of France. Dubuque Ia., as the French name of his home town indicates; a person from that region then would have been addressed as the gentleman from France.
 John Randolph, the Republican or or Democratic leader of the House, in the Sixth Congress, was brilliant, but er- ratio and naughty.
 He was wealthy and proud of the fact that he belonged to one of the aristo' cratic families of the Old Dominion, not withstanding his family is said to have descended from Pocahontas.
 Randolph Worsted by a Yankee.
 Once, in a controversy with a Con- necticut member, who had been shoe- maker, Randolph asked him what he did wicn his leather apron when he came to Congress. The quick-wltted Yankee instantly replied that he had made a Connecticut Pocahontas pair of moc- casinS with 1t.
 The Sixth Congress had its Hanna and Platt, though MT. Hanna was from Penn sylvania, but MT Platt came from New York. They do not appear, however, to have possessed the qulaities of leader ship which characterize the members by that name in the present Congress.
 Party spirit ran higher in the Sixth Congress than in the Fifty-sixth, and higher than the indications now art that it will run in the Fifty seventh N11 r.tf l fortunate that the inauguration Of lief ferson and the closing scenes of John Adams's administration took place In the secIusion of Washington rather than adelphia ''as thus bloodshed was prob ably aVerted.
 This Congress possessed men of good ability; for example, John Marshall called by many our most profound Jur- ist.
 But some of the Congresses that soon followed were more brilliant, those n which such men as John Quincy Ad' members. John Quincy Adams served seventeen years in the House of Rep resentatives after he had been Presl' dent four years, Minister to England eight years, and Secretary or State un' der Monroe eight years.
 He Is the principal author Of what Is known as the Monroe Doctrine, pro mitigating it in his report as Secretary | by President Monroe in his message t6 Congress. No one, however, ever thinks of giving him any credit for having originated this much-talked-of and pop ular American doctrine. He was prob ably the longest in public life of any oi our statesmen, and at last was strucE down by paralysis in his seat in the House of Representatives and died in the Speakers room, to which he had beer removed.
 Same Old Gag Rules.
 There were some gag rules in the House then, and the old man eloquent fought them in season and out of sea son, and at last succeeded in getttnt | them abolished three years before qht 1 died. He is conceded to have been one of the most scholarly and polished o our public men, but 1t Is questionabl' whether the following story told 0 Adams and Clay would be considered l elegant today:
 | At a banquet at the close of sesslol of Congress sat Adams and Clay at op | posite ends of the table. Adams. in ad | dressing the banqueters. directed his re ] marks to Clay, saying:
 1 "I am glad We are about to return | home, not that I do not like my asso i ciates, but l think it time that some O | you at least should return to the bosom