Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1902-01-23
Our Washington Letter.
From our regular correspondent

and intermingle in the national capt.
tai this season with such Kaleidoscope
rapidly as to almost bewilder the on
locker and the pen of Balzac or
Thackery would be needed to ade-
quately portray the scenes which
surround the legislation of a nation
Of over eighty million people upon
which the sun never sets.
Congress is once more in session.
Refreshed by the holiday recess sea-
soned senators and some somewhat
fresh representatives have converted
the halls of the Capitol into human
beehive. Astute lobbyists and alert
correspondents throng the galleries
and committee-rooms. Reciprocity
and tariff, canals and civil-service,
pensions and irrigation are discussed
and argued with earnestness or non
chalance as they are demanded
or disregarded by each legislators
constituents, but out of chaos will
come order and legislation pregnant
with beneficial results to a great
people will have been enacted, private
feuds will have been repressed and the
knowledge of work will afford comfort
and satisfaction to the legislators
who, after having worked or played
INCREASINGLY for months, will flee from
the summer heat of Washington next
June or July.
In the meantime the record of the
Fifty-Seventh Congress will be watch
ed with keenest interest by millions
of people. Upon it's decisions rests
the welfare of thousands of citizens,
not alone in this country but in Porto
Rico and the Philippines, in Hawaii
and Samoa and even in little Guam,
while Cuba, the young sister republic
so lately born into the World, notes
with intense anxiety the deliberations
of that body upon whose statesman
ship her future prosperity so largely
depends.
Before the holiday recess over seven
thousand bills had been presented in
the Senate and House, more than the
fifty per cent of the total number in
troduced during the Fifty-Seventh
Congress. Hour after hour Senator
FRYE and General Henderson occupy
the chairs of Senate and House and
refer bills and resolutions to their
proper committees. To the uninitiated
the halls of Congress frequently pre-
sent scenes of singular inactivity and
the question is often asked, How can
Congress accomplish SO much when
it's sessions are so short and so little
attention seems to be paid to the pre-
ceedings by the members? But it is
NO. e open floor that bills are
framed and legislation enacted. There
they are formally passed only after
they have been determined upon sin
committee''. But glance into the
committee rooms after the session has
adjourned. There is no inactivity
there. Intense earnestness character
ICES the informal debates which are
TO decide the fate Of the favorite
measure of the Western mem bers,
the pet bill of the representatives OF
the New England States, the cherished
scheme of the Sou thern DELEGATE m.
There red tape is abandoned. sophistry
is dropped and the member from
Podunk frankly admits the senseless-
ness of the bill he champions but, he
adds, ''My constituents demand it.
1t must pass or / will not be returned,
for, as some wit has put it, "a
Congressman no sooner gets to Wash
ineton than he must labor to get
back''-secure his reelection. 1t is
to the committee rooms that the ex-
perienced correspondent goes for
news.
The days of biting repartee and
cruel invective in the Congress of the
United States have passed. No longer
will a venerable Southern senator be
heard to characterize the Grafton OF
his Northern colleague as ''the incar-
nation of malace, mendacity and
cowardice", as one once described a
speech of Summers in the days before
the war, but sharp, quick wit is still
displayed in House and Senate and
this Congress promises to contribute
it's quota of brilliant oratory and
sparkling repartee.
In another chamber of the capitol
the majesty of the law is portrayed
by the impressive dignity of the learn
ed and distinguished men who consti-
tute the supreme court. Here come
the ablest iurists of the country to
plead their clients causes before a
bench which is the stronghold of the
constitution, it's interpreter and it's
defense. In this room oratory gives
place to logic, brilliant panegyric and