Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-02-14

trusted to the pages OF the RECORD. III
addition to this. some of the honorable
gentlemen are said to have fatal ten
dency to making quotations in mo-
ments of poetical feryor from divers
sources. and as these same quotations
occasionally show striking differences
from the author whose aid is invoked,
the knowledge of English literature
alone, requisite in the reporter, is
something stupendous.
1t is stated that within the past few
years several of the official stenog-
raphers of Congress have died from
sheer nervous prostration.
In the House each reporter has only
to write at one time sufficient num-
Der of words to fill one page, of the
Congressional Record, when he Is re-
lieved by one of his associates. Those
who take the proceedings in the Senate
are required to fill six pages of the
Record at each turn" amounting to
something over 5000 words, and con-
Stunning usually about half an hour
The work of the congressional
stenographer is divided into two gen.
eral lines-debate and committee re-
porting. The House employs five re-
porters on debates and two on COM
mittees, while the corps of the Senate,
consisting Of five stenographers and
an assistant, perform both kinds of
duty. The Senate corps is under the
charge of Messrs. T. E. Shuey and Ed
ward V. Murphy, who employ their
assistants at salaries allowed by the
appropriation for each session of Con-
gress of $4,000. The House reporters
are all upon the same basis, and re-
ceive a salary of $4,000 a year.
The position of congressional report
er is practically for life, inasmuch as
they are dismissed only for cause and
by resolution of the legislative body
to which they belong.
There is, perhaps, no other branch
of shorthand work requiring such ex-
pertness as that of taking down con-
gressiOnal debates. The swift inter
jectiOnal remarks made sometimes
from various quarters at once, the
heated reply, the call to order, the
storm of protests, the sharp rattle Of
the hammer upon the speakers desk,
all occurring simultaneously, are often
sufficient to distract the mere specta-
tor: but when it is remembered that
every word of insistence and protest
must be recorded verbatim by the re-
porter, and the babel of sounds rem
dered in their proper order and Sc
quence, it may be easily imagined that
the task becomes almost herculean.
1t is fortunate that the strain upon
each individual lasts but a few min
utes, or, in the case of the Senate re-
porters, half an hour at a time. AS
soon as one mans turn is done, he hur-
ries below to the room devoted to the
use of official reporters, and, his place
upon the floor being taken by one of
his associates, proceeds to talk the
stuff" into graphophone. The rec
ord of the sound cylinder is then trans
cribed by an amanuensis upon the
typewriter, and so the shorthand char
acters pass through the shortest posi-
BILE transition into clear type. By this
method at least two reporters always
remain upon the floor of the chamber,
the one who is taking down" the
speaker, and his associate who is wait
ing to relieve him.
At the close of the days session, or
rather a few minutes after, the type
sistant in the stenographer's room,
who hands it to a messenger, and the
latter, mounting a bicycle, starts for
the government printing office, several
blocks away. Generally it reaches
that office about o'clock, though Gin
cases of night sessions, the last of the
copy may not be delivered until 1
o'clock A. M.
1t is interesting to hear Mr.. Shuey
tell how the Senate corps of stenogra-
pliers was established and how it used
to have it's headquarters in the office
of the Globe newspaper on Pennsyl-
vania avenue, now occupied by another
journal. In those days there were no
typewriters or graphophones, and the
reporters had to stay up until the "wee
sma' hours" transcribing their notes.
The paper, of which the congressional
reports formed the principal feature,
did not come out until IL o'clock the
following day, and. of course, by that
time another session was 'on," In
fact. as Mr.. Shuey said. the Globe
was more reliquary than a record.
1t was Richard Sutton, an English
parliamentary reporter, who had sat
DeSlue SudTleS DlCkeIS Ill Tie gallery,
and who became associated with the
elder Bennett upon the Herald, who
established the independence of the
Senate reporters. Before this was ac-
complished, however, there was a bat
tie royal between Mr.. Sutton and
Messrs. Blair and Rives, then pro-
prietors of the Globe, but the govern
ment happened to agree with the views
of the first named factor in the con-
test, and the result was the establish
ment of the corps upon it's present
basis.
In 1873 the first number of the Con-
gressional Record was printed at the
government printing office. By that
time Mr.. Sutton had died, and his
place as head stenographer to the
Senate was ably filled by D. F. Muir
ply, who was regarded by his as
sociates as Incompatible in his line.
An extraordinary illustration of the
perfection of method employed by the
congressional stenographers, and the
ease with which they read each others
notes. was furnished by the writer
when Mr.. Shuey called for an old
bundle of the late Mr.. Murphy's notes.
with the dust lying thick upon them.
He read the report of a debate that &C.