The San Francisco call., 1904-03-01
Special Dispatch to The Call.
BY. S. w. WALL.


mistake to imagine that an election
to Congress is all honor. The glamour
that hangs over Washington borrows
its enchantment from distance. A
near view and the most dignified and
stately Senator is found to be pretty
hard working man. The Senators have
their office hours and their hours for
attendance upon one or the other of
half dozen committees; the afternoon
is spent in the Senate chamber and
the evening-what with its social obli-
cations and the conferences and the
people who insist upon an audience by
right of a residence in the same State
it is by no means the Senator's own.
In fact. a Senator's life is a life of
! labor. The eminent ability that is re-
quired to land a man in the United
States Senate must there be employed
to the utmost. To the vast amount
of work in which the Senate takes the
initiative is added the other vast
amount that comes to it for review
from the larger body. Together they
entail an immense amount of study
ing and research. And as for the most
part this is conscientiously given.
the life of a Senator is considerably
more than one of mere dignity.
The work that he is called upon to
perform is Of a twofold character.
There are the big and broad things,
the Panama treaties, the canal build
ing, the army, the navy. the harbors,
the interstate waterways, the recipro-
cal trade relations with foreign coun-
tries, the vast system of federal courts
and the still vaster system of the civil
service and the diplomatic and con-
sular service extending round the
world-the things distinctly national
that concern the people of the whole
country.
WORK OF A LEGISLATOR.
Then there are the things local and
that concern the people of his own
State and more especially that part
of the State, the north or south, from
which he halls, as distinguished from
the south or north, from which his
colleague comes. He is assailed every
day by a mail pouch full of petitions,
advice, complaints and plain requests.
Each of these must receive more or
less attention, though the letter writ
ing and other details which they de-
mand may be entrusted largely to sec
retaries.
Every Senator has a secretary and
the secretary one to half a dozen
clerks and stenographers. And the
man who comes nearest to earning his
salary in Washington is the secretary
to a Senator. None but a man with
a clear head, good general information,
genius for detail and large capacity
for work need apply for that job. He
is employed from morning until, very
frequently, late at night-he and his
assistants. The secretary to the Sen
ator is often made the secretary to the
committee of which the Senator is
chairman. 1t is as member of a COM
mittee, and especially as chairman,
that the Senator is effective 1t is the
committee that has the first say as to
whether or not a bill do pass" If
the committee to which it is referred
they all go to the committee, of course
does not report it back, the incident
is closed But of the many that go in,
the few-that is the comparatively few
that return may greet Faith and Char
ity with effusive familiarity, for their
name is Hope. There is something
radically wrong with them or their
champion if they do not stack up in
the law library.
DUTIES TO CONSTITUENTS.
Therefore the committee of which
the Senator is a member is not only
the measure of the quantity but the
quality of the service he is able to rem
der the country and his constituents
from his place in the stately building
on Capitol Hill.
An important Craftsmanship speaks
for the Senator in two ways. He is
recognized by the President of the
Senate as a man worthy to be in
trusted with it's responsibility. His
| worthiness to be so intrusted is dem
onstrated in his having secured the
honor, for these are prizes that are
contested for by strong men. There is
first, then, the Senator. Then there is
his committee. The rule is not abso-
lutte, of course, but it is a rule that the
one offers a measure of the other. The
ultimate test is as to what the other
does with the one 1t is an indication
of the character of work, often, to
which the Senator is adapted or might
be expected to be adapted.
All this applies in some degree to the
members of the House. The member
of the House who is in himself big is
smaller as an individuar because he is
member of a larger body. Those of
them who take the initiative and have
things to accomplish labor. as hard and