Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1907-12-11
IN THE u. S. CONGRESS.
FIRST OF SERIES OF WEEKLY LETTERS
BY r. j. STILLMAN.
Iowa Newspaper Man Describes Opening oI
Congress. Method Of Choosing Seats and
Forecasts Legislation.

| lies in the country to send us a weekly letter
from the capital during the session of Con-
| gress. He Is one OF the best newspaper men
| In Washington, and we conside- ourselves
| fortunate in securing his services.-Editor)
Washington, D. g., Dec. Especial
Correspondence. Congress is in ses-
sion after weary waste of nine
months and Washington is happy.
Congress is to Washington what a
street fair or circus is to an Iowa
county-seat town. This is not sur
prising when one conremplates that
the Government is the whole thing
in the District of Columbia. There
are four classes of people in WASH
ington: Government officials and
clerks. the wealthy unofficial class
that reside here during sessions of
Congress that they may mingle in
society's mad whirl the merchants and
business men, whose trade is almost
entirely from the two previously men,
toned classes; and fourthly 100, 900
colored folks who work for the other
225, 600 composing the balance of the
population.
1t is singular fact that good times
are bad for large portion of the popu-
laton of Washington, and hard times
are OF corresponding advantage.
Salaries rarely change here. A clerk
who ten years ago received $1,000 a
year. when $40 would buy as much as
Sl5 will buy now. still gets his $1,000,
although he finds it hustles him to
make it last from pay day to pay day.
When the country is prosperous,
everything he wears and eats is high.
When times are hard, prices are low.
His money is sure and prompt and
financial fiurries and poor crops do
not interest him directly. Twice each
month Uncle Sam hands him his pay
in brand new, crisp bills.
But this is depression. What
started out to say was that Washing
ton after a prolonged period of dull
ness is full of life and ginger II is
true that Congress means only the in
coming of 457 men, but there are the
wives, sons and daughters. maids,
clerks. Wallets. messengers, which add
a couple of thousand more. This
total, however, is mere handful
compared with the swarms of office
hunters who make glad the hearts of
the multitude of hotel and boarding
house folk, and the thousands of the
rich and near-rich who loll by the
seashore and in the mountains dur
ing the summer and fall. and then
with the beginning of the social sea-
son, which means the week Congress
convenes, hike to Washington with
their trains of servants, and open up
their palatial homes for the annual
display of the arts of the milliner,
modiste and chef. 1t would be in
teresting to figure up. if such ma
thematical stunt were possible, the
amount of coin of the realm that is
annually frittered away in this man.
ner during period of about five
months. 1t is safe to say the sum
would stun the good people of Iowa.
However, as the young fellow who
had worked on the farm two months
for $50 which the man at the fair with
the three little ''shells" had calmly
inserted in his vest pocket, remarked
with sickly grin: well, it's come
easy, go easy and started Off to dig
out another $50, so it is with the big
ones who measure their bank accounts
by seven figures.
The thing that would probably
strike the first time visitor at the
capitol most forcibly, between the
hours of 10 and l2 80 opening day of
Congress. provided he could rush from
one end of the building to the other
and witness proceedings. would be
the difference in said proceedings.
In the senate end he might imagine
himself at the Inauguration of a
Methodist district conference; in the
house end he would get the idea that
he was at Ames the moment the foot
ball team got home from Iowa City.
Talk about rough houses and bedlam
and pandemonium, why they are not
a marker to the riot of tumult on the
house floor when John Sharp Williams
has concluded his brief remarks ''pre-
senting' Uncle Joe Cannon to the 1856
men he is to rule with Reed rules.
1t lasts 10 minutes. or until the
members are worn out in arms, legs
and lungs.
OF course Uncle Joe hammers the
green baize off his table and periodi-
cally yells "the house will come to
order" but the house pays about as
much heed to these puny efforts as a
June cyclone does TO the bawling of