Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-10

that member S name. The precision OF roll call
makes this difficult of belief, although the whole
body of pages always voted when the Speaker SIM
ply asked the members to answer in a chorus Yea"
or Nay, and the Democratic opponents of Gear"
Reed vehemently declared that if he could not find
quorum among the Representatives, he counted
the pages as Representatives too. But my
science has always troubled me over one momentous
vote, when the accuracy of the tally was in my con-
troll; and cannot tell whether was accurate
Keeping Time on Speakers
WHEN Roger O Mills had succeeded " Horizontal
w Bill as Democratic leader, no free trader
cumbed to the temptation of BATH and so for many
months the House, in Committee Of the Whole occu-
clerk or prompter" was i'll, and my influence"
Judge Springer of Illinois, welded the gave per-
m man chairman Of the committee was called
installed in the little seat of the prompter at the
very elbow of the chair. No longer did 1 have to
answer roll call With the '.other members" l
handing up to Mr.. Springer the list of the days
speakers settled down into my little seat to that
they did not exceed their time. When the tariff
schedules were taken up paragraph after paragraph
five minutes was the limit of speech; and to fiery
orator five minutes passes rapidly.
Hepburn of Iowa, the author of the late famous
rate BILL was afternoon calling down the
vengeance of Heaven upon the iniquity of free
wool, when the charmans gavel cut in two
eloquent peroration. Hepburn resented this inter
rupton to his oratory, and loudly demanded of the
chair how the chair knew his time had expired.
The chair, startled from conversation, waved
his hand absent mndedly to where was standing at
his side.
Hepburn's eye followed the motion, and SO did
the eyes of crowded House and Overlooking gal
1eries Perched up alongside the presiding officer,
must have looked smaller than my twelve
years across the vast hall. A pause and then Hep
burns sonorous voice almost shook the emblems of
the States from their places in the stained glass
roof. And does the chairman of this committee
mean to tell me-" he Numbered, that the Repre-
sentatives of the American people express their
views upon legislation only upon the suferance of
an atom like that?"
The eloquent Iowan, Modified by five more min
utes, turned his invectives back to free WOOL
but the atom, writhing beneath this singing that,
only upon the solemn asseveratons of the statesman
never again to call upon the prompter the attention
of the House.
Free Wool in His Power
TT is awful to contemplate Mr.. Hepburn's indigna-
ton if he had known that in the atoms hands
rested the free wool rate itself. When the House is
in committee roll calls not permitted, the high
est form of voting being that by ellers The Demo
Gratis had majority Of twenty in this Congress, but
upon free wool no man knew if they had majority
at all. Amid intense anxiety Mr.. Mills and tom"
Reed not yet Speaker Reed, took their places in
the center aisle. In support OF Reeds motion to
cut out free WOOL the entire Republican side poured
between the tellers, and to the dismay of the bills
supporters, more than ten Democrats joined the
throng. Mr.. Reed reported the number to the
chairman; but the chairman, busy with keeping
excited House in order left it to to preserve the
record. Then the Democratic ais1es became blocked
with members crowding down toward the bar, and
greeting with uproarious enthusiasm few Repub-
icans, among them the present Senator Nelson of
Minnesota, who broke their party lines. also re-
corded Mr. Mills's report. All this was easy.
But now hundred members, busy elsewhere
about the Capitol, rushing upon the floor, and