Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-12
The Districts Day.

Twice a month the District of Columbia
has the floor in the House of Representa-
tives-that is. the chairman of the COM
mittee charged with the consideration of
its affairs has the right to call up local
measures and fight for them with the ardor
of a dislnterested patriotism. Twice a
month the members from the east. west,
north and south have chance to forego
faction and party and to meet on the COM
mon ground of duty to the whole nation, as
represented by the federal capital. Twice
a month the House gives itself the privilege
of executing the trust imposed upon 1t by
the Constitution as the legislature for the
ten miles square chosen as the seat of gov
eminent.
Would that the press reports of Congress
proceedings sent out from Washington by
mall and by wire covered In detail all the
doings and sayings on these fortnightly
District days" Would that the rural con-
stituent could read the record of his MEM
ber's assiduous discharge of duty upon
these occasions. Then might there be
surcease of the wall that is heard from afar
that the recent increase of congressional
pay is unwarranted. No more would the
voter at Jenkins Corners or Kirbyville be
inclined to protest that the Congressman"
ceptions.
For not even the hardest-fisteG of the
farmer voters could with justice fail to
admit that the House of Representatives
on District day is an exemplar of the
strenuous life at it's top notch of high pres
sure. Talk? Why the official stenogra-
pliers faint at their tasks. Wireless reports
of the ructions reach the printing office and
seasoned veterans of the case and stick
grow pale with apprehension. With reason.
indeed. do these long-&uffering scribes and
compositors dread the alternate Mondays
that the House devotcs to District bust
ness. The tariff has terrors, and the
race question is mid topic. in compari-
son. For then rage. not the passions but
the intellectS of members. There is clash
after clash, not of numbers but of theories.
So exhausting is the debate. even to the
participants that they cannot as rule
long endure the strain. Only a very few,
seasoned veterans or intrepid youngsters
ignorant of their danger. are able to go
through an entire District day" unsca thed
The average member lasts nut few min
utes in that terrible heat of molten thought.
The result is a dwindling of he force,
though the steady falling of. disclosed
by successive votes by show of hands or
by tellers, does not deter the faithful, does
not quench the flames of their patriotic
zeal. does not check the stern devotion to
duty which has become institutional on
these alternate Mondays.
This fierce pace of talk has it's merits
from the point of view of lofty though
negative patriotism 1t enables the stern
faced guardian of the public veal who
thinks there too many laws already,
who doubts the value of reforms, to inter-
pose at the psychological moment the fate
full phrase that extinguishes all the fires of
debate and stops the whole machine-"no
quorum The country is thus saved. but
the process of saving it Is ruthlessly hard
on the stenOgraphers and the compositors,
not to mention the District Of Columbia.