The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-11-25

81, 1908.
A whole congress will have interviewed between
that announcement and the realization of the
prospective speakers ambition. There was unaer
consideration on the floor of the house a resoiu-
ton relative to the re-assignment or once room
in connection with the opening OF the new se'.
eral- million dollar house Office building ana II
was OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES remove the ways
and means committee from the very aesrapie
and commodious quarters it had occupied Ior
years in the house wing of the capitol In oraef
to give the speaker an enlarged and imposing
suite.
Champ Clark was defending the committee
against the territorial encroachinent OF czaI .
dom and In one of the drollest OF colloqufa
speeches made In congress in recent years ne
said.
Mr. Speaker, / do not have any idea that
the republic will cease to exist. no matter now
this question Is determined Still 1t is a matter
Of good deal OF interest to the members OF
the ways and means committee and II Is mat
ter of some Importance to the other members
of the house. My friend from Illinois tMr
MANN offers me a very tempting bait-tnat
after the fourth of next March In my capacity
as speaker / Will occupy these rooms now occu-
pied by the ways and means committee CAP
plause and laughter)
Il used have constituent named Nat {.
Dryden. very brilliant man, who was very roma
Of giving out this dctum, A bird In the haha
is the noblest work of God I,aughterD /
am the ranking Democratic member on the com
mttee of ways and means. and no matter now
the cat jumps at the next election suppose, as
a matter of ordinary courtesy, | would retain
that place If the house were Republican II
Democratic why 'Barkis is win' in the mat
ter Of the speakership. tApplause.)
THE situation about the speakership is TINS
There are 391 members in this house. one
OF them is speaker, and not single one OF the
other 39o would decline 1t If offered to him on
, silver platter. Now. the speaker has small
room. In the present exigency In which the
presiding officer of this house hnds himself he
ought to have two daughter and applause
There three sorts of people who wait on the
speaker---one set on business, another set on
business and another set Just to see the peaker
and shake his hand That room Is not as COM
/ m odious a II ought to be for the speaker.
freely admit that. Certainly he ought to have
two--perhaps three.
nection with the speakership. The first time
that my wife and ever attended a White House
dinner she was assigned to the Peruvian minis.
ter to take her out to dinner. She could not
talk any Peruvian Gaughter) and he could not
talk much English. and though she is fine
talker, the conversation Jagged somewhat
But sitting on her right Mr.. Secretary
of State John sherman. She had never been
introduced to the secretary but she recognized
him by his pictures. She had frequently told
me privately that she intended. II she ever got
! close enough to him, to ask him about the
Crime Of '73.' (Iaughter.)
They scraped up acquaintance, and Secre-
tary Sherman explained to her how the presi-
dent and his wife We're hedeviled with all sorts
of people, and how insanitary the conditions OF
the house were, and that 1t wore the president
and his wife to fragile and endangered their
lives After drawing as gloomy picture as he
could, he asked her Madam. would you he
willing to see your husband live In this house
four years with all that trouble and danger and
under those conditions? With that good sense
which she exhibited when she picked her hus-
band, she said, Yes ] think ! would! fGreat
laughterD She said she was willing to take
the chances of insantary conditions and nervous
proatraton 10 her husband In the White
House for four years.
Well / would like to the speaker have
two rooms I would be perfectly willing to ac~
cept the speakership with one or even without
one" Observation-Disclosures Record Herald.
Efforts to Estimate Tolstci's Rank.
! The first sensation awakened by the an
nouncement of the death of Count Leo Tolsto
is feeling that the world has lost great
| intellectual personality who has been living
force SO long that 1t will be difficult to think
Of him as numbered with the dead. Then will
follow countless attempts to distinguish be-
| tween his literary and philosophical phases
and in the light OF both to assign to him his
proper rank among the worlds great men
These efforts will be to large extent as fruit
less as they are frequent. for however closely
he has conformed his HE to the simple regi-
men and the non-resistance he taught there
yet remains much that is contradictory In his
very teachings. and these cannot fall to be
productive OF endless debate.
Personally he was man who had passed
through varied experiences such colored his
whole life. His three years in the Crimean
War gave him horror Of bloodshed and mill
tarism. and suggested one Of tho five articles
of the creed which he extracted for himself
from tho Sermon the Mount: "Never break
the peace in the name OF patriotism" His
rank entitled him to high position In the
society Of st. Petersburg, and he enjoyed 1t
long enough to be convinced Of Its hollow
mockery Living close to nature. brooding al
most morbdy over social conditions his heart
went out to the peasants he glorifed and to
whose manner OF life he assimilated his own.
Philosophically. and In the broadcast sense.
he stood for the brotherhood OF man and for
the humanites OF the Christian creed. teach
ing non-resistance and yet boldly fronting the
arbitrary power OF government whose con.
tinued expressions undoubtedly darkened his
last days The rugged holiness Of his social
advocacy has not been without Its effect, and
II has been doubted whether the first Hague
conference would have been called but
for the insstence OF the man who wrote war
and Peace"
As literary artist there can be but little
doubt that he ranks with Dostoevski all the
lesser lights of Russia trailing far behind. His
realism, his psychological analysis. his descrip-
tive power. have won for him high place in
the world literature He himself has told US
that his novels written before 1880. which in
clude Anna Karanna," evil in their ten
denotes and negligible as literature, and since
that time the only novel he has given US Is
Resurrection" depicting the rebrth of ideal
ism ard Christianity in the heart OF a typicaI
Russian aristocrat The popular estimate will
not accept his own verdict His tangled philo-
sophy will exert influence for years to come
and yet when all Is said. perhaps 1t is as the
author OF Anna Karanina" that he will be re-