The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-07

The other day about Il o'clock a. m. | walked into the House of Representa- | tives and took the seat of some congress-
 man or other, and it was about a minute | ere I discovered the body was in session. | The regular hour of meeting is at noon, | but on that day the House convened at | 10 a. m. As soon as I discovered the fact that our solons were in seance of course I fled and as I went out the corridor into Statuary Hall. on to the great rotun- da, and thence to the main west exit that leads to Pennsylvania avenue, l re- hected about changes and things.
 No interloper could get on the floor
 when the House was in session when l
 first came here more than 30 years ago.
 When Blaine was speaker, he could give strangers admission to the floor. or grant
 indulgence to member to do so; but in- | terested lobbyists abused the leniency. and they made a hard and fast rule that not even the speaker could admit to the fioor when the House was in session,
 one not entitled to the privilege under the
 rules.
 Under that rule that maintained when
 Kerr, Randall, Keller, Carlisle. Reed,
 Crisp and Henderson in turn held the office of speaker the clearing of the floor was a process more or less elab-
 orate Precisely as the clock indicated
 quarter of an hour before the time
 for the gavel of the speaker to call the
 House to order, Captain White from the
 clerks desk made this oration:
 "Lades and gentlemen, l am admonish- ed by the clock that the time has ar rived to clear the floor and directed by
 the doorkeeper to request all persons not
 entitled to the privileges of the same to
 kindly retire.
 Captain White was an assistant door keeper on the soldiers roll He had a
 clear, commanding, tuneful tenor voice, beautiful and captivating, that would have been the making of your orator. You
 were bound to respect him, for he had lost an arm in gallant charge of a
 great pitched battle of the war of 1S6l- 65. He had been where valiant men are found and there was something of ue pathetic in his rather frail. slender per son and his pale and handsome face. JOnnSee InO1lpsOH, tue sSl6eoht- at-arms who spent 20 of the best years
 of his life trying to make Allen G. Thur
 man President, Brought Captain White to Washington. and he died few years ago still on the soldiers roll of the House. After the death of White, Bert Ken nedy made the oration clearing the floor" but when Uncle Cannon came in, the rules fell into innocuous desuetude, and the practice was suspended. There never was a more democratic man in his habits and less democratic in his pol itics than Uncle Cannon. I do believe one of the vulgar herd could sneak in any day of the session and sit the thing out. l will not soon forget what an un- pardonable innovation it seemed when Sam Randall, speaker of the Forty-sixth Congress, brushed the rules aside and allowed Charles Stuart Parnel, the Irish agitator, to mingle with the members on the floor when the House was in ses- sion. Later MT. Carlisle suspended the rules and Charles A. Dana, the great editor of the New York Sun, spent an hour on the floor, but until Uncle Can non came in the hall of the House was holy ground-though not so holy as the