The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-07
WILLIAMS FOXES
 FUNAT HE BATHS Costs Uncle Sam $6 to Bathe
 a Senator INVITES CRITICISM
Mississippi Senator Accomplishes Lit- tie By His Speech Except to Make the Dignified Sen
 ate Smile
By C. E. STEWART

l Washington, June 6-(Special )-Sena-
 tor John Sharp Williams during the
 course of debate on the legislative bill
 took the occasion to remind his fellow senators that the expensive and luxurious
 bathrooms in the Senate office building
 were useless extravagance, and not cal culated to inspire the public throughout
 the country with confidence in the sin cerity of the Senate when it sent out the cry of economy.
 1 He intimated that they were leaving | the bars down inviting attack from the muck rakers and demagogues, when they maintained these baths at big expense,
 and rented a barn to store valuable records and documents of the Senate, also at a
 big expense, when the baths could be
 taken out, and the space used for the records.
 "A populist down in my state. said the senator, "once had a calculation by which he proved that when the baths were here | in the old capitol it cost s12 to bathe a senator and SIS to shave a senator The graft is not worth while, outside of every other consideration; it is as foolish as a man going down into q pasture with a red | flag and Haunting it at a bull. There is no sense in it and what is the use? You l can go through the pasture just as well without the red flag. You have no need
 
 rain off you; it does not keep the sun off you; 1t does not do any good and it makes a bad impression on the bull. 1 There is no sense in this. Rome built i magnificent baths; the baths of Cara cala, the greatest fool among the en- perors was the greatest of them; but l they at least built them for the people.
 Tt strikes me as being worse than merely wrong. because it is so foolish. ] A blunder in politics is sometimes worse I than a crime. A very great man said that. and he was right. Another very great man said that more, empires had been toppled over by the freshness and bad manners of 1unkeys than by bad laws. There are little bits of things that | nag. Tourists come here and go round and the guides say here is where sena- tors bathe at public expense A caleu- ltaion has been made and they will say it l costs so much to bathe a senator, i Then more wondrous still it turns out that nothing can be stored in the Senate 1 office building because. senators complain | that documents and books are nsanitary and unhealthy. Why, MT. President. if books had been unhealthful and insani- tary this country would have ceased to enjoy the benefit of my constructive | statesmanship many and many a year ago. My house is full of them: nearly every students house is full of them. nearly every college professors house in this country is full of them. and that , class live longer than any other class of people. This is one reason why we can not make more useful this two and half million dollar investment for offices for 96 men"
 The senator accomplished, little by his address except to make the ponderous Senate smile. but he might have laid the foundation for some very embarrassing questions from the constituency of said senators when. the direct election law 's passed Far be it from me to Intimate that senator does not need bathing; he does, for after all he is but human, and I doubt not that some of them would be improved by a trip to the laundry. But it is not to be denied that at ss per bathing. even for a United States sena- tor, certainly comes high.
 Civil service examinations might well contain this problem if it costs the gov ernment s6 to bathe a senator what would it cost to bathe Vice President? What would it cost to bathe the President2 Note President Tafts size need not bel considered, simply take in to account the difference in the rank.