The Washington herald., 1913-01-19

chicago leglslatiOn. But ne was U
silent man, who stood apart from his
fellows. looking with eyes that peered
from under his shaggy, sun burned
brows with an expression no one could
| fathom. He never made a speech. he
| never introduced a bill, he never ofrereo
| a resolution, he never even presented q
| petition, and when the speaker made
his committee assignments, he placed
4 the old man on the committees on
history geology and science, and on
civil service reform. and he did not
even look disappointed
The two politicians chuckled.
| 'As for me-" continued Baldwin. Il
never spoke to him. and never knew
| any one who did. The speaker himself
| only addressed him-and then as the
gentleman from Greene-when they were
/ verifying roll-calls. No one ever knew
where he boarded. The herd book gave
him a paragraph, saying that he had
| been born in Indiana along in 81, and
moved 20 this State some time in the
SOS. Left an orphan early, with no
| education, he had been a day laborer all
his life. working at anything he could
| get mostly on farms. He never had held
| Office before, and none knew how he
| broke into the legisIature-the tidal
wave, l suppose. Every one knew he
! never would come back again.
|
Of the session. The hands of the clock
had been turned back in that vain old
| attempt to stay the rernorseless hours,
| but its pale and impassive face was i'm
potent as a gravestone TO stay dissolution
and oblivion. ! know men who would
| have spent a fortune TO give that Leg
| islature one more day of life, but 1t was
sweeping on its midnight death. Some
| how, whenever I think of the Legisla-
afr-aG
the Statehouse it isn't pictured to me
as standing there on the hill, stately in
the sunshine, but as it appeared that
night as walked over from the Le-
land with the clouds flying low over its
dome The lower floors were dark and
still as sepulChres. and the messenger
boys who came over from the Western
Union. now and then, reminded me of
ghosts as they went by. their heels
dragging on the marble floors of the
corridor \ light was burning in the
Governors Office, though the old man
himself, l knew, was over at the man
sion. pacing the floor OF the library and
cursing with classic curses. We were
going to try that night to pass the Bailey
bill over his veto.
But the third floor blazed with cleo
trio lights. and the big dome was full
Of noisy echoes. The Senate kept its
corum over there-but the House was in
its shirtsleeves, huddled like a pack of
wolves around the Speakers dais, with
faces ripe with whisky. shaking its fists
under the umbrella of cigar smoke.
Every fellow was trying to get his bill
passed on the last hour Of the session
you know what it is. Hank"
'Oah, yes replied Jennings. but
tain't nothin to what I used to be under
the or constitution. We'd stack a pile
o them ere private acts up on the clerks
desk, an pass EN- all T. oncet 18th
whoop. Them as the days-but that as
fore your time"
Those must have been good old days"
assented the lobbyist. for the gang"
Il reckon, A Teller could "a done
business In them days. or John Md
better left the OIL constitution alone-it
as good enough. But there as a passion
fer change right after the war"
The lobbyist politely nodded concur
renee in this view and continued:
Some OF the members clambered on
TO their desks. filling the air with oaths,
ink bottles, and hurtling books with rat
tling leaves. Soemtimes an iron weight
sheathed in paper whizzed by on vim
dictive mission, and one man made an
Egyptian nigger-killer with rubber bands.
Some even hurled their copies OF the re-
vised statutes-it was the first use they
had ever found for them. Once in
while some one would toss a batch OF
printed bills to the ceiling, where they
set the glass prisms of the chandeliers
jingIing. and then fell like autumn leaves.
a shower of dead pledges and withered
hopes. And out Of all the hubbub rose a
steady roar"
Like a lynchin' bee" assisted Jen-
nings.
Exactly" assented Baldwin. who had
never seen 4 lynching. There were
drunken howls and vacuous laughs. and
Vet We could hear through it all the
hoarse voice of the clerk, his throat so
heated that you could see the vapor OF
his breath, as you can an orators. or
woOdchopper's in winter. rapidly inton-
ing Senate bills on third reading. The
pages were growing needless and imper-
tinent The newspaper correspondents.
their dispatches on the wires, pulled their
cigarettes in professional unconcern, and
awaited happenings worthy of, late bull
letins. The older members, who had
Deen through the mill many times before.
lounged low in their seats. One could
see, above their desks. only their heads
and heels. The Speaker. old 'Zeke him
self, was in the chair, suave as ever. but
growing caustic. He had splintered his
sounding board early in the evening and
had taken to tapping perfunctorily his
walnut desk with his little Inadequate
Gavel And yet he and the older MEM
bers and the newspaper men would cast
occasionally an anxious glance at the
clock, and an expectant one at the big
doors
''As I sat there on the old, red lounge
under the speakers fag-draped canopy
1 noticed Henderson of Greene, standing
away back under the galleries on the
Democratic side. eying the proceedings
with the same mysterious stare that had
never left him since he had been sworn
I'm. AS have said, I had never spoken
to the fellow, but 1 had always felt
pity for him-he impressed me as a man
who had been stunned by repeated raps
of bad luck. Along toward the end of
the session he had brought his wife
up from Greene County to the capital
She had that tired look that country
women have Her face was scanned
her cheeks hollow; her back was bent
in a bow. and she walked hurriedly
anxiously along in her Tapping skirt
beside her tall and somber husband
She had never been away from home
before, and the boys had many a laugh
over her wonder at the trolley-cars pur-
ring along under the maple trees, and
her fears OF the elevators in the state
house-though, for my part, / could see
nothing ludicrous in 1t all. She stayed
three or four days and they went every
where, out to Oak Ridge to see Lincoln's
tomb, over TO Eighth Street to visit his
old homestead, up to the Geological
Museum where the moth-eaten stuffed
animals are, and out to Camp Lincoln.
They took many trolley rides, and even
climbed to the top of the state house