Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1913-08-08

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fortune to give that legislature one
more day of life, but it was sweep
ing on its midnight death. Somehow,
whenever I think of the legislature,
think of that legislature, and when
ever my mind conceives the state
house it isn't pictured to me as stand
ing there on the hill, stately in the
sunshine, but as it appeared that night
as walked over from the Leland,
with the clouds flying low over it's
dome. The lower floors were dark
and still as sepulchres, and the mes
senger boys who came over from the
Western Union, now and then, remind
ed me of ghosts as they went by, their
heels dragging on the marble floors
of the corridor. A light was burning
in the governors Office, though the old
man himself, knew, was over at the
mansion, pacing the floor of the IL
brary 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
electric lights, and the big dome was
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its coat on-you know how they
mimic decorum over there-but the
house was in it's shirtsleeves, huddled
like pack of wolves around the
speakers dais, with faces ripe with
whisky, shaking its fists under the
umbrella of cigar smoke. Every fell
low was trying to get his bill passed
in the last hour of the session-you
know what it is. Hank?"
"Oah, yes,' replied Jennings, "but
faint nothin' to what t used to be
under the oil constitution. We'd stack
a pile O. them ERE private acts up on
the clerks desk, an pass 'em 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"
81 reckon! A Teller could "a done
business in them days! or John M
better left the OF constitution alone
it 'as good enough. But there as
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 hurting books
| with rafting leaves. Sometimes an
| iron weight sheathed in paper whizzed
by on vindictive mission, and one
man made an Egyptian nigger-killer
| with rubber bands Some even hurled
their copies of the revised statutes
it was the first use they had ever
found for them. Once in a while
some one would toss batch OF print
ed bills to the ceiling, where they set
the glass prisms of the chandeliers
jingling, 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 at a lynchin' bee," assisted
Jennings.
Exactly" assented Baldwin, who
had never seen a lynching. There
were drunken bowls and vacuous
laughs, and yet 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 a wood-chopper's in WIN
ter, rapidly intoning senate bills on
third reading. The pages were grow
ing needless and impertinent. me
newspaper correspondents, their dis
patches on the wires, pulled their Gig
arettes in professional unconcern, and
awaited happenings worthy of late bull
| letins, The older members, who had
been through the mill many times be-
fore, lounged low in their seats. one
could see, above their desks, only
their heads and heels. The speaker,
old 'Zeke himself, was in the chair,
suave as ever, but growing caustlc.
He had splintered his sounding-board
| early in the evening, and had taken
to tapping perfunctorily his walnut
desk with his little inadequate gavei.
And yet he and the older members
and the newspaper men would, cast
occasionally an anxious glance at the
clock. and an expectant one at the
big doors.
GAS I sat there on the DID,. red
lounge under the speakers fiag-draped
canopy, 1 noticed Henderson OF
Greene, standing away back under the
galleries on the Democratic side, eylng
the proceedings with the same mys-
terious stare that had never lett MIN
since he had been sworn In. AS nave
said I had never spoken to the fel-
low. but l had always felt pity for
bim-he impressed me as 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 hurriediy,
| anxiously along in her Tapping skirts
beside her tall and somber husband.
She had never been away from nome
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