The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1913-08-09

pointed"
The two politicians chuckled.
AS for me-" continued Baldwin. 81
I never spoke to him. and never knew
any one who did. The speaker him
self only addressed him-and then as
the gentleman from Greene-when
they were verifying roll-cals. No one
ever knew where he boarded. The
herd book gave him a paragraph, say
ing that he had been born in Indiana
along In 81. and moved to this state
sometime in the fifties. Left an or
pnan early, with no education. he had
been day laborer all his life, work
Ing at anything he could get, mostly
on farms. He never had held office
before. and none knew how he broke
into the legislature-the tidal wave,
suppose. Every one knew he never
would come back again.
We'll, We got down to the last
night of the session. The hands Of
the clock had been turned back in
that vain old attempt to stay the re-
morseless hours, but its pale and i'm
passive face was impotent as a grave
stone to stay dissolution and oblivion.
| know men who would have spent a
fortune to give that legislature one
more day of life, but it was sweep
ing on its midnight death. Somehow,
whenever | 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 1t appeared that night
as | walked over from the Leland.
with the clouds flying low over its
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
full of noisy echoes. The senate kept
its coat on-you know how they
mimic decorum over theye-but the
house was in its shirtsleeves. huddled
like a pack of wolves around the
speakers dais, with faces ripe with
whisky, shaking It's 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 1t 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 EN- all t
oncet 18th a whoop. Them as the
days-but that as fore your time"
Those m, It have been good old
days" assented the lobbyist. for the
gang"
Il reckon, A Teller could "a done
business in them days! OF John Md
better left the OIL constitution alone
1t 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 hurting books
with rafting leaves. Sometimes an
iron weight sheathed in paper whizzed
by on a vindictive mission, and one
man made an Egyptian nigger-killer
with rubber bands. Some even hurled
their copies of the revised statutes
IL was the first use they had ever
found for them. Once in 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
II 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 informing senate bills on
third reading. The pages were grow
ing needless and impertinent. The
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 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 members /
and the newspaper men would cast
occasionally an anxious glance at the
clock. and an expectant one at the
big doors.
"As ! sat there on the old. red
lounge under the speakers fag-draped
canopy. noticed Henderson Of