Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-08-26
ELECTRICAL ROLL CALL
FOR CONGRESS
[Continued From First Pare1

to avoid making a record for contin-
ual absence from roll calls.
AND that brings to the force the
biggest problem in the present-day
generations of the House. Gradually,
but very perceptibly, it is changing
from a deliberative body, where leg
lslation Is debated and formulated, to
an aggregation of clerks and agents.
VINO appoint committees to draft laws
and leaders to tell them how they shall
vote, and spend their own time attend
ing to multitude of details for va
rious individuals.
Formerly, the House was a great
deal smaller; there was no House of
nee building: the members had their
oH1ces scattered all over Washington.
They nearly all attended every session
of Congress.
Now the office building is right
across the street from the Capitol.
during the ordinary sessions of the
House, few of the leaders, and some
others will be found upon the floor,
earnestly arguing. A vote is desired
Electrical bells are rung that resound
through all the corridors of the House
office building. The congressmen
whose names begin with A, and C
leap to their feet and depart for the
nail or legislation. The KS and LIS
however, begin debating another let
ter; while the P's and Q's and KS
merely glance at their watches 1t
will be at least half an hour before
their names are reached on the sec
ond roll call. They go right on study
ing pension claims; dispatching gar
den seeds and year books of the de-
partment of agriculture; drafting lays
ito donate condemned cannon for the
city park in Podunk, or permitting
John Jones to build a bridge across
Frog Creek in Summersquash County,
missouri, or appropriating a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to erect a
postoffice at Watertank, Nevada.
The congressman have to do these
things in order to hold their jobs. The
great majority of them spend the great
majority of their time doing little
things for individuals and counties
and towns. They give a small fraction
OF their time to national affairs The
leaders who really give most of their
time to national legislation spend a
great deal more than the government
allows them for clerk hire; and they
are veterans of many sessions eXper-
fence, whose seats are very secure
There is one young congressman
who says that he never misses ses-
sion of the House. He explains that
he dictates all of his letters at home
every night. All morning he spends
in the departments prosecuting the
numerous CldllllS LOT WnlCn every con-
gresham is the unwilling advocate
This leaves him from noon. when the
House convenes until evening for at
tendance to the business of the ma
ton. He works about sixteen hours a
day. There are few others who can
do it, and still fewer who will So
Congress is literally becoming gath
ering of preoccupied agents, who line
up well enough on party votes, but by
force of circumstance, give the coun-.
try less and less OF the independent
thought upon national questions which
is the life of legislation.
The Broboff electrical voting ma
chine may work q considerable modi-
fication of this tendency by compell-
ing the congressman to be close at
hand If he is going to vote at ALL and
by saving a month or so of time for
him out of very session.
Two other changes have been sug-
gested as accompaniments of the cleo
trical device. One is the abolshment
nounce every vote, and disturb every
body on Capitol Hill. The other Is
the restoration of the desks, which
were replaced not long ago by long
benches much like those in a railway
waiting room. 1t is argued that if the
congressman has a place in the legis-
lative hall where he can work, he is
more apt to remain there. 1t is GER
tainly true thdt the benches now in use
offer the congressman little in the way
of either comfort or opportunity for
work.