Evening star., 1933-01-22

that both contestants "be required to
pledge themselves to keep the peace
during the session.. ..-.s-.-.- ..
Speaker Dayton, happy enough to see
an end of the incident which had cast
emphasis upon his little habit of relaxa-
tion, listened to the pledgings of the two
members and officially declared the cpl
sode to be closed matter.
INANIMATE objects-desks in the House
chamber-were the despair of Speak
erS who sought order during many
decades and into the turn of our CEN
tury. Each member had a desk in the
old chamber, now Statuary Hall, and in
the present meeting place of the House,
with the result that general inatten-
ton to proceedings was produced and
an obbligato of disturbance ran through
countless sessions
Scuh1ing and rafting of papers at the
desks often absorbed the sound of the
Speakers utterances and just as Ger
tainly kept members statements from
being heard at the top of the rostrum.
This was particularly true when men,
bers of the House served as their own
secretaries. In that era Congressman
used their desks in the chamber for
writing letters and dispatching franked
documents to their constituents
IchabOd Bartlett, a New Hampshire
Representative, decried the desks in
1929, saying they were "a cause of con-
FUSION" and sought to have them re-
moved, but without success. In 1912 and
1847, unusual approaches to bedlam in
the chamber produced similar efforts
which also were, fruitlesS.
Thirty years after Mr.. Bartlett's pio-
neering assault upon the desks, the House
abolished the noise pieces
of furniture. The relief of James N. Orr,
then Speaker, when this move enabled
him to hear and to be heard is a matter
e of record.
Comparative quiet prevailed during
only a few weeks, however, for a report
by select committee favoring return
of the desks was adopted on February
81, 1860. AS close to the present as 1901,
attempts to dislodge them were unsuc-
cessful, but now they are gone, having
taken with them distinct handicap to
the speakerShip.
When a member of the House becomes
Speaker, he bargains to keep debates
within the bounds of those multitudinous
and complicated things called parlia-
mentary rules. The task often leads
him into involved dissertations and
breath-taxing citations of precedentS.
Sometimes, though, the job of returning
affairs to their proper positions after
they have wandered off the reservation
is surprisingly easy.
One simple preservation of order" is
noteworthy because two of the three
persons involved were men whose ten
ures in the speakerShip stand supreme
in point of color and excitement.
~ INCLE JOE'' CANNON, debating on
the afternoon of January 18, 1899,
well before he became presiding officer,
made an error which brought down upon
him the heavily official hand of Speaker
Thomas B. Reed. Sending his expression
of opinion into head-on collision with
ideas set forth by William p. Hepburn
of Iowa, Mr. Cannon addressed his ad-
versary in debate, according to the Off
cial record, "by the personal pronoun
you instead of referring to him as the
gentleman from Iowa."
That violation of the decree under
which each member of Congress is
gentleman from one State or another,
and not simply "you," subjected Mr..
Cannon to the Speakers galvanic issu-
ance of "call to order"
Speaker Reed produced a compilation