Evening star., 1935-07-07

Building. The June IL issue for this
year contains 18 pages of charts which
Senator George w. Norris thought
ought to go with his speech which
had been delivered a week before.
Ten words Of permission from the
floor may often result in 10000 words
in the Record. One may fnd In this
paper, variously named the Bag of
the Winds" the well Of Words"
Pageant of Syllables" and the "An-
thology of Elegant Extracts" the
titles Of essays, short stories, poems,
recipes. true confessions, autobiog-
raphy and secrets of success. A few
culled from random volume suffice:
The Farmers Reward" "Propa-
ganda," The Making of a Repre-
sentative Whats the Matter With
Congress?" and Who Killed Cock
Robin?"
Sir William s. Craigie, University Of
Chicago photographer and co-editor
Of the oxford Dictionary, calls the
Record the Nations best text book
Of slang"-and means it. He points
out that members Of both houses are
very likely to use the best vernacular
Of their respective constituencies when
speaking from the floor. Thus, where
there is such excellent Capitalization
Of men from all sections of the coun-
try, the true colloquial language of the
Nation must be and Is found. He is
using the Record extensively In his
great American dictionary now being
compiled
The permanent Record goes TO press
about a month after the daily and
If member so desires, he may cor
rect mistakes for this bound volume
Once in a blue moon an Offending
speech is taken out altogether. A
member cannot entirely revise a
speech for the permanent Record.
however, without the unanimous con-
sent OF the Senate or House. Never
theless, 1t is not impossible to discover
that member has thought better of
some hasty remarks made in q floor
debate and toned them down for the
permanent editions.
Even in the face Of all this revision
and opportunity for correction some
notable blunders and bewildering pas
sages occasionally creep into the pages
of the Record. On July Is, 1892, for
example, the Record shows that
Senator J. Hamilton Lewis Of Illinois
delivered himself of the following deep
solemnity: Il invite you, sir, to the
consideration that in the last few
days the equanimity Of this assem-
blage in the concordance of their
audacity that We have been attempting
to do, through these and their retinue,
the harmony and the closure OF what
would have been closing session of
usefulness, and already with the pas
sage OF bills which are Of great value"
1t was noted at the time by a news
paper commentator that the Senator
had forgotten to act as his own cor
rector, or was intoxicated with the
exuberance of his own verbosity."
Former Senator Reed Smoot Of
Utah, once aroused over the question
of size and cost of the Record, had
compiled some startling figures. Be
tween September 4, 1929, and February
rs, 1880, he estimated one series of
debates alone on the tariff had covered
1888 pages Of the Record and con-
sumed no less than 4,219,o0O words.
This had cost Congress exactly $751;
900 Of the public monies.
Senator Huau TnnnsS
hour fllibuster on June 13, which
incidentally set a record for physical
endurance of the kind (the elder La
Follette,s famous 1908 effort of Is
hours and % minutes was aided by
IS quorum calls and records read
for him by clerks. swelled the Record
of that day to 135 pages. Its total
cost was close to $1,000. Huey's part
in the antitrust expounding festival
cost Just s4,780 and occupied "a pages
OF the paper.
EVEN though the speech was un-
usual, its varied contents give an
excellent example of the myriad Of
confections some times embalmed be-
tween the plain covers of the Record.
For the Senator, ranging wide over
the fields of history, education and
politics, managed also to touch rather
fully on such subjects as horses and
buggies, mules, his father, his mother,
his uncle-in fact, he really wrote
into the Record a rather complete
photographed melange - Russia,
Germany, Judah P. Benjamin, Fred
erick the Great, description Of the
Senate floor at 2:30 in the morning,
baptisms, Barbara Hutton and Vincent
AStor. He read into the Record large
portions Of a novel by Victor Hugo,
and the Bible. But when he had
gotten started on his recipes, the
Senator from Louisiana was at his
Southern best. Before the long session
was over he had given to posterity
from the floor Of the United States
Senate his ideas of how oysters, coffee
and chicken gizzards should be pre-
pared, had made his fellow members
moths water over the formula for q
roquefort cheese salad dressing, and
finally had chanted the charms OF
pot likker to the tune Of more than
sl00 worth Of space In the Congress
sional Record. - ..