Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-10-06
Capital SideIights
By Will p. Kennedy.

School children all over this country
are soon to have a handbook on their
Federal Government, prepared by Rep
resentative Wright Patman of Texas,
which Congress is expected to have
printed as a public document for dis
tribution by all members. This book is
to be printed in catechism form-ques-
tons and answers. 1t is a result of Mr.
Fatmans efforts in answering many
questions he received in his mail from
I35 Of them in the Congressional Record
to get them in handy form for distribu-
tion-ard many Of his colleagues have
had several hundred thousand copies
printed He answers such questions as
What is gerrymanderlng?' What
caused the formation of political par
ties?- rs legislation much influenced
by oratory?" Does the President ever
wear a uniform" Can President ad-
journ Congress-" How many times has
Congress declared ware"
There are many human interest stories
in this catechism on Congress and the
Federal Government. 1t is recorded that
the last saloon bar was taken out of the
Capitol in 1908; that no President has
thus far resigned and John c. Calhoun
was the only Vice President TO resign:
that Taft was the first President to have
an automobile and Harding was the first
President to drive car himself: that 10
men who have been Presidents owned
slaves: that Grover Cleveland as sheriff
in 1872 hanged two men.
This document records that the larg-
est number of bills introduced in one
Congress was 33015 in the SiXty-hrst,
of which 80 became laws. and the larg-
est number of laws during any Congress
was 6,940 in the Fifty-ninth. when Is 897
bills were introduced. President Cleve-
land vetoed more measures (47D than
any other President up to President
Roosevelt t473). Wilson vetoed 33,
Harding 5, Coolidge 20, Hoover 20. Roose-
welt has had 7 bills passed over his veto.
Wilson 3, Coolidge 4 and Hoover 3.
President Jackson is subject of many
human interest paragraphs. During the
war of 1912 Jackson's mother brought
six British prisoners under flag of truce
to the fort in Charleston, S. c., to eX-
change for six American priSonerS-three
of them her own sons. They all had
smallpox; the two elder died but she
nursed Andrew back to health. He was
then Is. She herself died of smallpox
soon after. Our form of government
enabled Jackson, the son of poor i'm
migrant, to carve a career for himself
in the backwoods of the Alleghenies, lead
an army of Kentucky and Tennessee
crack-Shot rilemen at New Orleans to
defeat the best British regiments on earth
in 1914 and then go to the United States
Senate wearing his coonskin cap over his
pigtail braided hair, and later be elected
twice to the White House as the 'peo-
pies President" When he was inaugu-
rated the plain people came to Washing
ton by the thousands. The men rode
their horses down Pennsylvania avenue
to the White House with jackson on
horseback leading the way. They had
hickory stirrups on their saddles, hickory
bark brides on their horses and carried
large hickory clubs. The women wore
hickory nut necklaces and hickory nut
shells for earrings. The eating places
served hickory nut cakes. He acquired
the nickname "Old Hickory" because of
his indefatigableness on the march-his
soldiers describing him as tough as hick-
Dry" He set up Kitchen Cabinet, so
named because of his informally. Theo-
dore Roosevelt IS years later had his Ten
mis- Cabinet, while Franklin D. Roosevelt's
advisers came to be known as 1.-The Brain
Trust
Many visitors to Washington wonder
why the Capitol and the White House
are mile apart. George Washington
arranged this. He knew the King Of
England was always trying to control
Parliament. He wanted to make it diff
cult for the President to do that, so he
located the Capitol and the White House
on two elevations with . swamp be-
tween them.