Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1879 — Cautious Congressmen. [ARTICLE]

Cautious Congressmen.

Since the Cameron scandal the Senators and Representatives at Washington are exceedingly careful how they talk with strange women. Old Zach Chandler and Gen. Butler are constantly on the watch. The former will never allow a woman to whisper to him, and women applicants for office always want to whisper. He will say: “Speak out, speak out, madam, so my secretary can hear. We have no secrets here.” A correspondent writes: I was at Senator Chandler’s house the other day, and the servant brought a card to him. “What does this lady want?” he asked of the servant. “See what she wants.” The servant returned with the common message: “She wants to see you personally, sir. She says it is very important.” “Does she want an appointment?” The servant went to inquire, and soon returned with an affirmative answer adding that the lady said she had just lost her position. “Tell her to meet me in the Senate reception room to-morrow, at 1 o’clock,” said the Senator, “and say that she need not call here again, as I do not receive lady visitors,” and, turning to me, he added: “I won’t talk to a woman except in the presence of half a dozen witnesses. It’s getting to be a dangerous business.” Senator Jones is equally careful, as he has frequently been made the target of blackmailers. He says to the servant when a woman applicant for office calls to solicit his influence: “Tell her to wait till half a dozen more come, and I’ll see them all together.”