Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1895 — THE LIVTH CONGRESS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE LIVTH CONGRESS

AUGUST BODIES ARE AGAIN IN SESSION. 1 Chiefly Notable at Present for the Lack of Familiar Faces —Flood of Bills and Resolutions Is Ready for the House. Assembling of the Bolons. Washington correspondence: The Fifty-fourth Congress began its first session at noon Monday, and the most striking feature to the old observer of the lower house was the absence of familiar faces. The appearance of the Senate was not greatly changed. Of the famous men in the House these are about all that are left: Reed, Boutelle, Dingley, and Milliken, of Maine; Dockery, Cobb, Tarsney, Hall and De Armond, of Missouri; “Private John” Allen, Catchings and Money, of

Mississippi; Crisp, of Georgia; Cannon, of Illinois; Cobb, of Alabama; Hifforn, of Calb fornia; and McCreary and Berry, of Kentucky. The face of Breckinridge i s missing, as is also many another familiar one Bland, of Missou-

ri; father of the cart wheel dollar; Holman, of Indiana, watchdog of the treasury for thirty years; Bourke Coekran, New York’s famous campaign orator; Bryan, of Nebraska, the “boy orator of the Platte;” Springer, of Illinois, and Kilgore, of Texas. Conn, of Indiana. 4s not in the Congressional parade; like that other ex-Congressman, Beriah Wilkins, of Ohio, he has prospered in the field of journalism at the capital. But the list is too long. It would fill a column to record all that have gone and all that still remain. To the stranger eye perhaps the gathering is much as it was two years ago. Here and there a face made familiar by the cartoonists appears, but for the most part the crowd on the famous avenue on the morning of the first Monday in December was made of curious visitors and the customary shopping mob of Washington men and women. There was more of life in the

A long time before the noon hoar the floor of the chamber had been cleared of strangers. The page* harried to and fro with an air of battling importance. They are prime factors in legislation, they think. Bat at least from this day they are the recipients of a daily stipend of $2, a#d that is a matter of much seriousness to them. Capt. Isaac Bassett, the chief among them, now past the semi-centenary of service and conscious of his importance as a one time protege of the great Webster, was in charge of the floor. Everything is fresh and clean and bright-look-ing. The furniture has been reupholstered, a new carpet has been laid. The Senate wears out a carpet in every Congress.

The Senators dropped in one at a time. There are not many in their places usually when the gavel falls, but on the opening day thero was a larger number than is customyy at other times. The galleries were fairly well filled when at one minute before 12 o’clock the eastern door leading to the lobby opened

and the Vice President and the chaplain appeared. Mr. Stevenson, who has been spending his s summer in Alaska and at his home in Bloomington,' an d whose ruddy complexion tells of im- ( proved health, and Dr. Milburn, the famous “blind chaplain,” who has been in the service of

Congress off and on since he was a youth and whose thousands of miles of travel have been increased during the Congressional recess by a trip to Europe. The gavel of the Vice President ij an ivory device, small qnd shaped something like an hour glass. It has been in the care of Capt. Bassett through the summer, concealed no one knows where, but hidden as completely as is the identity of Daniel Webster’s desk, which Bassett has stored in his mind. The Vice President took the little gavel and tapped lightly on the eloth-coverod desk. Conversation ceased and many of the Senators arose while the chaplain delivered a brief invocation. At its conclusion the chairs filled rapidly. There was no journal of the last day’s session to read, and the first business to transact was tho swearing in of newly elected Senators. Many had been sworn in at the last session in preparation for their inauguration. So this business was ac-

SENATOR ELKINS.

SENATOR GEAR OF IOWA,