People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1896 — The Congressional Bar-room. [ARTICLE]

The Congressional Bar-room.

In speaking of the bar-room located under the house of representatives for the use of members, Tom Watson says: “If that bar-room were driven out of the building the temptation to weak congressmen would not be so great. Facility leads to crime. The very fact that the tempting drink is so close by, so convenient, melts the resistance of many a member who would never walk back in to the city for a drink. The very fact that the bar is run as a part of the congressional restaurant,is screened from public view, is easy of access, and offers choice companionship as well as concealment, makes the pitfall the more peril ous. “Mr. Preacher—you who lecture your congregation so often on the sacred duties of going to church and paying your salary how much have you done to arouse public indignation against this national disgrace of the congressional bar-room? How many times have your brethren in Washington preached against it? How many times has the chaplain of the house, or the chaplain of the senate, prayed to the Most High God to blast with his divine wrath the abomination’s which those chaplains knew to exist within sixty feet of where they prayed? “He is dead. Appoint your funeral committee to escort the lifeless body back to his home; furnish tnis committee with plenty to eat and drink and to smoke on their doleful journey; appropriate from the common treasury the money to pay for the burial; endow the widow with the salary for the “unexpired term.” “Do all this, Solons of this Christian Republic!—and then go back and tell your congressional bar-room to kill another one.”

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