Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1901 — HOW STATESMEN ACT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOW STATESMEN ACT.

THEIR CONDUCT HAS VASTLY IMPROVED OF LATE. There Is No More Pnblio Intoxication of Congressmen and Senators— Poker and Fights “Cut Out”—The Events of Daye Gone By. # Washington correspondence*.

THE conduct of our public men has changed greatly in recent years. Sedateness of an almost Puritanical sort characterizes gfc legislative life. Lobbying is pretty dead, so far as outward manifeststions are concerned. If any legislative schemes are put through, the are conducted with great secrecy. Scrupulous sobriety on the part of

the legislators and government officials is required by modern public opinion in Washington. There is thought to be not a single excessive drinker among all of the members of both of the present houses and among all of the higher government officials. Men still in middle life can remember when there were actual drunkards among men in high place in Washington. Less than fifteen years ago a member of the lower house was to be seen riding about the main streets in a carriage with his legs dangling out of the windows from which he had playfully kicked the glass, and bawling at the top »f his lungs. Less than ten years have passed since Washington witnessed the spectacle of a United States Senator rising to address the Senate while in a condition of such drunkenness that he had to hold on to his desk. His humiliated wife and daughter witnessed the scene from one of the galleries. A cultivated man by nature and training, this Senator talked on this occasion like • any ’longshoreman tipsy with mixed ale; and when he was on the point of falling down where he stood, he was virtually carried out of the chamber. He never addressed the Senate again, but died the death of a drunkard not long afterward. No More Carousals. Less than a quarter of a century ago the sight of a pair of legislators or government officials reeling arm-in-arm through the streets of Washington evoked only indulgent smiles on the* part of those who witnessed it. Such a pair exhibiting themselves now would stand nationally disgraced. Carousals no longer take place in the capitol. The last of these happened on the House side about ten years ago.- Huge bowls of steaming punch ornamented the tables of most of the committee rooms. The negro 6bmmittee room attendants kept replenishing the bowls all night, Congressmen swayed through the corridors .with flushed faces, their voices pitched high. Even those members who were abstemious by habit caught the infection and drank far more than was good for them. Along toward 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning the fun in the committee rooms became fast and furious. A party of singing black boys were impressed from the street and hired to sing in one of the committee rooms for the delectation of the hilarious members. From singing they got to engaging in buck and wing dancing, to the music of harmonicas, banjos and guitars, and a number of the legislators actually patted for them. The sounds of the hot time reached the House chamber, and most of the members flocked out to join in the carnival. When the first gray streaks of dawn began to make the gasilluminated glass roof look wanly yellow members by the dozen were snoring in their seats, and others were stretched out in unconventional attitudes, asleep on the sofas around the sides and back of the chamber.

Time was, and not so very long ago, when the “cold tea” joke was one of the pet waggish phrases among many of the Washington legislators. The lawmaker, while making a speech, would pause, pick up from his desk a small pitcher filled with whisky and water, and, with a smile, would remark, “I crave the indulgence of the Speaker and of the gentlemen of the while I address myself to this cold tea,” whereupon everybody would be expected to laugh while the waggish statesman took a few gulps of the whisky and water from the pitcher. It is safe to say that no Senator or Representative would do that nowadays for any amount of money.