Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1902 — WASHINGTON GOSSIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WASHINGTON GOSSIP

" The magnificent decorations in the new committee rooms just completed in the portion of the capitol formerly used for housing the congressional library caused a number of members of the Honse noted for abstemious and economical living to comment upon the extravagance manifested. A gold mirror on its marble canned base was under consideration. Upon inquiry it was found there were four of these in the different new committee rooms. They cost S9OO each. The furniture, which is of solid mahogany, was made from special designs and for the special rooms, in which the color schemes were all worked out before a single purchase was made. Where the chairman of the respective committees were known they were consulted as to these decorations. Otherwise, the architect of the capitol used his discretion and individual taste. But the extravagances in the new committed rooms do not exceed those of former years and former administrations. There is the .solid gold Ink well in the office of the Vice-President,, now the office of the President pro tempore of the Sennte. It cost the government SI,OOO. Then there is thht ordinary looking dock in the marble room of the Senate. It came originally from Switzerland, and when the government paid the bill the receipt was for $6,000. These were expenditures for the living, but there is the dead as well, for one of the most expensive of the small purchases of Uncle Sam is the tip on top of the Washington monument, raised to the memory of the first President. It weighs twenty-six pounds. It is of platinum, more precious and expensive than solid gold. The “morning hour” is one of the queer things of the United States Senate. In the first place the “morning hour” Is two hours long, though it may be completed in ten or fifteen minutes. In the second place it never occurs in the morning, hut ’ begins at 12 o’clock noon, except on the ( rare occasions when the Senate meets It i 10 or. 11 o’dock. Senator Hoar of Mas- ! is responsible for the elongation of the morning hour so as to make it cover 120 minutes. Prior to fourteen years ago the “morning hour,” while existing in the afternoon, was but an hour in length, but a resolution submitted by Mr. Hoar was adopted Aug. 10, 1888, and that provided that the “morning hour” should be two hours in length or j that it should end at 2 o’clock. This res- ! olution provided “that after to-day, un- , leas otherwise ordered, the morning hour 1 shall terminate at the expiration of two hours after the meeting of the Senate.” The morning hour is devoted to the presentation of petitions, the introduction of bills, reports'of "Committees,~etin7 and Ijsthe time when all sorts of little matter of that kind arc attended to. At 2 o’clock the presiding officer lays before the Senate the hill on the calendar, which is set aside as having precedence over other measures,'and that is generally the time for long speeches of all kinds unless unanimous consent is secured to consider pension bills for a specified time or unobjected hills on the calendar. Forty-six years ago there sat In the House of Representatives of the UnitedStates, and introduced measures for its consideration, a man who had no knowledge of the English language. He neither understood it nor spoke, it He waa,. moreover, an educated Spaniard, and was sjld to be a Catholic priest. This man of foreign tongue only had succeeded Richard H. Weighlman, who served during the previous Congress. He held his seat by virtue of the vote of his constituents, the favorable report of a committee of Congress upon a contest made against him, and the approval of that report by a vote of the House. Ho was the sole representative in the House of a portion “Of the United States but little less in area than twice that of New England. He went into bis seat, as hns been said, on a contest that ended favornhjy to him. He went out of it after an election on a contest that was decided against him. This is the congressional history of Senor Voso Manuel Gallegos, delegate from New Mexico in the Thirty-third Congress of the United States, as gathered from the Congressional Globe, the House journal, and the House reports of committees.

There Is to be an entirely new postages stamp outfit. The Postolfiee Department has given orders for the preparatidn of designs, which it is hoped may be something artistic. It is proposed that everything in connection with the aeries shall be new. New designs for borders will be drawn, new shades of color employed, and the new stamps may even he of different size and shape. The present series of postage Rtamps has been in continuous use for just twelve yenrs, which Is much longer than the life of the ordinary series. True, there have been the Columbian, Trans-Mississippi and PanAmerican aeries, but these were commemorative, and in use only during a limited period. In the rostoffice Department there ia a book that Is always kept under lock and key. It Is one of the most treasured articles in the department. This book contains a set of postage stamps of every country in the world. Those stumps come* from Berne, Switzerland. Seven hundred and fifty sets of each United States postage issue are also distributed from that point. The countries comprising the International Postal Union selected Switzerland as the central point from which to make exchanges. Each country, when a new issue of stamps is out, sends a certain number of sets to Berho. The officials at that point who have the work in hand then distribute the stamps to the different postofflee departments throughout the world. There Is little or no gambling now in tho eapltol, compared with Ihe condition* of-years ago. 'There used to be a time when certain committee rooms were the rendezvous for poker players, and the games wore generally without limit. Many Senators and Representatives do not object to a little game now, but they play In the evening and not at the eapltol.