THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3559, 13 May 1901, Page 4

THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.

An American who wants to listen to a Congresioj.a. i.ebar.e i.cver has to bother about tickets or passes or credentials; ci' any sort; nor hss he tu run the gauntlet of a series of slightly-suspicious oiiicials.' Tne first thing one notices about the Ca-' pitol at Washington is that the note'of unmitigated modernity is struck on its very threshold. Anyone can enter who CiLres to do so without reference to age, ■colour or sex, previous condition, of servitude or present condition of clothing. Millionaire or tramp, black or white, the Capitol ist yours to roam in at your will, and if you can find a vacant seat in the generous public galleries from which'to listen to the speeches you are welcome to it. No one is oh guard at the doors to inquire after your business or to to challenge your right of admission. You just walk straight in and sit down. At first it somewhat startles one's English notions to see some ragged shuffle of a man, whom no second-rate hotel would have suffered to enter its lobby, lounging about in the precincts of the National Legislature.. . But after a while one begins to feel that his presence is more, than compensated Iter by the system that makes it possible. This easy-goingness and disregard of form are the characteristic of things inside as well as outside the American Legislature. Ceremonial as such is at a discount all over the States, and Congress being quite the most American thing in America, it is not paid over-much attention to there. The rules and procedure of the House of Representatives have befen largely) borrowed from our own Assembly, but they are not observed with anything like the punctilious stringency that obtains at Westminster. One notices, for instance, perpetual violations of the law that forbids a man to pass between the Speaker and the member addressing the House. Some people think the House of Commons over-scrupulous to a degree in its insistence on the small points of decorum. They would hardly think so after visiting the Congress. It is only by ceaseless attention to such minutiae that j the intricacies of daily strife in a contentious and excitable body can be kept on a. high plane. Each member has a revolving armchair with a spacious desk in front of it, where he can write letters and busy himself among his papers in a way that must be horribly disconcerting to an opponent in debate. On the opening day of a new Congress, these desks and armchairs are overloaded with bouquets of "American •eauties" and other flowers sent by admiring constituents. Behind tha last row of chairs and desks runs a railing hung with drapery, arid between the railing and the wall is a passage way opening on to smoking-rooms. Nothing could have made a visitor feel more thoroughly at Lome than the sight of honourable members lolling in their I chairs and smoking cigars. As they took care to leave the doors oi' the smokingroom open, thai) co word of the speeches might be lost, a very odour of tobacco was propagated throughout the House. The strain on tha nerves of the Speaker, who was a veteran smoker, was, as he himself put it, "most unparliamentary." But iior sheer domesticity, the palm mustbe given to the phalanx of small boys, the sons of Congressmen, who sit on their father's knees during the debates. The coloured member, I was enraptured to see, brought his little piccaninny - along. Why not? Some of these infants, tiring of the paternal lap, would climb into the nearest chair, and there experiment with its rotary mechanism; and the Congress--5 man to whom the chair belonged, so far from making any effort to expel the intruder, would* smile a lank smile and walk off for a cigar. One urchin camje up to the Bar of the House with his father to be sworn in, held its his little fist, and took the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. And the only comment I heard from the galleries was an admiring > "Well, isn't that just the 'cutest and cunningest thing you ever saw?" For my own part, I could safely answer that it was. . In the American House oi Representatives, as in some of our colonial Legislatures great use is made of pages. At Westminster, no one but members, the clerks at the table, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and Black Rod, is allowed to cross the Bar. Messages and telegrams are handed to the nearest member, and passed along the benches until they reach their proper destination. But where, as in Congress, you are allowed to use the House as a writing room, a corps of messenger boys becomes an obvious corollary. A member who wants a letter posted, or a book fetched from the library, or a message taken to a friend: in the Senate, claps his hands as a signal, and two or three pages dart along the gangways to his seat, in eager emulation to run his errands. When their services are not reauired, the-c ]oll about by the table, or play serreptitious games beneath its shadow, with a watchful eye on the Sergeant-at-Arms. Like the spectators in the galleries, they do not disdain to join occasionally in the applause. What with the immensity of the House, the buzz in the galleries, the calling for the pages,the crumpling of newspapers', the banging of desk-lids, and the thump, thump of the Speaker's gavel, it needs a man with a powerful voice to make himself heard. As a matter oS fact, complete silence is so far from being had that members who particularly wish to hear what is being said leave their seats and gather round the orator, just behind the official stenographers, who take down his speech standing. This does not often happen, as the debates are as a rule singularly devoid of actuality, and rouse little interest in or out of Congress; all the real work of legislation being done in the committee rooms, and there being no Cabinet Ministers present in the House to badger and bombard with questions. If the Hous* of Commons is beyond all rivalry the best-dressed assembly in the world, the House of Representatives is with equal emphasis the worst. The usual Congressional costume is, as I have described it—a long aud very loose frockcoat, a low-cut waistcoat, a turned-down collar, a wh'ite how. and a Derby or felt ' hat. No man can look imposing in such a dress; and, indeed, at first glance you might easily take Congress !or a gathering •if dissenting ministers. The average Congressman only too faithfully reflects '-e American man's carelessness of exteri;.ils. Their indiffereii-e to meie appearance shows itself, 1"0. in n'kei nays. In all the cable cars aaJ e'evaied trains in New York there are printed notices stating very definitely for what purposes the floors of these vehicles may not be used. Something of the same kind is badly needed to protect the carpets of the House of Representatives. A member of the House of Commons, lounging on the benches with his hat on, three-quarters asleep, is not i wholly edifying sight; but he is a considerable improvement on a Congressman, who chews an unlighted cigar—l counted at one time no less than thirteen enjoying this luxury,—and relieves himself by profuse spitting.—(Sydney Brooks, in the "Daily Chronicle.")