The Senate of the United States has been called the pleasantest club in the country, and perhaps it is. It is certainly a very pleasant club, and it is not unfair to say that very large entrance fees have been collected in certain State legislatures from gentlemen whose wealth constituted their only claim to be admitted to it. But, in view of the fact that the people of the United States pay the members of this delightful club reasonably generous salaries for belonging to it, it may be questioned whether it does not exceed its privileges in keeping up its indulgence in what are known as “Executive Sessions.” There was a time in the dim and distant past when Executive Sessions were rarely secret, and had some excuse in reason and common-sense. But it is many years now since there has been an Executive Session that was not promptly and fully reported in every paper that would give space to its generally unimportant doings. It is, no doubt, a pleasant thing for a Senator to have the doors of the Senate-Chamber closed, and to smoke his cigar in lazy comfort while the reading clerk monotonously and perfunctorily, but as unobtrusively as possible, drones through the thousand and one articles of the treaty to which the law-maker is supposed to be giving his statesman-like attention in spite of the fact that its acceptance or rejection has been decided upon in party caucus weeks or months before. But the people of the United States pay the Senator, and the people of the United States built the gallery in the Senate Chamber, and they really have a right to sit there at all times during his business hours. It is a right that they will sooner or later insist upon. We do not know, however, that there is any serious objection to letting the Senator smoke while they look at him.
PUCK’S SAMPLE SPEAKERS OF THE PARTY OF MORAL IDEAS.
PUCK, March 5th, 1890.
It is a curious fact, to which Puck has called attention more than once, that the important post of Speaker of the House of Representatives has been peculiarly unlucky for members of the Republican party. Between 1863 and 1890, when this cartoon appeared, four Republicans and three Democrats had occupied the chair. The three Democrats, Michael C. Kerr, Samuel J. Randall and John G. Carlisle, were all men of unblemished reputation, popular in their party and well liked and thoroughly respected on the other side of the House. They all performed their duties creditably, and retired with honor. But to the four Republicans it proved to be a position fraught with misfortune. The first, Schuyler Colfax, was forced into retirement by the discovery of his connection with the terrible Crédit Mobilier iniquity. The second Republican speaker was Mr. Blaine, and it was while he was in the chair that he became involved in the Little Rock and Fort Smith transaction, which, more than anything else, caused his defeat for the Presidency in 1884. The next Republican speaker was Mr. John W. Keifer—but it is really unfair and insulting to the Republican party to call Keifer a Republican. Of Keifer the best thing that can be said is that he was an accident and that he did not happen again. The fourth speaker of the Republican party was Mr. Thomas B. Reed, a gentleman of fine parts and high character, who was misled by his natural strength of will into adopting a policy of tyrannical unfairness toward his political opponents, which earned for him the nick-name of “Czar Reed,” and probably contributed largely to the revulsion of feeling which produced the famous “turn-over” of November, 1890.
