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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
r "~ ATLAJTTA. GJL, 5 WORTH FOBSTTM ST. >
Entered at the Atlanta Poetoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class
JAMES *. GKAT,
President and Editor.
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SEMI WEEKLY JOURNAL. Atlants, Ga.
Carranza's Compliance.
Compared with his former robustious epistles,
Carranza's latest note is a cooing plea for peace.
No longer inpugning the good faith of the United
States or threatening attacks on General Persh
ing's force should it move otherwise than north
ward. he pledges the de facto government:
“To employ all efforts that may be at its
• disposal to avoid the recurrence of new inci
dents that may complicate and aggravate the
situation.'*
He admits, for the first lime, that the United States
has just cause for grievance in the insecurity of the
frontier. He refers to the immediate release of
the Carrizal prisoners as further proof of his sin
cere desire to reach an amicable settlement of
present difficulties. In short. Carranza comes down
from his high horse and speaks in the manner of a
man who realizes at last that he is dealing with
a power which is no less firm and resourceful
because it is patient and just.
His conversion to this sane and conciliatory
mood, belated though it is, attests the wisdom of
the President's policy. Whatever our ultimate
course toward Mexico must be. for the present, at
least, war has been averted. If our interests can
be protected and maintained without sacrifice of
treasure and blood, that is certainly the better
way: and Mr. Wilson intendc holding to that way
until it is closed irrevocably. If his policy is
judged by results, rather than in passion or parti
sanship. its success at this juncture is undeniable.
Carranza has yielded, as far as the tone and the
terms of his latest note give evidence: and he has
yielded as completely as Germany did on the sub
marine issue.
Several influences have brought him to this
compliance. Prominent amongst them, if not up
permost. were the Administration’s speedy meas
ures for mobilizing the National Guard. Thus con
vinced that the United States was not to be trifled
with, the de facto government of Mexico concluded
that the better part of valor was discretion. The
mobilization should continue, however, until it is
complete. That is the surest means of impressing
such authority as exists in Mexico with our unbend
ing purpose and our ability to protect the border,
and to go further still if the needs of the situation
demand it.
Aside from this aspect, the mustering of the
National Guard for frontier duty affords a valuable
test of our second line of defense. Weaknesses will
be disclosed, and can be remedied. Lessons of
priceless worth for the future will be learned. The
men themselves will be seasoned and hardened for
senice. The cause of preparedness will be set im
measurably forward. It is hardly to be doubted,
therefore, that the War Department will proceed
with its present program as though the Mexican
outlook were unchanged. t
Indeed, we have no assurance that Carranza s
pacific words will not be blotted out by some sud
den upheaval amongst his unruly people. The
Mexican problem is nothing if not treacherous. For
years it has been critical; we scarcely can hope
that it will be solved without further difficulties.
For the present, however, the Administration s pol
icy of dealing justly and patiently with a stricken
land, of seeking to help it rather than conquer it,
is vindicated. The President is coping with this
problem one step at a time, meeting emergencies as
they arise. Whatever the future may bring—and
it is far from assuring—the present is again in
equilibrium. A week ago war seemed inevitable
but. thanks to the Administration’s firmness and
vigor, combined with prudence, war has been
averted.
Ex-President Taft should sympathize with the
Moose, for he once had dealings with Roosevelt.
7 he World Demand for Livestock.
The fact that more than six thousand persons,
farmers and business men from a hundred miles
around, attended the live stock conference held at
Moultrie last week bears striking witness to Geor
gia’s interest in animal husbandry. No field of
production offers surer rewards. For the last six
years the prices of cattle, sheep and hogs have
moved steadily upward, and there is every indica
tion that they will continue to advance.
On April 15, last, according to the national De
partment of Agriculture, beef cattle as sold by
producers brought seventy cents per hundred
pounds more than on the same date of the preced
ing year; hogs brought seventy-three cents more;
and sheep, a dollar and one cent more. The aver
age gain in prices for these three classes of food
animals was nineteen per cent for the twelve
month and fourteen per cent for a six-year period.
Except for fluctuations now and then, the live
stock market continues firmly upward.
This is quite natural when one notes that for
decades past the production of food animals has
failed to keep pace with the growth of population.
Between 1899 and 1909 the numoer of cattle in
the United States fell from fifty million to forty
one million head; the number of sheep, from sixty
one million to fifty-two million; and the number
of hogs, from sixty-three million to fifty-eight mil
lion. Throughout this period, the country’s pop
ulation was increasing at the rate of more than a
million a year. More recently, live stock produc-
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1916
tion has increased, notably in the South; but a
long period of vigorous expansion in this industry
will be needful to bring the output of food animals
up to anything like the demand.
In Europe as well as in America the meat sup
p’y has been decreasing for many years, and it
will be lower than ever in the seasons following
the war. All the belligerent countries have drawn
heavily on their reserves of food animals —some
of them to the point of exhaustion. As to condi
tions in the Central Empires, a correspondent ob
serves :
“Germany and Austria-Hungary killed off
classes of live stock in the first year of the
war to save grain, potatoes and other vegeta
bles; they are now’ suffering more from a lack
of fats than from any other privation. Their
farms must be restocked and they cannot draw
on Russia when peace is restored. Germany
has drained Denmark and Holland of all the
hogs and cattle they can spare, and Denmark
no longer can supply her English customers
with bacon.’’
It seems, too. that France will have to start from
the foundation in rebuilding her live stock indus
tries, and she will demand pure-bred animals.
Russia will undertake a new and more efficient
system of agriculture, for which purpose she will
be in the market for high-grade live stock.
These conditions, together with the shortage
of food animals for years before the war, present
extraordinary opportunities to the live stock in
dustry. By preparing betimes, Georgia farmers
will assure themselves and the State a new and
abundant source of prosperity. The Moultrie con
ference has done a great deal for the encourage
ment of live stock interests in that section of
Georgia. Similar conferences should be held in
every part of the State. To the extent that the
production of food animals and foodsuffs generally
is increased, Georgia will grow’ prosperous and in
dependent. Til? is a field of enterprise to which
business leaders as well as farmers should lend
earnest support.
Just to make the thing complete, the Italians
score a few successes.
What Would They Have Done?
Republican partisans who seek to lay the blame
for the Mexican trouble on a Democratic President
forget or ignore the historic background and
sources of the present situation. From the day of its
independence in 1821 up to the establishment of
the Diaz dictatorship in 1877—a period of more
than fifty years—Mexico was embroiled in some
three hundred revolutions. The only regime under
which the country had anything like continuous
peace and order collapsed in 1911 and the welter
of lawlessness set in anew. Interestingly enough
the government of the United States was then in
Republican charge and remained in Republican
charge for two years w-hile conditions across the
border grew more and more disturbing.
Commenting on this record, the Springfield
(Mass.) Republican, an independent newspaper, re
marks that inasmuch as there was more than half
a century of Mexican turmoil and war before the
rise of Diaz, it is not at all surprising that there
have been five years of turmoil and insurrection
since his fall:
•’Yet, the Republican partj’ is accusing
the President of the United States of being
responsible for Mexico's present condition.
Mr. Taft himself, forgetting that the only
stable government Mexico had had in one
hundred years fell in ruins while he was presi
dent of the United States and that Diaz's suc
cessor, Madero, was foully murdered in the in
terest of the man whose rise to power was
aided by Mr. Taft's ambassador, tells the pub
lic that if the United States has to intervene
in Mexico, the present administration ‘will be
to blame for the mess.’ In so far as the United
States has been at all responsible for the gov
ernment of Mexico, the distribution of blame
for what has happened will ultimately leave
the Taft administration and its ambassador to
Mexico City with a certain share. One of the
difficulties besetting the Mexican situation has
been the partisan desire of the political op
ponents of the president to make political cap
ital out of it. The Mexican question was in
politics from the moment that the assassin- .
dictator, General Huerta, was given encourage
ment in this country to oppose the plans of
the administration to help establish the gov
ernment of Mexico on the constitution of
Mexico.”
While the Republicans censure a Democratic
President for not magically solving a problem which
was Inherited from their own administration, they
do not pretend to say what they would have done
had they been tn power during the last three years.
The probability is that Mr. Taft, or Mr. Hughes
had he been President, would have pursued prac
tically the same course which Mr. Wilson has fol
lowed. Being conservative men, desirous of avoid
ing war so long as it could be avoided with honor,
either of them no doubt would have gone the limit
of forbearance and watchful restraint. Short of
actual war, neither could have done more than Mr.
Wilson has done for bringing our troublous neigh
bor to terms and for safeguarding the United States
border.
Neither the Republican nor the Democratic
party has committed itself to intervention. Indeed,
the Republican platform adopted last month at
Chicago denounces what it terms “the indefensible
methods of interference employed by this (the
Wilson) Administration in the internal affairs of
Mexico.” If that means anything, it means that
the Republican party denounces the punitive expe
dition which was sent to exterminate Villa’s ban
dits; It means that a Republican President, if true
to his party’s platform, would not have acted as
vigorously as Mr. Wilson did in the same circum
stances.
The fact is, the Republicans simply are trying
to make political capital out of a problem which
existed when they were in power and for which
they have no solution. It may be that eventually
the United States will be constrained to take charge
In Mexico and maintain a protectorate there until
the country is capable of self-government; many
Americans consider this inevitable. But this is in
no wise an issue in the present campaign. When
Mr. Hughes bewails Democratic recreance in this
matter he is merely talking through his whiskers.
It has been some time since the kaiser has made
a dinner engagement away from home.
Our soldier boys may not fight the Mexicans,
but they will have done their share in preventing a
flght.
Quips and Quiddities
An attorney, angered because of an adverse ruling
by the judge, left the courtroom, remarking to an
other lawyer that “the judge was an ass and shouldn t
be on the bench.”
Before the case ended the judge heard of the re
mark and called the attorney before him.
“I hear," he said, “that you called me an ass and
said I ought not to be on the bench.” .
“Sure," replied the quick-witted attorney. “Any
body. with your profound knowledge of law is an ass
to be on the bencfi. You ought to be practicing before
the bar, where your tale Sits could be cashed into big
money."—Puck.
• • •
The visitor was being shown about by the head of
the up-to-date business house.
"Who is that dapper youth at the glass-topped desk? ’
he asked.
“That is the superintendent of the card index sys
tem. He keeps an index showing where the index
cases are."
"Who is the young man with the gray gaiters and
the efficient ears”
“He keeps an index showing the length of time it
takes to index the indexes.”
“Who is the girl with the golden hair?"
"She decides under what index an index to the index
of the filing cabinets shall be placed."
"And who is the gray-haired man at the disordered
desk in the corner?"
“Oh, that’s Old Joggs. He doesn’t fit in very well
with the rest of the office, but I have to keep him
around. He’s the only employe who can find important
papers when I want them in a hurry."
• • •
A tall, angular, yellow convict was shoeing a mule
under one of the many sheds when he was asked to ex
plain what had brought him there and why, appearing
such a quiet, unobtrusive sort of citizen, he should fall
from grace.
“You seem to have too much sense to be here with
a chain on your leg,” commented the judge.
“I is so’t ob nice, suh,” was the laconic confession.
"But what brought you here?”
"Too expensive lawyer, jedge."
“A too expensive lawyer! How do you make that
out?”
"He wanted fo’teen mo’ dollars fer perjurly in my
case, fo’ ter free me, jedge, dan I happened ter hab
at de time."
• • •
“Prisoner at the bar, do you plead guilty or not
guilty of this murder?”
“Not guilty, judge. I can prove an alibi. I was
engaged in killing another man at the time and he
wasn't the same man the indictment says I killed, as
I can prove by this picture of him, which I drew from
memory."—Buffalo Express.
• • •
“Here you are, sir!” cried the hawker, extending a
bouquet. "Buy some beautiful flowers for your sweet
heart."
“Nothing doing,” responded the young man. “I
haven’t got a sweetheart."
"I see,” was the prompt rejoinder of the hawker.
“Buy some flowers for your wife."
“Wrong again! I am not married."
“Well, then, guv’nor,” exclaimed the resourceful
hgwker. "bby the lot to celebrate your luck!”—Tit-
Bits.
The Freight Rate Menace.
in joining the movement to combat the unjust
advances proposed in intrastate freight rates the
fertilizer industries of Georgia are serving agricul
tural interests as well as their own. It is con
servatively reckoned that the rates for which the
carriers have asked would add eight hundred
thousand dollars a year to the cost of shipping
fertilizers within this State.
To the consumers no less than to the producers
of this farm necessity, that would be a heavy hard
ship, particularly at a time when potash and other
ingredients of fertilizers are difficult to ofltain
even at the highest prices.
If the proposed rates are allowed, farmers will
have to pay more not only for fertilizers but also
for farm implements and materials such as plow
handles. plow beams and irons, axes, nails, woven
wire netting and sundry other articles of the sort.
Furthermore, the proposed rates by levying an
intolerable tax on intrastate traffic in foodstuffs
would discourage diversified farming. The roads
have asked an increase of thirty-eight per cent on
shipments of hogs and cattle from farms to packing
plants and an additional increase of upwards
of one hundred per cent on shipments of finished
products from packing plants to local markets.
This burden would penalize and even
tually crush an infant industry which is of vital
importance to the State's development and pros
perity.
The fact that the Georgia Shippers Association
and the Georgia Manufacturers Association as well
as the Fertilizer Mixers Association have under
taken an organized campaign against the rate ad
vances proposed, shows how seriously these repre
sentative interests regard the danger which con
fronts them. The fact that leaders in every field
of business are aroused on this issue proves its
vital concern to the Commonwealth.
The Hurricane of Steel.
All accounts of the British drive dwell upon the
scope and intensity of the bombardment which pre
ceded the infantry attacks. A million shells a day
from guns of every calibre poured upon the German
defenses —a relentless hurricane of steel. It was
this that made possible the Allies' substantial
gains, and it is this that evidences their prepared
ness after long seasons of inferior equipment and
supplies.
The way to Infantry attacks has been prepared
heretofore, as a correspondent observes, “by shell
ing a position until its defenders were presumably
demoralized.” But now—
“ The idea is to destroy the position itself
by obliterating the whole region with high ex
plosives. What was done to the tight little
steel cupolas is now being done to formidable
widespread field works. About Verdun the
terrain has been ravaged as if by volcanic
forces. There are areas where no yard of
ground has been left undisturbed, where the
whole surface is a hideous mass of craters like
the moon seen through a telescope. Succes
sive photographs from aeroplanes show the
blight on the earth’s surface spreading like a
loathsome skin disease that destroys all the
visible features. The amazing thing is that in
such areas men should still live and fight and
hold on.”
The fact that the British have inaugurated this
offensive indicates that at last they are in readiness
for a truly decisive stroke. Their failures have
taught them that the German lines can not be
broken until the German trench works are blown
from the earth. For this purpose prodigious quan
titis of guns and shells were required. If those
supplies are in hand, as apparently they are, the
deadlock in the West will yield.
The Republican theory of government is that
every four years the Republicans should have the
jobs.
LITTLE THINGS COUNT
__ by H. ADDINGTON BRUCH.
- LL over our land thousands of young men and
ZX women, having said farewell to school or
college, are setting out to make their way in
the world. They will find many unexpected ob
stales to overcome, and many hard lessons to learn
in business life. ,
Also, many of them will find themselves seri
ously handicapped by unfortunate characteristics
whlct schooling has failed to correct. One sucu
characteristic of common occurrence is inattention
to detail.
The tyro in business too often fails to appre
ciate the importance of the little things that enter
into every form of business activity. Detail to him
is a matter of no great significance.
He is too impatient—and, alas, often too care
less—to systematize his work so that everything,
no matter how trivial it may seem, shall be done
accurately and promptly.
“Any old time and any old way will do,” seems
to be his motto.
The other day I happened to enter the office
of a New York business friend at a painful mo
ment. He was taking his stenographer to task
for an error she had made. I heard her half de
fiant, half apologetic explanation:
“I know you told me how you wanted It done.
But I thought this way woffild do just as well. I’ll
copy it again after lunch.”
“No ” said my friend, quietly. “It has to be
mailed now. There is no time to copy it again.”
The stenographer started out to get her lunch
eon. After her departure my friend handed me
one of the sheets of paper she had been typewriting.
He is the publicity manager for a large enter-
“I am of a very selfish nature,’ writes a young
woman, “and often make a sacrifice or perform
some unselfish deed, not because I really feel like
doing so naturally, but from a sense of duty, be
cause I know it is right, and from what I have
read and heard about how good and strong char
acters act. Do you think this improves me? Will
my nature change after a while if I constantly go
against it?”
To which answer may thus be made:
Your problem is as old and as common as hu
m career is a continued struggle of the two
natures in us, the angel and the brute. Everybody
is more or less of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
There may be some rare natures, such as
Charles Kingsley calls “natural kingdom-of-heav
enites,” who always want to do the thing tney
ought to do, but they are scarce indeed. '
The first thing to do, therefore, is to recognize
that all decent life must be in terms of conflict.
Because you feel this unceasing war within you is
no sign that you are “bad,” or selfish, or mea
than other people. You are simply human. \ou
might as well complain that you do not have three
hands, or that you do not possess supernatural
powers of vision or hearing, as to complain that
your inclination does not always agree with your
duty.
Having recognized- this fact, don t worry over
it Don’t grow morbid. Don’t call yourself
names. Don't develop self-contempt. And above
all, don’t get into the mire of self-pity.
It’s a fight. You have to make it. Go to it
gayly, with high courage, and with gladness that
vou are disposed to fight and sure to win.
You can dodge the flght by yielding to your
lower nature. As Oscar Wilde said “The’easiest
wav to get rid of temptation is to yield. But you
know the nasty side to that. It means a weak,
flabby, unclean mind, a spirit that must loathe
lUel But you can be just as comfortable as the sen-
electrical roll calls for congress
BY rB£DEKXC t. KASKIX. " " 1 ' 11
WASHINGTON. July 3.—lnto the more or less
dignified, at times orderly, and always slow
procedure of the house of representatives of
the United States is about to be injected an element of
modern mechanical efficiency. Quite literally a jump
spark is to be applied to the deliberations of the lower
house. It will be in the form of an electrical voting
device, which will be capable of recording and adding
the vote of the members present in about thirty-four
seconds.
• • •
The average time occupied in calling the roll as
done at present by the house reading clerks is about
forty minutes, for the name of every member must be
read twice. A congressman with a head for mathe
matics estimated that fifty-six days were spent calling
the roll during the sessions of one congress. It seems
quite within the probabilities that this machine, if
installed and successful, will save the house about one
month out of every year. Senator Underwood believes
that it would save 350,000 a year in light, heat and
telegraph service.
• * ♦
As for the. machine, it is the invention of B. L.
Broboff, a native of Russia, a citizen of the United
States, and a resident of Milwaukee, Wis. It has
already been installed and successfully demonstrated
in the hall of the Wisconsin state legislature at Madi
son, Wis., and Mr. Broboff has also demonstrated it on
a small scale in Washington. Many members of con
gress have already expressed themselves as favorable
to its installation. Representative Howard, of Georgia,
has introduced a bill providing 3125,000 for the purpose,
and Mr. Broboff has appeared before the committee on
accounts and made a convincing statement about the
working of his machine and the need for it. He
declares that it will speedily save its own cost in time,
light and heat; that it will last a couple of centuries,
literally never get out of order, and that one man
without any electrical training can care for and oper
ate it.
• • •
In the last analysis, the success of thip machine in
speeding up the house will depend upon the members.
It can record and add a vote in thirty-four seconds,
but not unless the voters are there. Os course, a vote
might be taken with only one member present; but the
question which remains unsettled is whether this new
method will really facilitate the gathering of quorums.
• • •
Mr. Howard, who introduced the bill, and other
members who want to see the machine installed, be
lieve that it will do so. A certain time will have to be
set for the taking of the vote—say five minutes—and
all members who have not pressed their buttons for
yea or nay and flashed a red light or a white one on
the recording board will then be considered absent. It
is the hope and belief of those who want the system
that its speedy operation will compel members to stay
on the floor of the house if they are interested in the
bill, or if they want to avoid making a record for con
tinual absence from roll calls.
• • •
And that brings to the fore the biggest problem in
the present-day deliberations of the house. Gradually
but very perceptibly it 13 changing from a deliberative
body, where legislation is debated and formulated, to
an aggregation of clerks and agents, who appoint com
mittees to draft laws and leaders to tell them how they
shall vote, and spend their own time attending to a
multitude of details for various individuals.
• • •
Formerly the house was a great deal smaller: there
was no house office building: the members had their
offices scattered all over Washington. They nearly all
attended every session of congress.
• • •
Now the office building is right across the street
from the capitol. During the ordinary sessions of the
house a few of leaders, and some others, will be
found upon the floor, earnestly arguing. A vote is
desired. Electrical bells are rung that resound through
all the corridors of the house office building. The con
gressmen whose names begin with A, B and C leap to
their feet and depart for the hall of legislation. The
K's and L's, however, begin dictating another letter,
while the P’s and Q's and X’s merely glance at their
w’atches. It will be at least half an hour before their
prise. The sheet contained a statement he was
mailing to the newspapers of a <3ty some distance
from New York.
“I knew,” he explained to me, “that this story
was too long to go on a single sheet of paper if
typed in double space throughout.
“For psychological reasons that you will appre-
i ciate, I wanted to keep it on one sizeet. Ti
look shorter than if it’ ran over to &■ second sheet,
and, therefore, it would have a better chance of
getting into print.
“So I told the girl to type the last few lines
single space. You see what she haS done. She has
single spaced, not the last few lines, but the lines
between every paragraph.
“The result is a sheet so hard to read that I m
afraid a good many of the editors won’t bother to
read it.”
To this stenographer the mode of typing this
1 particular statement was a petty detail, too trivial
to be attended to accurately. To my friend it was
' likewise a detail, but by no means a petty one. ,
And the more you stop to analyze any success
ful business, the more you will realize that It Is
built on seemingly trivial details that after all
have a far-reaching significance.
Neglect the little things in business and you
may feel tolerably sure that you will not long have
> big things to which to pay attention. Attend to
the little things faithfully and ever bigger things
will be demanding your attention.
s These are elementary facts which the business
beginner cannot too soon take to heart.
(Copyright, 1916, by The Associated Newspapers.)
THE MORNING STAR
.. -—BY DR. FRANK CRANE
sualist if you make up your mind that you will
do what is right every time, no matter how you
feel. That will not give you the same kind of
pleasure that the self-indulgent have, .but a better
kind.
For there are two sorts of enjoyment: one,
that of yielding; the other, that of overcoming.
And it is the overcomer that gets the crown of life.
His is the morning star.
For instance, there is pleasure in lying in bed,
in eating and drinking, in gratifying the various
cravings of the body, in reading books'that divert
you and require no mental effort, in going to the
theater, in being flattered, jfralsed, complimented,
loved. In all these things your pleasure is passive.
There is pleasure, on the other hand, in exer
cise, in going without food and drink for another’s
sake, in denying the body’s demands so as to sat
isfy the wants of your intelligence, of pleasing
your conscience by trampling on an appetite, of in
tellectual exertion, of discipline,' and the like.
All these are the solider kind of joys. They are
better than the soft kind, because they last longer,
they strengthen your mind and body, they make
youd tastes finer, your whole enjoyment of life
keener, your range of delights wider, and alto
gether you get a deal more fun out of living.
The latter joys are just as “selfish” as the for
mer. But an intelligent selfishness is unselfish.
He that saveth his life shall lose it.
Scientifically speaking, overcoming makes de
velopment, yielding leads to decay, the destruc
tion of the organism.
Religiously speaking, all you have to do to go
to hell is to do nothing at all. The wind blows
that way. Just do as you please, don’t resist,
gratify all desires, never mind conscience, and hell
will be along pretty soon.
Heaven is up hill all the way. But it’s keen
and bracing exercise. It means a healthier body,
livelier mind, and happier spirit every day.
And, at the top of the hill, you get the MoffiK
ing Star.
(Copyright, 1916, by Frank Crane.)
names are reached on the second roll call. They go
right on studying pension claims, dispatching garden
seeds and year books of the department of agriculture,
drafting laws to donate condemned cannon for the city
park in Podunk, or permitting John Jones to build a
bridge across Frog creek in Summersquash county,
Missouri, or appropriating >150,000 to erect a postoffice
at Water tank, Nev.
• • •
The congressmen have to do these things in order
to hold theft- jobs. The great majority of them spend
the great majority of their time doing little things for
Individuals and counties and towns. They give a small
fraction of their time to national affairs. The leaders
who really give most of their time to national legisla
tion spend a great deal more than the government
allows them for clerk hire; and they are veterans of
many sessions' experience, whose seats are very secure,
e e e
There is one young congressman who says that he
never misses a session of the house. He explains that
he dictates all of his letters at home every night. All
morning he spends in the departments prosecuting the
numerous claims for which every congressman is the
unwilling advocate. This leaves him from noon, when
the house convenes, until evening for attendance to the
business of the nation. He works about sixteen hours
a day. There are few others who can do it, and still
fewer who will. So congress is literally becoming a
gathering of preoccupied agents, who line up well
enough on party votes, but, by force of circumstance,
give the country less and less of the independent
thought upon national questions, which is the life of
legislation.
• e e
The Broboff electrical voting machine may work a
considerable modification of this tendency by compels
Ing the congressman to be close at hand if ha is going
to vote at all, and by saving a month or ao of tim* for
him out of every session.
• • •
Two other changes have been suggested as accom
paniments of the electrical device. One is the abolish
ment of the electrical bells which now announce every
vote, and disturb everybody on Capitol HIIL The other
is the restoration of the desks, which were replaced
not long ago by long benches much like those in a
railway waiting room. It is argued that if the con
gressman has a place in the legislative hall where he
can work, he is more apt to remain there. It is cer
tainly true that the benches now in use offer the con
gressman little in the way of either comfort or oppor
tunity for work.
One somewhat revolutionary effect of the electrical
voter will be the abolition of the revered filibuster.
This consists in delaying business by repeatedly mak
ing the point of no quorum, necessitating the calling
of the roll, and delaying the business of the house
forty minutes. Then, before much progress is made,
the point is repeated. In this way one member can
interfere with the work of the house, while a minority
may even force a compromise from the majority.
Notwithstanding that the filibuster is a terrible
waste of time, it has generally been regarded as one
of the rights of the minority. The hearing en the
Howard bill brought out some side lights
on the subject. The chairman of the committee re
marked that “a man who makes a point of order does
it out of some pique.”
“A man who wants to sneak is not allowed to speak,
and then he makes the house pay for it, and he can
do it very readily,” he explained. That is generally the
gist of a filibuster in the house. The filibusterer is
like the little boy at the back lot baseball game who
wants to pitch, and isn’t allowed to, so he runs off
with the catcher's mitt.
The Broboff device, if installed, would consist simply
in a big board, or perhaps two of them, much like an
electrical score board, where each congressman's name
would appear, with a red bulb and a white one after it.
At each congressman’s elbow would be a couple of
buttons, which could be pressed only with the aid of a
key in his possession. When the vote had been an
nounced he would press his yea or nay button at any
time within the specified period. He could also change
his vote any time within that period. The machine
would then automatically add the vote and show the
result.
