p. 29 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1886

Health and Temperance.

A Lively Tilt in the Senate.

THE following reported debate in the United States Senate ought to make every true American a positive and determined prohibitionist. It occurred Dec. 15. 'The matter under consideration was the new joint rules, and the question was rule 13, providing that no intoxicating liquors be sold in the Capitol. Mr. Frye explained that the committee thought it dealt with a subject that ought to be left to each house separately, and the committee had therefore recommended that the rule be struck out. Mr. Ingalls thought that if it was intended to legislate on prohibition, the Senate, the House, and the President should all be called upon to do their share. He thought the matter of excluding liquor from the Capitol, one of legislation rather than of action by the Senate in its individual capacity. On the committee's proposition to strike out the rule, the yeas and nays were demanded, and resulted: yeas, 29; nays, 36. The yeas were, Messrs. Beck, Brown, Call, Cockrell, Coke, Eustis, Gray, Hampton, Harris, Ingalls, Jackson, Kenna, Manderson, Maxey, Morgan, Ransom, Riddleberger, Vest, Walthal and Voorhees. Mr. Riddleberger rose and insisted that if there was to be prohibition in the Capitol, it should begin with the committee rooms, and a senator should be made liable to fine and imprisonment for keeping whisky in his committee-room.

'Mr. Vest said he had no committee, but was opposed to the rule as setting up a system of espionage. Every one knew that if a senator wanted liquor in his committee-room he would have it, and would visit the severest punishment in his power on any clerk who would 'inform' on him. The whole thing was simply an attempt to meet a fanatical spirit in the country on this question, to which Mr. Vest would not give countenance.

'Mr. Cockrell offered an amendment to the effect that any senator or member of Congress violating the rule should be liable to expulsion. It looked very small, he said, for senators to be passing rules for the purpose of inflicting punishment on committee clerks for 'conniving' at the use of whisky in the Capitol, when it was notorious that distinguished senators, who voted to keep this rule in, kept intoxicating liquors in their committee-rooms. He (Mr. Cockrell) had never had any liquor in the Capitol, but it was useless to deny that it had been kept there by senators.

'Mr. Ingalls sent to the desk a copy of the bill of fare of the Senate Cafe, at which he supposed the senators took lunch. The clerk, at Mr. Ingalls's request, read aloud the wine list with the prices of the different brands, much to the amusement of the senators. Under the head of 'Madeira wines' he found 'Blackburn's Reserve,' the reading of which was greeted with shouts of laughter, and some one was heard to say, sotto voce, 'Good for Joe.' When another brand was announced as 'bottled expressly for the United States Senate Cafe,' the laughter was renewed, and on the conclusion of the reading Mr. Butler expressed his surprise that the clerk had not found 'cold tea' on the list.

'Mr. Cockrell said he disliked drunkenness anywhere, but had seen more of it among the employes of the Senate. Senators kept whisky in their rooms, and invited their friends to go there. If the Senate was not fit to stop that, it was not fit for self-government. He had known an appropriation bill to be occasionally delayed because of intoxication among subordinates, and he had known the Senate to be adjourned because of the condition of some of its members. He would not say that the Senate had to adjourn in consequence of it; but certain senators had been in such condition that the public business could not have been carried on, as discussion would have been indefinitely prolonged. Senators knew, Mr. Cockrell added, that his point was well taken.

'Mr. Frye said he had been told by ex-Senator Simon Cameron and ex-Senator Hamlin, that twenty or thirty years ago the Senate had been found time and again without a quorum because more than a quorum were drunk; that they had seen a distinguished senator, after several attempts to rise in his place, fall because of drunkenness. Mr. Frye himself remembered when the night sessions of the House of Representatives were broken up by drunken members. Things had very much improved since then. Mr. Frye regretted the remarks of the Missouri senator (Mr. Cockrell) as conveying to the country the impression that so many senators were drunk during the ordinary business of the Senate, that the Senate had to be adjourned on account of drunkenness.

'Mr. Cockrell said he had not so stated; he had never seen so many senators under the influence of liquor that the public business could not be transacted—had never seen anything even approaching that; but he had seen two or three or more senators—a mere minority—so completely under the influence of whisky in the discussions that the Senate, for the sake of decency, had adjourned. He did not think he had ever seen more than half a dozen at one time in that condition, and he could give the names if senators desired them.

'Mr. Maxey regretted that an impression should be conveyed to the country that the Senate was a band of drunkards and debauchees. He had served in many deliberative bodies, and had never seen a more sober or well-ordered body of men than the United States Senate.

'Mr. Logan did not know that the sale of wines merely would be obnoxious to the rule; but the word 'vinous' did not appear in the rule, and a distinction existed in law between vinous and spiritous liquors.

'Mr. Teller, as one who had never tasted liquor of any kind in his life, thought that the Senate ought to set a good example in this matter, but could not favor Mr. Cockrell's amendment, because of the severity of the punishment. He did not think the Senate merited all that had been said of it; yet there was much truth in it.

'Mr. Ingalls thought the vote on this rule a declaration that the Senate was in favor of temperance, and the inference might be drawn that those voting to strike out the rule were in favor of inebriety. He happened to represent, in part, a State that had declared very affirmatively for prohibition, but he had felt called upon to vote against the rule. He thought it his duty to show the country that those who voted for the rule were entirely cognizant of the practices that had prevailed, in violation of it.

'Mr. Cockrell's amendment was disagreed to—yeas 29, nays 38. On motion of Mr. Edmunds, the clause providing for the dismissal of clerks who should 'connive' at the use of liquors was stricken out, in order to make the rule harmonize with the sense of the Senate on Mr. Cockrell's amendment. With that clause out, the rule was adopted by a viva voce vote.'