CHOOSING SEATS IN CONGRESS AND THE SENATE.
By Walter Wellman
[Walter Wellman, in October Success.] WHEN a new congress meets there is a lottery for the choice of seats. The newest and freshest member from a backwoods district may be the lucky man to have his name drawn from the box by the blindfolded page and to have first choice of all the seats in the great hall. The veteran of half a score of congresses, a man of power and note, may be the last of the long line and forced to content himself with a perch in the extreme rear. This is democracy with a vengeance, and of course it would never do for the aristocratic upper branch. There the senator who gets a good seat keeps it as long as he remains a senator. Such men as Allison, Hale, Hoar, Cullom, and others have sat all the way from ten to twenty-five years at one desk. When an old senator with an advantageously located seat drops out through death or failure to secure re-election, some other senator from the rear applies for his seat and gets it, the rule being, "first come, first served." New senators are compelled to take the less desirable desks in the rear of the chamber, to await their turn for a chance at better ones. Thus in the senate there is a slow but steady movement from the rear toward the front of the chamber,—a movement highly suggestive of the senatorial system based upon prerogative and precedence. Even more striking is the method of assigning senators to places on committees. Here again prerogative is everything. If the chairman of a committee dies or leaves the senate the man of the majority political party who has served longest upon that committee becomes his successor. The rule is invariable, tho of course complications occasionally arise. If a senior committeeman is chairman of another important committee, he may be compelled to surrender one or the other.