The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
These were all lawful weapons, and the men of the Opposition
(technically called the Left) were within their rights in using them.
They used them to such dire purpose that all parliamentary business was
paralysed. The Right (the Government side) could accomplish nothing.
Then it had a saving idea. This idea was a curious one. It was to have
the President and the Vice-Presidents of the Parliament trample the
Rules under foot upon occasion!
This, for a profoundly embittered minority constructed out of fire and
gun-cotton! It was time for idle strangers to go and ask leave to look
down out of a gallery and see what would be the result of it.
II. A MEMORABLE SITTING.
And now took place that memorable sitting of the House which broke two
records. It lasted the best part of two days and a night, surpassing
by half an hour the longest sitting known to the world's previous
parliamentary history, and breaking the long-speech record with Dr.
Lecher's twelve-hour effort, the longest flow of unbroken talk that ever
came out of one mouth since the world began.
At 8.45 on the evening of the 28th of October, when the House had been
sitting a few minutes short of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the
floor. It was a good place for theatrical effects. I think that no
other Senate House is so shapely as this one, or so richly and showily
decorated. Its plan is that of an opera-house. Up toward the straight
side of it--the stage side--rise a couple of terraces of desks for the
ministry, and the official clerks or secretaries--terraces thirty feet
long, and each supporting about half a dozen desks with spaces between
them. Above these is the President's terrace, against the wall. Along it
are distributed the proper accommodations for the presiding officer and
his assistants. The wall is of richly coloured marble highly polished,
its paneled sweep relieved by fluted columns and pilasters of
distinguished grace and dignity, which glow softly and frostily in the
electric light. Around the spacious half-circle of the floor bends
the great two-storied curve of the boxes, its frontage elaborately
ornamented and sumptuously gilded. On the floor of the House the 425
desks radiate fanwise from the President's tribune.
The galleries are crowded on this particular evening, for word has gone
about that the Ausgleich is before the House; that the President, Ritter
von Abrahamowicz, has been throttling the Rules; that the Opposition are
in an inflammable state in consequence, and that the night session is
likely to be of an exciting sort.
The gallery guests are fashionably dressed, and the finery of the women
makes a bright and pretty show under the strong electric light. But down
on the floor there is no costumery.
The deputies are dressed in day clothes; some of the clothes neat and
trim, others not; there may be three members in evening dress, but not
more. There are several Catholic priests in their long black gowns, and
with crucifixes hanging from their necks. No member wears his hat. One
may see by these details that the aspects are not those of an evening
sitting of an English House of Commons, but rather those of a sitting of
our House of Representatives.
In his high place sits the President, Abrahamowicz, object of the
Opposition's limitless hatred. He is sunk back in the depths of his
arm-chair, and has his chin down. He brings the ends of his spread
fingers together, in front of his breast, and reflectively taps them
together, with the air of one who would like to begin business, but must
wait, and be as patient as he can. It makes you think of Richelieu. Now
and then he swings his head up to the left or to the right and answers
something which some one has bent down to say to him. Then he taps his
fingers again. He looks tired, and maybe a trifle harassed. He is a
gray-haired, long, slender man, with a colourless long face, which,
in repose, suggests a death-mask; but when not in repose is tossed and
rippled by a turbulent smile which washes this way and that, and is not
easy to keep up with--a pious smile, a holy smile, a saintly smile, a
deprecating smile, a beseeching and supplicating smile; and when it
is at work the large mouth opens, and the flexible lips crumple, and
unfold, and crumple again, and move around in a genial and persuasive
and angelic way, and expose large glimpses of the teeth; and that
interrupts the sacredness of the smile and gives it momentarily a mixed
worldly and political and satanic cast. It is a most interesting face
to watch. And then the long hands and the body--they furnish great and
frequent help to the face in the business of adding to the force of the
statesman's words.
To change the tense. At the time of which I have just been speaking the
crowds in the galleries were gazing at the stage and the pit with rapt
interest and expectancy. One half of the great fan of desks was in
effect empty, vacant; in the other half several hundred members were
bunched and jammed together as solidly as the bristles in a brush; and
they also were waiting and expecting. Presently the Chair delivered this
utterance:
'Dr. Lecher has the floor.'
Then burst out such another wild and frantic and deafening clamour as
has not been heard on this planet since the last time the Comanches
surprised a white settlement at night. Yells from the Left,
counter-yells from the Right, explosions of yells from all sides
at once, and all the air sawed and pawed and clawed and cloven by a
writhing confusion of gesturing arms and hands. Out of the midst of this
thunder and turmoil and tempest rose Dr. Lecher, serene and collected,
and the providential length of him enabled his head to show out of it.
He began his twelve-hour speech. At any rate, his lips could be seen to
move, and that was evidence. On high sat the President, imploring order,
with his long hands put together as in prayer, and his lips visibly but
not hearably speaking. At intervals he grasped his bell and swung it
up and down with vigour, adding its keen clamour to the storm weltering
there below.
Dr. Lecher went on with his pantomime speech, contented, untroubled.
Here and there and now and then powerful voices burst above the din,
and delivered an ejaculation that was heard. Then the din ceased for a
moment or two, and gave opportunity to hear what the Chair might answer;
then the noise broke out again. Apparently the President was being
charged with all sorts of illegal exercises of power in the interest of
the Right (the Government side): among these, with arbitrarily closing
an Order of Business before it was finished; with an unfair distribution
of the right to the floor; with refusal of the floor, upon quibble and
protest, to members entitled to it; with stopping a speaker's speech
upon quibble and protest; and with other transgressions of the Rules of
the House. One of the interrupters who made himself heard was a young
fellow of slight build and neat dress, who stood a little apart from the
solid crowd and leaned negligently, with folded arms and feet crossed,
against a desk. Trim and handsome; strong face and thin features; black
hair roughed up; parsimonious moustache; resonant great voice, of
good tone and pitch. It is Wolf, capable and hospitable with sword and
pistol; fighter of the recent duel with Count Badeni, the head of the
Government. He shot Badeni through the arm and then walked over in the
politest way and inspected his game, shook hands, expressed regret, and
all that. Out of him came early this thundering peal, audible above the
storm:
'I demand the floor. I wish to offer a motion.'
In the sudden lull which followed, the President answered, 'Dr. Lecher
has the floor.'
Wolf. 'I move the close of the sitting!'
P. 'Representative Lecher has the floor.' (Stormy outburst from the
Left--that is, the Opposition.)
Wolf. 'I demand the floor for the introduction of a formal notion.
(Pause). Mr. President, are you going to grant it, or not? (Crash of
approval from the Left.) I will keep on demanding the floor till I get
it.'
P. 'I call Representative Wolf to order. Dr. Lecher has the floor.'
Wolf. 'Mr. President, are you going to observe the Rules of this House?'
(Tempest of applause and confused ejaculations from the Left--a boom and
roar which long endured, and stopped all business for the time being.)
Dr. von Pessler. 'By the Rules motions are in order, and the Chair must
put them to vote.'
For answer the President (who is a Pole--I make this remark in passing)
began to jangle his bell with energy at the moment that that wild
pandemonium of voices broke out again.
Wolf (hearable above the storm). 'Mr. President, I demand the floor. We
intend to find out, here and now, which is the hardest, a Pole's skull
or a German's!'
This brought out a perfect cyclone of satisfaction from the Left. In the
midst of it someone again moved an Adjournment. The President blandly
answered that Dr. Lecher had the floor. Which was true; and he was
speaking, too, calmly, earnestly, and argumentatively; and the official
stenographers had left their places and were at his elbows taking down
his words, he leaning and orating into their ears--a most curious and
interesting scene.
Dr. von Pessler (to the Chair). 'Do not drive us to extremities!'
The tempest burst out again: yells of approval from the Left, catcalls
and ironical laughter from the Right. At this point a new and most
effective noise-maker was pressed into service. Each desk has an
extension, consisting of a removable board eighteen inches long, six
wide, and a half-inch thick. A member pulled one of these out and
began to belabour the top of his desk with it. Instantly other
members followed suit, and perhaps you can imagine the result. Of all
conceivable rackets it is the most ear-splitting, intolerable, and
altogether fiendish.
The persecuted President leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes,
clasped his hands in his lap, and a look of pathetic resignation crept
over his long face. It is the way a country schoolmaster used to look in
days long past when he had refused his school a holiday and it had risen
against him in ill-mannered riot and violence and insurrection. Twice
a motion to adjourn had been offered--a motion always in order in other
Houses, and doubtless so in this one also. The President had refused to
put these motions. By consequence, he was not in a pleasant place now,
and was having a right hard time. Votes upon motions, whether carried or
defeated, could make endless delay, and postpone the Ausgleich to next
century.
In the midst of these sorrowful circumstances and this hurricane of
yells and screams and satanic clatter of desk-boards, Representative
Dr. Kronawetter unfeelingly reminds the Chair that a motion has been
offered, and adds: 'Say yes, or no! What do you sit there for, and give
no answer?'
P. 'After I have given a speaker the floor, I cannot give it to
another. After Dr. Lecher is through, I will put your motion.' (Storm of
indignation from the Left.)
Wolf (to the Chair). 'Thunder and lightning! look at the Rule governing
the case!'
Kronawetter. 'I move the close of the sitting! And I demand the ayes and
noes!'
Dr. Lecher. 'Mr. President, have I the floor?'
P. 'You have the floor.'
Wolf (to the Chair, in a stentorian voice which cleaves its way through
the storm). 'It is by such brutalities as these that you drive us to
extremities! Are you waiting till someone shall throw into your face
the word that shall describe what you are bringing about?(1) (Tempest
of insulted fury from the Right.) Is that what you are waiting for, old
Grayhead?' (Long-continued clatter of desk-boards from the Left, with
shouts of 'The vote! the vote!' An ironical shout from the Right, 'Wolf
is boss!')