Every day in my previous life I would duck into the basement of the U.S. Capitol to anxiously await a freshly bound copy of the Congressional Record, the daily chronicle of legislative proceedings published since 1873.
More often than not the ink was still wet.
These days, with everything appearing online, political geeks from Washington to Whitefish can merely click into the Record’s pages to learn what lawmakers accomplish when Congress is in session.
For the purpose of this Beacon column I narrow searches by typing in keywords like “Kalispell” and “Flathead,” which doesn’t always guarantee direct hits, but what does pop up is always informative if not entertaining.
Take my most recent search, surrounding potential risks to future Amtrak service in this valley. Suddenly I was time traveling, way back to July 6, 1894, when a Vermont congressman who chaired the Committee on Pacific Railroads approached the lectern to proclaim:
“I present a petition of 820 citizens of Flathead County, Montana, in which they respectfully represent that a small appropriation by Congress for the improvement of the Flathead and Pend d’Oreille Rivers between Kalispell, the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, and Jocko, a point on the Northern Pacific Railroad, would make navigable those rivers, all the year round except two months in midwinter, 80 miles. Thirty-five miles of the Flathead River needs but a very small expenditure, it being navigable now, with only a few snags to obstruct navigation in low water. The improvement of these rivers would give a southern outlet to all the mines, large towns and markets of Montana, and afford a daily market for the enormous crops annually produced in the Flathead Valley, a rich agricultural country of farming lands, embracing 7,000 square miles. There are cereals and vegetables enough produced in this valley annually to supply the people of the whole State, but which have to rely solely on a home market, because of the great distance by rail to the nearest market to purchase the large surplus. We respectfully ask for a Government survey of these streams between the points hereinabove named, and an estimate of the cost of the improvement, to enable Congress to act intelligently in this behalf.”
A motion to refer the petition to the Committee on Commerce was agreed to without objection.
Meanwhile, something far more riveting than river dredging was unfolding that same day on Capitol Hill, laid out in a floor speech by Florida Sen. Wilkinson Call, a one time Confederate leader first elected to Congress in 1879 (his mother was a member of Virginia’s prominent Robert E. Lee family).
“Mr. President,” the senator began, “it has become the custom for newspaper correspondents to falsify the records and to slander the character of the members of this body. They have no hesitation in imputing indecency, indecorum, dishonesty, and corruption to its individual members. Men without consideration in the country, without moral qualities … are permitted to enter the galleries here and through the Associated Press of the country to disseminate from one end to the other their infamous, cowardly, libelous, and false attacks upon members of this body. It has become a great evil. The interests of the Republic, the interests of religion, of decency, of manhood, and of character demand that this should be stopped, and that the criminals who are guilty of it should be consigned to the dens of infamy and punishment where such men properly belong.”
Talk about a precursor to Donald Trump.
Just like our president today, Senator Call proved adept at spewing one incendiary adjective after another at the Fourth Estate, pouncing on one newspaper reporter in particular—“the miserable creature”—for penning a “libelous” article widely distributed by the Associated Press “in every form of caricature.”
Fortunately, for anybody who hadn’t yet read it, the Record saw fit to print the offending story right below Call’s diatribe. And I must say, given the gravity of scandalous behavior in Washington today, the southern senator’s conduct seemed more eccentric than immoral—whilst notably odorous.
“The senior Senator,” the article begins, “certainly attained the height of vulgar boorishness and succeeded in thoroughly disgusting even those in the Senate who are fairly familiar with his vagaries and idiosyncrasies. His costume just at present is very stunning and costly, among the articles of apparel he seems to delight most in being a pair of glaring yellow shoes. These he wore into the Senate today. He came creaking into the Chamber about noon, seated himself calmly at his desk, and with easy nonchalance removed his shoes and calmly elevated his unsightly blue-stockinged feet to the desk in front of him.
“This action caused a shiver of disgust to run through the entire assemblage and through the galleries. It was an act of vulgarity unprecedented in any body of gentlemen, and was a direct insult to the State that sent him to the Senate.”
There’s even more where that came from:
“Presently Senator Call swung round in his chair and elevated his feet to the desk in the rear of his own. This desk was occupied at the time by the books and papers of Senator Kyle of South Dakota, who was delivering a speech upon the income tax. Mr. Kyle noticed the ungentlemanly and course action … and immediately left his own desk and walked to the center aisle, where he continued his speech. A number of the senators in Call’s vicinity also moved away, several of them going over to the other side of the Chamber to avoid the unpleasant notoriety of the Senator from Florida.”
Anybody who thinks President Trump is harsh with the news media today—like barring the aforementioned Associated Press from White House coverage for refusing to reference the so-called “Gulf of America”—consider the fate dealt the 19th century reporter that very same day (so much for Freedom of the Press as protected by the First Amendment).
“Resolved. That the perpetrator of the false and slanderous statements related to the Senator from Florida, Mr. Call, be excluded from the Press Gallery of the Senate on the ground that he is a professional liar and libeler … ”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.