HOW THE SOCIALIST LAW MAKERS LIVE
How the Socialist Lawmakers Live Wisconsin Social-Demockatic Legislators Live in a Plain Barracks and Study the Practical Side of Making Laws. THERE ARE TEN Social-Demo-catic assemblymen and two...
...The following description of their living quarters (they are all men who find it necessary to live within the meager salary paid them as legislators) is written by Fred L. Holmes in The Independent: "Passing along a side street we entered an old three-story stone building which housed a butcher shop and a creamery on the first floor...
...Over the floor stretched a single rag rug...
...Such a picture...
...THERE ARE TEN Social-Demo-catic assemblymen and two senators of the same faith in the present Wisconsin legislature...
...These men are all of the working class...
...But next day in the legislature the Socialists vote as a body...
...Often the sessions are prolonged until after midnight...
...Each owns his own little hard kitchen chair and his bed and pays his share toward a monthly room rental of $25...
...But they set about to gain proficiency in the practical side of lawmaking, with the result that they are now a well-organized, alert minority...
...Before this Socialist forum all differences of opinion among members are settled...
...Near the center of the room was a long table piled high with newspapers, legislative bills and economic reference books, borrowed from various Madison libraries...
...Here was a regular Socalist legislature in session, discussing resolutions and measures which were to come up for consideration the next day before the State Legislature...
...Every bill before the Wisconsin legislature is handled upon this dissecting table...
...They are all from Milwaukee—the metropolis that became dsgusted with the misrule of a bipartisan "gang" and turned the city and county government over to the Socialists...
...Around the edge of the room and in the corners, protected by screens, were the beds of the members...
...In one corner stood a large stove, perhaps a relic which had seen service in some district school before Wisconsin passed a law awarding bounties to the schools using furnaces for heating purposes...
...Plans are formulated as to who will offer debate, what amendments will be presented and what parliamentary methods will be followed either to hasten the passage or effect the defeat of a measure...
...Around the table sat a group of earnest men—some were smoking, some were in stocking feet—giving their ideas about a measure coming up for passage the following day...
...A newspaper folded cone-shaped served as a shade for the electric light hanging over the table...
...Here at 7:30 o'clock every evening "Speaker" Weber—for they are organized on the plan of the Wisconsin legislature—calls the meeting to order...
...Down a long, uncarpeted hall—antique in the extreme.—up two flights of heavy, pine stairs and we were on the threshold...
...They entered the legislature last winter, most of them, with no previous training in parliamentary practice, except that gained in labor organizations and political clubs...
...Sometimes the debates are long and vehement...
...Across the corner of an adjoining room hung the small washing of one of the members...
...Save for a map and a lonely calendar, the walls are bare and desolate...
...To be told how these men live at the state capital is to be told the secret of their strength...
...This wide, long barracks of a room had been used for many years by labor organizations as a meeting place...
Vol. 3 • May 1911 • No. 20
