Life — June 29, 1922 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

* LIFE - Our Capitol Haunted, Says Sounder We Are Confronted by Another Grave Crisis ASHING- TON, June 27—Never in the history of this fair republic, have spirits been more in evidence than to-day. I re- fer to supernat- ural ones, though (* _ there will be some who claim that my statement cov- ers the other kind as well. Beginning with the ghost at Antigonish this spring, we have had a long succession of spectres, culminating with the arrival of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his specially trained troupe of perform- ing spirits. “He can scarcely make himself heard.” But the Public Does Not Know and only my deep-rooted sense of duty to the American people lcads me to reveal it now,—that for sev- eral months our national Capitol has been haunted ! I want no one to take my word for it. My psychic experience is limited to one evening at the ouija board with Mrs. Sounder which ended in our each accusing the other of cheating. I am therefore not com- petent to judge. I merely record the facts. The First Manifestation occurred during the treaty debates two months or more ago. Mr. Lodge, after speaking in defence of the Arms Conference treaties, came into the cloak room looking a bit seedy. “Did you notice anything during my speech?” he asked me. “Not a thing,” I re- plied. “I was catch- ing a nap in here.” “Curious,” he mut- tered. Since that is my in- variable custom dur- ing important debates, I could see nothing curious about it. But he explained: “T had a most un- canny feeling out there—just as if everything I was saying about alli-. ances and American isolation and reservations and secret diplomacy, I had said before, only different, if you get what I mean. Sort of as if I were standing on my _ head. Spooky feeling.” Next Day I came upon a little group of Democratic senators trembling in the lobby. They had all strongly backed Mr. Wilson’s treaties, and so with that admirable consistency that makes legislators what they are, were trying to kill Mr. Harding’s. As each had launched his at- tack that day, he had heard a_ ghostly voice at his elbow sneer: ‘‘Party! Party! Partisan!” “It is in the House. The spook.” I led him behind the statue of Henry Clay and got his story “Every time I get up to speak about the Bonus I feel a presence standing close behind me sending icy shivers up and down my back. It’s haunting the others too. It's get- ting on our nerves.” Several others have told me that while sitting at their desks, making up their minds how to vote, they have distinctly heard the ringing of bells, the blowing of horns, and other sounds suggestive of election night. A Senator referring to the tax- ation bill as a great achievement has heard the spectre laugh coarsely. And when some- Next morning I found fresh _ evi- dence. I was stroll- ing through the cor- ridors of the Capitol —a custom I follow whenever there are enough sight-seers to justify the exertion. In the rotunda a man dashed up and grasped my arm so violently that my hat fell to the floor. “Mr. Fordney!” I exclaimed in some annoyance. “It's there!” he cried. “IT observe it,” I replied coldly, eyeing my hat where it lay. For a man of my figure, the process of re- trieving your hat from the floor is neither dignified nor statesmanlike. “No, no,” gasped the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “The process is neither dignified nor statesmanlike.” “Heard the ringing of bells and other sounds suggestive of Elec- tion night.” one arises, as some- one does every day, to point out the re- markable work of this Congress, he re- ports that there is such a _pande- monium of ghostly jeers that he can scarcely make himself heard. But the worst manifestations have occurred during the tariff debate. The galleries have at times seemed to be filled with unearthly spectators that look like cartoons of the Ameri- can consumer, and that punctuate the debate with long-drawn-out groans like a spiritual college yell. Obviously this can't go on, though I cannot help feeling a little relieved that the spec- tre is not confining its attentions to the Re- publican party alone. wThe Psychic Re search societies should send some one down to investigate the Capitol at once. For if it is haunted, we should lose no time in getting a new Capitol, —or else a new legis lature that will not be susceptible to the st pernatural. Sounder. comicbooks.com