Fistibuster

In the House Office Building ladies were present; so were preachermen. A "blue law" bill was under discussion by the House Committee on the District of Columbia. Chunky Representative Sol Bloom of New York politely insinuated that square-jawed Representative Thomas L. Blanton of Texas was a liar. Mr. Blanton, who wants to close the cinema theatres on Sunday, leaped at Mr. Bloom, who wants them open; put his Texan arm around Mr. Bloom's neck. They grappled, heaved, fell across the committee table. One L. B. Schloss joined the fray, was knocked to the floor, kicked. The Rev. Harry L. Bowlby, secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance, was reported as having picked out the smallest man in the room (a stenographer), knocked off his glasses, punched him.* Somebody called the police, but they did not arrive until after Hattie Pitts of the McKendree Methodist Church lifted her hands and her voice in prayer, shrieked: "O Lord, O Jesus, have mercy on these men." The roughnecks ceased their buffeting. This, the third fistibuster in Congress within a week, caused Representative Gallivan of Massachusetts to pass around among his friends a resolution providing that all future bouts be conducted in Statuary Hall "under the paternal eyes of the Fathers of the Republic," with Dry Representative Upshaw, who has failed of re-election to the next Congress, as referee. "I think these bouts are due to Prohibition," said Mr. Gallivan.

*Three days later, the Rev. Bowlby grew vexed, charged the press with publishing "false and libelous statements." His version is that he caught a gentleman's arm to prevent him from fighting, while someone else grabbed the gentleman by the coat and pulled him to the floor.