The drawing of seats formerly completed the business of the (first) day. The old chamber, now Statuary Hall, afforded fairly good accommodations until the apportionment under the Sixth Census crowded two hundred and forty members into its limited area. After that the desirable seats fell to those who arrived first. This raised the cry that members residing near Washington benefited at the expense of those living at a distance, and several unsuccessful attempts to put all on an equality exaggerated the unfairness of the free-seat system as much as they exploited the benefits of a lottery scheme.
Finally the issue became sufficiently acute to attract the attention of Howell Cobb, of Georgia, whose ambition to be Speaker found support in his skill as a parliamentarian, and with arguments that told most readily on the House he engineered the adoption of a plan, which, in spite of its nerve-racking and temper-ruffling results, seemed ever after to defy improvement (29th Cong.,1st Sess., Globe, p.4). Its operation required a box of marbles, each bearing a number corresponding to the number of a member's name on a list alphabetically arranged. When all seats were vacated, except those specially exempted for former Speakers and others of conspicuous or long service, a blindfolded page withdrew a marble, the clerk announced its number, and the member hurried to the most desirable seat unoccupied. this was fair. But as the coveted places rapidly filled, the suspense became more and more intolerable until the unlucky members gladly dropped into any vacant chair, devoutly thankful if they escaped a far-off corner, known as "Cherokee Strip," where seeing was difficult and hearing impossible.
Nevertheless, the lottery continued as the fairest plan that could be devised until the removal of desks and the substitution of benches in 1913 did away with the necessity for permanent seats. A member entering the chamber may now locate in any unoccupied chair. Although this was practically so under the old arrangement, one who took the seat of another usually vacated it on the appearance of its rightful occupant--not from the feeling of being a trespasser, but because the desk contained books and papers which the latter might wish to consult. Until the erection in 1908 of a building providing rooms for others than chairmen of committees, a member's desk was his office.
From Chapter 3, "Organization of the House", pages 39-40; Alexander; Houghton Mifflin Company; Boston and New York; 1916
