Hidden Corridors Under the Dome

Nearly 3 million visitors tour the U.S. Capitol every year, but they see only a small part of this national monument. C-SPAN, beginning tonight and continuing through Friday night, takes viewers on of a tour of the hidden corridors of power. In excerpts from the program, "The Capitol," lawmakers reflect on the building as a workplace as well as a symbol.

I think traditions are important -- if you forget about the tradition, you forget about the flavor of this place. The mace is an interesting thing. Every time I see the speaker of the British House of Commons, I accuse him. . . . Because in 1814 when the British burned the Capitol down, they also stole our mace. If you read the stories of former speakers, when this place really got rowdy or got out of hand or there was a fight on the floor, you had to present the mace. So it is a symbol of what this country has vested in the Congress. The power of the Congress, the power of the people coming together, and getting things done.

-- House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)

Every day I walk onto the floor of the House and I look down at the speaker's rostrum and I see the American flag, literally the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

-- Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.)

It's a great feeling to be in the gallery with a group of visitors and say this is how the president comes through the middle door, he walks down the center aisle, he goes around that first podium, he passes a copy of his address to the speaker and to the vice president.

-- Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)

The legislative body is like a heart beating. It comes and it goes and it comes and it goes.

-- Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.)

It's not just what we are doing in the present, it's not just the decisions that we make that affect present lives. It's part of being the thread of the cloth of the history of America.

People should come here and think about the America they know. And does this place reflect it?

-- Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)

The Senate is like a living creature . . . Breathing, it has a tempo to it . . . And you can watch it. You can feel it and it's almost like it's a person and if you treat it like it's another person, I think it responds well. Even when you're trying to make it do something it doesn't want to do.

It's a magnificent old building. It's not elegant or opulent; it's not like the Kremlin or the great palaces of Europe.

-- Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)

I use my father's desk. You carve your name in the schoolboy tradition that's gone on for years here. Senator Colt was the first senator to carve his name in my desk, then my father. Lyndon Johnson also carved his name into it. I've kept the same desk for a quarter of a century, so there are two Dodd names in that desk. The history of those desks and what occurred in them are significant.

-- Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.)