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Congressional Committees 
 
 A STUDY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF OUR NATIONAL 
 AND LOCAL LEGISLATIVE METHODS 
 
 LAUROS G.iMcCONACHIE, Ph.D. 
 
 NEW YORK : 46 East i 4 th Street 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street 
 
REPLACING 
 
 i 
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 By Thomas Y. Ckowell & Compakt. 
 
 C. J. Peters «fe Son, Typographers, 
 Boston. 
 
TK lozf 
 
 TO 
 
 My Father and Mothik. 
 
 515 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 America, to paraphrase Emerson, is but another 
 name for evolution. Legislative bodies are living, 
 
 more or less rapidly changing, political organisms. 
 Bach has its own external and internal conditions. 
 
 In many respects the laws of their being are like 
 those of human society in general. They must have 
 governments. They must adapt themselves to their 
 
 own peculiar external environments. Within, jus- 
 tice is to be maintained between member and mem- 
 ber, between the ruler and the ruled; positive and 
 energetic administration is to have its efficient or- 
 gans; rules and customs are to he established by 
 the rightful voice of ail concerned ; and everything 
 ought to be adjusted to the complexity or simpli- 
 city of the bodies as regards the number of mem- 
 bers, variety or sameness of individual capacities, 
 amount and character of the work to be per- 
 formed. 
 
 Parliamentary law is the law of law-making. 
 The curtain of our legislation rises with an af- 
 firmative clashing of spears in the folk-moot of a 
 
 vii 
 
VI 11 PREFACE. 
 
 Teuton forest ; it falls, thus far, with the counting 
 of a quorum in a marble palace by the Potomac. 
 Not to speak of other races, ancient and modern, 
 progress of Germanic civilization can be satisfac- 
 torily traced in the law of public meetings and 
 assemblies. 
 
 In our earlier history almost the only men who 
 gave any attention to legislative methods were 
 the practical law-makers and politicians. A new 
 school of outside critics may be said to have begun 
 with Horace Greeley, and to have been continued 
 under the lead of such scholars and authors as 
 James Parton, Alexander Johnson, Woodrow Wil- 
 son, and James Bryce. These men were attracted 
 by the crashing of parliamentary machinery upon 
 the floor of Congress, that complete break-down 
 due to a sudden and vast augmentation of legisla- 
 tive burdens brought by the War for the Union and 
 its results. They were rightly unanimous in tak- 
 ing their stand as scathing, relentless fault-finders, 
 but failed to suggest remedies, or to discover any 
 process of self-correction in Congress itself. They 
 had, to be sure, one stock model to offer, the Brit- 
 ish parliamentary system. Their example, as well 
 as the new zeal for comparative study of institu- 
 tions, has led publicists to look abroad for meth- 
 ods of improvement, and to hold up many foreign 
 forms as worthy of importation. But, by way of 
 reaction, a second and a later school has arisen in 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 opposition to the first, the defenders of American 
 Legislative methods as developments of American 
 political conditions, some of them men of letters, 
 but more largely scholar-legislators, with years of 
 experience in Congress. 
 
 Between these masters of attack and defence 
 I have sought the golden mean. But there is 
 another source, the best reliance of the seeker 
 after truth. As Montesquieu somewhere expresses 
 it, laws interpret history, history interprets laws. 
 With the value in mind o! applying such a prin- 
 ciple to the study of the rules and practice, I 
 have tried to glean from contemporary debates, 
 
 memoirs, QewspaperB, and other records the rea- 
 sons assigned by the author for each innovation as 
 it has entered and enlarged tin- codes, as well as 
 
 the testimony of contemporary legislators upon the 
 
 conditions prevailing in successive stages of the 
 history of our national House and Senate. Some 
 weeks were given to attendance upon the daily ses- 
 sions of Congress. I have breathed the unselfish 
 devotion to learning, and the loyalty to scientific 
 methods of research, which is in the atmosphere 
 of our American universities. On these accounts, 
 I trust that the following pages have been made 
 to carry some well-founded and useful contribu- 
 tions to knowledge, though faults be many, and, 
 to others, patent. 
 
 A few words concerning the foot-notes. Dates 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 are given numerously for two reasons : they are 
 helpful to simultaneous consultation of the de- 
 bates, the journals, and other sources with refer- 
 ence to any particular incident ; and they are 
 especially important to a progressive view. The 
 initials, H. J., S. J., C. A., C. D., C. G., and C. 
 R. refer to the House and Senate Journals, and to 
 the Annals, Debates, Globes, and Records, of Con- 
 gress respectively. Thus, 49 : 2, S. J., 91, Dec. 
 20, 1886, means the second session of the Forty- 
 ninth Congress, Senate Journal, page ninety-one ; 
 and by aid of the date the corresponding account 
 is readily found, 49 : 2, C. R., 272. 
 
 In the preparation of this work I have been 
 under obligation for advice and encouragement to 
 Drs. Jeremiah W. Jenks and Richard T. Ely; for 
 courtesies in the hurry of legislative life to the 
 Hons. George W. Ray, Everett J. Murphy, and 
 George W. Prince ; for untiring helpfulness, to 
 the library staffs of Cornell University and the 
 Wisconsin Historical Society. 
 
 L. G. M. 
 Chicago, Jan. 18, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Origins and Antecedents. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 Earliest Content of the Committee Idea 3 
 
 Beginnings in the British Parliament 
 
 America's Parliamentary Debt to England 9 
 
 Original Feature! boa Colonial Life 12 
 
 The Cougresses of the Revolution ami the Confederation . 2G 
 
 Summary as to Origins and Antecedents 30 
 
 THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 CHAPTKi: II. 
 
 The Public and the Committee. 
 
 Development of Rules in the House 
 
 The Committee as a Mirror of History 39 
 
 Its Territorial Basis 44 
 
 Sectional Considerations is 
 
 Majority and Minority Representation 53 
 
 The Speaker as the Appointing Power M 
 
 Secrecy vs. Publicity of Proceedings 5<i 
 
 Suggested Lines of Future Development 07 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Committee and Private Interests. 
 
 Conflict between Public and Private Business 72 
 
 Failures in Private Legislation 73 
 
 Witnesses before Committees 79 
 
 Review of Relations between People and Committee ... 84 
 
 xi 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Control by the House. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Committee and the Constitution 87 
 
 Adaptation of Procedure to Environment 88 
 
 Sketch of the Committee of the Whole 92 
 
 Its Merits and Demerits 95 
 
 Its Evolving Functions 96 
 
 History of Debate in the House 101 
 
 Changes in the Methods of Control — Reference and Selection, 115 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Select and Standing Committees. 
 
 Law of Their Development 123 
 
 The Process of Increase 124 
 
 Manner of Appointment 126 
 
 Division and Subdivision 131 
 
 Length of Their Existence 137 
 
 Their Merits and Demerits 142 
 
 Differences between the Two Classes 147 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Equality and Leadership. 
 
 Forces making for Equality and Inequality 151 
 
 The Insignificant Committeeman 152 
 
 Evolution of Leaders 154 
 
 Declining Equality among Committees — the Morning Hour, 167 
 
 Rise of Certain Committees to Superiority 171 
 
 The Right to Report at any Time 173 
 
 Development of the Finance Committee and Influence of 
 
 Riders 175 
 
 The Struggle for Distribution of Appropriation Bills ... 181 
 
 History of Suspension of the Rules, and Special Orders . . 186 
 
 Survey of the Situation in 1880 189 
 
 Rise of the Committee on Rules 191 
 
 Its Acquirement of Exclusive Jurisdiction over Special 
 
 Orders 195 
 
 Analysis of Its Part in the Legislative System 200 
 
 Conclusions as to the House 207 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Bonds between Judiciary, Executive, and Congress. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Bearing of Constitutional Divisions 211 
 
 The Committee on the Judiciary 212 
 
 Committees and Presidential Messages 214 
 
 Influence of the Executive upon Committee Work .... 221 
 
 Select Investigating Committees 228 
 
 The Standing Committees on Expenditures 233 
 
 Ordinary Relations between Committee and Cabinet . . . 236 
 
 e Development of Joint Action with the Senate . . . 239 
 
 Standing and Select Joint Committees 240 
 
 Conferences 945 
 
 Ordinary Relations by Use of Similar Committees .... 262 
 
 Summary as to Relations between the Departments . . . 264 
 
 THE SENATE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Antecedents and Outward Relations. 
 
 House and Senate — Value of a Comparative Study . . . 259 
 
 The Senate Stands for tin- Peel 980 
 
 Supremacy of the South and the West 261 
 
 The Senate and Public Opinion 264 
 
 State Representation upon Committees 206 
 
 Seniority and Sectionalism 210 
 
 liif Party Composition of Committees as Determined by 
 
 Ballot 272 
 
 Party Representation under Later Methods 275 
 
 Practical Workings and Defects of the Ballot 277 
 
 Early Influence! for its Undermining 278 
 
 Origin of the Caucus Method for Choice of Committees . . 280 
 Struggle of the Republicans for Committee Representation 
 
 before the Civil War 284 
 
 Party Ratios since 1861 287 
 
 A Recent Reorganization Described 290 
 
 Present Distortion of the Committee System 292 
 
 The Senate and Private Bill Legislation 296 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Interior Organization. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Absence of Parliamentary Development 300 
 
 Failure of the Previous Question 303 
 
 Reasons for the Unwillingness to Organize more Thoroughly, 304 
 
 The Strength of Individuals and Minorities 306 
 
 The Minority vs. the Committee 309 
 
 Forces on the Side of Parliamentary Progress 311 
 
 Advance in Methods prior to 1870 . . 316 
 
 The Making of the Calendar 318 
 
 Finance and General Legislation 321 
 
 Continuity and Stability 323 
 
 Senatorial Seniority 325 
 
 Leaders — the Committee Chairman 326 
 
 The Vice-President presiding 326 
 
 The Vice-President naming the Committees 329 
 
 History of the Presidency pro tempore 332 
 
 The President pro tempore naming the Committees . . . 333 
 
 Comparison of the two Constitutional Dignitaries .... 336 
 
 Caucus Premiers 338 
 
 The Committee on Committees, and the Steering Committee, 341 
 
 Conclusions as to the Senate 343 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. Origin and Development of Standing Committees . . 349 
 
 II. Classification of Committees 359 
 
 III. Rules proposed for the Pennsylvania Assembly, and 
 
 adopted in 1703 362 
 
 IV. Committees in State Legislatures and Municipal Coun- 
 
 cils 365 
 
 V. The Financial Committees of Congress ...... 373 
 
 VI. Rules of the House of Representatives 388 
 
 VII. List of Works cited . 420 
 
 Index 427 
 
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
In societies, as in living bodies, increase of mass is habitually 
 accompanied by increase of structure. 
 
 Herbert Spencer. 
 
 And thereupon they came near, in a great Multitude (more 
 than was ever seen on the First Day of a Parliament in any man's 
 memory) and answered to their Names. 
 
 "Journal of the House of Commons." 
 10 Martii, A. 1603. 
 
 The Speaker reads to the House the orderly Method of Parlia- 
 ments, and the Demeanour of the Members thereof observed in 
 England, which he recommended to them, as civil and good: as 
 also the Method observed by the English in Committees. 
 
 "Votes of the Assembly." (Pennsylvania.) 
 1st. mo., 12th da., 1683. 
 
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 
 
 Society is everywhere using committees. Their 
 importance in the many lines of public and pri- 
 vate co-operation is on the increase. Here a fash- 
 ionable city club chooses certain of its members to 
 arrange for some brilliant reception; there a busy 
 board of trade requires a select few of its body to 
 report upon an Important commercial undertaking. 
 The Christian Endeavorers find remarkable utility 
 in the committee idea. So does Tammany Hall. 
 Alike to the primary and to the governing council 
 in a rural American village, to the German Reichs- 
 tag and to the active municipality of Berlin, the 
 device is indispensable. Not less striking than the 
 number is the variety, — committees of all shades 
 in character, organization, and object. An institu- 
 tion becoming daily more common and necessary- 
 may well receive more of the publicist's thought. 
 What is its significance ? Why does the British 
 House of Commons present one elaborate commits 
 
 3 
 
4 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tee system, and the French Chamber of Deputies 
 another, essentially different? 
 
 Application of these and of other questions to 
 the committees of our Congress leads ultimately 
 to the deepest principles of political and social 
 science. Since its entrance into English etymol- 
 ogy, about the time of the Norman Conquest, the 
 term committee has had half a dozen applications, 
 special and general, three of which are now obso- 
 lete. 1 As used by the British Parliament, it has 
 designated a group, the session of a group, or an 
 individual member. With the latter, which was 
 its earliest sense, the collective body reported as 
 "your committees." Survivals of this old defini- 
 tion remain in American legislative codes to this 
 day. 2 The gradual change to the present aggre- 
 gate meaning has its hidden contrast between the 
 ages of individualism and our era of socialistic 
 trend. In its underlying ideas the word implies 
 that something is committed by a committent. 
 Here its sphere coincides with that of the more 
 familiar political term, representative. According 
 to a stern rule re-enacted by the ancient British 
 Commons at each session, the door of the Speaker's 
 Chamber, in which committees must meet, was 
 carefully fastened, and the key even locked away 
 
 1 Murray's New English Dictionary. 
 
 2 Cf. controversy of Garfield and Bayne over the employment 
 of "it" or "they" in speaking of a committee, 42: 2, C. R., 609, 
 Jan. 29, 1880. (For explanation of abbreviations, see Preface.) 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 5 
 
 by another key during the sittings of the larger 
 general assembly. It was the close rein put upon 
 delegated authority. Though we read in scholarly 
 works little of committee rule, and that mainly de- 
 nunciatory, there are able historical and philosoph- 
 ical exploitations of representative government. 
 Time has differentiated the meanings of the words 
 committee and representative, but follow them back 
 towards their beginnings and they approach iden- 
 tity. This may be demonstrated wit lion t crossing 
 the Atlantic, as, also, by the same examples, the 
 earlier use in America of the term committee in 
 the individual sense. Old records declare that 
 at a General Court of New Plymouth Colony, 
 June 4, 1639, were present the " Committees or 
 Dep ties for eich Towne ; " and that, in the pious 
 conventicle of the New Haven bam (1638), 
 with the Bible newly adopted as their constitu- 
 tion, the fathers of Connecticut, when one of their 
 number "stuck that free planters ought not to 
 give the power out of their hands," reasoned with 
 this extreme Jeffersonian antetype, showing how 
 "in all places they chuse committys." All the 
 freemen of Maryland, in 1637, elected from ten 
 candidates five " committees," who were soon suc- 
 ceeded by three men ; and these groups constituted 
 the real legislature, since their bills were passed 
 by what was practically mere referendum. 1 In 
 
 1 Archives of Maryland, Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly, 
 1637-8-1664, pp. 10-24. 
 
6 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 1774 the General Court of Massachusetts styled 
 the Continental Congress " a meeting of commit- 
 tees from the several colonies." An authority of 
 the present day follows this interchanging of terms, 
 when, in the same paragraph, he speaks of the 
 board of selectmen as " a committee from three to 
 thirteen in number," and cites the Salem Records 
 as calling it the " town representative." * In the 
 New World surroundings — or lack of surround- 
 ings — committees had rebounded largely to the 
 more primitive use. Primal distinctions may de- 
 termine that space or distance was the main obsta- 
 cle maternal to the representative, while time or 
 the need of despatch brought forth the committee- 
 man; but at the basis of both functions lies the 
 idea of a trust imposed. The people to-day in 
 town-meeting and in national assembly bestow the 
 power of government alike upon both. In the lat- 
 ter case the legislature becomes an intermediary 
 between people and committee, and the party ma- 
 chinery of conventions adds other middle stages. 
 Congress, a miniature of the nation, is in turn min- 
 iatured in each of its committees. 
 
 Wherever men have begun to use political rep- 
 resentation, advantages similiar to those which 
 recommended it to democracy have soon led the 
 assembled representatives a logical step farther to 
 
 1 Howard's "Local Constitutional History of the United 
 States," 75. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 1 
 
 commitment. The great first type of modern legis- 
 latures is the British House of Commons. In its 
 earliest written records are entries of the appoint- 
 ment of committees. In 1340 there were joint 
 committees of Lords and Commons to draw up 
 the statutes. 1 Beginning with petty clerical tasks, 
 they gradually took on new and higher duties. 2 
 Small at first, their size increased. At first funo- 
 tus officio upon report concerning a single matter 
 assigned, the lives of some of them naturally be- 
 gan to lengthen by commitment of more than one 
 case, where cases were similar to the same group 
 of members. Thus, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
 finally developed the first standing committee, a 
 Committee of Privileges and Elections lasting 
 throughout the session. 8 But the critical and the 
 glorious period came in those famous days when 
 divine right of kings struggled most stubbornly 
 against divine right of people. Then it was that 
 increasing membership and increasing business 
 forced upon the House new and deeper division of 
 its labor. In the reign of James I., the Commons 
 invented the Committee of the Whole, a parlia- 
 mentary machine which has played its nobly sav- 
 
 1 Stubbs's " Constitutional History of England," III. 466. 
 
 2 The ancient French comis was a clerk; cf. the humble origin 
 of the title count (comes), Henderson's " Introduction to the 
 Middle Ages," 176, 219; and "Mediaeval Europe," 496, 497. 
 
 8 J. F. Jameson in " Report of American Historical Associa- 
 tion," 1893, p. 394. 
 
8 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ing and conservative part in near three centuries 
 of Anglo-Saxon history. The tyrannical Stuart 
 stood ready to single out and crush that mem- 
 ber who dared to speak freely to his fellows ; and 
 the officers of the House, including the Speaker, 
 an appointee of the crown, were the king's tat- 
 tling minions. 1 Therefore, in order to protect 
 their precious right of untrammelled deliberation, 
 the members began to hold secret and informal 
 sessions with a chairman of their own choosing. 
 These so-called Grand Committees met in the af- 
 ternoons, when the spies were gone. Upon the 
 ancient rolls half a dozen words and a dotted line 
 in place of the spokesman's name are all that indi- 
 cate the report to the House of their momentous 
 proceedings. By an easy transition, the Commons 
 came to avail themselves of their prized expedient 
 in the midst of the morning session. The Speaker 
 at first withdrew to an outer room, but as time 
 did away with the originating grievance, merely 
 took a seat at one side in the clerk's chair, that 
 official humbly standing at his back, and the mod- 
 erator of the committee occupying a stool at his 
 elbow. 2 
 
 At one time, in the Little Parliament summoned 
 by Cromwell, the four grand committees, for Be- 
 
 1 Stubbs's "Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern History," 271- 
 274. 
 
 2 Journal of tbe House of Commons, March 23, 1610. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 9 
 
 ligion, for Grievances, for Courts of Justice, for 
 Trade, with the already select standing Committee 
 on Privileges and Elections, were organized on a 
 numerical basis, which promised for the moment 
 a committee system like those now existing in 
 American legislatures; but the tide of British his- 
 tory, shortly sweeping away the innovation, re- 
 stored the former voluntary methods, whereby all 
 Commoners who attended a committee meeting 
 had voices. Finally, when the House of Commons 
 had grasped to itself the supremacy over all other 
 branches of the government, it produced that all- 
 absorbing committee, the Cabinet, and turned over 
 to courts of justice the duties of its committee on 
 elections. Since 1883 the ancient grand commit- 
 tees have been revived. It is a long story, that of 
 the use of committees in the Parliament of our 
 mother country, with many turnings and wind- 
 ings, with incidents in the four centuries preced- 
 ing 1789 to parallel almost every incident and 
 illustrate almost every phase of the committee 
 since 1789, as in the light of our own experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Inquiry is necessary only as to its more direct 
 connections with the procedure of Congress. That 
 stage in British parliamentary experience from 
 which our young colonial legislatures drew most 
 was the very one — so brilliant in its annals — to 
 which attention has been called, when, under the 
 
10 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 stress of a life-and-death grapple between monar- 
 chy and representation, the machinery of law-mak- 
 ing was taking fundamental and lasting outlines. 
 The first and, next to the Pennsylvania Assembly, 
 the chief medium for transmission of British forms 
 to our Federal Congress was the Virginia House 
 of Burgesses. That " miniature parliament " of 
 twenty-two, gathered in the choir of Jamestown's 
 church, was ludicrously yet reverently imitative 
 of the mother assembly that sat beneath London 
 spires. 1 Its first step was a solemn consideration 
 of the credentials of its members ; its first business 
 was performed mainly by two committees, consist- 
 ing each of eight members, — standing committees, 
 too, since they lasted throughout the session of 
 six days ! 1 
 
 Williamsburg, St. Mary's, and Philadelphia saw 
 the speech from the throne, the processions and 
 humble addresses of Lords and Commons, verily 
 outdone by Governor, Council, and Assembly. 2 
 These ceremonies were the foundation later in 
 New York City for those opening exercises as with 
 President, Senate, and Representatives, whose in- 
 fluence in shaping our committee systems later 
 pages of this study will trace. 
 
 The earliest legislative archives of Maryland and 
 
 1 Virginia Colonial Records. 
 
 2 The colonial journals give these addresses, which are pro- 
 totypes of our presidential and gubernatorial messages. Parton 
 vividly describes the scenes, " Life of Jefferson," 89-93. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 11 
 
 Pennsylvania indicate some subservience of presid- 
 ing officers towards the proprietors. The Com- 
 mittee of the Whole, or Grand Committee, was in 
 use from the outset. That the device was slow 
 in obtaining its original use in the Old Dominion 
 may be inferred from an incident of the memor- 
 able year 1676: tin* Burgesses, finding themselves 
 subjected to the same tyrannical scrutiny which 
 had led the British Commons to their secret after- 
 noon sessions, knew not, blunt, honest fellows, how- 
 to avoid Berkeley and his Connoilmen; through 
 "T. M. of Strafford 91 they have registered the 
 
 complaint that they " must submit t<> he overawed 
 and have every carpt at expression carried streight 
 to the Governor." lint the days of the greater 
 rebellion just a century thence found the Virgin* 
 ians thoroughly familiar with this committee of 
 freedom. Therein Patrick Hemy sounded the 
 bugle of revolution, and Virginia laid the corner- 
 stone of national government. 1 
 
 In later colonial times legislators read and com- 
 mon-placed the books of the ancient parliamenta- 
 rians, among them Elsynge, the clerk of the 
 Commons who resigned to escape the troubles 
 with Charles I. ; Hakewill and D'Ewes, members 
 of the lower House, the former under James I., the 
 latter under Cromwell ; and Grey, the compiler 
 of debates, whose manuscripts were consulted by 
 
 1 Bancroft's "History of United States," ITT. 110-112, 436, 437. 
 
12 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Arthur Onslow, for thirty-three years the model 
 Speaker. 1 
 
 But, as emphasized by the latest critics, New 
 World institutions have a large element of spon- 
 taneity or originality. Jefferson suspects that 
 the commonest forms of English procedure — so 
 common that no one has thought to put them in 
 writing — have escaped the Virginians in their 
 "quarter of the globe." From the Vice-Presi- 
 dent's chair he complained to Wythe : " So little 
 has the Parliamentary branch of the law been at- 
 tended to, that I not only find no person, but not 
 even a book to aid me." The House of Represen- 
 tatives, said he, had ways* of its own — looked not 
 up to the Senate as it should have done, but in- 
 clined to run after the "awkward," "unparlia- 
 mentary " and " inconvenient " practice of the Old 
 Congress. 2 Whoever will compare the Cis- and 
 Trans-Atlantic journals for the later decades of 
 the eighteenth century must be impressed with 
 their differences. The great intervening ocean, 
 
 1 Onslow served from 1728 until 1761. In his Manual, Jeffer- 
 son constantly refers to these and other seventeenth century- 
 authors ; sketches of their lives, and titles of their publications, 
 are given in the Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
 2 Five letters of his upon the state of legislative practice may 
 be consulted in Jefferson's " Works," IX. 6 ; Ford's " Writings of 
 Jefferson," VII. 110, 426, 430. As early as 1812 the House pur- 
 chased fifty copies of Jefferson's Manual ; it has been the sole 
 authority prescribed by the rules since 1837, but is now rarely 
 cited. Cf. statement of Revision Committee, C. R., January 6, 
 1880. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 13 
 
 narrowed but little by printing and not at all by 
 steam or electricity, cut off the American legisla- 
 tor, and confined him to his own resources. 
 
 What were the chief American contributions to 
 procedure before 1789? Of deliberative assem- 
 blies in the background of our Congress were the 
 conventions which framed and ratified the Con- 
 stitution, and, receding beyond one another, the 
 Confederation and Continental Congresses, the 
 legislatures of statehood and colonial dependency, 
 the smaller local units, the county, the vestry, the 
 township. Considering only these public bodies, 
 there was much opportunity for original parlia- 
 mentary developments, and they were the schools 
 from which the men who Bet the new government 
 going came with long experience. Most advanced 
 of the thirteen original States were Virginia, Penn- 
 sylvania, and Massachusetts. From them came 
 almost all the fonnulative forces for Congressional 
 procedure. Legislative chambers in the other col- 
 onics had not attained to a size and an activity 
 which necessitated much interest in new methods. 
 Besides Jefferson in the Senate, Virginia's Bur- 
 gesses gave Madison as the first floor leader of 
 the House, and sent to it their clerk, rare John 
 Beckley, to impress, by many years of service, the 
 forms of the Old Dominion as only the clerk had 
 opportunity. Madison and R. B. Lee were mem- 
 bers of the first House Committee on Rules, whose 
 
14 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 report is still, as in Hildreth's time, "the basis of 
 Congressional action." Of the nine other mem- 
 bers on this committee, Massachusetts had two ; 
 Connecticut, two ; New Hampshire, one, — almost 
 a majority for New England. New Jersey had 
 two, Pennsylvania and South Carolina each one. 
 Massachusetts' General Court gave the Senate its 
 first President, Pennsylvania's Assembly sent its 
 Speaker to preside over the first House of Repre- 
 sentatives. Keystone methods were further ren- 
 dered pre-eminent through the existence of all the 
 Pennsylvania journals in published form, credit for 
 which — and accordingly for furnishing the mod- 
 els of our national legislature — belongs to Benja- 
 min Franklin, one-time clerk of the Assembly, and 
 in 1752 its first public printer. He is the father 
 of Congressional printing. 
 
 The Massachusetts towns are the many tiny 
 springs of American government held by histo- 
 rians equally important with the larger single 
 streams of Virginia and Pennsylvania. In them, 
 more than anywhere else among the colonies, in- 
 stitutions seem freest from Old World precedent. 
 In them, from pure democracy, rises first pure 
 representation, then pure committeeship. All is 
 on the broad basis of framing " equal laws for the 
 general good." The political seed springs in vir- 
 gin soil. Representation is regenerated. Again 
 all the successive stages are passed through, but 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 15 
 
 more easily and rapidly than in the former growth. 
 Because of race inheritances, the marks and scars of 
 the old, slow development do not reappear, but the 
 essential excellences are retained and surpassed. 
 
 Two features of this process may be marked, 
 bearing, indeed, upon the very broadest differences 
 to-day observable between our institutions and 
 those of other lands, but having much to do with 
 the distinctive characteristics of American com- 
 mittee systems. One is in the New World man 
 himself; the other, in his conditions. The New 
 Englander led his fellow-colonists as an advocate 
 
 of individual freedom and democrat ie equality. 
 Bancroft traces Puritan ideas back to Luther, Cal- 
 vin, and Krasmus. As was the man, BO were his 
 politics. Not only the new nation, but also its 
 governmental establishments, were "dedicated to 
 the proposition of equality." One representative 
 must not exalt himself above another, nor a com- 
 mitteeman do obeisance to his fellow. To the 
 common condition of men in the English middle 
 class from which came our first colonists, and to 
 the racial and religious inheritances that can be 
 traced beyond the leaders of the Reformation, ought 
 to be added that stripping away of artificial dis- 
 tinctions in wealth and rank which pioneer life is 
 so well understood to involve. The frontier has 
 scarcely yet ceased to be a factor in American 
 life. Besides the personal quality, another form 
 
16 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 of equality was revived and strengthened in New 
 World settlement; namely, that ancient equality 
 of tribes and petty localities in treating one with 
 another. Isolation, climate, and differences of 
 origin are here accountable. In general courts 
 and assemblies, towns or counties held equal rep- 
 resentation ; in Continental Congresses, thirteen 
 small and great colonies had each a single voice. 1 
 Legislative machinery had also to be fitted at first 
 to small aggregations of men. Mainly herein lay 
 the absurdity of Locke's " Grand Model," and 
 the failure of Penn's first " Frame of Govern- 
 ment." It was not as when Frenchmen apply a 
 ready-made constitution to their populous land. 
 Just as the first settlement threw off other settle- 
 ments, and these all, as they grew, united into 
 counties and colonies, so from simpler embryonic 
 forms of pure democracy government was differen- 
 tiated into departments, and expanded to meet by 
 representative systems the needs of growing popu- 
 lations. Representation was not at first in de- 
 mand. The device was well known, but its use 
 deferred. When it came, its sphere increased grad- 
 ually by subtraction from democracy. Multiply- 
 ing population meant multiplying legislators ; and, 
 with a larger body of representatives, committees, 
 
 1 On the mixing of territorial with popular equality, as well 
 as on a general return to first principles, in pioneer Tennessee, cf . 
 Roosevelt's "Winning of the West," II. 3M-347, 361-369, 383. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 17 
 
 at first not so much needed or used, slowly ad- 
 vanced towards the power and importance which 
 custom had long yielded to those of the massive 
 old assembly in more populous England. 
 
 In a sense the selectmen and other permanent 
 officers evolved by the New England town-meet- 
 ing were its standing committees, while from the 
 time of its origin it used the ordinary select 
 committee for performance of its multitudinous 
 functions. 1 The interesting era of these select 
 committees comes a century and a half after the 
 landing of the Pilgrims. Tin- oapacrftiee of repre- 
 sentation were developed in Old England by the 
 pedantic tyranny of James I.; George III., with 
 his obstinate menaces, wrought in New England 
 liie same enlargement. At IJraintree, John Adams 
 got a first taste of fame by his report from a 
 town committee, — a denunciation of the Stamp 
 Act, printed in the newspapers and adopted, la; 
 declares, by forty towns. 2 This episode was but 
 a forerunner to the memorable event seven years 
 later ■ in Boston's town-meeting, when Samuel 
 Adams seized upon the committee idea, and with 
 it laid broad foundations for a continent-spanning 
 political system. 8 Nov. 2, 1772, in face of jeer- 
 
 1 The Massachusetts Records, I. 44, 47, 48, contain instances of 
 the use of committees hy the governor and council in 1629. 
 
 2 C. F. Adams's "Three Episodes of Massachusetts History," 
 838-839. 
 
 8 Bancroft's " History of United States," III. 420. 
 
18 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ing Tories and timid Whigs, he carried his motion 
 for a Committee of Correspondence, twenty-one 
 in number, to state the rights of the colonies, and 
 communicate with the several towns of Massachu- 
 setts. It was a new application and combination 
 of two old instruments, the committee and the 
 printing-press ; and was hailed shortly as an inspi- 
 ration from heaven or an emanation from the devil. 
 It was "the highest mark the town-meeting ever 
 touched." Before long the New England towns 
 generally had followed Boston's example with a 
 shower of pamphleteering as portentous as that 
 which at the same time or a little later became 
 the dynamic force of the French Revolution. 1 
 
 On the whole, New England committees were 
 carefully and lengthily instructed, summarily and 
 vigorously controlled. 2. They were freely put to 
 every variety of use. In Rhode Island's early his- 
 tory investigating committees traveled from town 
 to town, and joint committees acted for Provi- 
 dence and Warwick. 3 The first provincial con- 
 gresses neatly adapted the sizes of their committees 
 to the manifold purposes which the war emergen- 
 
 1 Six of these committees superintended the Boston Tea Party. 
 King George is said to have believed that each town had its regu- 
 lar committee on tarring and feathering ! 
 
 2 C. F. Adams's "Three Episodes of Massachusetts History," 
 584, 822, 831-834. 
 
 s Case of Rev. Mr. McSparran (1719) in Munro's " History of 
 Bristol, Rhode Island." " Early Records of the Towne of Provi- 
 dence," II. 65; year 1652. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 19 
 
 cies of the Revolution evolved. There were rou- 
 tine or ceremonial committees of two or three, 
 committees of men selected for special fitness, and 
 committees representing in their composition the 
 various counties and localities of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 To the Virginia House of Burgesses, it is well 
 known, belongs the next step beyond the town co- 
 operation of New Rngland ; namely, the institution 
 of intercolonial standing committees of correspond- 
 ence, and thence the way led to the Continental 
 Congress, the Confederation, the Federal Union. 1 
 At the time when the Federal Union began, the 
 Virginians were making a large use of select com- 
 mittees, each of which was created only after dis- 
 cussion of a subject in the Committee of the Whole 
 bad revealed the advisability of bringing in a bill. 
 They had also an emerging block of standing com- 
 mittees appointed at the beginning of and lasting 
 throughout a session. The titles of these were: 
 Religion, Privileges and Elections, Propositions 
 and Grievances, Courts of Justice, Claims, Com- 
 merce, Trade. Several had evidently taken the 
 names of the old-time English grand committees. 
 Clerks were granted to them, and important pow- 
 ers freely conferred. A small quorum was pre- 
 scribed for each. Unwieldy size was their great 
 defect, due partly, it seems, to reckless additions 
 
 1 Frothingham's "Rise of the Republic," 234. 
 
20 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 to their numbers from time to time. The Propo- 
 sitions and Grievances, for example, had above 
 eighty members. 1 
 
 The Pennsylvania Assembly evidently furnished 
 much the largest part of our national law-making 
 devices. Therefore a particular examination of its 
 history is appropriate. The men who crossed the 
 Atlantic to found the Quaker State came fresh 
 from the most interesting constitutional develop- 
 ments and the most renowned Parliamentary pro- 
 ceedings in English history. William Penn had 
 his own ideas of legislative processes, as well as 
 of state-building in general. In his first "frame 
 of government" he embodied a plan for a com- 
 mittee system so striking that it is given full pre- 
 sentation as follows : — 
 
 "That for the better Management of the Powers and 
 Trust aforesaid the Provincial Council shall, from time to 
 time, divide itself into four distinct and proper Committees, 
 for the more easy administration of the affairs of the Prov- 
 ince, which divides the Seventy-two into four Eighteens, 
 every one of which Eighteens shall consist of Six out of 
 the three Orders or yearly Elections, each of which shall 
 have a distinct Portion of Business, as f olloweth : First, 
 a Committee of Plantations, to situate and settle Cities, 
 Ports, Market-Towns, and Highways, and to hear and de- 
 cide all Suits and Controversies relating to Plantations. 
 Secondly, a Committee of Justice and Safety, to secure the 
 
 1 Journal of the House of Delegates begun and held at Rich- 
 mond, Oct. 20, 1788. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 21 
 
 Peace of the Province, and punish the Male- Administration 
 of those who subvert Justice to the Prejudice of the pub- 
 lick or private Interest. Thirdly, a Committee of Trade 
 and Treasury, who shall regulate all Trade and Commerce 
 according to Law, encourage Manufacture and Country- 
 Growth, and defray the publick charge of the Province. 
 And Fourthly, a Committee of Manners* Education, ami 
 Arts, that all wicked and scandalous Living may be pre- 
 vented, and that Youth may be successively trained np iu 
 Virtue and useful Knowledge and Arts. The Quorum of 
 each of which Committees being Six, that is, Two out of 
 each of the three Orders or Yearly Elections as aforesaid, 
 make a constant and standing Council of TWENTY- 
 FOUR, which will have the Power of the Provincial Coun- 
 cil, being the Quorum of it, in all Cases not excepted in 
 the Fifth Article; and in the said Committees and stand- 
 ing Council of the Province, the Governor or his Deputy 
 shall or may preside as aforesaid; and in the absence of 
 the Governor or his Deputy, if no one is by either of them 
 appointed, the said Committees or Council, shall appoint a 
 President for that Time, and not otherwise ; and what shall 
 be resolved at such committees, shall be reported to the 
 said Council of the Province, and shall be by them resolved 
 and confirmed before the said shall be put in Execution ; 
 and that these respective Committees ^hall not sit at one 
 and the same time except in Cases of Necessity." 
 
 Under this constitution the Council originated all 
 legislation, and was in consequence much more im- 
 portant than the Assembly. Of course the beauti- 
 fully symmetrical committee scheme utterly failed 
 in the wilderness. Instead of the seventy-two 
 members that it called for, but sixteen appeared 
 
22 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 for the first session. These were divided into 
 three committees as nearly equal in size as possi- 
 ble. Instead of the grand general objects laid out, 
 to one of them was " refered the burning of woods 
 and Marshes, to have Chattel marked, to erect 
 Bounds of ffences;" and to another the prepara- 
 tion of bills " about Prisons, Sowing of hemp and 
 Flax, Runaways, Passes, Selling of Ser vt8, into other 
 provinces, for Destroying Wolves, to raise Money, 
 & a bill for Hogg stealers." The Council soon 
 dwindled in number and importance to such an 
 extent that its use of committees was discontinued. 
 Nevertheless, Penn's ideas were those of America's 
 future, as the objects of many a present committee 
 list testify in the very words of his plan ; his clear 
 vision of order and equality has prevailed, and 
 should prevail more fully, in all our legislative 
 processes. 1 
 
 Attempted imitation of Parliament is evident 
 on the face of the first Pennsylvania Assembly's 
 journal. Having nothing to do, since it was but 
 a revising body, it occupied itself at the outset 
 of that three days' session with a consideration 
 of parliamentary practice, and the formulation of 
 a crude written procedure. With a degree of 
 conservatism surprising even for them, the Penn- 
 sylvanians held to this down to the inception of 
 
 1 On the first Pennsylvania Council, cf. Roosevelt's " Winning 
 of the West," II. 361-369. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 23 
 
 our national government, and carried it to Con- 
 gress, whence its influence has spread throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land. Its items 
 were reenacted and improved from time to time, 
 so that in Revolutionary days they formed a code 
 of nineteen neatly arranged and numbered rules. 1 
 In them, and still more in the Assembly records 
 generally, is traceable through a devious history 
 the interweaving of old English methods with 
 innovations that are now especially a part of the 
 practice of our national House of Representatives. 
 Of these may be noted the power of the Speaker, 
 the previous question, and various leading fea- 
 tures of the committee system. 
 
 A large share in legislation belonged to the 
 Pennsylvania Speaker from the outset. He it 
 was, evidently, who in the times of William Penn 
 compiled the rules, which were approved by vote 
 at the beginnings of sessions, and tacked to the 
 door of the Assembly chamber. Later he was a 
 member of committees on rules, which were raised 
 regularly. He was also upon other important com- 
 mittees. He made motions and participated in 
 debates. He granted or withheld leave of ab- 
 sence, and gave "religious and wholesome coun- 
 sel." As early as 1687 he began to acquire the 
 appointment of committees, a privilege which was 
 
 1 Journal of Pennsylvania Assembly, Nov. 30, 1776. For rules 
 of 1703, see Appendix. 
 
24 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 entirely vested in him by rule in 1701. In the 
 above-noticed first body of rules of 1682, he ob- 
 tained a power which may be called the origin of 
 the cloture. The words are, "Superfluous and 
 tedious Speeches may be stopt by the Speaker." 
 To these words by 1703 was added, "If it shall at 
 any Time happen, that a Debate prove tedious, and 
 any four Members shall stand up, and request the 
 Speaker to put the Matter in Debate to the Vote, 
 he shall not refuse it." In the years immediately 
 preceding 1789 this summary process in some 
 way, ignorantly or intentionally, came to be called 
 the previous question. The English form of the 
 previous question, at that time and always, has 
 been merely an awkward and puzzling motion 
 favorable to postponement. The Speaker of the 
 Commons would ordinarily put a subject to vote 
 when his judgment told him that no one desired 
 further to discuss or to amend; but any member 
 had the right to raise the question previously, 
 "Shall the main question be now put?" If the 
 House decided that it should not, the matter was 
 without further ado swept aside in favor of other 
 business. Later consideration of our subject will 
 involve extended notice of the entrance of this 
 Pennsylvania invention into national usage as the 
 very vital nucleus of legislative systems. Though 
 the Virginians had the beginnings of standing com- 
 mittees, the Pennsylvanians were much farther ad- 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 25 
 
 vanced. Upon the opening of a later Provincial 
 Assembly, they appointed moderately sized com- 
 mittees for Ways and Means, Accounts, Revision 
 of the Laws and the Minutes, Revision of the 
 Criminal Laws, Rules, Claims, Unfinished Busi- 
 ness, the President's Message. Most of these lasted 
 throughout all the sessions of that Assembly. 
 Their names are suggestive of the early lists in the 
 national House — indeed, all the forms of open- 
 ing proceedings at New York in 1 7 s '. * seem to have 
 been copied almost literally after those which had 
 long prevailed in Philadelphia. Through long 
 and turbulent annals the exchange of courtesies 
 between Pennsylvania's Executive and Assembly 
 had been reduced to an exact science, and one of 
 the practices of the legislature was known as the 
 "dissection of the President's Message." As soon 
 as a communication from the president had been 
 read, it was submitted for analysis to a committee 
 of three, who presently reported recommending so 
 many committees of three, sometimes as high as a 
 dozen, upon such of the various subjects mentioned 
 by His Excellency as it deemed worthy of the honor. 
 This practice was applied also to unfinished busi- 
 ness revived from a former session or assembly. 
 Together with the small, uniform sizes of com- 
 mittees to which it gave rise, it is particularly 
 pertinent to the Congressional beginnings. 1 
 
 1 Attention should be directed to the many influences of State 
 
26 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Concerning the use of committees in the na- 
 tional Congresses from 1774 to 1789, the follow- 
 ing salient points may be observed. On the third 
 day at Carpenter's Hall in 1774, with forty-five 
 members present, two committees were named to 
 state the rights of the colonists and the instances 
 of their infringement. The first consisted of two 
 members, the second of one member from each 
 State present. After a time the entire business was 
 merged in the larger of the two. Naively writes 
 John Adams in 1804: "This committee . . . be- 
 came an object of jealousy to all the other members 
 of Congress." 1 Jealousy is a sentinel that calls 
 the halt upon every step of government towards 
 centralization. 
 
 A measure in that ante-constitutional period, that 
 time of long-spun discussion and thorough sifting, 
 ran about the following gantlet: first, broached 
 and debated in the House ; second, referred to the 
 Committee of the Whole and debated ; third, re- 
 ferred to a select committee and debated ; fourth, 
 referred to one or two individuals for drafting ; 
 fifth, back again by the same stages, with debate 
 and amendment all the way, until the final vote 
 of acceptance or rejection put an end to a process 
 
 legislatures, new and old, upon the national procedure down to 
 date, a very large subject. Later instances are to be had in Fol- 
 lett's "The Speaker of the House of Representatives," 92, 155, 
 
 201. 
 
 1 Works of John Adams, II. 373-377. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 27 
 
 which often lasted for weeks and months. 1 In 
 a leisurely way the appointment of a committee 
 was determined upon one day, its size and compo- 
 sition fixed the next. As a rule, no two of its 
 members were from the same State. But between 
 war-time and peace methods there was marked dif- 
 ference, especially in point of committee stability 
 and power. The opponents of Independence in 
 1776, by raising Committees of the Whole upon 
 trivial subjects, made them their 1 tattle-ground 
 for delay, while the radicals fought for select com- 
 mittees. 2 Occasionally there was the promise of 
 a standing committee ; one on claims — styled a 
 grand emnmittee because it consisted of one mem- 
 ber from each State lasted about a year, and 
 reported eighty-odd times. But by far t he greater 
 number of the select committees, of which in the 
 journals for the period <>t' fifteen years there is rec- 
 ord of more than eight hundred, were short-lived, 
 limited to a single and often a trivial subject, and 
 liable to be at any moment unceremoniously su- 
 perseded. The most important interests changed 
 hands with a rapidity almost kaleidoscopic. For 
 example, within six years the infant navy was 
 put out to nine different sets of nurses, such a 
 management as to leave the country without ships 
 
 1 For an example of this word-weighing debate, cf. Bancroft's 
 "History of the United States," III. 273. 
 a Works of John Adams, III. 43. 
 
28 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 at the close of the Revolution, and defenseless 
 against the jealous powers beyond the Atlantic. 1 
 Likewise the all-important future of the North- 
 west Territory was left by the same shifting sys- 
 tem to the dominion " of Providence." 2 Certain 
 committees whose functions were executive are es- 
 pecially important as measures of centralizing ten- 
 dencies in the Congresses. They are the boards 
 of War, Treasury, and Admiralty, and the Com- 
 mittee of the States intended to sit in the recesses. 
 The first three were rather hybrid in make-up, 
 more of commissions than committees. Each con- 
 sisted of five members, two from the Congress and 
 three outsiders. 3 Each had broad executive pow- 
 ers so far as Congress could grant them, and ac- 
 commodations such as those of the present House 
 have obtained only after a century of pleading. 
 
 From Jefferson's little book on parliamentary 
 practice, his legacy to the Senate upon retiring 
 from its chair, may be gleaned an estimate of the 
 stage at which procedure, in America in general 
 and in Virginia in particular, had then arrived, 
 and of American knowledge of usage beyond the 
 Atlantic. 4 Its pages show that committee proceed- 
 
 1 Goldsborough's " Naval Chronicle of the United States " 
 sketches these transfers.. 
 
 2 Bancroft's "History of the United States," VI., chapter vi. 
 
 8 This was the composition only for a limited time in the his- 
 tory of each board. 
 
 4 Jefferson acknowledges his debt for information to Hatsell, 
 Clerk of the Commons from 1760 to 1797. 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 29 
 
 ings were not published ; that committees were for- 
 bidden to receive petitions except through the 
 House, or to sit when notified that the House was 
 in session ; that joint committees of Lords and 
 Commons often, if not always, acted integrally. 
 Among many precedents cited for the Committee 
 of the Whole are its privilege of electing a chair- 
 man other than the one named by the Speaker, its 
 entire freedom for debate, its right of initial con- 
 sideration over revenue, executive messages, and 
 other important matters, which in the processes of 
 thorough debate, it must transform into resolutions 
 to be presented in the House, whence they were 
 to be referred to select committees as bases for 
 bills. The forms of going into Committee of the 
 Whole, of resuming the sitting of the House, of 
 reporting, even the position of the mace upon 
 or under the table, are noted. When select com- 
 mittees conducted inquiries, witnesses were to be 
 questioned only through the chairman ; all persons 
 save the committeemen were to retire pending par- 
 liamentary action or discussion, and the testimony 
 was to be taken in writing for submission to the 
 House. The Speaker should appoint committees, 
 but the House should have " a controuling power 
 over the names and number." A bill should be 
 committed only to those friendly to its main fea- 
 tures, for "the child is not to be put to a nurse 
 that cares not for it." Unless the House named 
 
30 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the hour and the place, the committee might sit 
 anywhere and at any time. The committee quo- 
 rum was a majority. Any member of the House 
 could be present at a select committee's sessions, 
 but only its members could vote. There was full 
 power to change a bill or other paper committed, 
 save as regarded the title. Committees could them- 
 selves originate bills, resolutions, and addresses. 
 Finally the chairman was to make the report ; and 
 when he had concluded, if the bill were not re- 
 committed to it, the committee stood dissolved and 
 powerless. Besides these particulars, the general 
 setting which this treatise gave to the committees 
 of an assembly, especially the broad latitude for 
 debate and amendment of their work, ought to be 
 considered. Jefferson's Manual is his penance to 
 England for the Declaration of Independence. It 
 has carried Freedom's primal precedents from the 
 older to the newer " land of settled government." 
 Says Parton, " Its influence lives to-day in every 
 legislative hall of the country." 
 
 These heads are now noted as to the origins 
 and antecedents of procedure in the American 
 Congress : 
 
 Legislative committee systems may be called 
 advanced stages in the development of popular 
 sovereignty. When governments were in their 
 infancy, both in Old England and in New Eng- 
 land, what are now known as the executive, judi- 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 31 
 
 cial, and legislative powers, or as local and central 
 administrations, were as yet not separated and 
 distinguished from one another. Increasing num- 
 bers of men in the State, occupying larger areas of 
 land, necessitated the plan of representation for 
 the making of laws, besides distinct departments 
 for their enforcement and interpretation. An un- 
 wieldy mass-meeting of lawmakers, with growing 
 demands tor dispatch of needed legislation, was 
 compelled to resort to committees for a division 
 and multiplication of its work. 
 
 From England the American colonies, most no- 
 tably Pennsylvania and Virginia, drew and trans- 
 mitted to the legislative bodies of our Federal 
 Union the commonest parliamentary forms relat- 
 ing to the use of select and standing committees, 
 as well as the device known as the Committee of 
 the Whole. 
 
 In the colonial life, there were important origi- 
 nal developments in methods of lawmaking. The 
 broad basis of society being, by contrast with Old 
 World peoples, laid largely in the idea of equality 
 between man and man, this doctrine was carried 
 into the superstructure, and applied first to the 
 representative body, then to the committee sys- 
 tem. For deep historic reasons equality was in- 
 sisted upon as between town and town, State and 
 State, when it came to the constitution and pro- 
 cedure of Provincial and Continental legislatures. 
 
32 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Also the small populations with which New World 
 history began necessitated a return to more primi- 
 tive practice, — an involution, as it were, in com- 
 mitteeship. As absurd is it for an immigrant just 
 arrived, say in 1629, at Plymouth, to seek in the 
 giant woods for London's ancient towers, as to 
 look for a governmental organization in any de- 
 gree approaching political developments in the 
 homeland of hedgerows whence he comes. The 
 numbers of the individuals, of the families, of the 
 tribes, or of the states of which it is composed, is 
 highly important in determining the simplicity or 
 complexity of a political system. Therefore the 
 functions of the American committee, like those 
 of all American institutions, had to unfold gradu- 
 ally, along with the natural growth from the small 
 territory and the small company which needed only 
 elementary political contrivances, to the larger 
 state in which representative government was 
 demanded; and when representative government 
 came, colonial and intercolonial, it took a place in 
 legislatures which was in some respects nearer to 
 that of the early, than to that of the contemporary, 
 committee in the English Commons. 
 
 The Continental Congresses, from 1774 to 1789, 
 began a combination of the highly various prac- 
 tices which make up the background of our study. 
 In small bodies, such as they were, with their en- 
 tire memberships hardly as large as some of the 
 
ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS. 33 
 
 important committees of the British House, un- 
 wieldiness did not so much require commitment. 
 In the beginnings of the central government, duties 
 and powers which it could draw from the jealous 
 local organs were limited, and hence the need of 
 a division of labors in order to carry heavier bur- 
 dens was little felt. Because of these same local 
 feelings, committees were either large or small as 
 compared in size with the body creating them. It 
 grudgingly gave them a share in its work, retain- 
 ing to itself tin* larger part; for the same suspi- 
 cious feelings tow aid delegated power which, under 
 the time-spirit, the citizen held towards the repre- 
 sentative, the representative held towards the com- 
 mitteeman. On the whole, the committee, with 
 its small sphere, had nothing to lose and every- 
 thing to gain from the evolution that must come 
 with increase of population, and consequent in- 
 crease of numbers in the representative bodies, with 
 increase of importance in common interests of the 
 entire country, and consequent increase of busi- 
 ness in the central government. 
 
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
Blessed be the memory of the man who invented the Yeas and 
 Nays. 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 There are those here to-day on this floor, who, with grave rea- 
 sons to support their demands, are clamoring for a member from 
 every State upon the great Committees of Appropriations, of Ways 
 and Means, and of Commerce. 
 
 J. C. S. Blackburn. 
 
 In publicity consists the bond between society and its govern- 
 ment. Looking, however, at facts, we find that of the elements 
 essential to a representative government, this is the last which is 
 introduced and gains a firm footing. 
 
 M. Guizot. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 Not enough study has been given to the meth- 
 ods of our legislatures with a view to discovering 
 the principles which have underlain their unfold- 
 ing history, and the lines along which they may 
 and probably will yet develop. From a small series 
 of simple resolutions compiled within four days, 
 the rules of the national House of Representatives 
 have grown into an intricate, logically arranged 
 code, shaped during a century by conflict and co- 
 operation among a multitude of minds and wills. 
 They have not been readily understood, because 
 they are unique as compared with other bodies of 
 law, ancient and modern. In their earlier history 
 they accumulated one by one, and very gradually, 
 until at the time of the civil war they were occu- 
 pying some twenty pages as appendices of the 
 journals. Curiously enough, they were exten- 
 sively revised just at the moment when the Gov- 
 ernment seemed to be going to pieces. 1 Then 
 
 1 The revision of 1860 consisted mainly of modifications re- 
 ported Dec. 20, 1858, by the Committee on Rules upon which the 
 Speaker served for the first time as committeeman. 
 
 37 
 
38 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the busy, active years followed, the most impor- 
 tant the House had ever known, and there was no 
 time to think of better devices. But the marvel- 
 lous changes and expansion of the central govern- 
 ment with and after the Union triumph were too 
 heavy a burden for the cumbersome organization 
 of slower days. Desperate because of its inability 
 to make them work, the House in 1879 instructed 
 a committee of its most skillful parliamentarians 
 to sit during the recess for the purpose, to use its 
 own words, of revising, codifying, and simplifying 
 the clumsy accretion of one hundred and sixty-six 
 rules under which it was suffering. Samuel J. 
 Randall, Joseph C. S. Blackburn, Alexander H. 
 Stephens, James A. Garfield, and William P. Frye 
 performed the service. Their report states that 
 "the objective point with the committee was to 
 secure accuracy in business, economy of time, 
 order, uniformity, and impartiality." To this end 
 the arrangement and grouping, with forty-five main 
 rules subdivided into clauses, was made upon a 
 basis of the logical relation between subject and 
 subject. 1 No change was proposed to which all 
 five were not agreed. From time to time for two 
 months the House debated and amended the new 
 code in great detail until its final adoption. This 
 was a labor brilliant and far-reaching. It was in 
 direct line of succession to the work of the con- 
 
 i 46: 1, C. R., Jan. 6, 1880. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 39 
 
 vention which framed the Federal Constitution in 
 1787. As concerns the House, the discussion to 
 which it gave rise may be called an important 
 supplement to the Federalist. But correction did 
 not cease with that Congress. On the contrary, a 
 strong impulse to progress was given, so that since 
 then there have been important biennial revisions. 
 Debate upon the subject occupied a week in 1893. 
 Regulations as old as the House itself have been 
 swept away. Now, the import of this rapid pro- 
 cess of change deserves emphasis as regards the 
 committees. No static view can be adequate. 
 One year the onlooker has been impressed with 
 their weakness ; another, with their power. The 
 masterly portraits of a few years ago now have a 
 tinge of antiquity. 
 
 While the Government was yet very young, two 
 ancient Massachusetts gentlemen fell into a con- 
 troversy about the House rules, wherein one of 
 them threw off an eloquent declaration that select 
 committees were "like the senses to the soul;" 
 and the other sarcastically rejoined, " What, can 
 we neither see, hear, smell, nor feel without we 
 employ a committee for the purpose ? " A seance 
 with these venerable statesmen ought to develop 
 further light concerning the physiology and psy- 
 chology of the body politic. They might explain 
 fully and at length whether committee functions 
 are motor or sensory, or both ; whether it is proper 
 
40 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 to call the government the soul, and the masses 
 who are governed the body, or to call the public 
 servants the body, and the sovereign people the 
 soul. Later Congressional debaters have worn 
 their simile threadbare. Whatever their enlarged 
 argument would be, the brief explanation pre- 
 served to us makes it clear that committees are 
 the agents, the instruments, the channels of con- 
 nection between Congress and the nation. 
 
 A Georgia Representative recently struck out 
 on a new line of sentiment. He confessed that he 
 had been trying to read in the names of the House 
 committees the history of our government. Who- 
 ever glances over their list must be impressed with 
 the thought. Their number and their relations 
 are largely to be accounted for by the remarkable 
 diversity of interests in the United States, a land 
 of many climes and of vast areas adapted to all 
 the different pursuits of men. To make the story 
 complete, the select committees of half a hundred 
 Congresses must also be marshaled in review ; for 
 they will recall passing events which have stirred 
 the nation for a moment, and then passed into the 
 category of the forgotten. 
 
 The creation of a standing committee has gen- 
 erally been linked with some important historical 
 occurrence. Louisiana was purchased in 1803 ; 
 the Committee on Public Lands came in 1805. In 
 response to the guns of the Leopard firing upon 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 41 
 
 the Chesapeake sprang into existence the Commit- 
 tee on Foreign Affairs. Engraving came to be a 
 permanent member of the committee family when 
 the Mexican War and the stirring argosies of '49 
 called for more extensive service of cartographers. 
 In 1867 the establishment of the Committee on 
 Education and Labor at the instance of James A. 
 Garfield, one-time Ohio tow-path lad and school- 
 master, was significant of the downfall of slavery 
 in the United States. 1 
 
 Just as a more rapid increase in the population 
 of the country has signalized the return of peace 
 after war and the exceptional periods of prosper- 
 ity, so with additions to the list of standing com- 
 mittees. The first administration of Madison saw 
 none created, but thirteen standing committees 
 began during Monroe's Era of Good Feeling. In 
 the quarter of a century from 1838 to 18G3, three, 
 all of them routine, on Library, on Printing, and 
 on Expenditures in the Department of the Inte- 
 rior, were the only new ones to put in appearance. 2 
 The equal period from 1863 to 1885 brought eleven 
 into full fledge, including the more important for 
 finance, industry, and social affairs ; while four 
 select committees took their rise and were revived 
 regularly at the beginning of every Congress, be- 
 
 1 Efforts on behalf of such a committee had always in ante 
 helium Congresses met with quick and angry opposition from the 
 dominant Southerners. 21 : 1, C. A., Dec. 1G, 1829. 
 
 2 A standing Committee on Rules lasted from 1849 to 1853. 
 
42 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ing finally, in 1893, transferred to the standing 
 list. 1 
 
 The waxing and the waning of committees and 
 their struggles among themselves reflect the changes 
 which are going on in national life. From their 
 composition one knows whether the Philistines of 
 Silver or the Israelites of Gold prevail in the Amer- 
 ican Canaan. The glory of certain of them is but 
 for the passing hour; the importance of others is 
 constant, because from the nature of the subjects 
 confided to them their duties are continuous and 
 unvarying. When the nation is fighting, the War 
 and Naval Committees and the Ways and Means 
 are a ruling triumvirate; in peace these become 
 pack-horses for public improvement committees 
 and the Appropriations. If Captain Grant is haul- 
 ing cordwood into St. Louis or buying hides in 
 Galena, the Military Affairs at Washington is lean- 
 ing back in its chairs with hands in pockets, to 
 what heights will not Appomattox see both cap- 
 tain and committeemen advanced! 
 
 Members have become prominent in the House, 
 who, fathoming the currents of public interests, 
 have sought through the Speaker membership upon 
 committees to which issues of coming importance 
 
 1 Namely, Reform in the Civil Service ; Election of President, 
 Vice-President, and Representatives (Produced by the Hayes- 
 Tilden contest); Ventilation and Acoustics; Alcoholic Liquor 
 Traffic. A sixteenth was the Committee on Freedmen's Affairs, 
 1866 to 1875. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 43 
 
 are to be intrusted. Thus did Stephen A. Doug- 
 las seek membership on the Committee on Terri- 
 tories in the Kansas-Nebraska Question; thus did 
 James A. Garfield gain increased distinction in turn- 
 ing at the close of the Civil War from Military 
 Affairs to Ways and Means. One of the older com- 
 mittees has stood throughout the century without 
 undergoing the expansion which has come, for in- 
 stance, to the Elections and the Claims ; if changes 
 of long-standing policy involve the United States 
 in the intricacies of world-wide politics, this Com- 
 mittee on Foreign Affairs may in the whirl of in- 
 creasing business also be found to throw off the 
 planets of a new group. 1 
 
 Invectives have been launched against the com- 
 mittees for their failures to report upon such ques- 
 tions as the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia and the promotion of temperance, though 
 petitions in behalf of these reforms have fairly 
 poured into their rooms ; back of them, however, 
 has usually been a House using the device of refer- 
 ence as a mild rejection, a quieting of conscience, 
 a skillful allaying of agitation; and back of the 
 House has been a public sentiment upon these sub- 
 jects hostile, cowardly, unaroused, or indifferent. 
 The superficial glance would have the committee 
 a trident-bearing shell that masters and rules the 
 
 1 Note its prominence in the excitement over the Venezuela 
 and Cuhan Questions, 1895-1896. 
 
44 Congressional committees. 
 
 waves ; the deeper view sees in it a drifting vessel 
 tossed upon the heaving seas of public opinion. 
 
 The practical relations of an American and his 
 committees may be studied from the standpoints 
 of his influence, first, in determining their composi- 
 tion, and second, in directing their action. In the 
 foregoing chapter are notices of the organization 
 of committees upon a territorial plan. For conve- 
 nience it may be called State Representation. In 
 the later ante-constitutional times a grand com- 
 mittee was understood to be a committee upon 
 which each and every colony, or county, as the 
 case might be, had one member. The national 
 House of Representatives, upon its convening in 
 1789, clung to this principle. Its first committee 
 represented the eleven States that had entered the 
 Union. 1 By one of the same size and character 
 the three executive departments were planned, and 
 by another a bill was presented fixing the salaries 
 of the President, Vice-President, and Congress- 
 men. Among other important subjects demand- 
 ing State representation in the early Congresses 
 were Fortifications, Debarred Claims, the Print- 
 ing of the Laws, the State of the Treasury De- 
 partment, a Road between the Southern and the 
 Eastern States. The standing Committee on Post- 
 Offices and Post-Roads, during its first four years, 
 1806-1810, had a membership of one from each of 
 
 i 1:1, C. A., April 2, 1789. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 45 
 
 the seventeen States. A proposed abolishment of 
 West Point Academy was referred by the Twenty- 
 third Congress to twenty-four members, as also 
 the Pay, Mileage, and Contingent Expenses of the 
 House. Such committees played a prominent part 
 for adjusting disputes between the free and the 
 slave sections. One of them considered Missouri's 
 troublesome Constitution in 1821. 1 Thirteen, the 
 old number of the original States, reappeared in a 
 committee on the veto of the tariff bill, Aug. 11, 
 1842; and again, when the noted Omnibus Bill of 
 1850 was referred to a group of brilliant men, six 
 of the North and six of the South, with Henry 
 Clay as chairman ; and again, alas, at the out- 
 break of the Civil War, when to thirteen Senators 
 and thirty-three Representatives was assigned "the 
 present perilous condition of the country." 2 Six- 
 teen men of the House were of the joint committee 
 to take action upon the death of Washington. To 
 ceremonial committees the principle has latterly 
 been confined. The four Presidents who died in 
 office were so honored. Both Senate and House 
 followed the plan upon the reception of Lafayette 
 in 1824, and upon his demise ten years later. 
 Every State and Territory had a representative or 
 delegate in the escort which accompanied the re- 
 
 1 Schouler's " History of the United States," III. 184, 185. 
 
 2 Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," I. 108, note; von 
 Hoist's "Constitutional History of the United States," VII. 354 
 et seqq. 
 
46 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 mains of John Quincy Adams to Massachusetts. 
 Similarly celebrations pertaining to the early history 
 of the Republic have been observed, the centen- 
 nials of Washington's Birthday, of the Declaration 
 of Independence, of Cornwallis's Surrender. 
 
 The idea is prominent where — in the House, 
 though not in the Senate — prospective States of 
 Western regions, each through its delegate, have 
 participated in committee work. As early as 1817 
 the delegate from Missouri was made chairman of 
 a select committee on the admission of his Territory 
 to the Union. A rule of Dec. 13, 1871, empow- 
 ered the Speaker to appoint one of the Westerners 
 for the Committee on Territories, and the delegate 
 from the District of Columbia upon the Committee 
 on the District. Sharp objection, involving the 
 constitutionality of admitting other than members 
 of Congress to a direct part in law-making, de- 
 veloped at this time, as had been the case early in 
 the century, when delegates were first given seats 
 upon the floor. Upon this score, however, the 
 conferring of the right to vote would seem to be 
 the only limit. Five years later three others were 
 assigned to the Indian Affairs, the Mines and Min- 
 ing, and the Public Lands. At this time (1896) 
 the Territories has two, and eight other commit- 
 tees have each one delegate. 
 
 Like the plan of adding a stripe to the na- 
 tional flag for each new State admitted, State rep- 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 47 
 
 resen tation became too unwieldy. Robert Goodloe 
 Harper gave the signal for its abandonment by 
 persuading the House in 1798 to reduce the Ways 
 and Means from sixteen to nine members. But it 
 has not been simply a surviving colonial custom ; 
 it finds an enduring basis in the Constitution. 
 Though almost from the beginning membership of 
 every State upon a committee became impracti- 
 cable, from the very earliest times the practice has 
 obtained, as far as possible, of appointing upon a 
 committee no two members from the same State. 
 Notwithstanding the insistence of some Congress- 
 men that ability, not locality, should be the su- 
 preme test, and notwithstanding marked decline 
 in the importance of State lines, State representa- 
 tion in this modified form has constantly prevailed. 
 Any violation of its spirit, casual or intentional, 
 gives rise on the floor of Congress to disturbance 
 and complaint. The Fifty-third Congress, with its 
 territorial basis of parties, and its range of from one 
 up to thirty-four in the number of members from 
 the different Commonwealths, showed no State 
 with more than three on any committee, and but 
 one committee with as high a disparity as four be- 
 tween the number of States for which it stood and 
 its total membership. Local jealousy is a prime 
 cause of the constant increase in the sizes of com- 
 mittees, of the fact that the more important are 
 the larger, and of the vigorous and generally sue- 
 
48 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 cessful attempts to add to the numbers of one 
 which begins to emerge from obscurity, or to tower 
 above its fellows. State pride is a very real force 
 in banding the various delegations together. A 
 new member, entering Congress, turns to an older 
 colleague, with whom, probably, he has had pre- 
 vious association in home politics. Fortunate the 
 young man who thus finds powerful elderly friends 
 to help him to choice committee positions, and to 
 speak a good word for his bills in the ear of the 
 Speaker or of the House. Horace Greeley noted 
 the leadership of States for the control of legis- 
 lation during his brief service in Congress, put- 
 ting Massachusetts first and Ohio second. 1 Maine, 
 Illinois, and Iowa seem to have combined to rule 
 the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses. 
 
 State representation is certainly a considerable 
 limitation upon the appointing, as well as upon 
 the other powers of the Speaker. A disturbing 
 element has been that officer's display of local bias 
 in making up the committees. In 1861 Galusha 
 A. Grow of Pennsylvania was charged by West- 
 erners with partiality to Easterners. A member 
 from Iowa recently cast such reflections upon a 
 Speaker from Georgia; the South, he declared, 
 had thirty-three of the fifty-five chairmen. 
 
 The much-abused Speaker has been bound by 
 the dividing and splitting of parties upon consid- 
 
 i Greeley's "Recollections," 226. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 49 
 
 erations of sectional interest. 1 The slavery issue 
 before the Civil War, and the closely correlated 
 questions of internal improvements and the tariff 
 after its close, are the most prominent illustra- 
 tions. It has been coast versus inland States. The 
 woodsman's ax, blazing westward the national 
 highways, has echoed the border Congressman's 
 lusty clamor for admission to the committee arcana. 
 Day before yesterday it was Illinois, yesterday 
 it was Washington ; but to-day, — can it be ? are 
 the " original thirteen " beginning to plead? When 
 the location of the World's Fair was about to be 
 decided, three cities discovered that the fourth 
 had eight representatives on the committee which 
 was to report upon the subject, while their own 
 combined minorities counted but five ; there was 
 an immediate recommitment to another set of men, 
 two for each contestant, with an impartial chair- 
 man from Massachusetts. The new sectional party 
 which has its strongest following beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, together with members of the older parties 
 from that region, now revives on the floor of Con- 
 gress those sentiments which were in the air when 
 Jefferson's followers came up to possess the seats 
 of those whom they called monarchists. Their 
 slogan is, " The West never gets justice." They 
 complain that a single small Atlantic State often 
 appropriates the chief places in each of the four 
 
 1 Wilson's " Congressional Government," 107. 
 
50 COJSTGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 or five foremost committees, while from Lake Su- 
 perior to the Pacific there may be no more than 
 three chairmanships. Never save once, say they, 
 has a member of the Rules come from beyond the 
 Father of Waters ; and there is " no representa- 
 tion " upon the Appropriations and the Ways and 
 Means for ten populous Western Commonwealths. 
 They ask for each State and Territory at least one 
 chairman, and for the House as a whole a chance 
 to veto such appointments of the Speaker as do 
 not meet its approval. Men of the East reply, 
 "You have not a membership in this House to 
 justify your extravagant claims." It must be 
 borne in mind that the lower branch of Congress, 
 unlike the Senate, is based upon numerically equal 
 parts of the country's entire population. Accord- 
 ingly, a fair allotment of committee places gives 
 New York thirty-four, to one for Washington. As 
 a result the former State is represented on some 
 thirty committees, having in charge as many dif- 
 ferent national interests, while the latter, the most 
 humid part of the United States, may get a place 
 on the Irrigation and Arid Lands. Largely be- 
 cause of the differences in the importance of com- 
 mittees, and of the fact that there are some three 
 hundred more committee places than there are 
 members, States do not always get equitable voices 
 in committee business. When the majority of the 
 Congressmen from a so-called doubtful State finds 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 51 
 
 itself in a House minority, it would appear to get 
 particularly cold treatment in the committee lists. 
 State inequalities as concerns chairmen are es- 
 pecially prominent, for the reason that those impor- 
 tant functionaries come all from the same party. 
 Upon this head the Fiftieth, which had a small 
 preponderance of Democrats, may be fairly com- 
 pared with the Fifty-first Congress, in which the 
 Republicans had a bare majority. On a basis 
 solely of population, Maine would be entitled to 
 one chairman, Kentucky to two; at the Fiftieth 
 Congress Kentucky had four, Maine, none ; at 
 the Fifty-first, Kentucky had none, Maine, three. 
 Maine's delegation of four was solidly Republican ; 
 Kentucky, out of eleven, had in the first instance 
 eight, in the second, nine Democrats. Yet even 
 in cases in which States were of the same party, 
 differences were considerable. Thus when the 
 Democrats were in power, Kentucky, with eight 
 of that party, had four chairmen ; Tennessee, with 
 eight, two ; North Carolina and Mississippi, with 
 seven each, each one. At the next Congress, Cali- 
 fornia, with four, had none ; Indiana with five, and 
 Massachusetts with ten Republicans, each had one, 
 while Maine had three chairmen. A lion's share 
 would seem to fall in manifold sense to that State 
 which secures the Speakership. Favoritism aside, 
 both the higher and the secondary dignities come 
 to it as rewards for the same set of qualities, of 
 
52 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 which conservatism in retaining its men is chief. 
 More than a score of years after the Civil War, 
 the issues of that titanic strife are yet so live that 
 of fifty-four committee chairmen all but four in one 
 Congress came from north, and all but nineteen 
 in another from south, of Mason and Dixon's Line. 
 Forty-five of these miniature speakers, together 
 with the Speaker of speakers, represented in one 
 case a territory confined to the latitudes of New 
 York on the north and Pennsylvania on the south, 
 to the longitudes of Maine on the east and Iowa 
 on the west, — about one-half of the people and 
 one-sixth of the area of the United States. It is 
 certainly to the advantage of the South and West 
 to insist upon State representation. 
 
 Thus far the rural regions have held their own. 
 If occasionally in a Democratic Congress New 
 York gets the chairmanship of a committee on Ex- 
 penditures in one of the Departments, Americus 
 may boast the headship of Elections; Corsicana, 
 of Ways and Means ; Farmington, of Interstate 
 and Foreign Commerce-. Under a Republican re- 
 gime, that of 1889-1891, the sixty-eight most pop- 
 ulous cities of the nation had one member of the 
 Rivers and Harbors and two of the Banking and 
 Currency. The two Congresses above compared, 
 each showed in the total of their four great 
 finance committees a majority of ten for places 
 of less than twenty thousand inhabitants. Under 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 53 
 
 the Republicans Philadelphia was the only one of 
 the ten busiest centers of trade that held a chair- 
 manship ; one of her Representatives was head of 
 the Post-Offices and Post-Roads, another of the 
 Library. The Democrats granted the leading place 
 upon the Appropriations to Philadelphia, upon the 
 Labor to Saint Louis, upon the Pensions to Brook- 
 lyn, upon the Expenditures in the State Depart- 
 ment to Boston, upon the Expenditures on Public 
 Buildings to New York. No wonder that money 
 needed for harbors and quays where the ships of 
 the world ride has frequently been squandered 
 upon some petty rivulet of a Kiskiminetas, or that 
 occasionally a Congress adjourns without taking 
 a plain opportunity of reducing the interest upon 
 the government debt by millions of dollars. Nor 
 is it altogether strange if capitalists and corpora- 
 tions have sometimes bought protection for rights 
 which their Congressmen have been powerless to 
 protect in the course of honest legislation. How- 
 ever, with a dozen different States, with rural 
 and urban communities, with both political parties 
 represented to some extent upon a large com- 
 mittee, the common weal, the greatest good to the 
 greatest number, does not altogether fail. The 
 majority and minority proportions of a commit- 
 tee's membership are ascertained and assigned with 
 arithmetical exactness ; i.e., the total House mem- 
 bership is to the House minority as the total 
 
54 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 committee membership is to the committee's mi- 
 nority. 
 
 There is a question which seems worthy of 
 thought on the part of those who desire to see the 
 high representative principle of equality preserved 
 and perfected in the House of Representatives. 
 Ought the man who wields the vast power of the 
 Speaker, whose office has mounted in importance 
 far above the Vice-Presidency, so far by the esti- 
 mate of keen observers as to even rival the Presi- 
 dency, — ought he to be chosen by a small fraction 
 of the people, the majority of a Congressional con- 
 stituency? True, secondarily, by the majority of 
 their representatives, a majority of the people of 
 the entire country confer the office. Yet certain 
 disadvantages and abuses of present legislative 
 methods would doubtless disappear, were the direct 
 national voice brought biennially to bear, just as 
 it decides every four years who shall be Chief 
 Magistrate. Do not the arguments for choice of 
 United States Senators without the intermediation 
 of State legislatures apply also in the case of this 
 more important trust? Our Speaker, it is well 
 known, finds his archetypes first in the ancient pre- 
 siding officer of the British Commons, and second 
 in those of the State legislatures which existed in 
 1789. No discussion or difference as to the mode 
 of selecting the Speaker has been recorded of the 
 convention that framed the Constitution. The 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 55 
 
 old parliamentary privilege, as wrested from the 
 monarch, was confirmed in our fundamental law. 
 How unforeseen were the developments which fol- 
 lowed ! What a wide difference between the power 
 of Muhlenberg and the power of Reed ! In the 
 House of Commons to-day sit the Speaker and the 
 Prime Minister; our Speaker is premier and par- 
 liamentarian in one, but it does not take a moment 
 to decide that the former far outshadows the latter 
 function. 1 A clerk deeply versed in parliamentary 
 precedents stands constantly at his elbow unravel- 
 ing for him all the purely legal tangles that occur. 
 The man who shapes great committees which shape 
 national legislation, who as chief of the Committee 
 on Rules decides what business shall be presented 
 to the House, who controls the floor in favor of 
 what individual member or business interest or 
 political faction he pleases, — this man ought to 
 be vested with these important duties by a vote 
 at large of the nation's entire citizenship. Then 
 his course of action will more surely reflect high 
 political qualities, general rather than special in- 
 terests, the wisdom of the foremost counselors of 
 his party, sensitiveness to popular opinion as to 
 "a strong wind blowing aft." 2 
 
 1 Essay on the Speaker as Premier in A. B. Hart's " Practical 
 Essays on American Government; " Miss M. P. Follett's "The 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives." 
 
 2 Having penned these^uggestions as to the choice of a Speaker, 
 the writer afterwards happened upon an advocate of popular 
 
56 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 The committees having been appointed, the ques- 
 tion of influence of public opinion upon their pro- 
 ceedings presents itself. " Publicity is perhaps the 
 most essential characteristic of representative gov- 
 ernment," says Guizot. Upon this spot of the com- 
 mittee structure critical Napoleons have trained 
 their guns. They have been outside the lines seek- 
 ing to demolish, not inside, working to strengthen 
 the weak places. The charge has been that the 
 secrecy which veils committee sessions is fraught 
 with the gravest dangers. Bribery has slipped in 
 through the hidden entrances of these Star Cham- 
 bers. The great railway has laid down upon their 
 tables shares of its stock as gift offerings, and the 
 uncouth backwoodsman has proved his gratitude to 
 the committeeman by a promissory note for a snug 
 little sum. 1 These transactions, occasionally com- 
 ing to light, have beclouded the confidence of the 
 people. Even where there is no real basis for sus- 
 picions of wrong-doing, the unfathomable mystery 
 that hangs around the inner working-places of Con- 
 gress does injustice to the honest Congressman, 
 who, without chance for refutation, sees his purest 
 motives maligned, his most disinterested acts as- 
 cribed to selfishness. For this cause men who care 
 
 election, Mr. Raymond L. Bridgman, in the New England Maga- 
 zine for November, 1894. Alleged corrupt influences in the Massa- 
 chusetts legislature are part of his argument. 
 
 1 An early example of the latter ki#d is detailed in 15: 1, C. 
 A., Jan. 7, 1818. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 57 
 
 for their good names stand off from such situa- 
 tions, but the unscrupulous lurk in the darkened 
 recesses. 1 The people have been in despair of 
 right judgment when the election day has come. 
 In profound distrust they have felt that they must 
 strike, though it be blindly. But one course is left 
 open, because of their inability to know and to 
 understand. To toss overboard whoever may be 
 the rascals, they must sweep the decks clean with 
 a tidal wave. They have faintly hoped that a 
 new party coming into power will uncover the 
 evil deeds of its predecessor. It is government 
 by " see-saw ; " one party down, the other up ; one 
 party up, the other down. It is a modern sover- 
 ign applying old William the Norman's Law of 
 Englishry. 
 
 Secrecy, however, has not been such an enormity 
 as it would seem at first glance to have been, and 
 becomes less of an evil, for a number of causes 
 which are bearing upon it more and more as time 
 passes. "Certainly in no generation has there 
 been such a powerful Drummond light turned 
 upon the lives of public men as now," writes Sen- 
 ator Hoar. The preceding chapter showed what 
 urgent reasons required secrecy in old times, when 
 monarchs, not legislatures, governed the nations. 
 This was the prime source of that rule of non- 
 
 1 "The Decline of Legislatures," by E. L. Godkin, Atlantic 
 Monthly, July, 1897, p. 42. 
 
58 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 publicity which Jefferson copied. In the last cen- 
 tury visitors were first admitted to the House of 
 Commons, and even yet the heavy penalties against 
 intruding outsiders stand unrepealed, while a sin- 
 gle member can compel the clearing of the galleries. 
 A distinguished English writer complains that in 
 our time " an English bill begins in petty rivulets 
 or stagnant pools. Then it runs under ground for 
 most of its course, withdrawn from the eye by the se- 
 crecy of the Cabinet." 1 In the early days of our na- 
 tional government there existed an honest distrust 
 of the as yet untried experiment of popular censor- 
 ship over legislatures. The Senate, like preceding 
 colonial bodies, sat with closed doors. Statesmen, 
 with the vision of women wild-eyed and with dis- 
 heveled hair, clambering into the presiding desk 
 of the French Assembly, feared that the passions 
 of the people might surge into legislative halls. 2 
 The galleries of the House have been open from 
 the beginnings and now and then a member has 
 declared, as did one in 1795, that "the public are 
 entitled to know the sentiments of the committee 
 individually, as well as of the House collectively." 
 One of these in 1880 failed to secure an added 
 clause to the rules as follows, " Every report shall 
 be in writing, and shall give the names of the mem- 
 
 1 Sir Henry Maine's " Popular Government," 236-239. 
 
 2 Bentham's " Essay on Parliamentary Tactics " decries the 
 presence of fair women in legislative galleries, an argument amus- 
 ing to the modern reader. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 59 
 
 oers of the committee who concur in the recommen- 
 dations thereof." Debate was but brief ; supporters 
 of the measure urged that it meant economy, en- 
 abled the House to judge a proposed act from 
 personal knowledge of those committeemen whose 
 names were appended in its favor. Judges of the 
 courts and committees of some State legislatures, 
 said they, give in this way the weight of personal 
 responsibility to decisions and laws. No hint was 
 dropped that the outside public would read the 
 names also. One man went on record as an enemy 
 of the proposition. Members absent from commit- 
 tee meetings, said he, would be treated unjustly, 
 by the exposure of the fact in this way ; by these 
 revelations the lobbyist would know upon just what 
 persons to turn his threats or blandishments. 1 In 
 the Fifty-third Congress a bill was introduced to 
 make unlawful all secret sessions of committees 
 and sub-committees except during the consideration 
 of executive business. 2 
 
 A number of forces have counted against se- 
 crecy, or worked for larger and larger publicity. 
 The lobbyist has not always been sure of his man ; 
 now and then the Representative has exposed him 
 in open House, and to the heavy penalties of the 
 law; beginning with such a case in 1795, an at- 
 tempt to bribe the chairman of a Committee on 
 
 1 C. R., Feb. 11, 1880. A first vote stood 45 to 80 for adoption. 
 
 2 H. J., 543, 1893-1894. 
 
60 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Land Offices with shares of western lands, these 
 bright examples of legislative esprit de corps have 
 had occasional manifestation. The earliest form 
 of publicity for committee proceedings came, both 
 in England and America, through the printing of 
 their reports. 1 From the beginning this practice 
 has obtained in the House more and more fully, 
 and journalists continually send to the great news- 
 papers notices of such reports as they think will 
 be of interest. 2 All reports of committees of what- 
 ever description, including those of minorities, must 
 be printed. A recent amendment of the rules cor- 
 rects, to a large extent, abuses which had grown 
 up in connection with conference reports, by pro- 
 viding that they shall be detailed and explicit as 
 to changes in bills agreed upon by the managers. 
 Each Congressman is entitled to one copy of every 
 printed document. 8 Committee sessions are always 
 open to members of the House. The more impor- 
 tant committees have become so large that oppor- 
 tunities for cabal are much lessened. With the 
 reporter going the rounds for interviews, with a 
 diversity of interests represented by committeemen 
 
 1 A member avowed in behalf of printed reports that they 
 were for the enlightenment of the House and of public opinion, 
 21:1, C. A., Dec. 16, 1829. 
 
 2 During the Civil War reports of investigating committees 
 were printed and sold by one of the New York daily papers. 
 
 s More than 30,000,000 pieces were handled at the Fifty-first 
 Congress. — T. H. McKee's " United States Red Book." 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 61 
 
 from many States, with a minority on the watch, 
 and quick to report to the House and to the pub- 
 lic, with the gossipy confidences which pass among 
 public men, and the easy evasions of that anti- 
 quated precedent which forbids any mention of 
 committee proceedings in House debates, with the 
 filibuster whose athletics have sometimes called the 
 attention of the country to iniquitous measures, — 
 publicity has generally got in some degree its due, 
 though often too late. 
 
 Tendencies past and present point to the desira- 
 bility and — perhaps it is not too strong an infer- 
 ence — to the inevitableness of a full publicity for 
 committee work. The committee hearing is the 
 most hopeful sign. No feature of Congressional 
 legislation is more interesting. It is a happy de- 
 vice for gleaning information and gauging public 
 opinion. It is growing in favor, and perfecting its 
 development. A cpmmittee at the outset of its 
 session's work will schedule fifteen or twenty days 
 for presentation of arguments upon one of its prom- 
 inent measures by outsiders. This testimony is 
 caught by the stenographer's pencil, and presently 
 appears as a printed and indexed booklet, which 
 serves as the principal text for the committee's 
 action. 1 Before the daily meeting of the House, 
 
 1 A beginning has been made of preserving hearings in the an- 
 nual series of public documents ; cf. 53: 1, H. Mis. Docs., Vol. VI. 
 1220 pp. 
 
62 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 from 10.30 in the morning until noon, is a usual 
 period for the hearing. The first comers at such a 
 meeting are naturally those who expect to present 
 their views before the committee. They are stran- 
 gers in the city and the Capitol, and come, it may 
 be, from distant parts of the Union. They find 
 themselves in a large, square room with frescoed 
 dome, from which the sunlight streams downward 
 over a swinging chandelier. Shelves of books and 
 maps mounted for convenient reference line the 
 walls. There are easy sofas, a hoine-like fireplace 
 surmounted by a fine mirror, and other objects 
 of convenience or comfort. Diagonally across the 
 room extends the great, solid committee table, bor- 
 dered by ample cushioned chairs, and laden with 
 thick files of the bills which await action. A hum 
 of conversation hushes when the chairman, the 
 first committeeman to arrive, takes his seat at the 
 head of the table. The visitors are introduced 
 by their home Congressman, although he is not 
 a member of the committee. Proceedings begin 
 with a few of the committeemen present, and 
 others drop in one by one, the minority members 
 being the greatest laggards. Upon the Congress- 
 man who has introduced his constituents the chair 
 will probably bestow the honor of managing the 
 floor, including the order of the programme, the 
 introduction of speakers, and the equitable division 
 among them of the one hour and a half for debate. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 63 
 
 Each advocate or witness stands in turn at the 
 foot of the table facing the chairman, and strives 
 earnestly to impress his views upon the auditory, 
 subject all the while to a fire of cross-questioning 
 from those who choose to interrupt. An impor- 
 tant general appropriation or tariff bill may be the 
 theme. Perhaps these invaders of the Congres- 
 sional halls represent rival towns in a fast devel- 
 oping and somewhat lawless mountain region of 
 West Virginia, where the establishment of a new 
 Federal court has become necessary; or they are 
 the spokesmen of contending religious sects, who 
 urge or oppose the introduction of the name of 
 Deity into the Constitution of the United States ; 
 or they stand for two great clashing industries, 
 filled cheese and oleomargarine against butter and 
 full-cream cheese, the grievance of the quiet, self- 
 respecting American cow against the pushing, 
 unscrupulous American porker, the conflict of 
 Vermont meadows with corn and cotton fields 
 of Illinois and Georgia. It is a revelation to the 
 onlooker, an indispensable key to the puzzles of 
 that vast onward sweep of legislation in the full 
 arena of the House. Here he sees the headsprings 
 of law. Here is the despised secret lobby hope- 
 fully transforming into the open and fair voice 
 of all who desire to be heard. From every class 
 and occupation the influences come. Ministers 
 of the gospel and labor delegates touch elbows. 
 
64 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 The physician and the expert of science contrib- 
 ute their testimony. Clerks and other officials 
 of long experience in government answer the call 
 for information. The judge, the old soldier, the 
 merchant, come burdened with the letters, the af- 
 fidavits, and the carefully prepared addresses of 
 distant fellow-citizens and comrades. There are 
 readings of newspaper articles, echoes from nume- 
 rous conventions, indorsements of labor organ- 
 izations, amendments for pending bills suggested 
 by produce exchanges, even voices from foreign 
 lands. It is the point of mutual touch between 
 two fully developed standing committees, the one 
 maintained by some voluntary association of the 
 people for the purpose of influencing legislation, 
 the other established by Congress to ascertain and 
 supply the needs of society in the way of new 
 laws. While the private advocate is delivering 
 before the committee his careful and labored argu- 
 ment, the legislator leans forward with eyes and 
 ears all eager attention ; for afterward, when the 
 bill comes up in the House, he will rehearse the 
 committee hearing in a broader, somewhat drama- 
 tized way. 
 
 A prominent Senator has playfully called the 
 committees " little legislatures." Why not accept 
 the situation, and make them such in a much fuller 
 sense? Their development in this direction has 
 been marked. To follow for illustration but one 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 65 
 
 line, consider the accommodations which they have 
 gradually won from an unwilling and often nig- 
 gardly House. Many a Congressman has spent a 
 large part of his time keeping the records of his com- 
 mittee, and doing other writing which its work has 
 necessitated. The committee on the defeat of Gen- 
 eral St. Clair paid one hundred and fifty dollars to 
 a clerk, March 2, 1793. June 1, 1796, a clerk em- 
 ployed by the committees was allowed one hundred 
 and fifty dollars for work during the session. In 
 1803, when a member moved that the committees 
 collectively should have two clerks, the House re- 
 fused to consider the resolution. 1 Similar propo- 
 sitions were rejected in 1815 and in 1817. 2 With 
 constant pleading on the part of the chairmen, re- 
 sults began to be obtained about 1835 or 1840. 
 In emergencies of business the favor was then 
 granted, and these assistants were paid by the num- 
 ber of hours or days of their service. 3 There were 
 vigorous objections in 1853 to a bill of four thou- 
 sand, five hundred dollars, for the annual services 
 of three of the four committee clerks then employed 
 by the Claims, the Ways and Means, the Post-Of- 
 fices and Post-Roads, and the Commerce. 4 Four 
 new clerks were added when the burdens of the 
 Civil War came. From these modest and slow be- 
 
 i C. A., Jan. 28, 1803. 
 2 C. A., Dec. 18, 1815; Jan. 30, 1817. 
 « C. G., Dec. 15, 1839, and Jan. 15, 1840. 
 4 C. G., Feb. 16, 1853. 
 
66 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ginnings the time of the Fifty-third Congress finds 
 forty-one committees with annual clerks, while there 
 are two stenographers, besides a large number of 
 session clerks and messengers. 1 So it has been as 
 regards other accommodations, libraries, rooms, fur- 
 nishings. 2 With about forty standing committees 
 at the beginning of the Civil War, want of space in 
 the great Capitol was not felt. There had been 
 little or no friction since the allotment by a joint 
 committee not long after the second war with Eng- 
 land. 3 But in 1869 Speaker Blaine complained 
 that committees were crowded two and three to- 
 gether, and the House directed the fitting up of six 
 new apartments. 4 Next year James A. Garfield pro- 
 tested against being obliged to work in a cramped 
 committee room, and inhale disagreeable odors from 
 the restaurant. At this time the post-office was 
 removed to make larger place for the finance com- 
 mittees. The increase in the number of standing 
 committees to fifty-five, together with their en- 
 larged business, their growing practice of giving 
 hearings, and the accumulation of books, records, 
 and other material through a long series of years, 
 has crowded the building beyond its capacity. In 
 every part of the immense structure, — attic, main 
 
 1 Congressional Directory, 1893. 
 
 2 The first volume of the House Miscellaneous Documents 
 for each session contains a detailed and interesting inventory of 
 committee expenses and of property in committee rooms. 
 
 8 C. A., Jan. 18, 1817. 4 C. G., Mar. 26, Apr. 9, 1869. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 67 
 
 floor, basement, terrace, and sub-basement, — the 
 committees of Congress lodge, often two in a 
 room ; and still they have not sufficient space, so 
 that buildings and apartments are rented in adja- 
 cent parts of the city. 
 
 These are but two of many lines of their prog- 
 ress. Now, assuming that Congress will some time 
 follow up the suggestions which this steady ad- 
 vance and this necessity for further accommoda- 
 tions are strongly forcing upon its notice, what may 
 be the results ? It will resolve, say, to make each 
 one at least of the principal committees a true 
 miniature of itself. The children of the old assem- 
 bly will in their maturity have separate homes of 
 their own. With the money now wasted upon 
 the committee system, and with additional, but 
 justifiable, expense, the necessary number of com- 
 modious structures will rise upon the ample parks 
 that surround the Capitol. Each committee build- 
 ing or hall, planned with the more perfect archi- 
 tectural knowledge of later times and with effort 
 for the best acoustic properties, will have its own 
 galleries, clerks, sergeants-alarms, doorkeepers, 
 and pages. Those parliamentary processes which 
 are embodied in the Constitution with reference to 
 the House itself, as the power to choose officers, 
 compulsory attendance of absent members, or the 
 keeping of journals, besides such regulations as the 
 nature, business, and circumstances of each individ- 
 
68 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ual committee may require, will be adapted to pro- 
 ceedings. If private bills are yet to be considered 
 by Congress, a system similar to or better than 
 that which is so admirably worked out in England 
 may throw the safeguards of quasi- judicial forms 
 about the claim and pension committees, so that 
 visitors at the seat of government will see in their 
 proceedings the fairness and justice which they 
 have long witnessed and admired in the methods of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. 1 Were 
 there also provisions for disseminating throughout 
 the country more fully and in better forms infor- 
 mation, not only of private, but also of public, 
 legislative doings, constituents could form a more 
 intelligent estimate of the work of their represen- 
 tatives, and publicity would have its most bene- 
 ficial scope. 
 
 Invent some such method of what might be 
 called legislative extension, for scattering knowl- 
 
 1 There are numerous descriptions of the British methods of 
 dealing with private legislation, with their ample printed and 
 private notices to parties interested in local or individual bills, 
 public sessions of committees, and the submission of their journals 
 to the House, system of promoters and opposers represented by 
 their counsels, arrangement of costs, legalization of the lobby, se- 
 curity for correct law forms, and careful system of consideration 
 by several committees. Among them may be mentioned: "The 
 Standing Orders of the House of Commons ; " Sir T. Erskine May's 
 " Usages of Parliament; " an article by Professor J. W. Jenks on 
 " Methods of Law-Making" in Johnson's Cyclopaedia; a note by 
 James Bryce in the Appendix to the third edition of the "Ameri- 
 can Commonwealth;" and Simon Sterne's article on "Legisla- 
 tion" in Lalor's Cyclopaedia. 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMITTEE. 69 
 
 edge. Train upon those to whom he commits his 
 trust the living eyes of the citizen, an influence 
 compared with which all others are shadowy and 
 uncertain. What would follow? To the commit- 
 tee and committeeman, if honest, would accrue a 
 juster estimate of services rendered, and a truer 
 appreciation of long and laborious study for the 
 public welfare. Calumny and misrepresentation 
 might not so often and so strongly fasten upon 
 those who are really faithful. That unjust treats 
 ment which a carefully elaborated report, the work 
 perhaps of months, sometimes receives from the 
 House, — unless it be protected by the personal 
 influence of the committeeman, — would be less 
 practicable; for the members in general must be 
 more careful about rejecting or cutting in pieces a 
 work of whose progress and value the public has 
 been observant. The committee minority would 
 be brought into better play, with a check to the 
 tendency of which a Speaker recently complains ; 
 namely, that each part of the large committees 
 tends to act independently of the other. On the 
 opposite score, that species of corrupt cabal which 
 occasionally breaks down party lines would become 
 extinct. Congressmen could not take so much ad- 
 vantage of other speculators in the great markets, 
 through their inside knowledge of forthcoming 
 legislation. 
 
 On the part of the House, because of its better 
 
70 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 knowledge of the character of the committees, it 
 would make fewer mistakes in commitment; its 
 floor would be managed to a less extent by shrewd 
 log-rolling demagogues, more by careful and com- 
 manding statesmen; the better man would come 
 to the front, the worse be relegated to the rear; 
 its confidence in the machinery of its committees 
 could be so great, that the mere formal vote, 
 whereby, so far as it can, it now frequently gives 
 to their determinations the force of law, would be 
 perfectly safe and proper. In such small and se- 
 lect public forums the Cabinet officer who bows 
 himself in and out of a chamber of inquisition — 
 to take the term from Congressmen themselves — 
 might have the ear of the country in replying to 
 interpellations ; oratory, lost in the infancy of 
 the House, would revive ; the voice of the individ- 
 ual member in warning peal or matchless advo- 
 cacy might fill the land and traverse the seas, until 
 the Londoner should follow and admire American 
 Representatives as Bostonians have listened to 
 the words- of the Grand Old Man or the Great 
 Commoner. Individual and party responsibility 
 for every measure could be fixed beyond doubt, 
 and the suspicions of the people could give way 
 to confidence and pride in that branch of the gov- 
 ernment which stands nearest to them. 
 
A deliberative assembly is tbe worst of all tribunals for the 
 administration of justice. 
 
 John Quincy Adams. 
 
 Repudiation is repudiation, and dishonesty is dishonesty, 
 whether the foreign bondholder or the humble citizen be the 
 victim. 
 
 George F. Hoar. 
 
 The power to punish somebody else is a delegated power. It 
 is not Inherent in any tribunal, nor in any man. 
 
 Matt. H. Carpenter. 
 
72 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COMMITTEE AND PRIVATE INTERESTS. 
 
 Legislatures must meet and decide in their 
 proceedings a conflict between public or general, 
 and private or local, rights and interests. In New 
 York City Hall in 1789 Congress first faced these 
 two lines of business, which it has ever since been 
 striving to reconcile. By public law the machin- 
 ery of a new government in a new country was to 
 be set in motion. That terrible state of affairs, — 
 almost anarchy, — the bequest of the Confedera- 
 tion, presented problems as grave as any that have 
 ever puzzled a lawgiver. On the other hand, 
 came the knocking at the door which the Consti- 
 tution itself encouraged, and which has since so 
 mightily increased, — prayers of individuals and 
 corporations, inventors, pensioners, war claimants, 
 land-jobbers, seekers of the North Pole, and what 
 not. Our general government being one of enu- 
 merated powers, should have much ampler time 
 than that of England, for instance, which may take 
 to itself at will and to any extent the management 
 of local affairs. Yet Congress has more than lost 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 73 
 
 this advantage by clinging to a vast and ever in- 
 creasing number of petty private applications, an 
 Atlas burden, such as requires for its proper carry- 
 ing perhaps many times as many workers as House 
 and Senate can furnish. Four-tenths of all the 
 bills introduced into the House .are referred to the 
 Committee on Invalid Pensions. 1 By every de- 
 vice, by iron laws for speedy legislative action, by 
 a continual multiplication of committees, by enlist- 
 ing the services of the executive departments, and 
 by establishing a Court of Claims and a Pension 
 Bureau, Congress has sought to meet its obliga- 
 tions without relinquishing the power of finally 
 deciding each case. To give to courts entire juris- 
 diction over such matters would be an abdication 
 to one of the other departments of government. 
 Doubtless something in the relative power of the 
 three grand divisions of the American government 
 explains this jealous tenacity. 2 The contemporary 
 British House of Commons has felt no such scru- 
 ples. Not only has it turned over to the courts a 
 large part of its private jurisdiction, it has even be- 
 stowed upon them the decision of contested cases 
 of election to its own membership. 
 
 A prime root of the much deprecated power of 
 Congressional committees lies, according to Alex- 
 ander Johnston, in the presence of these petty 
 
 i C. R., Jan. 23, 1888, remarks of Mr. Walker. 
 
 2 Cf. Goodnow's " Comparative Administrative Law," 11.285. 
 
74 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 measures which crowd the calendars, and, as con- 
 cerns most bills, banish all the deliberation and all 
 the action save a hurried vote into the committee 
 rooms. 1 Of the eight hundred and seventy-odd 
 statutes established by the Forty-ninth Congress, 
 more than one-half were of a private nature. 
 
 In earlier days there was something like reason- 
 able time for both kinds of legislation. The Fed- 
 eralists were more strict than their successors, the 
 Republicans, in giving the preference to public 
 laws. The First Congress, with its three sessions, 
 shows eighty-seven public and four private stat- 
 utes. The latter, however, deal with some thirty 
 individual cases. A futile struggle to bring for- 
 ward ninety claims occurred at the special session 
 in 1797. In the same year the standing Com- 
 mittee on Claims was throwing out all cases not 
 founded on the general law. The dragging-in- 
 chancery practice of referring anew all matters 
 committed, and not reported upon at former ses- 
 sions, had begun at that early date. When Jeffer- 
 son's party came to possess the gates, its tone was 
 somewhat less strict ; " the People " were referred 
 to in argument; the select committee was often 
 raised, now to fix an annuity for a widow, again 
 to consider claims barred by the statute of limita- 
 tions. But in 1820 the House annulled a rule 
 which gave private bills the preference in Com- 
 
 1 Lalor's Cyclopaedia, II. 476. 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 75 
 
 mittee of the Whole. 1 In 1829 a Congressman 
 complained that committees had free range for par- 
 tiality ; since by the rules their unfavorable reports 
 went to the foot of the docket, and in the press 
 of thousands of such subjects were endlessly de- 
 layed. 2 John Quincy Adams asserted in 1832 that 
 Congress spent one-half its time considering private 
 business, with no uniformity in its decisions. 8 
 
 Justice in innumerable cases has failed because 
 even the hurried vote of the House for or against 
 a committee report has not been forthcoming. 
 Public business has rightly taken the larger share 
 of the time, and the more pressing it has been the 
 more have private dockets gone to the wall. Roger 
 Q. Mills once asserted that he had passed through 
 at last a claim which had not had a dissenting voice 
 in all the committees which had considered it dur- 
 ing twenty-odd years. 4 "I would suggest to the 
 gentleman from Iowa," said a member of the Fifty- 
 third Congress, " that not a single private bill was 
 considered in the last Congress." Unanimous con- 
 sent is now required for reference of private claims 
 to any other than six specified committees. 5 On 
 Fridays only the House entertains a motion to take 
 up the calendar of private bills ; but on that day of 
 the week an evening session is commanded for con- 
 
 i C. A., Nov. 21, 1820. 2 c. A., Jan. 30, 1829. 
 
 » J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," VIII. 480. 
 
 4 C. R., Feb. 8, 1884. * Rules of H. of R., XXI. 3. 
 
76 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 sideration of pensions, and for removal of political 
 disabilities or charges of desertion from the army. 1 
 Since the morning hour has fallen into disuse, each 
 day's session is opened with more or less extended 
 action upon private and local bills under unani- 
 mous consent. It is a remarkable sight, a dozen or 
 more men of both parties gathered in front of the 
 Speaker's chair, with papers held high over their 
 heads, each silently pleading for recognition. They 
 are grotesque witnesses to the travesty and fu- 
 tility of trying such matters before so immense a 
 court of interested and uninterested judges. By 
 a special order the House, on May 5, 1896, cleared 
 the private calendar of seventy out of four hundred 
 pending pension measures, devoting ten minutes to 
 each bill. A history of the frauds upon the treas- 
 ury which have probably succeeded through a sys- 
 tem which has thus specially tempted men to buy 
 consideration of their schemes, of the days and 
 weeks which Congress has spent in wrangling over 
 petty money bills involving but a small fraction 
 of its running expenses while considering them, of 
 the long succession of martyrs, worthy claimants 
 
 1 Rules XXIV. 6 and XXVI. 3. Since 1821 the appendix to 
 each Journal of the House has contained its rules. This setting 
 apart of Friday dates back to Jan. 22, 1810. For some years both 
 Friday and Saturday were " private-bill days," but were largely 
 thrown away because by the rules an individual member could 
 utter the cabalistic " I object," which, if seconded by a majority, 
 threw a report to the end of the calendar. 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 77 
 
 to whom reparation has been delayed and denied 
 until death has put them beyond its possibility, — 
 such a history would intermingle the most pathetic 
 and the most reprehensible phases of human life. 
 Congressmen have roughly sketched, but not over- 
 drawn, word-pictures that put the entire stoiy of half 
 a century in small compass. One constitutes him- 
 self a watch upon the national funds, and cries : — 
 
 "Vigilance, sleepless vigilance, is necessaiy on 
 our part. We are beset at every corner and in 
 every street and alley with loafers, agents, and sep- 
 arate county court lawyers. Every applicant for 
 relief who attends the Capital has his ten agents to 
 importune you, and every agent has his ten claims 
 to present. And every claim amounts to from ten 
 thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars. 
 Every sympathetic feeling is aroused with the tale 
 of woe and poverty; every applicant has a wife 
 and nine small children and one at the breast, and, 
 over and above John Rogers's number, an aged 
 and tottering father and mother to support, and 
 some cousins. Sir, look at our desks every morn- 
 ing, piled high with fresh claims dripping from the 
 press, while we are swamped knee-deep with those 
 that preceded them the day before, all reported by 
 the Committee of Claims." 1 
 
 Another, with compassion and indignation for 
 
 1 Speech in the House, of Alexander Duncan of Ohio, March 
 30, 1838. 
 
78 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the wrongs of humble citizens, stands forth to speak 
 for them : — 
 
 " Look at this book [holding it up in his hand], 
 the Calendar of this House, a veritable tomb of 
 the Capulets, a grave of dead hopes. There are 
 more tragedies bound up within the covers of this 
 book than in any novel or set of novels ever writ- 
 ten. This book represents money due to poor 
 widows and children, and heirs of Revolutionary 
 soldiers, or other worthy and suffering claimants. 
 It represents hopes that have been abandoned. It 
 represents claimants who have come here, year 
 after year, praying the United States to pay its 
 honest debts ; and it represents the disgrace of the 
 United States in not paying its just dues to hon- 
 est men, women, and children, and to soldiers and 
 sailors, and to many a one who has deserved better 
 treatment at his country's hands." 1 
 
 Some measures for relief of the government and 
 the claimants have tardily appeared. With a long 
 preceding period of agitation therefor, Congress 
 in 1855 established the Court of Claims. 2 Con- 
 current jurisdiction with it has since been extended 
 in cases involving one thousand dollars and less to 
 the Federal District Courts, in cases involving one 
 thousand to ten thousand dollars to the Circuit 
 
 1 Speech in the House, of Selwyn Z. Bowman of Massachusetts, 
 April 21, 1882. 
 
 2 James Parton praises this action in "Topics of the Time," 
 5-7. 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 79 
 
 Courts. Yet — excepting that the executive de- 
 partments may refer cases directly to the judicial 
 tribunals — all such must, for consideration and 
 completion, still enter at their first stage, and, 
 with intermediate reference to committees, pass 
 out to the President at their last stage through 
 the legislative halls. Sums for less than one thou- 
 sand dollars may be combined into an omnibus 
 bill. Cases which do not fall within the scope of 
 existing laws still tax Congress with their entire 
 treatment. Though the Court of Claims had re- 
 jected ninety-two per cent of all applications of 
 Southerners for relief on account of Civil War 
 damages, the remaining eight per cent of loyal cit- 
 izens were denied justice by the Fifty-fourth Con- 
 gress. Much remains to be done for the cure of 
 these wrongs and this congestion. Private claims 
 upon government are best dealt with by courts 
 of justice exclusively; the legislature finds its ex- 
 alted sphere of activity in the general welfare. 
 
 The compulsory attendance of private citizens 
 upon committees has great interest on the score of 
 a reconciliation between public and private rights. 1 
 The power of a legislature to send for persons and 
 papers is much older than our Constitution. Be- 
 fore Jamestown or Plymouth, yes, before the sepa- 
 
 1 Clerk Henry H. Smith's " Digest of Decisions and Prece- 
 dents" is an exhaustive history of the. Congress on this and re- 
 lated heads. It is printed as 53:2, Sen. Mis. Docs., Vol. XII. 975 
 pp. 
 
80 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ration of Lords and Commons, the High Court of 
 Parliament exercised this privilege as to English 
 subjects, often with rudeness and despotism. No 
 express provision of our Constitution gives it to 
 Congress; but, on the other hand, is guaranteed 
 " the right of the people to be secure in their per- 
 sons, houses, papers, and effects against unreason- 
 able searches and seizures." Very sparingly, to 
 begin with, did the House delegate the right to 
 send for persons and papers to its committees. It 
 was at first confined to those for investigating 
 charges against public officers, a duty, on its face, 
 judicial. In 1792 the select committee on Gen- 
 eral St. Clair's defeat compelled witnesses to at- 
 tend, and testify under oath. As late as 1827 the 
 power had been granted only in cases of contested 
 elections and malfeasance in office. In that year 
 the House was much stirred up, and debated an 
 entire day, upon a request from the standing Com- 
 mittee on Manufactures that it be permitted to 
 compel attendance of citizens for examination upon 
 the subject of protection to home industries. The 
 opponents of such action raised that oft-repeated 
 cry, " Unconstitutional." It was an enormous 
 grant, said they, not for the purpose of eliciting 
 fraud or crime, but merely to enlighten the House. 
 Courts had rules to restrain them, but committees 
 had none. Should a committee be given free 
 range to summon busy men from Machias or the 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 81 
 
 Gulf of Mexico ? By an odd play of political 
 forces this step towards a more centralized power 
 won support from those who were fighting the ex- 
 tension of the central prerogative along another 
 line. A speech of Edward Livingston seems to 
 have been most effective in carrying the day for 
 the proposition. Citing the British Parliament as 
 employing this method, he asked : " Have we not 
 memorials from all the manufacturers ? Do not 
 our tables groan with the weight of their com- 
 plaints? What more can be desired? Something 
 more, in my opinion. ... A long professional 
 practice has taught me the danger of relying on 
 the testimony of interested witnesses, and has also 
 shown me the great utility of cross-examination. 
 From disinterested witnesses it is calculated to 
 elicit truth ; but it is invaluable for the detection 
 of those subterfuges to which interest resorts in 
 order to hide truth, or to give a false color to a 
 true statement." l 
 
 From that day the practice has grown. The 
 House freely and frequently grants the privilege, 
 even to sub-committees. Now more often the com- 
 mittee goes to the witnesses : there is a stir in a 
 great Western city ; three men have come from the 
 nation's capital clothed with the power of the gen- 
 eral government, and will examine its citizens as 
 
 1 C. D., Dec. 31, 1837. The decision was rendered by Yeas and 
 Nays, 102 to 88. 
 
82 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. . 
 
 to the condition of their post-office or the causes of 
 industrial depression. In the entire history of the 
 House before the Civil War the right to travel was 
 conferred upon committees but twice. 1 It is jus- 
 tified by the great saving of expenses. 2 The meth- 
 ods of taking testimony prescribed by Jefferson's 
 Manual yet prevail. An investigating committee of 
 1837 proceeded about as follows : individual mem- 
 bers would produce resolutions that certain ques- 
 tions be asked by the committee ; a list of such of 
 these as the majority favored would be made out 
 and propounded to witnesses, who must answer in 
 writing. Beforehand it was determined to what 
 questions the answers should be voluntary; to 
 what, compulsory. 3 Strict formality was needed ; 
 as note on this very occasion an exciting scene un- 
 der the evening lights of the committee room : two 
 men stood face to face with hands on concealed 
 weapons, one a bourgeois-despising Southern Con- 
 gressman, the other a cool-headed representative of 
 private business interests ; the committeeman had 
 threatened to kill the witness ; consequently the 
 latter refused further attendance, appealing to the 
 House, which decided in his favor. 4 
 
 1 Statement of Roscoe Conkling in Thirty-seventh Congress. 
 
 2 By Rule XXXVII., H. of R., witnesses summoned to Wash- 
 ington are allowed five cents mileage each way and a per diem of 
 two dollars. 
 
 « Appendix to Vol. XIII., Part II., C. D., 199 et seq. 
 * C. D., Feb. 4, 1837. 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 83 
 
 From 1795, when the House had called to its 
 bar and imprisoned a would-be briber, Congress 
 exercised unchecked for eighty years the power to 
 incarcerate citizens without due process of law. It 
 based its conduct upon the American inheritance 
 of lex Parliamentarian and upon legislative neces- 
 sity. Committees whose summons or questions 
 witnesses refused to answer would report to the 
 House, whose Speaker would issue warrants to the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms for arrest of the contumacious 
 parties. Newspaper men were frequent offenders. 
 The House kept them in duress at its will. By 
 a statute of 1857 the presiding officers of the two 
 Houses were charged with the duty of reporting 
 such persons to the Attorney of the District of 
 Columbia. By him they were to be indicted before 
 the grand jury, which could inflict a fine of from 
 one hundred to one thousand dollars, and a term in 
 jail of from one to twelve months. 1 Almost every 
 year thenceforward the irregular imprisonments 
 continued, regardless of this law, until in 1876 the 
 Chief Justice of the District of Columbia issued a 
 writ of habeas corpus for a real-estate agent whom 
 the Sergeant-at-Arms held in custody. The House 
 instructed its officer not to honor the jurisdiction 
 of the judge. The judge, in issuing his writ, had 
 declared that Congress, by the law of 1857, speci- 
 fied the manner of punishing an intractable wit- 
 
 1 Revised Statutes of U. S., 102-104. 
 
84 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ness. The controversy having been carried to the 
 United States Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Miller 
 gave opinion some years later that the Constitu- 
 tion confers upon Congress no general and unlim- 
 ited power to punish for contempt, but that its 
 right in this respect is confined to recalcitrance of 
 witnesses in those few cases where it has received 
 a judicial grant, — contested elections, impeach- 
 ments, and misconduct of its own members. 1 
 
 To present conclusions as to the touch between 
 the people and their committees in its public and 
 private aspects : — 
 
 With the legislative rules as a setting, the com- 
 mittees of Congress stand for the history and needs, 
 the political, economic, and moral problems of the 
 Republic ; 
 
 Their membership is representative, as far as 
 practicable, of the different States of the Union, 
 and is equitably divided between the majority and 
 minority parties of the House ; 
 
 1 Incidentally this decision applies that clause of the Consti- 
 tution which provides, as to members of Congress, that " for any 
 speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in 
 any other place" to a committee session held anywhere within 
 the domains of the United States. The Court disclaimed power 
 to punish the committeemen, but granted damages against the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms in the sum of $20,000. 44: 1, C. R., June 15, 
 1876; 44:1, H. Mis. Docs., Nos. 169 and 174; 103 U. S. Supreme 
 Court Reports, 168 et seq. ; Goodnow's " Comparative Administra- 
 tive Law," II. 269; Spofford's "Manual of Parliamentary Rules," 
 128-131. 
 
PRIVATE INTERESTS. 85 
 
 Their responsibility can be clearly fixed by com- 
 plete publicity, their efficiency increased by better 
 organization and material equipment ; 
 
 Justice, the interests of treasury and subject 
 alike, calls for wiser and more honest methods of 
 dealing with claims of indebtedness presented 
 against the government ; 
 
 The right of Congress to punish private citizens 
 for refusing to testify before its committees has 
 been closely limited by the supreme judiciary. 
 
No set of rules can shift the responsibility which lies in the 
 majority. 
 
 Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 The vast number of members which compose this body, the 
 great number necessary to constitute a quorum, the tremendous 
 interests of a local character spreading over this vast country, 
 will necessarily and of themselves, even without the constitu- 
 tional guardianship of the Senate and of the Executive, prevent 
 rash action or too great an amount of action. 
 
 Thomas B. Reed. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 
 
 Several forces have been adduced as working 
 for a distinct American legislative system. The 
 Congressional procedure is not long under exami- 
 nation before the presence of another incessantly 
 asserts itself. Lay a list of the standing commit- 
 tees side by side with the Federal Constitution, 
 and the very names of many of them are discov- 
 ered in its enumeration of duties and powers. It 
 foreshadows their nature and their relative impor- 
 tance. By contrast with committees in the Con- 
 gress of the Confederation, it refines them until 
 they are purely legislative. 1 In the differences 
 between the functions of House and Senate are 
 paralleled the differences between their committee 
 rolls. In the general structure of the government, 
 with its highly successful effort for separation and 
 balance of the three divisions, are the influences 
 that most profoundly mould the two committee 
 systems. For illustration, take the relative stabil- 
 ity of Executive, Senate, and House. Senators are 
 
 1 Sir Henry Maine's " Popular Government," 231 et seq. 
 87 
 
88 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 elected for six years, and in three classes, that they 
 may form a more continuous body. The Repre- 
 sentative, however, has but a brief biennial tenure, 
 and goes out at the same time with all his fel- 
 lows. The thread of his political life is constantly 
 snapped by cruel constituents of his own or the 
 opposite party. A large and never-failing new 
 element has threatened by its ignorance the pre- 
 cedents of the House. In 1843-1845 the entire 
 delegations of ten States served first terms. 1 More 
 recently the majorities of ten successive Congresses, 
 with one exception, have been new men. 2 There- 
 fore this large, unwieldy, changing body holds its 
 own with the smaller, longer-lived, more experi- 
 enced Senate and Executive by centralizing its 
 power remarkably in its older members — in the 
 Speaker and the committee chairmen. The nat- 
 ural laws of politics thus silently adjust inequali- 
 ties ; the system gives strength and continuity in 
 the midst of mutation. Likewise all other consti- 
 tutional provisions have their telling influence 
 upon the committees of the House. There is not 
 a difference between the fundamental laws of this 
 and other lands, in letter or spirit, that does not 
 operate to produce different committee systems. 
 Within the new, strange, and powerful walls of 
 
 1 Alexandria Gazette, Dec. 1, 1843. Cf. also National Intelli- 
 gencer, Dec. 11, 1821, " at least seventy-five have never been in 
 Congress before." 
 
 2 Blaine's " Twenty Years in Congress," II. 675. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 89 
 
 the Constitution, with the "new roof" overhead, 
 the American variety of legislators began in 
 1789 to be educed. Attention is first directed to 
 main features. For one thing, old parliamentary 
 methods are remodeled, and adapted to new cir- 
 ca instances, both to those established by the Con- 
 stitution, and to those from time to time arising 
 out of national development. Familiar with co- 
 lonial ways of lawmaking, and not at once com- 
 prehending the relations which the new form of 
 government had brought, early Congresses show a 
 confusion as to legislative processes, the steps of 
 emergence from which, though slow, may be traced 
 with gratification. Jefferson's complaint of this 
 disorder in his letter to his parliamentary sire, 
 Judge Wythe, has been noticed ; years before, El- 
 bridge Gerry had rebuked the House for "contin- 
 ually recurring to the modes of procedure adopted 
 by the late Congress, which was both a legislative 
 and an executive body." l By his Manual, Jeffer- 
 son himself strengthened the bulwarks of conser- 
 vatism. It has taken nearly a century to loosen 
 the hold of many of his British precedents, and 
 substitute for them regulations conforming more 
 to American circumstances. But the process has 
 gone on until now, by contrast with earlier times, 
 mastery of the Rules of the House is a much more 
 difficult and important test of the new Congress- 
 
 i C. A., March 19, 1790. 
 
90 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 man than any ability along the lines of general 
 parliamentary law. 
 
 As a second point, there has been a constant re- 
 adjustment between the two prime functions which 
 belong, as the supplements of each other, to every 
 legislative body, as well as to presidents in their 
 cabinets, to judges upon their benches, and to all 
 men in whatever public and private capacities ; 
 namely, the thinking and the doing, "the being 
 sure of Tightness and the going ahead." To put 
 it in the law phraseology, it is the long-standing 
 ^case of Deliberation vs. Action. The sphynx test 
 of success or failure for a Congress has ever been 
 a wise balance between these two. As in the 
 individual life, experience crystallizing into habit 
 obviates largely the necessity of minute examina- 
 tions, so of a legislature. When a Secretaryship 
 of the Treasury was to be created, there was a 
 general tearing up of virgin soil ; but the ground 
 did not require so much work upon the addition, 
 a hundred years afterward, of the Department of 
 Agriculture. Many parliamentary questions have 
 received right and final settlement for the House 
 of Representatives. In some senses there have 
 been fifty-five Houses ; in others, but one, which 
 from 1789 has been steadily enlarging itself in 
 skill, dispatch, and capacity. 
 
 Men have observed the rapid disappearance of 
 time-honored methods with alarm. They have 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 91 
 
 urged a restoration of the old safeguards. Often, 
 while watching with mournful sentimentality the 
 growing disuse of sails and paddles and wooden 
 sides, their eyes have heen holden to their replace- 
 ment by giant boilers, twin screws, and plated 
 steel. This is the third general feature in the 
 progress of the House of Representatives. Its 
 control over its committees, its defense of its mem- 
 bers against corruption, its securities against bad 
 laws, are more effective than ever; though the 
 sharp rap of the gavel now cuts off the debater 
 with precision as nice as the movements of the 
 timepiece to whose minute and second measure- 
 ments it falls. There are some other ways of sift- 
 ing right judgment out of a huge assembly than 
 by setting all its tongues a-wagging. 
 
 Now, these processes are best appreciated by 
 comparing widely separated stages. Here have 
 not been wanting the so-often emphasized charac- 
 teristics of Germanic institutions, silent natural 
 growth, defects tardily corrected, but withal sound- 
 ness and healthy life. During those same years 
 of the Federalist period,, when weakling select 
 committees were swaddled in the little legislative 
 chambers of the American Congress, standing com- 
 mittees sprang full-grown and armed from huge 
 new French Assemblies, and rushed forth to strike 
 down, to trample in dust and blood, whoever, high 
 or low, base or worthy, chanced in their paths. 
 
92 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Since that awful time, the French legislator has 
 been taming artificially his overmastering commit- 
 tee, while the American has stood by, and seen 
 his grow gradually and safely towards maturity of 
 strength and usefulness. The one draws up bris- 
 tling reglements for the sessions of committees ; 
 the other says to them : Go ; govern yourselves ; 
 let the fittest survive ! 
 
 In the House of Representatives action is em- 
 bodied in an incessant crowding forward of meas- 
 ures by three score and odd standing and select 
 committees. The typical committee for delibera- 
 tion has been the Committee of the Whole. The 
 term committee is here a misnomer. The Com- 
 mittee of the Whole is but a form of proceeding 
 which has undergone various changes and assumed 
 new names; it has been merely the robe donned 
 by the House in the exercise of authority over the 
 real committees ; it has been " the people's com- 
 mittee," the favorite committee of the minority, 
 the conservative committee needing not to be held 
 in check, but rather at times to be urged along 
 with the general advance. Were one of the men of 
 the First Congress to look in upon its present-day 
 sessions, he would hardly recognize it, so great 
 has been its transformation. A younger Congress- 
 man recently nonplussed one of his elders with the 
 query : " Can the gentleman tell me what real 
 necessity there is for the Committee of the Whole 
 on the State of the Union? " 
 
THE CONTROL BT THE HOUSE. 93 
 
 A sketch of these changes will show how an 
 ancient legislative garment has been refitted for 
 modern wear. What original features had been 
 given to the Committee of the Whole by the Brit- 
 ish Parliament have already been indicated, as also 
 how primitive American conditions had assigned 
 it previously to 1789 a most commanding sphere in 
 legislative assemblies. So much was its importance 
 felt, that one of the four sections in the first body 
 of the House Rules was exclusively devoted to its 
 proceedings. 1 Its long, high-sounding title was 
 patterned after that of the Committee of the Whole 
 on the State of the Nation in the House of Com- 
 mons. It was organized with a chairman other 
 than the Speaker, was identical in membership with 
 the House, and was subject to the same procedure 
 as far as practicable, with the noteworthy exception 
 that debate was absolutely unlimited. Most stri- 
 king is its greatness during this Federalist period. 
 The pages of the journals are monotonous with the 
 formula, " The House again resolved itself into 
 Committee of the Whole." There, in the white 
 heat of discussion, day after day and week after 
 week, great topics were handled, until long chains 
 of resolutions had been welded into shape, ready 
 for the final touches by select committees. There 
 foundations of American policy were laid, which 
 remain firm as Roman highways. Some select com- 
 
 i C. A., April 7, 1789. 
 
94 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 mittees were so thoroughly informed by those ex- 
 tended debates, so definitely instructed by those 
 carefully worded resolutions, that their work came 
 as near being merely mechanical as the task of the 
 trained lawyer who to-day drafts bills for the Brit- 
 ish House of Commons. 1 In our time a sub-com- 
 mittee of three considers and reports directly to the 
 House a contested election case ; but in 1792, in 
 the noted contention of Anthony Wayne and James 
 Jackson, the Committee of the Whole sat judicially, 
 hearing the speeches of the claimants, weighing the 
 evidence, and finally recommending that the seat be 
 declared vacant. Five years after the establish- 
 ment of the Union a provision which Jefferson 
 found among British precedents was incorporated 
 in the rules ; namely, that " Every proposition for 
 a tax or charge upon the people should be first dis- 
 cussed and voted in a Committee of the Whole 
 House." 2 This fitted neatly and strongly with the 
 constitutional priority of the House in financial 
 matters, and with some modifications has among all 
 later changes remained the backbone of the Com- 
 mittee of the Whole. 
 
 But with all the strength of its beginnings, it 
 was forced from the outset into a struggle destined 
 to long duration. There was strife between the ad- 
 vocates of the Committee of the Whole on the one 
 
 i Cf. Hildreth's " History of United States, " IV. 50. 
 a C. A., Nov. 13, 1794. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 95 
 
 hand, and those of the select committees on the 
 other. The former held the vantage ground as an 
 intermediary for reference of most new topics from 
 the House to the latter. The trouble was stirred 
 up by a proposal that the select committees should 
 have the first consideration of business. Contrary 
 to the protest of one of the debaters that this was 
 not a question of party, it was a party question in 
 the profoundest sense. Centralization vs. decen- 
 tralization was the issue, that deep line of cleav- 
 age which runs all through the history of parties. 
 A sharp division of Federalists as against Repub- 
 licans, of Administration as against Opposition, 
 clearly marked the debates. On the one hand the 
 leaders of the battle were Sedgwick, Boudinot, 
 Ames, W. L. Smith, Fitzsimmons, Lawrence ; on 
 the other, Madison, Page, Gerry, Tucker, Liver- 
 more, White, Vining. 
 
 As early as May 19, 1789, in the consideration of 
 the subject of executive departments this contest 
 began. It was renewed in July of the same year, 
 when Madison tried to bring forward the proposed 
 amendments to the Constitution ; and another 
 fierce skirmish came later, in December and Janu- 
 ary, 1795 and 1796. These discussions developed 
 and foreshadowed almost every important phase, 
 advantage or disadvantage, of our committee sys- 
 tems. At this place it is necessary to note only the 
 weak and the strong points urged for and against 
 
96 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the Committee of the Whole. Republicans main- 
 tained that it was the proper agent to get the sense 
 of the House, the sentiments of the majority ; to 
 determine principles and to outline business ; to 
 discuss subjects abstract, dignified, peculiar, or of 
 great magnitude -, to give a necessary publicity 
 to the proceedings of Congress. The Federalists 
 charged that it wasted precious time ; brought the 
 passions of the people to bear upon the House by 
 its publicity ; was inconvenient for the discussion 
 of complicated facts ; was liable to desultoriness in 
 debate ; could not consider private bills without 
 seeming to be fishing for applicants. Madison said 
 that " there could be only two reasons for referring 
 on any occasion to a select committee, either where 
 there was an absolute want of time for the House 
 to digest the subject themselves, or when any par- 
 ticular papers or documents were to be examined." 
 Throughout the Federalist period the fight went 
 on. More than once the champions of the Com- 
 mittee of the Whole triumphed. On one occasion 
 they were appeased by reference of the matter in 
 controversy to a committee of one from each State. 
 But the drift of affairs, the logic of circumstances, 
 the growth of the House and of its business, were 
 against them. Should it be discussion by the 
 House in Committee of the Whole first, or investi- 
 gation first by a select committee ? Though the 
 process was gradual, and was far from completion, 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 97 
 
 the year 1800 found a marked tendency to refer 
 new subjects directly to small committees. The 
 Whole was a waning, the Select a waxing power. 
 Thirty years after the above attempt of Madison to 
 set narrow bounds for small committees, Webster 
 felt called upon to inquire what subjects need not 
 be intrusted to them, and concluded that they were 
 "general propositions or general measures in re- 
 gard to which no investigation as to facts and as 
 to particulars might probably become necessary." l 
 From the position of a body whose work had been 
 reviewed by small committees, the Whole — and 
 with it the House, since they were identical — had 
 itself become reviewer. Command had given place 
 to control; authorship, to criticism. Somewhere in 
 the interval between these two statesmen the turn- 
 ing-point had been passed which marked the trans- 
 fer of the larger part of the business of Congress 
 into its committee rooms. 
 
 After this the question had to be, How effectu- 
 ally can the standing committees be curbed and 
 regulated? Even with this less conspicuous part 
 for the Committee of the Whole new plans had 
 soon to be invented. When Charles Rich entered 
 the House in 1813, he found the standing commit- 
 tees crowding subjects most diverse upon the one 
 existing calendar, to the utter confusion of business 
 as a session drew toward its close. The natural 
 
 i C. A., Dec. 16, 1825. 
 
98 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 suggestion was, that, by the same process of classi- 
 fication which was going on among the standing 
 committees, there should be more than one Com- 
 mittee of the Whole. Accordingly, in 1817, Mr. 
 Wendover of New York persuaded the House to 
 enact that there should be a Committee of the 
 Whole for every three bills, the Speaker so dis- 
 tributing them that the three for each group should 
 be analogous in nature. 1 This provision continued 
 in the rules until 1860, when it was stricken out by 
 advice of the revision committee, which confessed 
 total ignorance of its meaning. 2 In 1824 Charles 
 Rich proposed a long rule which provided, in addi- 
 tion to the Committee of the Whole on the State 
 of the Union, three so-called Committees of the 
 Whole House, one on public bills, one on private or 
 local bills favorably reported, and one on private or 
 local bills adversely reported. Each of these three 
 was to elect its own chairman. Each, following its 
 calendar in impartial order, was to take up subjects 
 upon motion of one member seconded by a major- 
 ity. The House, after a committee had amended 
 this proposition by setting apart Fridays and Sat- 
 urdays for private bills, seems to have neglected 
 it ; but true lines of division had been suggested. 
 Fridays and Saturdays were given to private legis- 
 lation in 1826. Rules added Dec. 18, 1847, con- 
 firmed a distinction which seems to have before 
 
 1 C. A., Dec. 19, 29, 1817. 2 C. G., Mar. 15, 1860. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 99 
 
 existed ; i.e., between the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the State of the Union for public, and 
 the Committee of the Whole House for private 
 business. At present there are three calendars; 
 one of the House, one of the Committee of the 
 Whole on the State of the Union, and one of the 
 Committee of the Whole. 1 The Committee of 
 the Whole is limited to Fridays. 
 
 The motion to go into the Committee of the 
 Whole on the State of the Union yet remains, as 
 in the beginning, a standing order after the read- 
 ing of the journal. 2 This important committee, as 
 part of the entire system, was subjected to an ex- 
 ceedingly severe strain by the enormous increase 
 of legislative business after the Civil War. Up to 
 the time of that struggle, according to James A. 
 Garfield, it had had jurisdiction over a large part 
 of the work of the House. But thenceforward it 
 fell into disuse. The provision that it should 
 consider all appropriations of money before their 
 passage, was evaded by enacting payments out of 
 general funds already set apart. With the idea 
 of a return to safe old methods, the House cor- 
 rected this abuse in 1874 ; and, in addition, gave 
 to the Whole jurisdiction over bills which dis- 
 pose of public property. To duly appreciate this 
 
 i Rules of H. of R., XIII. 
 
 2 During the Fifty-third Congress it could not he entertained in 
 the Morning Hour, a discrimination in favor of private business. 
 
100 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tardy insertion, let the reader but think of prince- 
 ly public buildings, the increasing adornments of 
 growing American cities, and of wide government 
 domains, too often voted away with generous rash- 
 ness. 1 As it now stands, carefully worded by later 
 changes, the clause of the rules from which the 
 Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union 
 derives its importance reads : " All motions or 
 propositions involving a tax or a charge upon the 
 people ; all proceedings .touching appropriations of 
 money, or bills making appropriations of money 
 or property, or requiring such appropriations to be 
 made, or authorizing payment out of appropria- 
 tions already made, or releasing any liability to the 
 United States for money or property, or referring 
 any claim to the Court of Claims, shall be first con- 
 sidered in a Committee of the Whole ; and a point 
 of order under this rule shall be good at any time 
 before the consideration of a bill has commenced." 
 A chief feature of the Committee of the Whole 
 has been ever-increasing lack of time for revision, 
 even of the financial measures which have crowded 
 its docket. Reference to it has often meant denial 
 of consideration. This very fact, as will be shown 
 later, is a highly important check upon the positive 
 power of the standing committees. Great efforts 
 to relieve the pressure have in the long run modi- 
 
 1 For such an instance of careless parliamentary methods, cf. 
 Greeley's " Recollections of a Busy Life," 230, 231. 
 
THE CONTROL BY TIIE HOUSE. 101 
 
 fied the legislative methods of the House in three 
 particulars. First, all measures — very consider- 
 able in number and importance — which do not 
 relate to revenue or appropriations are excluded 
 from the Committees of the Whole. Comparison 
 of the calendars for Dec. 1, 1890, shows a ratio of 
 about five bills on that of the House to twelve on 
 that of the Committee of the Whole on the State 
 of the Union. Second, there is a tendency to re- 
 quire a smaller number of members for Committees 
 of the Whole. As early as 1846 Joseph R. In- 
 gersoll moved that the Committee on Rules be 
 instructed to inquire into " the power and expedi- 
 ency " of reducing their quorums. The number 
 remained a majority of the membership of the 
 House until the Fifty -first Congress, when it was 
 fixed at one hundred. The Democrats in the two 
 succeeding Congresses returned to the old require- 
 ment ; but the Republicans again made it one hun- 
 dred in 1895. Jt is a letting down of the bars by 
 seventy-nine votes, justified, according to its advo- 
 cates, by the necessity of " doing business." 
 
 The third change consists in limitations upon 
 debate. The Committee of the Whole on the State 
 of the Union has always been more especially the 
 seat of deliberation than the House itself. By the 
 earliest rules a Congressman could in its sessions 
 talk as often and at as great length as he pleased 
 upon any topic, however remote from the subject 
 
102 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 in hand ; while in the House he could speak a sec- 
 ond time only after every other member had had 
 a chance, and a third only with leave of the major- 
 ity. These simple provisions, which would to-day 
 mean intolerable anarchy, served legislative pur- 
 poses for several decades. Rules in those times 
 were not only mild, but also not likely to be strictly 
 enforced. For instance, Robert Goodloe Harper in 
 1794 tried, but failed, to secure the provision which 
 now seems a matter of course in any well regulated 
 assembly ; to wit, that no member should speak 
 save to a motion made, seconded, and stated. In- 
 stead, the House provided, under pressure of busi- 
 ness near the close of the session, that members 
 should be limited to one speech upon each subject. 
 After two weeks of trial this restriction was re- 
 moved by motion of Harper, upon ground that it 
 was useless because evaded, and wrong in principle 
 because it trenched upon unlimited speech. 
 
 It only needed, however, a sagacious and un- 
 scrupulous member of the minority to take fullest 
 advantage of such fine opportunities for obstruc- 
 tion. The occasion and the man appeared in 1806. 
 By 1811 five years of turmoil had wrought out 
 the most important restriction upon debate in legis- 
 lative history. The result was a new and power- 
 ful form of the Previous Question; the man, John 
 Randolph of Roanoke ; the occasion, those troubled 
 relations with European powers which finally re- 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 103 
 
 suited in our second war with England. During 
 the proceedings which followed upon Randolph's 
 sly break with President Jefferson, a main fea- 
 ture of opposition tactics was long and wearisome 
 speech-making. 1 A year or two passed before the 
 House found a bridle for the eccentric Virginian 
 by making the question of entertaining a motion 
 undeba table. Randolph appealed in vain against 
 this violent gag law. 2 As foreign affairs became 
 more critical, the need of further limitation upon 
 the power of an obstructing minority was more 
 and more felt. In 1810 occurred a grand debate 
 over the proposed rule, " The previous question 
 shall be put in this form : Shall the main question 
 be now put? It shall only be admitted when de- 
 manded by one-fifth of the members present, and, 
 if decided in the affirmative, shall be instantly put, 
 without amendment or further debate ; but if de- 
 cided in the negative, the business shall progress 
 as if the previous question had not been called." 
 Here, as in many others of these early discussions 
 of important subjects, the arguments pro and eon 
 were set off so exhaustively that after Congresses 
 had but to echo them more and more feebly, while 
 the question came slowly to final adjustment. It 
 was liberty vs. license of speech ; rights of major- 
 
 i C. A., April 21, 1806; Schouler's "History of the United 
 States," III. 368, 369. 
 2 C. A., April 1, 1808. 
 
104 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ity as against rights of minority ; debating or do- 
 ing as the prime function of the House. One side 
 made a scarecrow of Napoleon's dumb legislature, 
 and the other held up for contrast the talking 
 assembly which wearied the first French Republic 
 to death. The indistinguishable border-ground be- 
 tween the use and the abuse of speech was com- 
 pared to the fine blending of colors in a garment 
 of silk. Peter B. Porter excelled in pleading for 
 the new procedure, and showed in strong light the 
 meaning of majority responsibility under the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. 1 At about three 
 o'clock on the last February morning of 1811, and 
 after an all-night struggle between supporters and 
 opposers of the coming war, the cloture fastened 
 itself upon the House of Representatives, — as its 
 enemies would express themselves, — unlike Sind- 
 bad's Old Man of the Sea, never to be shaken off. 2 
 Since then in several important particulars it has 
 strengthened its hold. Not one-fifth, but one in- 
 dividual only, is at present required to move the 
 previous question. By custom the privilege be- 
 longs to the leader who is said to be in charge 
 of the floor, the very personage most interested 
 and most powerful in bringing debate to an end. 3 
 It applies, not only to the main question, but to 
 
 i C. A., Jan. 16, 1810. 
 
 2 For a full history of the previous question, cf . the speech of 
 William Gaston, C. A., Jan. 19, 1816. 
 « 54: 1, C. R., 5202, 5203, May 13, 1896. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 105 
 
 amendments, to secondary motions, to a part or 
 the whole of a series of parliamentary propositions. 
 It yet demands instantaneous putting, except that 
 bills upon which there has been no debate may 
 have half an hour's discussion before their passage. 
 For many years it seems not to have affected de- 
 bate in the Committee of the Whole. The two- 
 thirds requirement for suspension of the rules, to- 
 gether with changes in them, and new rulings of 
 Speakers, had, by 1841, made it exceedingly dif- 
 ficult to go into Committee of the Whole at all. 
 This immobility was remedied at that time by 
 making it in order for a mere majority to suspend 
 the rules, both to get the House into Committee of 
 the Whole, and to fix definite periods for the 
 Committee's sessions, so as to get measures back 
 into the House. 1 By later additions to the rules, 
 the Committee may entertain, after this closing of 
 debate, four five-minute speeches proposing and 
 combating first and second amendments. Thus a 
 majority can, before resolving itself into Commit- 
 tee of the Whole, decide that the bill to be con- 
 sidered shall be reported to the House within 
 twenty-odd minutes. Notwithstanding this power 
 other tactics have often been employed. Before 
 1860 reference of a great appropriation bill to 
 the Whole was frequently a time- was ting farce. 
 Immediately upon getting into the Committee a 
 
 i C. G., July 6, 7, 1841. 
 
106 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 spokesman of the majority would propose to strike 
 out the enacting clause of the measure. This 
 amendment, not being itself amendable, would be 
 passed with two five-minute speeches; the Com- 
 mittee would then rise and report to the House, 
 which would disagree to the striking out, and, or- 
 dering the previous question, put the bill through 
 with a rush. 1 The Thirty-sixth Congress directed 
 that a bill so deprived of its head should upon non- 
 concurrence of the House go back to its former 
 place upon the calendar of the Whole, and have 
 the decapitated member restored. Just ten years 
 later the subtle Greeks of the Committee on Rules, 
 as one of our classically minded historians would 
 style them, opened a new avenue towards " the 
 rule of the standing committees without let or 
 hindrance." They persuaded the fitfully migrat- 
 ing Barbarians to allow a bill reported from the 
 Committee of the Whole minus its enacting clause 
 to be sent back with instructions to provide a sub- 
 stitute. 2 How such a provision could be made to 
 work at command of the majority Professor Hart 
 has shown in his entertaining biography — or obit- 
 uary — of a river and harbor bill. 3 Instead of a 
 case of striking out the enacting clause, this is a 
 case of striking out all after the enacting clause ; 
 
 1 In this way Alexander H. Stephens Drought ahout action 
 upon the Kansas-Nebraska hill, May 22, 1854. 
 
 2 C. G., May 26, 1870; C. R., Jan. 6, 1880. 
 
 8 Hart's "Practical Essays on American Government." 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 107 
 
 but both have offered practically the same oppor- 
 tunity for minimizing debate. 
 
 To return to 1841, outer confines having been 
 fully established by the power of limiting debate 
 in Committee of the Whole, the next step was to 
 set internal boundaries. In line of natural succes- 
 sion to the Previous Question and Limited Debate 
 came the Hour Rule. It followed immediately af- 
 ter the latter, being adopted the very next day. It 
 was simply a decision that no one member should 
 talk upon a subject longer than sixty minutes. 
 Imprecations heaped upon it then and for many 
 years after might add glow to an Indian's war- 
 paint or terror to his death-cry. 
 
 All these developments have strengthened the 
 power of the majority. They have given to it a 
 more effective control over the standing and select 
 committees. They have vested in it the fixing 
 of the ratio between deliberation and action. If 
 it desires debate, its leaders need not order the 
 previous question. 1 The history of the tariff 
 law of 1897 shows that when these chiefs have 
 a harmonious majority at their back, they can 
 
 i Cf., incidentally, 54 : 1, C. R M 5202-8, May 13, 1896 ; a peculiar 
 and suggestive case, in which these leaders filibustered until nine 
 o'clock at night, contrary to the evident desire of the majority for 
 the previous question. Senators recently worsted by the House 
 would change the royal title of its Speaker from the Great White 
 Czar to the Great White Filibuster, 55 : 1, C. R. (Senate), April 22, 
 1897. 
 
108 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 extend a " do-nothing policy " into weeks and 
 months. 
 
 The Committee of the Whole on the State of the 
 Union has come, in the long run, from broad origi- 
 nal jurisdiction over all House measures, to be a 
 secondary stage for limited consideration of public 
 finances. Its field has been partitioned out, part 
 going to the Committee of the Whole, part to the 
 House, by far the largest -share to the standing and 
 select committees. In 1793 the Congressman, glan- 
 cing up into the galleries, might have likened it 
 to the orator fully and carefully arrayed to sway 
 the multitudes ; in 1893, with scarce a thought for 
 the puzzled straggler overhead, he styles it "the 
 House in undress uniform, the House with its coat 
 off." 
 
 Finally, new competitors have appeared to fur- 
 ther reduce the spheres of the two Committees of 
 the Whole, perhaps in time to send both into super- 
 annuation. Of all the tendencies apparent upon 
 a comprehensive view, the most striking is the 
 movement towards a procedure based upon the 
 biennial life of each House. Deliberation marks 
 the opening, and gradually shades off into the 
 breathless action of the closing hours. When the 
 new Congress begins, it has its one opportunity for 
 claiming again the ancient glory of debate ; when 
 an old Congress ends, the only words that echo 
 through the great hall are Yea and Nay. The pro- 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 109 
 
 cess is from full discussion of general policies to 
 sharp five-minute speeches upon specific measures. 
 That criticism, therefore, which avers that the 
 power of the standing committees is almost abso- 
 lute because their measures are acted upon hastily 
 as the final March day approaches, has its edge 
 dulled by the defense that action ought to be de- 
 ferred until demands are imperative, so as to give, 
 meanwhile, as long a period as possible for delibe- 
 ration. Before the Representative is required to 
 vote upon them, he has had in most cases one, in 
 many cases two sessions and an interval, for ac- 
 quainting himself with pending legislative Acts. 
 Some measures reappear in Congress after Con- 
 gress. The reports of committees are printed, and, 
 with their accompanying bills, often stand upon 
 the calendar for months. In that large body pri- 
 vate conversation, man with man, counts for much 
 as a substitute for public discussion. The press 
 and constituents have ample time for comment 
 upon topics which interest them. 
 
 Abuses connected with a large scope for general 
 debate have their most telling illustration in the 
 great slavery struggle. Those inflammatory Con- 
 gressional harangues which had for their object no 
 definite action had a powerful influence in prevent- 
 ing reasonable settlements between North and 
 South. After having led opposing forces in a 
 fierce three weeks' quarrel upon the question of re- 
 
110 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ceiving Abolitionist memorials, John Quiney Adams 
 and Henry A. Wise voted together against bestow- 
 ing upon the majority power to limit general de- 
 bate in the Committee of the Whole. 1 This strife 
 over the adoption of rules or over the election of 
 officers grew more and more violent throughout the 
 '40's and '50's. For weeks or months, at the be- 
 ginning of a Congress, the contest would wage with 
 no other bridle upon vociferous radicals than the 
 regulations compiled by British parliamentarians 
 of the seventeenth century. In 1861, before he 
 left the House to take part with the Confederacy, 
 John H. Reagan declared that these passionate 
 wrangles had been a chief cause of the disruption 
 of the Union. 
 
 In post helium times, by contrast, the organi- 
 zation of the House lias proceeded in a leisurely, 
 good-humored way under general parliamentary 
 law until rules are adopted. The Committee on 
 Rules has early reported the usual revision ; and 
 then has been witnessed the splendid biennial field- 
 day — or rather days — of unlimited debate, the 
 one period in which, as has been said, the Com- 
 mittee of the Whole on the State of the Union, 
 whether it be called by that name or not, appears 
 most completely vested with its ancient character. 2 
 
 1 H. J., July 6, 1841. Adams also voted the next day against 
 the hour rule, hut Wise's name does not appear. 
 
 2 Before the Forty-eighth Congress it had been the prevailing 
 custom, barring the excited contests of the '40's and '50's, for a 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. Ill 
 
 With delightful freedom of speech for all, the pa- 
 laver runs on. A Representative who is getting his 
 first glimpse of the labyrintlis of the great Capitol 
 stands for the time equal before the Speaker with 
 the beetle-browed old committeeman who has seen 
 decades under the dome. Discussion of the rules 
 does not mean cold argument over phraseology, 
 clear reasoning upon scientific legislative methods. 
 It is the impassioned utterance of men newly 
 gathered together, and as yet unacquainted with 
 each other, but fresh from constituencies whose 
 districts completely cover the broad surface of the 
 United States. It is the airing-ground where the 
 people through their representatives pass judgment 
 upon the Congress which has gone before, and ex- 
 press their desires concerning great living political 
 issues as an enlightenment preliminary to the for- 
 mulating of laws by the committee workers. Usu- 
 
 Congress to adopt the rules of its predecessor temporarily. For a 
 time such action was regarded as binding. But the later Houses 
 have proceeded under general parliamentary law — analogous to 
 common law in the larger field — until a satisfactory revision 
 of former rules has been effected. The lengthiest periods of gen- 
 eral debate upon the rules since the codification are to be con- 
 sulted in the Record under the following dates: — 
 47th Congress, Jan. 16-19, 1882. 
 
 48th 
 
 Feb. 7-8, 1884. 
 
 49th 
 
 * Dec. 9-18, 1885. 
 
 50th ' 
 
 • Dec. 21, 1887. 
 
 51st 
 
 ' Feb. 10-14, 1890. 
 
 52d ' 
 
 Jan. 25-Feb. 4, 1892. 
 
 53d 
 
 * Aug. 29-Sept. 6, 1893. 
 
 54th 
 
 ' Dec. 17, 1895, to Jan. 10, 1896. 
 
112 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ally one, two, or three changes in the former code, 
 involving, it may be, the power of some committee 
 whose business has become suddenly of first im- 
 portance, or relating to the adjustment of majority 
 and minority rights, have constituted the central 
 themes. In these discussions upon the broad sub- 
 ject of the State of the Union, a large part, often 
 the largest part, of the talking is made up of ran- 
 dom speeches by the newer members. The older 
 fellows sit back, say nothing, listen. The new 
 man may break some ice as to the meaning of the 
 complex code which governs proceedings, but the 
 old man gathers large ideas as to the character of 
 the complex mass of membership which will soon 
 come under his directing and governing hand. It 
 has been a grand meet, as it were, where new 
 steeds have shown off their paces before wise old 
 Houyhnhnms. 
 
 Besides the early period for free and easy ex- 
 change of opinions, others less extensive appear 
 here and there, more rarely as the Congress runs 
 forward in its devious course. Two processes bid 
 fair to succeed the Committee of the Whole, — 
 one, the Special Order ; the other, consideration of 
 a measure in the House as if in the Whole. About 
 the time of the Forty-ninth Congress the practice 
 came to take on new and great significance of fix- 
 ing upon some particular day or days, some time 
 in the future, for exclusive consideration of the 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 113 
 
 business of some committee having a well-known 
 and important measure to present. Such in that 
 body was the action upon the Senate Bill on Po- 
 lygamy and the Trade Dollar Bill. These special 
 orders take business, public or private, from any 
 of the three calendars, and assign it to any day, 
 Fridays or Mondays not excluded. They go into 
 effect immediately, or after some lapse of time. In 
 the second session of the Fifty-third Congress 
 thirty-five bills were thus favored. Among them, 
 as examples showing the variety, may be cited 
 measures for the admission of Utah, to suspend 
 the tax on the circulation of national banks, to 
 establish a uniform system of bankruptcy, for 
 election of Senators by a direct vote of the people, 
 for bills reported from the Committee on Patents, 
 for a contested election case, for eulogies upon a 
 deceased statesman, for resolutions relative to 
 affaire in the Hawaiian Islands. The old, rather 
 rigid, idea of certain days for certain kinds of busi- 
 ness, as seen in the setting apart, first of Fridays, 
 then of Fridays and Saturdays, for the private 
 legislation committees, in the distinction between 
 these two as objection and consideration days, in 
 the giving of Mondays, the second and fourth in 
 each month, to the Committee on the District of 
 Columbia, the first and third to motions for sus- 
 pensions of rules by individuals and by committees, 
 — this old idea has been undergoing new develop- 
 
114 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ments with reference to all kinds of legislation. 
 Usually when the special order period arrives, the 
 majority and the minority divide the time equally 
 or equitably, and each gives control of its share to 
 a recognized leader. Consideration of a measure 
 in the House as in the Whole is like the Committee 
 of the Whole in the freedom of debate, but differs 
 in that the previous question, a motion to recon- 
 sider, the yeas and nays, and a motion to adjourn 
 are admissible. 1 
 
 Before leaving the subject of debate as a method 
 of controlling committees, some additional minor 
 points ought to be noticed. Whereas in the first 
 House a member had a clear title to speak twice 
 in general debate, he may now speak but once ; 
 save that the committeeman who has charge of the 
 measure may open and close, and may occupy two 
 hours if the discussion extends over from one day 
 to another. The tendency is to delegate increas- 
 ingly the talking as well as the governing. 2 Every 
 measure put upon its passage under the previous 
 question or suspension of the rules must have had 
 at least twenty minutes of criticism by its oppo- 
 
 1 Cf . resolutions introduced by Messrs. Pendleton and Everett, 
 H. J., June 10, 1842. 
 
 2 Cf. the speeches of Messrs. Cannon, Dingley, and Wheeler, 
 summarizing the work of the Fifty-fourth Congress as its last ses- 
 sion drew to a close, C. R., March, 1897; also the choice by the 
 minority party of Joseph W. Bailey as its representative orator, 
 55 : 1, C. R., April 17, 1897, and closing days of the session. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 115 
 
 sers, if there be any. 1 General debate, that is free- 
 dom to wander broadly from the question in hand, 
 is permissible neither in the House nor in a spe- 
 cial order period. Through the practice of offering 
 and withdrawing pro form a amendments, discussion 
 is allowed in the shape of five-minute speeches 
 which are highly praised by visiting critics. 
 
 To reiterate — the long trend of development re- 
 veals a more accurately and strictly defined account- 
 ability of the committees to the majority party. 
 This is a prominent feature, not only in their com- 
 position, as will be shown, and in the discussion 
 of their measures, but along other important lines. 
 As the minority was driven by the majority from 
 its method of defeating action upon committee 
 reports by endless talking, it found yet other 
 strongholds. Its resistance through parliamentary 
 tactics has been more and more favored by the 
 growing membership and business of the House, 
 and consequent growing complexity of organiza- 
 tion. From the loud tam-tam or the prolonged and 
 terrifying shouts of the battle host, it progressed 
 to the serried ranks, the silently pricking bayonet, 
 and smokeless powder. With the same purpose 
 how different the ways of John Randolph and 
 Buckley Kilgore ! The minority filibuster, like the 
 earlier Quid, has long since seen the high tide of 
 his power. At least he has retreated into the 
 
 1 Rules of H. of R M XXVIII. 3, 
 
116 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 committee rooms, where — as the committee min- 
 utes would seem to show — he is yet powerful for 
 making the hours drag monotonously by. Prog- 
 ress on the whole has been from rough, crude 
 methods of control to a procedure more exact and 
 expedite. From attempts to rule its committees 
 directly through fixed orders of business in the 
 pure democracy of the House or of the Whole, ne- 
 cessity has gradually driven the body to bestow ad- 
 ministration upon chosen representatives, of whom 
 the Speaker is chief. The minority now brings 
 its strength to bear by appeal to public opinion 
 through the press and the polls. 
 
 Among others two practices have stood out as 
 highly important for reining in the committee 
 steeds, of which one has been becoming of less, the 
 other of more weight. The House, in the first 
 place, decides what specific work shall be done, 
 and what committee shall do it. Then, when the 
 work has been completed, it passes judgment upon 
 the reports. These two may be styled Reference 
 and Selection. The regulating law of competition 
 has been operating here with silently increasing 
 supremacy, as the committees have grown in num- 
 ber, and as the business of each has manifoldly in- 
 creased. Every one of them in later Congresses 
 has had fifty or more competitors. In the records 
 of a single session the labels, H. R. 8053 and S. 
 2326, indicate that each bill was but one among 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 117 
 
 ten thousand proposed laws. In the Fiftieth Con- 
 gress but four and three-fourths per cent of all the 
 measures introduced passed the House. 1 Hereto are 
 pertinent the lively and prolonged struggles of com- 
 mittees for the possession of particular bills, which 
 in later practice gave place to exciting contests for 
 the floor whenever action upon the calendars was 
 pending. For these disputes there has had to be 
 arbitration ; and the supreme court of resort by un- 
 alterable decree of the Constitution is the House 
 deciding by majority vote, man equal with man. 
 Never has a law been entered upon the statute 
 books of the Federal Government which has not at 
 the final stage of its passage received the sanction 
 of a majority of the Representatives. In many 
 cases, by decision upon secondary motions, this 
 sanction has had repeated expression. This is the 
 essence of the legislative grant. This is the one 
 only part of the lawmaking process which in no 
 instance of a. century's history has been given to a 
 committee. Below this narrow limit — the secret 
 ballot, the division, the silent procession between 
 tellers, the vive voce, or the yeas and nays — there 
 has been every possible degree of legislative power 
 for committees all the way to the point of making 
 laws without any commitment whatever. 2 
 
 1 Public Opinion, April 12, 1894. 
 
 2 As late as the session of 1851-1852, there were nine or more in- 
 stances of action upon bills without commitment ; see 32 : 1, H. J., 
 Index. 
 
118 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 The confidence which the House has reposed 
 in the committee has in the main determined this 
 degree of power. Such is the limitation which 
 the individual committee has felt more and more 
 keenly. Its importance will he petty if the House 
 does not bestow upon it the framing of important 
 measures ; its work will go for naught if the House 
 refuses to consider its reports. Thus it is influ- 
 enced to present first those of its many measures 
 which it believes to be most in demand, or least 
 likely to meet with opposition. Its ambition must 
 be to so meet the views of the majority that there 
 will be no amendment or recommitment. 1 The 
 smile and the frown of the House are quickly 
 noted by sensitive chairmen. A favorite of to-day 
 may be thrust down by the wiles of another courtier 
 to-morrow. " The moment a committee is ap- 
 pointed which is not in accord with the wishes and 
 desires of members," says Speaker Reed, u that 
 moment that committee is such an object of sus- 
 picion that its power is utterly destroyed or lost." 
 Peculiar enemies lie in wait for a committee ; the 
 chairmen of other committees, the speech-makers, 
 the amenders, the filibusters. 2 More than once 
 these committee tribulations have been the oppor- 
 
 1 Cf. for an interesting example an article on " The House of 
 Representatives and the House of Commons " hy Hon. Hilary A. 
 Herbert, North American Review, CLVIII.,267. 
 
 2 Hart's "Practical Essays on American Government," 213- 
 217. 
 
THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 119 
 
 tunity of the Congressional humorist. 1 As early 
 as 1835 the chairman of a committee compared 
 himself to " the man in the almanack stuck all 
 over with sticks." The fire of questions which 
 one of these trained managers of bills undergoes 
 upon the floor of the House is perhaps freer 
 and sharper than the interpellation of the cabinet 
 spokesman at a sitting of the House of Commons. 
 A kinetic view of the two stages of control, Ref- 
 erence and Selection, may be had from glances at 
 the changing visages of Annals, Debates, Globes, 
 and Records. Of selection something will be said 
 when the Committee on Rules is under considera- 
 tion. Here may be traced finally the history of 
 the decreasingly important subject of Reference. 
 Early in the nineteenth century the strong initia- 
 tive of members in laying positive and specific 
 commands upon the committees to produce such 
 and such measures was giving away to the milder 
 plan of directing a committee to inquire into the ex- 
 pediency of enacting this or that law. It was the 
 beginning of the modern bill. The number, va- 
 riety, and forms of these latter resolutions, about 
 1827, might well amuse a legislator of to-day. 
 There were such floods of them that John W. 
 Taylor, then beginning his eighth Congressional 
 term, was constrained to sigh for the good old 
 
 1 Cf. speeches of R. G. Horr, C. R., Jan. 15, 1880; S. S. Cox, 
 C. R., Jan. 22, 1880; J. M. Allen, C. R., Jan. 28, 1892. 
 
120 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 times when it was " believed that committees had 
 some little share of intelligence," and when they 
 were not " dealt with as if they really had not an 
 idea of their own." 1 In the instructing process 
 the House had that early passed from the manda- 
 tory to the advisory attitude towards its commit- 
 tees. There was then, and for a long time after, 
 much dispute and consumption of time as to where 
 a resolution, bill, or petition should go. As has 
 been said, this was an important part of the con- 
 trol exercised over committees, since it was in the 
 nature of a preliminary deliberation and decision, 
 and in its issue indicated which committee stood 
 highest in the confidence of the House. Nowa- 
 days each Representative, if we may infer from his 
 after proceedings, travels up to the Capitol with a 
 Saratoga trunk or two specially devoted to embryo 
 laws. A member introducing a bill has the advan- 
 tage, if the committee to which it is sent does not 
 report, of presenting it again for reference to some 
 other committee. Much is to be commended in 
 the fact that forty or fifty bills relating to the 
 same subject frequently go to a committee, and 
 are framed into one by combination of what is best 
 in all. It is now the duty — doubtless a tedious 
 
 1 C. A., Dec. 19, 1827; an editorial in the National Intelli- 
 gencer of Dec. 11, 1821, comments upon this custom as " a salu- 
 tary practice, the abolition of which would he to narrow the range 
 of free inquiry, and substitute the pleasure of a majority of the 
 House for the rights of the individual members." 
 

 THE CONTROL BY THE HOUSE. 121 
 
 one — of the Speaker and of the Clerk to assign 
 to committees these papers as they fall into the 
 boxes which historian Schouler likens to Chinese 
 prayer-wheels. Wrangling over the possession of 
 them, if there be any, must come at later stages of 
 their journeys. This waning importance of Refer- 
 ence and waxing importance of Selection may be 
 accounted for by coupling together increase of 
 membership and business with the fixed Constitu- 
 tional provision for absolute equality and majority 
 rule in final voting decisions. With the increas- 
 ing intensity of the struggle, minor vantage points 
 have been abandoned. The supremely critical 
 stage in legislation, the acceptance or rejection by 
 the House of committee propositions, is the rally- 
 ing center for contending majority and minority, 
 contending sections and sections, contending com- 
 mittees and committees. 
 
The examination and appraisement of the institutions of the 
 United States is no doubt full of instruction for Europe, full of 
 encouragement, full of warning ; hut its chief value lies in what 
 may he called the laws of political biology which it reveals, the 
 new illustrations and enforcements it supplies of general truths in 
 social and political science, some of which were perceived long 
 ago by Plato and Aristotle, but might have been forgotten had 
 not America poured a stream of new light upon them. 
 
 James Bryce. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 
 
 Our American legislative system is the unfold- 
 ing expression of the first principles of politics. 
 There is a creation, a growth, a parallel develop- 
 ment of distinct members and of one connected 
 whole. From simple and unnoticed beginnings it 
 expands with an individuality of its own into a 
 complex organism. It yields in the fullness to 
 which it has come to that same deep study which 
 has traced lines of order in the green-garbed earth 
 of Linnaeus, from rootlet of grass to crowning tree- 
 leaf ; or in the process whereby an innocent child 
 becomes a matured soul, with grouping of good 
 and evil traits into one sum of character; or in 
 many another complex evolvement. If scientists 
 discover divinely predetermined plans or laws in 
 the evolution of animal species, why not in the 
 finer, higher expansions of human governments? 
 Drummond might have traced a natural law in 
 the political as well as in the spiritual world. 
 
 One after another the standing committees ap- 
 pear, as one after another white stars crowd into the 
 
 123 
 
124 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 blue field of the nation's flag. From the chaos of the 
 beginning, from the nebular dust of scattered busi- 
 ness, select committees group themselves into huge 
 growing nuclei, the first standing committees, which, 
 spinning more and more rapidly, begin to throw off 
 new spheres, other standing committees, and mean- 
 while multitudinous relations appear of light, of 
 heat, of rotation, of revolution, of gravitation. 
 
 Business of the earlier Houses went to hosts of 
 select committees. At least three hundred and 
 fifty were raised in the Third Congress. A special 
 committee had to be formed for every petty claim. 
 A bill founded on the report of one small com- 
 mittee had to be recommitted to, or carefully 
 drafted by, yet another committee. But the de- 
 cline in the number of these select committees was 
 strikingly rapid. In twenty years, at the Congress 
 of 1813-1815 with its three war sessions, it had 
 fallen to about seventy. The reduction was by half 
 to thirty-five in 1833-1835. There were twenty- 
 two at the Thirty-third, and twenty at the Forty- 
 third Congress. Recently the number does not 
 exceed a dozen for a Congress, and is often much 
 smaller. As the converse of the process has been 
 the comparatively slow increase of standing com- 
 mittees. There were half a dozen when the cen- 
 tury began ; ten in 1810 ; twenty in 1816 ; thirty 
 in 1831 ; forty in 1865 ; fifty in 1893. 1 
 
 i See Appendix I. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 125 
 
 Statistics of increase in the membership of com- 
 mittees are also noteworthy. From haphazard 
 variety in sizes, the process has been towards abso- 
 lute uniformity and then again to a certain stable 
 variety. Owing partly to the difficulties of ballot- 
 ing, select committees during the first session of 
 the First Congress were limited mainly to three 
 members. Occasionally at first even numbers were 
 named, but the odd soon came to prevail. Standing 
 committees, with brief exceptions as to the Ways 
 and Means and the Post>-Offices and Post-Roads, 
 consisted of seven and three until the new congres- 
 sional apportionment of the fifth census brought an 
 increase of most to nine and five members. These 
 remained the largest for thirty -five years, until on 
 motion of Robert C. Schenck the Pacific Railroads 
 was advanced to thirteen. From that occasion on- 
 ward, increase in the size of the House has been 
 but a minor influence working with others more 
 powerful to break up the uniformity and to greatly 
 enlarge many committees. Their membership now 
 ranges through all the odd numbers from three to 
 seventeen, and propositions to make some yet lar- 
 ger have had lusty support. Now and then the 
 membership of a standing committee is tempora- 
 rily augmented to secure the counsel of certain 
 able Representatives or for other passing cause. 
 
 This double process of increase has shown some 
 halting, but few backward, steps. Upon two or 
 
126 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 three occasions certain committees have had their 
 sizes decreased. While some have almost entirely 
 lost their original functions, but three have been 
 abolished, — the Engraving, the Freedmen's Affairs, 
 and the Public Expenditures. A statesman sug- 
 gested not long ago that, with the reduction of the 
 war debt and the solution of other financial prob- 
 lems arising out of the Civil War, revenue and 
 appropriations might be reunited under one com- 
 mittee ; but there is no prospect of such a course. 
 The first proposition to divide a standing committee 
 was made in 1810, nine years before its accom- 
 plishment. John Slidell anticipated the Coinage, 
 Weights, and Measures twenty years in his sug- 
 gestion for a Committee on Coinage and Currency. 1 
 Much bitterness arose in 1847 over a motion for a 
 Committee on the Smithsonian Institute, which was 
 vigorously supported by Andrew Johnson. Other 
 such abortive proposals have sought to establish 
 committees on " Public Health," " Epidemic Dis- 
 eases," "Admission to the Floor," "The Ameri- 
 can Isthmus," "Constitutional Amendments." 
 
 The words standing and select as applied to the 
 House committees have taken on additional or 
 different meanings with the evolution of legis- 
 lative methods. To make this clear we shall need, 
 besides their growth, to consider: (1) The man- 
 ner of appointing the committees ; (2) Their divis- 
 
 i C. G., Jan. 29, 1841. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 127 
 
 ion and subdivision as connected with the business 
 of Congress ; (3) The length of their existence ; 
 (4) Their composition as to stability and party 
 representation. 
 
 The first session of the first House vested the 
 appointment of small committees of three or less 
 in the Speaker ; and the second session, on motion 
 of Richard Bland Lee of Virginia, extended, his 
 privilege as to all committees, large and small, un- 
 less the House should order otherwise. 1 Colonial 
 precedents for this course abounded. 2 It was an 
 entering wedge upon older customs of motion and 
 ballot. The House has always retained the power 
 of determining the sizes of its committees. Until 
 the hurried times of Speaker Grow the standing 
 committees were never appointed without a special 
 resolution conferring that authority. The few 
 cases in which resort has been had to the ballot 
 have been those of select committees when, upon 
 some suddenly sprung question, the Speaker has 
 been found to hold sentiments at variance with 
 those of the majority, most notably when he has 
 shown himself at outs or in accord with the Presi- 
 dent of the United States as against the House 
 which has chosen him as its Premier. Upon these 
 occasions the Representatives have advanced a 
 
 1 C. A., Jan. 13, 1790. 
 
 2 See above, Chapter I. ; Jefferson's Mannal, Section xxi., 
 Clause 1; fly-leaf rules in Maclay's Journal. 
 
128 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 specious argument with a touch of irony in it, — 
 the selection by ballot relieves the Speaker of an 
 unpleasant duty, and saves him from disagreeable 
 imputations ! This was the only plea for the bal- 
 lot made by Randolph's minority at the beginning 
 of the Tenth Congress. Out of one hundred and 
 eleven who voted then, eighty-seven approved of the 
 judgment that the Speaker would feel his responsi- 
 bility and be cautious in the choice, while the 
 secret ballot would be largely irresponsible, difficult 
 and tedious in so large a body, accidental as to secur- 
 ing fit men, especially since there were many new 
 Representatives who could not choose intelligently. 
 James Sloan, who had vigorously urged a return to 
 the ballot a few months before, was now in favor 
 of the established method, and merely suggested his 
 belief that the two or three more' important com- 
 mittees might better be chosen by the House. The 
 critical test came, however, when the next Con- 
 gress opened. Matthew Lyon and Barent Garde- 
 nier again urged the ballot. It was more respect- 
 ful to the nation, they argued ; members so chosen 
 were more likely to feel their responsibility to the 
 House ; ours is a government based upon the rule 
 of the many. This decisive division discovered 
 sixty-seven for and forty-one against the choice 
 by the Speaker. In recent times outsiders have 
 advocated other plans. Perhaps the only intelli- 
 gent and noteworthy substitute proposed by a 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 129 
 
 Representative has been that of Godlove S. Orth, 
 a member of long standing and recognized ability. 
 In 1882 he proposed that a standing board of 
 eleven be chosen by party caucuses, and vested 
 with the nomination of all committees. In the 
 Speaker, said he, was a one-man power of vast 
 proportions ; from his fiat in assignments there was 
 no appeal ; the Congressional destiny, prominence 
 or obscurity, of every newly arrived Represen- 
 tative was absolutely at his disposal ; he could so 
 constitute any particular committee as to imperil 
 the great interests with which it might be charged ; 
 a board need not take more time than did he in 
 organizing the House, since he was never known 
 to accomplish the task in less than two weeks 
 time. Thomas B. Reed replied, ridiculing such a 
 scheme for putting the Speakership in commission 
 to a log-rolling body which must favor itself with 
 fine places, or follow the rare historic example of 
 the self-denying ordinance. The unanswerable 
 argument of Mr. Reed and of others was the ap- 
 peal to the long century in which the established 
 plan had proved workable with the Speakership 
 fixed in an ever-growing structure as the corner- 
 stone whose removal must mean ruinous collapse. 1 
 
 1 The appointment of a standing committee by a Speaker pro 
 tern occurred Dec. 7, 1843. The seat of John W. Jones, who had 
 been chosen Speaker, happened to be contested ; hence he asked 
 to be relieved from appointing the Committee on Elections. 
 Samuel Bearsley of New York made the selection. John Quincy 
 
130 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Custom has quietly limited the Speaker's power 
 to harm or to help along many lines which his 
 critics have failed to see. 
 
 One other way has several times been suggested 
 for the avoidance of partisanship, or rather the will 
 of the majority party, in the decision of contested 
 election cases, — namely, the choice of the Com- 
 mittee on Elections by lot. Cyrus King, of Massa- 
 chusetts, sought the adoption of this plan in 1813. 
 James Graham, of North Carolina, urged it very 
 persistently in 1838-1840. As a curious feature, 
 Graham proposed to make the selection from a list 
 composed of one member from each State ; namely, 
 those Representatives who had received the lar- 
 gest popular majorities in the various common- 
 wealths. Reliance upon chance in the American 
 Congress, by happy contrast with the organization 
 of European legislatures, has found no successful 
 advocacy. 1 The only instance of the lot is in the 
 choice of seats, and that would well be superseded 
 by some such intelligent planning as that of the 
 Massachusetts legislature. 
 
 Corollary to the subject of the appointment of 
 a committee is the question : How shall its chair- 
 man be chosen? Nov. 20-23, 1804, the House 
 
 Adams asserts that the hallot was avoided because the House was 
 packed with a view to the use of that method. Memoirs, XI., 
 446. 
 
 i Cf. for other schemes, C. G., Dec. 13, 19, 1849. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 131 
 
 decreed that the Speaker should decide by the 
 order in which he should name members, not only 
 the chairmanship, but also the succession to the 
 office in case of a contingency. However, the 
 right of choosing its own head was reserved to 
 any committee so disposed. Speaker Macon hav- 
 ing deposed John Randolph from the headship of 
 the Ways and Means, that committee would not 
 recognize the change. 1 For some years committee- 
 men were named upon the lists alternately from 
 the Democrats and the Whigs. This caused an 
 awkward predicament in 1835, when Edward Ev- 
 erett was deprived of the right of succession to 
 first place on the Foreign Affairs. Such a diffi- 
 culty could not now arise, since names from the 
 ruling party all precede those from the minorities. 
 
 Other reasons may be added here for the pre- 
 viously suggested choice of the Speaker by the na- 
 tion at large. Those fierce and protracted contests 
 for the Speakership which have occasionally wasted 
 months of costly time might by such a change be 
 provided against; the Speaker would have more 
 than a year in which by correspondence, travel, 
 and personal interview to learn the desires of the 
 people as well as the wishes and qualifications of 
 Representatives, and to satisfy the latter as to 
 what lines of work would be assigned to them. 
 
 The process of division and subdivision in the 
 
 1 Remarks of Stephenson Archer, C. G., Jan. 21, 1835. 
 
132 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 committee system springs from logical analysis of 
 the business which comes to the House under the 
 Constitution. 1 As the sphere of Congress has 
 broadened with looser construction of the funda- 
 mental law, new committees have been added to 
 those older ones whose functions were written un- 
 mistakably within the original charter. These 
 stand for powers, the implication of which would 
 have been denied by the great majority of Ameri- 
 cans when the government was young. Though 
 they indeed set a precedent when they entered 
 upon the pages of their sacred document the name 
 of the Speaker, who may be styled the first, last, 
 and all-comprehensive Committee of One, the most 
 farseeing of the Constitution's framers could not 
 have dreamed of such a result as the present stand- 
 ing-committee system. In it Americans of to-day 
 plainly discern the inevitable extra-Constitutional 
 growth which corresponds at one extreme of the 
 government to the huge machinery of party con- 
 ventions and committees at the other. 
 
 Very naturally two or three of those persistent 
 Revolutionary claims or petitions coming in on the 
 same day would in the First and Second Congresses 
 be referred to one committee, so saving the trouble 
 
 1 For a jocular speech setting forth occasional illogical devel- 
 opments, cf. remarks of Representative Horr, C. R., Dec. 20, 1883. 
 He would divide the Ways and Means into two, one on Ways and 
 the other on Means. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 133 
 
 and time of constituting two or three. Very nat- 
 urally, also, certain men surpassing others in deal- 
 ing with this kind of work got their names familiar 
 in the raising of select committees on claims. The 
 duration of some committees gradually lengthened, 
 and the positions of the able men became more se- 
 cure. In this way came the standing Committee 
 on Claims in the Third Congress. In this way, 
 generally, standing committees have grown out of 
 select committees. The movement was helped by 
 imitation of parent legislative bodies in the Estab- 
 lishment of the Elections, the Enrolled Bills, the 
 Commerce and Manufactures, the Ways and Means. 
 A longer or shorter time of probation has often 
 preceded the admission of a committee into the 
 standing sisterhood. The Foreign Affairs existed 
 continuously as a select committee for fifteen years 
 before its name was entered upon the code of rules. 
 So of each of the six last added, one of which 
 has been practically a standing committee for 
 twenty-seven years. So of the joint committee on 
 the Library, which first appeared April 25, 1800. 
 Most of the fifty-seven which are now raised reg- 
 ularly for each Congress have had select proto- 
 types at irregular intervals all the way back to the 
 beginning of the government. Only six or eight 
 Congresses, those of earlier days, failed to raise 
 committees on rules. Occasionally a select com- 
 mittee has run through several Congresses and 
 
134 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 then disappeared. Certain others are rather com- 
 etary, as when the census and the reapportionment 
 trouble Congress once in each decade. Regularly 
 at the beginnings and ends of sessions two Sena- 
 tors and three Representatives, the sages of each 
 House, unite in a visit to the President, having 
 been honored with the trust of telling him that 
 Congress has met and awaits his communications, 
 or that, having finished its work, it is ready to ad- 
 journ. Three committees, the Accounts, the Mile- 
 age, and the Printing, have been charged with 
 duties which were at first and for a long time per- 
 formed by the Clerk of the House, the Sergeant- 
 at-Arms, and the Speaker. Besides these origins, 
 a standing committee has occasionally been delib- 
 erately divided. The first instance occurred in 
 1819-1820 upon the separation of those three im- 
 portant industrial subjects, — Commerce, Manu- 
 factures, and Agriculture. Pensions and Revolu- 
 tionary Claims were constituted as two in 1825. 
 The most noted case occurred at the close of the 
 Civil War, when financial affairs, of which the 
 ancient Ways and Means had hitherto had sole 
 charge, were shared with three new committees. 
 
 Because of the rapid changes so characteristic 
 of American history the determination of the bus- 
 iness province of each committee has been attended 
 with constant difficulty. Representatives have be- 
 moaned the waste of their time in such disputes. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 135 
 
 Senators have prided themselves on the fact that 
 they avoid such troubles by fixing no hard and 
 fast lines of reference in their rules, but theirs has 
 been a smaller and more leisurely body. 1 From 
 bulky clauses in the earlier rules the duties of a 
 House committee have come to be denned now by 
 an average dozen words. 2 Now and then a change 
 in the name of a committee, as that of Revisal and 
 Unfinished Business to Revisal of the Laws, has 
 been significant of alteration in its sphere. The 
 committees may be classed into groups by a gen- 
 eral view of their relations. Six pertaining to 
 private legislation, nine which are slumbering 
 watch-dogs of Executive expenditures, and three 
 for joint affairs with the Senate, have some treat- 
 ment elsewhere. Here will be dealt with more 
 especially the one great executive or administra- 
 tive committee of the seven which relate to the 
 mechanics of lawmaking, the Rules, and the thirty- 
 two to which the framing of public legislation is 
 intrusted. These latter fall under seven heads : 
 of Finance, of Industry, of Public Property, of 
 War, of Law, of Social, of International Affairs. 8 
 Lastly in the expansion has come the sub-com- 
 mittee. Its importance is a development of post 
 helium conditions. To the full committee it stands 
 
 1 Cf. remarks of John Sherman in Senate, C. R., Dec. 13, 1871. 
 
 2 Cf. Rules of H. of R., XI. 
 » See Appendix II. 
 
136 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 in relations similar to those which the full com- 
 mittee sustains towards the House. It is the in- 
 ner circle of an inner circle. It has majority and 
 minority composition. From duties clerical in the 
 case of the Elections, as the taking of testimony 
 from witnesses, it has come to report directly to 
 the House and not at all to the full committee. 
 The Elections was one of the earliest to be thus 
 segregated into five sub-committees of three. The 
 Fifty-fourth Congress provided three Committees 
 on Elections. Appropriation bills, with which the 
 Committee on Appropriations is charged, are dis- 
 tributed among seven sub-divisions of four and 
 five members each. The five sub-committees of 
 the Ways and Means in the Fifty-first Congress 
 were those on The Public Debt, Funding and 
 Payment Thereof, Revenue Provisions and Com- 
 mercial Treaties, Amendments of Customs Laws, 
 Amendments of Internal Revenue Laws, Relief 
 Bills and Claims. Those announced by Chairman 
 Babcock for the District of Columbia in the Fifty- 
 fourth Congress were : Judiciary; Ways and Means; 
 Education Labor, and Charities ; Street Railways, 
 Streets and Avenues ; Steam Railways ; Incorpora- 
 tions. Private legislation sub-committees are geo- 
 graphical ; that is, each has jurisdiction over claims 
 which originate in a certain district of the United 
 States. Thus, with the narrowing, almost disap- 
 pearing power of the individual Representative 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 137 
 
 upon the House "floor has come in many instances 
 by inverse ratio vast increase of his influence in 
 committees. In 1882 each of the thirteen leading 
 committees had from fifteen to fifty bills per 
 committeeman. 1 
 
 Shall the Congressional business be resumed 
 with the stage at which it had arrived when we 
 adjourned in September last, or shall it be taken 
 up de novo? This question puzzled the House 
 upon its reassembling in January, 1790. Upon its 
 decision depended for the next seventy years the 
 duration of standing committees. In the former 
 alternative they would last throughout the Con- 
 gress ; in the latter, only through what is now 
 known as a session. The practices of the Virginia 
 and Pennsylvania Assemblies were cited to uphold 
 the one and the other of these methods. With the 
 House of Burgesses was thrown into the scale 
 the British House of Commons ; and these two, to- 
 gether probably with the age distrust of power, 
 decided for the case de novo. While committees 
 were renamed once or twice biennially until the 
 substitution in 1860 of " Congress " for "session" 
 in the clause which fixed their time limit, all ten- 
 dencies went towards the nullifying of this early 
 decision. At the first session of the Fifth Con- 
 gress, the committee on the impeachment of Wil- 
 liam Blount was directed to sit during the interval, 
 
 i C. R., Jan. 17, 1882. 
 
138 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 collect evidence, and report at the second session. 
 As the standing committees increased, the custom 
 arose of referring en bloc to them their several por- 
 tions of unfinished business, a formality finally ob- 
 viated by standing orders. 1 Perhaps the first clear 
 indication that the reappointment of committees at 
 the beginning of a second or of a subsequent ses- 
 sion had become a mere matter of filling vacancies, 
 is to be distinguished in the action of Speaker 
 Robert C. Winthrop in 1849. 2 With the advent 
 of long terms of six years for such Speakers as 
 Colfax, Blaine, Randall, and Carlisle, the compo- 
 sition of committees has tended strongly to a 
 duration beyond single Congresses. Though com- 
 mittee work may continue to the very closing 
 hours of a Congress, its beginning is necessarily 
 delayed by the choice of officers, the revision of 
 rules, and the great labor of the Speaker in mak- 
 ing out the committee lists. 
 
 At the special sessions during James G. Blaine's 
 premiership, he refused to appoint all save a few 
 of the committees until the regular sessions should 
 begin. His example has been followed by Speaker 
 
 i C. A., Dec. 12, 1796; Mar. 17, 1818; Dec. 13, 1819; Mar. 15, 
 1860. 
 
 2 Note, however, the National Intelligencer, Dec. 12, 1825: 
 "The last chairmen of all the principal committees (they being 
 now members) are the same as at the last session, except one; 
 and that one (Mr. Crowninshield) is understood to have been 
 transferred with his own consent." 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 139 
 
 Reed in 1897. The preparation of a tariff bill by 
 the Ways and Means of the Fifty-fourth, and its 
 presentation upon the first day of the Fifty-fifth 
 Congress, as also the introduction of the General 
 Deficiency Bill which had failed in the Fifty-fourth 
 because of a Senate amendment, are suggestive of 
 the trend of the House toward continuity. 1 
 
 Stability of committee positions depends upon 
 various circumstances. There is the geographi- 
 cal element, State representation, as heretofore ex- 
 ploited. Prominent committeemen are called to 
 executive trusts. The ups and downs of parties, 
 besides their relegations to private life, cause con- 
 siderable shifting of members from one committee 
 to another, though the man of marked ability often 
 securely weathers all changes. Thomas B. Reed 
 has been a member of the Rules for eighteen 
 consecutive years. Upon the same committee Gar- 
 field served ten years, and Randall twenty. Abil--. 
 ity has brought long enduring honors even in the 
 case of the chairmanships, which now never fail to 
 change* with change of party control. In early 
 days it made not so much difference if a chair- 
 man were occasionally from the minority, though 
 on this head Speaker Barbour showed the partisan 
 
 1 55:1, C. R., 9, 10, Mar. 15, 1897. A noteworthy innovation 
 is the law enacted hy the Fifty-third Congress, which provides 
 that the Speaker of one Congress shall appoint a Committee on 
 Accounts from the members elect to the next Congress to serve 
 during the interval before the meeting of the new House. 
 
140 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 temper in 1821. 1 Perhaps the latest instance of 
 the kind is that of Samuel J. Randall, who, nnder 
 Republican rule, was in 1883 last chief of the 
 unimportant Public Expenditures. For long ser- 
 vice as chairman the palm is carried off by a man 
 whose name has been buried in the secret com- 
 mittee room, Thomas Newton of Virginia, for 
 nineteen years head of the Committee on Com- 
 merce. Next after him comes John Quincy Adams, 
 self-sacrificing Puritan, draining the bitterness of 
 distasteful destiny for thirteen years amidst the 
 turmoil and dust of the Manufactures. 2 Follow- 
 ing these are two with records each of twelve 
 years, — Lewis Williams of North Carolina on the 
 Claims, and Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois on the 
 Manufactures, — delightful characters, Fathers of 
 the House. William Findley of Pennsylvania, in 
 the beginning of the century, was first on the Elec- 
 tions for ten years. In our own times Richard P. 
 Bland on the Coinage, Weights, and Measures, and 
 William H. Hatch on the Agriculture, both of Mis- 
 souri, had a decade of contemporaneous service. 
 Upon the District of Columbia, Joseph Kent of 
 Maryland, and upon the Indian Affairs, John Bell 
 of Tennessee, each had four Congresses and a half. 
 Below this list are twelve who have headed com- 
 
 1 Schouler's " History of United States," III., 245. 
 
 2 Vide his complaints: "Memoirs," VIII., 433, 437-557; IX., 
 48; XI., 34, 36. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 141 
 
 mittees for eight ; six, for seven ; thirty-four for 
 six years respectively. Of the nine with longest 
 service, six belong to the period before, three to 
 the period during and after, the Civil War. The 
 seven-year list is confined entirely to times preced- 
 ing 1861. But of the forty-six with chieftainships 
 of three and four Congresses, thirty-three belong 
 to the flourishing years of the victorious Union. 
 To their names should be added that of Thaddeus 
 Stevens, for four Congresses in charge of the Ap- 
 propriations before and after the division of the 
 Ways and Means. The shifting or promotion of 
 chairmen and of members from one committee to 
 another, when taken into account, adds a few 
 shining names to the above roll, and does justice 
 to those deserving of equal praise with men whose 
 records are highest for long faithfulness in one 
 particular kind of labor. These transfers are es- 
 pecially important in the post helium period, and 
 their discussion is reserved for the topic of leader- 
 ship. 
 
 The power of removal from a committee has 
 perhaps never been directly exercised, either by 
 the Speaker or by the House. Resignations have 
 sometimes been practically forced, and from vari- 
 ous causes are frequent. 1 The impracticability of 
 removing committeemen was realized by Speaker 
 
 1 For prominent cases of resignation, cf. C. G., Feb. 9, 1842; 
 Dec. 6-11, I860- Feb. 1, 1875. 
 
142 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Blaine. 1 Earlier, John Quincy Adams tells of fu- 
 tile endeavors to exchange with Edward Everett 
 his chairmanship of the Manufactures for second 
 place on the Foreign Affairs. 2 Upon new appoint- 
 ments, formerly occurring every year, now bien- 
 nially, ample opportunity has been given to dis- 
 tribute rewards and punishments for committee 
 conduct. John Randolph — not to call forth too 
 often the shade of that knight of the Old Dominion 
 — was, for his perverseness with President Jeffer- 
 son, at first totally left out in the naming of the 
 standing committees at the second session of the 
 Ninth Congress. Richard Fletcher incurred a simi- 
 lar penalty because he had made charges against 
 the Ways and Means in a speech at Fanueil Hall. 3 
 Against the list of seventy Representatives (down 
 until 1895) who had held standing committee 
 chairmanships for periods of six years and upward 
 must be set off some thirteen hundred names of 
 those who had fallen below this line for an idea 
 of the ratio of permanence in committee service. 
 
 Consideration of the control of the House over 
 its committees brought out the strong and the weak 
 points of the Committee of the Whole. We may 
 here notice the influences which have advanced 
 and retarded the development of the standing 
 committee system with the advantages and disad- 
 
 i C. G., Dec. 9, 1869. « j. q. Adams's " Memoirs," VIII., 437. 
 a C. G., Dec. 13, 1837; J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs," IX., 449. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 143 
 
 vantages which have attended it as a legislative 
 organization. Its growth has in the main kept 
 pace with two phenomena over which the govern- 
 ment has exercised almost as slight control as over 
 the bounding seas or the upbuilding of coral islands 
 therein ; namely, with the growth and spread of 
 population, causing the House to grow in size, and 
 with the demands — steadily enlarging in peace, 
 driving headlong in war — for legislation upon sub- 
 jects old and new to the province of the Federal 
 authority. Accordingly as these forces exert their 
 influence more or less in the future will further 
 developments change the complexion of the body, 
 which presents differences so striking when the ex- 
 tremes of a century are compared. With such 
 results attendant upon progress from a member- 
 ship of sixty-five to one of three hundred and fifty- 
 seven, what might be the outcome were the growth 
 to reach six hundred and seventy, the size of the 
 British House of Commons ? 1 With the number of 
 bills introduced as an index, beginning with about 
 two hundred per Congress, reaching in 1803 to 
 more than one thousand, in 1867-1869 to two 
 thousand and five hundred, in 1873-1875 to five 
 
 1 An interesting philosophical article of Senator Barbour, fa- 
 voring a Constitutional amendment to limit membership of the 
 House of Representatives to two hundred, appeared in the Rich- 
 mond Inquirer, Dec. 28, 1821. It was widely reprinted by papers 
 of the day. It rang the changes upon the greatest question of 
 parliamentary progress, the giving up of individual rights for the 
 sake of stronger organization. 
 
144 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 thousand, and now above the line of twenty thou- 
 sand, what new rules may not be evolved when the 
 present ones are no longer adequate to the grow- 
 ing public pressure for governmental regulation ? 
 Representative Holman and others have claimed 
 that the scattering of the appropriation bills among 
 eight different committees, whereas previously to 
 1880 they were all prepared by one, has involved 
 an increase in expenditures averaging twenty-nine 
 millions of dollars annually. 1 Speaking generally, 
 growth in the number of the standing committees, 
 while forced in the first place by the broadening 
 of the sphere of the general government through 
 causes external to the House, has mightily reacted 
 through their own activity to the further enlarge- 
 ment and intensifying of the Congressional powers. 
 Each has been as a rule so constituted as to give 
 largest representation to regions where the partic- 
 ular interest committed to it is most flourishing. 
 Whether or not this has signified promotion of 
 the general welfare is a question leading beyond 
 the limits of this study. It is only necessary to 
 take from the lips of men who have participated 
 in the movement reasonings wherewith, accord- 
 ing to their temperaments, they have sought to 
 delay or to advance the developing system. Those 
 who would have legislative measures prepared by 
 the House, by the Whole, or by very large commit- 
 
 i Cf. estimates of Samuel J. Randall, C. R., Dec. 15, 1885. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 145 
 
 tees, have decried the small select and standing 
 committees for bodies not widely enough represen- 
 tative, and offering by their secrecy, their power of 
 pigeon-holing certain bills and reporting others, 
 their especial adaptation to informal agreement and 
 cabal, rare opportunities for class legislation. Ex- 
 isting standing committees have opposed the cre- 
 ation of others, realizing that every new comer 
 subtracts from their jurisdiction and lessens their 
 power. The Judiciary saw its time-honored circuit 
 threatened by a new Committee on Constitutional 
 Amendments. The Public Lands complained of 
 the raising of a select committee on Irrigation and 
 Arid Lands, and fought down the proposal for a 
 Committee on Public Parks and Reservations. 1 
 Constant trouble and loss of time have been caused 
 until recently by conflicts of jurisdiction. Govern- 
 ment should not make laws by the rod, says the 
 laissez faire school, — the standing committee sys- 
 tem means larger national expenses and heightened 
 evils of paternalism. " We cannot see the forest 
 for the trees ; " responsibility for public measures is 
 divided. Union and harmony in legislation are 
 destroyed by cutting up complex subjects, and ren- 
 dering impossible the comprehensive view which 
 one body can take. It is better that the same eyes 
 survey the financial income and outgo of govern- 
 ment, the necessities of an industry or an interest 
 
 1 C. B., Jan. 28, 1892. 
 
146 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 — be it military or manufacturing — and the means 
 at hand for meeting them. 
 
 The progressive party, replying, declares that a 
 certain amount of secrecy is necessary, especially 
 for the detection of guilt by investigating commit- 
 tees, and generally upon other grounds of public 
 welfare. While one small committee may be in 
 itself narrowly representative, a large number of 
 them stands both for a large number of localities 
 and industries coming in for a share of power and 
 attention, and for a large number of public men 
 thoroughly informed in the affairs of the country. 
 There is safety in a division of power among men 
 and among interests ; one committee exercises a 
 wholesome veto upon another. The smaller the 
 committee, the more it feels its dependence in the 
 presence of the great House. With fewer members, 
 complications arising from numbers are minimized. 
 A quorum is easier to be obtained. Small commit- 
 tees are not debating, but working, societies. While 
 the distracting passions of the Committee of the 
 Whole helped to rend the Union asunder, bright 
 friendships, resulting between men of widely sepa- 
 rated regions and vitally antagonistic parties from 
 the touch of elbows around a standing committee 
 table, have gone far to remove those misunderstand- 
 ings and heal those discords which were cause and 
 effect of the Civil War. 1 By availing itself so 
 1 North American Review. 158: 266, 267. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 147 
 
 extensively of the art of printing, the House has 
 obviated largely whatever evils arise from want of 
 communication between its committees for the cor- 
 relation of their measures. To do justice to many 
 interests of the country growing rapidly to vast 
 proportions and becoming correspondingly more in- 
 tricately related, deeper concentration must be had 
 by setting subjects off by themselves, and putting 
 each in charge of efficient specialists. Precision, 
 maturity, and dispatch must be secured by the 
 economic laws of the division of labor, the same 
 ancient processes which have ever characterized 
 the advance of that general human society which 
 legislative assemblies mirror. 1 
 
 Hard and fast lines can scarcely be drawn be- 
 tween the character of the standing and the char- 
 acter of the select committee. The former might 
 be defined as one whose existence is made contin- 
 uous by standing rules, with opportunity for a 
 change in its personnel every two years, with its size 
 and duties varying not at all or slowly. The con- 
 trasts between the two kinds have gradually grown 
 less important. Very exciting disputes sometimes 
 occurred in earlier days ovei* the raising of select 
 committees upon the conduct of European bellige- 
 
 1 Discussions relative to the creation and enlargement of stand- 
 ing committees are to be found in C. A. -C. R., Dec. 4, 1809; 
 Nov. 12, 1811 ; Dec. 8, 1819 ; Dec. 6, 1821 ; Dec. 3, 5, 1833 ; Dec. 17, 
 1847; Dec. 5, 1861; Mar. 2, 1865; Mar. 3, 1873; Jan. 19, 1882; 
 Jan. 28, 1892 ; Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
148 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 rents. The regular standing committee, with its 
 duties much more miscellaneous and its competi- 
 tors much fewer than they are now, presented fine 
 opportunities for shelving measures to those with 
 whom anything savoring of resistance to the for- 
 eign powers was distasteful. On the other hand, 
 such open and persistent advocates of neutral rights 
 and the laws of nations as Josiah Quincy ridi- 
 culed the " patch-work committees," and demanded 
 through select committees prompt, decisive steps 
 toward retaliation upon commercial injuries. 1 It 
 was early discerned that a private claim against 
 government also stood much better chances if it 
 could escape to a select committee from the regular 
 standing committee, which was overburdened, and 
 which had rules of decision rather sifting in their 
 nature. A curious strife with this object on the 
 part of James Monroe's friends frittered away 
 an entire sitting in January, 1825. The retiring 
 President had requested an investigation of his 
 long standing and various accounts with the public 
 treasury. As a rule, standing committees may be 
 said to have administrative regularity and conser- 
 vatism about them, and to represent in their com- 
 position the Union rather than a section; while 
 select committees, in these later days of their rar- 
 ity, represent aggressive policies upon live political 
 questions, and are usually constituted of Represen- 
 
 i C. A., Dec. 4, 1805; Oct. 29, 1807. 
 
SELECT AND STANDING COMMITTEES. 149 
 
 tatives from particular regions where enthusiasm 
 for their measures is high. The incident of the 
 contest for the World's Fair, elsewhere described, 
 was an accidental exception to these distinctions, 
 since the select committee stood in its composition 
 for fair play. A House battle royal between the 
 East and the " great Northwest " in the first stages 
 of the Civil War turned upon reference of the 
 subject of fortifications for the Great Lakes to the 
 Committee on Military Affairs or to a select com- 
 mittee of nine. 1 Western members, as men gene- 
 rally younger and of briefer service, as in short 
 constituting the " outs " struggling against the 
 " ins," have often found their interest to lie in the 
 creation of new committees. So they urged on 
 the above occasion that the Great Lakes were not 
 represented upon the busy Military Affairs at a 
 time when the subject of their defense was of 
 equal magnitude with that of sea-coast protection, 
 and demanded the advice of those who had per- 
 sonal knowledge of their needs. Doubtless these 
 were surface motives to the more vital subject of 
 the management of campaigns and armies against 
 the South. 
 
 i C. G., Dec. 5, 1861. 
 
There is a primacy in the order of things in this House and in 
 Congress which cannot he overlooked. 
 
 James A. Gakfield. 
 
 I cannot speak for any one else ; for myself, I do not feel that 
 I was sent here to act as clerk for any memher or any committee, 
 and, if I retain my reason and my self-respect, I surely shall 
 never do so. 
 
 John H. Reagan. 
 
 We take the opportunity to express our satisfaction with the 
 liberality which has distinguished the leading appointments on 
 these committees. We find in them no trace either of party or 
 geographical bias, no propitiation of friends, or proscription of ad- 
 versaries. The Speaker seems to have aimed at as equal a distri- 
 bution as possible of the honors and responsibilities which devolve 
 upon the chairman. 
 
 National Intelligencer, Dec. 12, 1825. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 
 
 The spirit of equality which set its mark so 
 deeply upon American colonial life and political in- 
 stitutions found secure lodgment in the Constitu- 
 tion with those clauses which base each State's 
 membership in the House upon equal fractions of 
 the population and — although not expressly stated 
 as in the case of Senators — give to each Represen- 
 tative the right to cast a vote which shall have equal 
 weight with the vote of any one of his fellows. 1 
 But other forces, within and without the Consti- 
 tution, have clashed with the idea of equality. In 
 a mixed complement of theories and conditions 
 must be sought an understanding of the rela- 
 tions between the several committees and groups of 
 committees. While Congressmen are made artifi- 
 cially equal, somewhat as the surveyor's chain has 
 plotted wide inland domains off into townships, 
 forces beyond the human lawgiver's guidence trace 
 
 1 The present-day American and English spirit is graphically 
 contrasted in an article entitled "The American Notion of Equal- 
 ity," by Henry Childs Merwin. The Atlantic Monthly, LXXX., 
 354, Sept., 1897. 
 
 151 
 
152 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 upon the chart of national legislation outlines as 
 strikingly various in size, position, and relation as 
 those of the commonwealths which give individu- 
 ality to a political map of the United States. The 
 continually shifting resultant of these forces for 
 equality and inequality helps to make the history of 
 the committee system. Inequality seeks and finds 
 temporary refuge or success in committee machin- 
 ery, but all the while that patiently working power 
 of numerical units in the Yeas and Nays of the 
 House is trimming away towards uniformity. The- 
 orists of the seventeenth-century type might with 
 nice logic divide the entire business of the House, 
 like its entire voting-power, unchangeably into 
 some three hundred and sixty equal portions, to 
 be assigned to three hundred and sixty committees. 
 But " there is a primacy in the order of things," as 
 Garfield said ; and — what his modesty forbade that 
 he should say, his strong career illustrates — nature 
 matches the primacy among things with a primacy 
 among men. The committee system, as standing 
 for a correlation of many dissimilar and unequal 
 legislative objects, has been the opportunity upon 
 which industry and ability have mounted to lead- 
 ership. 1 
 
 Under different forms and with growing inten- 
 sity the protest against the superior privileges of 
 some over others has, from the start, exerted its 
 
 1 Cf. Bryce's "American Commonwealth," I, 197. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 153 
 
 constant moral regulation, and accomplished in 
 the rules its occasional revolutions. The first in- 
 sistence is for equality among individuals ; the 
 second, for equality among committees. In the 
 speech which he sends home to his district, a dis- 
 satisfied member, for his mediocrity or for other 
 cause, slighted by the Speaker in the distribution 
 of committee honors, tortures the American eagle 
 on this wise : " The haughty disdain with which 
 members of this House who seek a hearing before 
 some of these committees are treated by the arro- 
 gant assumption of those who chance to fill the 
 important position of chairman should remind us 
 of the stern necessity imposed by self-respect to 
 clip their wings, and teach them that we have not 
 yet abdicated the rights conferred upon us by an 
 enlightened constituency." Whereupon the witty 
 Congressman tersely replies, "Is it possible that 
 there is anything in this 4 tyranny,' this 4 one-man 
 power,' that a man cannot see until he looks at it 
 through a black eye ? " The witty Congressman 
 also sees something in "the enviable position of 
 'end man' to the Committee on Expenditures in 
 the Department of Justice with nothing to do," 
 and knows from his own easy-going experience 
 that " if a man wants to become a splendid cipher, 
 if he wants to get a magnificent position of unim- 
 portance, if he wants to become a real nonentity, 
 let him come to Congress, and let him get safely 
 
154 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ensconced on the tail end of an average committee, 
 and his hopes will be realized." Yet there is a 
 genuine ring of democracy when one of the little 
 band which a new party has sent to the House 
 faces the chiefs of older organizations with the 
 words : " Coming up from our respective districts 
 in the interest of our constituents, we are clothed 
 with equal authority and under the Constitution 
 and laws of our country we are entitled to equal 
 privileges upon the floor." " Upon what meat 
 doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great 
 that I cannot even ask a question about a bill, or 
 express a doubt as to its wisdom ? " was the Shake- 
 spearian shaft recently sent by the Chairman of 
 Appropriations against the Chairman of Naval Af- 
 fairs. 1 Even Thomas B. Reed, of the ancient im- 
 perial title, declared not long before the Speaker's 
 mantle fell upon his shoulders : " For the last 
 three Congresses, the representatives of the people 
 of the United States have been in irons. They 
 have been allowed to transact no public business 
 except at the dictation and by the permission of a 
 small coterie of gentlemen who, while they pos- 
 sessed individually more wisdom than any of the 
 rest of us, did not possess all the wisdom in the 
 world." 
 
 However it may have grumbled at their abuse 
 of power, the House, like all other political and 
 
 l C. R., Mar. 25, 1896. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 155 
 
 social bodies, has had to evolve leaders. Firstly 
 appears the Speaker, to whom it has added dignity 
 that almost completely hides the original attribu- 
 tion. Secondly, the chairmen of committees pre- 
 sent a gradation of chieftains whose increase in 
 importance, like that of the Speaker, has come from 
 the gradual delegation of functions once common 
 to all members. Thirdly, the parliamentary knowl- 
 edge required to manage the legislative brakes at 
 a highly increased speed has been bringing to the 
 front the best leadership of minorities. 1 A gallery 
 study of the smaller band that sits watching the 
 rulers of the majority side discovers in its center 
 one to whose frowns or smiles the others are very 
 attentive. 2 Successive steps by which the Speaker 
 lias added power to power have been thoroughly 
 traced. 3 The committee chairman, partly lifted 
 by the Speaker in his rise, partly made important 
 by the same conditions which have elevated the 
 Speaker, has taken on function after function. 
 His position was honorary to begin with, almost a 
 mere matter of being named first. Distinction lay 
 more in being called to a great many committees. 
 During Washington's Administration, Fisher Ames 
 served upon about fifty, James Madison upon 
 
 1 Bryce's "American Commonwealth," I., 149, 150. 
 
 2 This was a distinct impression of the writer upon a first view 
 of the House in 1893. 
 
 3 Hart's "Essays on American Government," 10-17. Miss 
 Follett's " The Speaker of the House of Representatives." 
 
156 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 eighty. There was an indifference as to which 
 member of a committee should report its measures 
 to the House. That membership upon an impor- 
 tant committee was not then so much prized as 
 now is attested by a pleasant incident in Decem- 
 ber, 1795. Mr. Tracy, who had served in the 
 same capacity at the preceding session, was reap- 
 pointed chairman of the Committee on Claims. 
 " He rose and observed that he had been extremely 
 hard employed last year, and had undergone much 
 trouble about the business of claims. He would, 
 therefore, if agreeable to the House, be very glad 
 to be left out of the nomination." The members 
 having complimented his high and indispensable 
 services, and having reminded him of his duty to 
 his country, voted him not excused. Then Mr. 
 Christie, another reappointed member, begged the 
 indulgence of the House with better success, ur- 
 ging that the state of his health required a horse- 
 back ride every morning. The prominence of an 
 earlier chairman was largely due to the fact that 
 he had to master the details of bills, and be ready 
 to answer questions in debate. Senator Hoar — 
 not, perhaps, from any impression of its religious 
 tone — has called the House of Representatives a 
 sort of presbytery. Seniority in age and service 
 has always been enhanced in its influence by 
 the fact that the membership has been so largely 
 new and unskilled. The Speaker, being himself 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 157 
 
 an old member, puts confidence in those whom he 
 has come to know in previous Congresses. The 
 influence of these elders, through their command 
 of the suffrages of new members for his election, 
 gives them a very real claim upon his course. 
 Having first determined upon his chairmen, he is 
 more or less ready to consult them as to the re- 
 maining committee appointments. 1 Also he is 
 ready to follow up his mark of confidence or per- 
 sonal friendship by preferring them in his recogni- 
 tions on the floor, a selection which has become an 
 imperative necessity with the growth of the House. 
 In the time of Horace Greeley's brief, brilliant 
 representative career, the great editor was so much 
 impressed with the importance of these senior 
 chieftains as to advocate for them a scale of in- 
 creasing salaries mounting fifty and one hundred 
 per cent. 2 
 
 While, from a present view, the chairman has 
 enlarging powers within his increasingly crowded 
 committee, upon whose room, with its conveniences, 
 he has the lion's share of claim and control, whose 
 clerk he appoints, and uses as a private secretary 
 when committee business is dull, and to whose 
 sub-committees he distributes the favors of legisla- 
 tion; yet the place to behold him in his largest 
 influence is in the arena of striving interests, with 
 
 1 J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs," IX., 48; X., 58. 
 * New York Tribune, Jan. 18, 1849. 
 
158 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 its competition growing sharper and sharper — in 
 the daily assembly of all the Representatives. 
 There the Speaker sits as umpire, while his party 
 leaders contend each for the cause of his own com- 
 mittee. As likely as not these men have been 
 each other's rivals, and together faced the leaders 
 of the minority upon bloodier battle-fields. " First 
 in war, first in peace," is not characteristic alone 
 of Presidents. Chairmanships of committees call 
 for the highest generalship. Men may enter Con- 
 gress with names however great for integrity or 
 learning — these are not the chief passports to 
 prominence there. Concerning the failure of such 
 a one upon whom the Speaker had conferred a 
 chairmanship, a writer in the Nation has said, u It 
 is folly to trust the floor management of any im- 
 portant measure to any other than an old hand." 
 The chairman's steering qualities do not cease to 
 be necessary when he has vanquished the chiefs of 
 other committees by securing attention to his bills 
 in preference to theirs. It has come about that 
 the kind and length of consideration given to com- 
 mittee measures before the final vote are placed 
 almost solely on his responsibility, and vary with 
 his judgment of the sentiments of the majority. 
 To him, by way of defining his previously existing 
 right to open and close a debate, has been given, 
 since 1880, one or two golden hours of time which 
 he may dole out in quarter hours or ten-minute 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 159 
 
 pieces to whomsoever he pleases. If he thinks it 
 safe or wise, he insists upon the previous question 
 without permitting talk or amendment. 
 
 The rare qualities demanded in these respects 
 make Speakers increasingly cautious in placing 
 their subordinates, and in shifting them from one 
 part of the field to another as occasion may re- 
 quire. The line of promotion has led from head- 
 ship of some one of the others to headship of the 
 finance committee. Robert C. Schenck, after one 
 term as chairman with the Roads and Canals, 1847- 
 1849, and two with the Military Affairs, 1863, 
 1869, was first upon the Ways and Means during 
 three Congresses. Garfield advanced from the 
 Military Affairs, 1867-1869, to the Banking and 
 Currency, 1869-1871, then to the Appropriations, 
 1871-1875. Since 1875 the Democratic party has 
 controlled the House sixteen out of twenty-two 
 years. Four careers of its leaders are noteworthy. 
 William S. Holman held three different chairman- 
 ships of two terms each. William R. Morrison was 
 chief of the Public Lands, 1877-1879, of Expendi- 
 tures in the Treasury Department, 1879-1881, and 
 of the Ways and Means, 1877-1879, 1885-1889. 
 Samuel S. Cox, quick and versatile, besides his 
 leadership of important select committees, was head 
 of at least five standing committees, — the War 
 Claims, 1857-1859; the Banking and Currency, 
 1875-1877; the Library, 1877-1879 ; the Foreign 
 
160 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Affairs, 1879-1881 ; and the Naval Affairs, 1883- 
 1885. The most striking record of all is that of 
 William M. Springer, successively head of seven 
 different committees. He earned a first reputation 
 by putting life into two of the committees on Ex- 
 penditures, upon which he worked for four years ; 
 he came at last to those for monetary measures, 
 to preside over which, upon testimony of one who 
 served in both capacities, involves as much if not 
 more real power than the Speakership. 1 
 
 Qualities demanded of a typical chairman are 
 best studied in the careers of Representatives who 
 have risen to the headship of the Appropriations, 
 a place next to the Speakership the most prized in 
 the House. Pre-eminent, during the thirty years 
 of the committee's history, are the records of Thad- 
 deus Stevens and Samuel J. Randall. Though 
 adherents of opposite political parties, the similari- 
 ties of the two men are marked. Both had had 
 preliminary training in the peculiar politics of 
 Pennsylvania ; and no legislature, it will be re- 
 called, seems to have molded the methods of the 
 national House more powerfully than the one that 
 long held its turbulent sessions in the City of Broth- 
 erly Love. Their exteriors were as rugged as the 
 Keystone mountains, their wills as strong as the 
 iron digged thence to bind the Union by far-reach- 
 ing highways. They were fighters, courageous, 
 
 l C. R., Jan. 19, 1882. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 161 
 
 decided, aggressive, uncompromising, cool in the 
 midst of the highest excitement. They toiled un- 
 flaggingly. They despised sham and cant. Their 
 honesty, unselfishness, and broad patriotism com- 
 manded the confidence of bitterest foes. Both 
 came to preside over the Appropriations, after 
 many years of preliminary membership in the 
 House. Stevens, its first chairman, had already 
 touched his zenith as head of the Wa} T s and Means 
 while it was collecting and distributing the vast 
 funds which were sinews to the Civil War. He 
 had forged forward as a leader of attack at a time 
 when, most men were hesitating. In his fiery 
 three-score-and-ten he could still enthuse and in- 
 cite Representatives young enough to be his grand- 
 sons. Randall figured as an able minority chief. 
 He was a past master of parliamentary tactics at 
 the very period when they availed most in the 
 House. For seventy successive hours he never 
 left his desk, fighting down the Force Bill, defeat- 
 ing the desire of the majority. Said General 
 Grant, "Could Randall have led military forces 
 as he did political ones, his legions would have 
 been in vincible." He was a judge of men, ap- 
 proachable, and inspiring warm personal attach- 
 ment. Upon the floor, his words were few and to 
 the point; he spoke only when it was necessary, 
 and surpassed in repartee. Just at the crisis when 
 they were greatly needed, he brought into the 
 
162 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 room of the Appropriations those mercantile ideas 
 of order, economy, and thrift which distinguish 
 the city of his birth and life-long home. He mas- 
 tered the vast details of all the Executive Depart- 
 ments, and laid his powerful restraining hand 
 upon the Senate. He was an impartial arbitrator 
 among the great and varied interests which clamor 
 before the vaults of the national treasury. 
 
 One ideal afternoon in the House of Represent- 
 atives yet vividly lingers in the memory of the 
 writer. For some time after the opening prayer 
 business had straggled on. Upon the wide amphi- 
 theater of the floor a few earnest, attentive, con- 
 tending men filled the short rows of seats in front 
 of the Speaker's high chair; for members, when 
 they desire to be heard, leave their places quite 
 freely, and descend to this little central area. 
 Thence, ranging the eye toward the long outer 
 circle and the lobbies, the scene became more 
 varied and confused. At length the important 
 work planned by the majority leaders for the day 
 was reached. The chairman of a great committee 
 called from the calendar a bill to abolish the death 
 penalty in all cases of crime save a few, and in 
 those few to provide the alternative of punishing 
 by imprisonment at hard labor for life. It was 
 such a change as would mark the law's tardy 
 progress after civilized opinion, the fulfilling of 
 the poet's prayer, — 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 163 
 
 Then within a prison yard, 
 Faces fixed and stern and hard, 
 Laughter and indecent mirth. 
 Ah ! it is the gallows tree ! 
 Breath of Christian charity, 
 Blow and sweep it from the earth. 
 
 The men who proposed it were no delicate emo- 
 tionalists, but aging soldiers, maimed and scarred. 
 As soon as the measure had been read, two mem- 
 bers tackled the chairman. One threatened to 
 object to its consideration, but yielded, doubtless 
 because he knew that dilatory tactics were of no 
 avail. The other persuaded him to go into Com- 
 mittee of the Whole, so that amendments might 
 be offered. With that, charge of the floor fell by 
 courtesy to the author, or as the chairman called 
 him, the father of the bill. During these prelimi- 
 naries the legislators, with the exception of half-a- 
 dozen, had been absolutely inattentive. The words 
 spoken had been accurately caught only by the 
 skilled stenographer, as he moved close to each 
 successive speaker. But now the men scattered 
 about the hall or lounging beyond the outer rail 
 seemed to know intuitively that business had 
 reached full headway. A semblance of order and 
 of interest began. The voice of the recognized 
 manager, explaining as he thought necessary, 
 emerged from the din. The leading minority 
 member of the committee, — like the man who 
 
164 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 was opening the discussion, a general in the civil 
 struggle of thirty years since, but in the Southern 
 army, — came slowly from his seat far up on the 
 opposite side. Near by, in the space before the 
 Speaker's table, he stood listening and waiting; 
 then, as the other concluded, stepped across the 
 aisle to the majority, and, with some slight criti- 
 cisms, declared that he favored the bill. The 
 manager spoke again, with high compliments for 
 his war-time foe, and with quick, astute replies 
 to various questions and objections on the part of 
 this and that member. He found at length his 
 chief opponent in a fellow Union general of his 
 own political party. To a prominent member of 
 the committee he now assigned the task of meet- 
 ing this antagonist, and took to himself the part 
 of a canvasser. His tall, powerful form moved 
 swiftly here and there for low- voiced consultations. 
 He prepared a list of other speakers to follow 
 his friend who was holding the floor. Once he 
 politely approached a leader of the minority, and 
 once, rushing up to a rather obstinate opponent in 
 the majority, seemed to silence him by some effec- 
 tual threat. He made the closing speech of the 
 general debate, and bestirred himself, as amend- 
 ments were offered, to prod sluggish followers from 
 their seats to vote upon close divisions. So it was 
 that with untiring activity, upon the counting of a 
 quorum, and upon the final votes in the House, he 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 165 
 
 played the part of his own whip, as Englishmen 
 might say. Hard, serious work was his, calling for 
 more than a lawyer's sharpness and endurance in 
 meeting from every quarter all kinds of obstacles 
 and opponents ; but success, proving the man right- 
 ful owner of the tools, left him the center of a 
 pleasant group of congratulators. 
 
 The power of the great committee chairmen 
 tempers the Speaker's power. It is time that the 
 Speaker's limitations were thoroughly outlined, as 
 a corrective to broad assertions concerning his ar- 
 bitrary authority. Before his election powerful 
 caucus combinations exact from him pledges as to 
 office and policy. That man who can command 
 the largest block of votes thus secures in advance 
 the chairmanship of Appropriations. The leader 
 of the second powerful coterie obtains very likely 
 a minor seat on Appropriations, or the headship 
 of Judiciary and second place on the Rules. The 
 latter makes him the Speaker's personal represen- 
 tative on the floor. The chairmanship of the Com- 
 mittee of the Whole is an interesting position. It 
 originated as a usurpation of the Speaker's au- 
 thority in the British Commons. The Premier of 
 the American House has used it to relieve the 
 tedium of constant presiding, and to secure time 
 for those other important functions which are 
 properly performed in the retirement of his cham- 
 ber. He is not in the chair for much the larger 
 
166 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 part of the House sittings. The two or three 
 able men who monopolize the chairmanship of 
 the Whole during a Congress are regarded as the 
 Speaker's promising heirs. The place is often very 
 trying. A chairman of the Whole cannot summon 
 or use the sergeant-at-arms. Members take advan- 
 tage of this and of his other limitations to raise 
 disturbance. Beyond moral suasion, his only re- 
 course is to send for the Speaker. A rotund Scotch- 
 Irish minority leader, coming down in front of the 
 desk, proceeds to defy the lightnings of Jove. The 
 chairman, unable to silence him, summons his chief. 
 As the u Man from Maine " enters the desk, and the 
 mace goes to its pedestal, the disturber cries, " Mr. 
 Speaker, I am going to my seat ; " and he goes on 
 the run, two steps up grade at a time, the House 
 bursting into a roar of merriment. Again, Mr. 
 
 J , an Indianian, comes in tardy, in a bad 
 
 humor about something, and finds vigorous fault 
 with his fellows for irrelevant debate. He cannot 
 be silenced, the Committee of the Whole gets into a 
 hubbub, and the final resort is had. " Suddenly," 
 says an eye-witness, u the doors burst open, and the 
 large form of the Speaker came into view. The 
 effect of his appearance was electrical. After an 
 instant's cheering the whole House was absolutely 
 
 quiet. Mr. J had taken his seat almost the 
 
 very second that the Speaker's face appeared within 
 the doors. It was like a big country school. In 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 167 
 
 the teacher's absence the pupils had thrown all dis- 
 cipline to the winds, and the big boy who had been 
 left as monitor had been openly defied. With the 
 teacher's return all was quiet. Then the big boy 
 made his complaint about having been unable 
 to maintain order; and the teacher, in his kind, 
 fatherly way, which made him loved as well as 
 feared, read a lecture which made them all feel 
 ashamed of what they had done. So it was in 
 the House." 
 
 Character study of leaders must be joined with 
 character study of committees. The issue of equal- 
 ity versus primacy is also vital with these larger 
 legislative units. The idea that each one of them 
 ought to stand upon the same footing with all 
 the others has lived throughout the entire proce- 
 dure of the House. No other idea prevailed at 
 first ; any committee whose representative could 
 "catch the Speaker's eye" might present its re- 
 ports, and get them considered immediately. In 
 1811 the Morning Hour for call of committees in 
 regular order was instituted. 1 In 1837 business 
 had reached a stage of pressure which prevented 
 all the committees from being heard at the same 
 daily hour, and an amendment of the rule ex- 
 tended the call from day to day until each had 
 submitted its measures. This presented an open- 
 
 1 This device may be found in motions made by William Find- 
 lay, Jan. 7, 1805, and James Sloan, April 21, 1806. 
 
168 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ing for the crowding out of the less popular by 
 the more popular committees. The rule requiring 
 bills appropriating public property to be considered 
 in the Committee of the Whole was yet far in the 
 future. Therefore the Committee on Public Lands 
 was able to monopolize the Morning Hour by hold- 
 ing it from day to day during the greater part of 
 six years ! l Other committees at last regained 
 their rights against it by a provision that no com- 
 mittee should in its turn occupy the Morning Hour 
 for more than two successive days. Here came 
 the opportunity of the minority, which got to be 
 so expert in preventing important bills from being 
 reached by simply filibustering away the two hours 
 upon minor measures, that the sixty-minute period 
 came to be called the "nine holes," an allusion to 
 the familiar noughts and crosses of school-boys. 2 
 Such has been the delicacy required for any read- 
 justment of the rules ! The revision of 1880 did 
 away with this game by dropping the rule, so that 
 there was not even the shadow of the former equal- 
 ity of committees. 3 A rescue was effected by Thad- 
 deus C. Pound, ex-speaker of the Wisconsin As- 
 sembly. His rule of 1882, purged in 1886 of its 
 serious defect, the bestowal upon any four mem- 
 
 i C. G., Mar. 22, 1852; Jan. 19, 1854; Dec. 7, 1857, et seq. 
 
 2 C. R., April 9, 1879; June 25, 1879. Article by George E 
 Hoar, North American Review, 128: 121. 
 
 8 C. R., Jan. 6, 1880, report of the Committee on Rules under 
 heading, " Orders of the Day." 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 169 
 
 bers of the power to prevent consideration of a bill, 
 was part of the code as late as 1895. It provided 
 a daily hour wherein committees were called in 
 turn, each with the privilege of occupying the time 
 for one day with any one measure chosen from any 
 of the three calendars ; but the Special Order had 
 long rendered it obsolete. 
 
 The general result of this vanishing equality 
 may be seen by any visitor who passes up and 
 down the hallways or penetrates into the lower 
 corridors of the House wing in the national Capi- 
 tol. Each committee has its apartments, with its 
 name printed upon their entrance. By far the 
 greater number of them will be found closed ; oc- 
 casionally the twinkling of a light within will be 
 seen, or, if the door be standing ajar, a solitary 
 individual sitting at a desk, and the quietness of 
 the place will suggest the pleasures of retirement 
 from a feverish legislative world. But by con- 
 trast one may suddenly come upon a screened 
 committee doorway guarded by an athletic em- 
 ployee, where Representatives hurry in and out 
 like bees to and from a hive. According to the 
 Congressional wit, it is the bonanza or corner com- 
 mittee on the one hand ; on the other the orna- 
 mental committee. Joshua R. Giddings relates 
 how the Slave Power deposed him from his chair- 
 manship of the Claims in 1843, and gave him sev- 
 enth place on the Revolutionary Pensions, " which 
 
170 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 having no business did not meet." 1 In 1882 Mr. 
 Robeson remarked that thirteen committees had 
 charge of ninety per cent of the business of the 
 House. 2 Later, Mr. Singleton stated that several 
 committees met but once or twice during a ses- 
 sion, and adjourned without maturing any bills or 
 reports ; and Mr. Springer declared that the Com- 
 mittee on Militia had reported but once in ten 
 years. 3 A minority report of the Committee on 
 Accounts showed in 1892 that one of the commit- 
 tees on expenditures in the departments had never 
 made a report, though three years old, that two 
 others had made none within six years, and that 
 in the same time four others had made on an aver- 
 age one per year. 4 Mr. Springer proposed to abol- 
 ish twenty-one committees, and create four in their 
 stead, with the object of reforming abuses in the 
 matter of idle, high-salaried clerks, and of the use 
 of rooms in the Capitol for private convenience. 
 The almost absolute prevalence of the spoils sys- 
 tem in the choice of officers and employees for 
 Congress is a great evil, which has found rare 
 opportunity and secure shelter in the committee 
 rooms. A certain chairman, it is said, called a 
 
 i Giddings's " History of the Rebellion ; Its Authors and 
 Causes." 
 
 2 C. R., Jan. 17, 1882. 
 
 s C. R., Dec. 15, 17, 1885; cf. also remarks of Mr. Horr, C. R., 
 Dec. 20, 1883. 
 
 4 52 : 1, House Report, No. 3. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 171 
 
 meeting of his committee but once during a recent 
 session, and then for the sole purpose of enabling 
 a clerk to claim twenty-two hundred dollars in 
 salary in lieu of fifteen hundred dollars which 
 he would otherwise have received. Of the two 
 branches the Senate has gone much farther in 
 this extravagance. Thirty-five of the fifty-five 
 House standing committees, and twenty-one of 
 the forty-six Senate standing committees were 
 scheduled for regular weekly meetings in the sec- 
 ond session of the Fifty-third Congress. Forty- 
 one House committees had in all fifty clerks, and 
 sixty Senate committees in all sixty-five clerks. 1 
 The Legislative branch has fairly cured Executive 
 and Judiciary ills by civil service reform ; but the 
 physician has yet finally to heal himself with his 
 own remedy. 
 
 The dwindling power of some committees hav- 
 ing been traced, it is well to follow the course by 
 which others have mounted to supremacy. As 
 heretofore intimated, the chief underlying forces 
 in such direction have been, first, the importance 
 which the national Representatives, under con- 
 stantly increasing pressure for both, have attached 
 to public over private legislation ; and second — 
 under a further compulsion of augmenting burdens 
 
 ' 1 For discussion of an increase of clerk salaries by a Senate 
 rider upon an appropriation bill. cf. C. R., proceedings of the Sen- 
 ate, Mar. 26, 1896, and of the House, April 14, 1896. 
 
172 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 — their preference, above other calls for public 
 laws, of those budget duties which the Constitu- 
 tion mainly vests in them. They have consecu- 
 tively embodied in the growing code of rules : 
 (1) Special privileges bestowed upon committees 
 charged with public business, and rigid limitations 
 upon private bill committees ; (2) Privileges for 
 purely financial bills and their committees over all 
 others, public or private ; (3) Provisions for a 
 speedy, energetic, and intelligent selection of par- 
 ticular bills from the general docket of all meas- 
 ures awaiting action by the House. What is said 
 in other chapters concerning the committee system 
 and private interests, the process which has ter- 
 minated in the restriction of the Committee of the 
 Whole on the State of the Union to the subjects 
 of public funds and property, the parliamentary 
 rights of joint and conference committees, throws 
 much light upon the method of this development. 
 The earliest orders of business permitted an equal- 
 ity between bills in the same stage of advance- 
 ment, and also put the committees on the same 
 footing in the matter of making reports. Expe- 
 rience, proceeding from customs to rulings of 
 Speakers, and finally to standing rules, has gradu- 
 ally subverted both of these conditions, the former 
 by the practice of making special orders, the latter 
 by granting to certain committees the right to 
 report at any time. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 173 
 
 A certain word in the joint rules of July 27, 
 1789, seems innocent enough, but, in the light of la- 
 ter history, contains the prophecy of revolutions in 
 the committee system ; the clause that established 
 the Committee on Enrolled Bills directed that its 
 members, upon finishing their examination of a 
 parchment, "should make their report forthwith 
 to the respective Houses." The proceedings for 
 thirty years following show no refusal to receive 
 this committee's reports whenever it chose to 
 make them. About 1822 a new rule distinctly 
 stated that it could report at any time. 1 In 1831 
 it attempted to take advantage of this broad privi- 
 lege to introduce a resolution to suspend one of 
 the joint rules, but was promptly declared out of 
 order by the Speaker on the ground that its right 
 of reporting at any time applied only to the pres- 
 entation of examined bills. 2 The Speaker would 
 probably not have been so strict had he been a 
 member of the committee — but this later. March 
 16, 1844, at the beginning of the Mexican War, 
 the newly established Committee on Engraving 
 acquired the right to report at all times. The 
 Committee on Printing gained the same privi- 
 lege, Feb. 17, 1848, upon ground that it could 
 thus avoid unnecessary repetition of type-setting. 3 
 
 1 Rule 8P>, Appendix to 17: 1, H. J., and Rule 134, Appendix 
 to 28: 1, H. J. The latter bears date Mar. 13, 1822, which is per- 
 haps incorrect. 2 h. J. and C. D., Mar. 2, 1831. 
 
 » C. G., Feb. 17, 1848, remarks of Mr. Henley. 
 
174 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 These three were routine committees. Others, by 
 sufferance of the House, occasionally exercised the 
 privilege prior to 1850. Near the close of the 
 first session in that year appeared a new and im- 
 portant departure in the practice. Thomas H. 
 Bayly, chairman of the Ways and Means, moved 
 that his committee and conference committees 
 should have the privilege by a standing rule. 
 " Bills from the Senate — appropriation bills," 
 said he, " will be coming like a torren tupon us ; 
 and if the committee on Ways and Means is to be 
 compelled to wait for the regular call of reports, 
 it will be impossible to get the bills through dur- 
 ing the single week that remains of the session." 
 There were enthusiastic cries of " Consent ! " But 
 stubborn opposition developed, which, though un- 
 able to defeat his proposition, succeeded in limit- 
 ing it to the appropriation bills and to the nine 
 remaining days before adjournment. 1 With such 
 exceptions, the committees presented reports as 
 their names were called in turn by the clerk, until 
 the Civil War, with its vast financial burdens, 
 brought to the Ways and Means permanent pos- 
 session of the privilege. For a time previous to 
 1860, John Quincy Adams's regulation of 1837, 
 which required the Ways and Means to report the 
 general appropriation bills within thirty days from 
 the beginning of a session, had been construed as 
 
 i C. G., Sept. 21, 1850. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 175 
 
 conferring the right to report at any time. John 
 Sherman brought this right into the rules with 
 the restriction u for reference merely," March 19, 
 1860. He failed at the same time to secure the 
 privilege for revenue bills. His chief opponent 
 said : " There is no good reason for allowing the 
 committee on Ways and Means to give precedence 
 to a tariff bill which would not equally apply in 
 favor of allowing the committee on Commerce to 
 report a river and harbor bill, or of allowing the 
 committee on Public Lands to report a homestead 
 bill." It was a sentence foreshadowing a great 
 future struggle between the finance committees 
 and the committees for general legislation, an 
 epoch the most interesting in the history of com- 
 mittee relations. 
 
 Two other phenomena in the unfolding pro- 
 cedure lead up to this important epoch. Both 
 relate to the appropriation biltol ; the one to their 
 gradual differentiation, the other to the conduct 
 of the House and its committees in the matter of 
 riders. 
 
 For the first forty years of the nation's history 
 appropriations were in the main confined to one 
 regular annual law. 1 Mr. T. P. Cleaves, Clerk of 
 the Senate Committee on Appropriations, has com- 
 piled a pamphlet history of the appropriation bills. 
 
 1 " Appropriations and Misappropriations," an article by 
 James A. Garfield, North American Review. 128:579. 
 
176 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 He places the first step toward division in 1794. 
 Following are the data : — 
 
 APPROPRIATION BILLS. 
 
 Date of Origin Date of Origin of 
 
 of Act. 
 
 Present Title 
 
 1794 
 1799 
 1823 
 1826 
 1826 
 1834 
 1837 
 1844 
 1856 
 1856 
 
 1880 
 1880 
 
 1832 
 1799 
 1823 
 1854 
 1871 
 1836 
 1837 
 1845 
 1857 
 1857 
 
 1881 
 1881 
 
 Present Title of Act. 
 
 Army. 
 
 Navy. 
 
 Fortifications. 
 
 Pensions. 
 
 Rivers and Harbors. 
 
 Military Academy. 
 
 Indian. 
 
 Post^Office. 
 
 Sundry Civil. 
 
 Legislative, Executive, 
 
 and Judicial. 
 Agriculture. 
 District of Columbia. 
 
 This table shows that the same gradual process 
 which had distributed the business of the House 
 among more than^fbrty committees by the year 
 1880, had also classified the work of the greatest 
 of these committees into thirteen separate annual 
 bills prepared by its sub-committees. The rules 
 first recognized this division by enumerating four 
 general appropriation bills, Sept. 14, 1837. In all 
 the period of nearly a century the amount of the 
 appropriations, swelled suddenly from time to time 
 by war, had been on the increase. Excluding pay- 
 ments on the interest and principal of the public 
 debt, these are the figures: — 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 
 
 177 
 
 1789 $ 639,000 
 
 1840-1845 . . $27,000,000 
 
 1791-1800 . 
 
 . 3,750,000 
 
 Mexican War . 40,000,000 
 
 1800-1810 . 
 
 . 5,500,000 
 
 1850-1855 
 
 . 47,500,000 
 
 War of 1812 
 
 . 25,500,000 
 
 1851-1861 
 
 . 67,000,000 
 
 1815-1820 . 
 
 . 16,500,000 
 
 Civil War 
 
 . 713,750,000 
 
 1825-1830 . 
 
 . 13,000,000 
 
 1866-1871 
 
 . 189,000,000 
 
 1830-1835 . 
 
 . 17,000,000 
 
 1878 . . 
 
 . 114,069,483 
 
 Seminole Wa 
 
 r . 30,500,000 
 
 1879 . . 
 
 . 146,304,309 
 
 Low-water mark in the reduction from the war-foot- 
 ing had been reached in 1878, and with the next 
 year the natural upward movement of peace times 
 had begun. 1 A critical turning-point had come. 
 
 The other subject which needs to be understood 
 to know the meaning of the strife among the com- 
 mittees in 1880 is, as has been said, the Congres- 
 sional experience with riders. The entire history 
 of national legislation is strung with attempts on 
 the part of the House to carry through laws dis- 
 tasteful to the Senate, or to the President, or to 
 both, by attaching them to the general appropria- 
 tion bills. That ancient English example of for- 
 cing on this wise the king and the lords has, by a 
 defective analogy, been a very vital idea with the 
 American Representative. The Senate, through 
 its power of amending these bills, has been able on 
 its part to tiy coercion upon the President and to 
 retaliate against the House by repayment in the 
 same coin. 2 The evil was not so prominent in the 
 
 1 Cf. article by Garfield, cited above. 
 
 3 Cf. Miss C. H. Kerr's "The Origin and Development of the 
 U. S. Senate," 76-80. 
 
178 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 simple, halcyon years of the early Republic, when 
 appropriation bills were fewer, when points of dif- 
 ference among the three branches to the enact- 
 ment of laws were less numerous, when they were 
 in unanimous political accord over periods long 
 unbroken. The expansion of the country and its 
 government, bringing increase of conflicting inte- 
 rests and more frequent reversals of party control, 
 has created such powerful temptations to use the 
 device that all efforts for its restriction by parlia- 
 mentary laws have been futile. Riders were first 
 forbidden by rule in 1814. 1 An early instance of 
 their employment, connected with the complica- 
 tions with Spain in regard to Florida, seems to 
 have given rise to a standing order that appropria- 
 tions for treaties should be made in distinct bills. 2 
 In 1837 the House provided that no item should 
 be reported in any general appropriation bill, " or 
 be in order as an amendment thereto, for any 
 expenditure not previously authorized by law." 3 
 This, however, was not a sign of reform, but the 
 last feeble protest of a pure against a corrupt era. 
 In it is discernible the hand of John Quincy 
 Adams. 4 The very next year, in an attempt to in- 
 crease the emoluments of custom-house officers, this 
 plain prohibition was annulled by adding to it the 
 
 i C. A., April 8, 1814. 3 C. D., Sept. 14, 1837. 
 
 2 C. D., Jan. 29, 30, 1819. 
 
 4 Speech of J. Q. Adams, CD., Dec. 10, 1835; also his "Me- 
 moirs," IX., 261-264. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 179 
 
 clauses, " unless in continuation of appropriations 
 for such public works and objects as are already in 
 progress, and for the contingencies for carrying on 
 the several departments of the government." * By 
 such admirable rhetoric the spoils system had its 
 way ! The self -contradictory rule slumbered undis- 
 turbed for forty years. Under its friendly lati- 
 tude the Salary Grab of 1873 rode through upon 
 the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Appro- 
 priation Bill. In connection with the Civil War, 
 and the problems of reconstruction, ridel's were 
 most numerous. 2 The Democrats, in 1876, with the 
 idea that riders might be used to force retrench- 
 ment upon the Senate and the Executive, resolved 
 to make this old rule of Martin Van Buren's time 
 work downward instead of upward. They added 
 the famous " Holman Amendment," first striking 
 out the clause, "and for the contingencies for 
 carrying on the several departments of the govern- 
 ment;" then inserting the words, "nor shall any 
 provision in any such bill, or amendment thereto, 
 changing existing law be in order, except such 
 as, being germane to the subject matter of the bill, 
 shall retrench expenditures." 3 This the present 
 Republican chairman of the Appropriations has 
 termed the opening of the Pandora's box of legisla- 
 
 i C. G., Mar. 7, 13, 1838. 
 
 2 Article on Riders, by Alexander Johnston, in Lalor's " Cyclo- 
 pedia," III., 642-645. 
 
 » C. R., Dec. 25, 1875; Jan. 17, 1876. 
 
180 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tive confusion. 1 So equipped, Samuel J. Randall, 
 then chairman of the Appropriations, proceeded 
 to make his reduction of thirty million dollars in 
 government expenses. The Morning Hour had 
 come to be but a poor shift in the committee sys- 
 tem; and in the four years from 1876 to 1880 this 
 great finance committee, encroaching upon the le- 
 gislative jurisdiction of all the other committees, 
 was at the zenith of its power. The formulation 
 and passage of the thirteen bills of which it had 
 exclusive charge was by far the heaviest part of 
 the business of each session. It had inherited 
 from the Ways and Means the right to claim the 
 floor at any time for immediate consideration of its 
 reports. 2 General appropriation bills took prece- 
 dence of all others in the Committee of the Whole 
 on the State of the Union. 3 Therefore any meas- 
 ure to which the majority of its thirteen members 
 and the Speaker would assent was assured of con- 
 sideration in the House, and might even be forced 
 through as a rider; and — greatest element of its 
 strength — any measure to which the majority of 
 its thirteen members refused their assent was as- 
 sured of a sharp veto upon the question of consid- 
 eration. 4 Two hundred and seventy men were 
 
 i C. R., Dec. 15, 1885; remarks of Joseph G. -Cannon. 
 2 C. G., Mar. 2, 1865. 3 c. D., Sept. 14, 1837. 
 
 4 C. R., remarks of Messrs. Garfield, Kasson, Hale, and Hurl- 
 burt, Jan. 17, 1876 ; of Messrs. Mills and Reed, April 9, 1879, and 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 181 
 
 "under the guardianship" of thirteen. To the 
 Appropriations could well be applied Sunset Cox's 
 quotation from Spenser : — 
 
 Each easy to be known by his own vismomie, 
 But Jove above them all by his great looks and 
 powers imperial. 
 
 Such conditions could last only a brief time. 
 The attempt of the House to make itself more 
 powerful against the other branches of the govern- 
 ment, by conferring almost absolute power upon 
 a small coterie of its members, failed because the 
 enemy attacked was too well fortified by constitu- 
 tional bulwarks ; because the Senators, disregarding 
 party allegiance, united to maintain the prestige 
 of their chamber. The recoil brought disor- 
 ganization in the House ranks, with rebellion of 
 the other committees against the Appropriations. 1 
 Stronger cause of revolution yet, new political 
 alignments were in progress ; the Democratic party 
 was divided against itself upon the tariff and upon 
 internal improvements ; the battle was on between 
 railways and waterways. Ways and Means, Roads 
 and Canals, and Commerce had struggled forty 
 years for jurisdiction over the River and Harbor 
 Bill. From 1865 to 1879 the Appropriations had 
 more or less control over this leviathan. Though 
 
 Feb. 12, 1880; of Messrs. Cannon, Morrison, and Singleton, Dec. 
 15, 1885 ; of Messrs. Reed and Morrison, Dec. 18, 1885. 
 
 i C. R., remarks of Hilary A. Herbert, Dec. 16, 1885. 
 
182 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 its preparation had, for want of time, been turned 
 over by the Appropriations to the Commerce, the 
 former, by a comity between the two, had retained 
 control of the total amount to be expended in the 
 bill, and of the right to manage it when reported 
 to the House. 1 But during some four years prior 
 to 1879 the Commerce, mainly under the strong 
 leadership of John H. Reagan, had broken away 
 from this arrangement, and reported the River and 
 Harbor Bill to be acted upon by the House under 
 a suspension of the rules, without re-reference to 
 the Appropriations. In 1879, upon an attempt by 
 the Appropriations to increase the majority for such 
 suspension from a two-thirds to a three-fourths 
 vote, the Commerce not only repelled the attack, 
 but secured the rights of independent control over 
 the Bill, of freely adding riders to it, and of man- 
 aging it under equal privileges with the other 
 general appropriation bills. 2 On this occasion, in 
 fulfillment of frequent forecasts of preceding years, 
 two other committees, the Banking and Currency, 
 and the Coinage, Weights, and Measures, also se- 
 cured the right to report at any time. 3 
 
 Every one of the three Democrats and two Re- 
 
 i C. R., Remarks of Mr. Dawes, Feb. 8, 1873; of Mr. Garfield, 
 April 9, 1879. 
 
 2 C. R., April 9, 1879; the vote for the new rule stood: yeas, 
 146, nays, 97 ; the vote against the power of adding riders, yeas, 
 110, nays, 128. 
 
 3 C. R., April 9, 1879; vote: yeas, 129, nays, 110. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 183 
 
 publicans charged with the revision and codifica- 
 tion of the Rules in the following summer's recess 
 was opposed to these new developments. Their 
 notable code, presented at the next session, pro- 
 posed to re-establish the Appropriations in control 
 of the River and Harbor Bill, and to do away with 
 the lately acquired privileges of the Banking and 
 Currency and the Coinage, Weights, and Meas- 
 ures. The battle was on again, fiercer and more 
 prolonged. After months of wordy war, the Com- 
 merce again prevailed ; and the distribution of the 
 appropriation bills, as a tribute to the farmers, was 
 carried yet farther in the right of the Agricul- 
 ture to prepare and manage the new agricultural 
 bill. The wall was broken down ; three committees 
 now got ready the budget on the side of expen- 
 ditures, where one had controlled for ninety years 
 before. The distribution was to go on until, in 
 1887, there would be eight such committees, and 
 the Appropriations would be shorn down to the 
 management of six bills. 1 The privilege of report- 
 ing at any time, which had belonged to but four 
 committees from 1789 to 1880, was to be extended 
 until it should apply, in 1896, with restrictions as 
 to subject matters to be reported upon, to sixteen 
 committees. 2 The Commerce, however, in the 
 
 1 Namely, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial ; the Sun- 
 dry Civil ; the Fortifications; the District of Columbia; the Pen- 
 sions; the Deficiencies. Rules of H. of R., XI., 3. 
 
 2 Rules of H. of R., XI., 57. 
 
184 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 hour of its triumph, yielded the bill for which it 
 had contended so impetuously to the new Com- 
 mittee on Rivers and Harbors. 
 
 A diversion at this point may dispose of the 
 later experience of the House in the matter of legis- 
 lative riders on general appropriations. Through- 
 out all the struggles since the passage of the 
 Holman amendment, certain leaders in both the 
 great parties have been urging an entire renuncia- 
 tion of the practice. Their attitude is well voiced 
 in the ringing words of Garfield : " Let the Ap- 
 propriations Committee be the great auditing com- 
 mittee of the House, to do their work under law, 
 and let the rest of us, in our several committee 
 duties, do the legislation for the House." * The 
 Democratic party has sought from time to time to 
 narrow the application of the Holman amendment 
 by fastening on restrictive clauses, all in the line 
 of retrenchment. 2 In 1885 a combination of Dem- 
 ocrats and Republicans, led by Messrs. Morrison 
 and Reed, and opposed by Messrs. Holman, Ran- 
 dall, and others, struck out this regulation, re- 
 turned to the old rule of 1837, and strictly forbade 
 riders either of increase or decrease, except for 
 public works in progress. The Democratic Party 
 reinserted the Holman rule for 1891-1895. In 
 
 i C. R., Feb. 3, 1880. 
 
 2 C. R., Jan. 18, 1876 ; Feb. 19, 1876 ; Sept. 2, 1893 ; 53 : 2, Rules 
 ofH. of R., XXI.,2. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 185 
 
 the Fifty-first, Fifty-fourth, and Fifty-fifth Con- 
 gresses the Republican party has declared ad- 
 herence to the policy of permitting no riders 
 whatever ; and in the two latter Houses, at least, 
 its chairmen have enforced the rule constantly. 1 
 The thought of true-hearted, honest John Quincy 
 Adams, though uttered in doubt and distress, 
 though unheeded by majorities for half a century, 
 was not uttered in vain. 
 
 To return to that critical point at which the 
 House had arrived in 1880, the student may well 
 pause, as it did, and ask : Is it wise and best to 
 distribute the appropriation bills among the com- 
 mittees ? Upon that question the ablest Repre- 
 sentatives ranged themselves with disregard for 
 party lines. The distribution prevailed despite 
 the opposition of conservative statesmen whose 
 names are held in the highest national esteem. 
 It came apparently by forces as resistless and for 
 reasons as cogent as those which have brought 
 about on the larger scale the division of the entire 
 legislative field among the standing committees or 
 the division of the entire executive field among 
 the departments and bureaus. The arguments, 
 pro and con, in the two processes are substantially 
 the same, and need not be restated. 2 Not only is 
 
 i 1889-1891, 1895-1899. 
 
 2 Cf. arguments for and against the division of legislative 
 business among many committees, pages 144-147 ; also the ma- 
 jority and the minority reports of the Rules as to the scattering 
 
186 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the distribution now a permanent feature in the 
 House, but it will probably prevail in the Senate, 
 where for several years the movement in its favor 
 has been powerful. The final quietly accepted 
 prevalence of the new order indicates that the 
 question has come to its right settlement. His- 
 tory is ever proving and repeating that the fail- 
 ure and disappearance of old restraints against 
 wrong, though signalized for a time by feebly 
 checked abuses, are shortly followed by the ap- 
 pearance of other safeguards efficient for the new 
 conditions, and insuring in the long run a better 
 order than that which has passed away. The 
 record of the House of Representatives in respect 
 of this change in its methods of financiering has 
 proved no exception. 
 
 The fact that it has proved no exception will be 
 made plainer by a history of the use of Special 
 Orders. 
 
 Through the procedure prescribed for these, the 
 unity of legislation has been in process of better 
 establishment out of the disorders of 1880. At 
 this point it is well to remind the patient reader of 
 a statement made above ; namely, that two prac- 
 tices have been working for the subversion of the 
 old stereotyped equality of the insignificant bill 
 
 of the appropriation bills and the debate thereon, C. R., Dec. 
 15-18, 1885 ; May 5, 1896 ; also articles on Spending Public Money, 
 by Messrs. Reed and Holman in North American Review, 154 : 
 319-335. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 187 
 
 with the tariff proposition, and of the committee 
 of dead issues with the committee of burning ques- 
 tions. The main facts have been set forth with 
 regard to one of these two practices ; i.e., the grant- 
 ing of the right to report at any time to certain com- 
 mittees. To trace the history of the other in the 
 use of Special Orders is now the further task. From 
 1789 to 1822 any Representative, with unanimous 
 consent or with a simple majority vote for suspen- 
 sion of the rules, could have any bill or resolution 
 made a special order for a specified date. The privi- 
 lege does not seem to have been of high value ; for 
 when the day came the same majority was likely, 
 under pressure of competing measures, to set aside 
 or to postpone the special order " until to-mor- 
 row." In 1822, however, suspension of the rules 
 was made conditional upon a two-thirds majority. 
 Thenceforth every measure must await its turn 
 unless it could pass the severer ordeal. Effort to 
 return to the simple majority plan failed in 1828 ; 
 instead the rule was reenforced by another clause. 1 
 It was a crude sifting process, which proved work- 
 able for a quarter of a century. For example, the 
 first session of the Twenty-fourth Congress, 1835- 
 1837, acted upon the appropriation bills and sev- 
 enteen other measures as special orders. Dec. 
 18, 1847, the motion to suspend was further lim- 
 
 i C. D., May 5, 6, 1828; and 20 : 2, H. J., Appendix, Rules of 
 the H. of R., 104. 
 
188 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ited to Mondays after the Morning Hour, save 
 during the last ten days of a session. This form 
 remained unaltered until March 16,1860. So far 
 there had been no discrimination between the com- 
 mittees as to the method of procuring special or- 
 ders ; but now the Ways and Means was favored, 
 as regarded the appropriation bills, with the old- 
 time privilege of making special orders by a simple 
 majority vote. During the struggle with President 
 Johnson and the adoption of the impeachment res- 
 olutions, this motion for suspension of the rules 
 was declared to take precedence of all others save 
 one motion to adjourn, a substantial blow at the 
 filibuster. 1 The ground for this decision was the 
 scope of the motion to suspend, which included all 
 the rules of the House. 2 To avoid voting upon 
 distasteful political questions the dominant party 
 decreed, Jan. 20, 1874, that motions for suspen- 
 sion, to be entertained, should be seconded by a 
 majority. April 9, 1879, the right of the Ways 
 and Means to make its bills special orders by a 
 simple majority vote was extended to the Bank- 
 ing and Currency and the Coinage, Weights, and 
 Measures. Arguing that the filibuster was prac- 
 tically wasting Mondays, the code of 1880 limited 
 the entertaining of the motion for suspension of 
 the rules to two Mondays instead of all the Mon- 
 days of a month, and to the last six instead of the 
 
 i C. G., Feb. 24, 25, 1868. 2 c. G., Mar. 2, 1867. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 189 
 
 last ten clays of a session. 1 Upon one of the two 
 Mondays individuals were to have the right ; upon 
 the other, committees. It also left out the provis- 
 ion which enabled the three above-named commit- 
 tees to make special orders of their bills at any 
 time by a simple majority vote. 2 The codifiers 
 maintained that, in providing their scheme of call- 
 ing the committees for reference of reports to cal- 
 endars, and in providing also a rule giving the 
 Ways and Means and the Appropriations the right 
 to move after the Morning Hour to go into Com- 
 mittee of the Whole to consider a particular reve- 
 nue or appropriation bill, they would u get rid of 
 special orders piling themselves one upon another 
 as the session progresses." 3 Vain persuasion ! the 
 coming years were to be full of outcry against their 
 crowded, unwieldy calendars. 
 
 By way of summary, a survey of the situation 
 under the newly inaugurated rules of 1880 shows 
 — with an important exception to be described 
 later — a certain body of favored legislation coming 
 from eight of the committees, and comprising the 
 thirteen appropriation bills, the right of a Repre- 
 sentative to his seat, measures raising revenue, 
 action on enrolled bills, on printing, and on expen- 
 ditures from the contingent fund of the House. 
 
 1 C. R., Feb. 27, 1880, remarks of Messrs. Frye and Weaver. 
 
 2 C. R., April 9, 1879. 
 
 » C. R., Feb. 11, 1880, remarks of Messrs. Mills and Frye. 
 
190 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Besides must be named conference reports, and the 
 business of the Committee on the Library. Part 
 of this will be perceived to be simple routine. The 
 majority could push it forward for action through 
 the rights of reporting at any time, and of demand- 
 ing precedence in the Committee of the Whole on 
 the State of the Union. 1 But what of the legions 
 of other measures presented by these or by the 
 thirty-seven great committees which enjoyed no 
 such privileges ? How could any one of them be 
 reached? A report from the Judiciary, or the 
 Naval Affairs, or the Pensions, for instance ? The 
 regular way was to follow the calendars in strict 
 chronological order — when the calendars could be 
 taken up in the regular way ! An important bill 
 might never be gotten at because a host of insig- 
 nificant ones were ahead. Or, if it were finally 
 reached by patient manipulation of legislative ma- 
 chinery, its enemies might sweep it from the floor, 
 and fatally delay it by the intrusion of favored sub- 
 jects. The resort to special orders was therefore 
 as necessary as ever. At the first session of the 
 Forty-seventh Congress there were twenty-five. In 
 early times they had been made by suspension of 
 the rules ; but now, because of almost prohibitory 
 restrictions on that method, they were obtained 
 mainly by unanimous consent. Experience has 
 shown that two-thirds and unanimous consent re- 
 
 i 46: 2, Rules of H. of R., XI., 47; XVI., 9; XXIV., 5. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 191 
 
 quirements in lawmaking put too much power in 
 the hands of small and irresponsible minorities. 
 The Constitution and the people hold that political 
 party which has one more than half of the votes in 
 the House accountable for what the House does and 
 for what it fails to do. All the development of a 
 hundred years has been steadily strengthening this 
 party responsibility. In the years that immedi- 
 ately followed 1880 the majority was groping about 
 for its rightful control over a large part of the bus- 
 iness, a control which the rules failed to supply. 
 The Pound Rule, by reviving the Morning Hour 
 in a practical form, gave some relief from 1882 
 to 1886, and proved a stepping-stone to the final 
 solution. It came to be the custom for a Repre- 
 sentative, upon the Monday call of the States and 
 Territories prescribed by the rules, to introduce a 
 resolution to make a bill, or bills — say from the 
 Committee on Naval Affairs — a special order for 
 an advanced date. The resolution would go to the 
 Committee on Naval Affairs. When its turn came 
 in the Morning Hour the Naval Affairs would pre- 
 sent this resolution, and try to get for it the neces- 
 sary two-thirds vote. This round-about proceeding 
 suggested the way to new and far-reaching devel- 
 opments. 
 
 The time had now arrived when three lines of 
 parliamentary growth, stretching far back into the 
 annals of the House, were to be brought together 
 
192 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 to form a new axis for legislative methods. These 
 three lines had produced the regularly privileged 
 business, the favored business of the political hour, 
 and the primely favored committee. Two of them 
 have been followed under the heads of the Right 
 to Report at any Time and the Special Order. 
 The other must be traced up to 1886 for an under- 
 standing of the results of their blending ; and that 
 other is the history of the Committee on Rules. 
 Committees for this object have been raised by the 
 House at every Congress, with few exceptions, 
 since the beginning of the government. After their 
 first establishment, however, and prior especially to 
 1860, the rules were enlarged mainly by amend- 
 ments presented by individual Representatives, and 
 required to lie ou the table for at least one day. 1 
 The limitation of one day's notice implied that the 
 amendment could of right be called up at any 
 time after the lapse of an adjournment. Select 
 committees on rules were hampered by difficulty 
 in persuading the House to consider their reports. 
 The Standing Committee on Rules, of nine mem- 
 bers, an outgrowth of the protracted speakership 
 contest in 1849, lasted through two Congresses. 2 
 June 14, 1858, a motion was made and carried for 
 a select committee on rules to consist of four mem- 
 bers, together with the Speaker, James L. Orr of 
 South Carolina. The presiding officer had never 
 
 1 C. A., Nov. 13, 1794. 2 C. G., Dec. 27, 1849; Dec. 5, 1853. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 193 
 
 before served as a committeeman, nor has he on 
 any occasion since belonged to any other commit- 
 tee. The man who deserves to be remembered as 
 the author of this brilliant innovation was Warren 
 Winslow, ex-Speaker of the North Carolina Senate. 
 From that time, without fail, the Speaker has been 
 the stanch friend, the powerful central figure, of 
 the Committee on Rules. Through his favorable 
 rulings it has gradually risen to its present pri- 
 macy in the committee system. Exactly when its 
 reports were first regarded as privileged above 
 others is difficult to determine. Speaker Blaine 
 declared, during the filibustering over the Civil 
 Rights Bill in 1875, that they were in order at 
 any time, and also hinted, though not positively so 
 ruling, that dilatory motions on a report from the 
 Committee on Rules could be declared out of order 
 by a Speaker on the high ground that they sub- 
 vert and impair the Constitutional functions of the 
 House, an idea which was to become a cardinal 
 principle with the Republicans for the suppression 
 of filibustering. 1 In the code of 1880, the select 
 committee of five changed itself into a standing 
 committee without any notice to that effect in the 
 accompanying report, although other changes were 
 carefully commented upon. The clauses so estab- 
 lishing the committee were noted as having been 
 
 1 C. R., Jan. 27, 1875; Constitution of the United States, Ar- 
 ticle I., Section V., Clause 2. 
 
194 CONGEES SIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 framed from parts of previously existing rules. 
 Further, the clause which defined the powers and 
 duties of the Committee on Rules was much more 
 emphatic in form than all the clauses which de- 
 fined the powers and duties of other committees ; 
 e.g., the clause for the Committee on Education 
 and Labor read: " to education and labor, to the 
 Committee on Education and Labor," but that for 
 the Committee on Rules : " All proposed action 
 touching the rules and joint rules shall be referred 
 to the Committee on Rules." These facts entirely 
 escaped notice in the succeeding protracted strug- 
 gle over other provisions of the code. In the light 
 of after developments the thought will present 
 itself that those five skilled parliamentarians, sit- 
 ting by the summer sea, canvassed the fall of the 
 Committee on Appropriations from its supremacy 
 and the slender chance they had of securing its 
 reinstatement, were troubled for the legislative 
 chaos which seemed imminent, and decided, by 
 these covertly inserted provisions, to cast an an- 
 chor to the windward. 1 Immediately upon its re- 
 establishment as a standing committee with such 
 a strong footing, rulings followed which tended to 
 secure the place of highest privilege for the Com- 
 mittee on Rules. Feb. 9, 1881, Speaker Randall 
 decided that " the practice of the House had been 
 
 1 For the names of these codifiers and the importance of their 
 work, consult the opening paragraphs of Chapter II. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 195 
 
 uniformly to allow the Committee on Rules to re- 
 port at any time when it was as to the manner of 
 conducting the business of the House." This was 
 expressly confirmed by new rules at the opening 
 of the next session. 1 Then, less than two months 
 later, Speaker Keifer declared a proposition to 
 refer an amendment of the rules to a committee 
 other than the Rules out of order. 2 In May fol- 
 lowing came another leading decision. Thomas 
 B. Reed presented a report of amendments to the 
 rules, and the Democratic minority sought to pre- 
 vent its adoption by filibustering. Thereupon Mr. 
 Reed raised the point of order that dilatory mo- 
 tions were not allowable upon a report from the 
 Committee on Rules. After four hours of debate 
 the Speaker gave judgment that the right of the 
 House under the Constitution of the United States 
 to "determine the rules of its proceedings" "could 
 not be impaired by the indefinite repetition of dila- 
 tory motions." 3 
 
 Thus by 1886, at the time when the committees 
 had found a way of using other days besides " sus- 
 pension days " for making special orders, the Com- 
 mittee on Rules had come, in the matter of right 
 of way, to be equal with, if not superior to, the 
 most favored committee of the House, and to pos- 
 sess an exemption — that against dilatory tactics — 
 
 i C. R., Dec. 19, 1881. 2 C. R., Jan. 11, 1882. 
 a C. R., May 29, 1882; 47 :1., H. J., 1362. 
 
196 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 which had never been accorded to any other com- 
 mittee. But its field of jurisdiction was still nar- 
 row. The step necessary to the broadening of its 
 powers was then taken, as has been intimated, by 
 a joining of three lines of. parliamentary growth so 
 that it should have the selection of business as de- 
 veloped in the history of the Special Order. Pre- 
 cise facts as to this momentous change, and at the 
 same time a fair example of a special order, are 
 best presented by quoting the records : — 
 
 (House Journal, Monday, July 5, 1886.) 
 
 " By Mr. Morrison : a resolution fixing a day for the 
 consideration of bills presented by the Committee on Ways 
 and Means ; to the same committee " (i.e. to the Rules). 1 
 
 (Congressional Record, Saturday, July 10, 1886.) 
 
 " Mr. Morrison. I present a privileged report from the 
 Committee on Rules. The Clerk read as follows : 
 
 'The Committee on Rules, to which was referred the 
 resolution fixing a day for the consideration of business re- 
 ported from the Committee on Ways and Means, has had 
 the same under consideration, and reports it back with a 
 substitute therefor, as follows : 
 
 < Resolved, That Tuesday, the 13th of July, immediately 
 after the reading of the Journal, be, and is hereby, set 
 apart for the consideration of such business as may be pre- 
 sented by the Committee on Ways and Means, not to in- 
 
 1 According to custom, as described above, this should have 
 been referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. A similar 
 resolution had been sent to the Committee on Rules three months 
 before. H. J., Mar. 16, 1886. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 197 
 
 elude any bill raising revenue; and if any bill shall be 
 under consideration and not disposed of when the House 
 adjourns on that day, the consideration of such bill shall 
 continue from day to day, immediately after the reading of 
 the Journal, until disposed of.' " * 
 
 " Mr. Hewitt : I make the point of order on the resolu- 
 tion. 
 
 " The Speaker, pro tempore (Mr. Crisp) : What is the 
 point of order? 
 
 " Mr. Hewitt : My point of order is that it is not compe- 
 tent for the Committee on Rules to report in the nature of 
 a rule a regulation of debate which is intended for a single 
 day and a single occasion pro hac vice. That is not a 
 rule." 
 
 Mr. Hewitt pointed out very plainly the conse- 
 quences which were to follow from the new proce- 
 dure ; three men on the Rules could take any bill 
 from any calendar, and ask a majority of the House 
 at any time to give it consideration ; committees 
 could combine for this purpose ; in the case in 
 hand, since three of the five men on the Rules, 
 Messrs. Morrison, Reed, and Hitchcock, were also 
 members of the Ways and Means, the Ways and 
 Means was " running the Rules." Mr. Morrison's 
 party compeers, Messrs. Randall and Mills, spoke 
 in his support. The Speaker, pro tempore, ruled : 
 " That the adoption of the resolution would be pro 
 
 1 The particular measure intended to be reached was a bill to 
 put out at interest the idle surplus in the U. S. Treasury. 
 
198 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tanto a change of the rules, and that the proper 
 method of making such a change was upon a re- 
 port of the Committee on Rules." l At the follow- 
 ing session the Speaker waived a point of order 
 that such a proposition from the Committee must 
 lie over one day in compliance with the regulations 
 of 1794, and declared that a certain special order 
 proposed by the Committee on Naval Affairs was 
 not a change of the rules of the House. 2 Upon an 
 attempt of David B. Henderson to secure conside- 
 ration for a special order by sending it to the table 
 for one day, according to the ancient manner of 
 amending the rules, on Feb. 15, 1887, came the 
 final extensive ruling which settled that thence- 
 forth special orders must go to and come back 
 from the Committee on Rules alone. Such, with 
 changing men and times, was Speaker John G. 
 Carlisle's reversal of a directly opposite decision 
 by Speaker James K. Polk half a century before. 3 
 The Fifty-first Congress, upon its assemblage under 
 the lead of Mr. Reed, who had taken an active 
 and prominent part for the accomplishment of all 
 these radical changes, embodied them in the code, 
 and they have now come to be fully acquiesced in 
 by both great political parties. The Democrats, in 
 
 1 C. R. and H. J., July 10, 1886. Such ancient expressions 
 from imperial Rome as pro tanto, germane, et cetera, injected into 
 the House rules and rulings, have naturally advanced the " one- 
 man power"! 
 
 2 C. R., Dec. 8, 1886. ' 3 h. J., Jan. 26, 1836. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 199 
 
 1893, further added to the Committee on Rules a 
 power which had never before been accorded to 
 any committee ; namely, the continuing right to 
 sit during the House sessions, and to require im- 
 mediate consideration when it makes reports. A 
 ruling of Speaker Crisp, followed in the Fifty- 
 fourth Congress by Speaker Reed, gives this su- 
 preme committee original as well as secondary 
 jurisdiction over the legislative business by declar- 
 ing that it can report a special order which has 
 not been previously committed to it by a resolu- 
 tion from an individual or from another com- 
 mittee. 1 
 
 After this fashion, while within and without 
 Congress various artificial plans for executive com- 
 mittees or cabinets have been in the air, the House 
 has followed the old race method of building the 
 present and the future upon the past by taking 
 an already existing institution, and, little by little, 
 reshaping it to fit new needs as they have arisen. 
 In the long stretch of a century some rudimen- 
 tary movements by way of delegating governing 
 powers to other committees have not been want- 
 ing. Seven committees have charge of matters 
 pertaining exclusively to the House. 2 The three 
 Elections decide who shall be of its family : the 
 Accounts has charge of its purse ; the Ventila- 
 
 i C. R. and H. J., Sept. 20, 1893; Jan. 5, 1894. 
 2 Appendix II. 
 
200 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tion and Acoustics provides for its health ; the 
 Mileage orders its traveling expenses ; the Rules 
 directs its labors and its entertainment. The Ac- 
 counts determines which committees shall have 
 clerks, and which not; the Judiciary, because of 
 its legalism and of its independent field, has more 
 than once temporarily exercised arbitrating func- 
 tions which now belong to the Rules ; the Ways 
 and Means, in continuance of an ancient English 
 custom, annually goes through the form of divid- 
 ing the subjects of the President's message among 
 its fellow committees. 1 
 
 To analyze, with some repetition of what has 
 been stated, the character and power of the Com- 
 mittee on Rules : — 
 
 Like the other committees, it is chosen by the 
 Speaker, and not by ballot of the House ; its mem- 
 bership is from the two leading political parties ; 
 at its sessions a majority vote determines the ex- 
 tent of its activity within its own field. It has 
 always drawn to itself the chief political leaders 
 of the House, as well as the ablest parliamenta- 
 rians. Its power is both negative and positive. 
 
 Because of the vast demands made upon Con- 
 gress, -of the comparatively limited ability by 
 appropriations and otherwise to meet them, and 
 of the want even of sufficient time for their con- 
 sideration, by far the greater part of the legisla- 
 
 i C. R., Dec. 24, 1895. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 201 
 
 tion broached must be unattended to or deferred ; 
 and the Committee on Rules is in a position to 
 exercise the lion's share of the veto power which 
 decides what legislative proposals shall be rejected. 
 Therein lies the greater element of its strength. 
 If it determines to pigeon-hole a bill upon the 
 calendar, it needs only to maintain silence, or to 
 engage or cajole the House with other measures. 
 If a proposition to which it is hostile is on the eve 
 of being brought upon the floor by another com- 
 mittee, it may exercise its superior privilege to 
 claim attention for different business. If the fili- 
 buster is abroad, and it is in sympathy with him, 
 it may, as the only authority which can check his 
 career by a special order, simply neglect to exer- 
 cise its functions. As to forbidding changes in 
 the rules, its will is almost absolute. It is the 
 only channel through which amendments of them 
 in the first degree may reach the House. 1 For this 
 reason, while other committees have been doubling 
 their membership, it has remained, from 1858 to 
 1898, to quote an envious Representative — "the 
 
 1 "In the first degree;" i.e., referring to the parliamentary 
 rule that the main question is suhject to one amendment at a 
 time, commonly called a "first amendment," to which amend- 
 ment itself one amendment at a time may be pending in the sec- 
 ond degree, commonly called a " second amendment." The 
 Committee on Rules possesses the exclusive privilege of bringing 
 the subject of change before the House by offering " first amend- 
 ments " to the rules ; but when it does offer them, the members of 
 the House at large can present "second amendments." 
 
202 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 sacred committee of five." It never reports a prop- 
 osition for increase of its own size ; and the only 
 opportunity any individual member has of asking 
 the majority to add to its number is when, per- 
 chance once in two years, it offers an amendment 
 to that section of the code which enumerates the 
 committees, and fixes their sizes. Similarly the 
 case stands as to all other efforts for limiting or 
 transferring its jurisdiction or privileges. It is to 
 a high degree a close corporation . 
 
 But to observe, on the other hand, the positive 
 side of its power: The pettiest claim on the pri- 
 vate calendar might find, through its favor, prece- 
 dence over the greatest appropriation bill ; with its 
 aid a despised Committee on Expenditures could 
 push aside the venerable Ways and Means. "It 
 can prepare a bill in the Speaker's room," declares 
 a Representative, "and say to the committee 
 which would ordinarily have charge of the sub- 
 ject : ' Take this or nothing.' ' Among the more 
 powerful committees of co-ordinate privilege, that 
 one prevails which gets the alliance of the Rules. 
 While the ability of the other committees to effect 
 changes in the Rules is small, its opportunities for 
 stripping away their powers and otherwise weak- 
 ening them is large, as for example by increasing 
 their sizes until they are unwieldy. If the minor- 
 ity begins old-time filibustering tactics against a 
 bill, three men of the Rules may at once write 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 203 
 
 out a brief Resolution which claims the floor even 
 against a conference report or the reading of the 
 journal, which demands a vote without one delay- 
 ing word or motion, winch fixes for the opposed 
 measure a time of debate, however brief, and an 
 opportunity of amendment, however limited, be- 
 fore it is put upon its final passage. It is not, 
 therefore, a matter of surprise that the House, in 
 the earlier days of the Fifty-fourth Congress, 
 passed two important measures, the tariff bill and 
 the bond bill, with a rapidity unparalleled, prob- 
 ably, in all its previous history. 
 
 In a word, the Representatives confer upon the 
 Rules in large measure that power over the laws 
 of procedure which has been so freely and fully 
 vested in them in the first instance by the people. 
 Is this power of a few men detrimental or danger- 
 ous? Are there no checks for the Committee on 
 Rules? With the disappearing ability of the 
 minority to hinder even the speediest action, with 
 the history of the House one steady process of 
 diminishing the minority's ancient privileges, is 
 there no limit to which the majority may not go 
 in foolish, extravagant, destructive legislation? 
 Answers to such questions may be suggested by 
 the withdrawal, Aug. 29, 1893, by the Rules, of a 
 proposition which it had presented for making 
 one hundred members a quorum in the Committee 
 of the Whole, or by those keynote words uttered 
 
204 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 in December, 1895, by the majority's caucus nom- 
 inee for Speaker : " History may accord us praise 
 in this Congress for what we do not do ; there are 
 times when rest is as health-giving as exercise ; 
 crude and hasty legislation is above all things to 
 be shunned." Why did the Democratic Rules 
 withdraw the proposition which it had presented ? 
 Why did the Republican leader declare that the 
 committee of which he was to be chief would 
 pursue this particular policy? 
 
 The Committee on Rules consists of five wise 
 and experienced leaders. They represent in the 
 House a solution of vexed problems similar to that 
 which some of our great cities have been adopt- 
 ing ; that is, the concentration of power in a few 
 hands so that clear responsibility may be fixed, 
 and energetic, able administration secured. They 
 govern best by governing least, allowing the si- 
 lently working moral influence of their power to 
 steadily uphold their authority. This small co- 
 terie might press upon the House, before all other 
 measures, a proposal to experiment in American 
 legislation for a week under the rules of proce- 
 dure of the British or the Japanese Parliament; 
 but there are many things which men of plain com- 
 mon-sense refrain from doing. Their skill as par- 
 liamentarians versed in the peculiar environment, 
 traditions, character, customs, rules of the House, 
 cannot be matched within or without Congress. 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 205 
 
 They know how to gauge accurately and finely the 
 sentiments of the body which they lead, whether 
 on subjects political or non-political, so as to avoid 
 a vote which shows want of confidence. Rarely, 
 if ever, do they make the slip of even introducing 
 a special order which will fail of success. They 
 have come through long personal acquaintance 
 to that frame of political mind wherein, though 
 of different parties, they will much more readily 
 and frequently cooperate than will any five Repre- 
 sentatives of opposing faiths whose careers are just 
 beginning. Hence, they often stand shoulder to 
 shoulder in preserving peace where discord would 
 otherwise run rampant between the two large 
 heterogeneous crowds of followers upon the floor. 
 But where word is given for battle upon planks of 
 party creed, the committee of five dwindles to a 
 triumvirate which guides and voices the will of 
 the majority ; which works for the maintenance of 
 party unity; which conciliates rebels of its own 
 side of the House when it cannot overawe them, 
 and, if overruled on some rare occasion, submits 
 with good grace that brings the Speaker out of his 
 sanctuary to walk between the tellers and be 
 counted as when he was an ordinary Representa- 
 tive a score of years ago ; which arbitrates among 
 great committees of equal privilege, arranging the 
 programme for consideration of their bills by the 
 House ; finally, which brings together the chiefs 
 
206 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 in daily council to hold its touch with the major- 
 ity within the Congressional Hall and to turn the 
 search-lights out beyond the Capitol over the drift- 
 ing currents of public opinion. Despotic power 
 cannot build itself upon a two years' tenure. At 
 the polls, with advancing civic spirit, the people 
 have been rebuking their Representatives more 
 and more sharply for extravagance and incompe- 
 tence. By showers of adverse ballots they have 
 overwhelmed alternately both the great political 
 parties. As a consequence, each party, when in 
 power, is beginning to exercise its wits to escape 
 further chastisement by devising effective modes 
 of self-control against repetition of its offenses. 
 This better legislative machinery has come in the 
 rise of the Committee on Rules and of the infor- 
 mal steering committee of which it is the nucleus. 
 Here is the new central instrument for equitable 
 and economical distribution of the annual revenue 
 among the great governmental interests, succeed- 
 ing to the supremacy of the Committee on Appro- 
 priations, and yet not tempted as was it to increase 
 its jurisdiction by the reprehensible methods which 
 led to the revolution of 1880. Here is a revival 
 and perpetuation of that unity of lawmaking which 
 characterized those first years when the Committee 
 of the Whole on the State of the Union held the 
 primacy for the formulation of laws. A better 
 century has begun, wherein the American House of 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 207 
 
 Representatives will express more readily and truly 
 the more easily known will of the people. 
 
 Having viewed from various points and in vari- 
 ous lights this century-old House of Representa- 
 tives, it is well to look back over the study for 
 the leading facts and forces that have evolved a 
 legislative system. They are found first of all in 
 the Constitution. The Speaker is mighty because 
 his name is ineradicably written there. Popular 
 equality is there implied, Representative with Rep- 
 resentative, and has subsisted without fail in the 
 process of voting, making a Congressman a Con- 
 gressman "for a' that," whether he has won his 
 election by the qualities of a David Crockett or of 
 a Daniel Webster. The life of each House is a 
 brief two years, in contrast with the longer possi- 
 ble life of a popular body in the mother Parliament 
 and in other great national legislatures, as well 
 as with the mandate of our Federal Senate or Ex- 
 ecutive. The Constitution expressly prescribes 
 particular duties for Congress, and lays upon the 
 lower chamber special responsibilities for finances. 
 Lastly, no lawmaking body in the world, perhaps, 
 lias such a modicum of judicial and executive 
 functions. 
 
 But behind the Constitution has been the na- 
 tional life, or, as the publicist would say, the State, 
 — that power which created it in the first instance, 
 and has been slowly transforming it with chan- 
 
208 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ging conditions of advancing times. The nation's 
 growth, unparalleled for population, wealth, terri- 
 tory, refinement, — a growth that leaped forward 
 with hundred-fold speed and strength when sla- 
 very's fetters fell away, has been faithfully mir- 
 rored in every phase within its Representative Hall. 
 Inventive genius, continually adding other and 
 better means of communication, has been increas- 
 ing the touch of government with the governed, 
 of elector with the elected. There has been the 
 special American environment with the foremost 
 instance of colonization in human history, — the 
 planting of civilization from its most advanced 
 continent upon the most inviting continental wil- 
 derness. 
 
 These blending causes have resulted, for the 
 House of Representatives, in a distinctly American 
 law and practice for legislation. With reference 
 to the dear old assembly of England, our Congres- 
 sional procedure has become more and more un- 
 parliamentary. The humble Speaker coining with 
 hat in hand to the throne — he is not here in this 
 powerful chief who dreams of the White House. 
 That glory of unlimited oratory with which Burke 
 and Fox and Pitt filled the midnight hours has 
 paled before the time-weighing glory of the new 
 previous question and the hour and the minute 
 rule. The simpler ancient methods of preparing 
 the budget have been cast aside for machinery 
 
EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP. 209 
 
 more improved and more adequate. Conditions 
 of old times in legislation required a large field of 
 minority, as compared with majority, rights; the 
 movement everywhere, and markedly under the 
 conditions of the American House of Representa- 
 tives, has — seemingly :^ove than really — had to 
 be in favor of t^e latter at the expense of the 
 former. The pre^. aration of laws has moved into 
 the committee hand^ of the few who are ablest and 
 most experienced, while almost all the process of 
 testing by the entiie body has narrowed to the 
 final vote. The system is built upon the biennial 
 tenure. The standing committees are an effort 
 after permanence and power. They have reacted 
 wonderfully to the enlargement of the govern- 
 mental sphere ; and public opinion is demanding 
 and obtaining, and will cutain, more thorough con- 
 trol over their proceedings. Such is the story of 
 a legislative chamber which has faced conditions 
 so radically different from those of other lawmak- 
 ing assemblies. As did Charles Kingsley generally 
 of institutional history, so of any particular period 
 in this development may oar people affirm: Wis- 
 dom is justified of her children. The future will 
 bring changes, like those that have been traced, 
 distinctively American. 
 
Here are two Houses, each complete in itself; acting sepa- 
 rately, each as a House ; they concur in erecting a committee, in 
 delegating an agency to certain members of each House. That 
 does not fuse or amalgamate thesp two Houses or the members of 
 the two at all ; but each stands separate, isolated, intact as it was 
 before. 
 
 .vJbCOii O'JKKLING. 
 
 Shall the President of the United States tell us what we shall 
 refer to a select committee and what tp a standing committee of 
 this House? Why, sir, we can refer to a select committee, or to a 
 standing committee, or to a single member if we choose, and the 
 President of the United States has no right to Lake exception to 
 our action. 
 
 John Sherman. 
 
 The heads of the departments may answer such a request as 
 they please, provided they do not withdraw their own time, and 
 that of the officers under their direction, from the public business 
 to the injury thereof. To that •business I shall direct them to 
 devote themselves, in preference to any illegal and unconsti- 
 tutional call for information, no matter from what source it 
 may come or however anxious they may be to meet it. For 
 myself, I shall repel all such attempts at invasion of the prin- 
 ciples of justice, as well as of the Constitution ; and I shall es- 
 teem it my sacred duty to the people of the United States to 
 resist them as I would the establishment of a Spanish inquisition. 
 
 J Andrew Jackson. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BONDS BETWEEN JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 To understand the peculiar relations, one to 
 another, of the Judiciary, Executive, Senate, and 
 House of Representatives of the United States, 
 demands an exhaustive knowledge and an uner- 
 ring estimate for successive periods of the play in 
 the government of centrifugal against co-operative 
 forces. The framework for these relations is in the 
 Constitution, with its different lengths of tenure 
 and different bases of representation for the sev- 
 eral branches. Direction and extent of activity at 
 any given time are dependent upon the personali- 
 ties of the men in office, and upon the state of the 
 highly-wrought political party system. With or 
 without foresight for the greatly increasing power 
 of party spirit which has attended the history of the 
 United States, the Constitution-makers laid down 
 a set of conditions which afford wide variety in 
 the complexion of the government. There may be 
 at the same time a Republican House, a Populist 
 Senate, and a Democratic President, or one party 
 
 211 
 
212 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 may be supreme in all three. Between these ex- 
 tremes, combination is possible of House and Sen- 
 ate against President, of House and President 
 against Senate, of President and Senate against 
 House. Any system of inter-relations able to en- 
 dure, no matter which of the five cases may prevail, 
 must, indeed, rest upon broad and mobile principles. 
 Were these three parties to the enactment of the 
 laws to come into and go out of office at the same 
 time and under the uniform rule of popular major- 
 ity, a century of development would present elab- 
 orated methods of co-operation in marked contrast 
 with the meager progress which a century under 
 existing conditions has shown. But so long as 
 the Constitution, whatever its offsetting merits and 
 defects, remains as it is, so long, doubtless, must 
 the critics sigh because of the absence of " real re- 
 sponsibility for the legislation of the session " and 
 because of " the unorganized relations of the Ex- 
 ecutive with Congress." 1 
 
 In considering the committees as bonds for such 
 relations as have been formed between the House 
 and the other branches, the connection with the Ju- 
 diciary may be first briefly disposed of. Coordi- 
 
 1 The Washington Post, March 17, 1897, asserts that Secretary 
 Olney's appearance upon the floor of the Senate would have made 
 "a ten days' talk," and contrasts a pleasant visit of Secretary 
 Sherman to his recent associates. A debate upon the seating of 
 Cabinet Officers in Congress occurred in the Senate in 1881. Cf. 
 46: 3, Senate Reports, Vol. I., No. 837, 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 213 
 
 nately with the Senate, the House has had the task 
 of building an entire system of national courts. 
 In its Committee of the Whole, and select commit- 
 tees, foundations of these were laid. The Com- 
 mittee on Judiciary was created on motion of John 
 G. Jackson as the thirteenth standing committee, 
 June 3, 1813, almost a quarter of a century after 
 the beginning of the government. It has held its 
 way steadily among the other committees as always 
 a favorite. The nature of the subjects with which 
 it has been charged has constantly drawn to it the 
 best legal talent in a body so largely composed of 
 lawyers as is the House, has given to its member- 
 ship a long list of the brightest names in the annals 
 of American statesmanship. Owing also to the 
 non-partisan character of its duties, it has held 
 among its fellows, whether viewed in the commit- 
 tee room or upon the floor, the palm for examples 
 of united action by great parties for the framing of 
 laws. Its work goes steadily on with little regard 
 to reverses of party supremacy in the House, so 
 that not infrequently the chairman from one party 
 is seen co-operating, as a minority member of the 
 Judiciary, with his successor of the other party in 
 the passage of a measure which he has himself 
 fathered at the preceding Congress. Its field is 
 large, including all questions pertaining to the cre- 
 ation of courts, their location, jurisdiction, methods 
 of procedure, judges, attorneys, marshals, clerks, 
 
214 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 prisons, etc. ; important Constitutional questions, 
 as amendments, impeachments, habeas corpus, pi- 
 racy, counterfeiting ; questions of political science 
 generally, as woman's suffrage and citizenship ; and 
 many subjects presumably committed to it solely 
 because of the high ability of its membership as 
 compared with the committees that might naturally 
 be supposed to have charge of them. To the sec- 
 ond session of the Fifty-third Congress it presented 
 more than eighty reports. Considering the char- 
 acter of its work, and the amount of time and at- 
 tention demanded of the House, it may be said to 
 be equaled by few and excelled by none of the 
 other House committees. 
 
 Much more complex are the relations between 
 House, Executive, and Senate, as compared with 
 those between House and Judiciary. Committees 
 have the duty, not of enacting, but of formulating 
 laws. The President has the veto power, but 
 what of his influence in the committee room where 
 laws have their origin? What of the power of 
 the committee over the Administration ? 
 
 Americans of later times find as much diffi- 
 culty as did William Maclay in keeping straight 
 " the profane muscles of the face " over those per- 
 plexities as to the ceremonial of communication 
 among the several branches which distressed the 
 punctilious first Vice-President, and gave oppor- 
 tunity to the shrewdness of the first Secretary of 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGEE SS. 215 
 
 I 
 
 the Treasury. 1 But under the forms were deep 
 and serious problems to be solved. The First Con- 
 gress was the first national legislature of America 
 that was bicameral. For precedents it had to look 
 to State and colonial governments of two chambers 
 and a governor, or to the British Parliament and 
 King. Yet it met under a distribution of the pow- 
 ers of government markedly different from any of 
 these. The task here is to set forth such incidents 
 as seem worthy of notice in the use of committees 
 for intercourse and cooperation between the House, 
 the Administration, and the Senate. Elsewhere 
 the imitation of English procedure in the joint 
 ceremonies of Governor, Council, and Burgesses 
 at Virginia's colonial capital has been noticed. 
 At New York, in 1789, the Anglican party im- 
 pressed these forms to a very lasting degree upon 
 the new government. The addresses and mes- 
 sages of the Presidents at the opening of the Con- 
 gressional sessions are especially in point. After 
 Washington or his successor, Adams, had come in 
 state to deliver the address to Congress, and had 
 left copies in the hands of the Vice-President and 
 Speaker, the Representatives retired to their own 
 chamber, where the address was taken up, and re- 
 ferred to the Committee of the Whole, generally 
 for the next day. By the Committee of the 
 Whole it was referred, for the preparation of a 
 
 i Journal of William Maclay, 3, 262, 263. 
 
216 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 counter-address, to a select committee composed at 
 first of three, and later of five, members. The 
 House, when it had received the report of this 
 select committee, referred it for discussion to the 
 Committee of the Whole, where, on occasions, 
 violent party debates were lengthened out for 
 many days. The Committee of the Whole, hav- 
 ing finally amended the document to the satisfac- 
 tion of the majority, the House would adopt it 
 sometimes after considerable further debate. Then 
 a committee, usually the one which had prepared 
 the counter-address, waited upon the President to 
 know when he would receive it ; and, at the time 
 which he deigned to name, the Representatives in 
 a body, with the exception of some rather unman- 
 ageable Republicans, proceeded to his house to 
 deliver, through their Speaker, the sentiments 
 decided upon, and to receive a short speech in 
 return. When they had safely gotten back to 
 their own apartments, the Committee of the Whole 
 again took up the President's address, and some 
 member introduced a number of resolutions based 
 upon its suggestions, which were separately re- 
 ferred, often after long and able debates, to various 
 select committees. 
 
 These processions of Executive to Legislature 
 and of Legislature to Executive, instead of their 
 intended resemblance to the usually stately British 
 precedents, came, in their attendant rancors and 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 217 
 
 disorders, at times dangerously near to the like- 
 ness of those undignified registrations of edicts 
 which did so much, in the Seventeenth Centuiy, 
 to bring the ruling powers of France into the con- 
 tempt of the French nation. 1 One occasion of the 
 preparation of a counter-address to Washington, 
 that at the beginning of the Third Congress, is 
 worthy of notice as showing that there was thus 
 early a party division in committees, with sharp 
 tactics, and that such an able politician as James 
 Madison knew well how to present a minority re- 
 port. The Whisky Rebellion had occurred dur- 
 ing the summer recess. Also Mr. Jay had been 
 sent with secret instructions for a final attempt to 
 make terms with England. Washington, in his 
 address, noticed these two important events at 
 some length. The select committee to prepare the 
 answer was composed of two Federalists, Sedgwick 
 and Scott, and Madison, a Republican. The two 
 Federalists, overruling the Republican, decided 
 that the Committee should be partly silent, and 
 partly approve the President's attitude on these 
 
 1 It will be remembered how the British House of Commons 
 eluded the Stuarts by inventing its Grand Committees; oddly 
 enough the United States Senate boldly employed the same de- 
 vice in the very face of our first President. Maclay describes 
 with a relish the stately visit of Washington, to the upper house, 
 and his sudden loss of temper when the business which he had 
 laid before the Senators, instead of being immediately considered 
 in his presence, was whisked away by a successful motion into a 
 committee room. Maclay's Journal, 122, 128-132. 
 
218 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 two most important points. But Madison's turn 
 came when the paper had been submitted to the 
 whole House, where he was not mistaken in count- 
 ing upon a stanch support. He there sprang an 
 amendment which arrayed the two parties sharply 
 as to foreign affairs upon a word-quibble over the 
 use of "a" or "your." Fitzsimons opposed him 
 with an amendment which expressly approved 
 Washington's censure of what he styled "self- 
 created societies," meaning the new political clubs 
 which were springing up throughout the country. 
 Members tried to avoid these issues by urging to 
 recommit to the select committee, and by moving 
 that the committee rise. Madison, having accom- 
 plished what was, perhaps, his object, — the prov- 
 ocation of a debate which should go before the 
 country, — withdrew his amendment. Fitzsimons's 
 amendment, after having been amended and coun- 
 ter-amended upon almost tie votes by striking out 
 the phrase " self-created societies " in Committee 
 of the Whole, and reinserting it in the House, 
 and then localizing the societies in " Western 
 Pennsylvania and parts adjacent," was finally lost. 
 Followed by all later Presidents, Jefferson had 
 the good sense to avoid this too close contact be- 
 tween Congress and Executive by sending in a 
 written Message, and hinting that an answer, imme- 
 diate and in person, was not expected. 1 The annual 
 
 1 See his letter to the Senate, C. A., Dec. 8, 1801. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 219 
 
 discussions over reference of the Message to select 
 and standing committees have continued until 
 the present time. Sometimes an opening Message 
 has created much excitement and parliamentary 
 fencing ; sometimes it has been quietly received 
 and referred with trivial debate. 1 This sugges- 
 tive power of the Presidents has varied with their 
 larger or smaller influence in the various periods 
 of our history; but in the long run it has been 
 very considerable. If the lists of select committees 
 raised upon the Messages during the first forty 
 years be scanned, they reveal an important direc- 
 tive influence in the expansion of the standing 
 committee system. Americans of to-day cannot 
 appreciate the part played before the development 
 of newspapers and magazines by Presidential com- 
 munications to Congress. The wires now flash 
 them throughout the land ; they appear in the 
 morning papers as but part of extensive gleanings 
 of news from all quarters of the earth ; periodicals 
 comment upon them at but little if any greater 
 length than upon many other current topics ; but in 
 the good old times relays of fast horses, specially 
 organized, carried them north and south from city 
 to city, and all other matter was but narrow bor- 
 der to their compact columns in the modest-sized 
 newspapers, which finally penetrated to the remote 
 country stores and firesides, where they served as 
 
 i C. R., Dec. 24, 1895. 
 
220 CONGHESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 intellectual and civic food for many a day. Of 
 course, as the number of standing committees in- 
 creased, fewer select committees needed to be raised 
 upon the Message, and the process became more a 
 matter of routine. There was a breaking away 
 from this Presidential initiative in 1818, when 
 John W. Taylor introduced, in addition to the ten 
 resolutions on the different parts of the Message, 
 four others for select committees on topics not 
 touched upon by the President. " Mr. Pitkin, of 
 Connecticut, objected to acting on these subjects, 
 as proposed, on the ground that they did not flow 
 from the Message ; and that it had been usual 
 in the Committee of the Whole on the State of 
 the Union, on the President's Message, not to in- 
 troduce any topic foreign to the Message." By 
 a vote of sixty-one to fifty they were laid upon 
 the table, but Mr. Taylor immediately afterwards 
 moved them with success in the House. 1 There was 
 a still wider departure towards independence at the 
 opening of the session in 1821. 2 Action upon ref- 
 erence of the Message towards the close of Andrew 
 Jackson's " reign " seemed a return in point of con- 
 sumption of time and wrangling to the distempered 
 disputes of John Adams's Administration . At the 
 beginning of the Civil War the House, and not the 
 Committee of the Whole, is seen dissecting the 
 Message without debate ; and in 1863 the Commit- 
 
 1 C. A., Nov. 18, 1818. 2 C. A., Dec. 6-10, 1821. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 221 
 
 tee on Ways and Means has in some way secured 
 the prerogative. Since then the Ways and Means 
 has distributed the subjects, with some struggle on 
 the part of other committees to reduce the lion's 
 share which it is prone to appropriate to itself, and 
 to take away jurisdiction from each other. Samuel 
 S. Cox declared the process to be a sham and a 
 nonentity. 1 What a contrast with scenes of the 
 long gone by in early American Congresses on the 
 same occasion and in ancient British Parliaments 
 — the aged ex-Speaker Grow, returned by the con- 
 servative Keystone State, not entirely through a 
 whim sentimental, rising in 1895 among the Repre- 
 sentatives of a new generation to move that the 
 House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole 
 on the State of the Union on the President's Mes- 
 sage, and proceeding therein, without reply from 
 Democrat or second from Republican, to deliver a 
 solitary speech upon the Tariff ! 
 
 But meanwhile the Executive influence has been 
 felt in various ways more informal. During Wash- 
 ington's Presidency members of his cabinet, nota- 
 bly Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, had a 
 marked initiative in the preparation of bills of 
 which the House soon became jealous. March 11, 
 1794, Madison wrote to Jefferson: "I forgot to 
 mention in my last that the question whether the 
 Ways and Means should be referred to the Secre- 
 
 i C. R., Dec. 10, 1877. 
 
222 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tary of the Treasury, as heretofore, or to a com- 
 mittee, lately came on, and decided the sense of the 
 House to be regenerated on that point." l Of 
 his own action of Dec. 21, 1795, Albert Gallatin 
 wrote : " My first step was to have a standing 
 committee of Ways and Means appointed. That 
 this should not have been sooner done proves the 
 existing bias in favor of increasing as far as pos- 
 sible the power of the Executive branch." 2 Feb. 
 2, 1797, Speaker Dayton ruled out of order a mo- 
 tion of Mr. Coit that the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury be directed to bring in a bill upon imposts and 
 tonnage. While the direct connection of the Ex- 
 ecutive with the House, and every shadow of claim 
 to the initiation of laws, was thus early cut off, it 
 has always subsisted to a greater or lesser degree 
 in a voluntary way with the committees or with in- 
 dividuals as intermediaries. John Quincy Adams, 
 as Monroe's Secretary of State, mentions several 
 instances where members of Congress came to him 
 to submit drafts of bills that he might suggest 
 modifications or obtain for them the opinion of 
 the President. 3 Certain newspaper publications 
 of 1837 throw interesting light upon the drafting 
 of bills in the times of Jackson and Van Buren. 
 The Atlas and other Boston papers reported Rich- 
 ard Fletcher, a member of the House Ways and 
 
 1 Madison's Works, II. 9. 2 Adams's Life of Gallatin, 157, 172. 
 » Memoirs, IV., 503. 
 
\. 
 
 JUDICIAKY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 223 
 
 Means, as declaring in a speech at Faneuil Hall 
 during the summer recess : " The Chairman of 
 the committee steps up to the White House, and 
 there receives from the President or the Secretary 
 of the Treasury such bills as they wish to have 
 passed by the House. The chairman puts the bills 
 in his pocket ; takes them to the committee with- 
 out any examination ; the majority of the commit- 
 tee approve them ; the minority can do nothing ; 
 the bills are presented to the House, and received 
 as the doings of the committee." Upon the re- 
 assembling of Congress, Chairman Churchill C. 
 Cambreleng of the Ways and Means published in 
 the Washington Globe a reply to this and other 
 charges of the Boston speech. "The usage from 
 the commencement of the government," said he, 
 " has been for the committee, through its chairman, 
 to consult the head of the Department in regard 
 to such measures as he may recommend for the 
 consideration of Congress ; for the Secretary to 
 attend on, and confer with the committee, if in- 
 vited, and to furnish drafts of bills embracing his 
 own propositions, when requested to do so." 1 He 
 denied however the slavish acceptance of Exec- 
 utive measures "word for word, letter for letter, 
 comma for comma ; " cited in proof the history of 
 several bills ; and presented in parallel columns 
 
 i Cf. Hildreth, IV. 383-4 ; C. A., Nov. 13, 14, 1792, for an early 
 case of Secretaries before a committee. 
 
224 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 the Secretary's draft of one of them, with its mod- 
 ified, form as reported from the Ways and Means. 1 
 Recent examples of this practice are to be had 
 in the presentation to the Ways and Means of 
 suggested amendments to the Administrative Cus- 
 toms Act by Charles S. Hamlin, Assistant-Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, and in the comments on 
 the Wilbur Filled-Cheese Bill sent in to the same 
 committee by Henry E. Alford, Chief of the 
 Dairy Division in the Department of Agriculture. 2 
 There are many avenues leading from the Depart- 
 ments to the Capitol ; what cannot find an en- 
 trance through the House comes in by way of the 
 Senate ; " It is a favorite scheme," says Chairman 
 Cannon, " for Executive officers, when they can- 
 not get appropriations recommended under the ju- 
 risdiction of one committee, to shift around, and 
 submit estimates so that they will come in under 
 another committee." 
 
 Where a party has been in possession of the 
 Presidency and the House at the same time, the in- 
 fluence of the Executive in the choice of the 
 Speaker, and consequently in the composition of 
 the committees upon questions which divide the 
 party into two wings, has often been direct and 
 powerful. The contest of James K. Polk and 
 
 i Dec. 13, 1837. 
 
 2 Cf. Hearings on these subjects before the Ways and Means, 
 Washington, January and February 1896. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 225 
 
 John Bell for the Speakership in 1835 is a case in 
 evidence. 1 Earlier, John Quincy Adams found his 
 administration handicapped in its beginning by the 
 organization of all the committees of Congress in 
 favor of his beaten rival, Andrew Jackson. 2 "I 
 nit her think that the House will be organized by 
 the election of a Speaker who will consult the 
 President and Cabinet in the appointment of the 
 committees," says a correspondent of the New York 
 Herald in 1853. Stephen A. Douglas, according 
 to Henry Wilson, was put down from his commit- 
 tee chairmanship in the Senate at the bidding of 
 Buchanan's administration. 8 One committee of 
 the House stands on a peculiar footing as regards 
 relations with the Executive ; namely, the Foreign 
 Affaire. The trickery of the chairman of the 
 Ways and Means, John Randolph, in failing to 
 report on Jefferson's message with reference to 
 the conduct of European belligerents, and in delay- 
 ing the appropriation bills so as to prevent the 
 purchase of Florida, and his punishment therefor, 
 are cited elsewhere. 4 Later, in 1819, when this 
 
 i Schouler, IV. 221. 
 
 2 Ibid, III. 417. J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, I. 404; Editorial in 
 National Intelligencer, Dec. 4, 1827. The Washington Post, Dec. 
 22, 23, 1895, comments upon the capture of twenty-five House 
 chairmanships hy New York, Pennsylvania, and Iowa as a prob- 
 able plot against certain aspirants for the coming Republican 
 nomination to the Presidency. 
 
 8 Blaine's " Twenty Years of Congress," II. 504. 
 
 4 Above, Chapter IV. 
 
226 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 same purchase was under more successful negotia- 
 tion, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs seems, to 
 have attended a meeting of the Cabinet and set 
 forth his views. 1 In a debate on the deposing of 
 Edward Everett from the chairmanship of Foreign 
 Affairs, one speaker urged that the chairmen of 
 that committee especially, and of other important 
 House committees generally, ought to be "men 
 who were in confidential relations with the govern- 
 ment ; " and another speaker, " that every commit- 
 tee of the House was the organ exclusively of the 
 House, and as such it owed no duty elsewhere." 2 
 Speaker Bell, defending himself against the charge 
 of subserviency to Jackson on this occasion, de- 
 clared that he had acted upon a principle which 
 he had once heard enunciated by John Quincy 
 Adams, to the effect that, if ours is to be a practi- 
 cable government, the several departments must 
 be regarded not only as coordinate, but also as to 
 a due degree cooperative. 3 The same thought is 
 expressed by The Nation in commenting upon the 
 removal, after ten years of service, of Charles Sum- 
 ner from the chairmanship of Foreign Affairs in the 
 Senate, because of his opposition to General Grant's 
 desire for the purchase of San Domingo. 4 The 
 
 1 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs. 
 
 2 C. A., Jan. 11, 1835; cf. J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, XI. iii. 
 » Appendix to C. G., VIII. 189. . 
 
 4 The Nation, Mar. 16, 1871 ; Blaine's " Twenty Years of Con- 
 gress," II. 503; Works of Charles Sumner, XIV. 121. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 227 
 
 newspapers of June, 1896, noted as to the Cuban 
 Question, the fact that President Cleveland had 
 met the Foreign Affairs of the House, and satisfied 
 it concerning his attitude upon the recognition of 
 belligerency. 
 
 From the standpoint of the House in its asser- 
 tion of a right to examine, control, and prescribe 
 the conduct of the Executive, the history of com- 
 mittee activity presents itself under five heads: 
 first, the general discussion of the Executive do- 
 ings in the Committee of the Whole with decision 
 by vote in the House ; second, the select com- 
 mittees raised from time to time to make inquiries 
 upon charges of misconduct with the ultimate ob- 
 ject of censure, impeachment or vindication of the 
 Executive; third, certain standing committees of 
 expenditures in the departments ; fourth, those 
 standing committees charged with the general ap- 
 propriation bills ; and fifth, the committees for 
 general legislation. Treatment of these heads fol- 
 lows herewith in order. 
 
 Examples of the first class characterize the earli- 
 est methods of the House. Hamilton's operations 
 with foreign loans were thus sustained after two 
 days' discussion of the Giles resolutions. 1 Presi- 
 dent Adams's delivery of Thomas Nash on requi- 
 sition of the British minister received a similar 
 approval. 2 Discussions in the House resulted in neg- 
 
 i C. A., Feb. 28-Mar. 1, 1793. * c. A., Feb. 20-Mar. 10, 1800. 
 
228 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 atives to Josiah Quincy's and Barent Gardenier's 
 resolutions of inquiry into the official conduct of 
 President Jefferson and Secretary Gallatin. 1 
 
 The first select House committee of inquiry into 
 Executive affairs was that upon the defeat of Gen- 
 eral St. Clair, ordered March 27, 1792. The mo- 
 tion for its raising was substituted for a resolution 
 requesting the President to conduct an investiga- 
 tion. The duty of the House to guard all expen- 
 ditures of the public money, and its Constitutional 
 right of impeachment, were cited as justifying this 
 procedure. 2 Upon this committee no member of 
 the House who had voted against the inquiry was 
 named. Before it, upon a recommitment for that 
 special purpose, came the Secretaries of War and 
 Treasury — the first appearance of cabinet officers 
 before a House committee. After the above-men- 
 tioned approval of Hamilton's conduct in the Com- 
 mittee of the Whole, he sought and received further 
 vindication by the investigations of a select com- 
 mittee. His successor, Wolcott, followed his ex- 
 ample, and later Secretaries Calhoun and Webster. 
 President Monroe asked an examination of his ac- 
 counts as a public officer. 3 While professing them- 
 selves ready to facilitate any inquiry based upon 
 
 i C. A., Jan. 25, 1809, Feb. 19, 1810. 
 
 2 On the right to demand papers upon the Executive files, 
 with an exhaustive chronicle of precedents since 1789, cf . 52 : 2, 
 Sen. Mis. Docs., Vol. VII. pp. 232-272. 
 
 8 C. A., Jan. 11, 1825. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 229 
 
 specific charges, Andrew Jackson and his cabinet 
 officers very pointedly refused to comply with the 
 large and general demands of an investigating 
 committee raised on the motion of Henry A. Wise. 1 
 James Buchanan, in the matter of the celebrated 
 Covode special committee of inquiry, admitted 
 freely the right of Congress to inquire into the 
 failure of the President or of his subordinates to 
 execute the laws, but protested rather weakly 
 against the methods of the House in proceedings 
 preliminary to an impeachment for corrupting Con- 
 gress and its committees. 2 Whenever a proposi- 
 tion for these special investigations of abuses has 
 been sprung against high Executive officers, the 
 House has always found itself divided into two 
 camps, the defenders of Executive independence 
 of Congress, and the advocates of the control of 
 the Legislature over the Executive. Each of 
 these has had its moderates and extremists. Often 
 the friends of the Administration have defied its 
 enemies to discover abuses, and welcomed the 
 closest inquiry, arguing that innocence will be 
 proved and protected against injurious calumny. 
 On the other hand, those who have taken the 
 broadest grounds for investigation have claimed 
 that knowledge of the whole machinery of the de- 
 
 1 For their letters, as well as for the lengthy report of Wise 
 and his committee, cf. Appendix to C. D., Vol. XIII., Part II., 
 189-224. 
 
 2 C. G., March 29, 1860. 
 
230 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 parturients is necessary to performance of the Con- 
 stitutional duties of the House in the preparation 
 of laws. Such inquiries have generally been un- 
 satisfactory so far as calm judicial arrival at the 
 truth has been concerned. They have been more 
 partisan than patriotic. Sometimes the committee 
 has been dubbed the President's, or the whitewash- 
 ing committee. Playing upon this last expression, 
 a defender of the President once denounced a 
 committee hostile to the Administration as a black- 
 washing committee. Daniel Webster complained 
 of the report of a committee to inquire into the 
 burning of Washington as calculated "to cover 
 up in a mass of prolixity and detail what he con- 
 sidered a most disgraceful transaction." * Ten 
 years later Webster is himself the principal figure 
 in an investigating committee, one with which 
 Presidential aspirations are deeply effervescent; 
 and John Quincy Adams suspects that the " timid, 
 insidious, and treacherous partiality" of the New 
 England Samson in conducting the affair comes 
 because of the promise of a high office u in the 
 event of Crawford's election." 2 Of the undigni- 
 fied conduct of the Seventeenth Congress in those 
 rancorous closing days of the Era of Good Feeling, 
 Schouler draws a lively picture : " Committees 
 
 i C. A., Nov. 29, 1814. 
 
 2 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, VI. 296 et seq. ; Schouler, III. 307, 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 231 
 
 instituted inquiries, ran the eye up and down ac- 
 counts, pointed out little items, snuffed about dark 
 corners, peeped behind curtains and under beds, 
 and exploited every cupboard of the Executive 
 household with a mousing alacrity, not so eager, 
 it would appear, to correct abuses as to collect 
 campaign material for damaging some candidate, 
 and playing the detective in preference to the 
 judge." x Upon an investigating committee elected 
 by ballot the friends of President Van Buren 
 charged that the majority had chosen six well- 
 qualified members to represent itself, but had 
 forced upon the minority three incompetent rep- 
 resentatives ; upon another, that upon the adop- 
 tion of the Lecompton Constitution, Schouler 
 affirms that Speaker Orr, in order to stifle the 
 matter, gave a majority of one to those who op- 
 posed the inquiry ; upon another, during Grant's 
 Presidency, the Administration Senators, accord- 
 ing to The Nation, put lukewarm members and 
 but one Democrat. 2 The effect of the work of 
 these high political committees, if any follows, is 
 therefore to be discovered in the returns of na- 
 tional election days. Andrew Jackson came from 
 Tennessee to Washington in 1819 to await im- 
 patiently the conclusion of an inquiry into the 
 Arbuthnot and Ambrister affair ; with the decision 
 
 1 Schouler, III. 258. 
 
 2 Schouler, V. 394 ; The Nation, Dec. 21, 1871, 
 
232 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 of the committee in his favor the political doom 
 of those who pressed for the investigation was 
 sealed, and the hero of New Orleans started upon 
 a tour of glory which brought him to the White 
 House. The voluminous report of the Covode 
 committee furnished campaign material to aid the 
 Republicans in the election of Abraham Lincoln. 1 
 But where the attack of such select committees 
 has been directed against lesser offenders than those 
 of immediate Presidential circles,- against those 
 whose duties are rather administrative than politi- 
 cal, and especially against those who are guilty of 
 financial dishonesty, some good may be said to have 
 been done in the direction of pure and economical 
 government. The Star Route disclosures are an 
 illustration. 2 In the beginning of the Civil War, 
 July 8, 1861, select committees were appointed to 
 report at any time upon secessionists in office and 
 upon government contracts ; and a little later were 
 given the unusual rights to sit during the recess, to 
 
 1 " The Covode Inquisition " was a broad inquiry into James 
 Buchanan's administration, generally as to the corrupt practices 
 of spoils officials, and particularly as to the President's attitude 
 toward the Lecompton Constitution of Kansas. Cf., for a sum- 
 mary of its damaging disclosures, Schouler's "History of the 
 United States," V. 450-452. The findings of the Committee in 
 massive detail are extant in 36:1, House Reports, Vol. V., No. 
 648, June 16, 1860, 835 pages. 
 
 2 Another successful case is commented upon in John Sher- 
 man's Autobiography, I. 158-161. Sherman also gives a full ac- 
 count of the mission of a committee upon which he served, one. 
 which went to investigate the troubles in "Bleeding Kansas." 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 233 
 
 travel, to employ stenographers and clerks, to use 
 subpoenas issued by the Speaker, and to command 
 the services of the Sergeant^at-Arms. Although 
 strongly objected to by some upholders of the Ad- 
 ministration, the latter committee was a valuable 
 check upon profligacy in the rapid expenditure of 
 millions of dollars. 1 Later, in 1866, the joint select 
 Committee on Retrenchment arose and ran its course 
 of six years, laying bare abuses in the disordered 
 civil service, notable in the New York custom-house 
 and in the transportation of merchandise from Cal- 
 ifornia to New York. Historically it stands in a 
 parental relation to the present standing commit- 
 tees on Civil Service and Retrenchment in the Sen- 
 ate, and on Civil Service Reform in the House. 
 Like the slavery question formerly in general 
 American politics, the spoils system is the hidden 
 key to most Congressional inquiries. 
 
 On these very occasions the question was pro- 
 pounded : Why raise a select committee, when there 
 are eight standing committees on expenditures? 
 The original standing Committee on Expenditures 
 was created near the close of the war of 1812 as a 
 relief for the Ways and Means. 2 Its duties were 
 to examine into the state of the departments and 
 of appropriation laws, to watch for violations of 
 the law in expenditures, and to report provisions 
 looking to economy and to accountability of pub- 
 
 1 C. G., July 17, 1861. * C. A., Feb. 24, 26, 1814. 
 
234 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 lie officers. At the next Congress a magnificent 
 phalanx of six standing committees, one for each 
 department and one for public buildings, was es- 
 tablished. These were measures proposed by Vir- 
 ginia Congressmen, Eppes and Tucker, during the 
 administration of a Virginia President. Since that 
 time three others have been added, and the original 
 committee has been abolished. 1 A foreigner, sur- 
 veying at any time since 1816 the impressive chart 
 of duties laid out for these committees in the rules, 
 and ignorant of the facts, might surmise that they 
 were House committees of the highest importance, 
 just as he might be impressed with the elaborate 
 provisions for an electoral college in the national 
 Constitution. But the truth is, that their names 
 have usually been by-words with the Representa- 
 tives ; and the Speaker, while he may honor them 
 now and then with the names of leaders on the 
 great House committees, blesses them in his ap- 
 pointments as convenient shelving places for the 
 members with whose unfitness as legislators he has 
 been impressed. Why they have proved thus in- 
 significant is doubtless due partly to the disinclina- 
 tion of the average Congressman for the thankless 
 task of the detective and the economist. Waste of 
 public money is as often a legislative as an admin- 
 istrative sin ; many will say oftener. The custom 
 has come to be, in view of the facts that gross ad- 
 
 1 See Appendices I. and II. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 235 
 
 ministrative abuses are exceptional incidents, and 
 that entire Congresses may slip by without scandal 
 in the Administration, to constitute the standing 
 committees on expenditures upon grounds other 
 than those assigned for them, and to rely, when 
 a grave call for investigation arises, upon a se- 
 lect committee of the ablest men the House can 
 furnish. Yet other reasons for this unimportance 
 are revealed in the relations of the standing com- 
 mittees for finance and general legislation to the 
 Executive departments. 
 
 These relations with the Administration are the 
 most important study of all. It is not in the ex- 
 posure of abuses, but in the direction of adminis- 
 trative activity through the power of granting or 
 withholding money and of enacting new restrictive 
 laws, that Congress finds by far its greatest power 
 over the Executive, and vice versa. It is in the 
 arcana where laws have their birth that Executive 
 and Legislature come into that steady contact 
 which yields the largest results. There was little 
 fruit from the work of the great investigating 
 committees connected with the Civil War by way 
 of punishing wrong-doers, but their names are writ- 
 ten in the foundations of that monument to Civil 
 Service Reform which Congress has built into the 
 statute-books. By far the greater number of the 
 laws to be enacted are of a non-political character. 
 The Cabinet officer is before the committee often, 
 
236 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 his subordinates much oftener. He feels the need 
 of being there, because the success of his work de- 
 pends upon the effectiveness of his legal backing. 
 The committee, so largely composed of men of en- 
 tirely lay training, feels the need of his counsels 
 because of his expert practical knowledge of the 
 working of the law, his ability to point out defects 
 and to suggest remedies. There is no suffrage for 
 the administrative officer in a committee meeting, 
 yet he has there the more important power which 
 superior knowledge always gives. Whoever will 
 examine the printed cross-examinations of a com- 
 mittee hearing, and compare therewith the changes 
 wrought through official testimony between the 
 first and final draft of a bill, must be impressed 
 with the reality of the administrative influence. 
 Yet in the exercise of final judgments or decis- 
 ions, the committee dominates the trained official 
 with a vigor that suggests the contrasts between 
 American popular self-government and European 
 bureaucracy. American Anglo-maniacs have high- 
 ly deplored, and English Americano-maniacs have 
 equally highly lauded, the departure from British 
 practice when Hamilton set the example of report- 
 ing to Congress in writing rather than in person. 1 
 But the practice of the committee room shows the 
 use of both methods. As early as 1791 the Con- 
 gressional screws were being tightened, as the fol- 
 
 1 Cf. Maine's "Popular Government," 231 et seq. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 237 
 
 lowing standing orders then established indicate : 
 first, on the second Monday of every session a com- 
 mittee was to be appointed to examine and report 
 upon the state of the Treasury ; second, the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury was to report on the finances 
 of the previous year on the third Monday of each 
 annual session ; third, the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury was to report each year in January concerning 
 appropriations expended and unexpended, a com- 
 mittee being immediately appointed to examine 
 said report. By the statutes of the United States 
 the number of printed reports to Congress from 
 various administrative officers upon various sub- 
 jects, most of them required annually, has since 
 then increased to more than two hundred and 
 thirty. 1 To these must be added legions of special 
 reports in response to the constant running de- 
 mands of committees. Thirty-nine volumes, with 
 near thirty thousand printed pages, extensive in- 
 dexes, expensive maps, charts, and other illustra- 
 tions, was the contribution in the way of Executive 
 documents to a single session of the Fifty-second 
 Congress. 
 
 In making up the general appropriation bills, 
 each committee compares those of these reports 
 which fall within its sphere of action with the gen- 
 eral Book of Estimates furnished by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury. If there is a call for additional 
 
 1 For the list, cf . 53 : 2, " Manual and Digest," H. of E., 617-646. 
 
238 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 expenditures, the officer demanding them is almost 
 certain to be summoned before the committee to 
 make explanations. For example, before the sub- 
 committee of the Appropriations in charge of the 
 Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill appeared, from 
 March 12 to March 21, 1896, between fifty and 
 sixty administrative officers of various grades. The 
 chairmen of the Appropriations for two successive 
 Congresses, Messrs. Sayers and Cannon, unitedly 
 affirm that the Appropriations enters upon its bills 
 no items which are not recommended from the Sec- 
 retaries of the departments, or in the Book of Esti- 
 mates compiled by the Secretary of the Treasury. 1 
 This Book of Estimates, as submitted for 1897, car- 
 ried 1410,080,033.92, which was reduced by the 
 House standing committees to 8383,575,524.65 ; 
 increased by amendment in the House Committee 
 of the Whole to $383,996,842.25 ; increased by the 
 Senate standing committees to 1403,699,852.69 ; 
 increased by amendments in the Senate to $406,- 
 917,285.55 ; and reduced in conference committees 
 to $396,280,660.49. 2 Writers who make sweep- 
 ing assertions of the chaotic relations between 
 Legislature and Executive disregard old custom, 
 which creeps in like green blades upon stony 
 streets, gently though silently filling up the chinks 
 
 1 Hearing on the Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill for 1897, 
 251, 252. 
 
 2 Cf. the speeches and tables of Messrs. Cannon and Sayers, 
 C. R., June 10, 1896. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 239 
 
 between the laws. They have directed their criti- 
 cism ineffectually against the organization of the 
 House or of the Administration, and utterly failed 
 to suggest improvements at the point where the 
 two come together, namely, in the committee room. 
 
 In their liability to be controlled by different par- 
 ties, enhanced as it is by the different bases upon 
 which they are constituted, obstacles to coopera- 
 tion between the Senate and the House of Repre- 
 sentatives have been noticed at the outset of this 
 chapter. Three species of equality are discernible 
 in the Federal Government, — personal equality, as 
 in the House constituencies ; territorial or histor- 
 ical equality, as in the States which Senators repre- 
 sent; and corporate equality, as in the three grand 
 divisions of the Constitution, or in the relations of 
 the two branches of Congress. This latter kind 
 confronts the student of methods of communica- 
 tions between the Senate and the House. It is 
 here a peculiar equality, since it does not permit the 
 principle of majority rule to operate. Compromise, 
 the entire yielding of one party, or the failure of a 
 measure, are the alternatives when there is disagree- 
 ment. " We must give and take," says Senator 
 Cullorm Each lawmaking body has some functions 
 that are not shared by the other. Each is jeal- 
 ously watchful of encroachments on its prerogative. 
 
 These and other facts that may suggest them- 
 selves all tend to minimize an overriding of the bi- 
 
240 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 cameral idea by the use of committees constituted 
 of members from both branches. In fact, with the 
 exception of conferences upon money bills, the ex- 
 perience of our national legislature has added little 
 or nothing to the practice worked out in the Brit- 
 ish Parliament before ever there was thought of 
 an American confederation of colonies. 1 Devel- 
 opments in some Northern Commonwealth legisla- 
 tures are, on the contrary, much more marked. 
 That of Massachusetts conducts the affairs of or- 
 dinary legislation upon initiative of committees 
 with homogeneous membership selected from both 
 branches, and with the privilege of reporting indif- 
 ferently to either. 2 
 
 Committees for relations between Senate and 
 House fall into three classes, — joint committees, 
 conference committees, and what, for want of a 
 name, may be called similar or kindred commit- 
 tees. In the First Congress there was a brave 
 start towards the use of select joint committees. 
 The earliest was appointed April 9, 1789, to pre- 
 pare rules for conference, and to choose chaplains. 
 The Senate seemed particularly partial to them, at 
 least until it was worsted in its ambition for aris- 
 
 1 Cf., for the simple details of this anciently originated com- 
 mon parliamentary practice, Jefferson's Manual, in 53:2, "Man- 
 ual and Digest," H of R. ; Cushing's " Law and Practice," 878 et 
 seq. ; May's " Laws and Usages," 437 et seq. 
 
 2 Cushing's "Law and Practice," 790; Manual of the Massa- 
 chusetts General Court. See also Appendix IV. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 241 
 
 tocratic titles, and for distinctions over the House 
 in the way of larger salaries. They were employed 
 for the ceremonies of the first inauguration, and 
 have frequently since served occasions of state. 1 
 Small joint committees regularly inform the Pres- 
 ident of the assemblage of Congress, and of its 
 readiness to adjourn. They have now and then 
 arranged, as between the two branches, allotment 
 of space in the Capitol building, as in the case of 
 the New York City Hall in 1789. 2 Certain joint 
 standing committees, four in number, have at- 
 tended to matters of routine legislative business. 
 In July, 1789, the joint rules established such a 
 committee to correct errors in engrossed bills, and 
 to present them for signature to the President. To 
 this have been added, Dec. 7, 1843, the Committee 
 on the Library, which had select committees for 
 predecessors as early as 1800-1802; the Commit- 
 tee on Printing, July 24, 1846 ; and the Committee 
 on Disposition of Useless Papers in the Executive 
 Departments, Feb. 16, 1889. Although the joint 
 rules, after a continuous existence of eighty-seven 
 years, disappeared by a singular disagreement be- 
 tween the Houses in 1876, the Enrolled Bills and 
 the Library still by tacit consent perform joint as 
 well as separate functions, and the other two are 
 established by the laws. 3 Earlier Congresses were 
 
 i See above, Chapter II. « cf. also C. A., Jan. 18, 1817. 
 
 3 R. S., Section, 3656; Stats, at L., Vol. XXV. 672. 
 
242 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 wont to couple together for determination of a joint 
 committee the fixing of a time for adjournment 
 and the question of legislation necessary to be com- 
 pleted. 1 A Senate bill passed in 1800, but rejected 
 by the House, proposed to choose by lot a so-called 
 Grand Committee, composed of an equal number 
 from each branch, and empowered to decide se- 
 cretly and without revision all matters relating to 
 that vexed joint function of counting the electoral 
 votes for President and Vice-President. 2 Henry 
 Clay, after ordinary processes of legislation had 
 failed, successfully used the joint committee for a 
 speedy completion of the Missouri Compromise. 3 
 In the period of secession and reconstruction, the 
 decade from 1861 to 1871, center the most impor- 
 tant phenomena for the study of joint committees. 
 They flourished then because of the centralizing 
 influence of war in demanding larger and prompter 
 legislation ; because of the economy of substituting 
 a united inquiry for two separate investigations, 
 especially where extensive traveling was requisite ; 
 and because of the long political accord of the two 
 Houses, coupled with their united opposition to 
 the policy of the Executive towards the Southern 
 States. In this latter respect a British parallel 
 may be drawn from the relations of Charles I. and 
 
 i C. A., Jan. 11, 1790; Dec. 8, 1794; March 13, April 1, 8, 1806. 
 2 C. A., Index, under the head " Elections; " Schouler, I. 463, 
 » C. A., Feb. 20, 21, 1821; Schouler, III. 184. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 243 
 
 Parliament two centuries before. The Committee 
 on the Conduct of the War, consisting of three 
 Senators and four Representatives, was raised pri- 
 marily to inquire into the disaster at Ball's Bluff. 1 
 Later it investigated other troubles and reverses, 
 as the Fort Pillow massacre, Bull Run, the attack 
 on Petersburg, the treatment of Northern pris- 
 oners, the campaigns of McClellan, Banks, and 
 Sherman. Other committees were those on Eman- 
 cipation, Condition of the Indian Tribes, Recon- 
 struction, Southern Outrages, and Retrenchment. 
 Nine Representatives and six Senators were favor- 
 ite numbers for their membership. To name recent 
 examples, the subjects of Free Alcohol in the Arts, 
 and of Charities in the District of Columbia, hav- 
 ing evoked much discussion in the first session 
 of the Fifty-fourth Congress, were referred by pro- 
 visions in the laws finally enacted to select joint 
 committees of three members from each branch, 
 with instructions to hold hearings during the re- 
 cess, and to report by bill or otherwise on the first 
 Monday of December, 1896. 2 
 
 Very rarely, then, are joint committees em- 
 ployed for ordinary legislation in the American 
 Congress. Their use is confined mainly to mat- 
 ters of routine, ceremonial, and taking testimony. 
 Besides the obstacles pertaining in general to co- 
 
 1 Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," I. 378. 
 
 2 C. R., May, June, 1896. 
 
244 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 operation between Senate and House, joint commit- 
 tees have some peculiar shortcomings. Each House 
 will prefer sending a bill initiated and prepared at 
 its own free will to run the gantlet of amend- 
 ment, with chances of escaping unchanged in the 
 other House, rather than in the outset to have but 
 a partial voice in a joint committee for its prepara- 
 tion, and with chances of a report wholly contrary 
 to its own sense. 1 The early joint committees on 
 business met with the disapproval of such states- 
 men as Webster and Benton, because they recom- 
 mended new subjects, instead of making selections 
 from the calendars of the two Houses, and dictated 
 measures according to their personal feelings, with 
 too little regard for the wishes of their fellows. 2 
 Those same objections to concentration of power 
 in a few hands which are urged against the ordi- 
 nary standing committees apply with manifold 
 force to a joint committee. Jealousy between the 
 Houses is likely to arise over the question as to 
 which shall furnish the chairman. It has proved 
 difficult, if not impossible, to punish contumacious 
 witnesses. 3 The slow process of concurrent reso- 
 lution is necessary to instruction and discharge. 
 Perhaps as great a difficulty as any, since the vote 
 is per capita, lies in the mechanical impossibility of 
 
 i C. A., Jan. 11, 1790. 
 
 2 C. D., April 24, 1828; Miss Kerr's "The Origin and Develop- 
 ment of the United States Senate," 94, 95. 
 8 C. G. (Senate), Dec. 7, 1871. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 245 
 
 having an odd member for avoidance of ties with- 
 out giving the preponderance to one branch over 
 the other. 1 For reasons similar, it is said that, up 
 to the middle of the nineteenth century, no joint 
 committees had been employed in the British Par- 
 liament for one hundred and fifty years. "A 
 committee of the Senate with a corresponding 
 committee of the House works much more readily, 
 more handily, and, I think, more efficiently," said 
 Heniy B. Anthony, President pro tempore of the 
 Senate. 
 
 While the beginnings of legislation are thus so 
 unyielding to joint action, it is fairly indispensable 
 to the completing touches. For these has been 
 elaborated the conference. Conference committees 
 are confined in jurisdiction to the adjustment of 
 those points in a bill upon which the Houses dis- 
 agree. 2 They vote as two coequal bodies, a ma- 
 jority of each being necessary to agreement. From 
 long experience they have come to consist almost 
 invariably of three Senators and three Representa- 
 tives, the small number being favorable to dispatch, 
 and the equal weight of membership to a fair con- 
 test. The leading men of the committees having 
 charge in their respective Houses of the bill about 
 which there is variance are selected as the confer- 
 ees, and styled the " managers." The prime idea 
 
 i C. G. (Senate), Dec. 12, 1865. 
 
 2 Cf. decision of Speaker Clay, C. A., June 23, 1812. 
 
246 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 upon which conferences are based is dispatch to- 
 ward positive legislation ; and all the parliamentary 
 rulings under increasing necessities of time, num- 
 bers, and business have tended to make them in- 
 creasingly important. That they early took a 
 leading place in lawmaking is indicated by a brief 
 statement of the Annals of Congress, June 26, 
 1789: "A number of members attending the in- 
 teresting conference which took place with the Sen- 
 ate on the impost and tonnage bills, no business 
 was done in this House.'' On appropriation bills, 
 however, the development of their power came 
 with the increasing tendency of the Senate to 
 amend, which was so slow that by 1819 there had 
 been but six of them. 1 The present state of affairs 
 towards the close of the session in either House 
 may be described in the words of Senator J. L. 
 Mitchell : " Even though a conference report is 
 privileged, and may be called up at any time for 
 consideration, other conference reports are press- 
 ing, and above all loom the appropriation bills and 
 their innumerable conference reports." 2 
 
 Almost every writer on Congressional methods 
 has denounced the conference committee. In the 
 eyes of Professor Hart it -is a tyrant. 3 The Libra- 
 rian of Congress is impressed with the vastness of 
 
 1 Miss C, H. Kerr's "History of United States Senate," 76. 
 
 2 Article, " How a Law is Made," North American Review, 
 November, 1894. 
 
 3 " Practical Essays on American Government," 221. 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 247 
 
 its power in absorbing the functions of individual 
 members. 1 Since it is raised, in the most impor- 
 tant instances, upon non-concurrence of the House 
 with Senate amendments, Senator Hoar declared, 
 previous to his transfer from the House, that the 
 former body was put under a degrading duress. 2 
 Its reports, say those who have opposed its en- 
 croachments, are of the highest privilege ; cannot 
 be amended ; are so lengthy, complex, and unintel- 
 ligible that new and extraneous measures creep in 
 surreptitiously and become laws without the knowl- 
 edge of those who vote for their passage. 3 
 
 While these evils will be admitted to exist in 
 the most aggravated forms, it is well to inquire 
 how far they may be considered exceptional and 
 limited in scope. Senator Hoar argues that the 
 defect is organic in the gravest instances, lying 
 not in the conference, but in the power of the Sen- 
 ate to amend money bills. 4 Conferences are of 
 remedial intent. They give one more opportunity 
 for deliberation. An amendment may be good in 
 that it corrects some oversight; and, if the non- 
 concurring House be won over in conference, the 
 worthiest object of a bicameral system is realized. 
 An amendment may be bad, and the conference 
 
 1 Article on Congress (United States) by A. R. Spofford, 
 Lalor's Encyclopedia, I. 589. 
 
 2 North American Review, cxxviii. 118, 119. 
 
 8 Remarks of Senator Lyman Trumbull, C. G., June 15, 1860. 
 4 Cf . article cited above. 
 
248 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 gives another chance to fight the wrong. Leaving 
 out the history of the general appropriation bills, 
 conferences may be said to be comparatively rare, 
 amounting in the period from May 25 to June 13, 
 1896, the closing days of the session, to eleven on 
 seventy-five public or local bills, and to eight on 
 one hundred and forty-one private bills which 
 reached the President. None of these required a 
 second conference. Reports of managers on gen- 
 eral legislation or private bills are usually short, 
 and from the nature of the case easily understood. 
 
 With rare exception the conference reports upon 
 great appropriation bills are the only ones amen- 
 able to the charge of obscurity. In practice, such 
 bills involve several successive conferences, each 
 one briefer than the last, as points of disagreement 
 are compromised. At the first session of the 
 Fifty-fourth Congress the District of Columbia 
 bill required five ; The Legislative, Executive, and 
 Judicial, five; the Indian, six; the Post-Office, 
 two ; the Naval, four ; the Sundry Civil, five ; 
 the River and Harbor, three ; the Fortifications, 
 one ; the Deficiencies, two ; the Agriculture, one. 
 Time occupied in conferences may be estimated 
 by comparison of the dates upon which these bills 
 passed the Senate with the dates upon which they 
 became laws. The average was thirty-three days. 
 
 The danger of obscurity in conference reports 
 is mitigated by the long discussions earlier in the 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND COX GUESS. 249 
 
 session, which have familiarized Congressmen with 
 the provisions of the bills. When a bill, however 
 heavily loaded with Senate amendments, comes out 
 of conference, there are more than three hundred 
 Representatives each supplied, for purposes of ready 
 comparison, with his printed copies of the report, 
 and of the bill as passed by the Senate. Since 
 1880 the House has required of its conferees ex- 
 plicit and detailed explanations in writing. 1 In 
 the Senate, by invariable custom, conference re- 
 ports have come to lie over at least one night, so 
 that members may have leisure to inspect them. 2 
 The latter is doubtless the better safeguard, but 
 the practices of the two branches might advan- 
 tageously be combined and supplemented by pub- 
 licity of conference sessions. After a conference 
 the leading manager usually accompanies the writ- 
 ten results with a verbal explanation, members in- 
 terpolate him, and vigorous debate may follow 
 preparatory to a new trial upon points not yet 
 settled. 
 
 With such chances against concealed paragraphs, 
 conferences which assume functions of joint com- 
 mittees must do so with little expectation of es- 
 caping notice. That they do initiate legislation is 
 true, but as to the frequency of the offense doctors 
 
 i Rule XXIX., H. of R. 
 
 2 Cf. the use made of this opportunity hy Senator Hale, C. R., 
 May 28, 1896. 
 
250 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 disagree. Senator Chandler has affirmed of one 
 such instance that it is the most extraordinary par- 
 liamentary proceeding during his nine years of ser- 
 vice as a Congressman. Senator Allison supports 
 him with the statement that such a thing has been 
 done but once upon an appropriation bill during 
 the twenty-three years of his membership with the 
 Appropriations, and then sub silentio ; that it has 
 been done upon other bills only with unanimous 
 leave of the Senate. On the other hand, Senator 
 Vest cites the tariff bill of 1883 as an example, 
 Senator Teller declares that some of the best 
 national laws have originated in conferences, and 
 other Senators allege various instances. 1 It is a 
 mooted question of parliamentary law whether 
 such legislation may be ruled out of conference 
 reports by the presiding officer in either branch, as 
 seems to have been done in one case by Speaker 
 Reed. 2 
 
 As for the conferees, they are, as a rule, true 
 leaders in their respective Houses ; the most skill- 
 ful and learned specialists upon the subjects in 
 controversy ; each seeking in the contest the honor 
 of his own branch ; each sensible of the possibility 
 that those whom he represents may reject his work ; 
 tried and trusted men, who seek to be instructed as 
 
 1 C. R., debate on Indian Appropriation Bill, May 28, 29, 
 June 1, 1896. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
JUDICIARY, 'EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 251 
 
 to the collective will of their fellows, rather than 
 to force their own desires upon reluctant voters. 
 
 Which branch is most frequently victorious in 
 a conference contest, is an interesting question. 
 It will very probably require different answers for 
 different periods in the long history of Congress. 
 In the first case of adherence the House won 
 through the casting vote of Vice-President Jeffer- 
 son in the Senate. 1 The prevailing opinion of re- 
 cent observers is on the side of the Senate. This 
 view may be modified upon consideration that the 
 Senate is the sole amending body in the case of 
 bills which receive great notice ; namely, those for 
 revenue and expenditure. It is a mere matter of 
 form for the House to disagree in bulk to all 
 amendments of an appropriation bill when it is 
 returned from the Senate, but a first conference 
 will discover that the vast majority of the changes 
 are not really matters of disagreement. Thus the 
 first report upon the River and Harbor Bill of 
 1896 quickly disposed of more than three hundred 
 challenged amendments by the receding of the 
 House, amended some thirty Senate amendments, 
 and left only three items for a second conference. 2 
 Of the total amount for 1896 adjusted in confer- 
 ences upon appropriation bills, $22,920,442.30, the 
 House yielded $12,283,818.24. The bitterest and 
 most prolonged struggles occur over riders attached 
 
 1 C. A. (Senate), Aug. 25, 1789. * c. R. (Senate), May 20, 1896. 
 
252 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 by the Senate, for the attitude of the two codes of 
 rules upon that subject is now the reverse of what 
 it used to be. Many of these objectionable addi- 
 tions are instigated by House members who run 
 over to the Senate wing, especially by minority Rep- 
 resentatives when the two branches are controlled 
 by opposite parties, and by Representatives from 
 new Western States which are insignificant in 
 the popular, but powerful in the territorial body. 
 " The rule is unvarying that the body proposing 
 legislation as a rider upon a money bill must re- 
 cede if the other body will not assent," declared 
 Mr. Cannon, the most prominent conferee of the 
 House in the Fifty-fourth Congress. But the rule 
 has been broken. After fighting long the attach- 
 ment of nearly two million dollars of French spo- 
 liation claims to the General Deficiency Bill, the 
 House, in June, 1896, had to give way, but Presi- 
 dent Cleveland came to its rescue with a veto; and 
 the Republican chairman of Appropriations glee- 
 fully reported, for quick passage through both 
 branches, a new bill which left out, not only the 
 Senate rider, but also claims to which the President 
 had not objected. 
 
 While, occasionally, self-reliant characters in Sen- 
 ate, House, and Executive have strongly marked 
 the highest insistence for the independence of the 
 three, and while conferences are required for im- 
 portant disagreements, these noisily advertised 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 253 
 
 events should not distract attention altogether from 
 the quiet undercurrent of steady connections which 
 in passing years has worked more and more for the 
 unity of the government. The same increasing di- 
 vision of labors has gone on in all three, — in the 
 two branches of Congress by parallel committee 
 lists, and in the Executive by a corresponding 
 erection of departments and bureaus. For eighty 
 years a standing committee of Ways and Means in 
 the House, a standing committee of Finance in the 
 Senate, and an Executive Department of the Treas- 
 ury have been in constant existence and in remoter 
 or closer touch with each other. Every now and 
 then another such triangular link is bound about 
 the tripartite system. The classification of appro- 
 priations into thirteen bills, and the distribution of 
 these among seven House committees thus far, with 
 likelihood that the Senate will follow suit in trim- 
 ming away the sole jurisdiction of its great finance 
 committee, doubtless similarly tend to closer con- 
 nections. One statesman argued for this distribu- 
 tion in the House that it would lessen the Senate's 
 power of amending ; and it may be said to have in- 
 creased, or at least to have conserved, the veto 
 power of the President. The growth of the Senate 
 standing committee system, owing to less pressure 
 in that body of increasing numbers and business, 
 has in general slowly followed the rapid expansion 
 in the House. When, in December, 1816, the upper 
 
254 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 chamber decided for the plan of standing commit- 
 tees by creating outright a dozen of them, nine had 
 the same functions as nine committees long before 
 entered upon the House list. This correspondence 
 may be asserted to-day of the duties of twenty-five 
 or thirty ; twenty-two committee names are identi- 
 cal in the two systems ; and all except the Census 
 and the Epidemic Diseases in the Senate list, and 
 the Alcoholic Liquor Traffic in that of the House, 
 are paralleled in one way or another. 1 There are 
 routes from the committee rooms in one wing to the 
 committee rooms in the other which are becoming 
 more beaten paths ; printing draws the two Houses 
 together ; conferees are but sub-committees of these 
 similar committees; cases are of record where con- 
 current resolutions have authorized kindred com- 
 mittees to act jointly, and it is said that they 
 sometimes come together of their own motion. 2 
 
 Inspection of the bonds between the House, the 
 Senate, and the Executive reveals the following 
 prominent features : — 
 
 1. The Judiciary and the Foreign Affairs are 
 distinguished among the committees for singular 
 character. The Judiciary is largely exempt from 
 the influences of current political strife, and the 
 Foreign Affairs from the ordinary party lines 
 
 1 A chronicle of the Senate committees is contained in 37 : 3, 
 Sen. Mis. Docs., No. 42. 
 
 2 How signally did the House coerce the Senate hy refusing to 
 appoint the committees at the special session of 1897 ! 
 
JUDICIARY, EXECUTIVE, AND CONGRESS. 255 
 
 drawn by domestic policies. In the Senate they 
 have jurisdiction over treaties, and appointments 
 to the bench. 
 
 2. There has been an increasing interaction of 
 Executive and Congress upon each other, mainly 
 and steadily through the regular work of the com- 
 mittees in preparing general appropriations and 
 general legislation. Presidential messages of early 
 times played a part in developing the committee 
 systems. The spoils of office, and the Administra- 
 tion's superior expert knowledge of legislative 
 needs, have brought their baser and nobler influ- 
 ences to bear upon committee action. On the 
 other hand, the power of the committees has occa- 
 sionally told upon the results of political cam- 
 paigns by inquiries into the conduct of higher 
 executive officers, and upon the safeguarding of 
 private rights or public property by discoveries 
 of scandal chiefly in the lower administrative 
 ranks. 
 
 3. The House and the Senate cooperate rarely 
 by initiatory work of joint committees and mostly 
 by use of corresponding committees, which, in ex- 
 treme cases, complete legislation by their repre- 
 sentatives in conference. 
 
 4. Though progress in methods of cooperation 
 among the great governmental divisions has been 
 retarded by differences in their character, tenure, 
 and politics, and also in the case of Senate and 
 
256 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 House by mechanical difficulties, yet there has 
 been, on the whole, an oiling of intercourse, a bind- 
 ing together by the sutures of custom, which, 
 though quietly unobtrusive, is nevertheless sub- 
 stantial. 
 
THE SENATE. 
 
I know what burdens of hatred every member of this body- 
 must carry when he goes home, because we have insisted that 
 the inviolable right of asylum for the minority shall be preserved 
 here. 
 
 David Turpie. 
 
 I am too familiar with the grandeur and the sweetness of what 
 is called Senatorial courtesy to wish to infringe in the slightest 
 degree upon the privilege of Senators on the other side. 
 
 William E. Chandler. 
 
 There is a belief in the public mind that proper deference is 
 not given by the Senate of the United States to the demands and 
 interests of the people, and that this is largely due to the fact 
 that Senators do not owe their positions to the people who are 
 permanent, but to the legislatures which are transient. 
 
 John H. Mitchell. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD REIiATIONS. 
 
 The foregoing study of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives is helpful for an understanding of 
 legislative methods in the United States Senate. 
 Exposition of the latter's development may be 
 briefer because of a large parallelism in the histo- 
 ries of the two chambers. No Cisatlantic body 
 has made such extensive contributions to parlia- 
 mentary law as has the House. Indeed, an asser- 
 tion that it has outstripped the House of Commons 
 might fail of successful challenge. Since the 
 House has been the more progressive, the Senate 
 has been put somewhat in the attitude of follow- 
 ing, a fact which £rops out in the Senate's -debates 
 from the earliest times. Whatever example the 
 Senate has set for the House has been meager. On 
 the other hand, much of the Senate's progress is 
 traceable to the spurring influence of the lower 
 branch. Though few men have gone as members 
 from the upper to the lower body, a continuous 
 procession of legislators, educated under the strict 
 and intricate government of the House and import- 
 
 259 
 
260 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ing its ideas of procedure, has entered the Senate's 
 doors. 
 
 Mere citation, then, of the common forces in the 
 background often suffices. For instance, the ex- 
 periences of the two have been about the same as 
 to investigating committees ; public hearings ; rela- 
 tions with witnesses ; the rivalry of the highly 
 diverse interests of our broad land in legislative 
 halls ; the main sectional struggles of North as 
 against South, of East as against West ; the slower 
 or faster progress attendant upon eras of peace and 
 prosperity, or of war and depression; the vastly 
 increasing demands for national legislation char- 
 acteristic of recent times. The Senate advances 
 tortoise-like along many lines over which the House 
 has long since traveled. Here the stages which 
 it has reached are to be marked. The sources 
 of its history throw some light upon the rise of 
 our standing committee system which those of 
 the House do not furnish. Finally, the compara- 
 tive view brings out the contrast* between the two, 
 and sets forth principally the Senate's special and 
 independent contributions to legislative science. 
 
 The same ancient parliamentary experience was 
 common inheritance for House and Senate upon 
 their first assemblage. Those old bonds the Sen- 
 ate has cherished more tenaciously than the House 
 through all of its history. From them more con- 
 servatively it drew for its earliest code the most 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 261 
 
 venerable forms, to which it added few of its own 
 devising. 1 The spirit in which the Senate was 
 conceived, the spirit in which it has lived, has been 
 the spirit of the past. Go back to the Constitution 
 builders at Philadelphia. Two forces are striving 
 among them. The one looks back to conditions 
 which prevailed chiefly in the beginnings of society, 
 to the simplicity and individual liberty which be- 
 longed to isolated conditions, when men were fewer 
 and territorial reaches wider. The other urges 
 forward to the social liberty of organization, to the 
 necessity of government more compound and com- 
 plex as the children of men are " fruitful, and mul- 
 tiply, and replenish the earth." A compromise 
 between these two determined the character of 
 Congress. In the Senate the smallest and most 
 scantily populated was to be, and has been, on an 
 equal footing with the largest and most densely 
 populated State. The House was made to stand 
 for organization, the Senate for individualism ;. the 
 House for nationality, the Senate for historic State- 
 hood ; the House for the American's coming eman- 
 cipation from physical environment, the Senate 
 for the lingering necessities imposed thereby. 
 
 Now, this original spirit has not merely endured; 
 it has been quickened by the circumstances of 
 national development. The Mother of States in 
 the first and formative half of our history was not 
 
 l 1:1, C. A., 1.20, April 16, 1789. 
 
262 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Massachusetts, but Virginia. 1 The Mother of Sen- 
 ators was not New York, but Kentucky. Even as 
 far north as Wisconsin the votes of Southern im- 
 migrants tipped the scale against negro suffrage 
 until after the Civil War. Even as far west as 
 Kansas the Southerner met the Northerner in that 
 fierce deadlock of the late '50's which presaged 
 the end of Southern supremacy in all branches 
 of the government. As late as 1881 thirty-four 
 Senators were of Southern birth and early train- 
 ing, and two of foreign nativity had been reared 
 in the South. Of the other Senators at that time, 
 twenty-seven were sprung from the group of origi- 
 nal States north of and including Pennsylvania; 
 eleven from the States formed from the Northwest 
 Territory, and one from a foreign land. Virginia 
 and Kentucky tied New York and Ohio, each as 
 the birthplace of seven Senators. Their origin was 
 limited to twenty-three out of the thirty-eight 
 States. In 1897 they come from thirty of the forty- 
 five States. Seven are foreign-born and of North- 
 ern education. Ohio is the banner Commonwealth, 
 with ten to her credit; New York ranks second, 
 with eight ; Virginia third, with five ; and Ten- 
 nessee, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Vermont 
 fourth, with four each. Thirty-six are of South- 
 ern nativity, twenty-eight from the Atlantic group 
 north of Mason and Dixon's line, nineteen from 
 
 1 Roosevelt's "Life of Benton," pp. 2, 10, 11. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 263 
 
 the Northwest and the West. 1 The South not only 
 reared her own Senators, but cradled those of the 
 new frontier States which one by one enlarged the 
 Union. Her people and her leaders have taught 
 the let-alone principle, whether as against centrali- 
 zation in the government generally, or as against 
 stricter organization in a code of rules for the 
 Senate. The West, as a border-land, has stood 
 for relapse towards individualism, independent 
 even of its Southern antecedents. 2 The South 
 and the West together have always outnumbered 
 the Northeast in the Senate. This " wide-arched 
 Union " can to-day be divided into two groups of 
 about equal population, — the one north of Mason 
 and Dixon's Line, and east of the Mississippi, and 
 comprising fourteen States, with from one-seventh 
 to one-eighth of the country's area; the other of 
 thirty-one States in the more sparsely settled and 
 vastly larger outlying regions. Add to these facts 
 the Senate's comparatively slow and limited growth, 
 — even now it is not as large as the House was 
 
 1 The Fifty-fifth Congress is distinguished "by the presence of 
 a member who had never been east of the Mississippi River until 
 he orossed it on his way to take his seat in the Senate ; his inbred 
 individualism is said to be evidenced, like that of the young 
 Texan leader of the House minority, by uncompromising refusal 
 to don a dress-coat. 
 
 2 The " Significance of the Frontier in American History," by 
 F. J. Turner, in the Proceedings of the State Historical Society 
 of Wisconsin, 1894, pp. 3, 27-29; Editorial on the Force Bill, 
 Nation, Vol. LII., p. 81, Jan. 29, 1891. 
 
264 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 a century ago, — and the consequently less press- 
 ing need for encroachment by rules upon the pre- 
 rogatives of the individual Senator. All these, 
 
 — the absolute voting equality of the States in the 
 Senate, the original provincial spirit which gave 
 it birth, the earlier predominance of the agricultu- 
 ral South, the Western backwoodsman's traditional 
 hatred of restraint, the smallness of membership, 
 
 — have thus far combined to maintain un brokenly 
 within the legislative hall the old order against 
 the new, the field of the individual against the 
 field of the body politic, minority against majority 
 rights. They are the peculiar and important con- 
 ditions which should be understood and appreciated 
 in a study of the Senate's committees, and of the 
 general procedure which forms their setting. 
 
 Take first the subject of the touch between the 
 public and the committees of the Senate. In the 
 Convention of 1789 the idea that it should be large- 
 ly independent of popular influence held strong 
 ascendency. In this respect it was to stand next, 
 perhaps, to the Supreme Court. Men who believed 
 that the new-born republic would be turned to 
 monarchical forms saw the beginnings of possible 
 aristocracy in the upper chamber. These men were 
 numerous as members of the Senate itself. Be- 
 ginning with a bare quorum of twelve, the im- 
 portant first session transacted its business with a 
 working force at no time exceeding eighteen, and 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 265 
 
 fourteen months elapsed before the full comple- 
 ment of twenty-six was present. This small body, 
 little different in size from an ordinary House com- 
 mittee of our day, sat, during its first five years, in 
 secret conclave. 1 The pages of Mac lay's Journal 
 are full of the whisperings and the caballings 
 which began with the first hour, full of figures 
 passing along the narrow New York streets from 
 house to house, by day and by night — the begin- 
 nings of the Senatorial caucus. Throughout the 
 history of Congress secrecy has characterized the 
 Senate more than the House. The choice of Sen- 
 ators by legislatures has largely favored men who 
 succeed by secrecy — by bargain or ambush. Let 
 the visitor in the Senate gallery watch the groups 
 of two or three in the seats upon the floor, study 
 the soberness or the shining of their faces, as they 
 bend together in consultation, and forget the dull 
 argument of the speaking member under the dis- 
 turbing consciousness of power that mocks the 
 public eye. How much the weaker must be the 
 people's knowledge of the Senate's committee re- 
 cesses. Sitting quietly among their fellows in the 
 Senate chamber are two, the caucus chieftains, 
 whose power over the Senate committee system is 
 of the same character as the power of the Speaker 
 over the House committees. It is a two T men power. 
 How many Americans can name them ? Who de- 
 
 i 42: 2, C. G., 2875, April 29, 1872, remarks of John Sherman. 
 
266 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 nounces them as autocrats? Who urges for the 
 functions that they perform a publicly known and 
 Constitutional officer like the head of the House ? 
 All this is not saying that those many changes 
 which have lessened the evils of secrecy in the 
 House have not likewise operated upon the Sen- 
 ate, nor that the Senate has been totally irrespon- 
 sive to the popular voice. In 1856 Senator John 
 P. Hale stood up alone among his political foes, 
 with the vision of workmen spinning wires through- 
 out the land, and with fire in his eye prophetic 
 of the mighty evolutions electricity was to aid. 
 How the slow old leaders in their seats must have 
 started as he cried, " What we do here to-day, 
 to-morrow's sun flashes broadcast over the conti- 
 nent!" Freedom of debate is proving less and 
 less adequate in the Senate, and, as a truer regula- 
 tor, has come, and must come in larger measure, re- 
 sponsibility to the more and more clearly knowable 
 popular will. Election of Senators directly by the 
 people is one step towards this end. 1 An amend- 
 ment to the Constitution effecting this change in 
 the method of choice seems inevitable, if we review 
 the growing agitation of recent years, both without 
 and within the Senate. 
 
 But even with this improvement the territorial 
 basis of the Senate will remain as a varying ele- 
 
 1 " Election of Senators by Popular Vote," by Senator John H. 
 Mitchell, The Forum, XXXI. 385. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 267 
 
 ment for keeping it out of harmony with the popu- 
 lar majority. State representation, treated for the 
 House in a preceding chapter, has not needed in- 
 sistence in the Senate. States have there found 
 their stronghold upon the floor. The time has 
 never been when all of them could, as a uniform 
 practice, be represented upon the committees ; for 
 that would mean half the Senators to a committee. 
 As a rule, committees consisted at first of three, 
 and later of five members. There was, however, 
 at the First Congress one fully representative com- 
 mittee of eleven on salaries for the President and 
 the Vice-President. 1 In earlier days, with occa- 
 sional exceptions, no State furnished two members 
 for a committee. In the first block of standing 
 committees, that of 1816, other considerations, as 
 ability and sectional interest, had more weight than 
 State equality. 2 Eleven committees of five mem- 
 bers each furnished fifty-five places in all. States 
 most concerned held most influence over a subject. 
 An Ohio Senator was chairman of the Public 
 Lands, and three other frontier States had mem- 
 bership therein. Upon the Commerce and Manu- 
 factures four Northern States were represented. 
 No New Englander was upon the Military Affairs, 
 no member from a new State upon the Pensions 
 or the Claims. Upon the Judiciary were Vermont, 
 
 1 1 : 1, C. A., 1 : 58, Aug. 6, 1789. 
 
 2 14:2, S. J., 43-45, Dec. 13, 1816. 
 
268 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Rhode Island, Connecticut, Kentucky, Georgia. 
 Both Senators from New Hampshire were mem- 
 bers of the Finance. Tennessee was distinguished 
 with two chairmanships, those of the Finance and 
 the Military Affairs. Four out of the fifty-five was 
 the commonest number of places to a State ; but 
 Pennsylvania had six, while Ohio, North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, and Delaware had each but one. 
 
 The principles of this first list of eleven standing 
 committees characterize the fifty-nine in the sys- 
 tem of to-day. Committees having in charge broad 
 national interests are made up of men from all ex- 
 tremes of the land, with no State represented by 
 both of its Senators. Such are the Appropriations, 
 the Post-Offices and Post-Roads, the Education and 
 Labor. Others particularly important to certain 
 regions are composed mainly of men from those 
 regions, as the Fisheries, the Relations with Can- 
 ada, the Mines and Mining. Occasionally Sena- 
 torial colleagues find themselves upon a committee 
 together, the one from the majority, the other from 
 the minority party. Positions sometimes come to 
 a new member by a sort of vested right of his State. 
 In 1837 Mr. Tipton, the new Senator from Indiana, 
 took the place as chairman of the Post-Offices and 
 Post-Roads of Mr. Hendricks, from that State, 
 whom he had succeeded. Senator Pritchard of 
 North Carolina was assigned to the District of Co- 
 lumbia in 1895 "because his predecessor, the late 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 269 
 
 Senator Vance, was for many years an active mem- 
 ber of the committee." 1 Often Senators are tem- 
 porarily appointed to hold places for men whose 
 entrance into full membership of the Senate has 
 been for some reason delayed. Very commonly one 
 Senator from a State keeps them for the other. 
 Upon the arrival of the Senators from the new 
 State of Utah six places held for them were re- 
 signed, three to each. 2 Mr. Call of Florida advo- 
 cated a rule which should allow to no Senator more 
 than one place upon the combined membership of 
 nine specified leading committees. 3 Mr. Earle, re- 
 cently chosen as a new Senator from South Caro- 
 lina, urged that the delay of more than a month in 
 the reorganization of the Senate's committees was 
 an injustice to his State. 4 Yet, as the result of con- 
 stantly finer readjustments of the committee posi- 
 tions, the power of the States, old and new, majority 
 and minority, has approximated as nearly as would 
 seem possible to equality. The usual present quota 
 of places to each Senator is six, though minority 
 members often get but five. 6 Not only is this 
 numerical basis closely observed, but the impor- 
 
 1 Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1895. On this ground Senator 
 Hanna claimed Senator Sherman's place upon the Finance, Wash- 
 ington Post, March 7, 1897. . 
 
 2 54: 1, C. R., 1774, Feb. 12, 1896. 
 
 « 47 : 1, C. R., 1947, March 16, 1882 ; 54 : 1, C. R., 341, Dec. 27, 1895. 
 4 55: 1, C. R., 659, April 6, 1897. 
 
 6 Each Congressional Directory gives an alphabetical list of 
 Senators with their assignments. 
 
270 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tant and the unimportant positions are almost as 
 evenly distributed, whether Maine be compared 
 with Texas, or Nevada with New York. The only 
 exception noticeable in the list of - the Fifty-fourth 
 Congress is a slight favoring of the little group of 
 latter-day Quids who held the balance of power. 
 
 Another aspect, however, shows considerable 
 inequality. The practice of assigning chairman- 
 ships according to seniority of committee service 
 has operated in favor of those States which are 
 most conservative, whether for political or other 
 reasons, in changing their Senators. As a result 
 the six States of New England hold in the Fifty- 
 fifth Congress a remarkable lead, comparable only 
 to the superiority in the Fifty-third of a continu- 
 ous chain of Southern States, Florida, Alabama, 
 Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. 
 With two-fifteenths of the Senate's voting strength 
 these New England men are either the heads, or the 
 heirs apparent to the headships, of three-fourths 
 of its standing committees. Every one of them 
 has an important chairmanship, and together they 
 hold eight out of the dozen or so which are of the 
 first rank. The six Atlantic States immediately 
 south of them, including the two most populous 
 and wealthy of the Union, have only six chairman- 
 ships, but one of which is even of secondary impor- 
 tance. Beyond these are twelve Southern States 
 with eleven insignificant minority chieftainships. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 271 
 
 The States of the Northwest Territory, together 
 with West Virginia, hold eight first places, one- 
 half of which are important. Just beyond these 
 is a group of six, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, 
 Kansas, and Nebraska, which stands next in ad- 
 vancement to New England. With two-fifteenths 
 of the Senate's membership, it holds first and sec- 
 ond places on three-eighths of the committees ,; 
 and its Senators head ten of them, including the 
 Appropriations and the Foreign Relations. The 
 remaining nine States of the Far West have 
 twelve chairmanships, which are, with one excep- 
 tion, more of local than of national interest. 
 
 Statehood, as a factor, the reader will have ob- 
 served, is overshadowed by sectionalism. The his- 
 tories of the two branches have not differed as to 
 principle in this respect. 1 North and East have 
 faced South and West. 2 Sectionalism is proba- 
 bly capable of greater exaggeration in the Senate. 
 Slower changes in the Senate's membership, easier 
 mastery where the body is small, as well as the 
 greater stress laid upon seniority as a test for posi- 
 tions and promotions, work to this end. The South 
 held unbroken control of the Senate committee 
 system when its Senators withdrew in 1861, and 
 
 i Above, pp. 48-52. 
 
 2 Cf. editorials against the dominance of the " Southern Oli- 
 garchy " over the Senate committees, New York Tribune, Dec. 
 24, 1849; Dec. 13, 14, 1855; Dec. 19,1859; also a triangular debate 
 of Senators from Northeast, Northwest, and South, 35:1, C. G., 
 41, Dec. 16, 1857. 
 
272 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 its power was heightened then, as even now, be- 
 cause they had seen much longer service than 
 those who were coming from the changing North. 
 Likewise the older sisters of the East have been 
 tenacious of power. With outward show of cour- 
 tesy they gave to Utah the share of Cinderella. 
 Yet fewer rivals, old age, and death play a larger 
 part for new Senators than for new Representa- 
 tives. Once he has gained the citadels, the miner 
 from the camp of the Rockies is peer of the scholar- 
 politician from Boston. The States south of the 
 Ohio and those west of the Mississippi have com- 
 bined during the last three Congresses, and held 
 the Senate's committees in party equilibrium. 1 
 
 Sectionalism is interwoven with the question 
 of the party composition of the Senate's commit- 
 tees. Here the two branches of Congress have de- 
 veloped different methods. Both began in 1789 
 with choice of committees by ballot. The House 
 quickly discarded the practice ; the Senate found 
 it practicable for half a century. " All commit- 
 tees shall be appointed by ballot, and a plurality 
 of votes shall make a choice/' was the brief rule 
 adopted by the latter, April 16, 1789. This clause 
 gave the largest group in the chamber the head- 
 ship of the committee under process of appoint- 
 
 1 The money question has heen the issue ; for a suggestive de- 
 hate arising from this deadlock, cf. 54: 1., C. R., 420-429, Dec. 30, 
 1895. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 273 
 
 ment because the man of its choice stood first in the 
 number of votes. Through absence of concerted 
 action, through a very free exercise of individual 
 preferences, the committeeman standing second in 
 number of votes would be elected by an aggrega- 
 tion of voters slightly, or it may be markedly, 
 different from that which had conferred the chair- 
 manship. So it would be as concerned the remain- 
 ing members of the committee. Thus, at the outset 
 the ballot left larger latitude to a minority than 
 did the House regulations, a latitude too deeply 
 grounded by the long prevalence of the above rule 
 to be disregarded when later plans of choice came 
 into vogue. Custom has constrained the Speaker 
 of the House from the first to grant membership, 
 in the committees which he appoints, to its minor- 
 ity, and to conform, in the number of places he 
 gives, more and more to the exact ratios of the 
 House membership, in which latter respect the 
 records of the House seem fairer than those of 
 the Senate. But the House minority had not time 
 in the beginning to establish a privilege of deter- 
 mining its personnel in the committees, and on 
 that head has only in these later times found the 
 Speaker's arbitrary authority limited by seniority 
 and other customs. 1 On the other hand, it has 
 
 1 The Speaker consults with the recognized minority leader 
 in slating the minority membership of committees, Washington 
 Post, Dec. 1, 1895. 
 
274 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 been the rare exception rather than the rule for 
 the Senate's majority to have any voice whatever 
 in the distribution of minority favors. 
 
 The right of the majority, or of the plurality, 
 to chairmanships was probably customary in the 
 beginning. The chairmanship was not then of 
 such importance as to be fought over by a com- 
 mittee's members. It may be inferred that the 
 President of the Senate would designate the man 
 who had most votes as chairman simply by nam- 
 ing him first. 1 The Senate's code had for the first 
 thirty-seven years no provision giving the majority 
 the chairmanships. The right was established Dec. 
 8, 1826, by a new rule, of which Ezekiel F. Cham- 
 bers of Maryland was the author. Thenceforward 
 the majority chose all chairmen upon distinct bal- 
 lots, and afterwards the remainders were filled out 
 by plurality votes. In 1824 the "right of the ma- 
 jority to largest representation upon a committee 
 was ratified by the rejection of an odd proposal to 
 associate as one the Finance and the Commerce 
 and Manufactures for consideration of the tariff 
 bill of that year; the two combined would have 
 given to the Senate's minority a majority hostile to 
 the measure. 2 The respective voting strengths of 
 the parties determined the ratios of their commit- 
 
 1 Jefferson's Manual, VII. 1 ; J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, I. 384, 
 482. 
 
 2 18:1, S. J., 307, 311, 312, April 20, 21, 1824; J. Q. Adams's 
 Memoirs, I. 383, 385. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 275 
 
 tee memberships under the ballot method roughly 
 indeed ; for the committees were small, and unex- 
 pected results were frequently forthcoming. There 
 were about twice as many Republicans as Federal- 
 ists when, in 1816, the standing committee system 
 was initiated. The election at that time resulted 
 in ratios of three Republicans to two Federalists 
 for five committees, and of four Republicans to 
 one Federalist for four committees. The minority 
 always had one or two members of a committee of 
 five, no matter what the method of appointment. 
 
 Present day students of the Congressional pro- 
 cedure need to bear constantly in mind the differ- 
 ence in the strength of party lines in earlier and 
 later times. The progress toward stricter party 
 organization finally discarded the ballot system. 
 Under the ballot the accidental could figure, and 
 small combinations of Senators, favored by the un- 
 organized condition of their fellows, could some- 
 times decide elections. 1 The minority controlled 
 the Finance Committee in 1816, and held the chair- 
 manship of the Commerce and Manufactures, while 
 the Military Affairs was chosen entirely from the 
 majority. The attitude of the sections towards the 
 War of 1812, and New England's superior financial 
 condition at its close, may be recalled as explain- 
 ing this arrangement. The ballots for committee 
 
 1 For comments on phases of balloting for committees, cf . J. Q. 
 Adams's Memoirs, I. 329, 336, 369. 
 
276 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 chairmen in 1833 and 1835 show party struggles 
 for some places, but • non-partisanship in filling 
 others. 1 There were always three or four scatter- 
 ing votes. Those were grand transitional times in 
 party history. Majorities in committee elections 
 were small when places were sharply contested. 
 The personal element counted for much. In 1833 
 Webster was honored with a chairmanship at the 
 same time with Benton and Poindexter. His rival 
 then and in 1835 was Silas Wright. Frelinghuy- 
 sen distanced Clay in 1833 by one vote ; but Clay 
 obtained a chairmanship in 1835, being elected by 
 a ballot of twenty-three to nineteen over King 
 of Alabama. Clayton won the headship of the 
 Judiciary over Forsyth and Buchanan in turn. 
 Calhoun, the Nullifier, was not even put in nomi- 
 nation. As a rule, in these two ballotings defeated 
 candidates were not afterwards placed with their 
 vanquishers upou the committees for whose leader- 
 ship they had contested. For interests of the in- 
 terior tried chairmen were reelected unanimously, 
 as Hendricks upon the Roads and Canals, White 
 upon the Indian Affairs, Grundy upon the Post- 
 Offices and Post-Roads. But upon the opening of 
 the second session of the Twenty-fourth Congress, 
 Dec. 12, 1836, the very men who at the first ses- 
 sion had chosen Clay and Webster to the headships 
 of the Foreign Relations and the Finance, deposed 
 
 i 23: 1, C. D., Pt. I., pp. 42, 43; 24: 1, C. D., Pt. I., pp. 11, 12. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 277 
 
 them to lay membership upon their committees, 
 and put in their places James Buchanan and Silas 
 Wright, at the same time changing by large ma- 
 jorities of from eighteen to twenty-five votes the 
 chairmanships of all but four of the other eighteen 
 committees — a remarkable political upheaval, pre- 
 liminary not only to the passage of the Expunging 
 Resolutions, but also to the new dominance of im- 
 portant and far-reaching policies in the Senate. 1 
 Another radical reorganization came with the com- 
 plete triumph of the Whigs in 1841, when Benton 
 lost the chairmanship of the Military Affairs which 
 he had held so long. 
 
 What whispered conferences, what fevered bar- 
 gainings, may have filled the intervening periods 
 of counting ballots for committeemen in those old 
 days when the Senate's giants touched their grand- 
 est stature ! To get at the outset of a session the 
 humiliating or the encouraging estimate of one's 
 peers, mathematically exact — that was the fasci- 
 nating game ! But the ballot was constantly get- 
 ting less satisfactory. With the -growth of the 
 Senate, and the increase in the number and the im- 
 portance of the committees, as well as with the 
 adoption of the plan of organizing them all at the 
 same time, the old, slow device proved irksomely 
 tedious and time-wasting. 2 Two or three days 
 
 i 24:2, CD., Pt. I., pp. 6, 7. 
 
 2 19: 1, C. D., Vol. II., Pt. I., p. 525, April 12, 1826, remarks of 
 John Randolph ; 23: 1, C. D., Vol. X., Pt. I., pp. 20-24,Dec. 9, 1833. 
 
278 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 were often required for the work. As has been 
 said, such elections were subject to chance and to 
 plurality cliques. They were often influenced, ac- 
 cording to one who participated in them, by the 
 fact that certain members sat near to each other. 
 The secret vote was too independent of party con- 
 trol and guidance. Mr. Chambers's rule of 1826, 
 providing for distinct ballots and majority decis- 
 ions as to the chairmen, may have afforded some 
 relief. It doubled the number of ballotings ; but 
 said the reporter upon the first occasion of its use, 
 "In no case was a second balloting necessary." 
 Influences which were undermining the ballot and 
 working towards the future order are traceable 
 from the very beginning. 1 Naturally certain Sen- 
 ators would scheme and intrigue in advance of the 
 elections. " On this transaction I remark — first, 
 the singular effects of the spirit of party. When 
 the New York memorial was presented, Wright 
 wanted it to lie over till the next day, for the pur- 
 pose of having the committee agreed upon out-of- 
 doors, by the party" wrote Senator John Quincy 
 Adams in 1806. 2 Assignment of committee places 
 is a function executive or judicial in character. 
 As such the experience of most legislative bodies 
 has determined for its performance by a few men 
 
 1 Ford's ''Writings of Jefferson," VII. 132, letter to Madison, 
 June 1, 1797. 
 
 2 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, I. 384, 385. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 279 
 
 or by one man. The Senate's devious history has 
 not been exceptional. 
 
 It was common during the Presidency of Mon- 
 roe for some Senatorial leader to move to fix for 
 the appointment of the committees a day and an 
 hour somewhat in advance. Later, as the first 
 week of a session was drawing to a close, the fol- 
 lowing Monday would be set. This gave the 
 weekly holidays for consultation. Difficulties in- 
 curred in 1819 while making these previous ar- 
 rangements are indicated by three postponings of 
 the ballot, and by its delay until ten days after the 
 beginning of the session. 1 Before the appointment 
 in 1821, John H. Eaton of Tennessee testifies his 
 dissatisfaction with recent events by moving that 
 a select committee be instructed to consider the 
 rules, and " to expunge so much thereof as relates 
 to standing committees." The rules had never 
 prescribed any other method than the ballot pre- 
 vious to 1823. That year Mr. Eaton, reenforced 
 by Andrew Jackson as a colleague, courageously 
 renewed his efforts for reform, making them this 
 time constructive. He was for choosing by ballot 
 the chairmen of five leading committees, and vest- 
 ing them with the power of filling all of the 
 remaining committee positions. The Senate con- 
 sidered his plan in Committee of the Whole, but 
 adopted in its stead James Barbour's simpler prop- 
 
 1 16: 1, S. J., 7, 22, 26, 28, 2a 
 
280 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 osition for the appointment of all committees by 
 the presiding officer. 1 Thenceforth until 1845 the 
 committees were named, now by the President pro 
 tempore, now by the Vice-President, now by re- 
 currence to the ballot, now by a combination of 
 methods. None of these were satisfactory. 2 We 
 have various hints that the " spirit of party " was 
 all the time working underneath for a new order. 
 Against return to the ballot, William R. King, 
 with fourteen years of Senatorial service behind 
 him, urged upon one occasion that "arrangements 
 might be made out-of-doors, and members might 
 be influenced for the moment by popular individ- 
 uals ; " against appointment by the Vice-Presi- 
 dent, Willie P. Mangum, also a veteran, scented 
 the danger of his being " dictated to by members of 
 the body over which he presided." 3 From 1836 to 
 1845 these two able statesmen, with Samual R. 
 Southard, served in succession as Presidents pro 
 tempore, and by unanimous consent uniformly ap- 
 pointed the committees. Probably they employed 
 methods in making up the lists which had impor- 
 tant formative influence for the later practice. 
 
 Whatever precedents they may have set, it was 
 reserved for the Mexican War crisis to give the 
 
 i 18: 1, S. J., 26-28, Dec. 7-9, 1823. 
 
 2 The failure of the presiding officers is considered below, 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 8 23 : 1, C. D., Vol. X., Pt. I., p. 21, Dec. 9, 1833; 29: 1, C. G., 
 19, 20, Dec. 4, 1845. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 281 
 
 plan for appointment, and to shape the methods of 
 organization as nothing before or since has done. 
 The records of the Senate's proceedings npon the 
 opening of the Twenty-ninth Congress mark that 
 distinct step which put the selection of the com- 
 mittees into the charge of majority and minority 
 caucuses. For some time previously to 1845 party 
 majorities in the Senate had not risen beyond half 
 a dozen votes, and now a reversal of power had 
 brought the Democrats into control. Decided 
 agreement between the two sides prevailed for the 
 support of Polk's policies with reference to Texas 
 and Mexico. On Thursday, the 4th of Decem- 
 ber, some Democrats joined with the Whigs to 
 form a bare majority of one against appointment 
 of the committees by Vice-President Dallas. In 
 the debate preceding this vote frequent references 
 were made to organization of the majority for con- 
 trol in the filling out of the committees. Senator 
 Mangum, as the minority leader, spoke of "a list 
 made out and decided on by a meeting of members 
 of this body belonging to a particular party." Re- 
 plying, Senator Allen denied that the resolution 
 for appointment by the Vice-President had ema- 
 nated from a " caucus of the Democratic members," 
 but Sidney Breeze undertook to justify conditions 
 which would make that officer the mere agent of 
 the majority for presenting its previously arranged 
 slate. At the next meeting, on Monday four days 
 
282 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 later, the balloting for committees was postponed, 
 perhaps, as intimated by Senator Crittenden, with 
 a view to further harmonizing conferences between 
 the party managers. On Tuesday and Wednesday 
 the chairmen were elected by strict party votes, 
 with the exception of William Upham, who was 
 unanimously placed at the head of the Pensions. 
 Party spirit and comity were further evidenced 
 by a determination of majority and minority rights 
 as to second and third places. Vice-President 
 Dallas was for naming lay members of the com- 
 mittees in order from the one receiving most to 
 the one receiving least votes. This had been the 
 early usage. 1 But Senator Sevier, spokesman of 
 the Democrats, took the matter in hand by motions 
 which rearranged the names, and safeguarded 
 the majority's succession to chairmanships which 
 should become vacant. The Whigs were playing 
 for delay ; and only two committees had been filled 
 out by the third Monday of the session, when Sen- 
 ator Cass sprang some warlike instructions to the 
 Military, Naval, and Militia Committees. Though 
 these were not yet appointed, the Whigs were 
 whipped by a two days' debate into a unanimous 
 vote for Mr. Cass's resolutions. At length, on the 
 17th of December, the end of the organization of 
 the committees was reached ; the war committees 
 
 1 34: 1, C. G., 22, Dec. 13, 1855, remarks of the President of the 
 Senate. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATION S. 283 
 
 and the Commerce were named by ballot, but all 
 the rest — and here is the central turning-point in 
 the Senate's practice — upon unanimous consent 
 to lists presented by Senators Jesse Speight and 
 Ambrose H. Sevier. 
 
 A year later, Dec. 14, 1846, in the same Con- 
 gress, when the annual choice of committees had 
 proceeded as far as the election of the first six 
 chairmen, the following colloquy occurred between 
 Whig and Democrat : — 
 
 " Mr. Davis (Massachusetts) suggested that, if 
 any gentleman upon the other side of the Chamber 
 had a list of the committees as they had been 
 agreed upon by the majority, it might by common 
 consent be read, and declared to be a list of the 
 standing committees of the Senate, which would 
 be a great saving of time, without altering the 
 result which would be arrived at by the tedious 
 process of balloting. 
 
 " Mr. Sevier (Arkansas) observed that he had a 
 list of the committees which had been agreed upon, 
 not only on his side of the Chamber, but upon 
 the other also, which might be read and adopted 
 by common consent. 
 
 " The list having been read, — 
 
 "Mr. Mangum (minority leader) then moved 
 that the list of committees just read be the standing 
 committees of the Senate ; which was also agreed 
 to." 
 
284 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 A further item as to the above transactions is 
 attributed to Mr. Sevier at the next appointment : 
 " According to the arrangement of the last session, 
 three members on each committee had been elected 
 on his side of the Senate. The list had been 
 handed to the Senators on the other side, and they 
 had filled it up. The Naval and Military com- 
 mittees, which had been increased by order of the 
 Senate, would stand five to two." 1 
 
 Whigs and Democrats were congratulating them- 
 selves and each other upon having now at last 
 invented arrangements so harmonious and so expe- 
 dite, but a fresh difficulty shortly presented itself. 
 Upon the third trial of this caucus method a new 
 Senator refused to affiliate with either of the two 
 parties, and declined the three insignificant com- 
 mittee places which they had assigned to him. It 
 was John P. Hale, Freesoiler and solitary pioneer 
 of the Republican Party in the Senate. Upon the 
 appointments of the committees at the two follow- 
 ing sessions he was ignored. At the outset of his 
 second Congress he availed himself of his most 
 emphatic protest, the breaking of unanimous con- 
 sent to the suspension of the rules. Salmon P. 
 Chase and himself, as constituting the caucus of 
 a third party, had not, he averred, been most re- 
 motely consulted in the preparation of the com- 
 
 130: 1, C. G., 19, Dec. 13, 1847; cf. also 31: 1, C. G., 39, Dec. 
 18, 1849, remarks of Willie P. Manguin. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 285 
 
 mittee list. His movement was a stumbling-block 
 for the old-time politicians. With some beating 
 about the bush, they fell back upon the tedious but 
 time-honored ballot rule, first for the chairmen, 
 the election of whom occupied that day. The 
 recalcitrants were so far persuaded by the next 
 meeting as to allow all of the committees to be 
 named by mutual agreement save three, the Judi- 
 ciary, the Territories, and the District of Colum- 
 bia, which were important for the Freesoil issue. 1 
 Four years later these independents won the begin- 
 nings of recognition upon the committees tlirough 
 sufferance of the older organization. The Demo- 
 crats appointed Chase upon the safely non-political 
 committees, the Claims, the Roads and Canals, and 
 the Patents ; the Whigs ungraciously left vacant 
 the last places upon the Pensions and the Enrolled 
 Bills, which the Democrats filled in with the name 
 of Charles Sumner. 2 John P. Hale again ob- 
 structed organization of the committees, Dec. 12, 
 1855 ; and the Senate put in by balloting some 
 of the abundant leisure incident to waiting for 
 the end of one of the celebrated Speakership wres- 
 tlings of the House. 3 The Whig Party had disap- 
 peared from the Senate, and at this time some small 
 recognition was again given to the men of new poli- 
 
 i 31: 1,C.G., 39,44, 45. 
 
 2 33: 1, S. J., 31, 32; New York Tribune, Dec. 13, 14, 1853. 
 
 « 34: 1, C. G., 17-20, Dec. 12, 1855. 
 
286 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 tics. Said the New York Times : " The commit- 
 tee appointed by the Democratic caucus of the 
 Senate to report a list of Senate committees to be 
 voted for by the body have concluded that the 
 Republicans and Know Nothings are 'healthy 
 organizations,' sufficient at least to justify their 
 sharing in the labors of the committee room." 
 
 From 1855 until 1861 the Republicans were not 
 only accorded places, but some right of naming 
 their representatives. Without forcing the ballot 
 they contented themselves with demanding the 
 Yeas and Nays upon the final adoption of com- 
 mittee lists. 1 Their sense of unfair treatment was 
 also proclaimed in their speeches. Lyman Trum- 
 bull asserted that his party, with one-third of the 
 Senate, had been excluded by the majority utterly 
 from SQme of the committees, and upon others had 
 been given but one member out of seven ; Hanni- 
 bal Hamlin figured that the Republicans had re- 
 ceived but twenty-six of the thirty-nine committee 
 places to which they were entitled. 2 In 1859 the 
 Republican side, waxing fat and kicking more lus- 
 tily, was disposed to show discontent by refusing 
 to name its own representatives. 3 When the cau- 
 cus plan of appointing had been first tried, the lists, 
 as has been shown, were presented in open Senate 
 
 1 34: 3, S. J., 29, 30, 388, 389; 35: 1, S. J., 39-41. 
 
 2 34:3, C. G., 384. 
 
 « New York Tribune, Dec. 19, 20, 1859. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 287 
 
 by a minority member, as if to witness the perfect 
 accord of all concerned. In such spirit William 
 H. Seward and Jesse D. Bright later performed 
 the same office. 1 This custom, however, did not 
 survive war times. 
 
 In the War Congresses, the Southern element 
 being absent and party lines being somewhat bro- 
 ken, the Republican caucus performed the entire 
 function of committee assignment. Nevertheless, 
 Senator Saulsbury entered a protest, March 5, 
 1863, because the Democrats had had no voice in 
 the selection of their own members, and was fol- 
 lowed in the same strain at the next session by Sen- 
 ator Powell. 2 Answering the latter, John P. Hale 
 reviewed, in his good-humored, humorous way, his 
 own above recounted experiences; and Henry B. 
 Anthony, Republican caucus spokesman, admitted 
 that the list had not been submitted to the minority, 
 but insisted upon its justice and liberality. Before 
 long, however, the Democrats regained their privi- 
 leges. March 10, 1871, John Sherman stated with- 
 out contradiction that they had received at the 
 session then beginning their exact quota of posi- 
 tions, and that the Republicans had not changed 
 a single assignment which they had made. 8 The 
 minority was getting larger — twenty-nine out of 
 seventy-six Senators — when, in 1875, "great dis- 
 
 l 34: 3, S. J., 388, 389. 2 37: 3> c. G., 1554; 38: 1, C. G., 15. 
 » 42:1, C. G., 50. 
 
288 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 satisfaction was expressed that the majority had 
 left only two places on the Finance Committee for 
 Democrats to fill, instead of three places as on all 
 the other important committees composed of nine 
 members." x 
 
 As usual at the opening of a Congress, some 
 sort of reorganization was necessary in 1881 ; but 
 the Senate was for the first time clearly and evenly 
 divided between two political parties. One Repub- 
 lican Senator died, and three others were drawn 
 into Garfield's Cabinet. David Davis and William 
 Mahone further complicated matters by their inde- 
 pendent attitudes. There was considerable talk 
 of high-handed proceedings for the possession of 
 the committees. The Democrats brought in a list 
 in the preparation of which the Republicans had 
 had no part. A dramatic debate ensued. By plain 
 intimations of a resort to filibustering the Repub- 
 licans secured delay until the vacant seats were 
 filled. With the help of the Virginian readjuster 
 and of Vice-President Arthur, who held the cast- 
 ing vote, they then carried off the organization. 
 Garfield's death withdrew Arthur, and made the 
 situation so much more delicate that all the Repub- 
 licans dared do for two years was to move for the 
 revival and continuance of old lists, with filling 
 of vacancies by Mr. Davis, who had been chosen 
 President pro tempore. The Senate's latest history 
 i New York Tribune, Dec. 9, 1875. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 289 
 
 has been marked by the presence of a larger bal- 
 ance-of-power group, the Populists and the Silver 
 Republicans. With no element in the majority, 
 the plurality has by common consent obtained the 
 chairmanships and accompanying advantages. To 
 get these, it has had to be very careful and liberal 
 in its gifts to the third party. A proposition in 
 the Republican caucus of 1895 for union with the 
 Democrats, to the ignoring of the Populists, in 
 distributing committee positions, by contrast with 
 the Whig-Democratic agreement of the '40's, was 
 opposed vigorously and defeated. 1 The ratio on 
 committees of special importance for present issues 
 has been, as a rule, an equal membership to the 
 two large parties, and one representative from the 
 third. The fact that its determinations finally de- 
 pend upon unanimous consent makes the organiz- 
 ing party exceedingly ready to hear the complaints 
 and grant the requests of the others. 2 
 
 What has been presented in detail bears witness 
 to what was prefaced as to majority and minority 
 rights. Rarely now is a committee chosen by bal- 
 lot. 3 Many vacancies, occurring singly as sessions 
 have run on, have been filled by the Vice-Presi- 
 dent or by the President pro tempore ; but even 
 
 1 Washington Post, Dec. 3, 1895; cf. also March 9, 1897, p. 4, 
 and March 30, 1897, p. 6. 
 
 2 Washington Post, Dec. 19, 28, 1895. 
 
 8 Cf. S. J., March 5, 1872, for an instance since the War. 
 
290 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 these cases seem of late to be only formal an- 
 nouncement of caucus decisions, or mere recogni- 
 tion of binding Senate customs. Forty years of 
 trial have established securely and completed the 
 plan of choosing the committees by party caucuses. 
 We may survey from a distance a recent "reor- 
 ganization of the Senate." A new Congress is 
 beginning. At the preceding session the Demo- 
 crats were in control, but now the Republicans 
 are considering whether or not their ranks are 
 sufficiently recruited to capture the places of 
 power. They decide in the affirmative. They 
 prepare a new committee list, in which they name 
 all of the chairmen and a majority of each com- 
 mittee. Following Democratic example, they are 
 careful to assign to the Populists and Silver Re- 
 publicans such tempting balance-of-power plums 
 as will conciliate them, and reconcile them to the 
 proposed change. The slate is presented to the 
 Democrats, who, in the minority role, have been 
 patiently awaiting events. The Democrats are 
 at first doubtful what course to pursue. They 
 are not sure that conditions are so changed as no 
 longer to guarantee their supremacy. A trial of 
 strength upon the floor of the Senate may be ad- 
 visable, say in the election of a President pro tem- 
 pore. But upon further reflection they take up 
 the proffered schedule, and begin a series of par- 
 leys with the enemy. *« The Senate will be largely 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 291 
 
 given up this week to caucusing by all parties, and 
 the daily sessions will likely be brief," observes 
 at this stage a knowing newspaper correspon- 
 dent. Granted that the general change shall be 
 made, the Democrats are not altogether satisfied 
 with some of the ratios proposed. They send cer- 
 tain counter-propositions in written form to the Re- 
 publicans. Meetings of representatives from the 
 two parties follow. When all disputed points are 
 at length settled, the Democrats retire within their 
 own quarters, and proceed to write in their names 
 upon the blanks — by no means a harmonious 
 family task for either party. 1 The Republicans are 
 now impatience personified, realizing that they are 
 at the mercy of Democratic delay. They scold, 
 and threaten to refuse to adjourn for the holidays 
 until the completed list is returned to them. A 
 House resolution for adjournment is favorably re- 
 ported from the Senate Appropriations Committee 
 to which it has been referred, and which, acciden- 
 tally, has a Democratic majority. In this way the 
 subject of committee organization is projected upon 
 the floor of the Senate. There the Republicans 
 are scandalized by the unprecedented proposal for 
 laying over appointment of the committees until 
 the New Year. The Democrats declare in self- 
 defense that they are expected to accomplish in 
 
 1 The concluding pages of Chapter IX. describe this internal 
 procedure of the party caucuses. 
 
292 CONGBESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 three days a task for which the Republicans have 
 taken three weeks. The Republicans thoroughly 
 sound them as to their intentions. They play a 
 little upon the suspense of the would-be organizers, 
 but at length give out that they may be ready to 
 report the day before Christmas. Meanwhile the 
 President of the United States also finds the holi- 
 day argument available in a message urging no 
 recess before the national finances are relieved. 
 The House retracts its proposal to adjourn. Ac- 
 cordingly the Democratic Senators take their time, 
 and return the completed list to the Republicans 
 on the 28th of December. The next to the last 
 day of the year consummates the process. Unan- 
 imous consent in open Senate once more suspends 
 the ancient ballot rule. The leader of the largest 
 group presents the list. Democrats demand the 
 Yeas and Nays, and Populists will not vote. A 
 long debate follows, by which, contrary to custom, 
 the relations of the party caucuses are a second 
 time aired for a candid gallery and journalistic 
 world. Finally a cynic voice proclaims the reor- 
 ganization an accomplished fact, with the words : 
 " If the debating society is over, I wish to move 
 that the Senate proceed to the consideration of 
 executive business." 
 
 A phase of Senatorial committee development 
 within the last score of years requires notice. Upon 
 the occasion of the deadlock in 1881 the Democrats 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 293 
 
 slated the Republicans with three minor, non-politi- 
 cal chairmanships. The Republicans of that Con- 
 gress, in their successful list, gave not only these 
 three positions to the Democrats, but also the head- 
 ships of three select committees and one joint com- 
 mittee, with majorities upon all of the seven. 1 
 There were then forty-four committees, there are 
 now (1898) fifty-nine. Thirteen chairmen are now 
 taken from the minorities, eleven Democrats and 
 two Populists. 2 Upon some of the committees 
 headed by Republicans the majorities are from a 
 minority party ; many are constituted as of old with 
 Republican majority and Democratic minority ; 
 some are made up wholly of Populists and Demo- 
 crats ; some have a Republican minority thrust into 
 the midst of Democrats and Populists. The key 
 to these increased privileges of the minorities, and 
 to this enlargement or inflation of the committee 
 system by one-third, is the demand of individual 
 Senators for quarters and clerical aid at public 
 expense. This motive was avowed by Lyman 
 Trumbull twenty-five years ago. 8 When a select 
 committee on woman's suffrage was created, Dec. 
 16, 1881, Senators Vest and Morrill intimated 
 that the covert object was a room and employees 
 
 1 47 : Special Session, Cong. Directory, 3d ed\, pp. 81-85; New 
 York Tribune, March, 1881. 
 
 2 54 : 1, C. R., 424, Dec. 30, 1895, remarks of Senator Gorman; 
 Washington Post, Dec. 9, 1895. 
 
 » 42 : 1, C. G., 50, March 10, 1871. 
 
294 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 for a Senatorial lord of creation. 1 " What these 
 gentlemen want, to come down to the real facts 
 of the case," said Senator Morgan, "is a conven- 
 ient body servant, a man who will wait upon them 
 in a quiet and excellent way. It is not for the 
 public service, it is for private service, that we are 
 voting these messengers, and for the accommo- 
 dation of a few gentlemen." 2 The Senate re- 
 fused to abolish the Committee on Revolutionary 
 Claims because its room belonged by custom to the 
 minority caucus. 3 In 1884 Senator Vest returned 
 to the charge against u the sinecure committees," 
 affirming that there were six which had "never had 
 a bill or a resolution or a particle of business before 
 them." 4 At that time the Butler House, rented 
 annually for from twenty-five to thirty-five thou- 
 sand dollars, was being used avowedly for commit- 
 tee meetings, really for individual accommodation, 
 and the Maltby House is now similarly employed. 
 Said the chairman of the Committee on Rules, 
 William P. Frye, "There are a dozen or sixteen 
 committees of the Senate that can be dispensed with 
 just as well as not ; and if each Senator has a clerk, 
 the necessity for those committees, if ever there was 
 any, ceases with the employment of that clerk." 5 
 Plainly here are Senatorial usages respecting 
 
 i 47 : 1, C. R., 144. 2 47 : i f c. R., 5387, July 27, 1882. 
 a 48 : 1*0. R., 232, Jan. 7, 1884. 
 4 48 : 1, C. R., 308, Jan. 11, 1884. 
 6 49 : 1, C. R., 88, March 31, 1885. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 295 
 
 which Vice-President Jefferson, as he compiled his 
 Manual, was silent. These admissions show that 
 the Senate is not unlike many another delegate 
 body in that fear of popular punishment which 
 leads to indirection. They may be taken at their 
 worth as measures of its alleged indifference to 
 public opinion. What a Websterian fund of rhet- 
 oric, logic, imagination, is that which transforms 
 the Committee to Inquire into all Claims of Citi- 
 zens of the United States against the Government 
 of Nicaragua into the Committee on the Construc- 
 tion of the Nicaragua Canal, the Quadro-Centennial 
 into the International Expositions, the latter half 
 of the Agricultural and Forestry into the Forest 
 Reservations in California, then into the Forest 
 Reservations, then into the Forest Reservations and 
 the Protection of Game ! What skill of leader- 
 ship, surpassing Henry Clay's, will shortly pilot 
 them into the standing list, and cut their names in 
 twain, when, presto, there will be two committees 
 where one was before ! Could he but return long 
 enough to read over the latest annual reports of 
 property under the care of the Sergeant>at^Arms, — 
 mostly in committee rooms, — and of moneys dis- 
 bursed by the Secretary from that Contingent Fund 
 which covers such a multitude of sins, — mostly 
 committee sins, — the charge of luxurious extrava- 
 gance would be more than amply sustained in the 
 mind of any one of those out-of-date Constitutional 
 
296 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Fathers who planned the upper house of Congress. 
 He would wonder at the silk gloves, the cork- 
 screws, the quinine pills ; he Would shake his head 
 over the Turkish rockers, the Smyrna and Ax- 
 minster rugs, the antique oak French bevel mir- 
 rors. But the American of twentieth century 
 aspirations, though to-day his pockets be empty 
 as he treads Washington's beautiful public halls, 
 though he sees reflected in their golden domes the 
 stintings of his coffee and sugar, rather condones 
 and forgives it all in the proud sense that anything 
 less were not worthy of a nation so rich and so 
 grand — his own country. 
 
 While the Senate has been so generous toward 
 itself, what care for the interests of private citi- 
 zens has its committee system reflected ? From 
 the number of reports presented by their private 
 bill committees the two branches of Congress seem 
 in this respect to be about equally active. The 
 Senate's rules have shown discrimination in favor 
 of public as against private measures, but not to 
 nearly so marked a degree as those of the House. 
 The tendency is noticeable as early as 1833. 1 Fee- 
 ble imitations of the House plan of making Fridays 
 and Saturdays private-bill days failed in ante hel- 
 ium times. 2 The more loosely organized Senate 
 
 i 22:2, C. D., 359, Feb. 6, 1833. 
 
 2 23: 1, S. J-, 247, 256, 367, June 28, 1834 ; 24: 1, S. J., 379, May 
 24, 1836. 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND OUTWARD RELATIONS. 297 
 
 code enables private measures to be reached upon 
 its calendar, and to secure consideration upon the 
 demand of the individual member. Petitions, gen- 
 erally of an unselfish and public-spirited char- 
 acter which does honor to American citizenship, 
 are heard as of old in open Senate, to the inspira- 
 tion of lofty legislative aims. Time is not pet- 
 tily wasted in questioning the reports of claim 
 and pension committees. They are trusted so im- 
 plicitly, and their bills are enacted into law so read- 
 ily, that the onlooker carries away an impression 
 of rashness and carelessness. To such and worse 
 charges the newspapers have given sensational cur- 
 rency. The Senators, in self-defense, go back to 
 the committee rooms, and claim that, in these, 
 courts of thirteen men each pass twice upon every 
 private measure as carefully and as strictly as 
 would regular judicial tribunals. 1 They recognize 
 the need of some corrective for public misappre- 
 hension, but do not suggest for the committee 
 meetings that publicity which attaches to the pro- 
 ceedings of ordinary courts. The Senate appears 
 more able and more willing than the House to 
 bring private legislation to a finality. Senator 
 Hoar, contrasting the two, charges the latter, by 
 admission of its Speaker, with such an inability to 
 sift private measures that it must either let through 
 more of the evil than of the good, or let through 
 
 1 54: 1, C. R., 2046, 2047, Feb. 24, 1896. 
 
298 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 none at all. 1 The opportunities and the induce- 
 ments of log-rolling are smaller in the Senate. 
 Because of those same conditions which have en- 
 abled it in respect of public and personal expendi- 
 tures to be much more regardless of restraining 
 popular sentiment, it has shown a more liberal and 
 often a juster spirit towards private citizens with 
 claims against the government. Though it has 
 lent a too willing ear to the business barons, its 
 records are clearer of niggardliness and selfish fa- 
 voritism in its relations with that multitude of 
 humbler men who have had irons in the Congres- 
 sional fire. 
 
 i An article entitled "Has the Senate Degenerated?" by- 
 George F. Hoar, The Forum, XXIII. 140. 
 
The rule of the Senate has been its own sense of propriety and 
 dignity. 
 
 Henry B. Anthony. 
 
 I am not much of a stickler anyway regarding the jurisdiction 
 of the committees; they are but auxiliary to the business of this 
 Senate. 
 
 Horace Chilton. 
 
 Yet I stay here wrangling vile politics in a contentious Sen- 
 ate, where there is no harmony df soul, no wish to communicate 
 a happy sensation ; where all is snip-snap and contradictory; in 
 short, where it is a source of joy to place the speech of a fellow 
 Senator in a distorted or ridiculous point of view. 
 
 William Maclay. 
 
300 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Absence of development is the first feature to 
 be marked in a history of Senatorial legislative 
 methods. It is impressed by the testimony of 
 Senators themselves, especially of New England- 
 ers, from John Quincy Adams to Henry Cabot 
 Lodge. " The rules of the Senate are practically 
 unchanged from what they were at the beginning," 
 declares the latter. 1 "Rules are never observed 
 in this body; they are only made to be broken. 
 We are a law unto ourselves," commented Presi- 
 dent pro tempore Ingalls. 2 Mutual respect, cour- 
 tesy, forbearance, kindness, propriety, dignity, 
 sedateness, character, reputation, honorable obli- 
 gation, high responsibility as gentlemen and Sen- 
 ators, — these are the graces that keep the Senate's 
 peace. Fixed and arbitrary law is for law-breaking 
 assemblies. Tyro legislators need a Yankee school- 
 master, but Senatorial maturity revels in a gradu- 
 ate seminary. When his attention was called to 
 the plurality provision for choice of the committees, 
 
 1 North American Review, 157:526. Cf. also editorial in the 
 Washington Post, March 8, 1897. 2 44 : 2, C. R., 266, Dec. 18, 1876. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 301 
 
 a chairman of the Senate's Committee on Rules 
 exclaimed: "I had no idea such a rule was in 
 existence ! " Contrast his lack of familiarity with 
 the sharp and exact parliamentary knowledge of 
 every House leader. New Senators who have 
 served in other legislative bodies are puzzled, and 
 now and then overleap themselves in an amusing 
 way, because of the simplicity and insignificance 
 of the Senate's code. No occasion there for mid- 
 night poring over the manual and digest, or des- 
 perate outcry against a complicated procedure. 
 
 The nineteen brief regulations of 1789 upon 
 which the Senate founded its system were sim- 
 plicity itself. They had but one or two references 
 to committees, and no prescription of an order of 
 business save that the legislative day was to begin 
 with reading of the journal. Seventeen years 
 passed before the Senate bethought itself of a re- 
 vision. Then Jeffersonian ideas of a return to first 
 principles prevailed. Almost as long a time inter- 
 vened before the third general remodeling, and 
 succeeding attempts have likewise been few, fee- 
 ble, far between. The Senate has never adopted 
 the excellent House practices of appending the 
 rules to each journal, and of annually collating 
 into a manual its procedure and precedents. 1 It 
 
 1 In 1789 William Maclay, with Keystone example in mind, 
 proposed that the Senate's rules he engrossed, and hung up con- 
 spicuously in the Chamber, with facilities for attaching to them 
 the names of Senators guilty from time to time of misbehavior! 
 
302 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 prefers oral tradition and custom to the nice mod- 
 ern print. Its standing Committee on Rules, be- 
 yond looking after janitors and the restaurant, is 
 a nonentity; it is, to repeat a favorite figure of 
 radical Congressmen, little more than a graveyard 
 for proposed parliamentary reforms. 
 
 Some idea of legislative methods in the House 
 of Representatives when Washington was Presi- 
 dent may be found ready at hand by looking down 
 from the Senate's galleries to-day. That strong 
 framework which the House has reared is wanting, 
 — the previous question and the hour rule for 
 regulating time, the three calendars and the two 
 committees of the whole for classifying business, 
 the one supreme committee for selection. Each 
 committee can report in its alphabetical turn. 
 Bills rank upon the solitary calendar simply ac- 
 cording to the times of their introduction. 1 Stress 
 is laid upon the order of precedence among mo- 
 tions, and special orders are limited by the two- 
 thirds device. The Committee of the Whole on 
 the State of the Union figures with its ancient 
 character. " Half our business is done by unan- 
 imous consent," is about as true now as in the 
 day of Lyman Trumbull. 2 According to Senator 
 Piatt there are but two ways of getting a vote : 
 
 i 54:2, C. R., 1607, 1608, remarks of Senators Hale, Tillman, 
 et al. 
 
 2 42: 1, C. G., 49, March 10, 1871 ; Washington Post, April 11, 
 1897, article on the Previous Question by Senator R. Q. Mills. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 303 
 
 by unanimous consent to fix a time for action ; 
 by " sitting it out." 1 
 
 Some weary night, like that historic one of the 
 House in 1811, the Senate may " sit in " the pre- 
 vious question. In its ancient form this rule was 
 included in the first code, but it rested uneasily 
 upon the necks of the Fathers. Jefferson, while 
 President of the Senate, described and sympa- 
 thized with a ruse for its avoidance. 2 He later 
 refused to apply it to amendments. His succes- 
 sor, Burr, inveighed against it in that remarkable 
 farewell speech which prophesied the Constitu- 
 tion's dying agonies for the Senate's floor. 3 Burr's 
 suggestion for its discardure was adopted in 1806. 4 
 The previous question in the modern sense, how- 
 ever, has found no entrance to the Senate, though 
 the list of attempts therefor is impressive. Ben- 
 ton and his coadjutors heaped unmeasured denun- 
 ciation upon Clay's threat to apply House methods 
 of limiting debate. 5 Stephen A. Douglas was foij 
 the cloture in its most unlimited form, and would 
 not be satisfied with a rule advanced by Senator 
 Underwood for laying an amendment on the table 
 
 i 53:1, C. R., 1636; Washington Post, April 11, 1897, R. Q. 
 Mills. 
 
 2 Ford's " Writings of Jefferson," VII. 224. 
 
 3 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, I. 365, Mar. 2, 1805. 
 
 4 9: 1, C. A., 201, Mar. 26, 1806 ; 51 : 2, C. R., 1687, Jan. 22, 1891, 
 Senator Harris's assertion that it had been used hut four times. 
 
 6 Roosevelt's " Life of Benton," 250-252; 27 : 1, C. G., 411, Aug. 
 31, 1841; 51:2, C. R., 1687. 
 
304 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 without prejudice to the original measure. 1 Like- 
 wise have fallen short a score of other efforts by 
 such statesmen as Hale, Pomeroy, Hamlin, Wilson, 
 Wright, Blair, Hoar, Hill, Vest, and Mason. The 
 most ndtable of later attempts are those of 1891 
 upon consideration of the so-called Force Bill, 
 and of 1893 upon the Repeal of the Silver Pur- 
 chase Act. 2 Distribution of the appropriation bills 
 among the committees has been agitated with the 
 same unsuccessful outcome. 3 
 
 The main reasons for this unvarying unwilling- 
 ness to organize along stronger lines lie in those 
 outward social forces which, as has been set forth, 
 originated the Senate, and have never surrendered 
 their influence. What a bulwark for the minority 
 has been Mr. Jefferson's opening quotation of On- 
 slow in his Manual ! How far and how long has 
 it thrown the shadows of kings across the sea ! 
 How often have its venerable cadences silenced 
 the innovator of the Senate ! Rules, it decrees, 
 must be conservative, not creative ; defensive weap- 
 
 i 31: 1, C. G., 1688-1690, Aug. 28, 1850. 
 
 2 For review of the movement, cf . speech of Senator Harris, 
 51 : 2, C. R., 1669, 1670, Jan. 22, 1891 ; also 52 : 2, Sen. Mis. Docs., Vol. 
 VII., pp. 217-230. Senator Mills argues for introduction of the 
 previous question, Washington Post, April 11, 1897. 
 
 8 Cf. distribution in the House, above, pp. 181-186. For cases 
 of agitation in the Senate consult 46: 1, S. J., 57, 58, April 1, 1879; 
 48: 1, C. R., 204-210, 266-276, 342, 343, Dec. 20, 1883, Jan. 8, 1884; 
 54: 1, C. R., 1412-1426, 1458-1471, 1522-1538, 1575-1578, Dec. 11, 1895, 
 Feb. 4, 1896 et seq.; 54: 2, C. R., Feb. 27, 1897, remarks of Senator 
 Dubois. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 305 
 
 ons of the lesser parties, not tools of the respon- 
 sible majority ; watchful of justice and individual 
 liberty, rather than promotive of a more effectual 
 legislative order. By the Senate the Constitu- 
 tion makers intended to secure the wisdom of 
 elders sitting continuously as a council of revis- 
 ion. The upper chamber was not to be as active 
 as the lower in initiating laws ; and for a long 
 time it continued truer to the conception than it 
 is now. Professor Woodrow Wilson observes that 
 this purpose is promoted by " simple, compara- 
 tively unencumbered forms of procedure." 1 The 
 large element of new and unacquainted member- 
 ship, instanced as partly responsible for the cen- 
 tralizing tendency in the House, cannot possibly 
 figure in the Senate ; nor has necessity brought 
 the subject of rules to notice with biennial regu- 
 larity. The average age of Senators is sixty; in 
 1890 the youngest was fifteen years above the 
 Constitutional minimum. 2 In no legislative body 
 of the world do the older members govern more 
 supremely, and the conservatism of old age is 
 tritely proverbial. They are upon the inside of 
 the Rules Committee's room, braced against the 
 doors ; and only death carries them away. 
 
 1 Cf. also Henry Litchfield West, in Washington Post, Mar. 14, 
 1897, p. 6. 
 
 2 George F. Hoar in Youth's Companion, Nov. 13, 1890, re- 
 printed in 51:2, C. R., 1680. 
 
306 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 The House has shown a rapid and constant 
 passage of legislation from the floor into the com- 
 mittee room. By 1825, it will be remembered, 
 the larger part of the work of law construction 
 had come within the latter field. This process 
 has dragged in the upper branch. Clear ideas of 
 the exact status are to be had by considering and 
 comparing the spheres of the Senate in its entirety, 
 — the majority, the minority, the caucus, the com- 
 mittee, the individual. The large power of in- 
 dividuals and minorities is a striking corollary of 
 slow parliamentary advance. As between the in- 
 dividual and the committee, in the Senate, the 
 evidence goes to support the former as the real 
 legislative unit. Dr. von Hoist would inscribe 
 over the entrance to its chamber Benton's often 
 repeated phrase: "Proud as a Roman Senator." 
 In the House one sees different grades and types of 
 members, — the member who is going somewhere, 
 and the member who does not know whither he is 
 going ; the member who is pushing his hair back 
 from a brain-heated forehead, and the member who 
 is too lazy to stand or to sit upright. The busy 
 member does not know that the lazy member 
 exists^ and the lazy member's dreamy eyes are too 
 far above the gallery rims to perceive the busy mem- 
 ber. But in the Senate every man stands upon 
 his feet, alert; watchful of the comings and go- 
 ings of his fellows ; according to temperament, pee- 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 
 
 307 
 
 vish, irascible, inquisitive, calculating, smoothly 
 smiling or serenely self-poised. Upon a first view 
 of our Senate, most visitors feel away down in 
 their hearts some stirring of that awe which over- 
 took the untutored Gaul when he burst into its 
 august Roman prototype. Nevertheless, an irrev- 
 erent child of latter-day democracy now and then 
 whispers, " bear-garden." 
 
 Senators are diplomats in securing election. 
 Diplomacy is one of their Constitutional functions. 
 They are diplomats, in some sense, as are mem- 
 bers of the German Bundesrath. Whereas in the 
 House three hundred and fifty-seven comparatively 
 small and equal areas fret against each other, in 
 the Senate, embracing the same vast territory, 
 there are but forty-five of the most abrupt variety 
 in sizes and conditions. What is there in common 
 physically between Maine and Texas, the one in 
 its unity, the other in its entirety ? Senators often 
 demonstrate the weakness of the bonds which 
 unite them into committees. Sometimes, in their 
 large independence one of another, they even 
 make war upon caucus determinations, revealing 
 family secrets to the enemy in open Senate. The 
 disratings of Sumner and Douglas from their 
 chairmanships by their compeers roused Achillean 
 wrath. Party lines and caucus schemes of " con- 
 ciliation and compromise " quickly went to pieces 
 over the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act because 
 
308 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 one Senator flew the track. Publicists generally 
 note for the Senate the absence of such sharp 
 and prolonged wrangles over parliamentary ques- 
 tions as have been common in the House. Sena- 
 tors are rather given, as they themselves state it, 
 to "scolding," to " reading lectures " one to another. 
 Parliamentary tricks are not required as brakes 
 upon legislation ; they do serve sometimes to accel- 
 erate its movement. The Senate's smaller number 
 has made each voice and vote correspondingly more 
 valuable. Therefore the absence of a particular 
 member lias more than once brought the looked- 
 for opportunity of putting a measure through. 
 In his vivid personal gallery, Maclay draws the 
 sarcastic picture of a Senator brought in with his 
 bed and with night-cap on, in order that Congress 
 might be prevented from moving to Philadelphia. 1 
 Jefferson emphasizes the importance of the absentee 
 for the passage of those great measures which en- 
 gaged the earlier Congresses. 2 Just a century 
 later Mr. Hill charges that advantage is artfully 
 taken of his withdrawal from the chamber to refer 
 a bill prohibiting the use of alcoholic liquors in 
 the Capitol to a committee constituted dangerously 
 favorable for reporting it back. 3 
 
 1 " Maclay's Journal," 285; cf. also pp. 145, 169 et al. 
 
 2 Ford's "Writings of Jefferson," VII. 132, 133, letter of June 
 1, 1797. 
 
 s 54: 2, C. R., 1512, Feb. 4, 1897; cf. also the Du Pont incident 
 mentioned below, p. 311, 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 309 
 
 So much for the general importance of the indi- 
 vidual Senator. What advantage has he, or has a 
 minority, when pitted against a committee? The 
 distortion of the committee system for personal 
 and minority convenience merely material has been 
 described. 1 Bills may be presented by Senators, 
 and placed upon the calendar without any refer- 
 ence whatever, and are there on a footing of ab- 
 solute equality with committee measures. 2 The 
 power of the individual is evidenced by those fa- 
 vorable reports obtained from committees by what 
 Senator Vest styles, "the reprehensible practice 
 of polling members on the floor." A project for 
 a new rule, introduced and reintroduced by the 
 Senator from Missouri, explains itself, and is here 
 in point : " Resolved, That no report shall be re- 
 ceived by the Senate from any standing or select 
 committee unless such report has been considered 
 by said committee at a session attended by a quo- 
 rum of its members." 3 In the two privileges of 
 unlimited debate and unlimited amendment the 
 individual or a minority can absolutely overawe 
 the committee. Amendment, according to Sen- 
 ator Hoar, is "perhaps more important even than 
 free debate." " A long speech, wandering off from 
 the bill, is a very different thing from a short 
 amendment, directed to the texture of the bill 
 
 1 Above pp. 292-296. 2 54 : 1, C. R., 424, Dec. 30, 1895. 
 3 C. R., Feb. 26, 1897, March 16, 1897. 
 
310 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 itself, and intended to increase its beneficial, or to 
 diminish its prejudicial action," said Thomas H. 
 Benton. The great strength which the small 
 minority, or even a single Senator, obtains by 
 combining the two, has been demonstrated by 
 amendments of appropriation bills against the will 
 of two-thirds of the Senate. 1 Long before an ap- 
 propriation bill comes from the House, the Sena- 
 tors begin to send amendments to the committee 
 which has jurisdiction over the particular subject; 
 e.g., to the Naval Affairs in case of the Naval Ap- 
 propriation Bill. These are reported back, and re- 
 committed to the Appropriations. Having passed 
 through this regular process of double considera- 
 tion, each is ready to be called up without gain- 
 say by the original introducer. The weakness of 
 the committee under such conditions is manifest. 
 Upon the floor its chairman is a nervous, deferen- 
 tial, conciliatory body. In him is wanting the so 
 often quickly displayed irritation of the House 
 chieftain when interrupted by attacks or inquiries 
 of other members. He is the victim of "parlia- 
 mentary blackmail." He sits silent, afraid to dis- 
 cuss or to defend his measures, lest the opposition 
 be aroused to an eternity of talk. Committees 
 make themselves felt, however, in a negative way ; 
 that is, they bury bills. The doubt which im- 
 pends as to the fate of a resolution is often appar- 
 
 i 42: 2, C. G., 2874, April 29, 1872, Senator Sherman. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 311 
 
 ent in the explanatory remarks and appeals to 
 public opinion with which a Senator accompanies 
 its introduction, and in his efforts to secure from 
 the chairman outspoken promises to report it one 
 way or another, or to have the committee positively 
 so instructed by vote of the Senate. Even this 
 negative power is offset by the large rights of a 
 committee's minority, which can report its views 
 directly to the Senate and have them printed with- 
 out intervention of the chairman. A successful 
 surprise was sprung upon the majority in connec- 
 tion with the Du Pont contested election case. 
 Two majority Senators were absent and unpaired. 
 A minority member of the Committee on Privi- 
 leges and Elections, without consulting its chief, 
 moved that the Senate take up the subject im- 
 mediately, and carried the day against vigorous 
 objection. 1 
 
 Due emphasis having been given to what the 
 Senate has not done, it is now meet to trace the 
 parliamentary progress which it has made. To 
 say that none has been shown is altogether too 
 broad a statement. Compared with the present 
 moment, there has never been a time in its history 
 when changes more numerous or more important 
 were being agitated. 2 The same general causes 
 
 i 54: 1, C. R., 4768-4772, May 4, 1896. 
 
 2 Editorial on the Rules of the Senate, Washington Post, Mar. 
 7, 1897, 
 
312 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 noted for the House advance have operated, though 
 in a less degree, for the Senate. They have 
 brought it to the stage of those devices already 
 named and described as characteristic of its pres- 
 ent rules and customs. 1 
 
 Its membership has increased from twenty-six 
 to ninety. If its entire history be divided into 
 decades, four stand out conspicuous for marked 
 growth. Twelve Senators were added from 1810 
 to 1820 ; ten, from 1840 to 1850 ; eight, from 1860 
 to 1870 ; twelve, from 1880 to 1890. 2 Quickened 
 parliamentary development has distinguished each 
 of these four periods. In 1810-1820 the standing 
 committee plan was adopted, and the old method of 
 choosing committees by ballot broke down. In 
 1840-1850 the device of filling committee lists by 
 majority and minority caucuses came into vogue, 
 and special orders received their first regulation. 
 This decade having enlarged the Senate to more 
 
 1 Above, p. 302. 
 
 Number of Number of Increase of 
 
 8 Year - States. Senators. Senators. 
 
 1790 .... 13 26 
 
 1800 .... 16 32 6 
 
 1810 .... 17 34 2 
 
 1820 .... 23 46 12 
 
 1830 .... 24 48 2 
 
 1840 .... 26 52 4 
 
 1850 .... 31 62 10 
 
 1860 .... 33 66 4 
 
 1870 .... 37 74 8 
 
 1880 .... 38 76 2 
 
 1890 .... 44 88 12 
 
 1898 .... 45 90 2 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 313 
 
 than sixty members, the committees, which until 
 1853 consisted uniformly of five or three Senators, 
 were enlarged to seven or five. In 1860-1870 
 the Appropriations Committee was created ; the 
 treatment of its bills was carefully prescribed, and 
 custom speedily gave them precedence. Special 
 orders were put under a two-thirds requirement. 
 With the close of the decade, debate limitations 
 were applied to amendments upon appropriation 
 bills, and to proceedings upon the calendar under 
 the Anthony Rule. Certain committees were in- 
 creased in membership in 1873 from seven to nine, 
 and a new one was added with eleven. The aug- 
 mentation of the fourth period, 1880-1890, has 
 been followed and marked by incessant public 
 discussion and dissatisfaction with the Senate's 
 methods, and by many attempts to introduce and 
 apply the previous question. Uniformity in the 
 size of the committees has almost disappeared; 
 they now range through all the scale of odd num- 
 bers up to fifteen. 
 
 The onward sweep of changing national life and 
 the great central phenomena of the Civil War 
 have played their parts also. Original legislation 
 on the part of the Senate in 1841-1843 is indi- 
 cated by the presentation of five hundred and four 
 bills. Many of these, however, were but reintro- 
 ductions at the second and third sessions. Com- 
 parison with the House is best made by figures 
 
314 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 for the second session, at which Senators brought 
 in three hundred and thirty-seven bills, and Repre- 
 sentatives five hundred and ninety-four. In 1861- 
 1863 Senators introduced seven hundred and fif- 
 teen, Representatives nine hundred and fifty-one ; 
 in 1881-1883, Senators two thousand, six hundred 
 and fifty-two, Representatives eight thousand and 
 fifty-two; in 1895-1897, Senators three thousand, 
 nine hundred and forty-five, Representatives ten 
 thousand, six hundred and thirty-nine. Thus half 
 a century has seen the Senate's activity in this 
 respect grow to more than tenfold. 
 
 Other general features of the development may 
 be succinctly stated. The progress, like that of the 
 House, has been away from the foreign parliament- 
 ary law with which a beginning was made. By a 
 growth of custom as well as by the adoption of 
 new rules the Senate has been gradually adapting 
 itself to its environment. A marked characteristic 
 of the regulations added from time to time has 
 been the large attention which they have given, 
 not to the committee, but to the individual. The 
 key-word of the first rules is "member;" of the 
 latest, " Senator." A large block of methods deal- 
 ing with impeachments, treaties, and nominations 
 forms part of the code. The Senate's Executive 
 functions give a greater importance of a particular 
 kind to certain committees than the corresponding 
 committees of the House enjoy. Nominations, for 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 315 
 
 instance, are referred in great numbers to the 
 Foreign Relations, the Indian Affairs, the Post- 
 Offices and Post-Roads, and the Judiciary. The 
 House and the Executive having both passed 
 through a much more rapid evolution than the 
 Senate, their influence, the one on each side, in 
 pulling and tugging it along, as it were, is note- 
 worthy. This influence has given an artificial cast 
 to the Senate's changes. House example was 
 partly responsible in 1816 for the Senate's crea- 
 tion of eleven standing committees at a stroke, 
 and the occasion for raising such a number at one 
 time was an analysis of the President's Message. 
 The strong force of House analogy has been felt 
 and feared by those Senators who have opposed 
 the previous question and the distribution of the 
 appropriation bills. An increasing flood of par- 
 tially enacted laws has poured in from the House 
 for Senate action ; an increasing flood of nomina- 
 tions has poured in from the President for confir- 
 mation or rejection. The impression seems to be 
 abroad that the Senate has grasped to itself a share 
 in lawmaking which it ought not to have. That 
 this is incorrect the above data for the introduc- 
 tion of bills go towards showing. Business has 
 rather been forced upon it. If the Senate had 
 even kept up its proportion, the number of its bills 
 would now be twice as large as it is. If appro- 
 priation and tariff bills are amended more than 
 
316 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 formerly, their changed character and enlarged 
 importance, as well as the increasing inability of 
 the House to perform the function, must justify 
 the Senate's greater interference. 
 
 In connection with these bills have come the 
 most important limitations upon debate and amend- 
 ment, the vital part of the process by which the 
 Senate has reached its present order and methods 
 of business. The central transition period from 
 the old to the new began with 1870, and was 
 completed upon the codification of the rules in 
 1884. Since 1884 the rules have been modified 
 in but two cases that have even approached im- 
 portance. 1 
 
 What, in the first place, was the progress that 
 had been made by 1870 ? Under the earliest rules 
 debaters were restricted to two speeches upon the 
 same subject in any one day. 2 The narrowing pro- 
 cess began with prohibitions of debate upon sec- 
 ondary and subsidiary motions. For example, in 
 1820 Senator Burrill proposed to make the motion 
 to lay on the table undebatable. Such require- 
 ments of decision " without debate " are now a no- 
 ticeable feature of the Senate's code. The most 
 general are those secured by the late Senator Har- 
 ris, which make undebatable almost all motions to 
 
 i 49: 1, S. J., 945, June 21, 1886; 50: 1 S. J., 427, 428, March 7, 
 1888. 
 
 2 An instance of the enforcement of this rule is given in J. Q. 
 Adams's Memoirs, I. 323, 324. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 317 
 
 depart from the order of proceedings laid down in 
 the rules. 1 Time was ample enough at first for the 
 consideration of all measures introduced. Senator 
 John Quincy Adams complained of " the continued 
 state of nihility," and noted occasions when the 
 Senate, having dispatched what business had come 
 up from the House, adjourned pending the arrival 
 of more. An important bill would be set for a 
 certain day and hour in advance, doubtless to give 
 the orators time and notice to prepare. Early in 
 the century the custom of confining these special 
 orders to the latter part of each day's session arose. 
 Revisions of 1820 and 1828 gave precedence to the 
 unfinished business coming over from one day to an- 
 other. A rule proposed by Benjamin Ruggles in 
 1828, and evidently based upon the then prevailing 
 practice, prescribed as the daily order of business : 
 1, Resolutions of State legislatures, petitions, and 
 memorials ; 2, Reports of committees, and bills in- 
 troduced on leave ; 3, Motions or resolutions of in- 
 dividual Senators ; 4, Orders of the day. This is 
 the framework for arrangements of to-day. - The 
 present programme for the routine, so-called morn- 
 ing, business dates from 1834. The increase of spe- 
 cial orders demanded in 1856 regulation of their 
 priority strictly according to the time of their cre- 
 ation. In 1862 John P. Hale secured the limita- 
 tion of a two-thirds vote for their making, with the 
 
 148:1, S. J., 442, Mar. 19, 1884. 
 
318 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 suggestion that it would be valuable in giving pre- 
 cedence to financial measures. 
 
 The close of the Civil War found the business 
 of the Senate so suddenly augmented, that what 
 with the precedence of appropriation bills and Exec- 
 utive business, and what with the time consumed 
 merely in the introduction of petitions, bills, re- 
 ports, and so forth, not to mention unlimited de- 
 bate, many important committee measures failed 
 for want of final consideration and a vote. If a few 
 of them did get through, it was, in the language 
 of Senator Edmunds, " just by a kind of sporadic 
 impulse." Attempts for reform began with the mo- 
 tion of Henry B. Anthony for a committee of three 
 to revise the rules. The Senate agreed, and ap- 
 pointed Messrs. Anthony, Pomeroy, and Edmunds. 
 Hitherto such committees had been raised at ir- 
 regular intervals, but henceforth they were to be a 
 constant feature. The select committee on rules 
 was made a standing committee on motion of Mr. 
 Anthony in 1874, and its membership was in- 
 creased to five on motion of Mr. Morgan in 1880. 
 Each of the three original members had his favorite 
 plan for a better order. All were tried as danger- 
 ous experiments for limited periods, — during the 
 remainder of the present session was the modest 
 phrase, — and all in modified forms finally found 
 their way into the order of business. 
 
 Mr. Pomeroy was for enabling the Senate to lay 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 319 
 
 on the table amendments to the appropriation bills 
 without tabling the bills themselves. As has been 
 stated, this rule had been broached when Doug- 
 las tried to introduce the previous question in 
 1850. He proposed also to limit remarks upon 
 such amendments to five minutes for each Senator. 1 
 His measures were the first to be accepted, that one 
 with reference to laying on the table being applied 
 to amendments upon all kinds of bills. They 
 have proved of high value. 
 
 The chairman of the committee originated what 
 came to be known as the Anthony Rule. A daily 
 period, first of half an hour (1 to 1.30 p.m.), and 
 later of an hour (1 to 2 p.m.), following the rou- 
 tine morning business, was devoted to going over 
 the calendar in strict order under Mr. Pomeroy's 
 five-minute rule. Consideration was to be given 
 only to bills to which no one should object. The 
 serious defect of the regulation is apparent on its 
 face. A Senator anxious to reach some pet meas- 
 ure will object to the bills that precede it, one 
 after another. After his own has been considered 
 for a time, some other Senator will probably enter 
 objection in the midst of proceedings, and away it 
 will go without definite action. The five-minute 
 limit cannot withstand the spell of Senatorial cour- 
 tesy. The practice crept in of occasionally pro- 
 Mi: 2, S. J., 703, May 25, June 6, 9, 1870; 41:3, S. J., 336, 
 Feb. 22, 1871; 42:2, S. J., 630-632, C. G., 2867-2883, April 29, 1872. 
 
320 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 ceeding with a bill by a majority vote, if it were 
 objected to. President pro tempore David Davis 
 raised no small tempest by ruling that in such 
 case the five-minute limit should still apply; it 
 was the phantom of the previous question, and a 
 new clause was at once attached to the rule to 
 reverse his decision. The best that can be said 
 for the Anthony Rule is the comment of Mr. Ed- 
 munds, "Far better than nothing." It has been 
 used only irregularly, and mainly towards the hur- 
 ried close of a session, and is now almost a dead 
 letter. Many loopholes in the Senate's practice 
 permit such special periods of time to be invaded 
 by privileged business, morning routine, unani- 
 mous consent. 1 
 
 The third plan, that of Mr. Edmunds, was origi- 
 nally proposed as a substitute for Mr. Anthony's, 
 but has come into the code for determination of 
 proceedings after two o'clock, when there are no 
 special orders. By it a list of general orders is 
 to be considered under four privileged motions de- 
 cided without debate: first, to take up an appro- 
 priation bill ; second, to consider any other bill ; 
 third, to pass over the pending subject ; fourth, 
 to place such subject at the foot of the list. " Un- 
 
 1 Debates on the Anthony Rule throw light upon the Senate's 
 methods generally : 41:2, C. G., 2740, April 18, 21, June 22, 1870, 
 Dec. 5, 1872; 43: Special Session, C. G., 116; 45: 3, C. R., 36, 605; 
 47:1, C. R., 869-875, 984, 3305-3308, 3345, 3346; Rules of Senate, 
 VII.-X., XVI., 3, 4, XVII. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 321 
 
 der this rule most of the business of the Senate is 
 reached and concluded," says McKee. 1 Theoreti- 
 cally rather than practically the daily programme 
 is divided into three parts. From twelve to one 
 come matters of routine ; from one to two, bills 
 under the Anthony Rule ; from two onward, bills 
 under the Edmunds Rule. Commonly two meas- 
 ures will run along in parallel discussions for a 
 number of days as unfinished business. Upon 
 signal from the Vice-President the first will be 
 dropped for the second as the clock's hands point 
 to two. Often the sitting ends in the evening's 
 dusk with tired action upon petty private affairs, 
 or secret consideration of executive business. But 
 between the beginning and the end of a Congress 
 there is great variance. 
 
 The topic of the growth of the Senate's com- 
 mittee system, and the relations of its committees 
 one to another, may be the more speedily disposed 
 of because of similarities between the histories of 
 the two branches. 2 Some of the committees exer- 
 cise supervisory powers. Unless otherwise ordered, 
 the Committee on Printing has jurisdiction over 
 
 1 McKee's "United States Red Book," 178-188; comment on 
 the order of business by Senator R. Q. Mills, Washington Post, 
 April 11, 1897, p. 1. 
 
 2 Chronicles giving the origins of the Senate's standing com- 
 mittees are contained in 37: 3, Sen. Mis. Docs., No. 42; 52:2, Sen. 
 Mis. Docs., Vol. VII. Other facts are to be had in 20: 1, S. J., 
 41, Feb. 14, 1828; 47: 1, C. R., 53, Dec. 8, 1881; 54: 1, C. R., Dec. 
 9, 1895, Jan. 28, 1896. 
 
322 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 requests of other committees for leave to publish. 
 The Committee of Audit and Control regulates 
 the employment of help by other committees, and 
 all matters involving an expense upon the con- 
 tingent fund. Amendments proposed by other 
 committees for increasing appropriations, or rela- 
 tive to post-offices and posWoutes, must go to the 
 Appropriations, the Commerce, or the Post-Offices 
 and Post-Roads. That condition which prevailed 
 in the House before the Appropriations was shorn 
 of its strength now obtains to a degree in the Sen- 
 ate. Prior to 1867 the Committee on Finance, 
 whose name had been adopted in 1816 in place 
 of the ancient one of Ways and Means, held juris- 
 diction over all of the general appropriations save 
 the River and Harbor Bill, which belonged to the 
 Committee on Commerce. The Finance, of course, 
 also had charge of measures for raising revenue. 
 The Appropriations, created at that time, has in- 
 herited control of all of its appropriation bills. 
 Now and then the jealousy and bickering between 
 the Appropriations and the committees for general 
 legislation which preceded the fall of the House 
 Appropriations crop out also in the Senate. But 
 the system stands until the present. Doubtless one 
 reason therefor is the limitation of the upper branch 
 to the somewhat lesser part of amending. The 
 Senate has never secured the privilege of originat- 
 ing appropriation bills, though it has made consid- 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 323 
 
 erable effort to that end. Palliation lies also in 
 the plan of having one representative from each 
 of the Senate's thirteen more important committees 
 for general legislation a member of the Appropria 1 
 tions. 1 
 
 Progress towards continuity and stability in 
 business methods has been stronger than in the 
 House. Like the lower branch, but by a narrow 
 majority and after a long debate, the Senate at 
 first decided to take up legislation anew at the be- 
 ginning of each session, rather than once for all at 
 the opening of a Congress. 2 This useless process, 
 of course, speedily became merely formal, but the 
 decision of that earliest Congress was not reversed 
 by rule until 1868. Re-reference of business at a 
 second or a subsequent session, by the same ar- 
 guments, involved the reappointment of the com- 
 mittees. Previous to 188-4 — as in the House 
 previous to 1860 — committee lists were presented 
 and adopted regularly twice or three times in the 
 course of a Congress. The six-year tenure of 
 Senators, with the choice biennially of one-third, 
 will readily be recognized as the great agency in 
 minimizing changes, and making reorganization's 
 
 1 On appropriations in the Senate, cf. 52:2, Sen. Mis. Docs., 
 Vol. VII., pp. 282-310; 40:1, S. J., 8, Mar. 6, 7, 1867; 48:1,C.R., 
 366, 367, Jan. 11, 1881; Hinsdale's "American Government," 
 188 ; Rules of the Senate, XVI. 2. 
 
 2 1:2, C. A., 975, Jan. 25, 1790; Maclay's Journal, 179-187; 
 above, p. 137. 
 
324 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 much easier than in- the House. 1 Once upon a 
 committee, a Senator has rarely, if ever, been re- 
 moved against his will. Trading of places, and 
 changes upon the expressed desire of individuals, 
 have been common enough. Every two years the 
 influx of new Senators is sufficiently large to 
 warrant a reorganization. Fifteen Republicans 
 awaited assignments in 1895. The committee list 
 seemed somewhat shot-torn, even enfiladed, after 
 the campaign ; and the first duty was to recruit its 
 ranks. The change of power meant simply the 
 putting of each committee's minority names in 
 front, with an addition of one to their number, 
 and the dropping of the lowest name on the side 
 that had hitherto ruled. 
 
 Until very recently the adjournment of a Con- 
 gress has disbanded the Senate's committees. But 
 the practice has now arisen of continuing them 
 from one Congress into another. For this a prece- 
 dent had been standing some years in a rule rela- 
 tive to the three on Library, Printing, and Audit 
 and Control. 2 Some Senatorial leader moves, say 
 on the 3d of March of an odd year, that the com- 
 mittees as at present constituted be by unani- 
 mous consent continued until their successors are 
 
 1 For prominent examples of the tendency to continuity in 
 membership from session to session, cf. 23: 2, S. J., 5, 27, 35, Dec. 
 1, 2, 11, 1834. 
 
 a Rules of the Senate, XXV. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 325 
 
 chosen. 1 For this reason the reorganization could 
 be delayed until a month or more after the Senate 
 had met in the first session of the Fifty-fifth. Con- 
 gress, evidently to the advantage of the old mem- 
 bers and of the Republicans who hung breathless 
 upon the news from Kentucky. 2 
 
 Where the upper classmen have constantly a 
 two-thirds majority, the control of the machinery 
 will be always firmly within their grasp. If the 
 House of Representatives is a presbytery, the Sen- 
 ate is a college of cardinals. Out of the claim of 
 the majority to the chairmanships has been evolved 
 as nice a system of seniority as could be devised. 
 In 1845 and thereafter, when the five members of 
 a committee had been elected by ballot, their names 
 were on motion arranged as follows : — 
 
 1. Democrat. 4. Democrat 
 
 2. Democrat. 5. Whiff. 
 
 3. Whig. 
 
 If there were but one Whig on the committee, he 
 stood third. This readjustment to give a member 
 of the majority party second place and right of 
 succession to the chairmanship sent the frontier 
 
 1 51 : 2, C. R., Mar. 3, 1891 ; the first instance. 
 
 2 Senator Morgan condemned this innovation, 55 : 1, C. R., April 
 22, 1897. The Kentucky legislature was in deadlock, but finally 
 elected a Republican Senator, giving the Republicans a clear ma- 
 jority in the Senate ; meanwhile, every day had spread its rumors 
 of combinations to wrest away their power. 
 
326 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 Senator from Florida into amusing tantrums upon 
 the subject of primogeniture. But the hold of the 
 custom grew, until finally all the members from 
 the majority were grouped first, with the distinct 
 understanding that names were to be pushed for- 
 ward as vacancies occurred in their front, and that 
 new Senators were to "take their places at the 
 bottom of the ladder." Men who thus find them- 
 selves at the heads of two or more committees 
 when a new Congress opens, make a choice, and 
 relinquish all but one chairmanship. 1 
 
 The committee chairman is a leader of secon- 
 dary importance, much less privileged on the floor 
 of the Senate than on the floor of the House. His 
 place was of such mere narrow distinction at the 
 outset, that Maclay could generously propose to 
 fill it with the " Senator of the most northerly 
 State of those from whom the committee are 
 taken." Such, permit us to repeat by the way, is 
 practically the rule now, thanks to superior Yankee 
 tenacity and longevity ! Its material advantages 
 and the honor, more than the greater power, raise 
 a chairmanship above the other committee posi- 
 tions. The chief of the Appropriations is, how- 
 ever, a man not to be contemned. 
 
 The highest Senatorial leaders are to be sought 
 elsewhere. Mr. Speaker's great power in the 
 House has become familiar. The Constitution- 
 
 i Washington Post, Dec. 9, 1895. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 327 
 
 makers forced upon the Senate a presidency weak 
 and artificial, which it has supplanted, as far as 
 it has dared, by leaders of its own creation. The 
 difficulties, confusion, and struggles attendant up- 
 on this process have joined with the other numer- 
 ous influences which have retarded organization. 
 Our Constitution declares : — 
 
 " The Vice-President of the United States shall 
 be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, 
 unless they be equally divided. 
 
 "The Senate shall choose their other officers, 
 and also a President pro tempore, in the absence 
 of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise 
 the office of President of the United States." 
 
 From the qualifications and duties of the Vice- 
 President, as described in the Constitution, and 
 from the Senate's history, are to be gathered the 
 reasons for, and the evidences of, his unfitness for 
 the headship of the Senate. Statesmen were puz- 
 zled in 1789 over this position. 1 By their final 
 decision the office was put, so to speak, half-way 
 between the White House and the Capitol, where 
 it has ever remained. The Presidency of the Sen- 
 ate is unusually liable to become vacant. For a 
 body chosen primarily to represent territory was pro- 
 vided a president primarily representative of popu- 
 lation. His tenure was made different from that of 
 a Senator, four years instead of six. As a rule he 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. 68. 
 
328 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 was to have no vote to strengthen his power. Ne- 
 cessarily this original inadaptation has made and 
 kept him a figurehead. " Leaders are not elected, 
 but born," cries the Congressional wit. By the 
 light of experience in the House and in the gov- 
 ernment generally, had the office been free from 
 its overshadowing consideration, the succession to 
 the chief magistracy, limited to two years, and 
 filled by a majority of the States rather than a ma- 
 jority of the people, true and beneficent leadership, 
 which is conditioned upon accord with the major- 
 ity of an assembly, would have speedily evolved 
 therefrom. 
 
 The first Vice-President was not an ideal chair- 
 man, as any one at all acquainted with his personal- 
 ity will perceive. 1 The second was not in political 
 touch with the majority of those over whom he 
 presided. The third was a disappointed Presiden- 
 tial candidate, irregular in attendance, taking his 
 seat with indictments for murder hanging over his 
 head. 2 The fourth, by testimony indeed of one 
 whom he had overruled, was wanting in parliamen- 
 tary perception and experience. 3 So on down the 
 list, there is more of the unsatisfactory than of the 
 satisfactory. The man who stands out preemi- 
 
 1 Maclay's Journal, with bitter enmity, portrays him in the 
 Senate's presiding chair. 
 
 2 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, I. 277, 314, 315. 
 » Ibid., I. 274, 383-385. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 329 
 
 nently as embodying the weakness of the office, 
 and as responsible for its long decadence after he 
 was gone, is John C. Calhoun. Twice in succes- 
 sion he was chosen to the place. His long, slow 
 journeys to Washington almost invariably brought 
 him in late for the opening of Congress. Oddly 
 enough, John Randolph's harangues played the 
 same part in degrading the Vice-Presidency as in 
 elevating the Speakership. We see these two 
 gaunt figures of the Old South communing, the 
 one by his silence, the other by his noise, in the 
 Senate. Calhoun, the ' doctrinaire, decided that 
 the Constitution and the Senate's rules gave him 
 no power to call the raving Virginian to order. 
 Though the Senate, after one of those marvelous 
 debates of its earlier history, thrust upon him the 
 duty which he had rejected, he muttered, " As to 
 the power conferred upon the chair it was not for 
 him to speak," and his evil work continued to bear 
 fruit. 1 When, in 1881, a Senator faintly challenged 
 the right of the Vice-President to a casting vote in 
 the adoption of the committee list, it was as if the 
 wizard specter of the long ago had suddenly reared 
 itself behind the presiding chair. 
 
 The Carolinian came into the Presidency of the 
 Senate just at the time when the choice of com- 
 mittees was first being intrusted to the presiding 
 officer. His first and only performance of the 
 
 i 20 : 1, C. D., 278-341, Feb. 11-15, 1828. 
 
330 CONGUESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 duty was so unsatisfactory that it was at once 
 taken out of his hands by an almost unanimous 
 vote, — a deprivation which he seemed rather to 
 enjoy than to regret. 1 The investment of the ap- 
 pointing power in the President pro tempore shortly 
 thereafter was considered a distinct intimation to 
 the Vice-President not to put in appearance until 
 the committees were organized. 2 A dozen years 
 after Calhoun's failure, the task, through Clay's 
 suave persuasion, was intrusted to Richard M. 
 Johnson, the only Vice-President that the Senate 
 has ever elected ; and he performed it twice. 3 The 
 third and last instance was in 1845. Vice-Presi- 
 dent George M. Dallas, at the two weeks' special 
 session that followed immediately upon his inaugu- 
 ration, appointed all of the committees under an 
 injunction of secrecy which was shortly removed. 4 
 What were the real motives that prevailed for this 
 proceeding, and why the Senate twice afterwards 
 refused to bestow the authority upon him, is diffi- 
 cult to determine. He was promptly at hand in De- 
 
 i 19:1 , C. D., 525, 571, 576, 757-760, April 12, 15, 17, 1826; 52: 2, 
 Sen. Mis. Docs., Vol. VII., pp. 118-124. Also Millard Fillmore's 
 paper in defense of the Vice-Presidency, which was adopted by 
 the Senate unanimously, and spread upon the Journal, 31:1, C. 
 G., 631-633, April 3, 1850. That Calhoun's decision could operate 
 to the embarrassing of his later disciples is evident from a discus- 
 sion of June 26, 1856, 34: 1, C. G., 1477-1485. 
 
 2 23:1, CD., 22, 23. 
 
 « 25:1, S. J., 26, 27, Sept. 7, 8, 1837; 25:2, S. J., 26, 27, Dec. 
 6, 1837. 
 
 4 28: 2, S. J., 289, 290, March 10, 1845. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 331 
 
 cember following ; but four members of his party, 
 with Benton as leader, united with the Whigs 
 against him, twenty-one to twenty. Buchanan and 
 he were rival Pennsylvania politicians, and Bu- 
 chanan was Polk's Secretary of State. That may 
 have had something to do with the matter. Since 
 then the power has lodged elsewhere, save for the 
 occasional filling of vacancies, as by John C. Breck- 
 inridge in 1861, upon the withdrawal of the South- 
 ern Senators, or by Schuyler Colfax for a short 
 session in 1871. In other ways the Senate has 
 limited the Vice-President's power, notably in its 
 refusal to allow Mr. Dallas and his successors to 
 delegate the functions of the chair. 1 What a bit 
 of sophistry was the proposition of those rival Re- 
 publicans who, before the late nomination, thought 
 to lure Speaker Reed's followers from his support 
 for the Presidency by visions of a rdle for him as 
 reforming Vice-President in the Senate. There is 
 an interesting ring of contrast in the valedictory 
 and the salutatory of Vice-Presidents Stevenson 
 and Hobart. The former's words carry the weight 
 of experience ; the latter's hardly justify the cap- 
 ital that has been made out of them, let alone the 
 idea of a remaking of the Senate through his au- 
 thority. 2 The Vice-President has realized Frank- 
 
 i 29:2, C. G., Jan. 11, 1847. 
 
 2 54: 2, S. J., 189, 192, March 4, 1897 ; editorial on power of the 
 Vice-President, Washington Post, March 7, 1897. 
 
332 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 lin's jest, " His Superfluous Majesty." In recent 
 times he has found his greatness as a leader of 
 polite society at the gay national capital. 
 
 Turning from him to the President pro tempore, 
 the first objection to this officer as the central pil- 
 lar upon which to rest a legislative organization 
 lies in the fact that his selection from among the 
 Senators disturbs that equality of the States upon 
 which the Senate is based. The question whether 
 or not he can be chosen from without the body 
 has been raised in later days, but not seriously 
 entertained. 1 Despite the superiority accruing to 
 his State, he might have become just such another 
 power for appointing the committees, and perhaps 
 for other functions, as the Speaker of the House, 
 had it not been that, from 1792 until 1886, he, like 
 the Vice-President, stood by law in line of suc- 
 cession to the Presidency, and that until 1876 his 
 office was construed by the Senate to terminate 
 upon the appearance of the Vice-President to claim 
 its chair. With a well-nigh unbroken record from 
 1792, the Senate chose a President pro tempore 
 near the close of each session, the Vice-President 
 retiring meanwhile. The object was to guard the 
 succession to the chief magistracy, for the tenure 
 of the man so elected extended through the recess 
 into the beginning of the succeeding session. But 
 while the Vice-President was actually occupying 
 
 i New York World, Dec. 1. 1885. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 333 
 
 the chair, the Presidency pro tempore was consid- 
 ered to be vacant, so that an election occurred upon 
 each occasion of his absence. In 1876, however, 
 and again in 1890, the Senate decided, after care- 
 ful inquiry, that the President pro tempore held his 
 office at its pleasure, coming into the chair when- 
 ever the Vice-President might be away. There- 
 fore his tenure now extends indefinitely, until he 
 resigns, or is superseded by the election of another 
 to the place. 1 
 
 A President pro tempore, John Gaillard, was the 
 first presiding officer to be intrusted with the ap- 
 pointment of the committees. Calhoun's derelic- 
 tion deprived both positions of the privilege, but 
 in 1828 it was conferred upon the President pro 
 tempore alone. Four times the work was smoothly 
 performed, and then, in December, 1833, came a 
 political tangle. Calhoun had not appeared at all 
 for the preceding session until, having resigned the 
 Vice-Presidency, he came as a Senator in January. 
 Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee had been chosen 
 President pro tempore Dec. 3, 1832, and had ap- 
 pointed the committees according to rule. 2 Hold- 
 ing the office continuously, he resumed the chair 
 at the opening of the next Congress, a year later. 
 Here, at the outset of this most brilliant of Sena- 
 torial sessions, was a delicate conjuncture. White 
 
 i 52:2, Sen. Mis. Docs., Vol. VII., pp. 167-190. 
 2 Parton's "Life of Jackson," III. 463, 478. 
 
334 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 and Van Buren were rivals for the heirship to 
 Jackson. By appearing, and taking his seat as 
 the newly-elected Vice-President, Van Buren could 
 very speedily terminate White's office as President 
 pro tempore, and deprive him of the selection of 
 the committees, which would revert to ballot by 
 the Senate. This would have pleased the Whigs. 
 But Van Buren held off, resting upon his singular 
 laurels, and did not come until the month was half 
 over. Meanwhile, though White had his list pre- 
 pared, the Senate, under the impulse of high feel- 
 ing involved by the selection of a committee to 
 report upon Rhode Island's right to unseat one 
 Senator and put another in his place, abolished 
 the rule which had vested appointment of the com- 
 mittees in the chair. The intimate friendship of 
 White and President Jackson, not yet greatly im- 
 paired, was probably the chief underlying cause 
 of this slight. Senator Poindexter said that " he 
 had learned that lists of the names of committees 
 had been sent in to the Departments to see if they 
 were acceptable ; " and it may be noted that Sena- 
 tor -Poindexter was the next President pro tem- 
 pore} All this would not have occurred had it 
 been customary, as previously to the Act of 1792, 
 to leave the Presidency pro tempore vacant during 
 a recess, and fill it, if necessary, at the beginning 
 of the following session. In such case the Senate 
 
 i 23: 1, C. D., 11-29, December, 1833. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 335 
 
 could have chosen a man in fresh accord with its 
 sentiments. The tedious ballot prevailed until 
 Vice-President Johnson came in 1837, and, with- 
 out disturbance after him, appointment of the com- 
 mittees fell to Presidents pro tempore for six years, 
 each time by unanimous consent. The conduct of 
 Vice-President Dallas in 1845 broke off these har- 
 monious arrangements finally and for good, at the 
 same time ushering in the caucus method. Be- 
 cause of Dallas's failure or refusal to vacate the 
 chair at the close of his first brief session, which 
 would have accorded with unbroken custom, a 
 President pro tempore was not elected. Even had 
 one been in office when the following session be- 
 gan, the prompt appearance of Mr. Dallas would 
 have excluded him, as it did upon the opening day 
 of the third session in 1846. Consequently the 
 Senate had to make choice of appointment by the 
 Vice-President, the ballot, or some new device. 1 
 
 Henry Clay saw possibilities in the President 
 pro tempore. " If it were permitted to grow into a 
 practice," said he, for that officer " to appoint the 
 committees in the absence of the Vice-President, 
 the exception might become the rule and the rule 
 the exception." He was seconded in this view by 
 Mr. Fessenden when the President pro tempore last 
 
 1 There was no President pro tempore from March 4, 1845, until 
 Aug. 8, 1846, save an occasional substitute named, not without 
 protest on the part of Senators, by Mr. Dallas, 29: 1, C. G , 95, 96, 
 1209, 1210, Dec. 23, 1845, Aug. 8, 1846. 
 
836 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 performed the task. 1 As it is, large powers have 
 pertained to the position, which the Vice-President 
 has not enjoyed. Besides the right to vote upon 
 all occasions, the President pro tempore has his 
 places upon the committees. Custom, in the '20's 
 and '30's, prescribed that the Senate should elect 
 him to a fine chairmanship before he announced his 
 committee list. In later times he has had his full 
 share of the places. Mr. Ferry, in 1877, was chair- 
 man of the Post-Offices and Post-Roads, second on 
 the Rules, and third on the Finance. Mr. Frye, in 
 the Fifty-fifth Congress, is chairman of the Com- 
 merce, and holds positions upon four other com- 
 mittees of first importance. 
 
 There are possibilities of conflict between the 
 two Constitutional dignitaries. By unbroken at- 
 tendance a Vice-President of one political faith 
 has been able to exclude from the presiding func- 
 tions a President pro tempore of another. During 
 the Fifty-fourth Congress the Vice-President was 
 absent but nineteen days. Under the old theory 
 he could prevent a majority of other politics than 
 his own from deposing a President pro tempore 
 elected when its opponents were in power, and 
 choosing one from its own membership. Whether 
 he can now do so may be a mooted question. A 
 Republican majority came into control in Decem- 
 ber, 1895, but did not elect a President pro tern- 
 
 i 37 : 3, C. G., 1554, Mar. 5, 1863. 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 337 
 
 pore until the 7th of February following, upon 
 which date Vice-President Stevenson first absented 
 himself. 1 The party's hold was but nominal, and 
 this election was noted as a sequence of its previ- 
 ously acquired precedence upon the committees. 2 
 However, departures from custom at the two im- 
 mediately preceding elections are noteworthy. The 
 Senatorial service of President pro tempore Ingalls 
 ending March 4, 1891, it devolved upon the Re- 
 publican caucus to nominate another man. After 
 somewhat of a contest, Mr. Manderson of Nebraska, 
 the candidate of the Silverites, was selected. 3 Mr. 
 Sherman, chairman of the caucus, proposed his name 
 in the Senate, and his election was remarkable for 
 two circumstances : it was unanimous ; and for the 
 first time in the Senate's history, the Vice-Presi- 
 dent — on this occasion Mr. Morton — was not 
 only present, but administered the oath of office 
 to the President pro tempore. The same course 
 was followed at the next election, that of Mr. Har- 
 ris, at which time Mr. Manderson significantly said, 
 44 Recognizing a change of condition, and, perhaps, 
 also a change of theory, I now tender my resigna- 
 tion." Here was added a third new precedent; 
 namely, that the President pro tempore should go 
 out of power at once with his party. From these 
 
 1 54: 1, C. R,, 1443, Feb. 7, 1896; the election was unanimous. 
 
 2 Washington Post, Feb. 8, 1896. 
 
 8 New York Tribune, March 2, 1891. 
 
338 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 changes, the dropping of the old incumbrances 
 upon the office, and the new interpretations of its 
 tenure, interesting developments may come. Al- 
 though always resembling the Speaker of the Brit- 
 ish Commons rather than the Speaker of the 
 American House, undoubtedly the man who sits 
 in the Senate's chair has been getting to be a more 
 and more important personage as the century has 
 run its course. 
 
 But if, on that hurried March day of the ex- 
 piring Fifty-first Congress, the question had been 
 asked which of the three central participators in 
 the election was the greatest power in the Senate, 
 the answer must have been, not Mr. Morton nor 
 Mr. Manderson, but the caucus chairman who 
 moved the tersely . worded formulas, John Sher- 
 man. He was the true premier. His was the 
 leadership which the Senate has evolved to supply 
 the defects in its original endowment. Party cau- 
 cuses in Congress are old as the government, and 
 have had their presiding officers and their com- 
 mittees from the beginning. Naturally a party 
 has put forward the man whom it has chosen to 
 preside in its caucus also to lead it upon the 
 Senate floor. When Theodore Sedgwick of Mas- 
 sachusetts, on a May day of 1797, proposed and 
 pushed through the Senate upon strict party votes 
 the list of three committees which had previously 
 been agreed upon in a Federalist caucus, he was 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 339 
 
 but the archetype of Thomas H. Carter, Republi- 
 can from Montana, who much more easily secured 
 the appointment of sixty on a May day of 1897. 1 
 These powerful caucus chiefs of ruling majorities 
 in the Senate — a little reflection will recall many 
 of them : before the Civil War, King of Alabama, 
 Mangum, Sevier, Cass, Douglas, Bright, and peer- 
 less Henry Clay ; after it, Trumbull, Anthony, Ed- 
 munds, Sherman, Gorman, and Allison. In earlier 
 records they are most easily recognized as those 
 who made the time-honored motions that belonged 
 to the opening days of a session. At all times 
 they have been prominent upon the Senate's floor 
 when legislative crises have been pending. The 
 chance visitor may ordinarily overlook them, v so 
 quietly are they sitting in their places; but let a 
 sharp political skirmish arise, and they are to be 
 seen, either pushing forward their lieutenants, or 
 coining boldly to the front themselves. When 
 they speak, the Senate listens; the people, too, 
 are beginning to hearken. 
 
 Their power is puzzling without some knowl- 
 edge of what goes on behind the scenes. It origi- 
 nates in those secret voluntary organizations of 
 Senators which are unknown to the Constitution, 
 the statutes, or the parliamentary code. On dif- 
 ferent floors of the Senate wing, and quite removed 
 
 i 5:1, C. A., 21, May 29, 1797; Ford's "Writings of Jeffer- 
 son," VII. 132. 
 
340 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 from each other, are the headquarters of the two 
 great political parties. The minority chief, a much 
 more powerful personage in the Senate than in 
 the House, has his room in a secluded part of the 
 so-called attic story. Here he presides at councils 
 which plan the battle in the Senate. He appoints 
 the caucus committees, including that one which 
 slates his party's membership of the Senate's legis- 
 lative committees, and which is known as the Com- 
 mittee on Committees. Often the caucus assigns 
 to him powers plenipotentiary for negotiations with 
 the enemy's caucus chairman, who on his part 
 appoints the majority's Committee on Committees 
 and Steering Committee. Do these two veteran 
 Senators join each other in a pleasant home parlor 
 of an evening, behold there, haloing their whitened 
 locks, the power of the Senate at its acme ! 
 
 Mutterings of their arbitrary rule now and then 
 arise among Senators, as do threats of revolt against 
 the Speaker among Representatives. Revolutions 
 come at rare intervals. In 1871, when a Wiscon- 
 sin man presented the list of committees to the 
 Senate, an honor which had long fallen to the aged 
 Senator from Rhode Island, the Republicans did 
 but light over again in public the quarrel which 
 had begun in the recesses of their caucus. Repub- 
 licans of the far West held a sectional consultation 
 in 1895, preliminary to the general consultation, 
 and resolved to stand together. They demanded 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 341 
 
 of the main caucus the election of the Committee 
 on Committees by ballot, but were quieted by an 
 agreement that the chairman's selections should be 
 conditioned on caucus confirmation. 
 
 The Committee on Committees, it may well be 
 believed, is a high governing body. So also is 
 the Steering Committee, which corresponds to the 
 House Committee on Rules. One committee some- 
 times serves in place of these two. In naming 
 their members, seniority is the main guide of the 
 caucus chairman, just as it is the first considera- 
 tion of the Committee on Committees in filling 
 out the legislative committees. Increase in size 
 has characterized caucus committees also. Messrs. 
 Foote, Dixon, and Bingham were the Republican 
 Committee on Committees in 1859. In 1865 it 
 had five members ; in 1879, nine. It reverted to 
 five for the close struggle with the Democratic 
 Senators in 1881. In 1883 it had seven; in 1897 
 it again has nine. For many years the Democratic 
 Committee on Committees has consisted of nine 
 Senators. Steering committees are smaller. Those 
 of recent sessions have had memberships of five. 
 The Democratic caucus chairman appoints himself 
 as chairman of the Committee on Committees ; 
 the Republican appoints some one else. Senator 
 Allison has named himself as head of the Repub- 
 lican Steering Committee in the Fifty-fifth Con- 
 gress. The rule is, once on,, no removal until 
 
342 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 death or failure of reelection to the Senate ; and, 
 in general, the characteristics of the legislative 
 committees are those of the caucus committees, 
 save that the majority and minority representation, 
 if there be such, is from wings of the same party 
 instead of from different parties, that is, from 
 parties within parties. 
 
 Steering committees watch proceedings upon the 
 Senate floor, call caucuses, and give the cues to 
 action. On the 10th of March, 1897, the Repub- 
 lican Senators appeared in their seats promptly 
 upon the opening of the Senate ; each had re- 
 ceived a note from the Steering Committee, bidding 
 him to so order himself, though without any rea- 
 son assigned. The heaviest responsibilities of the 
 Committee on Committees fall, of course, at the 
 beginning of a Congress. However, filling of 
 the vacancies which occur at later times is being 
 gathered within its prerogative. Its very dif- 
 ficult tasks are sometimes evidenced by sittings 
 many hours long. Seniority usually makes the as- 
 signment of chairmanships easy, but the other posi- 
 tions must be filled after lively competition among 
 self-avowed candidates. New members clamor for 
 speedy assignment, and the chairmen of the com- 
 mittees that pass upon Executive nominations can- 
 not brook delay. Sometimes the Committee on 
 Committees summons the discontented to a hear- 
 ing. Again, its members go upon the floor to 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 343 
 
 consult the other Senators as to their desires, and 
 to reconcile them, if possible, to its proposed 
 appointments. Finally, it presents the completed 
 list to the caucus for approval or disapproval. 
 Thereupon it may be accused of having provided 
 too liberally for itself, and its decisions may be 
 overruled. If this submission for ratification is 
 omitted, even in the filling of an occasional va- 
 cancy, complaint is likely to follow. But generally 
 the labor is satisfactorily performed. 
 
 In this caucus system the Senate has worked 
 out methods peculiarly its own. Silently and nat- 
 urally they have taken shape. All the intricacies 
 of the situation are at last met. The forms are 
 plentiful, but have not attracted general attention. 
 They lack a certain vital quality. There are cus- 
 toms and there are leaders. From them the Senate, 
 in its own good time and only when it recognizes 
 the full necessity, will select such as are fittest for 
 its stronger self-government. Meanwhile, saith 
 the Senator, let pessimistic Mugwumps and a pam- 
 pered college populace breathe out magazine at- 
 tacks as long and as airy as the flights of Duns 
 Scotus or Saint Thomas Aquinas ! 
 
 From the study of the Senate's procedure a sum- 
 mary is drawn as follows. Caucuses with their 
 chairmen and their committee machinery have been 
 its only escape from dire confusion and weakness 
 of leadership due to Constitutional difficulties. 
 
344 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 The Presidency pro tempore, in addition to other 
 shortcomings, was handicapped during early times 
 by the Senate's narrow construction as to its ten- 
 ure, and by the statute which put its occupant in 
 line of succession to the Presidency of the United 
 States ; but the latter drawback has been removed, 
 and a new interpretation of the Constitution gives 
 always and continuously a President pro tempore, 
 whose term is contemporaneous with the suprem- 
 acy of his party. The committee systems, both 
 of the Senate and of the caucuses, have emphasized 
 that basal idea that the Senators shall come from 
 among the elders of the land by giving the lead in 
 lawmaking to the elders of these elders. A mod- 
 erate parliamentary development measures the Sen- 
 ate's share in the progress of all things American. 
 Committees are much less powerful in the upper 
 than in the lower chamber. The six New England 
 States, and a chain of six Southern States, with 
 Florida and Missouri as extremes, are the two 
 steadfast party regions of the United States whose 
 conservatism in retaining their men enables them 
 to hold the chief places of the Senate. Popular 
 control over Senators has been growing to some 
 extent. The Southerner and the Westerner have 
 hitherto continuously combined in powerful re- 
 sistance to centralization by legislative rules. A 
 knitting together of the general government makes 
 the Senate more dependent than formerly upon 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 345 
 
 the attitudes of the House or of the Executive. 
 Strong organization in the House, backed by pub- 
 lic opinion, can exert an effective moral suasion 
 upon the other wing of the Capitol. 
 
 The times seem ripe for a few next steps. The 
 committee system needs to be pruned of dead 
 branches. Routine business at daily sessions might 
 be shortened. Election of Senators by the people 
 directly, rather than by the State legislatures, is in 
 line with the democratic trend of political institu- 
 tions. That four general appropriation bills failed 
 in the late Congress is signal of their coming dis- 
 tribution among the committees on the Senate side. 
 Finally, the arguments for the previous question 
 are accumulating. This Senate issue of more than 
 five decades involves principles for the most part 
 identical with those which have been sketched for 
 the earlier, quickly decided House struggle. Two 
 sentences from the two first great Senate cham- 
 pions of 1841 are all-inclusive texts for the op- 
 posing views. Henry Clay said, u The greatest 
 grievance complained of by the people with regard 
 to Congress is the delay of public business by long 
 speeches." Thomas H. Benton replied, " The pre- 
 vious question and the old sedition law are meas- 
 ures of the same character and children of the 
 same parents, and intended for the same purposes. 
 They are to hide light, to enable those in power to 
 work in darkness." It was best that Benton should 
 
346 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 triumph then. The conditions of 1800, to which 
 he looked back, were yet too little relieved. Would 
 that he had succeeded in his manly efforts against 
 national plunder. Even Clay was but half-hearted 
 in his advocacy. But all our progress since that 
 day has been subtracting from Benton's side, and 
 adding to Clay's. Even the Senator who sits in 
 the chair of Benton recently experienced a remark- 
 able conversion to the cause of limited debate. 
 The telegraph, the railroad, the printing-press, the 
 larger, better reported Senate, the modern increase 
 in Federal business, — these are but leading argu- 
 ments added by a wonderful change of conditions. 
 The people to whom the Kentuckian appealed looked 
 up to their Senators ; now the Senators must look 
 out to their people. From the flickering interior 
 illumination of the past the Senate turns to broad- 
 est day streaming in through a thousand windows. 
 The previous question deals simply with the length 
 of speech; it does not note the character of what 
 is said. From its many forms advocated at vari- 
 ous times the Senate can construct that one which 
 most nearly suits its conditions. The errors of the 
 House are avoidable. The half-hour of grace there 
 may be extended into days divided equitably be- 
 tween the Senate's majority and minority. Free- 
 dom of action upon amendments need have no 
 prohibition. That same courtesy which has served 
 as the only check upon minority debate would be 
 
INTERIOR ORGANIZATION. 347 
 
 but transferred across the aisle, there to likely 
 serve as too powerful a limit upon majority action. 
 Our nation seems to have reached the halting- 
 ground. All our vast territory is blocked out 
 into States. The land-offices are closing. We 
 have caught sight of Japan. The westward move- 
 ment rolls back upon itself. It is the parting of 
 the ways between extensive and intensive growth, 
 the time for a mighty amalgamation of North, 
 South, East, and West. In view of our entrance 
 upon this new era, the future of the Senate is a 
 subject of concern. That part of the United States 
 which lies east of the Mississippi, together with 
 Louisiana, comprises less than twenty-seven per 
 cent of the entire area, Alaska excluded, and yet 
 possesses forty-six votes in the Senate. Recently 
 the conflict between a majority of the Senators 
 representing a minority of the people, and a mi- 
 nority of the Senators representing a majority of 
 the people, has had unpleasant exhibition. Will 
 such differences deepen or diminish as the years 
 go on? Will the immense inequalities in terri- 
 torial extent, not to speak of capacity for life 
 sustention, develop insufferable inequalities in 
 popular power? Or will the future spirit of the 
 people grow so strongly in the direction of unity 
 and the higher life as to render numerical and 
 physical differences of less consequence? These 
 are remote problems, subject for speculation. A 
 
348 CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES. 
 
 strong bridge has the Senate been, at any rate, 
 suspended between the Old and the New. None 
 other than its mighty cables could have stood the 
 strain. Providence fixed its anchorage over the 
 widest chasm and the swiftest rapids of change 
 that human history knows. Across its narrow 
 way we still peer back into the regions whence 
 we have come, — see the morning of the world, 
 the marches of the Teuton forests, Hellenic tribal 
 bounds, snowy-haired patriarchs of Orient, the 
 solitary cave-dweller gazing out over Britain's un- 
 tamed seas. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 349 
 
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 APPENDIX I. 
 
 
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APPENDIX I. 
 
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354 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
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APPENDIX I. 
 
 355 
 
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APPENDIX II. 359 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 A. — Legislative Department. 
 
 I. Exclusive Affairs of the House : 
 
 1. Elections, Apr. 13, 1789. 
 
 2. Accounts, Nov. 7, 1804. 
 
 3. Mileage, Sept. 15, 1837. 
 
 4. Rules, Dec. 27, 1849; Mar. 2, 1880. 
 
 5. Ventilation and Acoustics, Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
 II. Joint Affairs with Senate: 
 
 1. Enrolled Bills, July 27, 1789. 
 
 2. Library, Dec. 7. 1843. 
 
 3. Printing, July 24, 1846. 
 
 B. — Judicial Department. Judiciary, June 3, 1813. 
 
 C. — Executive Department. 
 
 Expenditures in : 
 
 1. Department of State, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 2. Department of Treasury, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 3. department of War, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 4. Department of Navy, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 5. Department of Post-Office, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 6. Public Buildings, Mar. 30, 1816. 
 
 7. Department of Interior, Mar. 16, 1860. 
 
 8. Department of Justice, Jan. 16, 1874. 
 
 0. Department, of Agriculture, Dec. 20, 1889 
 
360 APPENDIX II. 
 
 D. — Private Legislation. 
 
 1. Claims, Nov. 13, 1794. 
 
 2. War Claims, Dec. 22, 1813. 
 
 3. Private Land Claims, Apr. 29, 1816. 
 
 4. Pensions, Dec. 9, 1825. 
 
 5. Invalid Pensions, Jan. 10, 1831. 
 
 6. Patents, Sept. 15, 1837. 
 
 E. — Public Legislation. 
 
 I. Financial: 
 
 1. Ways and Means, Dec. 21, 1795. 
 
 2. Coinage, Weights, and Measures, Jan. 21, 1864. 
 
 3. Appropriations, Mar. 2, 1865. 
 
 4. Banking and Currency, Mar. 2, 1865. 
 
 II. Industrial : 
 
 1. Commerce, Dec. 14, 1795. 
 
 2. Manufactures, Dec. 8, 1819. 
 
 3. Agriculture, May 3, 1820. 
 
 4. Railways and Canals, Dec. 15, 1831. 
 
 5. Pacific Railroads, Mar. 2, 1865. 
 
 6. Mines and Mining, Dec. 19, 1865. 
 
 7. Levees and Improvements of the Mississippi 
 
 River, Dec. 10, 1875. 
 
 8. Rivers and Harbors, Dec. 20, 1883. 
 
 9. Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Dec. 21, 1887. 
 10. Irrigation of Arid Lands, Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
 III. Law: 
 
 1. Revisal of the Laws, Dec. 14*1795. 
 
 2. Election of President, Vice-President, and 
 
 Representatives, Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
 IV. Public Property: 
 
 1. Public Lands, Dec' 17, 1805. 
 
 2. District of Columbia, Jan. 27, 1808. 
 
APPENDIX II. 361 
 
 3. Post-Offices and Post-Roads, Nov. 9, 1808. 
 
 4. Territories, Dec. 13, 1825. 
 
 5. Public Buildings and Grounds, Sept. 15, 1837. 
 
 V. War: 
 
 1. Military Affairs, Mar. 13, 1822. 
 
 2. Naval Affairs, Mar. 13, 1822. 
 
 3. Militia, Dec. 10, 1835. 
 
 VI. Social: 
 
 1. Indian Affairs, Dec. 17, 1821. 
 
 2. Education, Mar. 21, 1867. 
 
 3. Labor, Dec. 19, 1883. 
 
 4. Immigration and Naturalization, Aug. 18, 
 
 1893. 
 
 5. Alcoholic Liquor Traffic, Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
 6. Reform in the Civil Service, Aug. 18, 1893. 
 
 VII. International: 
 
 1. Foreign Affairs, Mar. 13, 1822. 
 
362 APPENDIX III. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 RULES PROPOSED FOR THE PENNSYLVANIA 
 ASSEMBLY, AND ADOPTED IN 1703. 
 
 That any Member indecently carrying himself towards the 
 Speaker, or any of the Members, by Reflections, or other un- 
 comely Behavior, in the House, or shall transgress this or any 
 of the following Rules, shall for the first Offence be reproved, 
 for the second and after fin'd, as the House thinks fit, not 
 exceeding Ten Shillings. 
 
 That all Members, offering to speak, stand up and direct 
 their Speech to the Chair, speak pertinently to the Occasion, 
 and having ended to sit down ; none to speak above twice 
 to one Matter (especially upon Bills) without Leave of the 
 Speaker. 
 
 That none presume to interrupt another, nor offer to speak 
 until the first sit down. 
 
 That the Members forbear talking to each other, and keep 
 Silence, unless they have Occasion to speak in order as afore- 
 said. 
 
 That no Member endeavour to pervert the Sense of an- 
 other's Speech. 
 
 That the Speaker have Power to stop all unnecessary, tedL 
 ous, or superfluous Discourse, and to command Silence when 
 needful. 
 
 That the Members avoid naming others when they may 
 have Occasion to observe or take Notice of their Speech, but 
 have respect to the Time of their Speaking, or to the Seat they 
 have, as Right or Left of the Chair, &c. 
 
 That no Member presume to go in or out of the House 
 
APPENDIX III. 363 
 
 before the Speaker, he being present, nor depart the House 
 without his Leave. 
 
 That upon Debates and passing of Bills, the Majority of 
 Votes shall govern, and when the Votes of Members are equal 
 in Number, the Speaker shall have the Casting Vote. 
 
 That the Speaker, with Consent of the House, require any 
 Member offending to Stand at the Bar, and there receive the 
 Censure of the House. 
 
 That no Member presume to divulge the Debates or Secrets 
 of the House. 
 
 That no Member, who is against the Body of a Bill, shall 
 be appointed to be of a Committee concerning that Bill. 
 
 That the Speaker have Power to nominate Persons for 
 Committees ; and that none who are nominated, refuse the 
 Service ; not that any of the Members shall be hereby de- 
 barr'd of their Privilege of nominating Persons if they think 
 fit, or rejecting such as are by the Speaker nominated ; in 
 which Cases the Opinion of the House shall rule. 
 
 That Bills to be pass'd into Laws, may be brought in by 
 any particular Member, or received by them, or the Speaker 
 from others, and presented to the House, who is to order the 
 Clerk loudly to read them ; and after reading, to be respect- 
 fully delivered to the Speaker, and him to mark and note (by 
 Breviate or otherwise) all Bills, and declare the Nature and 
 the Use of the same, which, if not rejected, to cause to be 
 read a second Time, and after deliberate consideration thereon, 
 and Amendments made, if needful, cause it to be read a third 
 Time, and drawn fair, and sent to the Governor, as the House 
 shall think fit, for his Assent, or Rejection; but that no Bill 
 be read twice in one Day, except on extraordinary Occasions. 
 
 That at the first Reading of Bills, the Members avoid any 
 close Debate, and seriously deliberate on the Contents, in 
 order to their better Information before the second Reading. 
 
 That all Questions put by the Speaker to know the Mind of 
 the House by Vote, be answered by the Members standing up, 
 and saying Yea, or Nay, as they shall see meet. 
 
 That if it shall at any time happen, that a Debate prove 
 
364 APPENDIX III. 
 
 tedious, and any four Members shall stand up, and request 
 the Speaker to put the Matter in Debate to the Vote, he shall 
 not refuse it. 
 
 That after the Meeting of an Assembly, the Regularity of 
 Elections being first inspected, Committees shall be appointed 
 on the several Occasions of their Sessions, so far as they have 
 Knowledge thereof, wherein the Command of the Crown shall 
 be preferred, and next that of the Governor : after which, in- 
 spection shall be made into the Law for Safety of the Govern- 
 ment, and Preservation of Liberty and Property ; next of 
 Grievances ; of publick and private Bills ; of Petitions &c. in 
 Course. 
 
APPENDIX IV. 365 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 COMMITTEES IN STATE LEGISLATURES AND 
 MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. 
 
 Though little more can be done in this connection, the 
 mere calling of attention to a field so rich and so important 
 should not be without value. The United States has a hundred 
 State legislative chambers, each with its own parliamentary 
 rules. Comparative study of these collections by legislators 
 should do much to raise the standard of lawmaking. They 
 have not even been brought together in a single compilation. 
 A series of historical monographs devoted to State legislatures 
 might set forth intelligently the merits and defects of the va- 
 rious systems, and point out the true lines of advance. States 
 should know themselves, and study their neighbors. Some of 
 our Commonwealths are much richer in wise methods than 
 others, but none will be found so poor as to have nothing to 
 give. 
 
 These parliamentary codes may be assigned to three main 
 categories : those of the original Atlantic seaboard States ; 
 those of the Southern and Middle-West States wbichwere ad- 
 mitted to the Union prior to 1861 ; those of the Western 
 States which have come in since 1861. The influence of the 
 Congressional procedure upon the three groups and upon the 
 several States that compose them varies both as to degree and 
 as to the stage of its own development at the time that each 
 first drew from its store. The customs and rules of Western 
 legislatures may also be traced back directly to such older 
 bodies as those of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. 
 There is, besides, the valuable sphere of original and special 
 
366 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 developments, the product of a thousand blending causes. 
 Ignorance and common sense have each played their parts. 
 So have physical conditions, industries, and population. So 
 have differences in State constitutional provisions; e.g., the 
 lengths of sessions, or the salaries of the legislators. Our 
 examination of the national procedure has emphasized the 
 importance of the legislative chamber's size and of the amount 
 of its business as bearing upon its legislative methods. What 
 differences, much wider than actually exist, ought to be ex- 
 pected between the two neighboring Commonwealths whose 
 early antagonisms are so interesting, the simple, agricultural 
 Vermont, and New York, the Empire State, with five times 
 the area, with great cities and vast, varied industries. Ver- 
 mont has thirty Senators ; New York, fifty. New York has 
 one hundred and fifty Kepresentatives ; Vermont, two hundred 
 and forty-four. With Senates of about equal sizes, New 
 Jersey has a House of sixty members, and New Hampshire a 
 House of three hundred and fifty-eight. By so much as the 
 duties of a State legislature differ from those of a national 
 Congress, by so much ought it to display independence and 
 self-reliance in the manner of grappling with legislative tasks. 
 As typical to an extent of the three groups indicated, take 
 Massachusetts, Illinois, and Wyoming. Massachusetts builds 
 upon a fine experience of near three centuries, a comparatively 
 slow and therefore healthy development from the simplest to 
 the most intricate governmental forms. Her General Court 
 inherits the characteristics of the town-meeting. By frequent 
 amendment and revision she has kept her legislative procedure 
 up to date, conserving and more perfectly securing those vital 
 ideas of equality, order, fitness, and economy which shine in 
 her early history. Her joint committee system saves time and 
 expense, divides business equally between the two branches, 
 and minimizes the liability to misunderstandings between 
 them. For a number of reasons it is more practicable in a 
 State than in the national legislature. Maine and Connecti- 
 cut follow the mother Commonwealth in this respect. The 
 rules are nicely adapted to local requirements. There are no 
 
APPENDIX IV. 367 
 
 surplus, ornamental, or vote-catching committees in the Mas- 
 sachusetts list of thirty-three. The idea of equality appears 
 in their uniformity of size and in the equal distribution of 
 committee positions, with hardly an exception three to each 
 Senator and one to each Representative. Bills are considered 
 in the strict order of their introduction, saving only when 
 a four-fifths vote directs otherwise. Individual rights are 
 guarded without stinting power to the Speaker, who stands for 
 order and unity. Upon its passage a bill incurs frequent in- 
 spection. When it is introduced, the House Speaker or the 
 Senate's Committee on Rules passes upon its merits ; when it 
 nears the end of its journey, committees on third reading and 
 on engrossed bills are its censors. The jurisdiction of the 
 finance committees as against those for general legislation is 
 defined at length. The House of Representatives divides itself 
 into four sections, for each of which the Speaker appoints two 
 lieutenants or monitors, who take the number of votes, or of 
 members present, for the chair, and assist him in preserving 
 order. If their authority is defied, they report to the House, 
 which may see fit to deprive an unruly member of his right 
 to vote or to speak. These monitors and certain committee 
 chairmen sit in seats specially assigned to their offices. While 
 a bill is under discussion, the chairman of the committee 
 from which it comes controls the time, and allots it to the de- 
 baters. Altogether there is probably not a legislative system 
 among the forty-five more worthy of emulation than that of 
 the old Bay State. 
 
 Illinois, like other great central States, North and South, 
 inherits the framework of a parliamentary code and practice 
 from times and conditions not the most favorable for a begin- 
 ning. In 1818 the backwoodsmen of French Kaskaskia had 
 small store of experience, and maybe but one exemplar in the 
 way of books, the journals and annals of Congress. Appended 
 to the former they fortunately — or unfortunately — found the 
 rules of the national House, from which both chambers clipped 
 out blocks of regulations almost word for word. The develop- 
 ment of Illinois has been in many respects even more rapid 
 
368 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 and extreme than that of the nation at large. Between 1818 
 and 1869 the number of Senators in her legislature increased 
 from fourteen to fifty-one ; the number of Representatives 
 from twenty-seven to one hundred and fifty-three. The first 
 assembly represented some fifty-five thousand Southern farmer 
 folk ; men are yet living who remember it, and contrast with 
 its simple day this present time, when the interests of the 
 third State in the Union and of the next to the greatest city 
 in the New World are dependent upon action at Springfield. 
 Results are such as are to be expected from such conditions. 
 In the outset disrespect and disregard for the collection of 
 rules were bred by its ill-adaptation. Its accumulation has 
 kept pace with the swift growth of the State. The printed 
 regulations are feebly connected with the actual practice. 
 The House list of fifty-eight standing committees surpasses in 
 distortion that of the United States Senate. The committees 
 range in size all the way from seven to thirty-five men, and 
 furnish an average of twelve places to each legislator, not to 
 speak of a fairy labyrinth of nooks for petty political hench- 
 men. As a general result, power centralizes in the hands of 
 a few men, who are law unto themselves. Legislative reform 
 is needed in the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Of Wyoming little may be said save that she has made a 
 beginning, and, with the showing of her journals as compared 
 with the earliest journals of older States, a fair one. Modern 
 conditions have put well within her reach the ripened ex- 
 perience of Eastern Commonwealths and of the general gov- 
 ernment, from which she has judiciously selected a code. 
 Combining the old and the new, her parliamentary authorities 
 are Jefferson's Manual and Reed's Rules. History will not 
 belie itself, if, with such opportunities, the new States of the 
 Louisiana Purchase furnish advanced lessons in legislative 
 methods. 
 
APPENDIX IV. 
 
 369 
 
 COMMITTEES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 
 
 Senate : Judiciary, Ways and Means, Bills in the Third Reading, 
 Engrossed Bills (three members each) ; Rules (the 
 President and four members). 
 
 House : Judiciary (nine) ; Ways and Means (eleven) ; Bills in 
 the Third Reading, Engrossed Bills, Pay Roll (three 
 each) ; Elections (seven) ; Rules (the Speaker and 
 eight others). 
 
 Joint: Agriculture, Banks and Banking, Cities, Constitutional 
 Amendments, Counties, Drainage, Education, Elec- 
 tion Laws, Federal Relations, Fisheries and Game, 
 Harbors and Public Lands, Insurance, Labor, Libra- 
 ries, Liquor Law, Manufactures, Mercantile Affairs, 
 Military Affairs, Parishes and Religious Societies, 
 Printing, Prisons, Probate and Insolvency, Public 
 Charitable Institutions, Public Health, Public Ser- 
 vice, Roads and Bridges, State House, Taxation, 
 Towns, Water Supply (each consisting of three Sen- 
 ators and eight Representatives) ; Metropolitan Af- 
 fairs, Railroads, Street Railways (each consisting of 
 four Senators and eleven Representatives). 
 
 committees of exactly the same names in lists of 
 massachusetts. illinois. and wyoming. 
 
 Agriculture, Education, Elections, Federal Relations, 
 Judiciary, Printing, Railroads, Rules. 
 
 OTHER COMMITTEE NAMES. 
 
 California : Culture and Improvement of the Grape Vine. 
 
 Colorado : Stock. 
 
 Connecticut : Temperance ; Woman's Suffrage ; Manual and 
 
 Roll. 
 
 Florkda : Mining and Phosphate. 
 
 Illinois : Fees and Salaries ; Building, Loan, and Home- 
 
 stead Associations; History, Geology, and 
 Science; Horticulture; Miscellaneous Sub- 
 jects; Parks and Boulevards; State and 
 
370 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 County Fairs ; Rights of the Minority ; Ju- 
 dicial Apportionment; Congressional Ap- 
 portionment ; Senatorial Apportionment. 
 
 Indiana: Sinking Fund; Rights and Privileges of In- 
 
 habitants of the State ; Natural Gas. 
 
 "Iowa: Medicine, Surgery, and Pharmacy; Text- 
 
 Books; Telegraphs and Telephones; Par- 
 dons; Police Regulations. 
 
 Kentucky: Propositions and Grievances; Religion and 
 
 Morals. 
 
 Maine : Leave of Absence ; Change of Name ; County 
 
 Estimates ; Interior Waters. 
 
 Michigan : Executive Business ; University ; Lumber and 
 
 Salt. 
 
 Minnesota: Forestry and Fire Protection; Grain and 
 
 Warehouse; Illuminating Oils; Logs and 
 Lumber; Binding Twine and Manufacture 
 of the same ; Local Bills ; Crimes and Pun- 
 ishments. 
 
 Mississippi: Levees. 
 
 Nebraska : Common Schools. 
 
 New Hampshire : Journal of the House ; Mileage ; Normal 
 Schools. 
 
 New Jersey : Riparian Rights. 
 
 New York : Codes ; Electricity, Gas and Water Supply. 
 
 Pennsylvania : Centennial Affairs ; Iron and Coal Companies ; 
 Bureau of Statistics ; Pensions and Gratui- 
 ties ; Vice and Immorality. 
 
 Texas : Frontier Protection. 
 
 Vermont: Governor's Messages; Grand List; Distrib- 
 
 uting (Pub. Docs.). 
 
 Washington : Harbors and Harbor Lines ; State Tide Lands. 
 
 Wyoming : Lands and Irrigation ; Corporations ; Arbitra- 
 
 tion ; Immigration ; Memorials to Congress. 
 
APPENDIX IV. 
 
 371 
 
 COMPARISON OF THREE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL COMMITTEE 
 U8T8. 
 
 Minneapolis, 
 
 Worcester, 
 
 Atlanta, 
 
 Minn. 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Ga. 
 
 Ways and Means. 
 
 Finance. 
 
 Finance. 
 
 Salaries. 
 
 
 Salaries. 
 
 Claims. 
 
 Claims. 
 
 Contested Claims 
 and Litigation. 
 
 Taxes. 
 
 
 Tax. 
 
 Licenses. 
 
 
 
 Bonds of City Offi- 
 
 
 
 cers. 
 
 
 
 Accountsof CityOffi- 
 
 
 
 cers. 
 
 
 
 Public Grounds and 
 
 Public Buildings. 
 
 Public Buildings and 
 
 Buildings. 
 
 
 Grounds. 
 
 Roads and Bridges. 
 
 Highways and Side- 
 walks. 
 
 Parks. 
 
 Street Grades and 
 
 Assessm'ts for Street 
 
 Streets. 
 
 Additions. 
 
 Betterments. 
 
 Bridges. 
 
 Fire Department. 
 
 Fire Department. 
 
 Fire Department. 
 Fire Masters. 
 
 "Waterworks. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Waterworks. 
 
 Gas. 
 
 Lighting Streets. 
 
 Electric Lights, Tele- 
 graph, and Tele- 
 
 Underground Wires. 
 
 
 phones. 
 
 Sewers. 
 
 Sewers. 
 Assessments for Sew- 
 
 Sewers and Drains. 
 
 Markets. 
 
 ers- 
 
 
 Printing. 
 
 Printing. 
 
 Printing. 
 
 Railroads. 
 
 
 Electric and other 
 Railroads. 
 
 Police. 
 
 Police. 
 Military Affairs. 
 
 Police. 
 
 Paving. 
 
 
 
 Health and Hospi- 
 
 
 Sanitary Affairs. 
 
 tals. 
 
 
 
 Cancellation. 
 
 
 
372 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THREE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL COMMITTEE 
 LISTS. — Continued. 
 
 Minneapolis, 
 Minn. 
 
 worcesteb, 
 Mass. 
 
 Atlanta, 
 Ga. 
 
 Ordinances. 
 
 Ordinances. 
 
 Ordinances and Le- 
 
 Bethany Home. 
 
 Rules. 
 
 Charities. 
 
 gislation. 
 Relief. 
 
 Cemetery. 
 
 Manufacturers, Sta- 
 tistics, Freight 
 Rates and Trans- 
 portation. 
 
 Prisons. 
 
 
 Public Works. 
 
 Public Improvem'ts. 
 
 
 Education. 
 
 Schools. 
 Minutes. 
 
 
 Mayor's Inaugural, 
 and Unfinished 
 
 
 
 Business. 
 
 
 
 Enrollment. 
 
 
 
 Bills in the Second 
 
 
 
 Reading. 
 Elections and Re- 
 
 
 
 turns. 
 
 
APPENDIX V. 373 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEES OP CONGRESS. 
 
 The development of our national finances as yet conceals 
 itself for the most part in the pages of a thousand dusty vol- 
 umes. A single comparison of extremes suffices to show the 
 great scope of the subject. There was but one general appro- 
 priation bill in 1789. Its thirteen modest lines authorized the 
 expenditure of six hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars. 
 To-day an expert clerk may require an hour and a half to read 
 to the House one of the fourteen bills, and its bristling 'items 
 may carry a sum total larger than all of the national outlay 
 during Washington's Presidency. 
 
 Notwithstanding this vast difference, threads of continuity 
 bind together the first bill and the latest. The development 
 of the one into more than a dozen has been logical. Some 
 items in our tariff and appropriation measures are survivals 
 from the days when Congress sat in New York City. The 
 framers of the Wilson Bill looked back to the McKinley Bill, 
 and the framers of the Dingley Bill back to the Wilson Bill. 
 
 In our government, as in others of the world, the initial 
 steps of appropriation fall to the Executive. Those who are 
 engaged in the activities of administration best know its needs, 
 and, voluntarily or by requirement, furnish to the legislative 
 holders of the purse the information which serves as a basis 
 for supply. .Besides two score large volumes of general infor- 
 mation, the appropriation committees annually receive the 
 so-called Book of Estimates. With the opening of the fiscal 
 year in July, bureau clerks begin to collect the facts for this 
 important manual. Gradually each head of a Department 
 compiles them into a report, which he sends to the Secretary of 
 the Treasury. The Treasury Department digests them further 
 
374 APPENDIX V. 
 
 until they take final shape, and places the completed Book of 
 Estimates in Mr. Speaker's hands when Congress meets. 
 
 The compact columns of this book exhibit clearly and mi- 
 nutely each object of appropriation, with the volume, the page, 
 and the section of the laws, that sanction the expenditure. 
 They present the totals, and, side by side with them for com- 
 parison, the totals for the preceding year. They include fine 
 print explanatory notes by the various officers, where changes 
 are asked for, and are supplemented by a text of written ex- 
 planations and an index. 
 
 Step by step, with unceasing effort, Congress has worked 
 out a system of limitations upon expenditure by the Execu- 
 tive. In the earlier years appropriations were made in gross. 
 The bill of 1789 contained but four items, — for civil expenses, 
 for military expenses, for payment of the public debt, and for 
 pensions. A statute of our time requires that each section of 
 a bill " shall contain as nearly as may be a single proposition 
 of enactment," and the number of sections is legion. Among 
 others two prime abuses have been corrected. For a long 
 while the Executive could transfer an appropriation from the 
 object for which it was made to some other object. These 
 transfers have been forbidden by statutes of 1809 and 1868. 
 The second evil was the accumulation of unexpended balances 
 in the various departments. By a law of 1870 such sums, to 
 the enormous amount of one hundred and seventy-four million 
 dollars, were covered into the treasury. All balances must now 
 be reported annually, and after two years ^returned to the gen- 
 eral public funds. 
 
 The century-long process of an increasing membership and 
 an increasing budget has required an increasing number of 
 workmen for preparation of the financial bills. In Washing- 
 ton's time the Ways and Means controlled the entire field of 
 finances in the House of Kepresentatives. Before the Civil 
 War came, it had consigned its jurisdiction over private relief 
 bills to the Claims, the War Claims, the Pensions, and the In- 
 valid Pensions. It gave over the entire subject of expenditure 
 to the newly created Appropriations in 1865. Upon that oc- 
 
APPENDIX V. 375 
 
 casion Robert C. Schenck suggested the distribution of the 
 Appropriation Bills to the committees generally. This distri- 
 bution came in 1879 and 1885, when the Appropriations was 
 forced to yield up eight of its precious bills, two to the Military 
 Affairs, and one to the Agriculture, the Foreign Affairs, the 
 Naval Affairs, the Indian Affairs, the Post-Offices and Post- 
 Roads, and the Rivers and Harbors, respectively. The Ap- 
 propriations now controls but sixty per cent of the annual 
 expenditure, and its share includes the tremendous but fixed 
 bill for pensions. These nine committees for public finances 
 have increased in size each to fifteen or seventeen members. 
 Their combined membership of one hundred and forty-seven 
 is about thirty-two per cent of the House total. In its true 
 inwardness the entire movement has tended to preserve and 
 restore to the Representatives an equal voice upon financial 
 subjects. Whereas formerly a sub-committee of three pre- 
 pared the Navy Bill, a full committee of fifteen now operates. 
 Those who raised the banner of revolt in 1885 might well have 
 inscribed upon it, " No taxation without representation." 
 
 This same general objection to the control of the finances 
 by a few men in Congress holds against the preparation of 
 tariff bills by the commissions which have been advocated or 
 appointed ; they are not truly representative. To be sure, 
 the peculiar conditions which have hitherto tended to confine 
 the membership of the Ways and Means so largely to coun- 
 try members have crippled its representative character. The 
 practical remedy has been found and partly applied in the 
 committee hearing, which imperatively summons experts from 
 the great marts to the doors of Congress. " The framing of 
 a tariff law," says Robert P. Porter, " with all the delicate 
 questions of public revenue which are interwoven with it, con- 
 stitutes the most difficult and the most complicated problem 
 that statesmanship has to deal with. Every statesman since 
 the war who has been called upon to grapple with this ques- 
 tion has either wrecked his party or himself, or both, before 
 he was through with the job." 
 
 The framing of an appropriation law is also difficult enough. 
 
376 APPENDIX F. 
 
 Very wisely, and in face of the spoils doctrine, the House 
 and Senate Committees on Appropriations retain year after 
 year their ahle and experienced clerks. The estimates, with 
 an abundance of other printed data, are at hand ; and the com- 
 mittees of both chambers profess, like the British Commons, 
 to rule out everything that has not been submitted by the Ex- 
 ecutive. But there are many elements of uncertainty that 
 require nice calculation. A percentage of the estimates must 
 be fixed upon, for they are almost always too large. Upon a 
 general view in 1870, Senator John Sherman enumerated as 
 points making for uncertainty : bounties, the Indian service, 
 the call for public works, Congressional liberality or economy, 
 transfers of appropriations from one head to another, appro- 
 priations for the previous year remaining unexpended, the man- 
 ner of making appropriations, e.g., once for all, piecemeal, or 
 by continuing contract, and the claims likely to be allowed 
 by Congress or by the courts. " Under our system," said he, 
 " it would require more than human sagacity to guess within 
 five million dollars of our expenditures for the next year." 
 
 Passing from the committees, two or three salient features 
 of the treatment of the great financial bills upon the legisla- 
 tive floor are worthy of notice. First to be emphasized is the 
 growing use and usefulness of the printer's art. Take, for il- 
 lustration, the enactment of the present tariff law. Ten thou- 
 sand copies of the hearings before the Ways and Means were 
 distributed to members of the House and the Senate. Upon 
 the appearance of the bill in the House, both the majority and 
 the minority of the committee presented their carefully drawn 
 reports. Five thousand copies of the bill were published, 
 and five thousand copies of a comparison with former tariff 
 measures. Unlimited leave to print was granted to every 
 Representative. Expert clerks of the Senate also prepared a 
 comparative statement, showing in parallel columns, with spe- 
 cific duties stated in terms of ad valorem, " the law of 1890, 
 known as the McKinley Act, the law of 1894, and the House 
 bill and the Senate amendments, with all the rates respecting 
 these bills." The bill in full was twice afterward reproduced 
 
APPENDIX V. 877 
 
 in the Congressional Record, the first time with its eight hun- 
 dred amendments, when it had passed the Senate ; the second 
 time with all further changes, when it had come out of confer- 
 ence, — a course which had never been taken with a conference 
 report before. If publicity be one of the essentials of sound 
 finance, it here presents itself in abundant measure. 
 
 The right to debate is an old-fashioned essential of publi- 
 city. There are two kinds of debate in the House. First 
 comes general debate, for which the majority assigned forty- 
 one hours upon the Dingley bill. According to custom one- 
 half of this time was controlled by Chairman Dingley; but the 
 majority yielded most of their share to the minority, who con- 
 fined themselves mainly to discussion of the general princi- 
 ples of Protection and Free Trade. Usually the majority leader 
 opens general debate with an explanation of the bill, and with 
 patient reply to all inquiries. The minority keeps its ablest 
 speakers to the last, and a chief of the majority delivers the 
 closing argument in rebuttal. Then follows the five-minute 
 debate upon paragraphs. For this five days were allowed in 
 considering the Dingley tariff. Each five-minute speech is 
 based upon a proffered amendment. 
 
 The procedure of amendment is a third salient feature in 
 the treatment of financial bills. In the House it has come 
 about that few amendments succeed except those which are 
 presented or accepted by the committee that has originated 
 the money-bill under consideration. An early victory of the 
 committees over would-be amenders lay in the adoption of the 
 rule that an amendment could be laid upon the table without 
 prejudice to the main question. Amendment of the financial 
 bills is a particularly delicate matter because of their peculiar 
 characteristics. One of the canons of parliamentary law de- 
 clares that no bill shall relate to more than one subject, and 
 that this shall be expressed in its title. Many States have in- 
 serted this in their Constitutions, with or without express ex- 
 ception of appropriation bills. From the necessities of the 
 case each one of these huge bills is more or less of an omni- 
 bus, with all of the lurking temptations that such measures 
 
378 APPENDIX V. 
 
 are known in history to have presented to the legislator. Our 
 entire expenditures are divided into two classes, those which 
 are regularly reviewed by the Congressional committees every 
 year, and those which are made payable by statutes that re- 
 main unchanged during considerable periods. The ratio be- 
 tween the two at different stages of our Government's progress 
 is of interest, and the comparative value of the methods has 
 been a subject of debate. The appropriations belonging to the 
 latter class — now decreased to less than one-third — cause 
 little or no trouble. The bulk of those in the former and 
 larger class is very unequally divided into fourteen sums, that 
 range from not quite half a million to more than one hundred 
 and forty million dollars. Appropriation bills vary in charac- 
 ter, not only among themselves, but from year to year. The' 
 history of any one of them can never be surely predicted. 
 Some pass into laws before the holiday recess, and without 
 change of a cent from the original estimate or the original 
 amount fixed by the House committee ; others drag on in fierce 
 contests, and die in the feverish closing hours of an out-going 
 Presidential Administration. 
 
 The demand or the necessity for change, for increase or 
 decrease of expenditures, has been one disturbing element; 
 and another has been the effort to fasten upon these all-im- 
 portant bills measures that cannot succeed save as riders. To 
 separate the sphere of appropriation and the sphere of general 
 legislation has often been difficult. In construing the House 
 rules for the amendment of money bills, the Speaker and the 
 Chairman of the Committee of the Whole have often found 
 exercise for the finest subtleties of logic. There have been no 
 contests over the legislative code sharper than those which 
 have centered around what is now clause two of Rule XXI. 
 Formerly this clause included the " Holman Amendment" 
 (q.v., p. 179), as a substitute for which such Republican lead- 
 ers as Reed and Garfield at one time supported a rule permit- 
 ting amendment of an appropriation bill by striking out any 
 sum of money and inserting a less sum. 
 
 A measure tacked to an appropriation bill by one House, 
 
APPENDIX V. 379 
 
 for the compulsion of the other, is properly termed a rider. 
 When a number of members in one of the chambers combine 
 to insert in block their several pet measures, the process is 
 called log-rolling. Long before a bill comes from its com- 
 mittee the log-roller may be forming combinations for its 
 alteration. A favorite scheme of his has been to secure con- 
 sideration for it in the secret party caucus. River and Harbor 
 bills, and bills charged with the granting of public buildings, 
 have been most susceptible to such blackmail. A measure 
 loaded down and passed by log-rollers violates that old parlia- 
 mentary principle which forbids interested members from vot- 
 ing upon legislative subjects. Log-rolling has been flagrant in 
 the House because the Representative depends upon a small con- 
 stituency, which has often been willing to exploit the rest of the 
 country for its own selfish ends. How can we fuse into this 
 popular body an element which will represent territorial areas 
 larger than the ordinary Congressional district ? At least one 
 member at large from each State could easily be provided for 
 by a slight change of statute law. There is a participator in 
 lawmaking who stands for a constituency broad as the Union; 
 tli<> often-advocated extension of the President's veto to the 
 items of appropriation bills would be a death blow to log-rolling. 
 
 While the House committees sometimes suffer at the hands 
 of House amenders, their formidable enemies are in array at 
 the other extremity of the Capitol. The Senate committees, 
 the Finance and the Appropriations, do not wait for the com- 
 ing of the money-bills from the lower branch, but take them 
 up for consideration as soon as they emerge from the docu- 
 ment-room. Most of the Senate changes are wrought out in 
 the guarded committee-room, not upon the open floor. In the 
 conference the Senate is on the aggressive, the House on the 
 defensive. 
 
 A general view of the public finance usually discovers the 
 House, the Senate, and the Executive each struggling for its 
 rights or for advantage over its fellows. By delay the House 
 reduces the Senate's opportunity for changing the money-bills, 
 and by delay the Senate retaliates in kind. Between them 
 
380 APPENDIX V. 
 
 they have often forced the President to the alternative of 
 signing or vetoing a complex measure which he has never 
 read. In 1837 John Quincy Adams originated a rule which 
 required the Ways and Means of the House to report the ap- 
 propriation bills within thirty days after the opening of a ses- 
 sion ; but his rule was a dead letter from the beginning, and 
 has long since disappeared. The second, or the short regular 
 session of Congress has suffered most from the evil of delay. 
 An equitable division of legislative time among the House, the 
 Senate, and the President is needed. To lengthen the short 
 session by pushing it back into November, or to convene the 
 committees long before its December opening day, would 
 afford relief. 
 
 The date upon which a tariff law shall go into effect is an 
 important consideration. The farther it is put from the hour 
 when the propositions of the Ways and Means become public, 
 the more the nation's commercial interest may be disturbed, 
 and the more the government's revenues may be deranged and 
 crippled by anticipatory importations. Chairman Dingley es- 
 timated that anticipatory importations would cut down the 
 revenue from his bill forty million dollars during the first year 
 of its operation. He inserted a retroactive clause which failed 
 of enactment. The English practice might suggest for our 
 government a way out of this difficulty. In a manner not 
 strictly legal, the Administration there takes the responsibility 
 of levying the newly suggested duties as soon as they are re- 
 ported from the Committee on Ways and Means to the House 
 of Commons. There seems to be no reason why a general 
 and independent statute might not impose like action upon 
 our customs officers. 
 
 Petty juggling with the appropriation bills has found oppor- 
 tunity in the fact that a Congress does not meet until more 
 than a year after it is elected. If a party be dethroned by the 
 fall elections, it can so manipulate the appropriations in its 
 final session of power as to throw some of its own budgetary 
 expenses forward into succeeding years. 
 
 How far do the financial methods of Congress measure up 
 
APPENDIX V. 381 
 
 to the true standards of economy? The question is often 
 asked and variously answered. The Republican dubs his 
 Democratic friend a " cheese-parer," and the Democrat routs 
 his Republican friend upon the issue of the "billion-dollar 
 Congress." Certainly, in the light of recent experiences, we 
 need some of that wise legislation and administration which, 
 ages ago and in another civilization, eked out by seven plente- 
 ous years seven that were lean and hungry. While fixed re- 
 sponsibility and concerted action in budgetary business have 
 not been as positive as they should be, their operation has 
 perhaps been underestimated. Say what its leaders will, the 
 House of Representatives is mainly accountable. Congress- 
 men have been inaugurating a practice of reviewing the 
 financial conduct of each session as it draws to a close. The 
 Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House are re- 
 quired to compile and publish at that time tabular statements 
 exhibiting the history of all the appropriation bills, the new 
 offices created, and the new or increased salaries. In these 
 closing days, the great parties mutually criticise each other's 
 financiering, and many a parliamentary thunderstorm clears 
 the atmosphere of indirection. But more of intelligent plan- 
 ning, more of general counsel among the great House chairmen 
 and among the administrative chiefs, are needed for the legisla- 
 tive beginnings. As for the final regulative power, the words 
 of a high authority upon finance will bear repetition : " The 
 rules of budgetary legislation are serviceable in keeping admin- 
 istration within limits; but prudent expenditure, productive and 
 equitable taxation, and due equilibrium between income and 
 outlay, will only be found where responsibility is enforced by the 
 public opinion of an active and enlightened community." 
 
 The First General Appropriation Bill, September 29, 1789. 
 
 AN ACT making appropriations for the service of the pres- 
 ent year. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That there be appropriated 
 for the service of the present year, to be paid out of the mon- 
 ies which arise either from the requisitions heretofore made 
 
382 APPENDIX V. 
 
 upon the several States or from the duties on import and ton- 
 nage, the following sums, viz. : A sum not exceeding two 
 hundred and sixteen thousand dollars for defraying the ex- 
 penses of the civil list under the late and present Government ; 
 a sum not exceeding one hundred and thirty-seven thousand 
 dollars for defraying the expenses of the Department of War ; 
 a sum not exceeding one hundred and ninety thousand dollars 
 for discharging the warrants issued by the late board of treas- 
 ury, and remaining unsatisfied ; and a sum not exceeding ninety- 
 six thousand dollars for paying the pensions to invalids. 
 
 Development of the General Appropriation Bills. 
 
 I. Act making appropriations for the support of the Govern- 
 ment, Sept. 29, 1789. 
 
 A. Military and Naval Establishments Bill, 1794. 
 
 1. "Naval Establishment Bill (now called Navy), 
 
 1799. 
 
 2. Military Establishment Bill (now called 
 
 Army), 1799. 
 a. Fortifications, 1823. 
 6. Pensions, 1826. 
 
 c. Military Academy, 1834. 
 
 d. Indian, 1837. 
 
 B. Civil and Diplomatic Expenses Bill, 1794. 
 
 1. Post-Office, 1844. 
 
 2. Diplomatic and Consular, 1856. 
 
 3. Sundry Civil, 1856. 
 
 a. • District of Columbia, 1880. 
 
 4. Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, 1856. 
 
 a. Agricultural, 1880. 
 
 C. Rivers and Harbors, 1826. 
 
 Special Order of the House for its First Consideration of the 
 Dingley Tariff Bill. 
 
 Resolved, That on and after Monday, March 22, 1897, and 
 until the final vote on the bill hereinafter mentioned shall 
 have been taken, the House shall meet on each legislative day 
 at 10 o'clock, a. m. ; that on each of said days immediately 
 after the reading of the Journal the House shall resolve itself 
 
APPENDIX V. 383 
 
 into Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union 
 for consideration of the bill (H. R. 379) to provide revenue 
 for the Government and to encourage the industries of the 
 United States ; that general debate shall continue on said bill 
 during each day until 5 o'clock, p. m., and at evening sessions, 
 to which a recess shall be taken, to be held from 8 o'clock till 
 11 o'clock, r. m., until and including Thursday, the 25th day of 
 March, unless sooner concluded; that from the conclusion of 
 general debate until the 31st day of March there shall be de- 
 bate upon the said bill by paragraphs, and during this time 
 the bill shall be open to amendment as each paragraph is read, 
 but committee amendments to any part of the bill shall be in 
 order at any time ; that not later than Wednesday, the 31st 
 day of March, at 3 o'clock, p. m., the said bill, with all amend- 
 ments that shall have been recommended by the Committee 
 of the Whole House on the State of the Union, shall be re- 
 ported to the House, and the previous question shall then be 
 considered as ordered on said amendments and said bill to its 
 engrossment, third reading, and final passage, and on a motion 
 to reconsider and lay on the table. 
 
 General leave to print remarks on said bill is hereby 
 granted, to continue for twenty days after the final vote of 
 the House thereon. 
 
 Special Order of the House, July 8, 1897, obviating Reference 
 of the Dingley Bill to the Committee on Ways and Means. 
 
 Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
 shall be in order to move to nonconcur in gross in the Senate 
 amendments to House bill No. 379, and agree to a committee 
 of conference, asked for by the Senate, on the disagreeing 
 votes of the two Houses ; and the House shall, without 
 further delay, proceed to vote upon said motion ; and if the 
 said motion prevail, a committee of conference shall be ap- 
 pointed, without instructions, and said committee shall have 
 authority to join with the Senate committee in renumbering 
 the paragraphs and sections of said bill when finally agreed 
 upon. 
 
384 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Special Order of the House for Consideration of the Appropria- 
 tion Bills that had failed in the Fifty-fourth Congress. 
 
 Resolved, That on Friday, March 19, 1897, immediately 
 after the adoption of this rule, the House shall proceed to the 
 consideration of the bill (H. R. 16) making appropriations for 
 sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year 
 ending June 30, 1898, and for other purposes ; that said bill 
 shall be considered under the rules governing general debate 
 during the said day for not exceeding forty minutes ; that at 
 the conclusion of such general debate the bill shall be read in 
 extenso ; that the previous question shall then be considered 
 as ordered on the bill to its final passage ; that after the final 
 vote thereon the House shall proceed to the consideration of 
 the bill (H. R. 14) making appropriations for the Department 
 of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898 ; that 
 said bill shall be considered under the rules governing general 
 debate during the said day for not exceeding forty minutes ; 
 that at the conclusion of such general debate the bill shall be 
 read in extenso ; that the previous question shall then be con- 
 sidered as ordered on the bill to its final passage ; that after 
 the final vote thereon the House shall proceed to the consid- 
 eration of the bill (H. R. 15) making appropriations for the 
 current and contingent expenses of the Indian Department 
 and for fulfilling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes 
 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, and for other pur- 
 poses ; that said bill shall be considered under the rules gov- 
 erning general debate during the said day for not exceeding 
 forty minutes ; that at the conclusion of such general debate 
 the bill shall be read in extenso ; that the previous question 
 shall then be considered as ordered on the bill to its final 
 passage ; and that this order shall continue from day to day 
 until all of the bills herein mentioned are disposed of." 
 
APPENDIX V. 
 
 385 
 
 l 
 
 i 
 
 CD 
 © 
 CO 
 
 iH 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 3fl 
 
 Amount Ap- 
 pbopbiated 
 
 FOB THE 
 
 Fiscal Yeab 
 
 8". 
 
 § 
 
 J 
 
 Oft 
 
 HaUP 
 
 1 
 
 MM 
 
 • 
 
 ^ \1 
 
 a 
 
 Ppg 
 2«g 
 
 •°§ 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 
 
 r -\ 
 
 8 
 
 W 5 
 
 a! 
 
 1 
 
 M O M M M N 00 *J « « N t- CS 
 
 go 
 
 8i 
 
 C3 <M 
 
 OBJ 
 
 NNNNNNNN 
 
 « as as OS K as 
 
 gas 
 
 SgaaA,! 
 
 f . . . . 
 
 May 12, 1879 
 Aug. 5, 1882 
 Mar. 3, 1883 
 Mar. 3, 1««5 
 Mar. 2, 1889 
 July 19, 1892 
 Mar. 3,1893 
 July 26, 1894 
 
 
 w | 
 
 B 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 •s 
 
 go 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 l 
 
 Hi 
 
 o 
 
 £§ 
 © 5 
 g 5 
 
 a a 
 
 & s 
 
 H « 
 
 3 £ 
 
 M •< 
 
 H 
 
 z; 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 Under the Navy Department, 
 general expenses. 
 
 Pay of the Navy. 
 Pay of officers on sea-duty; officers on shore 
 and other duty ; officers on waiting-orders; offi- 
 cers on the retired list; clerks to commandants 
 of yards and stations; clerks to paymasters at 
 yards and stations; general storekeepers; re- 
 ceiving-ships and otlier vessels; extra pay to 
 men re-enlisting under honorable discharge; 
 interest on deposits by men ; pay of petty offi- 
 cers, seamen, landsmen, and boys, including 
 men in the engineers' force, and for the Coast 
 Survey Service and Fish Commission, eight 
 thousand two hundred and fifty men, and 
 seven hundred and fifty boys, at the pay pre- 
 scribed by law. 
 
 Note. — The foregoing estimate is made upas 
 f ollow8 : — 
 Pay of 1,494 officers of the active list, #3,404,950. 
 Pay of 300 naval cadets under instruction, 
 #150,000. Etc., etc. 
 
386 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Chronological History of Appropriation Bills, Second Session of 
 
 Fiscal Year 1897-1898; and Appropn- 
 
 Note. — River and Harbor Appropriations were included in the Sun- 
 
 E8TI MATES, 
 
 Repobted to the 
 Douse. 
 
 Passed the House. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Agriculture. . . 
 
 Army 
 
 Diplomatic and Con 
 
 sular .... 
 District ot Columbia 
 Fortifications . . 
 
 Indian 
 
 Legislative, Execu 
 
 tive, and Judicial 
 
 Military Academy 
 
 Navy 
 
 Pension .... 
 
 Post-Office . . . 
 River and Harbor 
 Sundry Civil . . 
 Total. . . . 
 Urgent Deficiency, -\ 
 Navy, etc. . . | 
 Deficiency, 1897,and j 
 prior years . . J 
 
 Total 
 
 Miscellaneous . . . 
 
 Total regular an. 
 
 appropriations, 
 
 Permanent annual 
 
 appropriations . . 
 
 2,385,742.00 
 
 23,892,307.65 
 
 2,082,728.76 
 8,686,616.38 
 15,815,256.00 
 
 7,279,525,87 
 
 22,767,150.80 
 
 521,812.83 
 
 34,215,936.19 
 
 141,328,580.00 
 
 97,515,411.15 
 
 100,000.00 
 
 58,805,812.81 
 
 415,396,880.44 
 
 15,500,000.00 
 
 430,896,880.44 
 2,000,000.00 
 
 432,896,880.44 
 120,078,220.00 
 
 1897 
 Jan. 13 
 
 Jan. 26 
 Jan. 28 
 Feb. 10 
 Jan. 14 
 
 1896 
 Dec. 15 
 
 Dec. 17 
 1897 
 
 Feb. 20 
 1896 
 
 Dec 7 
 1897 
 
 Feb. 10 
 
 f 
 
 3,152,752.00 
 
 23,126,344.30 
 
 1,675,908.76 
 5,780,811.06 
 9,178,325.00 
 7,525,691.67 
 
 21,642,369.80 
 
 489,572.83 
 
 32,165,234.19 
 
 141,263,880.00 
 
 95,611,714.22 
 
 1897 
 Jan. 30 
 
 1896 
 Dec. 17 
 
 1897 
 Feb. 2 
 Feb. 6 
 Feb. 11 
 Jan. 28 
 
 1896 
 Dec. 22 
 
 1897 
 Jan. 11 
 
 Feb. 23 
 1896 
 
 Dec. 8 
 1897 
 
 Feb 12 
 
 Feb. 11 
 
 Dec. 19 
 
 1897 
 Feb. 18 
 
 50,664,743.92 
 
 392,277,347.75 
 
 881,862.71 
 
 8,441,029.43 
 
 Feb. 15 
 
 Dec. 19 
 
 1897 
 Feb. 22 
 
 401,600,239.89 
 
 Grand Total . . I 552,975,100.44 
 
 3,155,702.00 
 
 23,126,344.30 
 
 1,672,708.76 
 5,788,811.06 
 9,253,325.00 
 7,424,609.09 
 
 21,641,369.80 
 
 474,572.83 
 
 32,165,234.19 
 
 141,263,880.00 
 
 95,535,338.75 
 
 50,664,743.92 
 
 392,166,639.70 
 
 881,862.71 
 
 8,442,027.85 
 
 401,490,530.26 
 
APPENDIX V. 
 
 387 
 
 the Fifty-fourth Congress; Estimates and Appropriations for the 
 ations for the Fiscal Year 1896-1897. 
 
 dry Civil and Urgent Deficiency Bills to the amount of $22,878,053.16. 
 
 RXFOXTXO TO TUK 
 
 SENATE. 
 
 Passed the Senate. 
 
 Law, 1897-1898. 
 
 Law, 1896-4897. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Date. Amount. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 1897 
 
 8 
 
 1897 
 
 % 
 
 1897 
 
 f 
 
 # 
 
 Feb. 9 
 
 3,212,902.00 
 
 Feb. 10 
 
 3,217,902.00 
 
 Vetoed 
 
 3,182,902.00 
 
 3,255,532.00 
 
 Jan. 14 
 
 23,129,344.30 
 
 Jan. 18 
 
 23,129,344.30 
 
 Mar. 2 
 
 23,129,344.30 
 
 23,278,402.73 
 
 Feb. 6 
 
 1,695,308.76 
 
 Feb. 11 
 
 1,695,308.76 
 
 Feb. 20 
 
 1,695,308.76 
 
 1,642,558.76 
 
 Feb. 17 
 
 6,993,677.44 
 
 .Mar. 1 
 
 7,447,727.44 
 
 Mar. 3 
 
 6,187,591.06 
 
 5,900,319.48 
 
 Feb. 26 
 
 9,717,141.00 
 
 Mar. 2 
 
 9,817,141 00 
 
 Mar. 3 
 
 9,517,141.00 
 
 7,377,888.00 
 
 Feb. 12 
 
 7,672,436.89 
 
 Feb. 26 
 
 7,740,680.89 
 
 Vetoed 
 
 7,670,220.89 
 
 7,390,496.79 
 
 Jan. 18 
 
 21,702,254.80 
 
 Jan. 20 
 
 21,712,516.90 
 
 Feb. 19 
 
 21,690,766.90 
 
 21,519,324.71 
 
 Jan. 18 
 
 479,572.83 
 
 Jan. 27 
 
 494,572.83 
 
 Feb. 10 
 
 479,572.83 
 
 449,525.61 
 
 Feb. 27 
 
 35,728,234.29 
 
 Mar. 1 
 
 33,228,234.29 
 
 Mar. 3 
 
 33,128,234.29 
 
 30,562,660.95 
 
 18% 
 
 
 1896 
 
 
 1896 
 
 
 
 Dec. 15 
 
 141,263,880.00 
 
 Dec. 16 
 
 141,263,880.00 
 
 Dec. 22 
 
 141,263,880.00 
 
 141,328,580.00 
 
 18*17 
 
 
 1897 
 
 
 1897 
 
 
 
 Feb. 24 
 
 95,835,338.75 
 
 Feb. 27 
 
 95,785,338.75 
 
 Mar. 3 
 
 95,665,338.75 
 
 92,571,564.22 
 12,659,550.00 
 
 Feb. 25 
 
 51,827,727.84 
 
 Feb. 27 
 
 52,703,827.84 
 
 Vetoed 
 
 53,030,051.58 
 
 33,096,710.19 
 
 
 399,257,818.90 
 
 398,236,475 00 
 
 396,640,352.36 
 
 381,033,113.14 
 
 18116 
 
 
 1896 
 
 
 1896 
 
 
 \ 
 
 Dec. 22 
 
 884,885.78 
 
 Dec. 22 
 
 884,885.78 
 
 Dec. 22 
 
 884,885.78 
 
 1 15,341,911.07 
 
 1897 
 
 
 1897 
 
 
 1897 
 
 
 f 
 
 31 ar. 1 
 
 10,334,939.20 
 
 Mar. 2 
 
 11,393,940.16 
 
 Failed 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 410,477,643.88 
 
 410,515,300.94 
 
 397,525,238.14 
 
 396,375,024.51 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 500,000.00 
 
 416,010.06 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 398,025,238.14 
 
 396,791,034.57 
 
 . . 
 
 .... 
 
 
 .... 
 
 
 120,078,220.00 
 
 119,054,160.00 
 
 
 518,103,458.14 
 
 515,845,194.57 
 
388 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 BULES OP THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 FIFTY-FIFTH CONGRESS. 
 Rule I. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE SPEAKER. 
 
 1. The Speaker shall take the chair on every legislative 
 day precisely at the hour to which the House shall have ad- 
 journed at the last sitting, immediately call the members to 
 order, and on the appearance of a quorum, cause the Journal 
 of the proceedings of the last day's sitting to be read, having 
 previously examined and approved the same. 
 
 2. He shall preserve order and decorum, and, in case of 
 disturbance or disorderly conduct in the galleries, or in the 
 lobby, may cause the same to be cleared. 
 
 3. He shall have general control, except as provided by 
 rule or law, of the Hall of the House, and of the corridors and 
 passages and of the unappropriated rooms in that part of 
 the Capitol assigned to the use of the House, until further 
 order. 
 
 4. He shall sign all acts, addresses, joint resolutions, writs, 
 warrants, and subpoenas of, or issued by order of, the House, 
 and decide all questions of order, subject to an appeal by any 
 member, on which appeal no member shall speak more than 
 once, unless by permission of the House. 
 
 5. He shall rise to put a question, but may state it sitting; 
 and shall put questions in this form, to wit : " As many as 
 are in favor (as the question may be), say Aye ;" and after 
 
APPENDIX VI. 389 
 
 the affirmative voice is expressed, " As many as are opposed, 
 say No ; " if he doubts, or a division is called for, the House 
 shall divide ; those in the affirmative of the question shall 
 first rise from their seats, and then those in the negative ; if 
 he still doubts, or a count is required by at least one-fifth of 
 a quorum, he shall name one from each side of the question, 
 to tell the members In the affirmative and negative ; which 
 being reported, he shall rise and state the decision. 
 
 6. He shall not be required to vote in ordinary legislative 
 proceedings, except where his vote would be decisive, or 
 where the House is engaged in voting by ballot ; and in all 
 cases of a tie vote the question shall be lost. 
 
 7. He shall have the right to name any member to per- 
 form the duties of the Chair, but such substitution shall not 
 extend beyond an adjournment : Provided, however, That in 
 case of his illness, he may make such appointment for a 
 period not exceeding ten days, with the approval of the House 
 at the time the same is made ; and in his absence and omis- 
 sion to make such appointment, the House shall proceed to 
 elect a Speaker pro tempore, to act during his absence. 
 
 • Rule II. 
 
 ELECTION OF OFFICERS. 
 
 There shall be elected by a viva voce vote, at the com- 
 mencement of each Congress, to continue in office until their 
 successors are chosen and qualified, a Clerk, Sergeant-at- 
 Arms, Doorkeeper, Postmaster, and Chaplain, each of whom 
 shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United 
 States, and for the true and faithful discharge of the duties 
 of his office to the best of his knowledge and ability, and to 
 keep the secrets of the House ; and each shall appoint all of 
 the employees of his department provided for by law. 
 
 Rule III. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CLERK. 
 
 1. The Clerk shall, at the commencement of the first ses- 
 sion of each Congress, call the members to order, proceed to 
 
390 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 call the roll of members by States in alphabetical order, and, 
 pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker pro tempore, 
 call the House to order, preserve order and decorum, and de- 
 cide all questions of order subject to appeal by any member. 
 
 2. He shall make and cause to be printed and delivered to 
 each member, or mailed to his address, at the commencement 
 of every regular session of Congress, a list of the reports which 
 it is the duty of any officer or Department to make to Con- 
 gress, referring to the act or resolution and page of the vol- 
 ume of the laws or Journal in which it may be contained, and 
 placing under the name of each officer the list of reports re- 
 quired of him to be made. 
 
 3. He shall note all questions of order, with the decisions 
 thereon, the record of which shall be printed as an appendix 
 to the Journal of each session ; and complete, as soon after 
 the close of the session as possible, the printing and distribu- 
 tion to Members and Delegates of the Journal of the House, 
 together with an accurate and complete index ; retain in the 
 library at his office, for the use of the members and officers of 
 the House, and not to be withdrawn therefrom, two copies of 
 all the books and printed documents deposited there ; send, 
 at the end of each session, a printed copy of the Journal 
 thereof to the executive and to each branch of the legislature 
 of every State and Territory ; preserve for and deliver or 
 mail to each Member and Delegate an extra copy, in good 
 binding, of all documents printed by order of either House of 
 the Congress to which he belonged ; attest and affix the seal 
 of the House to all writs, warrants, and subpoenas issued by 
 order of the House, certify to the passage of all bills and 
 joint resolutions, make or approve all contracts, bargains, or 
 agreements relative to furnishing any matter or thing, or for 
 the performance of any labor for the House of Representa- 
 tives, in pursuance of law or order of the House, keep full 
 and accurate accounts of the disbursements out of the con- 
 tingent fund of the House, keep the stationery account of 
 Members and Delegates, and pay them as provided by law. 
 He shall pay to the officers and employees of the House of 
 
APPENDIX VI. 391 
 
 Representatives, the last day of each month, the amount of 
 their salaries that shall be due them ; and when the last day 
 of the month falls on Sunday he shall pay them on the day 
 next preceding. 
 
 Rule IV. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. 
 
 1. It shall be the duty of the Sergeant-at-Arms to attend 
 the House and the Committee of the Whole during their sit- 
 tings, to maintain order under the direction of the Speaker or 
 Chairman, and, pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker 
 pro tempore, under the direction of the Clerk ; execute the 
 commands of the House, and all processes issued by authority 
 thereof, directed to him by the Speaker ; keep the accounts 
 for the pay and mileage of Members and Delegates, and pay 
 them as provided by law. 
 
 2. The symbol of his office shall be the mace, which shall 
 be borne by him while enforcing order on the floor. 
 
 Rule V. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE DOORKEEPER. 
 
 1. The Doorkeeper shall enforce strictly the rules relating 
 to the privileges of the Hall and be responsible to the House 
 for the official conduct of his employees. 
 
 2. At the commencement and close of each session of Con- 
 gress he shall take an inventory of all the furniture, books, 
 and other public property in the several committee and other 
 rooms under his charge, and report the same to the House, 
 which report shall be referred to the Committee on Accounts 
 to ascertain and determine the amount for which he shall be 
 held liable for missing articles. 
 
 3. He shall allow no person to enter the room over the 
 Hall of the House during its sittings ; and fifteen minutes be- 
 fore the hour of the meeting of the House each day he shall 
 see that the floor is cleared of all persons except those privi- 
 leged to remain, and kept so until ten minutes after adjourn- 
 ment. 
 
392 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 Rule VI. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE POSTMASTER. 
 
 The Postmaster shall superintend the post-office kept in 
 the Capitol for the accommodation of Representatives, Dele- 
 gates, and officers of the House, and be held responsible for 
 the prompt and safe delivery of their mail. 
 
 Rule VII. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CHAPLAIN. 
 
 The Chaplain shall attend at the commencement of each 
 day's sitting of the House and open the same with prayer. 
 
 Rule VIII. 
 
 OF THE MEMBERS. 
 
 1. Every member shall be present within the Hall of the 
 House during its sittings, unless excused or necessarily pre- 
 vented ; and shall vote on each question put, unless he has a 
 direct personal or pecuniary interest in the event of such 
 question. 
 
 2. Pairs shall be announced by the Clerk, after the comple- 
 tion of the second roll-call, from a written list furnished him, 
 and signed by the member making the statement to the Clerk, 
 which list shall be published in the Record as a part of the 
 proceedings, immediately following the names of those not 
 voting : Provided, That pairs shall be announced but once 
 during the same legislative day. 
 
 Rule IX. 
 
 QUESTIONS OF PRIVILEGE. 
 
 Questions of privilege shall be, first, those affecting the 
 rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the 
 integrity of its proceedings ; second, the rights, reputation, 
 and conduct of members individually in their representative 
 capacity only ; and shall have precedence of all other ques- 
 tions, except motions to adjouru 
 
APPENDIX VI. 393 
 
 Rule X. 
 
 OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 1. Unless otherwise specially ordered by the House, the 
 Speaker shall appoint, at the commencement of each Congress, 
 the following standing committees, viz. : 
 
 On Elections, three committees, to consist of nine members 
 each, to be called number one (1), two (2), and three (3), 
 respectively. 
 
 On Ways and Means, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On Appropriations, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On the Judiciary, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On Banking and Currency, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On Coinage, Weights, and Measures, to consist of seventeen 
 members. 
 
 On Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to consist of seven- 
 teen members. 
 
 On Rivers and Harbors, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, to consist of thir- 
 teen members. 
 
 On Agriculture, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On Foreign Affairs, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On Military Affairs, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On Naval Affairs, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On the Post-Office and Post-Roads, to consist of seventeen 
 members. 
 
 On the Public Land, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On Indian Affairs, to consist of seventeen members. 
 
 On the Territories, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Railways and Canals, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Manufactures, to consist of eleven members. 
 
 On Mines and. Mining, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Public Buildings and Grounds, to consist of fifteen 
 members. 
 
 On the Pacific Railroads, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On Levees and Improvements of the Mississippi River, to 
 consist of thirteen members. 
 
394 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 On Education, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Labor, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On the Militia, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Patents, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Invalid Pensions, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On Pensions, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Claims, to consist of fifteen members. 
 
 On War Claims, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Private Land Claims, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On the District of Columbia, to consist of fifteen mem- 
 bers. 
 
 On Revision of the Laws, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Reform in the Civil Service, to consist of thirteen 
 members. 
 
 On Election of President, Vice-President, and Representa- 
 tives in Congress, to consist of thirteen members. 
 
 On Alcoholic Liquor Traffic, to consist of eleven members. 
 
 On Irrigation of Arid Lands, to consist of eleven members. 
 
 On Immigration and Naturalization, to consist of eleven 
 members. 
 
 On Ventilation and Acoustics, to consist of seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the State Department, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Treasury Department, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the War Department, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Navy Department, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Post-Office Department, to consist 
 of seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Interior Department, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Department of Justice, to consist of 
 seven members. 
 
 On Expenditures in the Department of Agriculture, to 
 consist of seven members. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 395 
 
 On Expenditures on Public Buildings, to consist of seven 
 members. 
 
 On Rules, to consist of five members. 
 
 On Accounts, to consist of nine members. 
 
 On Mileage, to consist of five members. 
 
 Also the following joint standing committees, viz. : 
 
 On the Library, to consist of three members. 
 
 On Printing, to consist of three members. 
 
 On Enrolled Bills, to consist of seven members. 
 
 2. He shall also appoint all select and conference com- 
 mittees which shall be ordered by the House from time to 
 time. 
 
 *3. The first-named member of each committee shall be the 
 chairman ; and in his absence, or being excused by the House, 
 the next-named member, and so on, as often as the case shall 
 happen, unless the committee by a majority of its number 
 elect a chairman ; and in case of the death of a chairman, it 
 shall be the duty of the Speaker to appoint another. 
 
 4. The chairman shall appoint the clerk or clerks of his 
 committee, subject to its approval, who shall be paid at the 
 public expense, the House having first provided therefor. 
 
 Rule XI. 
 
 POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 All proposed legislation shall be referred to the commit- 
 tees named in the preceding rule, as follows, viz. : Subjects 
 relating, 
 
 1. to the election of members : to the respective Commit- 
 tees on Elections ; 
 
 2. to the revenue and the bonded debt of the United 
 States : to the Committee on Ways and Means ; 
 
 3. to appropriation of the revenue for the support of the 
 Government, as herein provided, viz. : for legislative, execu- 
 tive, and judicial expenses ; for sundry civil expenses ; for 
 fortifications and coast defenses ; for the District of Columbia ; 
 for pensions ; and for all deficiencies : to the Committee on 
 Appropriations ; 
 
B96 Appendix vt 
 
 4. to judicial proceedings, civil and criminal law : to the 
 Committee on the Judiciary ; 
 
 5. to banking and currency : to the Committee on Banking 
 and Currency ; 
 
 6. to coinage, weights, and measures : to the Committee 
 on Coinage, Weights, and Measures ; 
 
 7. to commerce, life-saving service, and light-houses, other 
 than appropriations for life-saving service and light-houses : 
 to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce ; 
 
 8. to the improvements of rivers and harbors : to the Com- 
 mittee on Rivers and Harbors ; 
 
 9. to the merchant marine and fisheries : to the Committee 
 on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries ; 
 
 10. to agriculture and forestry : to the Committee on Agri- 
 culture, who shall receive the estimates and report the appro- 
 priations for the Agricultural Department ; 
 
 11. to the relations of the United States with foreign 
 nations, including appropriations therefor : to the Committee 
 on Foreign Affairs ; 
 
 12. to the military establishment and the public defense, 
 including the appropriations for its support and for that of the 
 Military Academy : to the Committee on Military Affairs ; 
 
 13. to the naval establishment, including the appropriations 
 for its support : to the Committee on Naval Affairs ; 
 
 14. to the post-office and post-roads, including appropria- 
 tions for their support : to the Committee on the Post-Office 
 and Post-Roads ; 
 
 15. to the lands of the United States : to the Committee on 
 the Public Lands ; 
 
 16. to the relations of the United States with the Indians 
 and the Indian tribes, including appropriations therefor : to 
 the Committee on Indian Affairs ; 
 
 17. to Territorial legislation, the revision thereof, and 
 affecting Territories or the admission of States : to the Com- 
 mittee on the Territories ; 
 
 18. to railways and canals, other than Pacific railroads : to 
 the Committee on Railways and Canals ; 
 
APPENDIX VI. 397 
 
 19. to the manufacturing industries : to the Committee on 
 Manufactures ; 
 
 20. to the mining interests : to the Committee on Mines 
 and Mining ; 
 
 21. to the public buildings and occupied or improved 
 grounds of the United States, other than appropriations 
 therefor : to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds ; 
 
 22. to the railroads and telegraphic lines between the Mis- 
 sissippi River and the Pacific coast : to the Committee on 
 Pacific Railroads ; 
 
 23. to the levees of the Mississippi River : to the Commit- 
 tee on Levees and Improvements of the Mississippi River ; 
 
 24. to education : to the Committee on Education ; 
 
 25. to and affecting labor : to the Committee on Labor ; 
 
 26. to the militia of the several States : to the Committee 
 on the Militia ; 
 
 27. to patents, copyrights, and trade-marks : to the Com- 
 mittee on Patents ; 
 
 28. to the pensions of the civil war : to the Committee on 
 Invalid Pensions ; 
 
 29. to the pensions of all the wars of the United States, 
 other than the civil war : to the Committee on Pensions ; 
 
 30. to private and domestic claims and demands, other than 
 war claims, against the United States : to the Committee on 
 Claims ; 
 
 31. to claims arising from any war in which the United 
 States has been engaged : to the Committee on War Claims ; 
 
 32. to private claims to land : to the Committee on Private 
 Land Claims ; 
 
 33. to the District of Columbia, other than appropriations 
 therefor : to the Committee for the District of Columbia ; 
 
 34. to the revision and codification of the statutes of the 
 United States : to the Committee on the Revision of the 
 Laws ; 
 
 35. to reform the civil service : to the Committee on Reform 
 in the Civil Service ; 
 
 36. to the election of the President, Vice-President, or Rep- 
 
398 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 resentatives in Congress : to the Committee on Election of 
 President, Vice-President, and Representatives in Congress ; 
 
 37. to alcoholic liquor traffic : to the Committee on Alco- 
 holic Liquor Traffic ; 
 
 38. to the irrigation of arid lands : to the Committee on 
 Irrigation of Arid Lands ; 
 
 39. to immigration or naturalization : to the Committee on 
 Immigration and Naturalization ; 
 
 40. to ventilation and acoustics : to the Committee on Ven- 
 tilation and Acoustics. 
 
 41. The examination of the accounts and expenditures of 
 the several Departments of the Government and the manner 
 of keeping the same ; the economy, justness, and correctness 
 of such expenditures ; their conformity with appropriation 
 laws ; the proper application of public moneys ; the security 
 of the Government against unjust and extravagant demands ; 
 retrenchment ; the enforcement of the payment of moneys 
 due to the United States ; the economy and accountability of 
 public officers ; the abolishment of useless offices ; the reduc- 
 tion or increase of the pay of officers, shall all be subjects 
 within the jurisdiction of the nine standing committees on 
 the public expenditures in the several Departments, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 42. In the Department of State : to the Committee on Ex- 
 penditures in the State Department ; 
 
 43. In the Treasury Department : to the Committee on Ex- 
 penditures in the Treasury Department ; 
 
 44. In the War Department : to the Committee on Expen- 
 ditures in the War Department ; 
 
 45. In the Navy Department : to the Committee on Ex- 
 penditures in the Navy Department ; 
 
 46. In the Post-Office Department : to the Committee on 
 Expenditures in the Post-Office Department ; 
 
 47. In the Interior Department : to the Committee on Ex- 
 penditures in the Interior Department ; 
 
 48. In the Department of Justice : to the Committee on 
 Expenditures in the Department of Justice ; 
 
APPENDIX VI. 399 
 
 49. In the Department of Agriculture : to the Committee 
 on Expenditures in the Department of Agriculture ; 
 
 50. On public buildings : to the Committee on Expendi- 
 tures on Public Buildings. 
 
 51. All proposed action touching the rules, joint rules, and 
 order of business shall be referred to the Committee on Rules ; 
 
 52. Touching the expenditure of the contingent fund of 
 the House, the auditing and settling of all accounts which 
 may be charged therein by order of the House : to the Com- 
 mittee on Accounts. 
 
 53. The ascertaining of the travel of members of the House 
 shall be made by the Committee on Mileage and reported to 
 the Sergeant-at-Arms. 
 
 54. Touching the Library of Congress, statuary, and pic- 
 tures : to the Joint Committee on the Library. 
 
 55. All proposed legislation or orders touching printing 
 shall be referred to the Joint Committee on Printing on the 
 part of the House. 
 
 56. The enrollment of engrossed bills : to the Joint Com.- 
 mittee on Enrolled Bills. 
 
 57. The following-named committees shall have leave to 
 report at any time on the matters herein stated, viz. : The 
 Committee on Rules, on rules, joint rules, and order of busi- 
 ness ; the Committee on Elections, on the right of a member 
 to his seat ; the Committee on Ways and Means, on bills 
 raising revenue ; the committees having jurisdiction of ap- 
 propriations, the general appropriations bills ; the Committee 
 on Rivers and Harbors, bills for the improvement of rivers 
 and harbors ; the Committee on the Public Lands, bills for 
 the forfeiture of land grants to railroad and other corpora- 
 tions, bills preventing speculation in the public lands, and 
 bills for, the reservation of the public lands for the benefit of 
 actual and bona fide settlers ; the Committee on Territories, 
 bills for the admission of new States ; the Committee on En- 
 rolled Bills, enrolled bills ; the Committee on Invalid Pen- 
 sions, general pension bills ; the Committee on Printing, on 
 all matters referred to them of printing for the use of the 
 
400 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 House or two Houses ; and the Committee on Accounts, on 
 all matters of expenditure of the contingent fund of the House. 
 
 It shall always be in order to call up for consideration a 
 report from the Committee on Rules, and, pending the consid- 
 eration thereof, the Speaker may entertain one motion that 
 the House adjourn ; but after the result is announced he shall 
 not entertain any other dilatory motion until the said report 
 shall have been fully disposed of. 
 
 58. No committee, except the Committee on Rules, shall 
 sit during the sitting of the House without special leave. 
 
 Rule XII. 
 
 DELEGATES. 
 
 The Speaker shall appoint from among the Delegates one 
 additional member on each of the following committees, viz. : 
 Coinage, Weights, and Measures ; Agriculture ; Military Af- 
 fairs ; Post-Office and Post-Roads ; Public Land ; Indian Af- 
 fairs ; Private Land Claims, and Mines and Mining ; and two 
 on Territories ; and they shall possess in their respective com- 
 mittees the same powers and privileges as in the House, and 
 may make any motion except to reconsider. 
 
 Rule XIII. 
 
 CALENDARS AND REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 1. There shall be three Calendars of business reported 
 from committees, viz. : 
 
 First. A Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House 
 on the state of the Union, to which shall be referred bills 
 raising revenue, general appropriation bills, and bills of a 
 public character directly or indirectly appropriating money 
 or property. 
 
 Second. A House Calendar, to which shall be referred all 
 bills of a public character not raising revenue nor directly or 
 indirectly appropriating money or property. 
 
 Third. A Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House, 
 to which shall be referred all bills of a private character. 
 
 2. All reports of committees, except as provided in clause 
 
APPENDIX VI. 401 
 
 57 of Rule XL, together with the views of the minority, shall 
 be delivered to the Clerk for printing and reference to the 
 proper Calendar under the direction of the Speaker, in accord- 
 ance with the foregoing clause, and the titles or subjects 
 thereof shall be entered on the Journal and printed in the 
 Record. 
 
 Provided, That bills reported adversely shall be laid on the 
 table, unless the committee reporting a bill, at the time, or 
 any member within three days thereafter, shall request its 
 reference to the Calendar, when it shall be referred as pro- 
 vided in clause 1 of this rule. 
 
 Rule XIV. 
 
 OF DECORUM AND DEBATE. 
 
 1. When any member desires to speak or deliver any mat- 
 ter to the House, he shall rise and respectfully address him- 
 self to " Mr. Speaker," and, on being recognized, may address 
 the House from any place on the floor or from the Clerk's 
 desk, and shall confine himself to the question under debate, 
 avoiding personality. 
 
 2. When two or more members rise at once, the Speaker 
 shall name the member who is first to speak ; and no member 
 shall occupy more than one hour in debate on any question in 
 the House or in committee, except as further provided in this 
 rule. 
 
 3. The member reporting the measure under consideration 
 from a committee may open and close, where general debate 
 has been had thereon ; and if it shall extend beyond one day, 
 he shall be entitled to one hour to close, notwithstanding he 
 may have used an hour in opening. 
 
 4. If any member, in speaking or otherwise, transgress the 
 rules of the House, the Speaker shall, or any member may, 
 call him to order; in which case he shall immediately sit 
 down, unless permitted, on motion of another member, to ex- 
 plain, and the House shall, if appealed to, decide on the case 
 without debate ; if the decision is in favor of the member 
 called to order, he shall be at liberty to proceed, but not other- 
 
402 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 wise; and, if the case require it, he shall be liable to censure 
 or such punishment as the House may deem proper. 
 
 5. If a member is called to order for words spoken in de- 
 bate, the member calling him to order shall indicate the 
 words excepted to, and they shall be taken down in writing 
 at the Clerk's desk and read aloud to the House ; but he shall 
 not be held to answer, nor be subject to the censure of the 
 House therefor, if further debate or other business has inter- 
 vened. 
 
 6. No member shall speak more than once to the same 
 question without leave of the House, unless he be the mover, 
 proposer, or introducer of the matter pending, in which case 
 he shall be permitted to speak in reply, but not until every 
 member choosing to speak shall have spoken. 
 
 7. While the Speaker is putting a question or addressing 
 the House no member shall walk out of or across the Hall, 
 nor, when a member is speaking, pass between him and the 
 Chair ; and during the session of the House no member shall 
 wear his hat, or remain by the Clerk's desk during the call of 
 the roll or the counting of ballots, or smoke upon the floor 
 of the House ; and the Sergeant-at-Arms and Doorkeeper are 
 charged with the strict enforcement of this clause. Neither 
 shall any person be allowed to smoke upon the floor of the 
 House at any time. 
 
 Rule XV. 
 
 ON CALLS OF THE ROLL AND HOUSE. 
 
 1. Upon every roll-call the names of the members shall be 
 called alphabetically by surname, except when two or more 
 have the same surname, in which case the name of the State 
 shall be added ; and if there be two such members from the 
 same State, the whole name shall be called ; and after the roll 
 has been once called, the clerk shall call in their alphabetical 
 order the names of those not voting ; and thereafter the 
 Speaker shall not entertain a request to record a vote or an- 
 nounce a pair unless the member's name has been noted under 
 clause 3 of this rule. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 403 
 
 2. In the absence of a quorum, fifteen members, including 
 the Speaker, if there is one, shall be authorized to compel the 
 attendance of absent members, and in all calls of the House 
 the doors shall be closed, the names of the members shall be 
 called by the Clerk, and the absentees noted ; and those for 
 whom no sufficient excuse is made may, by order of a majority 
 of those present, be sent for and arrested, wherever they may 
 be found, by officers to be appointed by the Sergeant-at-Arms 
 for that purpose, and their attendance secured and retained ; 
 and the House shall determine upon what condition they 
 shall be discharged. Members who voluntarily appear shall, 
 unless the House otherwise direct, be immediately admitted 
 to the Hall of the House, and they shall report their names 
 to the Clerk to be entered upon the Journal as present. 
 
 3. On the demand of any member, or at the suggestion of 
 the Speaker, the names of members sufficient to make a quo- 
 rum in the Hall of the House who do not vote, shall be noted 
 by the Clerk and recorded in the Journal, and reported to the 
 Speaker with the names of the members voting and be counted 
 and announced in determining the presence of a quorum to do 
 business. 
 
 4. Whenever a quorum fails to vote on any question, and a 
 quorum is not present and objection is made for that cause, 
 unless the House shall adjourn, there shall be a call of the 
 House, and the Sergeant-at-Arms shall forthwith proceed to 
 bring in absent members, and the yeas and nays on the pend- 
 ing question shall at the same time be considered as ordered. 
 The Clerk shall call the roll, and each member as he answers 
 to his name may vote on the pending question, and, after the 
 roll-call is completed, each member arrested shall be brought 
 by the Sergeant-at-Arms before the House, whereupon he 
 shall be noted as present, discharged from arrest, and given 
 an opportunity to vote and his vote shall be recorded. If 
 those voting on the question and those who are present and 
 decline to vote shall together make a majority of the House, 
 the Speaker shall declare that a quorum is constituted, and 
 the pending question shall be decided as the majority of those 
 
404 APPENDIX VI 
 
 voting shall appear. And thereupon further proceedings 
 under the call shall be considered as dispensed with. At any 
 time after the roll-call has been completed, the Speaker may 
 entertain a motion to adjourn, if seconded by a majority of 
 those present, to be ascertained by actual count by the Speaker ; 
 and if the House adjourns, all proceedings under this section 
 shall be vacated. But this section of the rule shall not apply 
 to the sessions of Friday night, until further order of the 
 House. 
 
 Rule XVI. 
 
 ON MOTIONS, THEIR PRECEDENCE, ETC. 
 
 1. Every motion made to the House and entertained by the 
 Speaker shall be reduced to writing on the demand of any 
 member, and shall be entered on the Journal with the name 
 of the member making it, unless it is withdrawn the same 
 day. 
 
 2. When a motion has been made, the Speaker shall state 
 it or (if it be in writing) cause it to be read aloud by the Clerk 
 before being debated, and it shall then be in possession of the 
 House, but may be withdrawn at any time before a decision or 
 amendment. 
 
 3. When any motion or proposition is made, the question, 
 Will the House now consider it? shall not be put unless 
 demanded by a member. 
 
 4. When a question is under debate, no motion shall be 
 received but to adjourn, to lay on the table, for the previous 
 question (which motions shall be decided without debate), to 
 postpone to a day certain, to refer, or to amend, or postpone 
 indefinitely ; which several motions shall have precedence in 
 the foregoing order ; and no motion to postpone to a day cer- 
 tain, to refer, or to postpone indefinitely, being decided, shall 
 be again allowed on the same day at the same stage of the 
 question. 
 
 5. The hour at which the House adjourns shall be entered 
 on the Journal. 
 
 6. On the demand of any member, before the question is 
 
APPENDIX VI. 405 
 
 put, a question shall be divided if it include propositions so 
 distinct in substance that one being taken away a substantive 
 proposition shall remain. 
 
 7. A motion to strike out and insert is indivisible, but a mo- 
 tion to strike out being lost shall neither preclude amendment 
 nor motion to strike out and insert ; and no motion or propo- 
 sition on a subject different from that under consideration 
 shall be admitted under color of amendment. 
 
 8. Pending a motion to suspend the rules, the Speaker may 
 entertain one motion that the House adjourn ; but after the 
 result thereon is announced he shall not entertain any other 
 dilatory motion till the vote is taken on suspension. 
 
 9. At any time after the reading of the Journal it shall be 
 in order, by direction of the appropriate committees, to move 
 that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union for the purpose of consider- 
 ing bills raising revenue, or general appropriation bills. 
 
 10. No dilatory motion shall be entertained by the Speaker. 
 
 Rule XVII. 
 
 PREVIOUS QUESTION. 
 
 1. There shall be a motion for the previous question, which, 
 being ordered by a majority of members voting, if a quorum 
 be present, shall have the effect to cut off all debate and bring 
 the House to a direct vote upon the immediate question or 
 questions on which it has been asked and ordered. The pre- 
 vious question may be asked and ordered upon a single motion, 
 a series of motions allowable under the rules, or an amend- 
 ment or amendments, or may be made to embrace all author- 
 ized motions or amendments and include the bill to its passage 
 or rejection. It shall be in order, pending the motion for, or 
 after the previous question shall have been ordered on its 
 passage, for the Speaker to entertain and submit a motion to 
 commit, with or without instructions, to a standing or select 
 committee. 
 
 2. A call of the House shall not be in order after the 
 previous question is ordered, unless it shall appear upon 
 
406 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 an actual count by the Speaker that a quorum is not pres- 
 ent. 
 
 3. All incidental questions of order arising after a motion 
 is made for the previous question, and pending such motion, 
 shall be decided, whether on appeal or otherwise, without 
 debate. 
 
 Rule XVIII. 
 
 RECONSIDERATION. 
 
 When a motion has been made and carried or lost, it shall 
 be in order for any member of the majority, on the same 
 or succeeding day, to move for the reconsideration thereof, 
 and such motion shall take precedence of all other questions 
 except the consideration of a conference report or a motion to 
 adjourn, and shall not be withdrawn after the said succeeding 
 day without the consent of the House, and thereafter any mem- 
 ber may call it up for reconsideration: Provided, That such 
 motion, if made during the last six days of a session, shall be 
 disposed of when made. 
 
 2. No bill, petition, memorial, or resolution referred to a 
 committee, or reported therefrom for printing and recommit- 
 ment, shall be brought back into the House on a motion to 
 reconsider; and all bills, petitions, memorials, or resolutions 
 reported from a committee shall be accompanied by reports in 
 writing, which shall be printed. 
 
 Rule XIX. 
 
 OF AMENDMENTS. 
 
 When a motion or proposition is under consideration, a 
 motion to amend and a motion to amend that amendment shall 
 be in order, and it shall also be in order to offer a further 
 amendment by way of substitute, to which one amendment 
 may be offered, but which shall not be voted on until the 
 original matter is perfected, but either may be withdrawn 
 before amendment or decision is had thereon. Amendments 
 to the title of a bill or resolution shall not be in order until 
 after its passage, and shall be decided without debate. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 407 
 
 Rule XX. 
 
 OF AMENDMENTS OF THE SENATE. 
 
 Any amendment of the Senate to any House bill shall be 
 subject to the point of order that it shall first be considered 
 in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the 
 Union if, originating in the House, it would be subject to that 
 point. 
 
 Rule XXI. 
 
 ON BILLS. 
 
 1. Bills and joint resolutions on their passage shall be read 
 the first time by title and the second time in full, when, if the 
 previous question is ordered, the Speaker shall state the ques- 
 tion to be : Shall the bill be engrossed and read a third time ? 
 and, if decided in the affirmative, it shall be read the third 
 time by title, unless the reading in full is demanded by a mem- 
 ber, and the question shall then be put upon its passage. 
 
 2. No appropriation shall be reported in any general appro- 
 priation bill, or be in order as an amendment thereto, for any 
 expenditure not previously authorized by law, unless in con- 
 tinuation of appropriations for such public works and objects 
 as are already in progress ; nor shall any provision changing 
 existing law be in order in any general appropriation bill or in 
 any amendment thereto. 
 
 3. No bill for the payment or adjudication of any private 
 claim against the Government shall be referred, except by 
 unanimous consent, to any other than the following-named 
 committees, viz. : To the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to 
 the Committee on Pensions, to the Committee on Claims, to 
 the Committee on War Claims, to the Committee on Private 
 Land Claims, and to the Committee on Accounts. 
 
 Rule XXII. 
 
 OF PETITIONS, MEMORIALS, BILLS, AND RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 1. Members having petitions or memorials or bills of a pri- 
 vate nature to present may deliver them to the Clerk, indors- 
 ing their names and the reference or disposition to be made 
 
408' APPENDIX VI. 
 
 thereof ; and said petitions and memorials and bills of a pri- 
 vate nature, except such as, in the judgment of the Speaker, 
 are of an obscene or insulting character, shall be entered on 
 the Journal with the names of the members presenting them, 
 and the Clerk shall furnish a transcript of such entry to the 
 official reporters of debates for publication in the Record. 
 
 2. Any petition or memorial or private bill excluded under 
 this rule shall be returned to the "member from whom it was 
 received ; and petitions and private bills which have been in- 
 appropriately referred may, by the direction of the committee 
 having possession of the same, be properly referred in the 
 manner originally presented ; and an erroneous reference of a 
 petition or private bill under this clause shall not confer juris- 
 diction upon the committee to consider or report the same. 
 
 3. All other bills, memorials, and resolutions may, in like 
 manner, be delivered, indorsed with the names of members 
 introducing them, to the Speaker, to be by him referred, and 
 the titles and references thereof and of all bills, resolutions, 
 and documents referred under the rules, shall be entered on 
 the Journal and printed in the Record of the next day, and 
 correction in case of error or reference may be made by the 
 House without debate in accordance with Rule XI. on any day 
 immediately after the reading of the Journal, by unanimous 
 consent, or on motion of a committee claiming jurisdiction, or 
 on the report of the committee to which the bill has been 
 erroneously referred. 
 
 4. When a bill, resolution, or memorial is introduced "by 
 request," these words shall be entered upon the Journal and 
 printed in the Record. 
 
 5. All resolutions of inquiry addressed to the heads of Ex- 
 ecutive Departments shall be reported to the House within one 
 week after presentation. 
 
 Rule XXIII. 
 
 OF COMMITTEES OF THE "WHOLE HOUSE. 
 
 1. In all cases, in forming a Committee of the Whole 
 House } the Speaker shall leave his chair after appointing a 
 
APPENDIX 'VI. . 409 
 
 chairman to preside, who shall, in case of ^disturbance or dis- 
 orderly conduct in the galleries or lobby, have power to cause 
 the same to be cleared. * 
 
 2. Whenever a Committee of the While's buse or of the- 
 Whole Hotfse on the state of the Union. finds itself without 
 a quorum, which shall consist of one hundred members, the 
 chairman shall cause the roll to be called, and thereupon the 
 committee shall rise, and the chairman shall report the names 
 of the absentees to the House, which shall be entered on the 
 Journal ; but if on such call a quorum shall appear, the com- 
 mittee shall thereupon resume its sitting without further order 
 of the House. 
 
 3. All motions or propositions involving a tax or charge 
 upon the people ; all proceedings touching appropriations of 
 money or bills making appropriations of money or property, 
 or requiring such appropriation to be made, or authorizing 
 payments out of appropriations already made, or releasing any 
 liability to the United States for money or property, or refer- 
 ring any claim to the Court of Claims, shall be first considered 
 in a Committee of the Whole, and a point of order under this 
 rule shall be good at any time before the consideration of a 
 bill has commenced. 
 
 4. In Committees of the Whole nouse business on their 
 calendars may be taken up in regular order, or in such order 
 as the committee may determine, unless the bill to be consid- 
 ered was determined by the House at the time of going into 
 committee; but bills for raising revenue, general appropria- 
 tion bills, and bills for the improvement of rivers and harbors 
 shall have precedence. 
 
 5. When general debate is closed by order of the House, 
 any member shall be allowed five minutes to explain any 
 amendment he may offer, after which the member who shall 
 first obtain the floor shall be allowed to speak five minutes in 
 opposition to it, and there shall be no further debate thereon ; 
 but the same privilege of debate shall be allowed in favor of 
 and against any amendment that may be offered to an amend- 
 ment: and neither an amendment nor an amendment to an 
 
410 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 amendment shall be withdrawn by the mover thereof unless 
 by the unanimous consent of the committee. 
 
 6. The committee may, by the vote of a majority of the 
 members present, at any time after the five minutes' debate 
 has begun upon proposed amendments to any section or para- 
 graph of a bill, close all debate upon such section or para- 
 graph, or, at its election, upon the pending amendments only 
 (which motion shall be decided without debate) ; but this shall 
 not preclude further amendment, to be decided without debate. 
 
 7. A motion to strike out the enacting words of a bill shall 
 have precedence of a motion to amend, and, if carried, shall 
 be considered equivalent to its rejection. Whenever a bill is 
 reported from a Committee of the Whole with an adverse 
 recommendation and such recommendation is disagreed to by 
 the House, the bill shall stand recommitted to the said com- 
 mittee without further action by the House; but before the 
 question of concurrence is submitted it is in order to enter- 
 tain a motion to refer the bill to any committee, with or with- 
 out instructions, and when the same is again reported to the 
 House it shall be referred to the Committee of the Whole 
 without debate. 
 
 8. The rules of proceeding in the House shall be observed 
 
 in Committees of the Whole House so far as they may be 
 
 applicable. 
 
 Rule XXIY. 
 
 ORDER OF BUSINESS. 
 
 1. The daily order of business shall be as follows: 
 
 First. Prayer by the Chaplain. 
 
 Second. Reading and approval of the Journal. 
 
 Third. Correction of reference of public bills. 
 
 Fourth. Disposal of business on the Speaker's table. 
 
 Fifth. Unfinished business. 
 
 Sixth. The morning hour for the consideration of bills 
 called up by committees. 
 
 Seventh. Motions to go into Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union. 
 
 Eighth. Orders of the day. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 411 
 
 2. Business on the Speaker's table shall be disposed of as 
 follows : 
 
 Messages from the President shall be referred to the appro- 
 priate committees without debate. Reports and communi- 
 "cations from the heads of Departments, and other commu- 
 nications addressed to the House, and bills, resolutions, and 
 messages from the Senate may be referred to the appropriate 
 committees in the same manner and with the same right of 
 correction as public bills presented by members; but House 
 bills with Senate amendments which do not require consider- 
 ation in a Committee of the Whole, may be at once disposed 
 of as the House may determine, as may also Senate bills sub- 
 stantially the same as House bills already favorably reported 
 by a committee of the House, and not required to be consid- 
 ered in Committee of the Whole, be disposed of in the same 
 manner on motion directed to be made by such committee. 
 
 3. The consideration of the unfinished business in which the 
 House may be engaged at an adjournment, except business in 
 the morning hour, shall be resumed as soon as the business on 
 the Speaker's table is finished, and at the same time each day 
 thereafter until disposed of, and the consideration of all other 
 unfinished business shall be resumed whenever the class of 
 business to which it belongs shall be in order under the rules. 
 
 4. After the unfinished business has been disposed of, the 
 Speaker shall call each standing committee in regular order, 
 and then select committees, and each committee when named 
 may call up for consideration any bill reported by it on a pre- 
 vious day and on the House Calendar, and if the Speaker shall 
 not complete the call of the committees before the House passes 
 to other business, he shall resume the next call where he left 
 off, giving preference to the last bill under consideration : Pro- 
 vided, That whenever any committee shall have occupied the 
 morning hour on two days, it shall not be in order to call up 
 any other bill until the other committees have been called in 
 their turn. 
 
 5. After one hour shall have been devoted to the considera- 
 tion of bills called up by committees, it shall be in order, pend- 
 
412 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 ing consideration or discussion thereof, to entertain a motion 
 to go into Committee of, the Whole House on the state of the 
 Union, or, when authorized by a committee, to go into the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union to 
 consider a particular bill, to which motion one amendment 
 only, designating another bill, may be made; and if either 
 motion be determined in the negative, it shall not be in order 
 to make either motion again until the disposal of the matter 
 under consideration or discussion. 
 
 6. On Friday of each week, after the unfinished business 
 has been disposed of, it shall be in order to entertain a motion 
 that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole 
 House to consider business on the Private Calendar; and if 
 this motion fails, then public business shall be in order as on 
 other days. 
 
 Kule XXV. 
 
 PRIORITY OF BUSINESS. 
 
 All questions relating to the priority of business shall be 
 decided by a majority without debate. 
 
 Kule XXVI. 
 
 PRIVATE AND DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BUSINESS. 
 
 1. Friday in every week shall be set apart for the consider- 
 ation of private business, unless otherwise determined by the 
 House. 
 
 2. The House shall on each Friday at 5 o'clock, p.m., take 
 a recess until 8 o'clock, at which evening session private 
 pension bills, bills for the removal of political disabilities, and 
 bills removing charges of desertion only shall be considered ; 
 said evening session not to extend beyond 10 o'clock and 30 
 minutes. 
 
 3. The second and fourth Mondays in each month, after 
 the disposal of such business on the Speaker's table as requires 
 reference only, shall, when claimed by the Committee on the 
 District of Columbia, be set apart for the consideration of 
 such business as may be presented by said committee. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 413 
 
 Kule XXYII. 
 
 UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF THE SESSION. 
 
 All business before committees of the House at the end of 
 one session shall be resumed at the commencement of the next 
 session of the same Congress in the same manner as if no 
 adjournment had taken place. 
 
 Rule XXYIII. 
 
 CHANGE OR SUSPENSION OF RULES. 
 
 1. No rule shall be suspended except by a vote of two- 
 thirds of the members voting, a quorum being present; nor 
 shall the Speaker entertain a motion to suspend the rules ex- 
 cept on the first and third Mondays of each month, preference 
 being given on the first Monday to individuals and on the 
 third Monday to committees, and during the last six days of 
 a session. 
 
 2. All motions to suspend the rules shall, before being sub- 
 mitted to the House, be seconded by a majority by tellers, if 
 demanded. 
 
 3. When a motion to suspend the rules has been seconded, 
 it shall be in order, before the final vote is taken thereon, to 
 debate the proposition to be voted upon for forty minutes, 
 one-half of such time to be given to debate in favor of, and 
 one-half to debate in opposition to, such proposition, and the 
 same right of debate shall be allowed whenever the previous 
 question has been ordered on any proposition on which there 
 has been no debate. 
 
 Rule XXIX. 
 
 CONFERENCE REPORTS. 
 
 The presentation of reports of committees of conference 
 shall always be in order, except when the Journal is being read, 
 while the roll is being called, or the House is dividing on any 
 proposition. And there shall accompany every such report a 
 detailed statement sufficiently explicit to inform the House 
 what effect such amendments or propositions will have upon 
 the measures to which they relate. 
 
414 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 Rule XXX. 
 
 SECRET SESSION. 
 
 Whenever confidential communications are received from 
 the President of the United States, or whenever the Speaker 
 or any member shall inform the House that he has communi- 
 cations which he believes ought to be kept secret for the 
 present, the House shall be cleared of all persons except the 
 members and officers thereof, and so continue during the read- 
 ing of such communications, the debates and proceedings 
 thereon, unless otherwise ordered by the House. 
 
 Rule XXXI. 
 
 READING OF PAPERS. 
 
 When the reading of a paper other than one upon which 
 the House is called to give a final vote is demanded, and the 
 same is objected to by any member, it shall be determined 
 without debate by a vote of the House. 
 
 JlULE XXXII. 
 DRAWING OF SEATS. 
 
 1. At the commencement of each Congress, immediately 
 after the Members and Delegates are sworn in, the Clerk shall 
 place in a box, prepared for that purpose, a number of small 
 balls, of marble or other material, equal to the number of Mem- 
 bers and Delegates, which balls shall be consecutively num- 
 bered and thoroughly intermingled, and at such hour as shall 
 be fixed by the House for that purpose, by the hands of a page, 
 draw said balls one by one from the box and announce the 
 number as it is drawn, upon which announcement the Member 
 or Delegate whose name on a numbered alphabetical list shall 
 correspond with the number on the ball shall advance and 
 choose his seat for the term for which he is elected. 
 
 2. Before said drawing shall commence each seat shall be 
 vacated and so remain until selected under this rule, and any 
 seat having been selected shall be deemed forfeited if left un- 
 occupied before the call of the roll is finished, and whenever 
 
APPENDIX VL 415 
 
 the seats of Members and Delegates shall have been drawn, 
 no proposition for a second drawing shall be in order during 
 that Congress. 
 
 Rule XXXIII. 
 
 HALL OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 The Hall of the House shall be used only for the legislative 
 business of the House and for the caucus meetings of its mem- 
 bers, except upon occasions where the House by resolution 
 agree to take part in any ceremonies to be observed therein ; 
 and the Speaker shall not entertain a motion for the suspen- 
 sion of this rule. 
 
 Rule XXXIV. 
 
 OF ADMISSION TO THE FLOOR. 
 
 The persons hereinafter named, and none other, shall be 
 admitted to the Hall of the House or rooms leading thereto, 
 viz. : The President and Vice-President of the United States 
 and their private secretaries, Judges of the Supreme Court, 
 Members of Congress and Members elect, contestants in elec- 
 tion cases during the pendency of their cases in the House, the 
 Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, heads of De- 
 partments, foreign ministers, governors of States, the Architect 
 of the Capitol, the Librarian of Congress and his assistant in 
 charge of the Law Library, such persons as have, by name, re- 
 ceived the thanks of Congress, ex-members of the House of 
 Representatives who are not interested in any claim or directly 
 in any bill pending before Congress, and clerks of committees 
 when business from their committee is under consideration; 
 and it shall not be in order for the Speaker to entertain a 
 request for the suspension of this rule or to present from the 
 chair the request of any member for unanimous consent. 
 
 Rule XXXV. 
 
 OF ADMISSION TO THE GALLERIES. 
 
 The Speaker shall set aside a portion of the west gallery for 
 the use of the President of the United States, the members of 
 his Cabinet, Justices of the Supreme Court, foreign ministers 
 
416 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 and suites, and the members of their respective families, and 
 shall also set aside another portion of the same gallery for the 
 accommodation of persons to be admitted on the card of mem- 
 bers. The southerly half of the east gallery shall be assigned 
 exclusively for the use of the families of members of Congress, 
 in which the Speaker shall control one bench, and on request 
 of a member the Speaker shall issue a card of admission to his 
 family, which shall include their visitors, and no other person 
 shall be admitted to this section. 
 
 Rule XXXVI. 
 
 OFFICIAL AND OTHER REPORTERS. 
 
 1. The appointment and removal, for cause, of the official 
 reporters of the House, including stenographers of committees 
 and the manner of the execution of their duties, shall be vested 
 in the Speaker. 4 
 
 2. Stenographers and reporters, other than the official re- 
 porters of the House, wishing to take down the debates and 
 proceedings, may be admitted by the Speaker to the reporters' 
 gallery over the Speaker's chair, under such regulations as he 
 may, from time to time, prescribe ; and he may assign one seat 
 on the floor to Associated Press reporters, and one to The 
 United Press reporters, and regulate the occupation of the 
 same. And the Speaker may admit to the floor, under such 
 regulations as he may prescribe, one additional representative 
 of each press association. 
 
 Rule XXXVII. 
 
 PAY OF WITNESSES. 
 
 The rule for paying witnesses subpoenaed to appear before 
 the House or either of its committees, shall be as follows : For 
 each day a witness shall attend, the sum of two dollars; for 
 each mile he shall travel in coming to or going from the place 
 of examination, the sum of five cents each way; but nothing 
 shall be paid for traveling when the witness has been sum- 
 moned at the place of trial. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 417 
 
 Rule XXXVIII. 
 
 PAPERS. 
 
 1. The clerks of the several committees of the House shall, 
 within three days after the final adjournment of a Congress, 
 deliver to the Clerk of the House all bills, joint resolutions, 
 petitions, and other papers referred to the committee, together 
 with all evidence taken by such committee under the order of 
 the House during the said Congress and not reported to the 
 House ; and in the event of the failure or neglect of any clerk 
 of a committee to comply with this rule the Clerk of the House 
 shall, within three days thereafter, take into his keeping all 
 such papers and testimony. 
 
 Rule XXXIX. 
 
 WITHDRAWAL OF PAPERS. 
 
 No memorial or other paper presented to the House shall be 
 withdrawn from its files without its leave, and if withdrawn 
 therefrom certified copies thereof shall be left in the office of 
 the Clerk; but when an Act may pass for the settlement of a 
 claim, the Clerk is authorized to transmit to the officer in 
 charge with the settlement thereof the papers on file in his 
 office relating to such claim, or may loan temporarily to any 
 officer or bureau of the Executive Departments any papers on 
 file in his office relating to any matter pending before such 
 officer or bureau, taking proper receipt therefor. 
 
 Rule XL. 
 
 In all other cases of ballot than for committees a majority 
 of the votes given shall be necessary to an election, and where 
 there shall not be such a majority on the first ballot the bal- 
 lots shall be repeated until a majority be obtained ; and in all 
 balloting blanks shall be rejected and not taken into the 
 count in enumeration of votes or reported by the tellers. 
 
418 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 Rule XLI. 
 
 MESSAGES. 
 
 Messages received from the Senate and the President of the 
 United States, giving notice of bills passed or approved, shall 
 be entered in the Journal and published in the Record of that 
 day's proceedings. 
 
 Rule XLII. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 Estimates of appropriations, and all other communications 
 from the Executive Departments, intended for the considera- 
 tion of any committees of the House, shall be addressed to 
 the Speaker and by him referred as provided by clause 3 of 
 Rule XXIY. 
 
 Rule XLIII. 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS OF OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES. 
 
 No person shall be an officer of the House, or continue in 
 its employment, who shall be an agent for the prosecution of 
 any claim against the Government, or be interested in such 
 claim otherwise than as an original claimant; and it shall be 
 the duty of the Committee on Accounts to inquire into and 
 report to the House any violation of this rule. 
 
 Rule XLIV. 
 Jefferson's manual. 
 The rules of parliamentary practice comprised in Jeffer- 
 son's Manual shall govern the House in all cases to which 
 they are applicable, and in which they are not inconsistent 
 with the standing rules and orders of the House and joint 
 rules of the Senate and House of Representatives. 
 
 Rule XLV. 
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 1. All documents referred to committees or otherwise dis- 
 posed of shall be printed unless otherwise specially ordered. 
 
 2. Motions to print additional numbers of any bill, report, 
 
APPENDIX VI. 419 
 
 resolution, or other public document shall be referred to the 
 Committee on Printing ; and the report of the committee 
 thereon shall be accompanied by an estimate of the probable 
 cost thereof. Unless ordered by the House, no bill, resolu- 
 tion, or other proposition reported by a committee shall be 
 reprinted unless the same be placed upon the Calendar. Of 
 bills which have passed the Senate, and of House bills as 
 amended by the Senate, when referred in the House, there 
 shall be printed four hundred copies. 
 
420 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 LIST OF WORKS CITED, WITH DATES AND PLACES OF 
 PUBLICATION. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis. " Three Episodes of Massachusetts 
 History." 2 vols. Boston and New York, 1893. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis. (See Adams, John, and Adams, J. Q.) 
 
 Adams, Henry. "Life of Albert Gallatin." Philadelphia, 1880. 
 
 " Adams, John, Works of." Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 
 Boston, 1856. 
 
 " Adams, John Quincy, Memoirs of." Edited by Charles Fran- 
 cis Adams. 12 vols. Philadelphia, 1874. 
 
 American Historical Association,* Annual Reports of. 
 Washington, 1889-1897. (See Jameson, J. F.) 
 
 " Annals of Congress," 1st to 18th Congresses. Gales and Sea- 
 ton. Washington, 1834-1855. 
 
 " Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography." Edited 
 by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. 6 vols. New York, 
 1891. 
 
 Appleton, William S. "A Roll of Members of the United States 
 Senate for the First Century." In " Proceedings of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society." Second series. Vol. x. March, 
 1895. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly. Boston, 1857-1897. (See Godkin, E. L. ; Mer- 
 win, H. C.) 
 
 Bancroft, George. " History of the United States." Revised 
 
 edition. New York, 1885. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, Works of. Edinburgh, 1843. 
 Benton, Thomas Hart. (See Roosevelt, Theodore.) 
 Blaine, James G. " Twenty Years of Congress." 2 vols. Nor- 
 wich, Conn., 1884. 
 Bouton, Nathaniel. (See " New Hampshire Town Papers.") 
 Bridgeman, Raymond L. m The People Should Elect." In New 
 England Magazine, November, 1894. 
 
APPENDIX VII. 421 
 
 Bristol, Rhode Island. (See Munro, Wilfred H.) 
 Brock, R. A. (See Dinwiddie, R.) 
 
 Browne, William Hand. (See "Maryland, The Archives of.") 
 Bryce, James. "The American Commonwealth." Third edi- 
 tion, revised. New York, 1893-1895. 
 
 " Congressional Debates," 18th to 25th Congresses. Gales and 
 Seaton. Washington, 1825-1837. 
 
 "Congressional Directory." Washington, 1809, 1816, 1819- 
 1898. 
 
 "Congressional Globe," 23d to 42d Congresses. Blair and 
 Rives. Washington, 1834-1873. 
 
 "Congressional Record," 43d to 55th Congresses. Govern- 
 ment Printing Office. Washington, 1874-1898. 
 
 Cooke, John Esten. " History of Virginia." American Com- 
 monwealth Series. Boston, 1884. 
 
 Cushing, Luther S. " Law and Practice of Legislative Assem- 
 blies." Boston, 1874. 
 
 " Dictionary of National Biography." Edited by Sidney 
 Lee. London, 1892. 
 
 " Dinwiddie, R., The Official Records of." Edited by R. A. 
 Brock. 2 vols. Richmond, Va., 1883-1884. 
 
 " Federalist, The." Contained in Vol. IX., Alexander Hamil- 
 ton's Works. Edited by H. C. Lodge. New York, 1885-1886. 
 
 Fiske, John. " Civil Government in the United States." Bos- 
 ton, 1891. 
 
 Follett, M. "The Speaker of the House of Representatives." 
 With an Introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart. New York, 
 1896. 
 
 Ford, Paul Leicester. (See Jefferson, Thomas.) 
 
 Forum, The. New York, 1886-1898. (See West, Henry Litchfield ; 
 Hoar, George F. ; Mitchell, John H.) 
 
 Frothingham, Richard. " Rise of the Republic of the United 
 States." Boston, 1872. 
 
 Gallatin, Albert. (See Adams, Henry.) 
 
 Garfield, James A. "Appropriations and Misappropriations." 
 In North American Review, Vol. cxxviii. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R. "History of the Rebellion; Its Authors 
 and Causes." New York, 1864. 
 
 Godkin, E. L. " The Decline of Legislatures." In Atlantic 
 Monthly, Vol. lviii. No. 477. 
 
422 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 Goldborough, Charles W. " United States Naval Chronicle." 
 Washington, 1824. 
 
 Goodnow, Frank J. " Comparative Administrative Law." 2 
 vols. New York, 1893. 
 
 Greeley, Horace. "Recollections of a Busy Life." New York, 
 1868. 
 
 Greeley, Horace. (See Parton, James.) 
 
 Hart, Albert Bushnell. " Practical Essays on American 
 Government." New York, 1893. 
 
 "Hearings Before Congressional Committees." Washing- 
 ton, 1896. 
 
 Herbert, Hilary A. " The House of Representatives and the 
 House of Commons." In North American Review, Vol. clviii. 
 
 Hildreth, Richard. "History of the United States." 6 vols. 
 New York, 1856. 
 
 Hinsdale, B. A. "The American Government; National and 
 State." Chicago and New York, 1895. 
 
 Hoar, George F. " Has the Senate Degenerated ? " In Forum, 
 Vol. xxiii. 
 
 Hoar, George F. " The Conduct of Business in Congress." In 
 North American Review, Vol. cxxviii. 
 
 Holman, William S. " Spending Puhlic Money." In North 
 American Review, Vol. cliv. 
 
 Holst, Hermann E. von. " Constitutional History of the 
 United States." 7 vols. Chicago, 1881-1892. 
 
 House of Commons, Journals of the. London, 1803, et seq. 
 
 House of Representatives, U. S. Constitution, Manual, and 
 Digest ; Rules and Practice of. Washington. 
 
 House of Representatives, U. S., Journals of. Washing- 
 ton, 1789-1898. 
 
 House of Representatives, U. S., Miscellaneous Documents 
 of. Washington, 1848-1897. 
 
 House of Representatives, U. S., Reports of Committees of. 
 Washington, 1820-1898. 
 
 Howard, George E. " Local Constitutional History of the 
 United States." Baltimore, 1889. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew. (See Parton, James.) 
 
 Jameson, J. F. " The Origin of the Standing Committee Sys- 
 tem in American Legislative Bodies." In "Report of Amer- 
 ican Historical Association." Washington, 1893. 53 : 2, 
 "Senate Miscellaneous Documents," Vol. iv. 
 
APPENDIX VII. 423 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas. "Manual of Parliamentary Practice for 
 the Use of the Senate of the United States." Washington, 
 1820. (Published annually in " House Manual and Digest," 
 q. v.) 
 
 "Jefferson, Thomas, The Works of." Edited by H. A. 
 Washington. 9 vols. Philadelphia, 1869. 
 
 "Jefferson, Thomas, The Writings of." Edited by Paul 
 Leicester Ford. 8 vols, issued. New York, 1892-1897. 
 
 Jenks, Jeremiah W. "Methods of Law Making." In John- 
 soil's Cyclopedia. 
 
 Johnston, Alexander. "Riders." In Lalor's Cyclopedia. 
 
 " Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia." Edited by Charles Ken- 
 dall Adams. 8 vols. New York, 1893. (See Jenks, J. W.) 
 
 Kerr, Miss Clara H. "The Origin and Development of the 
 United States Senate." Ithaca, N.Y., 1895. 
 
 "Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science and United 
 States History." 3 vols. New York, 1893. (See Johnston, 
 Alexander; Stenie, Simon.) 
 
 Lanman, Charles. " Biographical Annals of the Civil Govern- 
 ment of the United States." Washington, 1876. 
 
 Lee, Sidney. (See "Dictionary of National Biography.") 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot. "Historical and Political Essays." 
 New York and Boston, 1892. 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot. " Obstruction in the Senate." In 
 North American Revieio, Vol. clvii. 1893. 
 
 Lossing, Benson J. "Cyclopedia of United States History." 
 2 vols. New York, 1881-1882. 
 
 "Maclay, William, Journal of." Edited by Edgar S. Ma- 
 clay. New York, 1890. 
 
 "Madison, James, Writings of." 4 vols. Philadelphia, 1867. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry. " Popular Government." London, 1886. 
 
 " Maryland, Archives of." Edited by William Hand Browne. 
 Baltimore, 1883, et seq. 
 
 " Massachusetts Historical Society." (See Appleton, W. S.) 
 
 May, Sir T. Erskine. " Law and Usage of Parliament." Sev- 
 enth edition. London, 1873. 
 
 McKee, Thomas H. " United States Red Book." Washington, 
 1892. 
 
 Merwin, Henry Childs. "The American Notion of Equal- 
 ity." In Atlantic Monthly, September, 1897. 
 
424 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 Mitchell, John H. " Election of Senators by Popular Vote." 
 In Forum, Vol. xxi. 
 
 Mitchell, John L. "How a Law is Made." In North Ameri- 
 can Review, November, 1894. 
 
 Munro, Wilfred H. "History of Bristol, R. I." Providence. 
 1880. 
 
 Murray, James A. H. "New English Dictionary." Oxford, 
 1888-1893, et seq. 
 
 Nation, The. New York, 1865-1898. 
 
 New England Magazine, The. Boston, 1886-1898. (See Bridge- 
 man, Raymond L.) 
 
 "New Hampshire Town Papers," 1638-1734. Edited by Na- 
 thaniel Bouton. Concord, N.H., 1875. 
 
 New York Tribune, The. New York, 1841-1898. 
 
 New York World, The. New York, 1861-1898. 
 
 Niles' Register. Baltimore, 1811-1845. 
 
 North American Review. New York, 1815-1898. (See Garfield, 
 J. A. ; Hoar, G. F. ; Holman, W. S. ; Lodge, H. C. ; Mitchell, 
 J. L.; Reed, T. B.) 
 
 Parton, James. "Life of Andrew Jackson." 3 vols. Boston, 
 
 1870. 
 Parton, James. "Life of Thomas Jefferson." Boston, 1874. 
 Parton, James. " Life of Horace Greeley." Boston, 1882. 
 Pennsylvania Assembly, Journals of the. Philadelphia, 
 
 1752-1789. (First volumes published under title ' ' Votes of the 
 
 Assembly.") 
 Pennsylvania Provincial Council, Minutes of the. 15 vols. 
 
 Philadelphia, 1852. 
 "Providence, Early Records of the Town of." Providence, 
 
 1892. 
 
 " Records of Massachusetts." Edited by Nathaniel B. Shurt- 
 
 leff. 5 vols. Boston, 1854. 
 Reed, Thomas Brackett. "Spending Public Money." In 
 
 North American ^Review, Vol. cliv. 
 "Rolls of Parliament," 1278-1503. 6 vols. [London, 17— .] 
 Roosevelt, Theodore. " Life of Thomas Hart Benton." In 
 
 American Statesman Series. Boston and New York, 1887. 
 Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Winning of the West." 4 vols. 
 
 New York, 1889-1896. 
 
APPENDIX VII. 425 
 
 Schouler, James. "History of the United States." 5 vols. 
 Washington and New York, 1880-1891. 
 
 Senate, U. S., Journals of. Washington, 1789-1898. 
 
 Senate, U.S., Miscellaneous Documents of. Washington. 
 
 Senate, U. S., Reports of Committees of. Washington. 
 
 Sherman, John. "Recollections of Forty Years in the House, 
 Senate, and Cabinet ; An Autobiography." New York, 1895. 
 
 Shurtleff, Nathaniel B. (See " Records of Massachusetts.") 
 
 Spofford, A. R. "Congress, U. S." In Lalor's Cyclopedia. 
 
 Spofford, A. R. " Practical Manual of Parliamentary Rules." 
 Chicago, 1884. 
 
 Sterne, Simon. "Legislation." In Lalor's Cyclopedia. 
 
 Stubbs, William. "Constitutional History of England." Ox- 
 ford, 1874-1878. 
 
 Stubbs, William. "Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern His- 
 tory." Oxford, 1886. 
 
 "Sumner, Charles, Memoirs and Letters of." 15 vols. 
 Boston, 1870-1883. 
 
 Turner, Frederick Jackson. "The Significance of the Fron- 
 tier in American History." In " Proceedings of the Wiscon- 
 sin State Historical Society," 1894. 
 
 United States, Revised Statutes of. Second edition. Wash- 
 ington, 1878. 
 United States, Reports of Supreme Court of. Washington. 
 
 "Virginia, Colonial Records of." ("Virginia Senate Docu- 
 ment.") Richmond, 1874. 
 
 "Virginia Historical Collection." Edited by R. A. Brock. 
 Richmond, 1882-1889. 
 
 Virginia House of Delegates, Journal of. (Revolutionary 
 Period.) Richmond, 1828. 
 
 Washington, H. A. (See Jefferson, Thomas.) 
 
 Washington Post, The. Washington. 
 
 West, Henry Litchfield. "The Autocrat of Congress." In 
 
 Forum, May, 1897. 
 Wilson, Thomas Woodrow. "Congressional Government." 
 
 Boston, 1885. 
 "Wisconsin, Proceedings of the State Historical Society 
 
 of." Madison, 1891-1897. (See Turner, F. J.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Action vs. deliberation, 90, 108, 
 109. 
 
 Adams, John, issues report of 
 a colonial committee, 17 ; 
 on committee honors in the 
 Continental Congress, 26; 
 as President, his relations 
 with Congress, 215-218, 227. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, on pri- 
 vate legislation, 71, 75; op- 
 poses limitation of debate, 
 110 ; as chairman, 140, 142 ; 
 his rules for appropriation 
 bills, 174, 178, 185; on Ex- 
 ecutive influence, 222, 226 ; 
 the committees organized 
 against his Administration, 
 225 ; on Webster's conduct, 
 230 ; on appointment of com- 
 mittees, 278 ; on business of 
 the Senate, 317. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, originates 
 committees of correspon- 
 dence, 17, 18. 
 
 Allen, William, on appoint- 
 ment of committees, 281. 
 
 Allison, William B., on confer- 
 ence procedure, 250. 
 
 Amendment of bills, 30, 118, 
 218 ; limitations of, 105, 316, 
 319; pro forma, 115. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, as committee- 
 man, 155. 
 
 Anthony, Henry B., on use of 
 joint committees, 245; on 
 appointment of commit- 
 tee*, 287; on rules of the 
 Senate, 299 ; originates Sen- 
 ate Committee on Rules, 
 318. 
 
 "Anthony Rule, The," 319, 
 320. 
 
 Appropriation bills for private 
 claims, 79; procedure upon, 
 94, 99, 100, 105, 106; distri- 
 bution of, 144, 185, 186, 253, 
 304, 322, 345; preparation 
 of, 136, 183, 237, 238 ; failure 
 of, 139; privileges of, 174, 
 180, 188, 189; chronological 
 statement of, 1896-1897, 386, 
 387 ; differentiation of, 175, 
 176, 178, 382 ; origins and ti- 
 tles of ,176 ; delay of ,225 ; the 
 first, 1789, 381 ; amendment 
 of, 238, 251, 322, 377-379; 
 conferences upon, 247, 248 
 (see, also, Riders). 
 
 Appropriations, Committee on, 
 (House), proposition to reu- 
 nite with Ways and Means, 
 126; creation of, 134; sub- 
 
 427 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 committees of, 136; chair- 
 manship of, 165 ; power of, 
 180-184; privileges of, 189; 
 procedure of, 238. 
 
 Appropriations, Committee on 
 (Senate), jurisdiction of, 
 composition of, 322, 323. 
 
 Appropriations, report of Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury up- 
 on, 237; their amount in 
 1897, 238, 386, 387. 
 
 Arthur, Chester A., exercises 
 casting-vote in Senate, 288. 
 
 Atlanta, Georgia, municipal 
 committees of, 371, 372. 
 
 Audit and control, Committee 
 of (Senate), 322. 
 
 Ballot, for choice of commit- 
 tees, 127, 128, 272-280, 289, 
 292, 334. 
 
 Barbour, James, proposes to 
 limit House membership, 
 143; his rule for choice of 
 Senate committees, 279. 
 
 Bayly, Thomas H., secures 
 right to report at any time, 
 174. 
 
 Beckley, John, first Clerk of 
 House, 13. 
 
 Bell,. John, as chairman, 140; 
 contestant for Speakership, 
 224; on Executive influ- 
 ence, 226. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., on use of 
 joint committees, 244; op- 
 poses closure in Senate, 303, 
 345. 
 
 Bills, preparation of, 19, 29, 221- 
 224, 367 ; titles of, 30 ; nature 
 of, 73 ; upon the calendars, 
 101, 302; reference of, 75, 
 
 119-121 ; passage of, 5, 117 ; 
 modern, origin of, 119; in- 
 troduction of, combination 
 of, 120; number of, 137, 143, 
 313, 314; equality among, 
 172, 186, 367 (see, also, Ap- 
 propriation Bills). 
 
 Blackburn, J. C. S., on State 
 representation, 36; as com- 
 mitteeman, 38. 
 
 Blaine, James G., refuses to 
 appoint the committees, 
 138. 
 
 Bland, Richard P., as chair- 
 man, 140. 
 
 Book of Estimates, 237, 373, 385. 
 
 Breckinridge, John C, fills 
 committee vacancies, 331. 
 
 Breeze, Sidney, on appoint- 
 ment of committees, 281. 
 
 Bribery, 56, 59, 229. 
 
 Bright, Jesse D., moves adop- 
 tion of committee list, 287. 
 
 British procedure, influence of, 
 28-30, 31, 89, 260. 
 
 Bryce, James, on study of 
 American institutions, 122. 
 
 Buchanan, James, his Admin- 
 istration's influence upon 
 Congress, 225 ; his conduct 
 investigated, 229, 232. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, opposes previous 
 question in Senate, 303. 
 
 Business, legislative, effects of 
 its increase, 13, 31-33, 121, 
 144, 277, 366, 368 ; order of, 
 113, 137, 172, 319-321. 
 
 Cabinet and other officers be- 
 fore the committees, 70,228, 
 235, 236, 238 ; in Senate, 212 ; 
 bills originated by, 221-224; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 429 
 
 their reports to Congress, 
 236, 237. 
 
 Calendars, 99, 190, 197 ; creation 
 of, 189. 
 
 Calhoun, John C, conduct in- 
 vestigated, 228; as Presi- 
 dent of Senate, 329, 330, 333. 
 
 Call, Wilkinson, on committee 
 places, 269. 
 
 Calls for information, 210. 
 
 Cambreleng, Churchill C, on 
 Executive influence, 223. 
 
 Cannon, Joseph G., on Execu- 
 tive influence, 224 ; on ap- 
 propriations, 238; on con- 
 ference procedure, 252. 
 
 Carlisle, John G., ruling on ju- 
 risdiction of the Rules, 198. 
 
 Carpenter, Matt. H., on pun- 
 ishment of witnesses, 71. 
 
 Carter, Thomas H., as caucus 
 spokesman, 339. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, secures instruction 
 of committees, 282. 
 
 Caucuses, in the Senate, chair- 
 men of, 265; headquarters 
 of, 294, 339, 340; appoint- 
 ment of the committees by, 
 281-291, 338 ; power of, 307. 
 
 Chairmanships, succession to, 
 131, 325 ; assignment of, 270, 
 271, 292, 293; right of ma- 
 jority to, 274, 276, 277 ; ac- 
 corded to plurality, 289. 
 
 Chairmen, caucus, appointment 
 of committees by, 340, 341 ; 
 revolts against, 340. 
 
 Chairmen, committee, methods 
 of appointing, 130, 131, 165 ; 
 evolving functions of, 155; 
 from the minority, 139, 140 ; 
 in earlier Congresses, posi- 
 
 tion of, 156 ; in Senate, 326 ; 
 interpellation of, 119; on 
 the House floor, 161 ; power 
 of, 157, 160, 165 ; qualifica- 
 tions of, rivalry among, 158 ; 
 sectionalism of, 48, 51, 52 ; 
 shifting and promotion of, 
 159; special seats for, 367; 
 typical, 160-162. 
 
 Chairmen of the Committee of 
 the Whole, 165-167. 
 
 Chambers, Ezekiel F., rule for 
 choice of Senate commit- 
 tees, 274, 278. 
 
 Chandler, William E., on con- 
 ference procedure, 250; on 
 Senatorial courtesy, 258. • 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., Free soil 
 Senator, 284, 285. 
 
 Chilton, Horace, on sphere of 
 Senate committees, 299. 
 
 Cities, their representation up- 
 on the committees, 49, 52, 
 53. 
 
 Civil service reform, origins of, 
 233, 235. 
 
 Civil War, its effects upon Con- 
 gress, 38, 42, 52, 99, 174, 242, 
 313, 318. 
 
 Class legislation, 145. 
 
 Clay, Henry, as chairman, 45 ; 
 uses joint committee idea, 
 242; threatens closure for 
 Senate, 303 ; on Presidency 
 pro tempore, 335; on Con- 
 gressional speeches, 345. 
 
 Cleaves, T. P., on appropria- 
 tion bills, 175, 176. 
 
 Clerk of the House, reference 
 of bills by, 121. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, confers with 
 a House committee, 227; 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 vetoes an appropriation bill, 
 252. 
 
 Colfax, Schuyler, fills com- 
 mittee vacancies in Senate, 
 331. 
 
 Commerce, committee on (Sen- 
 ate), 322. 
 
 Commitment, 29. 
 
 Committee, etymology of the 
 word, 4-6. 
 
 Committee hearings described, 
 61-64, 342 ; influence of, 236, 
 238, 375. 
 
 Committeeman, the insignifi- 
 cant, 152-154, 234. 
 
 Committee of the Whole House 
 • for private legislation, 99. 
 
 Committee of the Whole on the 
 State of the Union, 26, 27, 
 110, 163, 221, 302; origin of, 
 7-9 ; jurisdiction of, 19, 29, 
 93-101, 108; chairman of, 8, 
 29, 165-167; procedure in, 
 29, 74, 93, 180; nature of, 
 92, 108 ; origin of its name, 
 its transformation, 93; mer- 
 its and defects of, 96; de- 
 clining use of, 96, 97, 106, 
 107, 112 ; debate in, 101, 102, 
 105; quorum of, 101, 203; 
 consideration as if in, 112 
 114 ; on the President's Mes- 
 sage, 215-221 ; as an investi- 
 gating committee, 227, 228. 
 
 Committee on Appropriations, 
 etc. (see Appropriations, 
 Committee on, etc.). 
 
 Committee on Committees 
 (Senate), 340-342. 
 
 Committees, caucus (Senate), 
 340-342. 
 
 Committees, ceremonial, 45. 
 
 Committees, conference, re- 
 ports of, 60, 247-249; privi- 
 leges of, 174; business of, 
 238 ; rules of, 240 ; jurisdic- 
 tion of, 245; vote in, 245; 
 sizes of, 245; composition 
 of, 245 ; nature of, 246-248, 
 254; number of, 246, 248; 
 power of, 246; time occu- 
 pied in, 248; victory in, 
 251, 252. 
 
 Committees, corresponding, in 
 Senate and House, 240, 252- 
 254. 
 
 Committees for private legisla- 
 tion, 75. 
 
 Committees, grand, 8, 9, 11, 27, 
 44, 217, 242. 
 
 Committees in the Congresses 
 of the Confederation, 27, 28. 
 
 Committees, in general, ac- 
 countable to the majority 
 party, 115, 191 ; appoint- 
 ment of, 23, 27, 272-280; 
 business of, 16, 17, 20-22, 
 32; classification of, 227; 
 composition of, 14, 27; de- 
 velopment of, 7, 14, 16, 33 ; 
 distinction between select 
 and standing, 147-149; du- 
 ration of, 27; earliest, in 
 House of Commons, 7 ; his- 
 tory mirrored by, 40-44; 
 effect of increase of, 209; 
 increasing social impor- 
 tance of, 3, 64 ; influence of 
 public opinion upon, 264- 
 2G6; instructing vs. advis- 
 ing, 119, 120; instruction 
 of, 18; membership of, 28; 
 necessity for, 6 ; party rep- 
 resentation upon, 272-275; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 place of meeting, ancient 
 House of Commons, 4 ; pow- 
 er of, 26, 27, 33, 39,42,43; 
 privileges of, 232, 233; quo- 
 rum of, 30; reference of 
 bills to, 95; removals and 
 resignations from, 141, 142 ; 
 reports of, 17, 18, 30, 43, 58- 
 60, 75, 76, 109, 167, 172, 240; 
 representative nature of, 
 4-6, 19, 30, 39, 40, 49, 50 
 (see,also, State Representa- 
 tion) ; secrecy of, 28, 56-61, 
 145, 146; sessions of, 84; 
 sizes of, 16, 18, 25, 27, 33, 
 
 242, 267; traveling of, 18, 
 242; vote in, 9, 30; wit- 
 nesses before, 29, 79-84. 
 
 Committees, investigating, 18, 
 29, 79-82, 242, 243; the first 
 in the House, 228; nature 
 of, composition of, grounds 
 for, 228-235. 
 
 Committees, joint, 7, 18; pro- 
 cedure of, 29, 240; business 
 of, 240-243 ; sizes and mem- 
 bership of, 243; rarity of, 
 
 243, 245 ; power of, 244 ; in 
 Massachusetts legislature, 
 366, 367, 369. 
 
 Committees of correspondence, 
 17-19. 
 
 Committees, routine, 199, 241. 
 
 Committees, select, 17-19, 26, 
 27, 216; sphere of, 95-97; 
 nature of, 27, 40, 133, 134, 
 147-149, 227 ; declining use 
 of, 124, 220. 
 
 Committees, standing, abolish- 
 ment of, 126, 170, 279 ; apart- 
 ments of, 62, 66, 67, 169, 254, 
 293, 294; appointment of, 
 
 methods, 23, 127-130, 139, 
 157, 273, 280-292, 300, 324, 
 329-336; bills shelved by, 
 148; business of, 22, 63, 
 170; call of, 167-169, 174; 
 classification of, 359-361 ; 
 clerks of, 19, 25, 64-66, 157, 
 170, 171, 293; combination 
 of, 197, 202 ; composition of, 
 224-227 ; control of, 70 ; de- 
 velopment of, 19, 64-70 ; di- 
 vision and subdivision of, 
 43, 126, 134, 136, 349-361; 
 duration of, 7, 10, 25, 137, 
 138, 323-325; effect upon 
 Congress of their increase, 
 144 ; effect of their size, 146 ; 
 enemies of, on the floor,118 ; 
 equality of, 15, 20-22, 31, 
 151, 152, 167-172, 186, 202, 
 367; expenses of, G6, 296; 
 first, in the Senate, 267; 
 history mirrored by, 84, 
 207, 208; in State legisla- 
 tures and municipal coun- 
 cils, 365-372 ; jurisdiction 
 of, 134, 135, 145, 194-200, 
 224 ; leadership among, 171- 
 207 ; majority and minority 
 representation upon, 53,268, 
 284-293; making up the 
 lists of, 131 ; meetings of, 
 170, 171; membership of, 
 29, 42, 44-54; merits and 
 defects of, 142-147, 185; 
 names of, 19, 25, 87, 254, 
 295, 349-358, 369-372; na- 
 ture of, 87, 88, 147-149, 209, 
 236; number of, 293, 367, 
 368 ; order of members up- 
 on, 131, 282, 325, 326 ; origins 
 of, 25, 40-42, 132-134, 147, 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 193, 219, 293, 295, 315, 321, 
 349-358 ; personnel of, 273 ; 
 power of, 73, 74, 79-84, 100, 
 109, 117, 118, 309-311; pro- 
 cedure of, 61-64; quorum 
 of, 19, 21 ; range of sizes of, 
 125, 311; reference of bills 
 to, 74, 121, 308; refusal of 
 Speakers to appoint, 138; 
 their relations to the U. S. 
 Constitution, 39, 47, 87, 132, 
 207 ; removals and resigna- 
 tions from, 169, 324; re- 
 ports of, 170; representa- 
 tive nature of, 146, 149; 
 rivalry among, 40, 42, 116, 
 221, 322 ; their responsibility 
 to the majority, 107; sec- 
 tionalism allayed by, 146; 
 sessions of, 30, 60, 199 ; sizes 
 of, 20, 25, 29, 47, 125, 127, 
 201, 202, 306, 311, 349-358, 
 369-372 ; spoils fostered by, 
 170, 171, 368; stability of 
 their membership, 139-142; 
 traveling of, 82 ; unsuccess- 
 ful efforts to create, 126 ; va- 
 cancies upon, 269, 289. 
 
 Committee system, division 
 and subdivision in, 131 ; de- 
 velopment of, Senate, 321. 
 
 Conferees, character of, 250. 
 
 Conference committees (see 
 Committees, conference). 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, upon rela- 
 tions between Senate and 
 House, 210. 
 
 Constitution, U. S., relations of 
 the committees to, 39, 47, 
 87, 132, 207; its influence 
 upon Congressional meth- 
 ods, 72, 211, 212. 
 
 Continental and Confederation 
 Congresses, procedure of, 
 12, 26, 32, 33. 
 
 Cooperation between Senate 
 and House, 239. 
 
 Court of Claims, creation of, 
 78. 
 
 Covode committee, 229, 232. 
 
 Cox, Samuel S., as chairman, 
 159; upon dissection of the 
 Message, 221. 
 
 Crisp, Charles F., rules upon 
 jurisdiction of the Rules, 
 197, 199. 
 
 Cullom, Shelby M., on confer- 
 ence procedure, 239. 
 
 Dallas, George M., appoints 
 Senate committees,281, 282, 
 330 ; refuses to vacate chair, 
 330. 
 
 Davis, David, in Senate, his in- 
 dependence, 288 ; his ruling 
 as to debate, 320. 
 
 Days for certain kinds of legis- 
 lation, setting apart of, 75, 
 76, 98, 99, 113, 168, 188, 189, 
 296. 
 
 Dayton, Jonathan, Speaker, 
 ruling of, 222. 
 
 Debate in early times, 26, 30; 
 in House, 70, 158 ; duration 
 of, 158; limitations of, 316, 
 319, 346 (see, also, Commit- 
 tee of the Whole, Previous 
 Question, General Debate). 
 
 Deliberation vs. action, 90, 108, 
 109. 
 
 Dilatory tactics (see Filibuster- 
 ing). 
 
 Dissection of the President's 
 Message, 25, 200, 215-221. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 District of Columbia, Commit- 
 tee on the, sub-committees 
 of, 136. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., as chair- 
 man, 43; loses chairman- 
 ship, 225, 307; advocates 
 closure for Senate, 303. 
 
 Earle, James H., on appoint- 
 ment of committees, 269. 
 
 Eaton, John H., his rule for 
 appointing committees, 279. 
 
 " Edmunds Rule, The," 320. 
 
 Edmunds, George F., on Senate 
 methods, 318. 
 
 Education and Labor, Commit- 
 tee on (House), origin of, 41. 
 
 Eppes, John W., originates a 
 committee, 234. 
 
 Equality, 15; kinds of, 15, 16, 
 239. 
 
 Equality of bills, 172, 367; of 
 committees (see Commit- 
 tees, Equality of) ; of legis- 
 lators, 14, 31, 49, 50, 54, 111, 
 150-154, 207, 269-272, 367. 
 
 Estimates, Book of, 237, 373,385. 
 
 Everett, Edward, deprived of 
 chairmanship, 131, 236. 
 
 Expenditures, standing com- 
 mittees on, creation and du- 
 ties of, 233, 234. 
 
 Ferry, Thomas W., as commit- 
 teeman, 336. 
 
 Filibustering, 61, 103, 107, 115, 
 168,188,193,195, 201, 202, 288. 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, defends Pres- 
 idency of Senate, 330. 
 
 Finance, Committee on (Sen- 
 ate), 322. 
 
 Finances, 53, 160, 237, 238, 373. 
 
 Findley, William, as chairman, 
 140. 
 
 Five-minute rule for debate, 
 105, 115, 319. 
 
 Fletcher, Richard, loses his 
 committee membership, 
 142; on Executive influ- 
 ence, 222. 
 
 Foreign Affairs, Committee on 
 (House), origin of, 40, 41; 
 business of ,43 ; its chairman 
 attends a Cabinet meeting, 
 226 ; its relations with Ex- 
 ecutive, 225-227 ; nature of, 
 254. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, publishes 
 journals of Pennsylvania 
 Assembly, 14. 
 
 French legislative committees 
 compared with American, 
 91, 92. 
 
 Frye, "William P., as commit- 
 teeman, 38 ; on useless Sen- 
 ate committees, 294; as 
 President pro tempore, 336. 
 
 Gaillard, John, appoints Sen- 
 ate committees, 333. 
 
 Gallatin, Albert, originates the 
 Ways and Means, 222. 
 
 Garfield, James A., as commit- 
 teeman, 38, 139; originates 
 Committee on Education, 
 41; as chairman, 43, 159; 
 on use of Committee of the 
 Whole, 99; on Congres- 
 sional business, 150, 152 ; on 
 riders, 184. 
 
 General debate, 103, 104 ; abuses 
 of, 109, 110, 216-218 ; in out- 
 set of a Congress, 110-112; 
 references to dates of, 111 ; 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 periods of, 112; right to 
 speak twice in, 114; de- 
 fined, 115,377. 
 
 General parliamentary law, 110, 
 111. 
 
 Gerry, Elbridge, on House 
 methods, 89. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., on com- 
 mittee positions, 169. 
 
 Grand committees, 27, 44, 217, 
 242. 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., on Randall's 
 leadership, 161 ; influence 
 of his administration upon 
 Congress, 226. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, on publicity, 
 36; on leadership among 
 States, 48; on House chair- 
 men, 157. 
 
 Grow, Galusha A., Speaker, 
 charged with partiality, 48. 
 
 Guizot, Francois P. G., on pub- 
 licity, 36, 56. 
 
 Hale, John P., on publicity, 
 266; objects to adoption of 
 a committee list, 284, 285 ; 
 on appointment of commit- 
 tees, 287 ; secures rule for 
 special orders, 317. 
 
 Harris, Isham G., secures lim- 
 itation of debate, 316 ; cho- 
 sen President pro tempore, 
 337. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, his con- 
 duct investigated, 227; ori- 
 ginates written reports of 
 Cabinet officers, 234. 
 
 Hamlin, Hannibal, on commit- 
 tee ratios, 286. 
 
 Hanna, Marcus A., on commit- 
 tee assignments, 269. 
 
 Harper, Robert Goodloe, se- 
 cures reduction in size of 
 Ways and Means, 47 ; offers 
 amendments to rules, 102. 
 
 Hart, Albert Bushnell, on con- 
 ference procedure, 246. 
 
 Hatch, William H., as chair- 
 man, 140. 
 
 Hearings (see Committee Hear- 
 ings). 
 
 Henderson, David B., offers an 
 amendment to the rules, 198. 
 
 Hewitt, Abram S., on jurisdic- 
 tion of the Rules, 197. 
 
 Hill, David B., on Senate meth- 
 ods, 308. 
 
 Hoar, George F., on publicity, 
 57; on private legislation, 
 71, 297; on seniority, 156; 
 on use of conferences, 247. 
 
 Hobart, Garrett A., on Senate 
 methods, 331. 
 
 Hoist, Hermann E. von, on the 
 Senate, 306. 
 
 "Holman Amendment, The," 
 179, 184. 
 
 Holman, William S., as chair- 
 man, 159. 
 
 Hour Rule, the, adoption of, 107. 
 
 House and Senate compared, 
 12, 259, 260, 306. 
 
 House of Commons, the, secrecy 
 in, 8, 58 ; private legislation 
 in, 68, 73; ancient proce- 
 dure of, 7-9, 24, 137. 
 
 House of Representatives, the, 
 in 1789, 13, 14; new mem- 
 bership in, 88 ; organization 
 of, 110 ; increase of its mem- 
 bership and business, 121 ; a 
 session described, 162 ; sum- 
 mary as to, 207-209. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 Illinois, legislative methods 
 
 in, 367, 368. 
 Individual, the, his power in 
 
 House, 120; in Senate, 306, 
 
 311. 
 Individualism, 15, 261, 263. 
 Ingalls, John J., on Senate 
 
 methods, 300. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, on calls for 
 information, 210; the com- 
 mittees organized for, 225 ; 
 his conduct investigated, 
 229, 231. 
 
 Jackson, John G., originates 
 the Judiciary, 213. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, on earliest 
 legislative procedure of 
 Congress, 12; influence of 
 his Administration upon 
 committee appointments, 
 142 ; institutes the Message, 
 218; his conduct investi- 
 gated, 228; exercises cast- 
 ing vote in Senate, 251; 
 opposes closure for Senate, 
 303; on Senate methods, 
 308. 
 
 Jefferson's Manual, 28-30, 89, 
 368, 418. 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, advocates 
 committee on Smithsonian 
 Institute, 126. 
 
 Johnson, Richard M., appoints 
 Senate committees, 330. 
 
 Johnston, Alexander, on pri- 
 vate legislation, 73. 
 
 Judiciary, Committeo on 
 (House), chairmanship of, 
 165 ; description of, 200, 213, 
 214, 255; rule defining its 
 jurisdiction, 396. 
 
 Keifer, J. "Warren, rules upon 
 jurisdiction of the Rules, 
 195. 
 
 Kent, Joseph, as chairman, 140. 
 
 King, William R., on appoint- 
 ment of committees, 280. 
 
 Leaders, development of, 155- 
 160; classified, 155; inter- 
 pellation of, 249 (see, also, 
 Chairman, Speaker, Presi- 
 dent). 
 
 Leadership, 112, 114, 162-165, 
 204-207, 265, 326-343. 
 
 Lee, Richard Bland, secures 
 appointment of committees 
 by Speaker, 127. 
 
 Legislation, private (see Pri- 
 vate Legislation). 
 
 Legislation in 1789, 72; hasty, 
 86, 109; favored, 113, 189, 
 190; class, 145; unity and 
 harmony of, 145, 206, 253. 
 
 Legislative methods, develop- 
 ment of, 14, 89-92, 123, 259, 
 300, 311, 365-368. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, election of, 
 232. 
 
 Livingston, Edward, on testi- 
 mony, 81. 
 
 Lobbying, 59, 63, 64, 77. 
 
 Locke, John, failure of his 
 Grand Model, 16. 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, on major- 
 ity responsibility, 86; on 
 the Senate's rules, 300. 
 
 Lot, appointment of commit- 
 tees by, 130. 
 
 Mace, use of, 29, 166, 391. 
 Maclay, William, on Senate 
 methods, 299, 308; on rela- 
 
436' 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tiQnsof Executive and Con- 
 gress, 214; his rule for* 
 chairmanships, 326t • 
 
 Macon, Nathaniel, deposes 
 Randolph from chairman- 
 ship, 131. 
 
 Madison, James, on sphere of 
 select committees, 96; as 
 committeeman, 155, '217, 
 218; on Executive influ- 
 ence, 221. 
 
 Mahone, William, independent 
 Senator, 288. 
 
 Manderson, Charles F., on Pres- 
 idency pro tempore, 337. 
 
 Mangum, Willie P., on appoint- 
 ment of committees,280,283. 
 
 Massachusetts, legislative 
 methods in, 240, 366, 367. 
 
 McKee, Thomas H., on Senate 
 methods, 321. 
 
 Members, House, old and new 
 contrasted, 48, 112. 
 
 Membership, effect of increase 
 of, 13, 16, 31-33, 121, 125, 
 143, 277, 366, 368. 
 
 Messages, Presidential, influ- 
 ence of, 25, 200, 215-221. 
 
 Mexican War, influence of, 280. 
 
 Military men in Congress, 163, 
 164. 
 
 Mills, Roger Q., on private le- 
 gislation, 75. 
 
 Minneapolis, municipal com- 
 mittees of, 371, 372. 
 
 Minority, leadership of, 155, 
 163, 166, 273, 340; power of, 
 191, 209, 309-311. 
 
 Mitchell, John H., on election 
 of Senators, 258. 
 
 Monroe, James, his accounts 
 investigated, 148, 228. 
 
 Morgan, John T., on committee 
 clerks, 294. 
 
 Morning Hour, the, institution 
 and development of, 76, 
 167, 191, 321. 
 
 Morrill, Justin S., on commit- 
 tee spoils, 293. 
 
 Morrison, William R., as chair- 
 man, 159; secures control 
 of special orders for the 
 Rules, 196-198. 
 
 Morton, Levi P., administers 
 oath to President pro tem- 
 pore, 337. 
 
 New England, original legis- 
 lative methods in, 14-19; 
 power of her Senators, 270. 
 
 Newton, Thomas, as chairman, 
 140. 
 
 Nominations, committees for 
 consideration of, 314. 
 
 "One-man power," 129, 153. 
 
 Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, 12; 
 Jefferson's citation of, 304. 
 
 Organization of the House, 110. 
 
 Originality of American pro- 
 cedure, 12-32, 208, 314, 365, 
 366. 
 
 Orr, James L., first Speaker on 
 the Rules, 192; charged 
 with partiality, 231. 
 
 Orth, Godlove S., plan for ap- 
 pointment of committees, 
 129. 
 
 Parliamentary tactics in Sen- 
 ate, 308. 
 
 Parton, James, on Jefferson's 
 Manual, 30. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 v 437 
 
 Party spirit, influence of, 211, 
 212. 
 
 Pennsylvania Assembly, colo- 
 nial, procedure of, 20-25, 
 137, 362-364. 
 
 Penn, William, failure of his 
 Frame of Government, 16 ; 
 his ideas of legislative pro- 
 cedure, 20-22. 
 
 Persons and papers, power to 
 send for, 79-84, 228. 
 
 Petitions in Senate, 297. 
 
 Piatt, Orville H., on Senate 
 methods, 302. 
 
 Poindexter, George, on appoint- 
 ment of committees, 334. 
 
 Polk, James K., rules upon ju- 
 risdiction of the Rules, 198 ; 
 a contestant for the Speak- 
 ership^ 224. 
 
 Pomeroy, Samuel C, secures 
 amendments to Senate 
 rules, 318. 
 
 Porter, Peter B., argues for 
 closure, 104. 
 
 Post-offices and Post-Roads, 
 Committee on (House), rep- 
 resents all the States, 44. 
 
 "Pound Rule, The," 168, 191. 
 
 Powell, Lazarus W., protests 
 against method of appoint- 
 ing committees, 287. 
 
 Presidency and Presidency pro 
 tempore of Senate, conflict 
 between, 336. 
 
 President of the United States, 
 his relations with Congress 
 and its committees, 127, 
 128, 142, 210, 242 ; visits of 
 committees to, 134 ; dissec- 
 tion of his Message, 25, 200, 
 215-221. 
 
 President pro tempore pi Sen- 
 ate, choice of, 332, 337 ; ten- 
 ure of, 333 ; appointment of 
 committees by, 333-335 ; his 
 service on committees, 336. 
 
 Previous question, ""the, origin 
 of, 24; House adopts its 
 modern form, 102-104 j de- 
 •scription of, 103-407 ; lead- 
 ers refuse to order, 107 ; de- 
 bate preceding, 114 ; agita- 
 tion therefor in Senate, 303, 
 304, 320, 345, 346. " 
 
 Printing, Committee on (Sen- 
 ate), 321. 
 
 Printing, use of, 17, 18, 60, 147, 
 237, 249, 376, 377. 
 
 Private legislation, 68, 136, 148, 
 171, 296-298; days for, 98, 
 99; evils of, 76-78. 
 
 Procedure, British, influence 
 of, 7-12, 20, 22, 215. 
 
 Procedure, colonial, influence 
 of, 10725, 139. 
 
 Publicity, 36, 56; for commit- 
 tee sessions, 56-70, 297 ; in- 
 crease of, 219. 
 
 Public Lands, Committee on 
 (House), origin of, 40. 
 
 Public opinion, its influence 
 upon Congress, 54-70, 111, 
 206, 209, 231, 232, 264-266, 
 295,346. 
 
 Public property, appropriations 
 of, 99, 100. 
 
 Quincy, Josiah, champions se- 
 lect committees, 148. 
 
 Randall, Samuel J., as chair- 
 man, 38, 160-162, 180; his 
 service on the Rules, 139; 
 
438 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 rules upon jurisdiction of 
 the Rules, 194. 
 
 Randolph, John, forces House 
 to adopt closure, 102, 103; 
 advocates choice of com- 
 mittees hy hallot, 128; loses 
 his chairmanship, 131, 142 ; 
 his trickery towards Jeffer- 
 son, 225; Calhoun refuses 
 to call him to order, 329. 
 
 Reagan, John H., on evils of 
 general debate, 110; on 
 equality of legislators, 150 ; 
 as chairman, 182. 
 
 Recess, right to sit during a, 
 
 . 232. 
 
 Recognitions, on the floor, 157. 
 
 Recommital, 49, 118, 228. 
 
 Reed, Thomas B., on hasty le- 
 gislation ,86 ; on dependence 
 of committees, 118 ; on 
 method of their appoint- 
 ment, 129; his service on 
 the Rules, 139; refuses to 
 appoint the committees, 
 139; on equality of legis- 
 lators, 154; rules on juris- 
 diction of the Rules, 199; 
 rules on conference reports, 
 250; as President of the 
 Senate, 331 ; his parliamen- 
 tary manual, 368. 
 
 Reference of hills, 119-121. 
 
 Relations between Congress 
 and Executive, 177-179, 
 181, 211. 
 
 Report at any time, the right 
 to, 172-175, 180, 182, 183, 
 190. 
 
 Reports, calendars for, 189. 
 
 Representatives, the, their ac- 
 quaintance with pending 
 
 measures, 109 ; their equal- 
 ity, 111; the old and the 
 new contrasted, 48, 112. 
 
 Resolutions, 119, 120. 
 
 Retrenchment, 179-181; joint 
 committee on, 233. 
 
 Revenue and expenditures, 145. 
 
 Revenue bills, privileges of, 
 175, 176. 
 
 Rich, Charles, his proposed 
 classification of business, 
 97, 98. 
 
 Riders, 175, 177-179, 184, 185, 
 251, 252, 378. 
 
 River and Harbor Bill, strug- 
 gle over the, 181-184. 
 
 Robeson, George M., on distri- 
 bution of business among 
 the committees, 170. 
 
 Ruggles, Benjamin, his pro- 
 posed order of business, 317. 
 
 Rules, parliamentary, in first 
 Pennsylvania Assembly, 
 22-25, 362-364; in House, 
 amendment and revision 
 of, 37-39, 168, 192, 195, 197, 
 198, 201; the revision and 
 codification of 1880, 38, 39, 
 168, 183, 188, 189, 193, 194; 
 development of, 37-39; ap- 
 pended to journals, 76; dis- 
 cussion and adoption of, 
 111 ; in Senate, nature of, 
 301, 302; codification of, 
 316 ; joint, development 
 of, 212, 241 ; in general, ob- 
 ject of, 38, 304. 
 
 Rules of the Fifty-fifth Con- 
 gress, 388-419. 
 
 Rules, Committee on (House), 
 membership of, 50 ; history 
 of, 13, 133, 192-205; the 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 second place upon, 165; 
 primacy of, 188; creation 
 of, 192, 193, 354, 355 ; reports 
 of, 193 ; jurisdiction of, 194, 
 196-199; its right to sit at 
 any time, 199 ; size of, 201 ; 
 nature and power of, 200- 
 207. 
 Rules, Committee on (Senate), 
 nature of, 302, 305 ; size of, 
 318. 
 
 Saulsbury* Willard, protests 
 against method of appoint- 
 ing committees, 287. 
 
 Sayers, Joseph D., on appro- 
 priations, 238. 
 
 Schenck, Robert C, as chair- 
 man, 159. 
 
 Schouler, James, on use of in- 
 vestigating committees,230. 
 
 Seats, the lot for assignment of, 
 130. 
 
 Sectionalism, 48-53, 271, 272. 
 
 Sedgwick, Theodore, as caucus 
 spokesman, 338. 
 
 Select committees (see Com- 
 mittees, select). 
 
 Selection of bills from the cal- 
 endars, 121, 180, 200, 201. 
 
 Senate, the, spirit of, 261 ; sec- 
 tional power in, 261-264; 
 size of (1789), 264, 265; se- 
 crecy of, 265, 266; a reor- 
 ganization of, described, 
 290-292, 324, 325 ; nature of, 
 299, 305, 306-308; growth 
 of, by decades, 312; influ- 
 ence of House and Execu- 
 tive upon, 315; conclusions 
 as to, 343-348. 
 
 Senatorial courtesy, 299, 300. 
 
 Senators, the, nativity of, 262 ; 
 election of, 258, 266; ages 
 of, 305. 
 Seniority, 48, 156, 157, 161, 270, 
 271, 325, 326, 341. 
 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, 166, 233. 
 
 Sevier, Ambrose H., rearranges 
 names of committeemen, 
 282; presents committee 
 lists, 283 ; on method of ap- 
 pointing committees, 284. 
 
 Seward, William .H., moves 
 adoption of committee list, 
 287. 
 
 Sherman, John, secures privi- 
 leges for the Ways and 
 Means, 175; on Executive 
 influence, 210; on use of 
 investigating committees, 
 232; on committee ratios, 
 287; as caucus chairman, 
 337,338. 
 
 Slavery, debates upon, 109. 
 
 Slidell, John, proposes com- 
 mittee on coinage and cur- 
 rency, 126. 
 
 Sloan, James, on method of 
 appointing committees,128. 
 
 Southern Senators, power of, 
 271. 
 
 Southard, Samuel R., appoints 
 Senate committees, 280. 
 
 Speaker, the, choice of, 8, 54, 
 224, 226; his relations to 
 Committee of the Whole, 
 8, 165-167 ; his ancient sub- 
 servience, 8, 11; appoint- 
 ment of the committees by, 
 29, 48, 50, 127-130, 131, 139, 
 153, 157, 234, 273; power of, 
 51,55,76, 129; clerk to, 55; 
 reference of bills by, 121; 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 popular election of, 131; 
 appointment of chairmen 
 by, 131; his name in U. S. 
 Constitution, 132 ; recogni- 
 tions by, 157 ; his represen- 
 tative on the floor, 165 ; his 
 limitations, 165; his first 
 membership upon the 
 Rules, 192; as spokesman 
 to the President, 216 ; sub- 
 poenas issued by, 233. 
 
 Speaker pro tempore, a, ap- 
 points a committee, 129. 
 
 Special orders, 76, 172, 186-191, 
 196-199, 302, 317 ; nature of, 
 112-114, 203 ; variety of, 113 ; 
 examples of, 196, 382-384. 
 
 Speight, Jesse, presents com- 
 mittee list, 283. 
 
 Spoils system, 170, 171, 178, 179, 
 368. 
 
 Springer, William M., as chair- 
 man, 160 ; on committee re- 
 ports, 170. 
 
 Standing committees (see Com- 
 mittees, Standing). 
 
 Star Route disclosures, 232. 
 
 State representation upon the 
 committees, 26, 27, 31, 44- 
 52, 96, 130, 225, 267-271, 349- 
 358. 
 
 States, leadership among, 48; 
 call of, 191. 
 
 Steering Committee (Senate), 
 appointment of, 340; size 
 of, 341 ; functions of, 342. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., as 
 -committeeman, 38. 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, as chair- 
 man, 141, 160-162. 
 
 Stevenson, Adlai E., on Senate 
 methods, 331. 
 
 Sub-committees, 81, 135, 136. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, appointed 
 committeeman by Demo- 
 crats, 285; deposed from 
 his chairmanship, 226, 307. 
 
 Supreme Court of the United 
 States, decision in Kilbourn 
 vs. Thompson, 84. 
 
 Suspension of the rules, legis- 
 lation by, 105 ; debate pre- 
 ceding, 115; majority re- 
 quired for, 182, 187, 188. 
 
 Tariff bills, preparation of, 139. 
 
 Taylor, John W., on instruc- 
 tions to committees, 119, 
 120 ; trenches upon ancient 
 precedents, 220. 
 
 Teller, Henry M., on confer- 
 ence procedure, 250. 
 
 Territorial delegates, as com- 
 mitteemen, 46. 
 
 Time, allotment of, in debate, 
 62, 76, 114, 158, 164, 367, 377. 
 
 Travel, the right of committees 
 to, 82, 232. 
 
 Treaties, appropriations for,178. 
 
 Trumbull, Lyman, on commit- 
 tee ratios, 286; on Senate 
 methods, 302. 
 
 Tucker, George, originates the 
 committees on expendi- 
 tures, 234. 
 
 Turpie, David, on minority 
 rights, 258. 
 
 Unanimous consent, legisla- 
 tion by, 75, 190, 191, 289, 
 302, 335. 
 
 Unfinished business, in Penn- 
 sylvania Colonial Assem- 
 bly, 25 ; in House, 138. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, as Presi- 
 dent of the Senate, 334. 
 
 Vest, George G., on conference 
 procedure, 250 ; on increase 
 of Senate's committees,293, 
 294. 
 
 Vice-President of the United 
 States, the, as President of 
 the Senate, 327-332. 
 
 Virginia House of Burgesses, 
 the, colonial procedure of, 
 10, 11, 19, 20, 139; institutes 
 committees of correspond- 
 ence, 19. 
 
 Vote, the, in legislation, signifi- 
 cance of, 46, 117, 152, 207. 
 
 Voting, methods of, 117. 
 
 War of 1812, influence of, 102. 
 
 Washburne, Elihu'B., as chair- 
 man, 140. 
 
 Washington, George, President, 
 his relations with Congress, 
 215-217. 
 
 Ways and Means, Committee 
 on (House), power of, 42; 
 size of, 47; proposition to 
 unite it with the Appro- 
 priations, 126 ; sub-commit- 
 tees of, 13G; privileges of, 
 174, 175, 188, 189, 200; cre- 
 ation of, 221, 222; business 
 of, 221-224. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, on sphere of 
 select committees, 97; his 
 
 conduct investigated, 228; 
 criticises an investigating 
 committee, 230; on use of 
 joint committees, 244. 
 
 Western members, their status 
 in the House, 49, 50, 149. 
 
 White, Hugh Lawson, as Presi- 
 dent pro tempore of the 
 Senate, 333, 334. 
 
 Williams, Lewis, as chairman, 
 140. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, on Senate 
 rules, 305. 
 
 Winslow, Warren, * secures 
 membership for the Speak- 
 er upon the Rules, 193. 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C, reap- 
 pointment of House com- 
 * mittees by, 138. 
 
 Wise, Henry A., opposes limi- 
 tation of debate, 110; as 
 chairman, 229. 
 
 Witnesses before committees, 
 29, G3, 79-84; pay of, 82; 
 imprisonment of, 83, 84. 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, his conduct 
 investigated, 226. 
 
 Worcester, Massachusetts, mu- 
 nicipal committees in, 371, 
 372. 
 
 Wyoming, legislative methods 
 in, 368. 
 
 Yeas and Nays upon commit- 
 tee lists, 286, 292. 
 
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