Bills when reported go upon certain calendars of the House 1. Revenue and approaccording to their character. Revenue and appropriation bills: priation bills these are few in number, not to exceed perhaps twenty. They come from the Committee on Ways and Means, whose office it is to provide revenue for the Government, and from the Committee on Appropriations, and from the several committees having to do with the maintenance of the Government in its various arms, such as the Naval Committee, the Military Committee and others. These bills when reported go to a calendar known as the Union Calendar, but they are highly privileged, as they ought to be, for without their passage the Government wheels would stop. They can be called for consideration at any time. They take precedence of all other bills, and the Speaker has no alternative but to recognize the member calling them up. These bills are considered, not in the House, but in Committee of the Whole; the Speaker leaves the chair and another member takes his place.

2. General

bills carrying no apprᏅ priations.

Another class of bills are such as relate to some public purpose, but carry no appropriation, such, for instance, as bridge bills and the like. To a large extent bills from the important committees on the Judiciary and on Interstate and Foreign Commerce are of this class. These bills go on the House calendar and are entitled to consideration in the morning hour. There being no privileged bills for consideration, the morning hour is the regular order. The Speaker must call the committees in their alphabetical order, and then the chairman of the committee which has the call is entitled to recognition by the Speaker as of right. The House then proceeds to the consideration of such bill reported by the committee in question and then on the House calendar as the chairman calls up, and continues its consideration until a vote is had, subject only to a possible interruption at the end of sixty minutes, to which I will refer hereafter. But even if interrupted its consideration is continued thereafter, when business of that character 3: Private is in order, until it is finally disposed of.

bills and

measures

for the District of

In addition to public bills such as I have enumerated, some carrying an appropriation and others not, there is another class of Columbia.

4. General bills involv

ing appropriations.

Unanimous consent.

bills, the most numerous of all — private bills providing for the relief of private individuals or corporations. These have a calendar of their own called the private calendar, and are in order on every Friday of each week. They are, generally speaking, bills from the Committee on Claims, from the Committee on War Claims and from the Committee on Pensions. As to these bills the Speaker has no independent right of recognition. When addressed by the chairman of the appropriate committee on a Friday he must recognize him, and unless the House declines to consider these bills the Speaker must leave the chair and nominate a member to preside in his place. In the last Congress there were reported 6,834 private bills; 6,624 were passed, leaving 210 undisposed of.

There is another class of bills that, like private bills, have a day of their own under the rules, viz., District of Columbia bills. As is well known, there is no right of suffrage in the District of Columbia, and the Senate and House act as its Select and Common Coun. cils. District of Columbia bills are in order on two Mondays of every month. As to these bills, again the Speaker has no alternative but to recognize the Chairman of the District Committee when, on his allotted day, he calls up his business.

A fourth class of bills provide for various matters of public concern and are such as involve a charge upon the Treasury. These go to the Union Calendar, and when considered must be considered in Committee of the Whole. At the end of the morning hour (sixty minutes) a motion may be made to go into Committee of the Whole for the consideration of bills on the Union Calendar or for the consideration of some particular bill thereon. This motion the Speaker is bound to entertain.

Then a large part of the business of the House is done wholly outside of the rules, by unanimous consent. Some gentleman, for instance, arises in the House and, being recognized by the Speaker, asks "unanimous consent for the present consideration of the following bill." Unless objection is made the bill is considered and voted on. It is in connection with this practice and

because of it that autocratic power is without any reason ascribed to the Speaker. But the rules have nothing at all to do with this. The applicant for recognition asks that all rules be set aside. To this any member of the House may object. Why should complaint be made if the Speaker exercises his right of objection by refusing to recognize an applicant for recognition in any particular case? Because he is Speaker he is no less a member of the House; no less a Representative of his Congressional District. If he were on the floor he could interpose an objection to any request for unanimous consent. Should he be less able to interpose that objection because he is in the chair? Certainly not.

107. Congress and Presidential Influence

In a reply to an attack made by Senator Tillman on President Roosevelt for his insistence in forcing measures upon Congress, Senator Beveridge made this defense:

of the

President's

Mr. President, why was it that Andrew Johnson had no influ- The basis ence with Congress and that Theodore Roosevelt has infinite influence with Congress? It is because one of them had not the influence. confidence of the people, and the other one has the entire confidence of the people. It is one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the most beneficent, workings of our popular form of government that any branch of it that at any particular period best represents the people has the confidence of the people.

Cleveland

lost control.

Why was it that in the last Democratic Administration its Presi- Why dent lost the control of Congress almost as completely as did Andrew Johnson, and that the Senator's own party, together with his colleagues on this side had the confidence of the people? It was because they more accurately represented the people's thoughts, needs, demands, and aspirations. There is no subserviency upon this side of the chamber to any power on earth except to the public opinion of the American people. What the Senator thinks is subserviency to the demands of the President is only our Repub

Popular support vs. patronage.

The President voiced popular wisdom.

lican harmony with those demands which are nothing more than the demands of the American people.

Mr. President, strange to say the Senator indulges - as poli ticians in search of any issue no matter how able they are, must unfailingly indulge, — in a paradox, one side of which destroys the other. The Senator described the President's power as coming from his appeals to "the ignorant masses" and in the same breath he said that that power comes from his use of patronage. Was it the use of patronage, Mr. President, that impressed Congress with the necessity of a single law that the President has recommended in the last seven historic years, the passage of which his recommendation helped to secure?

Was it the use of patronage that got through the law establishing the Department of Commerce and Labor, perhaps the greatest and most important piece of legislation that has been passed by an American Congress since the Constitution was adopted, with perhaps the single exception of the Platt amendment? The Senator denounces us for voting for the very laws which the Senator and his colleagues seeking every excuse they could find for not voting for, yet were compelled to vote for. Take all of these great laws, which are a part of this mighty structure of righteousness which the wisdom of the American people, as voiced by the President, has enacted into statutes by this Congress on both sides does the Senator disagree with one of them? Would he repeal a single line of any of them? Does the Senator, speaking for his side propose to go before the American people with the proposition to abolish the Department of Commerce and Labor? No. To repeal the railway rate law? No. To repeal the pure food law? No. To repeal the meat inspection law? No. To repeal the irrigation law? No. To repeal or mangle a single one of those great laws which constitute the Republican legislative record, every one of which was passed upon the recommendation of the President made in his messages? No.

108. Departmental Preparation of Bills

In this extract from a debate in the Senate is discussed the problem of how far executive departments ought to go in pressing legislation in Congress:

cation from

MR. CARTER. Under date of December 4, 1905, the Attorney A communiGeneral communicates as follows-this is addressed to the Speaker the Attorney of the House of Representatives and was laid before the House in General. regular order of business as a communication. It was likewise sent to the Senate. I am informed that the practice is for all communications to be printed as addressed to the first House in which they happen to be presented, and each communication is presented in both Houses. This letter reads:

etc.

Herewith enclosed is the draft of a proposed bill to repeal section 11,

It goes into a lengthy statement of the reasons why the bill should become a law.

MR. ALDRICH. Has the Senator any precedent prior to the present Administration of any communication of that character from any Department except the Department of the Interior?

MR. CARTER. I assume that the Department of the Interior The general has not recently indulged in an innovation by communicating practice in haphazard to Congress in a manner entirely dissimilar from the such matters methods heretofore employed. I do know that the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, the War Department, and other Departments have been in the habit of communicating here precisely as the Secretary of the Interior communicated yesterday, and such communications have always been ordered printed and referred just as the communication received yesterday from the Secretary of the Interior was printed and referred.

MR. LODGE. Mr. President, I think I was correct in saying that The the habit has insensibly grown up and that it also is spreading practice is irregular. on the part of heads of Departments to make voluntary communi