pose of criticising Mr. Clark, but only to indicate the nature of the system which has well-nigh degraded the House of Representatives into a group of astute wire-pullers whose tenure of position and standing with their constituents depend, not upon their high abilities for dealing with really great issues, but upon the success with which they may secure appropriations for selfish local interests to use the congressional phrase, "get pork out

of the public pork-barrel."

It is idle, however, to criticise members of Congress, for they are not individually at fault. Any one of them who refused to join in this general scramble for the division of spoils would find himself speedily retired by the organized element among his constituents, and perhaps by the vote of his constituents, for they are generally prone to measure the achievements of their Representative by the amount of "pork" which he secures for the district. There is no use, let it be repeated, in criticising members of Congress. The system, as Professor Henry Jones Ford points out, is at fault.1 As long as any member of Congress may introduce measures carrying a charge upon the public treasury and as many other bills and resolutions as he pleases, just so long will the log-rolling process continue, and the House of Representatives be so overwhelmed with business as practically to destroy its functions as a deliberative assembly."

The following measures were introduced into the House during the Fifty-ninth Congress: 26,154 bills, 257 joint resolutions, 62 concurrent resolutions, 898 simple resolutions, and 8174 reports. During this Congress, 692 public bills and 6940 private bills, principally pension measures, were passed. The power to select from this enormous mass before the House must be vested in the

hands of some person or group of persons, for the selection cannot be made openly on the floor by any automatic process which brings every measure to the consideration of that body. These persons invested with the power of selection in the House must of necessity be leaders among the majority party, for that party assumes responsibility before the country for the results of a legislative session. In the House these leaders are the Speaker,

1 Budget Control in the United States (in press); the Blumenthal lectures at Columbia University for 1909.

2 Readings, p. 269; below, pp. 365 ff.

the committee on rules, and the chairmen of the principal committees to which bills are referred; and the rules provide ways by which they can make selections of business for consideration and limit the amount of time which may be consumed in debate on each measure.

The Rules of the House of Representatives

III. The rules, therefore, must enable the presiding officer of the House to prevent the consideration of any motion introduced merely for the purpose of delaying business. They must limit, or make provision for limiting, the amount of time which may be consumed in debating any particular matter. They must provide some way in which the party leaders can force the consideration of certain measures whenever they see fit. These principles have slowly been evolved in the development of the House of Representatives, and are now written in the rules of that body.

1. In the first place, the Speaker of the House may refuse to put motions which he regards as dilatory; that is, designed merely to delay business.

The immediate cause for the adoption of this principle was the practice of filibustering' by the minority or by small groups. In the Fiftieth Congress, on one occasion, the "House remained in continuous session eight days and nights, during which time there were over one hundred roll-calls on the iterated and reiterated motions to adjourn and to take a recess, and their amendments. On this occasion the reading clerks became so exhausted that they could no longer act, and certain members, possessed of large voices and strenuous lungs, took their places. If this was not child's play, it would be difficult to define it. Then, again, when a measure to which the minority objected was likely to pass, the yeas and nays would be ordered." 2

In the succeeding Congress, of which Mr. Thomas B. Reed was

1 In ordinary use, the word “filibuster" means to act as a freebooter or buccaneer, but in parliamentary practice it means "to obstruct legislation by undue use of the technicalities of parliamentary law or privileges, as when a minority, in order to prevent the passage of some measure obnoxious to them, endeavor to tire out their opponents by useless motions, speeches, and objections." Frequently, the purpose of a filibuster is to call the attention of the country in an emphatic way to the policy of the majority.

* Reinsch, Readings, p. 238.

Speaker, the Republicans had only a narrow majority, and it soon became clear that the opposing party, by putting dilatory motions and refusing to answer to the roll-call on a quorum, could prevent the majority from doing any business at all. It was under these circumstances that Speaker Reed, in January, 1890, refused to put motions which he regarded as purely dilatory, and was sustained by the House.

Mr. Reed defended his ruling as follows:

The object of a parliamentary body is action, and not stoppage of action. Hence if any member or set of members undertakes to oppose the orderly progress of business even by the use of the ordinarily recognized parliamentary motions, it is the right of the majority to refuse to have those motions entertained and to cause the public business to proceed. Primarily, the organ of the House is the man elected to the speakership; it is his duty in a clear case, recognizing the situation, to endeavor to carry out the wishes and desires of the majority of the body which it represents. Whenever it becomes apparent that the ordinary and proper parliamentary motions are being used solely for the purposes of delay and obstruction; . . . when a gentleman steps down to the front amid the applause of his associates on the floor and announces that it is his intention to make opposition in every direction, it then becomes apparent to the House and the community what the purpose is. It is then the duty of the occupant of the Speaker's chair to take, under parliamentary law, the proper course with regard to such matters.

This principle was shortly afterward (1890) embodied in the rules, and the Speaker now has regular sanction for refusing to entertain purely dilatory motions. However, the constitutional right of a member to demand the yeas and nays cannot be denied even if the purpose is dilatory.1

2. In the second place the Speaker may count as present those members who are physically present but refuse to answer to their names on a roll-call for the purpose of compelling an adjournment in the absence of a quorum. This principle was established by Speaker Reed about the same time as the ruling on dilatory motions, and also embodied in the revision of the rules of that year.2

'On this important subject, see Hinds, Precedents of the House of Representatives, Vol. V, pp. 353 ff.

2 See above, p. 247.

T

3. In the third place, the rules provide a method for automatically shortening debate by prescribing that the time occupied by any member in discussing a legislative proposition shall not exceed one hour. This limit was imposed in 1841, and at the time Senator Benton declared that it was "the largest limitation upon the freedom of debate which any deliberative assembly ever imposed upon itself, and presents an eminent instance of permanent injury done to free institutions in order to get rid of a temporary annoyance." It is difficult to see, however, in what way the House could meet the enormous pressure upon it, if any member from among the 391 could talk as long as he pleased on any measure. A member may, if he chooses, yield a portion of his time to some other member or members wishing to speak on a measure, but he may occupy no more than one hour, except by obtaining unanimous consent. Neither may he speak twice upon the same measure unless he introduced it, or is the member reporting it from committee. When going into the committee of the whole,' the House fixes the time of debate, which cannot be extended by the committee; and in many other ways freedom of debate is arbitrarily limited.

2

4. In the fourth place, in order to enable party leaders to force the consideration of certain measures whenever they see fit, the following committees may report on the subjects enumerated practically at any time in the course of the procedure of the House, no matter what may be under discussion: the committee on rules may report on rules, joint rules, and order of business; " 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 appropriations, on 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 corporations, bills preventing speculation in

The committee of the whole forms a convenient body for discussion and provisional voting on measures. In it, 100 constitute a quorum and the Speaker's chair is taken by some other member. Measures approved in it are reported to the House for formal adoption.

2 It is always in order to call up for consideration a report of the committee on rules. The position of this important committee is considered below (p. 283) in connection with the Speaker.

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 enrolled bills, enrolled bills; the committee on invalid pensions, general pension bills.

The Senate also has its code of rules, but it has not adopted any of the drastic methods obtaining in the House.' When the Senate rules were revised in 1806, the right to move the previous question, and thus close debate summarily, was omitted, and all attempts to restore it have failed. Ordinarily the method of obstruction in the Senate is prolonged speaking, and any member endowed with sufficient physical endurance may prevent a measure from coming to a vote, and thus compel the majority to capitulate. In 1908, however, the Senate, to defeat the tactics of Senator La Follette, who wished to prolong the debate on a certain measure, applied the following principles: (1) The presiding officer may refuse to comply with a demand for a roll-call on a quorum, if, on a count, he finds a quorum present; (2) the question of "no quorum" cannot be again raised after the roll has been called and a quorum found present, unless some legislative business other than mere debate has intervened; (3) the dormant rule that a Senator may not speak on the same subject more than once on the same day may be revived at any time.2 The practice of unlimited debate in the Senate often has an important influence on the course of legislative business. A Senator may have some particular appropriation in favor of his state which he wishes to insert in the general appropriation bill; and toward the closing hours of the session he may threaten to block everything by exercising his right to speak indefinitely until the Senate yields. This must of course bring the House to terms also; and on more than one occasion the House has been forced either to acquiesce in an appropriation which it did not favor, or incur the risk of having some of its important measures held up by recalcitrant Senators.*

1 See Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States, chap. v. 'Reinsch, Readings, p. 156, for this important matter.

3

The caucus of the majority of the Senate has a "steering committee❞ which performs analogous functions to those performed by the committee on rules in the House. See below, p. 283.

'Reinsch, Readings, p. 135.