THE ROLL CALL
THE ROLL CALL ON MEN AND MEASURES A "Dummy" Senator WHEN the Aldrich emergency currency bill was before the Senate it became necessary in order to appreciate its scope and effect to make a study...
...On 29 of these roll calls Senator Aldrich was not voting...
...In five sessions of Congress, he voted against Aldrich only five times...
...They have little or no power except that which is delegated...
...It is a fair presumption that on the 29 roll calls when Aldrich did not vote, Depew voted at least 96 per cent...
...The first thing that is conspicuous from a study of the roll calls is Depew's consistency in voting, when he does vote, in support of the Aldrich management, and the second thing which is conspicuous is the great number of roll calls on which Senator Depew is recorded as not voting...
...Out of these 338 roll calls, Depew is reported as not voting 167 times, or practically on fifty per cent...
...Insofar as they have any power at all, they exercise it in a representative capacity...
...Of course he advocated ship subsidies...
...What credit for legislative achievement he earned in that session must be based upon his reporting from the Committee on Judiciary and his advocacy in the Senate of the bill which had passed the House of Representatives by unanimous vote, providing for compensation to government employees for injuries incurred in the service...
...In the first session of the 60th Congress he introduced a few bills, mostly private pension bills, and some proposing salary increases for the better paid government officials, and a few more "pork barrel" amendments to appropriation bills...
...of the time the way Aldrich wanted him to vote, and also that on the 167 roll calls when Depew failed to vote, if he had voted, he would have voted 96 per cent...
...The object of this amendment being not so much to secure suffrage to the negroes of the South as to insure the defeat of the resolution by attaching to it a proposition which the whole South would repudiate...
...He drew a comparison between the present and the times of the Civil War...
...On 137 of them Depew voted with Aldrich...
...of the roll calls...
...THE ROLL CALL ON MEN AND MEASURES A "Dummy" Senator WHEN the Aldrich emergency currency bill was before the Senate it became necessary in order to appreciate its scope and effect to make a study of the centralization and community of control in the industrial, transportation and financial business of the country...
...In this group the most conspicuous name is that of CHAUNCEY M. Depew...
...In the second session of that Congress he introduced a few bills, mostly private pension bills, a few amendments to appropriation bills,— amendments of the "pork barrel" variety,—made a few motions in behalf of private claims, reported one little bill from the Committee on Commerce and one from the Committee on Judiciary, moved a resolution to authorize the Finance Committee to report on elastic currency and moved twice to adjourn...
...In the second group are the names of fourteen men...
...He voted with Aldrich on abcut 96 per cent...
...Possibly, according to Senator Depew's conception, "Boss" Aldrich is the Lincoln of this generation...
...He extolled the "reactionaries" and denounced the progressives...
...a certificate of character to the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street finance, concluding with an endorsement of the Aldrich bill in its original form, railroad bonds and all...
...The balance of the list, embracing 35 names, are the handy men of the "System...
...He Teported from the Committee on Commerce a few little bills for harbor improvements and the like...
...He undertook to define real statesmen...
...This group contains the attorneys, the bank presidents of lesser importance, the dummy directors, the fillers-in, the figure heads...
...At a recent New York Club dinner, given in honor of his seventy-fifth birthday anniversary, Senator Depew delivered an interesting and illuminating address...
...of the time with Aldrich...
...The few words which he said on the Foraker proposition to suspend the commodity clause of the Interstate Commerce act so as to make it lawful for railroads to own and operate coal mines, were non-committal at the best...
...In the third group are men also of large means and some real power, but less important in the "System" control...
...Senator La Follette made such an investigation and the results of it showed that the business of the country in all these lines, speaking of it in a broad national way, is controlled by about one hundred men...
...In order to make plain the relative position of the men named and to show why they were included in the list they were classified in four groups...
...But he is a different kind of Lincoln from the Lincoln of history, the Lincoln who loved the common people and was loved by them...
...In the first group are Morgan and Rockefeller, overshadowing all others in importance and almost dominating the "System...
...Going back through the recent sessions of Congress and studying the record of achievement of Chauncey M. Depew as a Senator from New York, the contentions of the representatives of that state in the Constitutional Convention and their fight there for a due representation in the Senate for the Empire State, seem to present a paradox...
...men of large means and considerable independent control...
...The few remarks which he submitted in the Senate, principally on the subject of elastic currency, it will hardly be contended would serve to rank him among the great orators or constructive statesmen of the country...
...This comparatively small group of men and the centralized and combined interests which they represent and control constitute what, for convenience, is called the "System...
...In the 59th Congress, first session, Senator Depew made no speeches and participated in no way in the business of the Senate except in the introduction of a few bills, mostly private pension bills, and in reporting one little bill from the Committee on Commerce...
...When Senator Owen was urging the passage of his resolution for the submission of a constitutional amendment for the election of Senators by direct vote, it was Senator Depew who arose to insist upoon attaching to that resolution the time-dishonored "force bill" amendment, an amendment requiring uniform qualifications for voters in all states and providing for federal enforcement of the requirement...
...For Senator Depew's record we look mainly to the roll calls...
...Of course in the Senate, the dominant reactionary Is Aldrich...
...In the one field he is a dummy director and in the other field he is a dummy Senator...
...The net result of an examination covering five sessions of Congress, including the tariff session, and embracing 338 roll calls, is as follows...
...of all the roll calls on which both Senators voted...
...He did not hesitate to claim Lincoln as a reactionary...
...Senator Depew's position in the financial and industrial control of the "System" is quite comparable to his position in the "Big Business" management of the Senate...
...He is recorded as voting 171 times...
...In the second session of the 60th Congress, he took less part in the Senate proceedings, speaking in favor of postal savings banks, and in favor of salary increases for the judiciary and the higher officers of the government...
...He said, "The reactionary gives his days and nights to preparation of such measures of reform, of the proper regulation of corporations, and of protection for the masses as will be practical in their operation, within the powers of the Constitution and stand the test of the Supreme Court...
...Among the men named as representing the "System" control of the business and industrial life of the country, some disclaimed important participation in this great "System" control...
...The significance of these five roll calls is too small to warrant analysis...
...Chauncey M. Depew, United States Senator from New York, is chairman of the board of directors of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company and a director of sixty-two other "System" and semi-"System" transportation and franchise corporations and combinations...
...In this session of Congress, also, Depew made a speech on the currency bill—a sort of a Depew after-dinner speech, replete with platitudes...
...In this list of a hundred names was the name of one United States Senator...
Vol. 1 • December 1909 • No. 50
