THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Hull's Fidelity to Cannonism THE Honorable John Albert Tiffin Hull has been a Representative in Congress from Iowa for nearly twenty years. In tenure of office...
...To one who wants to be regular, unquestioningly regular, several courses are open in the matter of voting on legislation...
...There is also a third course open to the wary Congressman...
...Hull joined in the fight on Roosevelt by voting to lay on the table the President's message concerning the employment of the secret service in the detection of land frauds...
...It provided, however, for the legalizing of the purchases of these lands from the railroads...
...He was "paired" on the vote on the Pure Food Bill...
...In the next Congress (the 53d) came up the infamous Pacific Railroads Settlement Bill, in which it was proposed that the Government should settle the indebtedness owed it by the Pacific railroads for a mere fraction of what the Government had advanced to the roads...
...As this is being written, Hull is in Iowa looking after his campaign, having left his vote with Cannon's pair clerk, and instructions with the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House to recall him to Washington only in case the exigencies of the Cannon machine shall require his presence and his vote...
...In the tariff legislation of that session he voted to keep the high duty on barbed wire for the steel interests, and voted against putting coal on the free list...
...If he be forceful, aggressive and able in serving the System, he may, like Cannon, become Speaker, or, like Payne and Dalzell, leader of the machine upon the floor of the House...
...In the 58th Congress, Hull "paired" on the bill to provide for reciprocity with Cuba...
...In the case of Hull, the rapidly growing political intelligence of his constituency is reflected in the increasing number of roll calls on which he is recorded in more recent years as not voting, having either "paired," "ducked," or answered "Present...
...It was in this Congress, too, that something of a Congressional scandal arose out of the effort of Congressman Babcock to pass a measure to authorize several million dollars increase, without any added investment, in the already watered capitalization of the Washington Gaslight Company...
...When Babcock sought afterwards, at what he thought was an opportune moment, to secure a reconsideration of this vote, Hull was one of those who supported him in the effort...
...The power to influence the distribution of public expenditure for military establishments, if judiciously exercised and with due consideration to the ability of the Congressman whose district is to be favored to reciprocate favors in other measures of legislation, is a political asset not to be lightly regarded in Congress...
...He even voted against permitting the House to make a separate record on the Senate amendments...
...And his record is "not voting" on a bill to amend the homestead laws applying to South Dakota...
...As Secretary of the Iowa Senate, as Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, and as a member of Congress, he has held public office practically continuously almost since the War...
...And the Des Moines River has probably had expended upon it for improvements by the federal government more money than the improvements are worth, either to the people of Iowa or any one else...
...But the Senate is the stronghold of Special Interests, and the System would keep it as it is...
...The McMillan Bill itself, for which Hull voted, gave the railroad, out of hand, nearly three million dollars worth of public property...
...On a bill to further special shipping interests, Hull's record on three successive roll calls presents the following interesting evolution: First, "Present...
...The bill to provide for the sale of oil and asphaltum lands in the West...
...His record during these nigh on twenty years is perhaps unexcelled for regularity and for fidelity to the machine management of the House...
...The former course is more laborious, requires some thinking, and may involve an occasional twinge of conscience...
...He voted for the Payne Bill when it passed the House, and he voted for the Aldrich-Payne Conference Bill on final passage...
...Des Moines has a million dollar federal building...
...The vote was on a motion to put it through without amendment or opportunity to perfect it...
...The bill requiring the Washington Street Railway Company to extend its tracks in compliance with its charter...
...The bill creating a Bureau of Mines...
...In the next Ccmgress (the 54th) there was pending a bill—a bad bill—to approve an act of the Territorial legislature of New Mexico validating certain fraudulent railroad bonds...
...It is in this Congress, then, that Huli, finds his supreme opportunity to prove his loyalty to Cannon and the Machine...
...He "ducked...
...The House itself, by an overwhelming vote, ordered the bill sent back to the committee with instructions to report instead a measure reducing the price of gaB in the District of Columbia...
...On this measure labor needed and was entitled to Hull's vote, but Hull "paired...
...The foregoing is a partial list of important roll calls on which Hull has in all cases pursued a course the effect of which is to obscure his record, and in most cases a course the effect of which was to promote Special Interests at the expense of the public...
...In his second term Hull voted against a resolution for an amendment to the Federal Constitution for the election of United States Senators by direct vote of the people, although the resolution was passed by the House by a vote of 141 to 50...
...In the next Congress (the 59th) Hull "paired" on the vote to agree to the conference report on the so-called Hepburn Rate Bill...
...Hull's district contains Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa...
...He enlisted and served in the Civil War, attaining to the rank of Captain...
...This bill had been reported to the House by Littlefield, so amended as to defeat its purpose...
...He is on record as "not voting" on the bill to promote the safety of employees and travelers on railroads by prohibiting excessive hours of work by train operatives...
...Not many Congressmen resort often to this practice...
...An amendment to the Fortifications Appropriation Bill, to permit the Government to buy materials in the open market...
...A few years later he broke into politics...
...The bill was so conspicuously bad that some of the organization leaders protested against it in the House...
...His only contribution to the tariff pebate was a plea for higher rates on glue...
...In the next Congress a bill was pending to extend the limitations on suits to annul erroneous land grants...
...A bill to permit the consolidation of coal entries in Alaska...
...It was said that the roads would pay forty millions of dollars, but a motion was made to recommit the bill with instructions to increase the amount to seventy-five million...
...On this measure the public was entitled to have Hull's vote...
...He may neglect to p?ir, "dodge" and not vote at all...
...It was a bill designed to impose some burden of regulation on bucket-shopping and board of trade speculation...
...The latter course, while under ordinary circumstances being of equal service to the machine management, obscures the record and renders it unlikely that one's constituency will learn whether he has supported or opposed a particular measure...
...But the sharks of Wall Street and of the other streets where the unwary are fleeced by wily manipulators would have nor.e of it...
...The public was entitled to Hull's vote against this measure...
...On this motion Hull did not vote and he did not pair...
...As already suggested, Hull's predominant political trait is that of unquestioning regularity...
...On one side the System was clamoring and on the other the people were watching, and so Hull "ducked" again...
...Another course is for one to take life easy, to be where one pleases when the roll is called, having turned one's vote over to Cannon's pair clerk, with instructions merely to "pair me with a Democrat...
...In the same Congress a bill was presented to define and tax "options on futures...
...To have been unquestioningly regular all these years implies being a stand-patter, and in Iowa Hull is well known as a stand-patter...
...But while Hull has paired for the System and withheld his vote when it was needed in the public interest, the record shows that throughout his Congressional career his vote has been at the disposal of the House management, almost without exception, whenever it seemed to be needed...
...In the next Congress Hull is found voting for a bill championed by the then Congressman, now Vice-President, Sherman, to promote railroad consolidation in Indian Territory...
...He is recorded as "not voting," and not even "paired...
...In the 59th Congress Hull voted for the Lake Erie & Ohio River ship canal project of the Steel Trust...
...Hull also voted in this Congress for the McMillan Bill, which was the beginning of the legislation, afterwards to became a national scandal, and which culminated in the Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station grab at Washington...
...To him the "Iowa idea" was and is heresy, even as it was and is unto Joe Cannon himself...
...It was a bill in the public interest...
...A bill permitting the doubling of homestead entries...
...The final vote on the Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Bill...
...On the same measure a motion was offered by Congressman Richardson to send the bill back to the committee with instructions to report a measure reducing the taxation on necessaries seventy millions of dollars per year and providing for an income tax...
...A resolution requesting the President to transmit to Congress reports of corporations...
...The bill to investigate speculation in cotton...
...His control of military appropriations has been a source of strength and influence to him in Congress...
...third, "paired...
...Less often do they sit in their seats, and openly "dodge" making a record for or against a measure by answering "Present...
...If he feels that his constituency is watching his vote, so that he dare not vote against their interests, and that the machine is watching him so that he dare not vote except regular, he may discreetly tuck into his vest pocket the representation in Congress of 204,034 sovereign citizens of the State of Iowa and retreat with it to the darkened recesses of the cloak-room, remaining there until after the roll call is completed, when he is simply recorded as "Not voting...
...These are some of the results of the "get-something-for-my district" theory of Congressional statesmanship...
...In tenure of office he is outranked by only a few of the topnotchers—Cannon, Bingham, Payne and Dal-zell...
...During Hull's first term in Congress there was pending in the House an issue between the people and certain railroad land grabbers...
...A substitute was offered, providing that transportation companies should continue to pay directly their share of war taxation, which heretofore they had been shifting upon the people...
...In the same Congress he voted fsr a bill to permit railroad pooling, which had been prohibited in the original Interstate Commerce Act...
...He was wounded in a charge at Black River and resigned from the service on account of his injuries in 1863...
...In the 56th Congress a bill was proposed to afford the people some protection against trust extortions by authorizing the President of the United States to suspend tariff duties on trust-controlled commodities...
...Hull voted for the previous question, to cut off debate and put the bill on its passage, and then, a few minutes later, on the vote on the bill, the record shows Hull "paired...
...There was up in this Congress also an important bill to provide for the organization of corporations in the District of Alaska...
...so Hull "paired" with the System...
...He is on record as "not voting" on the conference report on the measure to prohibit the granting and receiving of free railroad passes...
...The committee had been deprived of its privilege, in order to prevent its pressing for consideration currency legislation opposed by Wall Street, in particular, a bill to repeal the 10 per cent, tax on state bank notes...
...He cast another vote for the Steel Trust in voting against an amendment to the Naval Appropriation Bill to appropriate $100,000 for a gun foundry at the Washington Navy Yard...
...But Hull voted against the bill, and for the trusts...
...In the same Congress, too, Hull voted for the famous Congressional mileage grab resolution, to pay Congressmen at the generous rate of 20 cents a mile both ways for constructively traveling to their homes during five minutes between two sessions of Congress...
...When organized labor looked for its friends on this roll call, Hull was not among them...
...On six roll calls in the 59th Congress he voted for ship subsidy...
...In the 55th Congress the House passed a resolution for an amendment to the Federal Constitution to provide for the election of United States Senators by the people...
...And again for ship subsidies of $8,000,000 in the Postoffice Appropriation Bill...
...second, "ducked...
...The question was whether that indebtedness should be settled, as Wall Street demanded, by a Commission without report to and confirmation by Congress...
...Throughout the tariff session he supported the tariff-baosting program of Cannon, Payne and Aldrich, except on six roll, calls, and on these he voted in such distinguished stand-pat company as Tawney, of Minnesota, and Smith, of Iowa...
...In the 57th Congress Hull joined with the voters for Special Interests in support of the measure to perpetuate the graft of the asphalt crowd in asphaltum and gilsonite lands of the Uintah Indian Reservation...
...And incidentally, of course, it enables the Congressman possessing that power to "take care of his own district...
...On an amendment introduced to afford like protection to homesteaders who had settled on the disputed lands Hull voted against the homesteaders...
...And such is the record upon which congressman hull asks a reelection at the hands of a progressive constituency in the progressive State of Iowa...
...But this is not the kind of legislation that appeals to HULL, and he voted against the motion to recommit...
...In this Congress, too, he stood by the railroads in voting for the "special facilities" graft in the railway mail pay section of the postoffice appropriation bill...
...In the last Congress he voted for Wall Street on the Vree-land Currency Bill...
...Thus, Hull has come to be chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs...
...In this Congress, too, came up the bills for reorganization of the Northern Pacific and the Atlantic & Pacific railroad companies...
...The California-Oregon Land Grab resolution amendment...
...This is one of the fundamental reforms essential to popular government in this country...
...And in the memorable fight that followed a few weeks later on the Norris Resolution to amend the Cannon Rules, he voted "present" once, "not voting" once, and on all of the remaining roll calls he voted for Cannon and Canngnism...
...If he be a man of mere ordinary attainments, he graduates to the Chairmanship of some committee having charge of routine legislation...
...Also it has a million dollar army post...
...When a Congressman has served the organization faithfully for such a long period, promotion in the House management comes to him through sheer lapse of time...
...But Hull was against the people and for the express companies and railroads, so he voted against the substitute...
...The people are overwhelmingly for it...
...In the next Congress (the 5?th) Hull was found "paired" on the bill to repeal imprisonment penalties for railroad re-baters...
...but the bonds were held in Wall Street...
...Although the vote in the House was overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, Hull of Iowa "ducked...
...The bonds were an obligation upon the public for which the public received no adequate consideration...
...Again Hull was "paired...
...And Hull embraced the opportunity with both arms...
...He "paired" also in the same Congress on an important conference report on a bill to amend the War Revenue Act...
...In the 58th Congress we find Hull voting for the Frye Ship- ping Bill, which was equivalent to a subsidy for the shipping trust estimated to be worth ten million dollars a year...
...No" with the machine...
...The Payne Bill of that session, to reduce war revenue taxation, proposed among other things to repeal the taxes on express receipts...
...In this Congress Hull paired also on an important vote on the Ridgely Labor Bill, a bill having the same purpose as the one above referred to...
...In this Congress, too, came up a measure to provide for the settlement of the indebtedness of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad...
...Coming to the present Congress we find the Cannon regime, after years of unshaken power, confronted finally with a condition of affairs in Congress where, except in a few instances, it could maintain its supremacy only by commanding every available Republican vote, and driven on a notable occasion even to-an alliance with Tammany Democrats in order to preserve government by the System...
...In the way of Congressional legislation his specialties have been pension bills and bills for private relief...
...In the following Congress (the 56th) a bill was being pressed in the House to afford organized labor some protection against the abuse of the power of injunction in labor disputes...
...In the present session Hull voted to allow Cannon to pack the Ballinger-Pinchot investigating committee...
...He "paired" also on the bill to prohiUit the unauthorized disclosure of official information by public officers...
...With Hull, pairing began early and for many years has been a chronic refuge...
...In the 60th Congress Hull is recorded as paired or not voting on the following among many important roll calls: On the McCall Bill for publicity of campaign expenses...
...At the opening of Congress Hull is found responding on every roll call, voting for Cannon and fob the Cannon rules...
...It was on a measure to enforce the rights of the public in certain land which had been granted to railroad promoters, but which they had forfeited by failure to build the railroads called for by the grants...
...One of these is to be on hand at every roll call and vote regular —"Aye" with the machine...
...The results of this theory of statesmanship as a contributing cause to misrep-resentative government are illustrated by the account which follows of Hull's record in Congress...
...Hull of Iowa was educated in the law...
...Of course, as chairman of the committee on Military Affairs, he has had charge of the military appropriation bills...
...But the System was watching, and so Hull "paired...
...He was "paired" on the bill to authorize the issuance of Panama Bonds...
...He was found "paired" also on the vote on the motion to investigate the Bristow charges of corruption in the Postoffiee Department...
...A bill for the sale of surplus lands in the Spokane Indian Reservation...
...On another roll call he voted in the interest of Wall Street on a motion to reinstate the Committee on Banking and Currency as a privileged committee of the House...
...On the roll call hull was "paired...
Vol. 2 • April 1910 • No. 17
