THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES A System Prize IN THE Kansas congressional elections for the 54th Congress, the railroads and the other Special Interests that together make up the...
...Another amendment was offered requiring a reduction of $70,000,000 a year in the taxes on necessaries and providing for a tax on incomes...
...There was only one thing for the machine to do...
...These preliminary observations having been made, the new Congressman was ready to go to work for a "stand in"—to go to work for the machine which, in turn, was ready to go to work for the System...
...Miller voted also against this amendment and helped to defeat it...
...This amendment proposed that the Commission should report its "settlement" to Co?igress...
...The scheme, therefore, had the "support of public opinion...
...James Monroe Miller served the powers that prey...
...His services in the House were recognized and appreciated by those he served, and he was in time promoted to a field of larger System usefulness in the Senate...
...Also he introduced from time to time various bills for the restriction of interstate commerce in intoxicating liquors...
...One of those—and not "the least of these"—was the Hon...
...Another big job that the System had for the 56th Congress to do was to get the maximum number of millions in public property and in money from the public treasury for a grand Union Station for the railroads entering Washington...
...On one proposition in the tariff, Miller made vain efforts in behalf of legislation demanded by the Kansas constituency—efforts which were vain because of the dominance of the Cannon machine to which Miller had contributed in every way within his power...
...Speeches by Dalzell and others urged that the House recede and agree with the Senate and the Railroad...
...William A. Caldeshead has been the most abiding...
...By the 57th Congress, public sentiment in and about Washington had got around where the Pennsylvania had expected it would...
...Everybody wanted a new station, a station suitable to the location...
...This grab was publicly known as the McMillan Bill, entitled, "A bill to provide for eliminating certain grade crossings of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, and requiring said company to depress and elevate its tracks, and to enable it to relocate parts of its railroad therein, and for other purposes...
...With the Railroad and the Senate conferees on one side demanding the final million, and Babcock and Cannon and the House conferees on the other side resisting that demand, the battle raged through conference after conference...
...Miller, of Kansas, following Long of Kansas, following Dalzell of Pennsylvania, following the dictates of the system, voted to pass the bill and give the Railroad the last disputed million...
...The first grab it made by and through the 56th Congress...
...Many fair and honest men believed the Government should contribute to obtain such a station as would become the dignity of the Nation's Capital...
...So Miller has lasted longer than his more aggressive and more able prototype...
...The System in crowding itself into possession of public places, streets and properties about the Capitol and in digging its greedy talons into the tax-contributed treasury of the people made just two great, rapacious grabs...
...Thus modified the bill passed the house without even a roll-call...
...Cannon and Babcock et al...
...He joined with the machine "leaders" of the House in proving their bad faith in the adoption of the Fitzgerald amendment to the House rules by voting to destroy the small measure of reform which it embodied,—the Calendar Wednesday rule...
...And this 56th Congress was a busy and important one...
...Even Cannon and Babcock seemed to realize that there was a limit to what the people would stand...
...It was urged that the taxes embarrassed business, and that the express companies and railroads did not pay the taxes anyway but required the shippers to pay them...
...On the tariff he voted for Dalzell's special order to put the tariff bill on passage without allowing the House freedom of action, and with amendments permitted to be offered upon only a half dozen articles of the thousands embraced in the tariff schedules...
...As for Congress, that was run by a machine and the System owned the machine...
...Finally the situation was ripe...
...When the report of this lavish generosity of Congress in building a depot for the railroads at Washington got abroad in the land Congressmen began to "hear from home...
...In the 57th Congress Miller voted ^System program in support of the bill to repeal the imprisonment penalty for railroad rebaters, and to render more difficult the enforcement of the law against rebating by making the shipper liable equally with the railroad...
...The leaders knew Long...
...When the bill was passed, a distinguished Congressman arose upon the floor of the House and suggested that when Congress should be about to adjourn and the usual resolution should be passed appointing a committee to wait upon the President of the United States and inform him that Congress was ready to adjourn and to inquire if he had any further business to lay before it, the committee wait also upon the Pennsylvania Railroad and ask the Railroad if it had any further business for Congress to transact ! If the committee had waited upon the Pennsylvania Railroad, it would perhaps have been informed that the railroad did have more business for Congress to do, but that this would be deferred until public indignation at the raid already made on the treasury should be forgotten in a greater indignation at the spoliation of the historic parks and the beauty of the Nation's Capital, the pride of all Americans...
...Long was the most aggressive for the interests he represented and he had more than average ability...
...This bill as it passed the Senate gave the railroad over $3,250,000 in land, a plaza or approach to the proposed station to be built and maintained by the Government, first cost $1,770,000...
...As might have been expected, Long served not wisely but too well the interests that made him...
...that, in all, the proposition carried a donation of approximately three millions of dollars of public property and public money...
...He voted for the Steel Trust and against the people in voting against the appropriation to provide a gun casting foundry at the Washington Navy Yard, which would afford the Government some protection against the monopoly...
...It would be very easy for the new Congressman from Kansas whose name began with M to follow the older Congressman from Kansas whose name began with L, just as it was easy for the Kansas Congressman whose name began with L to follow the Pennsylvania Congressman whose name began with D, or the Illinois Congressman whose name began with C. Their names were called in alphabetical order on the roll calls...
...In this Congress, too, Miller conv-yed his disrespect to a civil service reform President by voting against a measure to take rural mail carriers out of politics...
...It seems not to have occurred to Congress that the wealthiest railroad in the world might reasonably have been required to build such a station at its own expense, in view of the rich passenger traffic to and from the seat of government...
...that it required the Government to expend approximately a million dollars in money to convenience the railroad...
...Miller served the System also in voting down an amendment to the Merchant Marine Commission Bill to preclude the proposed commission from advocating ship subsidies...
...And all this without giving the public or the railroads a satisfactory Union Station at Washington...
...Less able, less aggressive than Long, he has been more diplomatic...
...and for the Fitzgerald resolution of pretended rale reform brought forward by Tammany Democrats in conspiracy with the Cannon machine...
...Wall Street did not want publicity...
...The bill passed the Senate and was in due course reported to the House for passage from the Committee on District of Columbia...
...He voted against the Clark amendment to put trust-controlled products on the free list...
...The title of the bill does not explain that the Baltimore & Potomac meant the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the title does not suggest that the bill was in effect a donation to that railroad of over 3-4 acres of streets and public parks in the heart of Washington...
...At the opening of the 61st Congress he stood valiantly for Cannon and Cannonism...
...Yes, Miller has earned his "stand-in" with the System machine of the House...
...James Monroe Miller...
...For Williams proposed to "strike out and insert"—to insert "report to Congress," which meant report to everybody...
...Between conferences System influences were at work in the House...
...Just as this quiet, little bill was going through the House, a Democrat from Mississippi, named Williams, a Democrat with a keen appreciation of the public intelligence and of good Democratic politics, but with no especial appreciation of the dictates of Wall Street and the System, offered an amendment that threatened to spoil the entire program...
...Morrell, of Pennsylvania, moved that the House recede...
...If the new Congressman would do as Long did, he too would be liked by the leaders—would "stand in...
...Flesh and blood could no longer stand the strain...
...It was as though some one should offer the pro forma amendment "to strike out the last word" of that cardinal System motto: "Addition, division and silence,"—only more so...
...It might give the "outsiders" an even chance and Wall Street prefers to bet on a "sure thing...
...The System wanted a nice, quiet, little "settlement"—a "settlement" to be made with the least possible publicity by a Commission to be created for that purpose...
...He voted for the usual Dalzell motion for the readoption of the old House rules...
...An amendment was offered to require the companies to pay their taxes directly...
...At the present session he voted to have Cannon appoint the members of the Pinchot-Ballinger conservation investigating committee, in order to assure a report by the committee which should not be distasteful to the System...
...He was appointed, at the close of last session, to the important committee on interstate commerce, in which the railroads and the System are so much interested...
...Political discretion seemed to require some show of reluctance on the part of the House in following the lead of the Senate in complying with the demands of the Railroad...
...He paired in favor of the "Special Facilities" appropriation of the Postoffice Appropriation Bill to give certain railroads, contrary to the recommendations of the Department, a subsidy of $170,000 a year for alleged "expediting" of the mails...
...In order to impress Congress and people traveling to Washington with the advisability of government contribution to a union railroad station at the Capital, the railroads had allowed their existing stations to fall into a state of decay and disrepute that was a constant occasion of general disgust...
...He moved by a succession of easy stages...
...He, to-^, has been "reliable...
...In the 58th Congress Miller voted with the machine to discredit and humiliate then Assistant Postmaster General, now Senator, Bristow, because his thorough investigation of corruption in the Postoffice Department touched members of Congress...
...He has received his recognition...
...against the Clark resolution for reform of the rules...
...But it insisted that it would proceed under that measure, under which it now had "vested rights," unless Congress would "put up" most handsomely...
...The result was the Union Station bill of the 57th Congress—the final grab...
...Also Wall Street was interested in the securities of the Railroad...
...And they did rally them and did vote the amendment down...
...From the storm of public protest that arose it seemed that the Senate had quite exceeded the limit of the people's endurance...
...The System had much work for the machine to do...
...Rarely did he seem to think of Kansas or of the Fourth District...
...bills calculated to please prohibition sentiment in prohibition Kansas, but bills which the Cannon machine, which Miller supported, would never allow to see the light of day...
...Long's record was investigated and the people retired him to private life...
...some of which the machine failed to do, but much of which it accomplished...
...A new station was needed...
...Long would be a good fellow for a new Congressman from Kansas to imitate...
...Miller voted against this amendment and helped to defeat it...
...And perhaps it would...
...The natural result of this legislation was a carnival of trust building rebates—a revival of the "good old days" before the Interstate Commerce Act...
...Thus, to the extent of his ability, saving only r\ diplomatic show of deference to public sentiment, has he proved himself a prize System Congressman...
...Servile and regular in an inconspicuous way, he has been reelected ever since, and is now "dean" of the Kansas delegation in the House...
...Aside from his tariff votes for free lumber and for the amendments offered by Cannon's man Tawney to reduce duties on lumber, and for the Scott amendments to increase the duties on hides, Miller has kept strictly within the beaten paths of the machine "reservation...
...Only the camel in crowding his sprawling hulk into the tent to the exclusion of the rightful occupant was more delicate and deferential about his operations...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES A System Prize IN THE Kansas congressional elections for the 54th Congress, the railroads and the other Special Interests that together make up the politico-Business union, which we call the System, drew some fine prizes...
...Conditions were ripe for the "haul...
...He had the usual quota of private pension bills for Kansas old soldiers...
...Of course, there were the usual motions to cut off debate by the System chairman of the committee in charge of the bill, and to crowd the bill through...
...Thus has he failed his constituents and the people...
...The bill went to conference...
...But Miller has his points...
...But the System "grand-prize" of that drawing was Hon...
...On roll-call after roll-call, from the first vote on the previous question on the motion to cut off debate, to the last vote on the passage of the bill by the House, the record shows Miller of Kansas, following Long of Kansas, following Dalzell and Cannon in voting the people's property and the people's money to the pennsylvania Railroad...
...The ways were greased...
...The cry went up that the blunder of the McMillan Act must be cured at any cost...
...A roll-call was ordered and the motion carried...
...He was for taking the "lid" plumb off...
...Chester I. Long...
...Again he served the same System interests, at the expense of Kansas and the country, in voting for the Frye shipping bill to give the shipping combine a monopoly of all government ocean freights _in effect a shipping subsidy of ten millions a year...
...He voted for Wall Street and the System financial interests in the support of the Vreeland Currency Bill...
...Respectable people in Washington believed Congress should contribute...
...Miller became a member of the 56th Congress which convened on the first Monday in December, 1899...
...They were glad he was back...
...a bridge across the Potomac River to be given by the government and to be replaced at a cost of $1,000,000 and $3,000,000 in cash out of the Treasury...
...The House had resisted the Eailroad to the bitter end—almost...
...And Curtis said it was the railroad branch of the System that put Long in the Senate...
...Accordingly the bill was reported from the House committee with one million lopped off the cash donation, leaving the total out-of-hand gift only eight millions...
...He voted against President Roosevelt and against conservation of natural resources—of the Roosevelt reforms, the most hated by Big Business—in voting against the measure for the creation of the Appalachian and W'-.ite Mountain Forest Reserve...
...But Williams demanded a roll-call, and the Systemites had to go on record, which they did in regular, alphabetical order, Milleu of Kansas following Long of Kansas who, in turn, followed Dalzell of Penmyl-vania and Cannon of Illinois...
...The railroad agreed also that the plan of that measure was a poor one...
...The people of the 4th district have not "got next" to Miller as the people of Kansas did to Long...
...had led a fight against the Eailroad...
...He voted for the Payne-Cannon bill when it passed the House, and for the worse Payne-Cannon-Aldrich upward tariff revision on final passage...
...Returning to the 56th Congress, an important piece of System legislation was the Payne war revenue measure, proposing among other things to repeal the stamp taxes on shipping receipts of transportation companies...
...In the contest forced in the present session by the Progressive Republicans for real reform of the House rules, Miller filled faithfully his place in the ranks of the Cannon machine, fighting on every roll-call every foot of the disputed ground to sustain Speaker Cannon and to preserve in the Cannon rules the bulwark of System domination of the people's Congress...
...He has justified the confidence of the "leaders...
...Long "stood in...
...Accordingly, the quiet, little "settlement" was embodied in a quiet, little bill drawn just as the System wanted, and the machine proceeded to pass it through Congress...
...Meanwhile, there were other congressional drawings in Kansas in which the System drew other prizes...
...It was the old story of the camel with his nose in the tent...
...Miller has not been for the System the grand prize that Long was—while he lasted...
...Of these Hon...
...The progressive movement struck Kansas...
...Also you may learn from similar sources that the measure as passed would accomplish even a greater public wrong in quite destroying the beauty and usefulness of the finest public park in Washington, the Mall, extending from the foot of the Capitol to the White House and on to the Potomac River...
...Of course, there was vigorous opposition to the measure from minority and independent members of the House...
...These facts you may learn, interested reader, from the public records of that time...
...On the opening of the 60th Congress he voted for the Dalzell motion for the readoption of the Cannon rules...
...Congress is always fair, even considerate—to the railroads...
...rally the "reliables" and vote the amendment down...
...The Railroad protested that publicity in this matter would add to its embarrassments and perhaps defeat the "settlement...
...And so Miller went on through the 60th Congress and into the present Congress, serving the House machine that serves the System, striving to please the "leaders," working for a "stand-in," and, having a "stand-in," working to get a better one and to make it "solid...
...Senator Charles Curtis was at that time also an aspirant fsr senatorial honors and his interest in that promotion caused him to inform himself with some particularity concerning the occasion of Long's promotion...
...Thus through more than a decade in Congress has Hon...
...He voted for Special Interests, and against Kansas and the people, for ocean mail subsidies...
...Long was there, being congratulated by the Machine leaders on his return after two years' absence...
...He meant it...
...Moreover, Williams did not offer the amendment to withdraw it...
...Not to Congress...
...Miller voted also for the System against a measure to authorize the President to suspend tariff duties on commodities found to be controlled by trusts and against a measure to provide for publicity for corporations engaged in interstate commerce...
...He has earned high place in the regard of Big Business...
...Publicity has no place in the Wall Street idea...
...The only problem for the System was how to make the scheme "come through" in the biggest possible figures...
...Then began one of tne most picturesque legislative sham battles of recent times...
...One of the big jobs to be pulled off was the "settlement" of the indebtedness of several million dollars of the Union Pacific Railroad to the Government...
Vol. 2 • June 1910 • No. 25
