HAS CONNONISM BEEN DESTROYED?

...The caucus agreed upon the form of the measure it was desired to enact...

...The story of the growth of this system is the story of how control of the People's branch of Congress ivas gradually taken from the members of the House to be lodged, first in a party caucus, then in party leaders and finally in Wall Street which directed the House through a committee room of the United States Senate...

...Now, practically all the legislation enacted by the House is first enacted by its committees...

...When the rule was once adopted by the majority of the House, the bill referred to became the regular order...

...Any discussion of the rules of the House cf P.opre entatives must begin and end with the statement that the chief function of the Home is to pass legislation...

...the next committee would arrive at the same point and the various matters before the House were left like so many apples out of each of which a bite had been taken...

...Frequently Congress and the President were elected by opposite parties and the members of the House were elected more because of their individual capacities as legislators than because of party issues or their membership in parties...

...The Constitution provided that the Presiding Officer of the Senate should be the Vice-President, elected by the people, but that the House should choose its own Speaker...

...It is important to remember that under Reed and Crisp, who followed him, and even under Henderson, who followed Crisp and preceded Cannon as Speaker of the House, that the Speakership, with its powers of appointing committees, granting and refusing recognition and directing the Committee on Rules, was an agent of the caucus of the majority party in the House...

...And, by the direction of the committee, Reed reported the first "special order" ever presented by the Committee on Rules—a sort of special rule that gave privilege to a specific measure, limited the time for debate on the bill and the opportunity to amend it and set the time when the House should proceed to vote upon it...

...In 1841, in the Thirty-Eighth Congress, it was provided that it might report from time to time, the purpose being simply to permit amendment of the rules at other times than the opening of Congress...

...This rather technical description of parliamentary procedure has been gone into in order to outline the machinery of the House by which it does business under the party system of government...

...s seated itself on the throne of Government...

...It was in 1883 when the House calendar was almost hopelessly clogged with bills and when Congress had been sitting for months without getting any nearer to action on them, that Reed conceived the modern function of the Committee on Rules...

...To change this machinery—to tear dewn the Speakership—can never eradicate Cannonism as long as you have a House of Representatives that is willing to turn over its functions and powers to Wall Street...

...On that day it requires positive action to stop the passage of these bills...

...The rules of procedure were simple...

...These devices were in reality so many chutes arranged for special classes of bills...

...During the Henderson regime, it became increasingly customary for the Committee on Rules to act INSTEAD OF the party caucus...

...Not only was its small size a contributing factor to this characteristic but party government was not virile...

...And a new function was added to that committee, and thereby to the Speakership, the expedition of business in the House...

...This is the greatest source of his immense power that is given him by the rules...

...In the early Congresses with a small membership, the House was a deliberative body...

...And so Friday of each week was set aside for pension bills and private war claims...

...battling for the principle, net for a job...

...the possibility of a long deadlock in the election of Cannon's successor that might tie up legislation indefinitely...

...The majority parly in the House held that it alone was responsible for legislation— a belief te which the minority party contributed by trying to stop all legislation...

...If we underpaid this question, we will understand the Speakership because th...

...It was as if the shelves on which the bills had been placed by the inertia of the House had been lowered...

...The tariff of '83 was the first bill that ever passed the House through the operation of a "special order" from the Committee on Rules...

...Burleson of Texas offered the resolution against the most strenuous pretest of his friends and it is even rumored that it was handed to him by one cf Uncle Joe's lieutenants...

...Reed instituted the reform of counting as "present," members who sat silent in their seats and refused to answer to their names whenever they wanted to break a quorum, for which he gained the title of Czar...

...It is important to understand that the power of the Speaker, which has teen termed second only to that of the President, arises from his leadership and not from his office...

...Any ret of rules mint ha/e for its only purpose, the creation of a system for the effective consideration of legislation...

...And Uncle Joe, the victor of many parliamentary battles caught the House when sentiment was turning for him as a defeated leader, and made his famous speech offering to consider a resolution to oust him from the chair...

...But his chief reform was the providing of a motion for the House to go into Committee of the Whole to consider any particular bill...

...Those bodies had always elected their presiding officers from among their members and it had been the custom to elevate the leaders of the meetings to this high post...

...For Caunonistn is the control of the House of Representatives by "The System" for its own benefit against the interests of the people, through a control of the machinery of the House which happens to be the Institution of the American Speakership...

...In order that one committee of the House might not monopolize the time of that body, the rules provided that when one committee had occupied the morning hour for two days, it eould not be called again until after all the other committees had been called in their turn...

...But the country grew...

...In 1891, Reed became Speaker of the House and his first concern was the reform of the rules to enable the majority of the House to consider any bill it wanted to...

...A fight was on...

...It operated as the voice and hand of that majority and BY DIRECTION of fhe majority caucus-In 1893, the House was Democratic...

...The American Speakership THE Norris resolution was an attack on the Committee on Rules...

...the absence of any legislative program agreed upon among themselves...

...It will show that Cannonism and Aldrichism are different names for the same thing— once called Hanna-ism...

...The membership of that body was small, the issues were clear cut and the industrial and economic life of the country was not complex...

...On the first Monday, any member may make the motion and on the third Monday, it is reserved for chairmen of committees...

...And the personnel of the committees is therefore of the highest importance...

...The Constitution provides that all bills to raise revenue shall originate in the House and custom has left it to the House to originate all bills that provide for the running expenses of the government...

...And so, in the early days, the personnel of the committees of the House did not figure so largely in legislation because the House was small enough and able enough to consider most of the legislation on the floor...

...The Committee on Rules, was regularly recognized as a special reserve force for the expedition of business, as had been done when the Tariff of '83 was passed...

...From the first, the Speaker was endowed with the power to appoint all standing and select committees of the House...

...Although this was theoretically supposed to be governed absolutely by the rules and general parliamentary practice, his responsibility as leader of the majority party in the House enabled the Speaker to use this power increasingly as an instrument to work the will of that majority...

...To be continued...

...But with the other bills—the public business of the House— it was left to the Speakership to deal...

...NEARLY every man, woman and child in the United States who can read, watched with unabated interest the great battle that was fought on the floor of the House of Representatives on the 17th, 18th and 19th of March...

...Crisp was followed by Henderson...

...The final development of the system brought it to a point where it could ANY set of rules must have for its only purpose the creation of a system for the effective consideration of leg is-lalion...

...It will emphasize the importance of the struggle that is going on in every state THIS SUMMER...

...Another great source of the Speaker's power arising under the rules is the power to grant or refuse recognition on the floor of the House...

...The second and fourth Mondays of each month were set aside, likewise, for District of Columbia business and on those days the House sits as a city council...

...The Reed rules were adopted by the Democrats and the new function of the Committee on Rules used as frequently and as drastically as under Reed...

...And when the famous Norris resolution for the enlargement of the House Committee on Rules, its election by the House and the deposing of the Speaker from membership on the Committee, was passed Saturday afternrcn the public was informed that Cannonism had met its t'eath blow...

...Big headlines informed the public that it •was a fight for the people against "The System," with George Norris, Representative from Nebraska, leading the forces of the people against Uncle Joe Cannon, the representative of "The System...

...But this was never done...

...An explanation of one must be an explanation of both because they have developed together as the outgrowth cf a pailiamen-ta<y system, unchanged, except in minor particulars, for 121 years and not seriously challenged until this year...

...The calendar of the House was clogged with thousands of bills for the enactment of which the country was clamoring...

...The Committee on Rules THE Committee on Rules had always existed since the first Congress...

...Later, it became customary for members to simply ask unanimous consent to suspend the rules and consider such bills...

...the Committee on Rules framed a special order putting a sort of capsule about the bill and it was swallowed whole by the House under the lash of the party whip...

...As party spirit in the House developed in bitterness, obstruction by the minority became the usual order of things...

...For as the membership of the House increased and its inertia became greater, the committees took on more and more the responsibility for legislation...

...The clerk of the House called the committees in turn and any member of the committee who had been authorized to do so, could call up for consideration out of its place on the calendar, any bill that the committee had reported favorably to the House and had ordered him to call up...

...The special orders for bills of a private nature left only four days in each week for the consideration of public business...

...Cannon Turns a Trick THAT Cannon secured what might be termed a personal endorsement is true in a measure, for crafty Uncle Joe outgenerailed his enemies in the very moment of their victory and literally forced them to refuse to declare the Speaker's chair vacant by a vote ten greater than that by which he was elected Speaker in March, 1909...

...And whenever obstruction raised its head to prevent the consideration of any bill, a caucus of the Republican majority in the House was called by Reed who was Speaker, Chairman of the Committee on Rules and leader of his party in the House...

...It is the story of a growth, steady and uninteriurtful through Democratic and Republican Congress ts alike, unt ! this year—the story of an insidious process by which, through the capture of the convention system cf party nominations and the ruthless manipulation of an intiicate machine in the House, Big Buti-ne...

...Did the Norris resolution strike it down in one blow...

...In Colonial America, another system had grown up in the town meetings and popular conventions from which all American Governmental institutions arose...

...And with it, the size of the House of Representatives grew and party government grew in strength...

...It was a prime necessity that some way be provided to enable the majority party to run over obstruction and work its will...

...For, unless this system can be understood, the conditions that prevail now cannot even be conceived to exist in a supposedly free government...

...It will show that there are good Cannon Democrats on the floor of the House of Representatives just as there are good Aldrich Democrats on the floor of the Senate and that the war on Cannonism and Aldrichism can never be won in Congress but must be fought out at the polls...

...It is safe to say that it was the fight feature of what happened on the floor of the House of Representatives those three historic days that gave the story its chief value as news and that what it was all about was, after all, only secondary in importance...

...Only the appropriation bills, which were privileged under the rules and other bills which had like privilege, could get consideration at all...

...It is the story of a growth steady and uninterrupted through Democratic and Republican Congresses alike, until this year—the story of an insidious process by which, through the capture of the convention system of party nominations and the ruthless manipulation of an intricate machine in the House, Big Business seated itself on the throne of Government...

...These must be considered...

...An inspection of "Cannonism" and an understanding of its growth and purposes will answer these questions in the negative...

...Stories •were sent out that the old man who had ruled the House with an iron hand for eight years, was fighting for his throne...

...And so, though the Speaker, through his appointment of committees of the House and his power of recognizing the leaders of the majority party to call up bills, was a very powerful factor in legislation, the Speakership was no more powerful than the majority party and was simply its agent to work its will in legislation...

...Its functions were originally described "to report at the commencement of each Congress, a system of rules...

...And so an arrangement was made whereby the appropriation bills were to be considered "privileged" and could be called up at any time out of their order on the calendar by the committees that had them in charge...

...no longer be endured and the first attack on Big Business really began in the overthrow of the convention system and the substitution of the direct primary...

...The House has only one other function—that cf a grand jury in impeachment cases-hut it has seldom seen fit to exercise this...

...Objection to the bills called up by committees soon reached the point where a committee would use the morning hour for two days without securing the passage of any bill...

...For the consideration of the other public business, a call of committees was provided as the regular order of business, after the unfinished business had been disposed of...

...As the battle progressed, it was chronicled far and wide that Cannonism was at bay in a struggle for its existence...

...Bills were introduced, referred to committees, reported favorably or unfavorably to the House, placed on a calendar and acted on by the House, in their order, with ordinary expedition...

...The institution of the Speakership, which in times past had proved effective as a directive agent for the majority, was powerless to secure the passage of bills in the face of repeated filibusters by the minority...

...There is no command that the Speaker shall be a member of the House and there is evidence in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention that the framers of that instrument intended to allow the House to follow the custom of the British House of Commons and select a Speaker from outside its membership, who should simply preside as a trained parliamentary judge over the deliberations of the House...

...And so Cannon was retained in office and the Insurgents who voted against the Burleson resolution explained that they were fighting a system, not a man...

...And the House worked on its calendar only at the direction of its committees...

...It took away from the Speaker the power to appoint this committee and the right to membership on it...

...What is tiie Committee on Rules and why was it attacked...

...In 1858, James L. Orr of South Carolina, Speaker of a Democratic House, was made a member of the Committee by resolution because of his ability as a parliamentarian...

...To care for the other small bills, such as granting rights of way for bridges over navigable streams, for telegraph lines over the public domain, etc., it was arranged that on the first and third Mondays of each month it should be in order to move to suspend the rules and consider such legislation out of its regular order on the calendar...

...And so the press galleries of the House were filled night and day with correspondents who bulletined the progress of the battle on the floor to feed hungry press wires, and readers before newspaper bulletin boards in far away cities were kept informed of the progress of the fight "round by round...

...If a single objection was made, they would move to suspend the rules...

...But what of the other statement, that Cannonism had been destroyed...

...But the biggest headlines acclaimed in large letters that Canncnism was no more...

...That fact by itself was enough to interest Americans, and newsboys in cities far away from the National Capital did almost as thriving a business as they do when two champions of the prize ring meet in some Western city to fight it cut under Marquis of Queens-berry rules...

...And, though no mention of the Speaker as a member cf this committee has been made in the rules since that time, he was always a member by custom, until the Norris resolution was passed this year...

...The story of the growth of this system is the story of how control of the People's branch of Congress was gradually taken from the members of the Home to be lodged, first in a party caucus, then in party leaders and finally in Wall Street, which directed the House through a committee room of the United States Senate...

...This is the really important thing the people have gained, because the direct primary is going to solve the problem of the control of the House of Representatives...

...In this situation, at the suggestion of Thomas Bracket Reed of Maine, later called "Czar Reed," the House turned to the Committee on Rules...

...But the "whip" of the majority always canvassed the House and ascertained what sort of a special order was desired with regard to any special legislation...

...In the beginnings of the Republic, legislation was a comparatively simple matter in the House...

...Party government attained such strength and bitterness in the middle of the last century following Reconstruction Days, that it became necessary for the powers of the Speakership to be called into play to get any legislation through the House...

...Because the Speaker is the leader of the majority party, the rules- have endowed the office with its great power...

...Speakership is the growth of the rules of the House...

...Consequently, the American system was naturally adopted by the first Congress of the United States in 1789 and, from that day to this, the Speaker has been a member of the House and, with very few exceptions, the real leader of the majority party in the House...

...Just after his defeat, Cannon tossed the Speakership into the lap of the Kou: e to have it returned to him a few minutes later on a silver platter and the newspapers of the country said that Cannon ha.I snatched from the defeat of his machine, a personal endoi sement from the House...

...Can it ever be destroyed on the floor of the House of Representatives...

...The public domain, the pension system and the National Capital furnished most of this sort cf business...

...Crisp of Georgia was in the chair and the Republicans became obstructionists...

...So useful had the new function of the Committee on Rules proved itself, that Crisp provided that the Committee could sit at any time during the sittings of the House...

...The Insurgents were faced by a situation that looked to them like anarchy—the ousting of the Speaker with no candidate except the Democratic leader, for the place...

...And above all, the Insurgents were unprepared to assume any of the responsibility for legislation that ousting Cannon would have entailed, became they knew that they would not have the votes to enact any of their ideas into law—unless they had been willing to go over to the Democratic party with its theories and prejudices to which they could not subscribe...

...It was provided that reports from the Committee on Rules should be considered of the highest privilege...

...A two-thirds vote is required to pass this motion...

...The calendar of the House became so clogged with bills that the inertia of the House had to be removed against certain classes of legislation upon which the parties were not divided...

...He provided that this motion could be considered after an hour had been spent in the call of committees and that it could be amended only once by designating another bill and that it could be made every hour during the consideration of business called up by committees...

...And in this way, the Speakership took on its importance as a means of directing legislation because the Speaker was responsible for the naming of the committees...