THE ROLL CALL

...He wanted the shippers and the Commission, who have an interest in upholding the decisions of the Commission, to have the same rights in the court that the bill gave to the railroads, Kendall asked Townsend if it were not true that the Attorney General had been criticized because of his action on railroad eases, in the courts...

...The matter came up on an amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill which prohibited the expenditure of money for the prosecution of labor unions merely because they are labor unions...

...He voted against the previous question on the adoption of the old rules and against Dalzell's motion to adopt the rules...

...In the great fight against Cannon in March, he stood steadfastly against Privilege and for the rule of the People...

...Kendall is serving his first term as a member of the House from the Sixth district of Iowa...

...Against a "Whitewash" Committee KENDALL voted for the election of the members of the Ballinger-Pinchot "investigation" committee by the House and against their appointment by Cannon...

...It was he who wrote into the railroad bill in the House, the proviso that it should not repeal the Sherman anti-trust law with regard to railroad...

...His people thought he could be trusted to keep our of the snares of The System and to represent them as truly at Washington as he had done in Iowa...

...These men, by the very reason of their familiarity with the parliamentary practices and customs of the House, naturally assume the function of organizing the House for business...

...A bill for the eight-hour day, by the way, has been slumbering in the House Committee on Labor for years...

...When the bill came back from tile Senate, he voted for the Lenroot motion to adopt the Senate bill, which was more in the interest of the people than was the House bill...

...But when the iniquitous Aldrich bill was substituted for the Payne bill, Kendall revolted...

...Mann ruled this out of order, also, and so the amendment was lost...

...Chairman, the amendment which I have sent to the clerk's desk and which has just been read to the House is, I think, self-explaining...

...He voted for the Dalzell gag rule under which the bill passed the House, but declared that he did so because it was the only way that any legislation on the subject could be secured...

...Kbndall refused to be "influenced...

...In 1909 the gross income amounted to $458,000...

...When he investigates a little, he finds that there exists a system whereby all the business of the "popular" branch of Congress is transacted by a FEW MEMBERS OF A FEW COMMITTEES and that the rules governing the House will not allow business to be done on the floor...

...The great political parties of the country as their platforms have been quoted here this afternoon, have expressed themselves upon the matter of traffic agreements, and the people generally are not so unfamiliar with the subject as some gentlemen assume...

...Such a man is Nathan E. Kendall...

...Nathan E. Kendall was sent to the 61st Congress...

...I want to notify him and other gentlemen who come from the great East, which has so long exercised so dominant an influence in the legislation of this ceuntry, that the Sherman anti-trust act is close to the hearts and affections of the people from whom I come...

...With such a start, he could be counted upon really to represent his people...

...Being Republicans, however, they wanted a Republican who would represent THEM, not The System, and so Hon...

...The Dalzell gag rule was adopted, however, and Kendall had a chance to vote on only a few of the schedules of the tariff...

...And so the members who desire to change things are in the minority...

...Kendall voted for the amendment when it passed the House...

...The bill was being discussed in the Committee of the Whole, where no roll-calls are taken and no record of the way members stand...

...He saw no hope of defeating Cannon for speaker and so voted for him as the nominee of his party caucus...

...that is, to prevent the prosecution of a labor union unless it committed some act in itself unlawful...

...It has been suggested here this afternoon that agreements with respect to traffic entered into between railroad systems of the country are included within the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust act...

...A Man Who Would Not Be Tied F0R a constituency to have found a man with keen enough insight into The System to avoid the spider's web at the very start of his career in the House of Representatives, is indeed good fortune...

...There is a sort of a gentlemen's agreement at Washington that the troublesome labor question shall not be allowed to come to a roll call vote, and so Kendall's amendment was ruled out of order by Mann of Illinois who was in the chair...

...but chief among them is the manner in which the House of Representatives, though created anew by law every two years, is made a continuing body in fact, just as the Senate is a continuing body by law...

...When Dalzell brought in the gag rule that prevented amendments to the Payne tariff bill except on five schedules, Kendall voted against it...

...If this proceeding shall have no other purpose, it certainly will operate to notify the committee on labor that the responsible membership of this House desires that the long silence which has surrounded the bill in that committee shall at last be broken...

...It was discovered that this would amount to a repeal of the anti-trust law and permit the railroads to do the very things that the people had been complaining about for years...

...When the Sundry Civil Bill was before the House, Kendall precipitated a storm by trying to secure the passage of an amendment limiting work on all government contracts to eight hours per day...

...He voted for free lumber, for the higher rates on barley, the ten per cent, duty on hides, for free oil, against recommitting the bill, and for its passage...

...We know it was enacted after a long struggle and we insist that it be retained unimpaired on the statute books of our country...

...Washburn), for whose opinions I entertain high regard, speak of the Sherman anti-trust act in terms of disparagement...

...At the end of the first session, Kendall voted his protest against the appropriation of $12,000 for automobiles for Vice President Sherman and Speaker Cannon...

...He voted for the clark-Insurgent resolution to appoint a committee to draft rules that would give back to the membership of the House the control of its own proceedings, and against the Tammany-cannon rules introduced by Fitzgerald of New York...

...Is it possible, he asks, that in the whole membership of the House there are only five or six men fitted to conduct the business of legislation...

...Many members, of course, spoke feelingly of the rights of labor and indicated that they favored the eight-hour day...

...On the railroad bill, Kendall voted against the motion to re-insert the Mann amendment which would have allowed railroads to acquire the property of competing lines and for the passage of the bill...

...The Kekdall amendment was adopted on a vote of 94 to 67...

...I would not disparage the judgment of the chairman of this committee, when it is expressed in interpretation of the rules of the House, but I dissent from the judgment of the gentleman from Minnesota (Tawney) and the gentleman from California (Hayes) that the rules of this House are superior to the membership of the House...

...He voted against swallowing the Aldrich bill as a substitute for the Payne bill...

...to have tied their own hands, unwittingly lost their freedom, and surrendered the rights of their constituents over to the Machine that lives and breathes through the rules...

...They were not mistaken...

...In speaking for his amendment, he attacked the plot of The System to relieve the railroads from the operation of the antitrust law...

...Fighting for the People HAVING elected to perform his functions as a member of the House instead of turning them over to the Cannon Machine, Kendall took an active hand in the legislation of the second session...

...He said: "Mr...

...Kendall made an eloquent appeal for the passage of the Bureau of Mines bill and voted for it...

...The Senate refused to agree to it and President Taft afterwards defeated it by influencing the members of the Republican Machine in the House to vote against it...

...All the way through his first session, Kendall used intelligently the right really to represent his people, which he had secured at the outset of his career by refusing to turn over to the CAnnon machine the duties with which his people had entrusted him...

...The district is normally Republican, but Lacey was the only candidate the bosses would give them, so they had to revolt in order to get representation...

...voted to recommit the bill,—-voted against the previous question on the adoption of the conference report (the Aldrich bill), and voted against the passage of the Aldrich bill...

...If the people of the Sixth district of Iowa want a man in Congress who will represent THEM, instead of PRIVILEGE, they will send back the man who represented THEM during the BOth Congress...

...In caucus they are told by the men who have served many terms in the House that they must vote for the old rules, which the "continuing members" have found to be wise, after many years of experience...

...Roll calls on labor questions are embai rassing...

...They had sent J. F. Lacey, a System man, to the House, continuously from the 51st to the 59th Congresses...

...Big Business sees to it that the men who serve the System faithfully are returned to the House time and time again...

...Usually there are enough members in each House who do not really represent the people but who represent Privilege, and who know that they can best represent Privilege by becoming a part of the Machine through which Privilege operates in the House, to secure the adoption of the old rules...

...The hill as framed by the committee permitted pooling and agreements as to rates...

...Kendall started his career in Washington by refusing to hand himself over to the Machine...

...He had served as county attorney and for five terms was a member of the lower house of the Iowa legislature, serving as speaker the last term...

...A man who refuses to tie his hands the first day of his first session in Congress is able to represent his people and the people of the nation a whole lot better than the man who has put the gag into his own mouth...

...After the House IN Committee of the Whole had sustained Mann's ruling that the Kendall amendment was out of order, because it was not really a limitation on an appropriation bill, Kendall introduced it in another form, providing that none of the money appropriated in the bill should Ve expended for any work unless it should be stipulated that the laborers should not work more than eight hours a day...

...He joined that little band of Insurgents who stood for a people's House and stood with them to the end...

...New members who are ignorant of the parliamentary practices of the House are naturally expected to follow in the footsteps of the older members and vote for whatever system of rules the older members tell them is necessary to conduct the Nation's business...

...The people of the Sixth District of Iowa wanted representation in the Sixty-First Congress...

...There is no way of telling how the members voted because it was only a StandinO Vote...

...I regretted to hear the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr...

...I entertain the old-fashioned idea, obsolete and discredited in some quarters, that the majority in any legislative assembly has a right to adopt any procedure that may seem expedient and wise...

...Kendall found it impossible to secure any relief in the House...

...And he has done so...

...I know how improper it is to accept rumors floating over the country," said Kendall in reply, "but I have heard it suggested that the cases prosecuted in the circuit courts by the Department of Justice were uniformly determined against the contentions of the Commission...

...In Sweden the telegraph and telephone system is owned by the Government...

...They are pledged to abide by the caucus and even if they do not like the old rules, they are tied hard and fast...

...In speaking for his amendment, Kendall said: "Mr...

...Chairman, I have been very much encouraged to observe the unanimity with which gentlemen are in favor of establishing an eight-hour day in the United States...

...If that departure is entered upon, it ought to be done intelligently, with full understanding of what is proposed...

...For years they had not been represented at all...

...To the 60th Congress, they sent D. W. Hamilton, a Democrat...

...And it is proposed in this bill now for the first time to relieve the great railroad corporations of the country from the operations of that beneficent statute...

...An appeal from the decision of the chair was taken, but the House sustained the decision, 99 to 61...

...He was against sending the bill to conference where the juggling of Privilege lost to the people many of the valuable concessions for the people that the Progressives in the Senate had forced into the bill against the Aldrich machine...

...So on May 3, Kendall presented the following amendment: "Provided, that in considering agreements contemplated by this section, due regard shall be had to the maintenance of the principle of competition between naturally competitive carriers and no such agreement shall be approved between carriers directly and substantially competitive with each other...

...Thus it happens that good and honest men who enter the House of Representatives are often found to have voted for a vicious system of rules...

...Afterwards Senator La Follette disclosed in the Senate the action of the Department of Justice in dismissing the suit agains the New Haven railroad for its merger with the Boston and Maine...

...It was the only way Lacey could be turned out...

...The cost of maintenance was $266,000, leaving a balance to the credit of the system of $192,000...

...Townsend said he had heard of no criti-cism of the Department of Justice...

...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Free to Serve ONE WHO visits the galleries of the House of Representatives for the first time is struck by the spectacle of many able members of the House sitting silent in their seats or absenting themselves altogether from the chamber while a mere handful of their colleagues transact the business of the nation...

...But he refused to allow the caucus to tie his hands and silence his tongue as the representative of his people and he voted against the adoption of the old rules...

...His record is good all the way through...

...It is made possible in many ways...

...A Good Beginning THUS Kendall began right...

...New members are drawn into the net carefully prepared by the older members, through the agency of the party caucus...

...He represents the People, not The System, and he knows HOW to represent the people...

...On the postal savings bank bill, Kendall voted against the Finley (Democratic) substitute, and for the passage of the bill...

...of writing the rules that their long terms of expedience have taught them to be "necessary...

...Demands a Square Deal for Workers KENDALL voted twice to exempt labor unions from the operation of the anti-trust law...

...is a system by which the member voluntarily ties his hands at the beginning of his service in the House and sells his soul to the powers behind the Speaker's throne...

...A Champion of the Shippers KENDALL also fought the provision in the railroad bill that takes the conduct of cases before the commerce court out of the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission and places it in the hands of the Attorney General...

...The System dared not, in the face of so complete and convincing a showing, invite public condemnation by repudiating the -platform pledge in such a brazen manner...

...Sometimes, these good men find out later what they have done and seek to regain their freedom in future Congresses by voting against the rules...