THE ROLL CALL
The Modern "Miracle" THE PUBLIC DEMANDS a tariff commission as an assurance against tariff legislation on a basis of graft and pull. The public wants the facts ascertained by an impartial tribunal....
...You, who have paid your money and have seen the show, are wondering whether you really like to be humbugged...
...Still there was just enough time, if the rules were followed, to dispose of the roll calls and Fitzgerald's dilatory motions and pass the bill...
...Senator Lodge, in charge of the bill, apparently was unable to press it for speedy action by the Senate...
...The show is over...
...Tawney and Cannon, with their conference report, had added thirty minutes to FITZ-gerald's "filibuster" and had defeated the bill the people demanded, the bill for which the house had voted two to one and the senate by more than two to one, the bill for which the Administration is publicly proclaimed as champion and sponsor...
...Maybe...
...A few people have possibly, since the adjournment of Congress, read in the press reports a three or four line notice...
...The bill was beyond hope...
...Let us wait and watch...
...At this stage of the session, an open "filibuster" was begun, carefully calculated and timed, not to prevent action upon the bill in the Senate altogether, but to delay action until almost the last minute and then allow the Senate to fix its record by voting for the bill when the time to the end of the Congress was so short that the bill could be defeated in the House...
...The Clerk read the conference report," etc...
...Speaker, it is evident that this bill (the tariff board bill) can not pass before 12 o'clock...
...First a roll call was had on a motion for a call of the House...
...Then the vote recurred on ordering the previous question on the resolution from the Committee on Rules, which was carried, 158 to 87...
...One or two Senators on the Republican side and some Democrats, playing politics, attended to the situation...
...Payne rose...
...The Speaker...
...But the modern miracle is an illusive thing...
...The time for discussion and action upon this rule would now, of course, come out of the time which the House would have otherwise had for action upon the bill itself...
...i move that the house recede and concur...
...But taft's-friend-cannon's-friend Fitzgerald of Tammany, notwithstanding that all the Democratic members of the Committee on Ways and Means had joined reporting the bill, now marshalled a Democratic "filibuster" to prevent action...
...When the vote was taken, the bill passed the Senate, 'Yeas" 56, "Nays 23,—all the System Republicans, except one, going on record in favor of the bill...
...The yeas and nays were ordered...
...The tariff board bill was caught in the jam in the closing hours of Congress and did not pass...
...Two weeks elapsed before it was taken up again on the 28th of February...
...Perhaps Longworth didn't know any better...
...while another roll call on another question was pending before the House...
...Of course, the Speaker, and Payne and Dalzell made a brave show of pressing the rule and the bill—for the sake of the administration...
...It wants these facts put up to Congress...
...After a time the campaign will come again and "statesmen" of the System stripe will go about on "the stump" telling their constituents how "we tried to pass the tariff board bill"—how "we all voted for it, but you see it came at the end of the Congress and was filibustered to death by a few irresponsible Democrats...
...Three hours remained of the Congress...
...And i understand that the sundry civil bill has not yet been engrossed and the Post Office appropriation bill has not yet been signed, and in order to do that this bill will have to get out of the way...
...When it was known Friday, March 3, that the Senate had agreed to vote on the bill at 8:30 on the morning of March 4, the real friends of the bill, the Progressive Republicans, in the House bestirred themselves...
...Mr...
...Thus endeth the comedy...
...It was expedient...
...The Senate "leaders," what there is left of the Aldrich machine, like the "leaders" of the Cannon machine in the House, the "statesmen" who always heretofore have stifled all legislation of this character, now professed great loyalty for the tariff commission idea and for the tariff board bill...
...Thus, pending the roll call, the System machine, by preconcerted manipulation, through its faithful servitor, Tawney— Taft's friend Tawney of Winona—while professing loyalty to the tariff board bill, did the one thing that could be done and prevented action on the tariff board bill by submitting a conference report while final consideration of the bill was pending...
...As i have been very earnestly for this bill, as has been a large majority of the House, i regret to break in at this time, but I ask unanimous consent, and i ask the friends of this bill to join with me, to vacate the order now pending and to allow the resolution to be withdrawn...
...The amendments were unimportant, to be sure, but the bill must go back to the House for concurrence...
...Speaker, i submit the conference report on the general deficiency appropriation" bill, H. R. 32957...
...The bill had been unanimously reported from the Committee on Ways and Means and passed the House by a vote of two to one...
...The bill had been amended in the Senate...
...By passing the tariff board bill in the House on January 30, 1911, the System "statesmen" of that body put themselves on record for the people...
...There is only one amendment in disagreement, and that is 108...
...Was it not...
...i call for the yeas and nays, Mr...
...Mr...
...Shortly before 4 o'clock on the morning of March 3, an agreement was permitted whereby the final vote in the Senate would be taken at 8:30 o'clock on the morning of March 4th, three and one-half hours before Congress should expire by Constitutional limitation...
...Is there objection...
...After a pause...
...The Clerk called the roll the first time...
...Division, Mr...
...Dalzell...
...Already are heard threats from System quarters of the defeat of the measure in the Senate, either by amendments destroying its usefulness or designed to accomplish fatal delay in its passage, or by the refusal of Congress to provide the necessary appropriation...
...The System-serving Cannon machine had allowed it to be passed...
...Congressman Longworth of the System Regulars, in claiming the glory of authorship of the bill, declared that its passage by the House was a "miracle...
...Applause on the Democratic side...
...We have little faith in it...
...The following is from the Record: "The Speaker...
...Speaker...
...As passed by the House, while not all that a tariff commission bill should be, it contained most of the essential provisions of such a measure...
...A miracle" indeed...
...Speaker...
...The Chair hears none...
...The conference report, having right-of-way under the rules, was discussed and a roll call on it was demanded and taken— an unprecedented thing...
...The gentleman from Minnesota submits a conference report on the general deficiency appropriation bill, which the clerk will read...
...Fitzgerald...
...The System press, well knowing the popular demand for this legislation, had extolled to the country these "statesmen" who appeared in this scene as the champions of the people, fostering a popular measure...
...The roll call having been ordered on Fitzgerald's last dilatory motion, the Record reads: "During the roll call: "Mr...
...The Machine Again Wins THE SYSTEM'S bi-partisan machine had won once more...
...The Speaker...
...It was taken up on the 13th of February and some of the amendments agreed to in the Senate...
...The Speaker...
...Three weeks ago, in the Roll Call, we related down to that date the history of the so-called tariff board bill in the Congress just closed...
...Two of the annual appropriation bills were still to be acted upon by the House...
...Payne...
...The question is on agreeing to the resolution...
...The only thing that could be done was to act on the appropriation bills, which required no roll calls, and adjourn sine die...
...After the adoption of the conference report the roll was called the second time on the special rule to take up the tariff board bill, and it was adopted by 179 'Teas" to 128 "Nays...
...They went to the "leaders" of the Cannon machine who had on January 30 proclaimed themselves champions of the measure upon its passage in the House, and demanded that a special rule be brought in and adopted on Friday which would provide for the immediate concurrence of the House in the amended bill when it should pass the Senate on Saturday...
...We said: "Whether the 'leaders' were acting in good faith in the passage of the tariff board bill in the House is yet to be determined by the passage of the bill in effective form by both Houses at the present session...
...Tawney...
...The gentleman from New York (Mr...
...The magic rabbit is back in his box, and he is just an ordinary rabbit after all...
...It was not...
...A friendly press saw to it that the country was advised of their action at that time...
...The passage of the bill itself was a question of minutes—some thirty minutes...
...The worker of miracles has gone into the lunch counter for "coffee and a ham and...
...Mr...
...Dalzell, of the Rules Committee, who had brought in a rule at the time of the passage of the bill in the House, promised that a special rule should be reported on Friday, providing for immediate consideration of the bill upon its passage in the Senate on March 4. For some reason, unexplained, Dalzell was not able to bring in a rule on Friday, not of course that he was not anxious to pass the bill, but he did bring it on Saturday—after the bill came from the Senate...
...Like the performance of the gentleman who renders "black art" in the vaudeville show, its element of mystery disappears if we but look behind the stage scenery...
...How the Combination Worked IN THE SENATE the bill went to the Finance Committee, from which it was reported with amendments...
...Applause on the Democratic side...
...This was defeated...
...It seldom materializes...
...Payne) is recognized...
...We thought we did...
...Pending the division, "Mr...
Vol. 3 • March 1911 • No. 11
