THE WITHERING BLIGHT OF LORIMERISM
The Withering Blight of Lorimerism PUBLIC SENTIMENT in this country, which you may sneer at, at times, and pay no attention to, has decreed that this (the Lorimer) investigation shall be complete,...
...Well that resolution was amended and reported back to the Senate...
...It bears also upon the control of the legislation for two years in the Senate of the United States...
...He sinks into insignificance...
...Brown...
...I pursued the chairman of that committee for weeks and months around the Capitol to get a meeting of the committee so I might have a hearing on that bill...
...it is a question of this Senate being on trial, and the whole form of government being on trial...
...That resolution, which was offered as a substitute for the one I presented, provides that this committee of 15 shall investigate this case en banc, all the members serving...
...The question goes to that far-reaching extent...
...I introduced that bill in 1906...
...I outlined the proceeding—how somebody arises in the caucus and moves that the chairman of the caucus appoint a committee on committees...
...Owen...
...I want the truth to be known here...
...I introduced it in 1907, in both sessions...
...La Follette...
...I have appealed to the chairman of that committee time after time...
...That is just one instance...
...If that be adopted, then we shall have a vote of confidence by the Senate in the 15 members of that committee who were selected by secret conference and caucus...
...For years it had been recommended by the Interstate Commerce Commission as essential to any right basis for the making and the regulation of rates...
...La Follette...
...Hinee has that information, we want a committee that will make Mr...
...Hines, with his Lumber Trust, has contributed, has it been for the purpose of getting a district attorney to prosecute the Lumber Trust...
...Brown) and one or two other Senators...
...Does the Senator from Wisconsin yield to the Senator from Oklahoma...
...When first announced by Senator La Follette in debate on the floor of the Senate, that there was such an agreement, the leaders responded and resented it as a charge of wrong-doing and sought at first indirectly, to deny it...
...The Senate Morgues IT did go to that committee by vote of the Senate...
...President, when the Senator from Nebraska (Mr...
...Then the Senator from Nebraska and I conferred about that resolution and broadened it a good deal so as to provide for an investigation of the true value of the property of the Washington Gas Co., with a view, you know, to determining the basis upon which they should charge rates...
...President, that same thing carried into party politics has been the occasion for the enactment of the direct primary, and the demands for a more direct expression of the public voice which are heard upon all sides and which will not be answered until written into statute law...
...Shall men come here to make laws under these circumstances...
...It died the death there...
...Owen...
...Yet Mr...
...I reintroduced it in 1909, in both sessions...
...It is an abhorrent thing to me that the head of a great Lumber trust can sit on the fine upholstered lounges of a club, glancing into a cocktail and surrounded by the aroma of a cigar, boast of how they have spent a hundred thousand dollars to "put over" an election of a man to the United States Senate...
...It was referred to that committee...
...Laughter...
...Thus, in a brief space of time, in a caucus covering, it may be, not more than a period of five minutes, there has been delegated to one man in that caucus a power which— when it is delegated and re-delegated and delegated again— works out finally in the selection of committees that absolutely shape and mold legislation in the Senate of the United States during the life of that Congress...
...Thus the authority, which has been delegated to us by the legislatures of our respective States to represent the people of this country, is delegated by the two parties to their respective caucuses, and delegated in their respective caucuses to one man who happens to be chairman of the caucus on that occasion, and delegated by that one man again to a committee which he appoints, and largely delegated by that committee to the chairman of the committee...
...The Withering Blight of Lorimerism PUBLIC SENTIMENT in this country, which you may sneer at, at times, and pay no attention to, has decreed that this (the Lorimer) investigation shall be complete, without any technicality, without any attempt to protect anybody, however high or low it may reach...
...Our Senators and Representatives dictate, largely, the appointment of district attorneys...
...Caucus Control MR...
...It was upon this "understanding" that the leaders on both sides were able to muster the necessary votes on both sides to pass the Martin resolution...
...Hines produce that information...
...If it would not interrupt the Senator from Wisconsin, I should like to call attention to the fact that in the Sixtieth Congress, when I first entered this body, I introduced a resolution providing for the election of Senators by direct vote of the people, and it went to the Committee on Privileges and Elections and died the death...
...and the Senate of the United States can not maintain such a system...
...I have introduced it at every session since I have been a Member of this body, I have had the support of the Interstate Commerce Commission for identically the bill I have introduced...
...President, when members of committees will be selected in open Senate on a primary vote, as members of both parties now vote in many States to nominate their candidates for their respective tickets...
...Then followed the usual counting of noses and the usual "sounding" of individual Senators...
...Brown) introduced his resolution, which was an inquiry into the capitalization of the Washington Gas Co., he asked to have it referred to this committee of which he was a member...
...If Mr...
...This opened the contest...
...If the Beef Trust furnished the money, what is the quid pro quo for the Beef Trust...
...If Mr...
...and in the Sixty-first Congress I did the same thing, and again it died the death...
...La Follette...
...It has been said in the course of the debate this afternoon that it is perfectly understood that the resolution offered by the Senator from Virginia, if adopted by the Senate, will not be followed by the committee...
...The number of the sub-committee, the politics of the sub-committee and the personnel of the sub-committee were made a part of the "understanding...
...If the Beef Trust has contributed, has it been for the purpose of getting a district attorney to prosecute the Beef Trust...
...Whether we believe it or not we realize the force and power and value of public sentiment...
...Then a fight took place on the floor...
...La Follette...
...That bill was sound in principle...
...The day is at hand when the Senate will be democratized and made more nearly to represent public interest than it has in recent years— than it does now...
...I contend that is undemocratic, unrepublican, un-American, and I want to say, Mr...
...District attorneys prosecute these trusts...
...Mr...
...Before the close of the debate, however, denial was abandoned and a plea of justification was entered...
...President, a system like that throttles democracy, it destroys representative government...
...President, that is the old, old story...
...It never came out...
...President, under this iniquitous system here in the Senate the committees were organized so that it made no difference how strong were the reasons, how strong the appeal, how righteous the cause, you could not get out of the Committee on Interstate Commerce a bill to ascertain the value of the railway property of this country...
...The committee on committees is appointed by the chairman of the caucus and the committee on committees proceeds to make up the committees of the Senate...
...It is a more important question than any other before the Senate...
...The Truth Out TO the statement of Senator La Follette, Senator Bacon of Georgia replied with much heat, in effect that he was not a party to any agreement or "understanding," such as the Wisconsin Senator described, and that, while he should support the Martin resolution, it was not in fulfillment of any such "understanding" or agreement...
...Who are "they...
...So was the Senator from Nebraska (Mr...
...I introduced it in 1908 in both sessions...
...This question goes further than Mr...
...I cite that committee merely as an illustration...
...That motion, as a mater of course, carries...
...I do...
...The situation and the criticism directed at the secret caucus and private conference system of conducting business of great public concern can not be better presented to our readers than by taking it from the discussion in the Congressional Record: Mr...
...That is one of the many bills I introduced...
...The Committee on the District of Columbia claimed that resolution...
...When the committees of the Senate are being arranged, that committee does not receive much attention...
...I also introduced it as an amendment to the Hepburn-Dolliver bill which was pending before the Senate...
...It will go down as it ought to go down, before a righteous public opinion...
...It was common talk on the floor here that the Committee on the District of Columbia had been so organized that such a resolution could never be reported out...
...This is one feature of the case that has come to me painfully, because I have seen the withering blight of Lorimerism in many kinds of prosecution.—FROM SENATOR KENYON'S SPEECH ON THE LORIMER CASE...
...Let me say to Senators here that the Senate of the United States is not great and powerful enough to escape reformation...
...There was not a word said as to how the resolution itself was to be affected by sending it to that committee, but many things were said privately among Members on the floor here about what would happen...
...Only seven Republican Senators voted for it...
...That resolution was sent to the Committee on Corporations organized in the District of Columbia...
...It was regarded as a perfectly "safe" committee on which to place men who might prove troublesome on important committees...
...It is not expected to be a committee of any importance...
...When I came to the Senate in 1906 I introduced a bill for the valuation of railroad property...
...The time is coming, Mr...
...almost anybody is assigned to it, and I was given a place on that committee...
...Of course, it was fought out on a high plane...
...It was sustained by the highest authority of the country...
...All this, outside of the public record, outside of the public proceedings...
...We have approached nearly to the time when we are going to see an end of the control of the legislation of this body by a few men who determine the character of the standing committees of the Senate...
...Mr President— The Presiding Officer...
...Then, again, there was a putting together of heads behind closed doors and an "understanding" was reached among the leaders and passed down the line that, if the resolution placing the control of the investigation in the Committee on Privileges and Elections should be agreed to, a majority of that committee would secure a report back to the Senate that that committee had found itself unable to prosecute the in-vestigation en banc, as required by the resolution, but would recommend a sub-committee for that purpose...
...Hines is correct—if the Lumber Trust furnished the money—what does the Lumber Trust expect back...
...Now, Mr...
...I introduced that bill in 1906...
...We know him not...
...Challenged by Progressives WHEN the question of the adoption of the Martin resolution, providing for an investigation, which was not to be made as provided but made otherwise and in accordance with this secret "understanding," came up the Progressives of the Senate challenged the attention of the country by proclaiming the existence and the character of this "understanding...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission had said they could not ascertain a reasonable rate excepting upon a valuation of the physical railway property of the country, and it had appealed to Congress in every report since 1903 for authority to ascertain the value of railway property in this country...
...What I am stating now goes directly to the composition of the Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...It is not different from many other important committees in the Senate...
...This chairman, therefore, wields almost absolute power in the selection of the members of the committees that control the legislation of this body...
...President, a couple of years ago a resolution was introduced in this body by the Senator from Nebraska (Mr...
...I thank the Senator from Arkansas...
...I was not present, of course...
...The results showed that there were not enough votes to pass the resolution...
...The committee on committees very largely defers to the chairman of the committee on committees...
...President, I submitted a few days ago some observations upon the building up of the committees of the Senate in caucuses held by either party...
...It was purposed to have it go to the Committee on Contingent Expenses, in order that we might be authorized to subpoena witnesses and employ a stenographer and make other necessary expenditures...
...In the colloquy between La Follette and Bacon, Senator Davis interrupted to say: "For the relief of the Senator from Georgia, if any relief is necessary, I want to say to the Senator from Wisconsin that the Senator from Georgia was not present when any understanding was reached about this matter, and several other Senators were not present, but it was distinctly understood that this committee should be composed of eight Members, just as the Senator from Wisconsin states it...
...Shall they come as representatives of special interests, or shall they come to represent the people...
...Many members said, "Of course if it goes to the Committee on the District of Columbia it will never be heard of again...
...I had understood from the statement made in open Senate here by the Senator from Oklahoma that there was such an "understanding," and I was simply proceeding to base what observations I had to make upon that statement...
...If Mr...
...Committee Jugglery MR...
Vol. 3 • June 1911 • No. 24
