THE ROLL CALL
Our Popular Senate YOU MIGHT not think it, but even the Senate of the United States is coming around to the point of conceding something—not much, but something—to public opinion. The use of the...
...Taylor Bailey Bryan Overman NOT VOTING—33...
...Smith, Mich...
...The bill went in the Senate to the Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...On the surface it is different...
...The Reed Amendment THE BILL as reported provided only penalties for noncompliance with its provisions, a fine of $1,000 or one year's imprisonment, or both...
...Perkins Wetmore Clapp Kern Pomerene Works Crawford La Follette Reed Cullom Lippitt Root NAYS—7...
...Now that is providing more than publicity...
...A dozen sturdy Progressive Republicans have been industriously educating the Senate on the subject of public opinion—what it is, and why...
...Borah Cummins Lodge Shively Bourne Dillingham McLean Simmons Bradley Dixon Martin, Va...
...As amended on the floor of the Senate on motion of Senator Reed, of Missouri, it provides that no candidate shall expend more than ten cents for each voter in his district or state, or more than is lawful to expend under the laws of his state and in no event shall a candidate for the Senate expend more than $5,000 or for the House of Representatives more than $1,500 for his nomination and election, and further provides that no candidate for the Senate shall contribute money or anything of value to assist in procuring the nomination or election of any member of the State legislature, and that no candidate shall promise any office or his influence or support for such office to any person to secure the support of such person...
...It is different now...
...It indicates that under some circumstances the Senate of the United States may be expected to budge forward a bit along Progressive lines...
...despite these and other things, the bill came out of the Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...It is providing, some measure of salutary regulation...
...The Senate Concedes THE SENATE'S latest concession to public opinion was the passage at the present session of the campaign publicity bill...
...Then there has been and is the "Lorimer affair," and some other "affairs," which, coming to the attention of the Senate and even to the attention of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections, have helped some...
...Bacon Bankhead Johnston, Ala...
...Many things have transpired in the meantime...
...What it concedes evidences fear rather than respect...
...Brandegee Foster Martine, N. J Smoot Bristow Gamble Myers Sutherland Brown Gore Nelson Swanson Burnham Gronna Oliver Thornton Burton Heyburn Owen Townsend Chamberlain Hitchcock Page Warren Chilton Johnson, Me...
...As developments showed, this zeal of the Cannon machine was quite in excess of the requirements of the occasion...
...In the good old days of unquestioned and unchallenged System domination, in the days when the word of Aldrich was law in the Senate, public opinion was referred to chiefly in the Senatorial vernacular as "popular clamor...
...These considerations and others have—though the Senate of course would deny it—impressed the Senate, even to the point of action...
...Gallinger O'Gorman Stephenson Clarke, Ark...
...The Senate is not conceding much even now to public opinion...
...Briggs Frye Nixon Smith, S. C. Clark, Wyo...
...The American electorate at the recent election took a hand and gave the Senate and the machine politicians a most valuable object lesson, a demonstration, so to speak, of the ultimate respectability of public opinion...
...It did not...
...Heretofore, the Senate has steadfastly refused to concede that the people are entitled to it...
...That is to say, it was passed with as much enthusiasm as the august Senate of the United States would permit itself to display...
...Did it, like its predecessors, die in that committee...
...Guggenheim Paynter Stone Crane Jones Penrose Tillman Culberson Kenyon Percy Watson Curtis Lea Poindexter Williams Davis Lorimer Rayner du Pont McCumber Richardson Fletcher Newlands Smith, Md...
...The bill came to the Senate and went, as had its predecessors, to the Committee on Privileges and Elections...
...It came out, moreover, for passage, and with amendments substantially improving the bill and rendering it more efficient...
...to pass a measure now and then in response to public opinion as a political off-set to its legislative services to Privilege...
...And best of all, it provides, "No person guilty of violating the provisions of this act shall be seated in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, and if any person shall be seated he may be removed if found guilty of such violation...
...This it did only after appending to it the Crumpacker "force bill" amendment, which it was believed would alienate enough Democratic votes from southern states to insure the defeat of the measure in the Senate...
...The House, early in the present session, passed a bill providing for publicity of campaign contributions and expenditures affecting nominations and elections of Representatives and Senators in Congress...
...Achievement DESPITE that Committee's arduous labors in the investigation of Lorimer...
...The vote on the Reed amendment was as follows: YEAS—50...
...But it is learning to strike a balance...
...As so referred to, the mention was accompanied usually with a snort of Senatorial disdain...
...Also another national election impends...
...Then and Now IT WAS ONLY a few sessions back that the House first passed the so-called McCall campaign publicity bill...
...Public opinion has been asking for this measure for years...
...It never came to the Senate and the Senate was never given an opportunity to vote on it, and there never was a chance that it would be at that session of Congress...
...The sham of this pretended response to public opinion was not entirely lost upon the people —if we may judge from the results of the election...
...The use of the term, "public opinion" is even coming to be good form in the Senate...
...notwithstanding that it involved the reconstruction of any number of Senatorial convictions...
...Not only was it passed, but it was further amended in the Senate and improved...
...There it "died the death...
...The Senate is still serving the Interests, notwithstanding public opinion...
...despite the hot weather and the burden of Senatorial labor incident to the determination of the political necessities of "reciprocity...
...To be sure, on the eve of the last Congressional election, Congress passed a measure providing for publicity of campaign contributions—after election...
...In the Senate it was passed, and—save for a few protests from Heyburn and Bailey and one or two others—passed with enthusiasm...
...This indication is amplified, so to speak, by the roll call which showed only seven votes in the Senate against this Reed amendment...
Vol. 3 • July 1911 • No. 30
