THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES What The Lobby Investigation Revealed Views and Recommendations of Representative MAC DONALD From His Minority Report to the House LABORING as I do under the...
...THE BELIEF has been common among the people that the large special interests of the country were so firmly entrenched in and surrounding the legislative branch that, by reason of the system built up under their influence, the enactment of remedial laws, popularly demanded, has been either denied or only partially accorded, and then reluctantly...
...Bird...
...There is only one portion of this record that startled the Nation and which represents any new features in our legislative history...
...Bird...
...It will not do to stop at the fairest, most judicial statement of all of the utmost detail of the matters investigated...
...The correctness of this position will not be questioned...
...You do not think there is anything reprehensible in the work that Mr...
...the broad human charity with which the Members are imbued by these experiences—all militate against the scathing self-examination and self-revelation that must be made by this body...
...We will not obtain this under a legislative system in which remain so many opportunities for powerful influences to secretly hinder and delay the operation of the lawmaking body...
...Not that I disagree as to the facts so far as stated therein which they have so concisely and ably presented in their report, but only in my conclusion given herein and in the angle from which I view these facts and which impels me to set forth what I believe to be the striking fundamental propositions developed by the inquiry...
...I can not let this phase of the situation pass without referring to the cynical contempt in which Congress and its prerogatives were held by the responsible officers of the National Association of Manufacturers who, at the same time, were endeavoring to influence and direct its activities...
...John Mitchell, Mr...
...The difficulty is in attaining this result under the circumstances surrounding an inquiry of this nature...
...Bird...
...This feeling is plainly evident all through the documentary evidence presented during this inquiry and this attitude was very thinly veiled before your committee...
...But in my opinion this inquiry has developed a situation of a graver character, so far-reaching in its possible consequences as to challenge and demand the keenest attention...
...It seems, moreover, ridiculous to take seriously the elaborate pretense that the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council for Industrial Defense were, in any sense, anything except instruments of the varying activities of the same men...
...Frank Morrison, and myself—all these aroused an interest and an activity among the workers of the country in that campaign that was very marked, and we were more generally active in that campaign than in any preceding...
...They are demanding more equitable conditions of life...
...In my opinion, therefore, if we are to profit by the lessons of this inquiry, the cumbersome operations of the House itself must be simplified...
...did force the appointment upon committees or subcommittees of certain men believed to be necessary for the carrying out of their schemes, and prevented other men whom they believed to be inimical to their interests from being placed thereon...
...The natural esprit de corps of the House, developed, perhaps, to a higher degree in this body than in almost any other...
...MR...
...They did not hesitate to use employees of the government in the very Capitol itself...
...Mac Donald...
...That Congress has fallen somewhat from its high estate in the estimation of the American people can not be denied...
...A striking commentary upon this matter is the statement in a letter (p...
...The secrecy of committee hearings and sessions...
...I should not say reprehensible...
...the custom of suffering conference committees to absolutely frustrate the plainly expressed and recorded will of the House or Senate, and the arbitrary use of this power...
...While I do not mean to convey that there has been any wholesale individual corruption, or even many specific cases that can be denominated as cases of personal venality, yet the record of this inquiry shows that a system none the less effectual, was built up and means offered thereby, and used, for the purpose of defeating and preventing remedial legislation...
...WHILE many abuses in the legislative methods of the House have been corrected, it is all important, before our really great problems can be successfully met, that reform in the legislative methods of the House must be further continued and made drastic and complete...
...And this I realize may be true, even though most of the individual Members of the House may be absolutely convinced of the justness of the indictment...
...And, as is shown by literally hundreds of items in the Mulhall expense accounts, by the purchase of organization labor men to betray their fellows in election campaigns and strike-breaking activities, they instituted a new and complete system of commercialized treachery...
...The facilities offered by legislative methods during the period covered by these transactions for insidious, secret, and sinister influence and operation are plain...
...I am well aware that this statement may be bitterly assailed by the House by reason of that instinctive impulse which seems to impel this body to rush to its own defense even when justly attacked...
...And remedial legislation must be found, and that speedily, to put an end to this merciless warfare being waged between organized capital and organized labor...
...the proceedings in contempt against Mr...
...and those charges were met in Congress with incredulity, and even attempted ridicule...
...Striking examples of this may be found among the correspondence...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES What The Lobby Investigation Revealed Views and Recommendations of Representative MAC DONALD From His Minority Report to the House LABORING as I do under the disadvantage of lack of that experience along legislative lines so abundantly possessed by all of my colleagues upon the committee and, in addition, hampered by having been placed upon the committee at a late period to fill a regrettable vacancy occasioned by the protracted illness of my colleague, Mr...
...If anyone has any doubt as to the correctness of my position in the matter, he has only to read the undisputed portions of the letters and papers, the publication of which brought about this inquiry...
...Mulhall—the buying of members of the labor unions, the using of these employees of the Government, these efforts to obtain hearings before committees of Congress and efforts to prevent them, efforts to keep Members away from Congress and to keep them in Congress, efforts to change votes, and all the activities in election districts—I ask you honestly if you justify these proceedings as in line with the legitimate work of your organization...
...Now, I want to ask you, in all fairness, Mr...
...Mac Donald...
...We must not shut our eyes to deplorable conditions revealed thereby...
...and unhesitatingly and unflinchingly propose and apply the most drastic remedies, when found to be necessary, that the cause of the offense, if any there be, may be removed and its repetition made impossible...
...The highest conception of human liberty handed down to us by our forefathers was embraced in the conception of a parliament of the representatives of the people...
...The following should be obtained: Publicity for all committee hearings and committee sessions...
...2462) when he says: * * s "The war that has been declared upon us by the officers of the National Association of Manufacturers...
...A change in the present custom-made practice of legislation by conference committees...
...There has been broadcast in the land for many years a suspicion of the condition existing in Congress which the revelations of this inquiry will tend, and have tended by their publication in the public press, to absolutely confirm...
...Downs, presumably a member of the association, to Mr...
...Let it be noted that all this was done with a sinister secrecy...
...Third...
...This suspicion is not directed to mere cases of individual venality or corruptness...
...Here stands out unmistakably a fact, of which Congress and your committee is apparently expected to remain in complete ignorance, but which to the most casual reader of the record must be plainly apparent...
...Second...
...A well ordered system of docketing and conducting the business of committees...
...If within the power of Congress, proceedings should be taken to cite the responsible officials and agents of the National Association of Manufacturers shown to have been engaged in improper lobbying activities...
...the lack of well-defined and orderly conducting and docketing of the committees' business, or the proper keeping of the minutes of committee proceedings...
...Yet only a few days passed before the disclosures with which we are here confronted brought overwhelming confirmation of these charges...
...Mac Donald...
...I should say necessary...
...Mr...
...It can not be evaded...
...Bird, general manager of the National Association of Manufacturers, referred to the American Federation of Labor as "the enemy...
...Abolishing of partisan caucuses and the elimination of the system of party leadership in so far as it hampers the free and independent exercise of the prerogative of the individual Member...
...Bird, on this point, testified (p...
...Mr...
...They did, by the expenditure of exorbitant sums of money, aid and attempt to aid in the election of those whom they believed would readily serve their interests, and by the same means sought to and did accomplish the defeat of others whom they opposed...
...Much, of course, was done that is not disclosed, but that can be easily supplied from the evidence of what was done...
...And the whole course of the legislative activities of these associated forces was directed to the prevention of legislation that would liberate in any degree the laboring forces or lessen the privilege of the interests lor whom these officers assumed to act...
...Bird, whether, if you believe in all of those multifarious activities of Col...
...Mulhall is reported to have done, as shown by these reports here...
...The disciplinary powers of the House must be rigorously and unspar-ingly applied, unless it is intended to minimize the offense...
...Necessary from your standpoint...
...IT IS THE CONDITIONS SURROUNDING THESE ACTIVITIES THAT, IN MY OPINION, CONSTITUTE THE VITAL MATTER OF THE INQUIRY...
...THE naive effrontery shown upon the witness stand by the officers of the National Association of Manufacturers in assuming that the committee would accept at face value the bald denials and ridiculous evasion and perversion of the meaning of actions all too plainly corrupt and sinister, and would simply and guilelessly make these explanations their own and attempt to hand the deception on to their colleagues and the public, can not be permitted to pass without mention...
...Adequate penalties for the punishment of those who engage or conspire to improperly influence Members of Congress...
...To obtain social justice we must see that there is no opportunity for perversion of the legislative machinery...
...Behind this struggle loom the serried ranks of the millions of toilers in the factories, the mines, the mills, and on the farms...
...A thorough and complete system of minutes of committee proceedings, open to the public...
...Moreover, if this inquiry involved a mere ephemeral condition wherein Members of the House might have yielded to corrupting influences, or even if it marked an era in which corrupting influences had commonly surrounded the activities of the legislative body, I think that I should have remained silent and content with the report of my colleagues...
...that is, the various activities, political and otherwise, of the National Association of Manufacturers...
...2129) as follows: "Mr...
...the binding and gagging of the major portion of the Members of the body by the system of partisan leadership, rendering them absolutely helpless at the will of the few who really transacted the business or refused to transact it—these may be mentioned as the most striking conditions of this kind...
...It has developed in public estimation to a state that amounts to a profound distrust of the whole system of the legislative branch, because of the influences that have directed its activities as well as surrounded it...
...Necessary for the battle we are fighting...
...the injunction proceedings brought by the Buck Stove & Range Co...
...A system of registration of lobbyists and legislative agents so that no person may engage, as a business, in such work here without there being a public record of his connection and the source of his employment...
...2191) of a Mr...
...Recommendations First...
...Experience has shown that Executives have been acclaimed by reason of the popular belief, that they have used their power to compel Congress to grudgingly and reluctantly perform its constitutional duties...
...The evidence convinces me that Mulhall, Emery and his associates, with the enthusiastic approval of the responsible officers of the National Association of Manufacturers, did influence legislation...
...That is, that this is only another phase of the desperate war taking place between the vested interests of the country and organized labor...
...And when we consider the influence exerted by these public officials upon their associates it is indeed a startling picture...
...or to ask anyone to believe that the so-called Workmen's Protective Association was anything but the flimsiest cover for Mulhall's operations in corrupting, by the use of money, union labor men of some influence with their fellows to wantonly betray these fellow workmen...
...This issue is presented in this record and is before us now...
...Nolan, of California, through which the committee lost a valuable member who had keenly followed the course of the labors of the committee from their inception and who was so well qualified by nature and training to have completed the work, it is with the utmost reluctance that I feel obliged to differ with the findings of my colleagues...
...Unless Congress continues to occupy this position of honor, the highest place of respect and confidence in the minds of the people of the Nation, the balance between the constitutional branches of the Government is in danger...
...did prevent the enactment of laws...
...Altogether they compose that great interest known as "the public," whom Congress must serve...
...the cordial fellowship brought about by daily close and intimate contact in common difficulties and embarrassments...
...If necessary to enable public business to be transacted with expedition and individual Members to actually and freely legislate for their constituents and the nation, reduce the membership of the House...
...During the present Congress the President publicly charged that legislation was being interfered with by an insidious lobby...
...the decision of the court holding that the Sherman antitrust law did apply to associations of workers, and that they could be mulcted in damages for any injury or loss that an employer or business man could claim was due to the normal activities of the workers...
...Their plainly shown attitude was that the American Congress was considered by them as their legislative department and viewed with the same arrogant manner in which they viewed their other employees, and that those legislators who dared to oppose them would be disciplined in the same manner in which they were accustomed to discipline recalcitrant employees...
...In carrying out these multifarious activities they did not hesitate as to means, but made use of any method of corruption found to be effectual...
...the interminable tangle of technical procedure, resulting from the slavish following of precedent, frequently wrongly established...
...Simplify the rules so that the object of getting things accomplished may not be lost sight of in a highly technical system calculated to offer the amplest encouragement to filibustering and delay...
...To the organized forces of the employers the American Federation of Labor is the concrete enemy...
...GOMPERS, president of the American Federation of Labor, intimates his view in his testimony (p...
...unhesitatingly meet and proclaim the evils, if any be found...
...Emery, in which he says: "I have long held and expressed the opinion that the only complete and adequate protection of the public against intolerable acts by organized labor in the case of public-service and public-utility corporations will consist in legislation whereby employment in the service of said corporations will be put on a quasi-militarv footing...
...Yes, sir...
...Therefore, when anything develops which may, in the remotest degree, impair the standing of the House or reflect upon its integrity, then its Members as a body and those Members selected for the especial duty of investigating such matters are under solemn obligation to fearlessly and thoroughly search and expose to the public light every detail of the truth in regard to the same...
...One other tiling must be borne in mind—that is, that during much of the period covered by the inquiry some officers of the House were in close sympathy and working with Mulhall and Emery, who, indeed, in many instances were not only in close conference with these officers in carrying out their plans, but reported to these officers confidentially and received reports from them, as they might make reports to and receive them from their own superior officers in their organization...
...While I regard the case of Representative McDermott as not the most vital thing developed by this inquiry—being only a case of individual venality resulting from the vicious and corrupting influences which are shown to have been in operation around the House—yet, any refusal to recognize the enormity of such shocking disregard by a Member of his solemn duty and trust can not but tend to weaken the standing of the House...
...Indeed, the two contestants are in no doubt, as to this Mr...
...CONGRESS, and the House of Representa-tives in particular, was designed by the fathers of the Constitution to be the head and front—the very bulwark—of our representative form of government...
...the suits that were begun against us in 1907...
...Mr...
...Mr...
Vol. 5 • December 1913 • No. 52
