because of it that autocratic power is without any reason ascribed to the Speaker. But the rules have nothing at all to do with this. The applicant for recognition asks that all rules be set aside. To this any member of the House may object. Why should complaint be made if the Speaker exercises his right of objection by refusing to recognize an applicant for recognition in any particular case? Because he is Speaker he is no less a member of the House; no less a Representative of his Congressional District. If he were on the floor he could interpose an objection to any request for unanimous consent. Should he be less able to interpose that objection because he is in the chair? Certainly not.

107. Congress and Presidential Influence

In a reply to an attack made by Senator Tillman on President Roosevelt for his insistence in forcing measures upon Congress, Senator Beveridge made this defense:

of the President's

Mr. President, why was it that Andrew Johnson had no influ- The basis ence with Congress and that Theodore Roosevelt has infinite influence with Congress? It is because one of them had not the influence. confidence of the people, and the other one has the entire confidence of the people. It is one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the most beneficent, workings of our popular form of government that any branch of it that at any particular period best represents the people has the confidence of the people.

Cleveland

lost control.

Why was it that in the last Democratic Administration its Presi- Why dent lost the control of Congress almost as completely as did Andrew Johnson, and that the Senator's own party, together with his colleagues on this side had the confidence of the people? It was because they more accurately represented the people's thoughts, needs, demands, and aspirations. There is no subserviency upon this side of the chamber to any power on earth except to the public opinion of the American people. What the Senator thinks is subserviency to the demands of the President is only our Repub

Popular

support vs. patronage.

The President voiced popular wisdom.

lican harmony with those demands which are nothing more than the demands of the American people.

Mr. President, strange to say the Senator indulges — as politicians in search of any issue no matter how able they are, must unfailingly indulge, — in a paradox, one side of which destroys the other. The Senator described the President's power as coming from his appeals to "the ignorant masses" and in the same breath he said that that power comes from his use of patronage. Was it the use of patronage, Mr. President, that impressed Congress with the necessity of a single law that the President has recommended in the last seven historic years, the passage of which his recommendation helped to secure?

Was it the use of patronage that got through the law establishing the Department of Commerce and Labor, perhaps the greatest and most important piece of legislation that has been passed by an American Congress since the Constitution was adopted, with perhaps the single exception of the Platt amendment? The Senator denounces us for voting for the very laws which the Senator and his colleagues seeking every excuse they could find for not voting for, yet were compelled to vote for. Take all of these great laws, which are a part of this mighty structure of righteousness which the wisdom of the American people, as voiced by the President, has enacted into statutes by this Congress on both sides does the Senator disagree with one of them? Would he repeal a single line of any of them? Does the Senator, speaking for his side propose to go before the American people with the proposition to abolish the Department of Commerce and Labor? No. To repeal the railway rate law? No. To repeal the pure food law? No. To repeal the meat inspection law? No. To repeal the irrigation law? No. To repeal or mangle a single one of those great laws which constitute the Republican legislative record, every one of which was passed upon the recommendation of the President made in his messages? No.

108. Departmental Preparation of Bills

In this extract from a debate in the Senate is discussed the problem of how far executive departments ought to go in pressing legislation in Congress:

cation from

MR. CARTER. Under date of December 4, 1905, the Attorney A communi General communicates as follows-this is addressed to the Speaker the Attorney of the House of Representatives and was laid before the House in General. regular order of business as a communication. It was likewise sent to the Senate. I am informed that the practice is for all communications to be printed as addressed to the first House in which they happen to be presented, and each communication is presented in both Houses. This letter reads:

etc.

Herewith enclosed is the draft of a proposed bill to repeal section II,

It goes into a lengthy statement of the reasons why the bill should become a law.

MR. ALDRICH. Has the Senator any precedent prior to the present Administration of any communication of that character from any Department except the Department of the Interior?

MR. CARTER. I assume that the Department of the Interior has not recently indulged in an innovation by communicating haphazard to Congress in a manner entirely dissimilar from the methods heretofore employed. I do know that the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, the War Department, and other Departments have been in the habit of communicating here precisely as the Secretary of the Interior communicated yesterday, and such communications have always been ordered printed and referred just as the communication received yesterday from the Secretary of the Interior was printed and referred.

MR. LODGE. Mr. President, I think I was correct in saying that The the habit has insensibly grown up and that it also is spreading practice is irregular. on the part of heads of Departments to make voluntary communi

The

English system.

The proper method to be followed.

cations or to volunteer communications directly to the Senate or to the House. I do not think it can be controverted that strictly those communications can only come through the transmission by the President and I think it is always well to be a little strict in the observance of the law and not to allow such irregular customs, even if apparently harmless, to grow up. But certainly, Mr. President, the practice of submitting bills from the Departments without request to the two houses is something quite recent, unless my memory is all astray, and that is a very much more important matter. . . . I think, Mr. President, it is well to put a stop to this submission of drafts of bills to Congress by subordinate executive officers or by heads of Departments unless they are thereto requested by one of the two Houses. I do not think that volunteering bills from the Executive Department is the proper method.

Of course under the English system the bills are prepared by the executive government, which is a committee in fact of the two Houses, and they prepare their own measures and introduce them. But here the Executive Department is distinct and unless we ask for drafts of bills for our own convenience and for the promotion of good legislation, it seems to me that it is irregular and unwisely irregular to fall into the practice of having officers of the Executive Department present bills to Congress in this way.

They were referred to
They were referred to

Half a dozen came in the other day. committees without taking any readings. committees for consideration. Those bills had no Calendar number. They do not take the ordinary course of any other bills. I think it is irregular both under the rules and under the statute. I do not want to cut off the advantage that we have in getting officers of the Departments to draw proper bills for us. That is a duty which I hope they will always perform on the request of the Houses. But I do not think that they ought to submit bills unasked for, which shall go in this irregular way to committees for consideration. If the head of a Department has legislation in which he is interested and presents it to the chairman of the com

mittee or some other Senator and he sees fit to introduce it, that of course is perfectly proper. The bill takes the usual course. But this is irregular, just as is this method of submitting reports. I do not care how long the custom has lasted, it is an irregularity which has grown up. If we are to have information volunteered from the Departments, let it come through the President of the United States and any other information we want from the Departments we can ask for.

109. Log-rolling in Congress

This passage from a speech by Mr. Lilley in the House of Representatives illustrates the way in which members attempt to secure the expenditure of government money in their respective

states:

On December 2, Mr. Taylor introduced a bill calling for a A short lis of appropria naval station at or near Fort Morgan, Ala.

On the next day Mr. Cooper of Texas called for the establishment of a dry dock on or near Sabine Pass.

On the 9th of December, Mr. Lamar of Florida came after "not more than two million dollars for a dry dock at Pensacola."

On the same day, Mr. Sulloway of New Hampshire was after a million and a half for Portsmouth, although a battleship cannot get to this port in safety.

On the 12th of December, Mr. Smith of California came into the field with a proposition for a dry dock on the bay of San Diego, California, for which he called for a million.

On the 19th, Mr. Granger of Rhode Island put in his proposition for a dry dock and repairing station "at a suitable strategic point on the Atlantic."

On January 6th, Mr. Gregg presented the demands of Texas for a dry dock at or near Galveston, Tex.

And then on January 20, came the proposition to buy the defunct Jamestown Exposition, fathered by Mr. Maynard of Virginia, which if adopted would add $2,500,000 to the grand total of waste on navy yards.

tions.