of our people. It is likewise true that the upholders of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, those who believed in the expansion of the United States to cover the whole of America, became fewer and less blatant in view of the nobler aims pronounced by Secretary Blaine.1 1 Gail Hamilton; Life of Blaine, Stanwood; The Nation; Enc. Brit., 11th ed. CHAPTER XV PUBLIC attention then and historical attention now centres on the action of the Fifty-first Congress assembling on the first Monday of December 1889. When Harrison read his inaugural address, the President, Senate and House, for the first time since 1875, were of the same party1and, although it was a subject of consideration, the President decided not to call an extra session. Naturally the first business of the Republican majority was the selection of a Speaker of the House. After an animated contest in the Republican caucus between Reed and McKinley, Thomas B. Reed of Maine was chosen and was of course elected Speaker; he appointed McKinley chairman of the Committee on Ways and 1 The Nation wrote on Dec. 5, 1889: "On Monday [Dec. 2] for the first time since December 1874 a President greeted a Congress having in each branch a clear majority of his own party. When President Grant sent in his message fifteen years ago the 'tidal wave' [autumn of 1874] had already swept over the country and insured the Democrats the control of the succeeding House of Representatives, and Hayes confronted an opposition majority in the lower branch throughout his term, and a Democratic Senate during the last two years. In 1880 the Republicans elected a majority of the Representatives but the Senate was equally divided when Mahone voted with the Republicans and David Davis with the Democrats. By 1883 the Senate had become Republican but the House was Democratic during the last two years of Arthur's incumbency. Cleveland had a Republican Senate to deal with throughout his term. It is consequently nearly half the lifetime of a generation since the last occurrence of such conditions as exist to-day." McKee classifies Congress : Senate, 37 Democrats, 47 Republicans; House, 156 Democrats, 173 Republicans, 1 Independent, 259. For an account of Mahone, see C. C. Pearson, Amer. Hist. Review, July 1916, 740. 1 A large Means, thus making him leader of the House. amount of legislation was marked out, but as the Republican majority in the House was not large 1 its success depended upon the suppression of filibustering. This Reed determined upon and he had the support of the Republican majority. Most of the public who gave any thought to the question, before it was made a party issue, would have agreed with the inference logically to be drawn from the following remarks of McKinley's. The framers of the Constitution, said he, "never fancied that sullen silence was a statesmanlike way of stopping public business. The later generation of statesmen have inaugurated it. We have done it all of us.... .. I have sat here and filibustered day after day in silence refusing to vote, but I cannot now recall that I ever did it for a high or a noble or a worthy purpose." The point at issue was, whether the constitutional quorum of a majority of the House should be determined by the yeas and nays or by the number of members present whether voting or not. Reed decided that actual presence of a majority constituted a quorum, and he soon had an opportunity of putting his theory into practice. In January 1890 a vote was taken on a contested seat to which, according to the committee report, a Republican was entitled, and, as the Republicans could not muster a majority of the whole House, their yeas fell two votes short of a quorum,3 whereupon Reed directed the clerk to record certain Democrats whom he named as "present and re 2 1 There were a number of contested seats which were afterwards decided in favor of the Republicans. 2 Jan. 30, 1890. Speeches and Addresses, 387. 3A quorum was 165; 163 members answered to their names. Reed, McCall, 167. Life of fusing to vote." This ruling created much excitement and was resisted by the Democrats. "I deny your right, Mr. Speaker," one declared rising with a book in hand, "to count me as present and I desire to read from the parliamentary law on that subject." "Reed raised a hearty laugh by coolly saying in reply and with his customary drawl: "The chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?"" Besides the strenuous opposition in the House, Reed encountered a good deal of ridicule outside. He was called a "Czar" and it was said that he counted members in the cloak room and barber shop as present.2 "Say, Tom, did you count a hat?" he was asked by a wit from his own State of Maine. In the face of abuse in the House and raillery from outside Reed pursued an unwavering course. Calm and witty as he appeared in public, he was often beset with private doubts as to the possibility of success in this wise policy of his that ran counter to precedent. Could he indeed retain the full support of the Republican majority? In the end however he triumphed and saw his rulings crystallized in two rules and adopted by the House, that actual attendance should determine a quorum, and that no dilatory motion should be entertained by the Speaker [February 14, 1890]. The important matter lay in Rule XV which determined how a quorum to transact business should be constituted: this was decided to be valid by the United States Supreme Court in an opinion of Justice Brewer. "The principle," said Miss Follett in her thorough study of the subject, "that no dilatory motion 1 Life of Reed, McCall, 167. * Dewey, 155. should be received by the Speaker was virtually conceded by the Fifty-second and Fifty-Third Congresses,' in both of which the Democrats had a commanding majority in the House. "The adoption of the quorum rule in the Fifty-third Congress practically ended the discussion over the methods of preventing obstruction in the House of Representatives. . . . Both parties now seem agreed that members may no longer reap any advantage by refusing to vote; it is practically acknowledged that the day of dilatory motions is past." 2 Reed had to choose between precedents, his own declarations, and a wise, though novel, construction of the Constitution. Cutting loose from precedents, he made a new rule and modified the procedure of the House of Representatives in the direction of a sane method. To him is due the end of obstruction in the House. It was work possible only to a man of good humor, great nerve and rare administrative power: these were qualities possessed in proper combination by Thomas B. Reed. The adoption of the Reed rules cleared the way for legislative action. The Republicans, having, demanded liberal pensions in their platform of 1888, received during the canvass the support of the Grand Army of the Republic and a large majority of the men who had seen service during the Civil War. These were especially bit 1 Fifty-second Congress, when organized, House 235 Democrats, 88 Republicans, 9 Farmers' Alliance or Populists. Fifty-third, House, when organized at special session, 217 Democrats, 126 Republicans, 11 Populists and Independents, 2 vacancies. Tribune Almanac; McPherson; Biog. Cong. Directory. 2 The Speaker of the House of Representatives (1896), 214, 216. Besides authorities already mentioned, I have used D. S. Alexander's History and Procedure of the House of Representatives. |