but it was more than that. I want to carry the thing a step further than the Senator from Indiana did. He cited the fact and applied it to this particular piece of legislation; but, Mr. President, if you will scan the committees of this Senate, you will find that a little handful of men are in domination and control of the great legislative committees of this body and that they are a very limited number.

I have heard this talk about seniority and all the like explanations, but I want to tell you, Senators, that this is a representative Government. California and Wisconsin and Maine are entitled to equal representation here; and the hour will come when this system which you have inaugurated to lodge the power of legislation in the hands of a dozen men in this body can no longer be maintained; and it ought not to be maintained. It is not democratic; it is not republican; it is not right. It places upon those members burdens which they are unable to carry, if they take proper care of the great interests committed to those committees. If that be not so, then you may as well dispense with two-thirds, practically, of the membership of this body.

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Mr. GORE. Now, Mr. President, I submit that gentlemen on the other side have not only changed their convictions with reference to this measure, but they are, as I understand, changing, if not the rules, at least the practices and customs of this body. A suggestion was made during the early hours of the morning that there was no quorum present. That suggestion was overruled or held out of order. An appeal was taken to the Senate, and the Chair was sustained. When I reported here this morning, not altogether upon my own motion, a different Senator, to my surprise, I may say, was holding the floor and entertaining

the Senate. In the meantime this action had been taken and this business transacted by the Senate an order, sir, that when this measure shall be voted upon it shall be by the yeas and nays.

During the speech of the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Stone] I made the suggestion of no quorum. That suggestion was held to be out of order on the ground that no intervening business had transpired. Then, sir, I appealed from the decision of the Chair, and the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Aldrich], with an ingenuity that added luster to his renown, interposed with the statement that a suggestion that was out of order could not be appealed from.

Mr. President, I am a new man in the Senate, but I shall have to change my decision if I ever appeal from a suggestion or from a ruling of the Chair that is made in my favor. It will be only those rulings which are adverse to my views and my convictions that I shall challenge, and that was the reason why I appealed from the decision of the Chair.

I make these observations in order to show, Mr. President, the revolutionary methods which are being employed to aid in the passage of this

measure through the Senate. The majority of the Senate have changed not only their convictions, but changed the practices of a century, sir.

It has been the pride of the American Senate, and I may say of the American people, that there was at least one forum where free discussion forever prevailed. The Senate may not always have stood as high in the esteem of the public as it deserved to stand, and modesty forbids me to say that since my accession to the body its reputation ought to be enhanced in public favor, but, sir, it has been the pride of the American people that free discussion prevailed in the United States Senate. There was one forum where the truth could be elicited, where the merits and demerits of every measure could be discussed and illuminated without limitation or without hindrance, and I hope the day will never come when that tradition and that precedent shall be permanently abandoned. I do not know what irresistible power is impelling the passage of this measure that Senators should resort to what seem to be such revolutionary tactics. It strikes me It strikes me perhaps born of inexperience and perhaps born of fear — that this proceeding is but the shadow of another scepter. I trust the time will never come when a measure can be passed through this Senate a financial measure, a tariff measure, or any other measure of public concern with a limitation of debate to one hour, to two hours, or even to three hours upon the side. I hope if that time ever comes there will be another branch of this Government, impelled by a regard for the Constitution, which will say that no measure can pass that body, which did not pass this body under constitutional methods and practices.

To illustrate, if a public buildings bill were pending in the Senate and a currency measure were pending in the House, I should never be willing for the Senate to insist that unless the currency measure passed the House the public buildings measure would be murdered in the Senate. I hope it will never come to that pass, and I am sorry that the parliamentary regulations forbid me to speak with even greater plainness.

I desire to ask the parliamentary status of the conference report. As I understand, no amendment can be offered to the pending report; not one letter can be stricken out or added to it; it must be accepted as a whole or it must be rejected as a whole. Am I correct?

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Senator from Oklahoma is correct. The only question is on agreeing to the report of the committee of conference. Mr. GORE. I desired an explicit ruling on that point in order that the American people who are not experts in parliamentary law and usage might understand why the minority party did not offer salutary amendments to the pending report.

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Mr. BACON. I was endeavoring to state that several things had occurred during the progress of the debate upon this question which I am unwilling should pass by as having met with general recognition,

through acquiescence, by the Senate, because of the fact that in the Senate a precedent is a matter of gravity and importance, and occasions may arise hereafter where these questions may be of very much more vital importance than they have been while the pending question has been under discussion.

Of course, Mr. President, I recognize the fact that, in the heat of controversy, Senators, as well as others, will do and say things which will be conducive to the particular end which they then have in view, which, from a more conservative standpoint and under other circumstances they would neither say nor approve.

One precedent was made last night to which I wish to enter my dissent. That precedent was made by a vote of the Senate. It was to the effect that after a roll call had been had upon the suggestion of the want of a quorum, and after the roll call had disclosed the presence of a quorum, it was out of order, when nothing else had transpired but debate, to again suggest the absence of a quorum and again having a roll call for the purpose of determining whether or not a quorum was present. In other words, the Senate determined, by a vote, that a continuance of debate after a roll call did not amount to the intervention of other business, and that no business having intervened — debate not being recognized as business — regardless of the time which had elapsed, or regardless of the fact that there were, perhaps, only ten Senators present, there could be no suggestion of the absence of a quorum, and that the Senate must proceed with the ascertained fact that there had been a quorum, and without power to inquire whether or not there was then a quorum.

Mr. President, I did not vote upon that question when it was submitted to the Senate for this simple reason: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Aldrich] had read what he alleged was a precedent in that matter, and had read from the Congressional Record a ruling which had been made by the Chair on March 3, 1897, which the Senator from Rhode Island contended established that proposition. It so happened, although the fact was not known, I think, to the Senator from Rhode Island at the time that he cited the precedent, that I was the Senator temporarily occupying the chair on the 3d of March, 1897, who made the ruling which was cited by the Senator from Rhode Island last night. I was unwilling to cast a vote last night which might appear to be in antagonism to that ruling, as there would then be no opportunity for me to show that the vote thus cast would not have been in contravention of that ruling made by myself when in the chair.

I recollect the incident well out of which the ruling grew. It occurred during a night session, and the then senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Quay, was the Senator who demanded the roll call upon the suggestion of the lack of a quorum. He had previously demanded several such roll calls. The point had been made between the two previous successive roll calls that no business had intervened and that therefore

the second roll call was not in order. The Chair ruled that business had intervened, from the fact that in the interval the bill then under consideration had been reported from the Committee of the Whole to the Senate. Immediately after that roll call, which was then authorized by the decision of the Chair, the Senator from Pennsylvania, without waiting for any debate or any other action on the part of the Senate, immediately again suggested the absence of a quorum. That matter was taken up at once by the then senior Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Hoar, and by the then Senator from New York, Mr. Hill, and the question was finally reduced to this point whether or not business had intervened.

The Chair ruled that business had not intervened, and that therefore the second roll call was not in order. There had been no debate after the roll call, and there was no suggestion that debate was not the intervention of business. There was no question raised that the debate following a roll call did not constitute business which had intervened after the roll call. There was no question whether debate did or did not constitute business.

The question last night was whether debate constituted business. There confessedly had been debate last night after the roll call, and the question decided by the Senate last night was that the occurrence of debate did not constitute business.

Mr. President, I deemed it due to myself to state why I did not vote on the question, because I do not avoid any vote that comes along; but I wished to call the attention of the Senate to the fact that the precedent cited last night by the Senator from Rhode Island was not a controlling precedent upon the question raised by him, because in one case there was no question whether debate constituted business, and in the case last night the sole question was whether debate constituted business. ⚫ I desired, Mr. President, to say this much, because I was unwilling that what occurred last night should pass as an unchallenged precedent. I regard it as a revolutionary precedent, and, if so considered by the Senate, I am willing for it to pass as one adopted under the heat of contest for the purpose of effecting a particular end;, but it will be a most grievous mistake, in my opinion, if that rule should be adopted as the rule or precedent to hereafter govern the action of the Senate. In fact, frequently here, in cases of protracted contests, for days and days there is nothing practically but debate. It is true we have the morning hour, and some measures may be considered; but so far as the main body of the work of the Senate during the whole day is concerned, frequently there is nothing but debate. To say that it having once been disclosed that there is a quorum there can be thereafter no challenge of the question as to whether or not there is a quorum, it seems to me, must be a very grave mistake.

THE COMMITTEE WORK OF SENATORS1

[Senator Hoar in his autobiography remarks that the Committee on Claims alone required of him more individual work than is performed in a year by any judge of a state court, and the amounts dealt with were greater than those involved in the annual litigation before any state supreme court. Though state judges may dissent from this estimate, at any rate it indicates the impression which the drudgery of committee work made upon Mr. Hoar. The nature of this work is illustrated by the following extracts.]

MR. BAILEY. Mr. President, of course the labor to be performed by the Senator himself and therefore the labor to be performed by the clerk or his assistant grows greater every year. The Government is touching the people at so many new places, I regret to say, that the correspondence of a Senator to-day is perhaps five times what it was in the days to which the Senator from Maine refers.

The truth of it is the correspondence of a Senator has become the burden of a Senator's life, and the task of writing thirty or forty and sometimes fifty letters is an almost daily one with us. Writing those letters for a thousand years would not add a cubit to a man's intellectual stature. It is purely a burden, but it is one which must be performed. When a Senator's constituent writes him on any subject, that constituent is entitled to a prompt and a respectful answer, and if the Senator does not allow the constituent to hear from him the Senator is very apt to hear from the constituent at the proper time; and I share the resentment which a constituent feels toward a Senator who ignores his communication.

This correspondence, growing from year to year, has become such a great burden that it would be utterly impossible for a Senator to perform his duties without clerical assistance. As for my part I am willing to give all that is necessary, but I am not willing to spend one dollar of public money to provide patronage for anybody. If the work of a Senator's committee or the work of a Senator requires three, let him have them. But I will not vote one dollar of public money merely to provide somebody a place. Patronage is not a very wholesome thing for a Senator to cultivate, and certainly it is not a very wholesome thing for the Senate to provide places merely that Senators may fill them.

But, Mr. President, that was not the purpose for which I rose. I rose to protest against the inequality which offends against the rule of justice. Either some clerks are paid too much or other clerks are paid too little. My own opinion is that some clerks are paid too much. But if Senators do not agree with me in that, they must agree with me that men who perform the same services should receive the same pay.

1 Congr. Record, January 4, 1906.