The President can do but little to influence legislation. His clubs are personality and patronage. If as persistent as Mr. Roosevelt, he may eventually get an “Administration” measure (like Cuban reciprocity) through, despite opposition. Present Congressional methods make politicians out of men capable, under broader training, of becoming statesmen. But Mr. Roosevelt did not “arrive” by the good will of the machine, but in spite of it. If he attains a second term, it will be against the plans of the machine; but as in Lincoln’s second term, politicians may be forced to nominate him, or themselves go down before the storm of public indignation.
In the meantime legislators in the House will go on presenting little bills which they know they can never get passed, but printed copies of which can be sent to constituents to make them believe that their representatives are really doing something.
The present method has this benefit: it shuts off much of the lobbying which formerly disgraced the anterooms of Congress.
There is a small cloud in the horizon. Mr. Littlefield, of Maine, whom rumor claimed, at the opening of the last Congress, to represent Presidential opinion, has seen his trust bill turned down. However, Mr. Littlefield always delights his hearers, who realize that his fight against commercial monopolies is no make-believe.
The following extracts from a late speech of Hon. F. W. Cushman, of the State of Washington, on the question of reciprocity with Cuba, will throw much light on present legislative methods in the House of Representatives:
THE RULES OF THE HOUSE
We meet in this Chamber to-day a condition that challenges the consideration of every patriotic man, and that is, the set of rules under which this body operates, or perhaps it would be more nearly correct to say, under which this body is operated. [Laughter.]
Mr. Chairman, I deem it my duty, knowing as I do that this measure could not have been brought here in the shape in which it now is, save and excepting for the remarkable conditions created in this House by these rules—I say, sir, I deem it to be my duty to pause for a moment or two on the threshold of this debate and place a few cold facts about these rules into this Record and before the 70,000,000 of people to whom we are responsible.
I approach this subject with a decided degree of deference. In the three years which I have been a member of this body I have endeavored to conduct myself with a modesty that I conceive to be becoming alike to the new member and to his constituency. I represent a Congressional district comprising the entire State of Washington, a Congressional district with half a million people in it, and with vast and varied interests demanding legislation for their benefit and protection in many of the channels of trade and branches of industry.
It is with humiliation unspeakable that I rise in my place on this floor and admit to my constituents at home that in this House I am utterly powerless to bring any bill or measure, no matter how worthy or meritorious it may be, to a vote unless I can first make terms with the Speaker.