It may be a matter of news to some of the good people within the confines of the American Republic to know that there is no way of getting an ordinary unprivileged measure considered and voted upon in this House unless it suits the Speaker. I am aware that there are several theoretical ways of getting a measure up; but they have no actual reality—no fruitage in fact. I make the statement on this floor now, that no member of this body who introduces a bill—not a private bill, but a public bill—can get it considered or brought forward for final determination unless it suits the Speaker. And if any one wants to deny that statement I am in a personal position and in a peculiarly happy frame of mind right now to give a little valuable testimony on that point! [Applause and laughter.]
Imagine, if you please, a measure—not a private measure, but a public measure—which has been considered at length by a great committee of this House and favorably reported with the recommendation that it do pass. That bill is then placed on the “Calendar.” The Calendar! That is a misnomer. It ought to be called a cemetery [laughter], for therein lie the whitening bones of legislative hopes. [Laughter.] When the bill is reported and placed on the Calendar, what does the member who introduced it and who is charged by his constituency to secure its passage do?
Does he consult himself about his desire to call it up? No. Does he consult the committee who considered the bill and recommended it for passage? No. Does he consult the will of the majority of this House? No. What does he do? I will tell you what he does. He either consents that that bill may die upon the Calendar, or he puts his manhood and his individuality in his pocket and goes trotting down that little pathway of personal humiliation that leads—where? To the Speaker’s room. Ay, the Speaker’s room. All the glories that clustered around the holy of holies in King Solomon’s temple looked like 30 cents [prolonged laughter and applause]—yes, looked like 29 cents—compared with that jobbing department of this government! [Applause and laughter.]
Then you are in the presence of real greatness. What then? Why, the Speaker looks over your bill, and then he tells you whether he thinks it ought to come up or not!
There is a condition which I commend to the patriotic consideration of the American people. Contemplate that for a method of procedure in the legislative body of a great and free republic.
WHO IS THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE?
Who is the Speaker of this House who sets up his immaculate and infallible judgment against the judgment of all comers? Is there anything different or superior in the credentials that he carries from the credentials that were issued to you and to me from 70,000,000 of American people? When he entered this House at the beginning of the Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses he was simply a Congressman-elect, bearing credentials like every other man on this floor. He has no greater power now than any other member, save the additional power we ourselves bestowed upon him by electing him Speaker and then adopting this set of rules. The question that now arises to confront us is: Have we put a club in the hands of some one else to beat us to death? Have we elevated one man on a pinnacle so high that he can not now see those who elevated him? Is the Speaker of this House a mere mortal man of common flesh and clay, or is he supernatural and immortal? What miracle was wrought at his birth? Did a star shoot from its orbit when he was born, or did he come into existence in the good old-fashioned way that ushered the rest of us into this vale of tears?
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about