I consented very reluctantly to leave the chairmanship of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, where I had served during all my term in the Senate, and I do not believe I would have done so had it not been for the manner in which the committee was packed against me in the interest of non-action. At the last it became so that even the simplest measures which affected the railroads in the slightest degree would receive adverse action or none at all. I was utterly disgusted, and on several occasions told prominent railroad men that if they continued such methods the time would surely come when the people would become so aroused that they would see enacted the most drastic of railroad rate laws.
I had much to do with the passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906. After President Roosevelt had repeatedly urged it in his messages to Congress, and privately brought influence to bear on Senators, it seemed pretty certain that public sentiment demanded that practically the amendments to the original act embodied in Senate bill 1439, to which I have already referred, would sooner or later have to be enacted into law. As usual, those opposed to such legislation demanded that hearings be held, and the Committee on Interstate Commerce was authorized to sit during the recess of Congress and to hold hearings. Many weeks were consumed in these hearings, and many volumes of testimony were taken. I do not believe that I missed a session of the committee, and I tried as best I could to bring forth from the numerous witnesses summoned before the committee evidence to assist in securing the passage of the amendments to the original act, which I then thought necessary to perfect it.
I had expected to render what assistance I could during the next session, which convened in December, in framing the bill in committee and to assist in its passage in the Senate. But very unfortunately, just at the beginning of the next session of Congress, when the hearings were all concluded and the committee was prepared to go into executive session to consider the bill itself, I was taken ill and compelled to spend a couple of months in Florida to recover my health. It may seem strange, but the fact is, that my absence expedited the consideration of the bill by the committee and its report to the Senate. I had telegraphed and written my late colleague, Senator Dolliver, to record me as voting for the favorable report of the bill from the committee to the Senate. It was expected that the committee would have to hold many sessions to consider the numerous amendments that had been offered. Senator Dolliver, at one of the first meetings of the committee called to consider the bill, read my telegram and letter asking to be voted in favor of reporting the bill. Objection was made to recording me, and one distinguished Senator raised the point respecting how I was to be recorded on the question of amendments. Considerable controversy, I understand, took place, and Senator Dolliver then moved to report the bill to the Senate with the amendments already adopted in committee. This closed the discussion in the committee; the vote was taken, and the bill was ordered reported to the Senate, my vote being recorded in the affirmative; after which Senator Aldrich, in order to make it appear all the more ridiculous, moved that Senator Tillman, a minority member of the committee, be authorized to report the bill. This motion prevailed; Senator Tillman did report it, and he had charge of its passage in the Senate. So, as I have stated, my absence, through the controversy over counting my vote, really expedited the bill through the committee.
I returned to my seat in the Senate in February, while the bill was being considered, and assisted as best I could through conferences with President Roosevelt and members of the Senate in agreeing on sections of the bill which were in controversy, particularly the court review section. I was also one of the conferees on the part of the Senate that finally settled the differences between the two Houses.
It was a very satisfactory bill, in the form in which it finally became a law.
CHAPTER XXII JOHN MARSHALL HARLAN
I have always admired Mr. Justice John Marshall Harlan, who has served some thirty-five years as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, and who for a time after the death of Chief Justice Fuller acted as Chief Justice of the United States.
Upon the death of Judge Allen, who had for many years been United States District Judge for the Southern District of Illinois, it was suggested that his portrait be placed in the court room of the United States Circuit and District Court at Springfield, Illinois. The movement developed into the broader suggestion that portraits of other distinguished judges, who had presided over the United States Court at Springfield, and also a portrait of Chief Justice Marshall, be procured and added to the collection. The portraits of Judges John Marshall, Walter Q. Gresham, David Davis, Samuel H. Treat, Thomas Drummond, William J. Allen, John McLean, Nathaniel Pope, and John Marshall Harlan were procured, and it was planned that a suitable ceremony should take place in Springfield on June 2, 1903.
Judge Humphrey wrote me, telling me of the plans of the committee appointed by the Bar of the United States Court at Springfield, and asking me to say something concerning any one of these distinguished judges whom I might designate, leaving the selection to me.
I thought the matter over and determined that, inasmuch as I had known Justice Harlan more or less intimately ever since I became a member of the Senate, I should like to talk about him.