Harper's Round Table, June 11, 1895

by Various

HON. C. F. CRISP, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.

It is not easy to describe in a short article an average day in the House of Representatives. The great days are exceptional, and a single historic scene gives no idea of the every-day work of the House. Moreover, if history is made on the days when excitement runs high, the business of carrying on the government is done every day, and it is about the latter that you wish to learn. By way of beginning, let me say a word about the place where this work is done. The House of Representatives holds its sessions in the southern wing of the Capitol at Washington. The House is very large, right angled, and rigid, with little ornament, and without beauty of proportion. The walls go up for about fifteen feet, and from that point the galleries slant back until they reach the next floor of the building. The roof is a vast expanse of glass, with the arms of each State painted on the square panels. The general effect is grayness of color and a size which can be measured in acres better than in feet. Against the southern wall is placed a high white marble dais or tribune, where the Speaker or presiding officer sits. Below the Speaker's desk and in descending tiers, also of white marble, sit the clerks of the House and the official reporters. Facing the Speaker, and ranged in a semicircle, are 360 desks, with a corresponding number of chairs, which are, or ought to be, occupied by the 350 Representatives and the four Territorial delegates.

Such is the place, but it would require a volume, and a very uninteresting one, too, to explain the machinery used in transacting the business for which this great hall is provided. Nevertheless, it is possible, perhaps, to give you in a general way some idea of an ordinary day's work in the lower branch of Congress. In theory, the House ought to take up its calendars on each day and dispose of each article in its order. But the great beauty of the calendars is that in practice they are never taken up at all.

How then, you will ask, is business done if the House never takes up the list of measures prepared for its consideration? It is done by a system of special rules. The Committee on Rules brings in a rule that the House shall take up, let us say the tariff, on a certain day, shall debate it a certain length of time, and shall then vote. This rule is adopted, the bill selected is taken from the calendar, and everything else gives way until the tariff is disposed of. Appropriation bills are privileged, because they provide the money necessary to carry on the government, and require no rule to be brought up. But all the other business of the House is done practically under special rules; in other words, the Committee on Rules selects out of the mass of business presented a small portion which the House shall consider, and to that small selection all the time of the House is devoted.

Imagine, then, that the House as you watch it from the gallery has come to the end of the morning hour, and has taken up the special order of the day made for it by its Committee on Rules. If it is the first time the subject has come up, the chairman of the committee making the report opens the debate. In any event, when the business of the day is thus laid before the House the debate begins. To any one who comes into the House gallery for the first time, the scene on the floor is one of apparently hopeless confusion. Members are reading, writing, talking, and moving about the chamber. There is an incessant murmur and buzz of conversation along the aisles and in the galleries. You who are looking on see a member rise and begin to talk, sometimes quietly, more often with great violence and excitement, not because he is really excited, but because he wishes to be heard above the din. Your ears are not accustomed to the noise, and you do not hear what is said. Still less can you guess what it is all about, and yet business is not proceeding by chance, and there are men on that confused floor who know exactly what is happening, and how the business is going on. You may have been unlucky in your day, and no measure of great interest being up, it may seem as if it were useless to stay, but if you will be patient, and bear with the confusion for the time, or perhaps come back another day, you will have your reward. You will see the House reach an exciting point in a debate, or some subject of great popular interest will come up, and then a sharp contest will follow between different members, which will be full of interest.

AN EXCITING MOMENT IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Instead of reading and writing and talking and moving about, you will see the members gather about the man who is speaking and those who are debating with him. Silence will come on the floor and in the galleries, broken by bursts of applause, as one member makes a sharp point or retorts quickly on his opponent. Nothing is more interesting than good debate of this kind, when men who are fencing or sparring with their wits instead of their hands. You will be surprised to see how easy it now is to know what is going on. You will be glad that you came to the gallery, for every wholesome-minded being likes to see a fair contest, whether of brains or muscles, and incidentally you will see how we English-speaking people have hammered out by discussion the laws under which we live, and have gained the liberty we enjoy. On the other hand, let us suppose that you are fortunate enough to get into the gallery on a day of great debate, when set speeches are to be made by the leaders on either side. A man arises near the middle of the House, a man whose face is familiar to you, because you have seen it so often in the illustrated papers, and all in a moment the House is hushed, and every word that the speaker says falls distinctly upon your ear. Then, again, you feel rewarded, for you are hearing a party leader speak and are seeing a man about whom you have read. If it is the day upon which a great debate closes, the last speeches are made by the two leaders of the opposite sides, the galleries are crowded, but as every one is eager to hear, there is no difficulty in catching every word. The leader of the minority delivers his last assault upon the bill, the leader of the majority replies to him, and then the Speaker of the House says: "The hour having arrived at which the House has ordered that the debate be closed, the vote will now be taken upon the bill and amendments." Then comes the voting, a dreary process for everybody, for each roll-call occupies half an hour, and when it is done the Speaker announces the vote, and declares the bill passed or defeated as the case may be. If it is then more than five o'clock one of the leaders of the majority moves that the House adjourn, the Speaker declares the motion carried, and then the House stands adjourned until the next morning at twelve o'clock.

Such in very rough outline is a day in the House of Representatives when some subject which awakens differences spring up, or when a great debate closes or some important bill is passed. But there are many other days when no conclusion is reached, and still others which are consumed in roll-calls and motions designed to waste time, and to stop all action. If you chance to come on a day of that kind, the sooner you go away the better for your own comfort. The members must stay, but you need not.

It would, however, take a great deal more space than I have here to give you a description of the various scenes which occur in the House of Representatives, but the rough sketch which I have drawn may help you to some idea of what happens in the great popular body which with the Senate makes laws for the people of the United States. It is a good deal better, however, that every American boy and girl should come to Washington if they can possibly manage it, and try to learn from observation what their government is, and how it is carried on. They will have some dull hours if they pass many in the galleries of the House of Representatives, but they may have some minutes of great interest, which they will always be glad to remember, and they are certain to go away with a greater ability to judge intelligently their public men, and in this way be of better service themselves as American citizens responsible for the government of their country. If you cannot get to Washington, try to see your own Legislature in session, or your own city and town government. You will learn a great deal that will be useful to you when you come of age, and therefore responsible for your vote or influence for the government of the United States, which is always in the long-run what the people themselves make it.