3. The organization of the House and of all its subsidiary bodies shall be upon a non-political, non-spoils basis, with open, duly recorded majority proceedings.

4. The House, and each of its subsidiary bodies, shall elect its presiding officer; and with reference to the House itself and to special and standing committees the presiding officer shall exercise no rights or authority above those of other members, except to act as moderator at meetings.

5. No subsidiary body, official or partisan, shall at any time be given or seek to assume any power not directly subject to the control of the House itself.

6. No member shall directly or through any subterfuge be permitted to influence any act or appointment in either executive or judicial fields of the Government; nor shall any member who has been defeated for re-election be eligible for appointment to any position in the Government.

7. As soon as the necessary alternatives can be established, through an adequate budget system, the work of Congress shall be confined strictly to matters that are public and national in scope.

8. There shall be no abridgment of the rights of any member to exercise his functions as a representative of the people, excepting in so far as his actions may conflict with any or all of the above principles.

This is by no means a presentation of detailed recommendations for a reconstruction of Congressional procedure: it only lays down the basic principles upon which such reformation should be founded.

That, obviously and logically, is the initial stepto elect a Congress which will set its own house in order.

Without a Congress having the courage and common sense to cure its own perversions, it will be hopeless ever to expect remedial legislation with respect to the political, parliamentary and administrative evils of operation in other fields of our public life.

Moreover, the safeguarding and preservation of the very structure of our governmental system is at stake. The present ever-growing tendency toward the degradation of Congress, and its constantly increasing comparative insignificance, cannot continue without irreparable organic danger to our institutions. A real representative government is impossible unless the legislative branch has the purpose, the personnel and the procedure which will enable it to function. Congress itself must be reclaimed, and that cannot conceivably be accomplished, however good its motives and membership, except through a thorough reconstruction of its procedure.

The great, all-important American fight, therefore, is to elect a Congress intelligently and wholeheartedly committed to a specific program of political and parliamentary house-cleaning.

First, for itself to stay its own decadence, to reestablish its own inherent, institutional rights and duties; and

Second, for all other branches and departments of the federal structure-to restore the normal functioning of representative government in America.

The thinking citizenship of the Republic now perceives the absolute necessity of all this.

Men and women, everywhere, at last are seeing,

with a clear vision and an uncompromising purpose, that it is utterly futile any longer to look to political agencies for relief.

The trouble is political and parliamentary; political and parliamentary perversions thrive upon their own viciousness; they multiply, and assume new forms of procedural complexity, to meet the demands of their own consuming selfishness.

Politics will not do it; only a determined popular movement will ever reclaim and revitalize the instrumentalities so essential to the continuity of public welfare in America.

Such a movement must have

A program of national legislation to reach and remedy all the evils of procedure in politics and government, wherever they appear; and

An organization that is country-wide.

Its success will require a real consecration of moral and intellectual resources on the part of a considerable number of our citizenship.

But it can be done.

How it may be done will be outlined at the conclusion of conferences now in progress-conferences so crucially important, so patriotically actuated, and so representative of constructive statesmanship, that we feel justified in predicting an outcome which will afford real Americans a real and practical opportunity to recover, and re-utilize, their now politically perverted sovereignty.

A

A Death Blow to "Patronage"

PROPOSAL in the Norris bill for Government operation of Muscle Shoals is aimed to free Government operation of the curse of patronage. The principle should apply to all Government Departments. It would vitalize the Civil Service; and would be a death sentence to the political spoils system.

Here is that section of the bill:

"SEC. 6. In the appointment of officials and the selection of employees for said corporation and in the promotion of any such employees or officials no political test or qualifications shall be permitted or given consideration, but all such appointments and promotions shall be given and made on the basis of merit and efficiency. The board shall keep a record of all requests, oral and written, made to any member thereof, coming from any source, asking for any favor in behalf of any person, or the promotion of any employee, which record shall be open to the public inspection. Any member of said board who permits the use of political or partisan influence in the selection of any employee, or in the promotion of any such employee of said corporation, or who gives any consideration to political consideration in the official action of said board, or who, knowing that such political influence has been or is attempted, does not record the same in said record shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding $1,000 or be imprisoned not to exceed six months, or both such fine and imprisonment, and the conviction of any member of said board of the offense herein defined shall have the effect of removing such member from office."

In contrast, the Underwood Bill provides: "The directors, officers, attorneys, experts, assistants, clerks, agents, and other employees of the corporation shall not be officers or employees of the United States within the meaning of any statutes of the United States."

Norris in a Big Role

Elsewhere in this number, there is a discussion of the outstanding parliamentary developments.

The debate has been a personal triumph for Senator Norris, of Nebraska. His fight for the conservation and public use of this great water power is perhaps without a parallel in the annals of American statesmanship. Day after day, he has stood forth, lion-hearted, and overwhelmed the bi-partisan forces of the opposition. No individual exploit of any national legislator was ever superior to his exemplification of mental power and moral purpose.

It is generally admitted that he has made it impossible to put through the Underwood Bill.

He may not be able to win for his own measure, but he has unquestionably defeated an objectionable substitute.

Whatever the final result, the country is richer by having had this demonstration of Norris himself.

Couzens vs. Patronage

Patronage is like an evil giant still bestriding a large part of the Government service and supporting the political machine of the party in power. For over forty years the Civil Service reformers have been valiantly hacking at it. We record elsewhere the latest efforts of the Civil Service Commission and of Senator Frazier and Senator Norris to weaken and dismember the "spoils giant." Now Senator Couzens, of Michigan, has introduced a bill similar in principle to Norris' proposed merit system in the Muscle Shoals measure, but of still more sweeping application.

Its purpose is "to prevent and punish the use of political influence in the appointment or promotion of Federal employees," and it extends to all the Departments, executive and judicial. It strikes a body blow at patronage by providing for a public record of all recommendations and making it a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment, and by loss of office, for any head of a Department to permit political influence in appointments or promotions. Conversely, it fines, punishes, and disqualifies from office, any Senator, Congressman, State legislator or official, or any officer of a State or political organization, who asks for the appointment or promotion of any person.

The spoils system, which for 85 years has been a colossus superimposed upon our governmental institutions, is a matter of procedure. It is no part of our basic institutions.

When, in 1840, postmasterships were made political patronage the change was a matter of procedure. The effects that grew and developed from that change have been of inestimable harm. It is a mere matter of procedure to cut down and cast out of our national life the spoils giant of politics, and estimable benefits will result from it. But this and other procedural monstrosities have grown so big that nothing short of a determined national organization of the people can effectively cope with them.

Now a new Congress cannot begin functioning before the succeeding March 4th, four months after election; and does not meet in regular course till a year and a month after the people have voted. Meantime the old Congress, a large proportion of whose members may have been repudiated, has control of legislation for a whole session.

The Norris Amendment (S. J. Res. 22) passed the Senate on March 18, 1924. It is now pending on the House Calendar, being at present the sixteenth measure from the top of the Calendar. This Calendar, however, does not include the appropriation bills and bills indirectly appropriating money or property, which are placed on the Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House.

There should be a strong public interest to have the Norris Amendment reached and voted upon. It is in the advancing or retarding of legislation that the control of the machinery of procedure has its fruit.

With the object of eliminating the possibility of having Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections thrown into the House or the SenThe Johnson ate, which was the bug-a-boo of Amendment the recent campaign, Senator Johnson, of California, has proposed an amendment to the Constitution.

In a joint resolution, introduced by him on December 16 (S. J. Res. 156), it is proposed that Article XII of the Constitution be amended so that the candidate having the largest number of votes in the electoral college shall be elected. That is, a plurality of the electoral college votes shall be sufficient to elect, instead of requiring a majority as at present.

The amendment strikes from Article XII all the provisions, so much discussed during the campaign, regarding election by the House and, if that is deadlocked, by the Senate. For many years these provisions had slept in obscurity because there were always but two principal candidates and either the Republican or the Democratic nominee would be bound to get a majority. The possibility of a third strong candidate brought them into the limelight. There are 531 electoral votes. Under the Johnson proposal the plurality rule would require only 178 votes to elect, instead of the majority of 266 as now. For example, if there were three candidates, one receiving 176 votes, another 177, and the third 178, the candidate with 178 votes would be declared elected.

Pertinent Questions

Congressman Cable, of Ohio, has a proposal pending to authorize a commission for the purpose of reporting to Congress a Constitutional amendment dealing with the election of President, Vice-President, Senators and Representatives. This body would be composed of nine members, three appointed by the Speaker of the House, three by the President of the Senate and three by the Chief Executive.

Mr. Cable presents some interesting questions for this proposed commission to study and answer, as follows:

"(a) Does the Socrotary of State succeed to the Presidency if for any reason there is no constitutionally elected President by March 4?

"(b) Shall there be a special election? Or does the person succeeding to the Presidency fill out the unexpired term?

"(c) If the election were ordered in case of a vacancy in the office, could it be for the unexpired term or would it have to be for a term of four years, thus disarranging the fouryear period of the Government?

"(d) Does the commission of a Cabinet officer expire on March 4, and would this prevent succession?

"(e) For what length of time would a Cabinet officer act as President?

"(f) Shall the choice of a Chief Executive be intrusted to the House of Representatives about to go out of existence when such House may even be under control of the party defeated at the preceding November election?

"(g) Where the President-elect dies before the second Wednesday in February, may the House of Representatives elect a President?

"(h) In case of failure to count the votes and declare the results by the fourth of March, where the electors have not failed to elect but Congress has failed to declare the result, may the count continue?

"(i) Would the Vice-President-elect succeed to the Presidency should the President-elect die before the fourth of March?

"(j) Who would be President in case both President-elect and Vice-President-elect should die before March 4?

"(k) If more than three persons voted for as President should receive the highest number and an equal number of votes in the Electoral College, and suppose there were six candidates, three of whom had an equal number, who is to be preferred?

"(1) If there should be more than two of the candidates for the Vice-Presidency in a similar category, for how many then, and for whom, would the Senate vote?

"(m) If a candidate for President should die after the election and before January 12 and before the electors met, how should they vote?

"(n) If the President-elect should die after the Electoral College has met and before Congress counted the vote, how could the vote be counted? Or could it be postponed?

"(o) Should the Congress, particularly when repudiated by the people, continue to legislate? Or should a new Congress be convened to carry out the recently expressed wishes of the people?"

Norris and the Packers

Senator Norris has found time to look into the effort of the packers to have the consent decree annulled. This is the decree they agreed to so piously nearly five years ago, when there was imminent danger of a Sherman law case against them because of their "percentage" practice in pooling their purchases of live stock and their other practices.

Norris on December 8th secured the adoption of his resolution for an investigation of the facts and policies involved.

The decree of five years ago recited that—

"While the defendants. . . maintain the truth of their answers and assert their innocence of any violation of law in fact or intent, they nevertheless, desiring to avoid every appearance of placing themselves in a position of antagonism to the Government . . . do consent to the making and entry of the decree now about to be entered without any findings of fact, upon condition that their consents to the entry of said decree shall not constitute or be considered an admission, and the rendition or entry of said decree, or the decree itself, shall not constitute or be considered an adjudication that the defendants or any of them have in fact violated any law of the United States."

Now the packers ask the court to vacate the decree because "there were no adjudicated facts before the court;" because the decree "was beyond the jurisdictional power of the court to enter;" because it "violates the 5th Amendment" (taking property without due process); because it "is violative of the anti-trust laws themselves and neither the consent of the Attorney General nor the consent of the defendants could validate it;" because the Attorney General "was without power or authority to consent to the decree on behalf of the United States."

The packers' argument makes the decree look like no more than a little spit ball to throw at the teacher in a district school.

The Norris resolution asks the Federal Trade Commission to report

"All information in its possession or readily securable concerning the history and present status of the said consent decree and of the hearings, litigation and other action growing out of it, and concerning the respective effects that may be expected if the consent decree is enforced, is modified as proposed, or is annulled, together with its recommendations on the public policies involved."

It emphasizes that the modification or annulment of the decree should properly be considered by Congress, since the decree was in force and relied on by Congress at the time it passed the Packers and Stockyards Act. That act omitted any regulation on important subjects covered by the decree.

In an early hearing on the proposed modification, a witness from the Federal Trade Commission stated a sound principle:

"The present law of the land is for competition. Only Congress, after deliberation, should change our national policy-if we are to enter upon a policy of regulated monopoly. We believe it is not the province of the Attorney General nor the court to determine such vial questions. That is for Congress alone."

Modification of that part of the decree which puts the packers out of the "unrelated," or grocery, lines is being sought by the California Cooperative Canneries, which had borrowed money of Armour and had a contract with Armour to distribute its canned fruit, a contract which goes by the boards unless the decree is changed. The contention of the Canneries company is that the decree relieved the wholesale grocery trade of packer competition and creates a monopoly in favor of the associations of wholesale grocers.

Annulment will not only let the packers back into the unrelated lines, but will allow them to keep their stockyards ownership; their public cold storage plants; and to enter the retail meat business if they desire.

The "Slant" of the Court

The consent decree has been before the courts, but not as to its validity. That point was not raised till the packers themselves raised it by their petition on November 5th. But the Circuit Court of Appeals, acting favorably on the Canneries company's request to intervene, has given an indication of its view. Possibly it was this view which the packers relied on when they argued that "the decree is violative of the anti-trust laws themselves."

This is the passage from the court's opinion:

"If the charge of appellant (California Cooperative Canneries) is true, that the wholesale grocers are using the decree against the packers to strengthen and build up a giant monopoly in their various and varied lines of business, there would seem to be demand for a searching inquiry as to whether or not the court is being used as an agency to restrain one monopoly and thereby promote, strengthen, and build up another. Clearly it is not the policy of the antitrust act to accomplish this result. Nor will the decree of the court below declaring the packers' combination illegal under the antitrust act be sustained if its effect is to safeguard one public interest by the destruction of another."

To a common citizen on the sidewalk it looks as if the right thing is, not for the Government and the courts to lie down before either monopoly, but to rise up and officially "bust" both of them.

In 1918 the total sales of the five big packers, including meats, were $3,250,000,000; while the total business of all the wholesale grocers in the country was estimated at anywhere from two and a-half bil

lion to three and a-half billion dollars. The decree leashes the packers as respects the consumers' grocery needs. Shall we unleash them?

The Assistant Chief Economist of the Federal Trade Commission, testifying on this subject two years ago, said:

"The Government's petition in this case announced a vital economic theory-the theory, namely, that it is not safe to permit the same interests to control both our meats and our substitutes for meat.

"To modify the decree will be to abandon entirely the position that great groups of foods that naturally compete with one another for the consumers' favor ought to remain in many competitive hands, instead of being drawn into one monopolistic hand."

If to modify the decree will do this, to annul it will throw away the efforts of the past eight years to break the packer menace to our food supply.

"I am in full harmony with those who would prevent war. I would join them in outlawing war and, failing that, in minimizing its horrors and its consequences.

"War is a crime against civilization and humanity. It is the most stupendous folly of mankind. Few wars are worth what they cost, for the price of victory nearly always outruns any benefit which may be gained. Even in victory there is defeat, for in success are nearly always the seeds of eventual disaster.

"War is never justified unless it be fought in defense of liberty. No people ever gained an increased measure of liberty for themselves by waging a successful foreign war. Frequently the vanquished are freed by the defeat which discredits their ruling class, and frequently conquest feeds a nation's pride in military prowess and causes the surrender of cherished liberties to the demand for more perfect organization. Defeated Germany, first to use conscript armies, substituted the rule of democracy for the autocrat, while victorious America turns toward gross materialism and submits to the indignity of conscription. (Applause.)"

"I speak with perfect respect to everybody; I wish to criticise only constructively; I have no personal feeling of ill will; I freely concede the right of all Senators to do just what they have done; but this bill is a demonstration of a situation which has grown up in this country which to my mind implies a very material interference with the liberties of the people of the United States and a very material interference with the very foundations of our Government. The President of the United States simply by announcing that he is for this measure or that measure commands in an instant enough votes perhaps to turn the scales. A Senator on the floor talks to empty seats. Senators, busy, every one of them, in some line of official business or studying some public question, are not required to study, to analyze, and to investigate a particular matter of legislation because the Chief Executive has spoken, perhaps privately, perhaps not publicly at least, and they know what he wants; they have heard the master's voice and they recognize it.

"This is no more true in the case of President Coolidge than in the case of other Presidents who have preceded him; but, Mr. President, as a logical result of such procedure, if we are going to follow it, if it is the right kind of government, if that is what we ought to do, then we ought to amend the Constitution of the United States, abolish the Senate, abolish the House of Representatives, and elect a President every four years, giving to him supreme executive and legislative authority, and probably it would follow judicial authority as well. Make him supreme for the term of his office. To a great extent he is supreme already, because with his wonderful power, particularly of the control of appointments to office all over the land, he has only to express his wish to have at least a certain percentage of Members of Congress carry it out.

"I wish to add that that may be right, although it is not my idea of a republic or a democracy. I do not criticise the man who believes in that kind of government; he has a right to believe in an absolute monarchy with a limited term if he wants so to believe; but this bill is illustrative of such a situation.

"I wish to say that without criticism, but if that is the way to proceed, then we ought to go out in the open and have that kind of a government. It may be that the Senate is a nuisance; it may be that the legislative branch of our Federal Government ought to be abolished. We ought to abolish it or we ought to draw the line and keep what our forefathers believed they were establishing, a well-defined division between executive and legislative authority. We can do either one and be patriotic; we can do either one and be honest; but we ought not to do one while we are pretending to stand for the other. It is not conducive to Senators to do their best work when they know that when the crucial test comes the decision is going to be made somewhere else and that that decision will control rather than the logic of the situation. That amounts to the control of one branch of the Government over another in its official capacity.

"Mr. President, on this question I may be entirely wrong, the committee may be entirely wrong, but I confess to a sense of humiliation, I confess to a feeling of discouragement when after a Senator has done the best he knows how, wearing his life out in studying some legislative problem as to which he has and could have no selfish interest, his work is overthrown in a secret meeting or in a secret conference or even in a public conference which controls the legislative assembly where the work is going on. Perhaps that is no more the case in this instance than in others in years gone by, but we have seen the practice growing from year to year.

"Personally no man has a higher regard for the great office of President of the United States than have I; but I do not believe I ought to be considered as being disrespectful to the President because I cannot see something as he sees it. I do not understand how a Member of the National Legislature can fully perform the functions of his office if he permits the President, no matter how great, no matter how wise, to control his official action by a wish, by a sign, or even by a request."

pine independence; railroad legislation, and the railroad labor bill, radio control, reclamation, the Lehlbach reclassification bill, war conscription of wealth -these are among the hold over subjects now pending.

"N. P." Land Grant Case

A fundamental matter that should not be lost sight of in the hurry of this session is the Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant investigation. Congress last spring authorized the inquiry, and a select joint committee of the House and Senate was appointed to investigate the status of this great land grant. Funds were provided at the beginning of this session. The committee has not yet begun to function, however, because a Democratic member from the Senate to take the place of former Senator Adams, of Colorado, has not as yet been named.

In The Searchlight for February, 1924, we published a detailed article on the failure of land grant railroads, particularly the Northern Pacific, to live up to the terms of the old grants, giving them millions of acres of public lands, and on the failure of Congress to move for forfeiture of the grants.

The immediate cause of the investigation is the effort of the Northern Pacific to annex 3,000,000 acres of the finest timberland of the national forest

reserves.

The Supreme Court, on the inadequate showing heretofore made by the Government, has allowed this claim.

There is much evidence to show that the railroad did not comply with the terms of the granting act, and that it has already received more lands than it earned.

Senator Heflin, of Alabama, does a lot of talking, and, quite frequently, he enlivens the monotony of dignified debate with a humorous story. This one is typical:

A Heflin Story

"I think I find myself somewhat in the predicament that Congressman Cushman, of the State of Washington, said he was in when he and I were Members of the House. There were two measures before the House, and he favored some of the provisions of both bills and was opposed to some of the provisions of both, but the proponents of each plan failed to get together, so he was not entirely satisfied with either. He said that his predicament reminded him of the fellow who had stolen a horse out in Washington. Out there they usually hanged the horse thief upon the roadside, with a placard on his back saying, 'Profit by his example.' They caught one fellow who had stolen a horse and took him out into the woods on a moonlight night. While they had a plow line tied to his wrists and were discussing what disposition they would make of him, some of the citizens who had gathered in the mob suggested that they hang him. Others said it would be preferable to shoot him.

"Finally one tender-hearted gentleman, who had some consideration for the feelings of the prisoner, turned and said, 'Gentlemen, let us consult him, and get his "rathers" about it.' They asked him which plan he would prefershooting or hanging? And he said, 'I am more interested than any of you in the outcome of this thing, but to tell you the truth, I can't enthuse over any one of the plans you have suggested.' (Laughter.)"