CHAPTER XV

THE COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS

THE most abiding difficulty of free government is to get large assemblies to work promptly and smoothly either for legislative or executive purposes. We perceive this difficulty in primary

assemblies of thousands of citizens, like those of ancient Athens or Syracuse; we see it again in the smaller representative assemblies of modern countries. Three methods of overcoming it have been tried. One is to leave very few and comparatively simple questions to the assembly, reserving all others for a smaller and more permanent body, or for executive officers. This was the plan of the Romans, where the comitia (primary assemblies) were convoked only to elect magistrates and pass laws, which were short, clear, and submitted en bloc, without possibility of amendment, for a simple Yes or No. Another method is to organize the assemblies into well-defined parties, each recognizing and guided by one or more leaders, so that on most occasions and for most purposes the rank and file of members exert no volition of their own, but move like battalions at the word of command. This has been the English system since about the time of Queen Anne. It was originally worked by means of extensive corruption; and not till this phase was passing away did it become an object of admiration to the world. Latterly it has been reproduced in the parliaments of most modern European states and of the British colonies. The third method, which admits of being more or less combined with the second, is to divide the assembly into a number of smaller bodies to which legislative and administrative questions may be referred, either for final determination or to be examined and reported on to the whole body. This is the system of committees, applied to some small extent in England, to a larger extent in France under the name of bureaux, and most of all in the United States.

Some account of its rules and working there is essential to a comprehension of the character of Congress and of the relations of the legislative to the executive branch of the Federal Government.

When Congress first met in 1789, both Houses found themselves, as the State legislatures had theretofore been and still are, without official members and without leaders.1 The Senate occupied itself chiefly with executive business, and appointed no standing committees until 1816. The House however had bills to discuss, plans of taxation to frame, difficult questions of expenditure, and particularly of the national debt, to consider. For want of persons whose official duty required them, like English ministers, to run the machine by drafting schemes and bringing the raw material of its work into shape, it was forced to appoint committees. At first there were few; even in 1802 we find only five. As the numbers of the House increased and more business flowed in, additional committees were appointed; and as the House became more and more occupied by large political questions, minor matters were more and more left to be settled by these select bodies. Like all legislatures, the House constantly sought to extend its vision and its grasp, and the easiest way to do this was to provide itself with new eyes and new hands in the shape of further committees. The members were not, like their contemporaries in the English House of Commons, well-to-do men, mostly idle; they were workers and desired to be occupied. It was impossible for them all to speak in the House; but all could talk in a committee. Every permanent body cannot help evolving some kind of organization. Here the choice was between creating one ruling committee which should control all business, like an English ministry, and distributing business among a number of committees, each of which should undertake a special class of subjects. The latter alternative was recommended, not only by its promising a useful division of labour, but by its recognition of republican equality. It therefore prevailed, and the present elaborate system grew slowly to maturity.

To avoid the tedious repetition of details, I have taken the House of Representatives and its committees for description, because the system is more fully developed there than in the

1 The Congress of the Confederation (1781-88) had been a sort of diplomatic congress of envoys from States, and furnished few precedents available for the Congress under the new constitution.

Senate. But a very few words on the Senate may serve to prevent misconceptions.

1

There were in 1888 forty-one standing Senate committees, appointed for two years, being the period of a Congress. They and their chairmen are chosen not by the presiding officer but by the Senate itself, voting by ballot. Practically they are selected by a caucus of the party majority meeting in secret conclave, and then carried wholesale by vote in the Senate. Each consists of from three to eleven members, the most common numbers being seven and nine, and all senators sit on more than one committee, some upon four or more. The chairman is appointed by the Senate and not by the committees themselves. There are also select committees appointed for a special purpose and lasting for one session only. Every bill introduced goes after its first and second reading (which are granted as of course) to a standing committee, which examines and amends it, and reports it back to the Senate.

3

There were in the fiftieth Congress (1888) fifty-four standing committees of the House, i.e. committees appointed under standing regulations, and therefore regularly formed at the beginning of every Congress. Each committee consists of from three to sixteen members, eleven and thirteen being the commonest numbers. Every member of the House is placed on some one committee, and few on more than one. Besides these, select committees on particular subjects of current interest are appointed from time to time. In the forty-ninth Congress there were seven such committees. A complete list of the committees will be found at the end of this chapter. The most important. standing committees are the following:-Ways and means; appropriations; elections; banking and currency; accounts; rivers and harbours; judiciary (including changes in private law as well as in courts of justice); railways and canals; foreign affairs; naval affairs; military affairs; public lands; agriculture; claims; and the several committees on the expenditures of the various departments of the administration (war, navy, etc.)

Although the Senate is a permanent body, its proceedings are for some purposes regulated with reference to the re-election every two years of the House; just as in England the peers are summoned afresh at the beginning of each Parliament, although they, except the Scotch representative peers, sit for life.

2 In January 1888 there were seven such committees.

3 The committee rooms are smaller than those of the British Parliament; they are carpeted and furnished like private apartments.

The members of every standing committee are nominated by the Speaker at the beginning of each Congress, and sit through its two sessions; those of a select committee also by the Speaker, after the committee has been ordered by the House. A select committee lasts only for the session. In pursuance of the rule that the member first named shall be chairman, the Speaker has also the selection of all the chairmen.

To some one of these standing committees each and every bill is referred. Its second as well as its first reading is granted as of course, and without debate, since there would be no time to discuss the immense number of bills presented. When read a second time it is referred under the general rules to a committee; but doubts often arise as to which is the appropriate committee, because a bill may deal with a subject common to two or more jurisdictions, or include topics some of which belong to one jurisdiction, others to another. The disputes which may in such cases arise between several committees lead to keen debates and divisions, because the fate of the measure may depend on which of two possible paths it is made to take, since the one may bring it before a tribunal of friends, the other before a tribunal of enemies. Such disputes are determined by the vote of the House itself.

Not having been discussed, much less affirmed in principle, by the House, a bill comes before its committee with no presumption in its favour, but rather as a shivering ghost stands before Minos in the nether world. It is one of many, and for the most a sad fate is reserved. The committee may take evidence regarding it, may hear its friends and its opponents. They usually do hear the member who has introduced it, since it seldom happens that he has himself a seat on the committee. Members who are interested approach the committee and state their case there, not in the House, because they know that the House will have neither time nor inclination to listen. The committee can amend the bill as they please, and although they cannot formally extinguish it, they can practically do so by reporting adversely, or by delaying to report it till late in the session, or by not reporting it at all.

In one or other of these ways nineteen-twentieths of the bills introduced meet their death, a death which the majority doubtless deserve, and the prospect of which tends to make members reckless as regards both the form and the substance of their pro

posals. A motion may be made in the House that the committee do report forthwith, and the House can of course restore the bill, when reported, to its original form. But these expedients rarely succeed, for few are the measures which excite sufficient interest to induce an impatient and over-burdened assembly to take additional work upon its own shoulders or to overrule the decision of a committee.

The deliberations of committees are usually secret.

Evidence

is frequently taken with open doors, but the newspapers do not report it, unless the matter excite public interest; and even the decisions arrived at are often noticed in the briefest way. It is out of order to canvass the proceedings of a committee in the House until they have been formally reported to it; and the report submitted does not usually state how the members have voted, or contain more than a very curt outline of what has passed. No member speaking in the House is entitled to reveal anything further.

A committee have technically no right to initiate a bill, but as they can either transform one referred to them, or, if none has been referred which touches the subject they seek to deal with, can procure one to be brought in and referred to them, their command of their own province is unbounded. Hence the character of all the measures that may be passed or even considered by the House upon a particular branch of legislation depends on the composition of the committee concerned with that branch. Some committees, such as those on naval and military affairs, and those on the expenditure of the several departments, deal with administration rather than legislation. They have power to summon the officials of the departments before them, and to interrogate them as to their methods and conduct. Authority they have none, for officials are responsible only to their chief, the President; but the power of questioning is sufficient to check if not to guide the action of a department, since imperative statutes may follow, and the department, sometimes desiring legislation and always desiring money, has strong motives for keeping on good terms with those who control legislation and the purse. It is through these committees chiefly that the executive and legislative branches of government touch one another. the contact, although the most important thing in a government, is the thing which the nation least notices, and has the scantiest means of watching.

Yet