lieved in to the extent of 100 per cent, but after he had found out what would be the consequences from the passage of his resolution he withdrew it, and said, "I will not call upon the House to act upon it." Where is the safeguard if you enable a minority to embarrass a majority? That is a thing I want answered by every man who casts his vote for or against this proposition.

Now, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. GARRETT] would make us think that he was 100 per cent fair. He is fair according to the rules of politics. I do not complain if a majority gets me and whips me politically. That does not worry me a bit. But if the gentleman from Tennessee is motivated only by his desire to see that good legislation is brought upon the floor, then a majority petition will bring that about and there is no argument for 150, let alone for 100. The same argument that lies to 150 lies with equal force to 10 Members of the House.

Again, would the gentleman from Tennessee, if he were charged with the responsibility of the majority party, like my friend from Ohio [Mr. LONGWORTH]—would he advocate this proposition in the same way, and urge the old and new Members to support him on it? I am only presuming that the gentleman from Tennessee is for the precedents and traditions of the Democratic Party as well as the Republican, and I have no criticism whatever to offer on those traditions. They are traditions that have been established by some of the great men in American history on both sides of the House.

Mr. LINTHICUM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. BEGG. I would rather finish this statement. Then I will yield. I would refer back to the time when the rules were adopted, the rules that we are now operating under; some of these "obnoxious" and "autocratic" rules, about which we hear so much. And let me incidentally remark that there is no autocracy in your majority in American history. There may come about an autocracy in a minority among the majority. But if that is the thing about which we complain, then that autocracy is removed when you permit the majority of the membership of the House to bring about action on any question that they want action on. But if you legalize the autocracy of the minority, gentlemen, you are taking one step away from a representative republican government toward a coalition, such as we have in the European countries now, and if any man in the world believes that conditions under any coalition government-and I will include the example of my good friend, Mr. CANNON-if any man in America believes that under a coalition government in England the rights and the privileges of the subjects there are better protected than they are in America, I say God pity his views on the whole proposition. Mr. CONNOLLY of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. BEGG. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for a question.

Mr. CONNOLLY of Pennsylvania. If the gentlemen on the other side of the House were in the majority, and this same rule originated on the Republican side, would you be one of the signers or would you be one to go along and vote for it?

Mr. BEGG. I would sign every one I could in order to harass them, because that is what they intend to do with us. Mr. LINTHICUM. Will the gentleman yield to me? Mr. BEGG. Yes; I yield to the gentleman from Maryland. Mr. LINTHICUM. The gentleman has said a great deal about the rule of the majority; he also said he was one of a number who thwarted the reporting of a resolution from the Foreign Affairs Committee and that he knew if that report had been made the resolution would have been passed by a majority of this House. Was not that the thwarting of majority rule that is, by not reporting that resolution?

Mr. BEGG. Well, that is the easiest thing the gentleman ever asked. At that time the country was inflamed on this question, but to-day that same resolution could not command 50 votes. We did the country a service, and the gentleman helped to do it.

Mr. LINTHICUM. I did not help to do that. The gentleman may make that statement, but it is not correct.

Mr. BEGG. Probably the gentleman did not; I do not recall, and I would have to look up the votes and ascertain just how the gentleman stood. But the whole proposition was not to legislate by passion, but to legislate by principle; and those of you who subscribe to legislation by passion are welcome to your position, but let the country know you do not study questions but follow aroused passion of organized minorities.

Mr. BANKHEAD. In other words, we are to understand-
Mr. BEGG. I can not yield any further.

Mr. NEWTON of Minnesota. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. BEGG. I can not, because I have just refused to yield to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. BANKHEAD]. I would rather read this rule, and then I will yield. I said I wondered whether the gentleman from Tennessee, if the tables were turned, would be as fair as he pretends to be now; and the only way we can come to any conclusion is from what the Democratic Party has always done. Here is a rule which was adopted; and if there is elasticity in legislation by reason of it, I do not understand the word "elasticity." Here is the resolution:

Resolved, That the House shall proceed to consider the pending House resolution providing rules for the House of Representatives of the

Sixty-second Congress under the following terms, to wit:

First. At the conclusion of the first reading of the resolution it shall be in order to offer one substitute for the resolution of the gentleman from Texas.

Second. There shall be four hours' general debate, the time to be equally divided between the friends and opponents of the resolution, the time to be controlled on one side by Mr. Henry, of Texas, and on the other by Mr. Mann, of Illinois.

This is a Democratic piece of legislation, liberal and generous, as the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. GARRETT] says. So liberal that the minority could neither have free debate nor opportunity to offer amendment. Now, this is the thing I desire particularly to call to the attention of my friends from Wisconsin, who are sincere in believing that they have a right as a minority of a majority to force the majority to do this. It is from your Democratic friends that you expect help now. Will they help you at election time?

Third. At the conclusion of the general debate as herein provided, a vote shall be taken without delay or intervening motion, first on the question of adopting the substitute, if any, and then on the question of adopting the resolution of the gentleman from Texas or the substitute resolution, as the case may be.

some

Now, the gentlemen from Wisconsin are Republicans, or they claim to be Republicans, at least. They differ from me on great questions, and I concede them the right to vote on those questions as they please, but I do not concede them the right as Republicans to work with the Democrats in erecting machinery that will wreck us. [Laughter and applause.] If the time ever comes when I find myself in a position where I must refuse to abide by the machinery of my party, I will be sport enough to deny my allegiance and will not run on the Republican ticket for office.

If the Democrats had control to-day you would not have the free chance to offer amendments which you have here now. In conclusion, my good friends, let me close with this: There is no danger in the world to-day so great as the popular trend toward chaotic conditions in government, and there is only one Government I know of that is withstanding the onslaughts that are now being made on her at this time, and that is the Government of the United States. Compare the history of the achievements of America with the history of the achievements of England, if you please, Germany, France, or any nation in the world, and I say to you, without any Yankee boastfulness entering into the statement, that no nation can write at the bottom of her history that she has done as much for the individual members of her Government as has America; and it is not progress to drift toward chaos, but it is progress sometimes to have the guts to stand up and be run over by the mob. [Applause.]

Mr. NELSON of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. NELsoN] is recognized.

Mr. NELSON of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. BEGG] is a powerful speaker and always interesting and frank; but I am reminded that he is the gentleman who interrupted me on the opening day of the House and asked me if I did not know there was a program already agreed upon, and he has now been explaining this program. It means he is against parliamentary reform. So many objections have been given that I thought I would touch upon a few of them in a summarized way. Let me first most emphatically say this: That our attitude to-day, in my humble opinion, on this discharge motion and upon this question of number will fix us forever in the RECORD as either friends or foes of parliamentary reform. [Applause.]

Let me say this to you, gentlemen: That in the Committee on Rules and everywhere where we discuss these propositions it is agreed that the discharge motion is the big motion; it is the heart, the heart, the heart of the whole contest, and these gentlemen know it.

Let me tell you, furthermore, that the number is the vital spot; you aim your blow at that number and you kill the heart of the reform that we propose. Put undue pressure on that

What did he say further about "the fury of the party spirit"? Let us see what he said-and I am quoting Washington against BEGG. Who is correct? [Applause.] Listen:

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchial cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.

This is Washington speaking, and I think he is high authority. He said further:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular references to the founding them on geographical discrimination. Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit unfortunately is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in the greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

And yet here the gentleman from Ohio invokes the spirit of party to-day, championing the very evil spirit that Washington foresaw might work the ruin of our country in the end, and warning with all the solemnity of his patriotic spirit against it. Then we have heard another remarkable statement from that gentleman and from others. What are they trying to teach here? This is what they say: Here is a central aisle. We on this side are a Republican majority and must have no individual judgment. Here is the division between the minority and the majority. That is the doctrine of party regularity. To illustrate, on this matter of rules the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. BEGG] sets himself up as the arbiter of party principles and party loyalty.

I invoke a higher authority than the gentleman from Ohio. I appeal to Thomas B. Reed. Is he not high Republican authority? What does he say about that doctrine? Speaker Reed was speaking of the Democrats. He said:

It will be an interesting spectacle in the new House to watch the process by which the new Members will be persuaded to surrender their rights, to go gently under the yoke, and to witness their wonder and perplexity when they find that somehow or other they can not do what they want to do, even after they have convinced the majority that it will be the right thing to do. They will then find that the gentlemen who have so sedulously hedged them in to protect them from the wicked Republicans have reserved for themselves a veto power greater than is intrusted by the wisdom of the Constitution to the wisdom of the President. They will also then find that there is no greater fallacy than the idea that majority and minority are predi cated of political parties only.

We are here as American citizens, not primarily as Democrats and Republicans. We were elected, it is true, some of us Progressives, as Republicans, and let me say that if you Republican regulars will stand for principles that will help the people we will help you put through legislation, but if you are going to stand for the big, special interests, we will oppose [Applause.] you to the end.

I

Gentlemen here have tried to kill this motion to discharge. They are arguing for what motion? They are arguing for the present motion, which is dead. Why? Because they fear an expression of the will of the people. That is what is making them shiver in their shoes. They are afraid because the people may express themselves in this House. Listen to what one man said, who was a man, indeed-your dead leader, Mr. James R. Mann-and we remember him for his courage. heard him when he denounced the present rule, when he analyzed it, when he said it was a trick rule, that it would not work, and in after years he proved his case. Listen to what he said upon the subject of a motion to discharge a committee, and I offer this in reply to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. BEGG] who seeks the defeat of this reform. Mr. Mann said: In every set of rules adopted by a legislative body it is important that there should be a method by which the majority of the Members can bring before the legislative body for consideration and action any proposition which the majority desires to have considered. A legislative body like the House, composed of nearly 400 Members, can not

afford to be held up by its committees, and if there be no method by which a majority in the House can bring before the House for consideration a bill, notwithstanding the opposition of less than a dozen Members on some committee to which the bill has been referred, then we are, indeed, lacking in virility and power.

Who is correct-Mr. Mann or the gentleman from Ohio? Further referring to the vote rule now in our procedure, he said:

You can get at a bill now by going out to the document room and asking for it, and that is about as near as you can get to it under this new discharge rule.

I appeal to you, let us listen to the words of Mann, of Reed, of Washington, then we will not go astray. Let me give you the truth in a nutshell. If you are not afraid to vote in the open day, if you wish to give people a chance to express their will in this House, if you are willing to open the doors to progress, if you mean to do something for the reform of the rules, then your vote is aye. If you wish to kill the motion to discharge a committee, if you are afraid to express yourself, if you want to dodge into or hide behind some committee room, if you wish to defy or deceive your constituents, then your vote is nay. The issue is plain. The contest is here. We shall know who are the friends and who are the foes of parliamentary reform. [Applause.]

Mr. FISH. Mr. Speaker, I doubt if since I have been a Member of this House there has ever been a measure discussed on the floor of the House about which there has been so little understanding and so much misunderstanding as the resolution now under consideration. There has been a great deal of oratory, a great deal of fervor, and a great deal of theory, but hardly any consideration of facts, conditions, or precedents. What does this rule do and what does the amendment proposing to reduce this number to 100 do? No one has pointed that out. Many have said that there are rules in other legislative bodies by which an individual member can discharge a committee by getting the floor and making the motion; but how? By securing a majority vote of the elected members of the house. I have read the rules of every legislature in the United States, and practically without exception the individual member must get a majority of the elected members to discharge a committee from consideration of a public bill or resolution. That is a fundamental American principle. If the lower number be adopted, it would require a petition signed by 100 Members, less than one-fourth of the House. Then what is the procedure? On the first and third Mondays, unanimousconsent days, it will be in order to call up that particular bill or resolution and pass the same by a majority of a quorum or by 110 affirmative votes. That is the point I want to emphasize to every Member here, and particularly the Democrats. A measure initiated by a little bloc of less than one-fourth of the membership of the House could pass through this House under this petition procedure by securing 110 affirmative votes, and I challenge anyone to deny that statement.

Mr. LAGUARDIA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FISH. Yes; if the gentleman will challenge the state

ment.

Mr. LAGUARDIA. The gentleman assumes that Members of this House will remain away.

Mr. FISH. The gentleman knows that on Mondays there is not apt to be a large attendance here.

Mr. LAGUARDIA. This would be on the calendar. Mr. FISH. Oh, the gentleman is not challenging my statement. I make the statement that a bill can go through this House with an affirmative vote of only 110, which is a majority of a quorum, when initiated under this proposed procedure. This is the only legislative body, I imagine, in the world that has ever considered adopting a proposition that would abolish the rule of the majority and substitute the will of a minority. In order that there may be no mistake as to where I stand on the proposition I introduced as a compromise-and it is the only resolution that I did introduce, a motion to discharge a committee-I read the first four lines (H. Res. 90):

Any Member may present to the Clerk of the House a motion, upon the signed request of 150 Members of the House, to discharge a committee from the further consideration of any public bill or resolution

And so forth.

These are exactly the same or practically the same words that are in the resolution reported by the Rules Committee and now being considered by the House. It is a compromise, pure. and simple, on the principle of majority rule. I regret that another amendment, providing for 218, an elected majority has been offered and will be brought up for a vote, because I shall

be compelled to vote for it in the first instance, although I do not believe it has a chance of passage. Briefly, why did we initiate the proposition to discharge a committee? Perhaps you remember last year there was a bill before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce to increase the pay of attendants for the blinded, legless, and armless soldiers from $20 to $50 a month. That bill was in that committee for almost a year without any favorable action upon it. It was impossible for any individual Member of the House to discharge the committee, in spite of the fact that 90 per cent of the House, or probably 100 per cent of the House, was in favor │| of that particular measure. That is the reason that I, and perhaps others, have been interested in trying to evolve a workable rule to discharge a committee from the consideration of public bills which they refuse to report out. I also introduced into the last Rules Committee a resolution to investigate the Veterans' Bureau. I was told that for party reasons that resolution could not be reported out. What happened? I had to go hat in hand to a Member of the Senate, taking the identical resolution which the Rules Committee refused to report out. He had it adopted in the Senate without a single change except that he struck out the three Members of the House and left in three Senators to investigate the Veterans' Bureau. That is the reason that some of us believe that there should be a method-some method-to discharge a committee from further consideration of a bill.

As an individual, or even as a majority, we are powerless and impotent to force legislation out of committees. Under our rules and under our system of procedure, committees have become the masters of the House, and not its servants. They are no longer agents but absolute dictators. The House is no longer the master of its fate or captain of its soul, but must consider what the committees report out, and nothing else. We have become as impotent and powerless as the legislative bodies under Napoleon I. with the right to pass or reject, but not the right to alter or amend.

The rules of the House of Representatives are and should be nonpartisan, and their aim should be to expedite and simplify the passage or rejection of legislation on the floor of the House after careful consideration by committees. The ultimate power should be in the majority of the House to determine all questions of rules and legislation; and, more important still, the will of the majority of the Members of the House should prevail over its agents-the committees-and force them to bring out legislation that the majority deems to be to the best interest of the country.

There is no disputing the principle involved in the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. GRAHAM] that it should require a majority of the elected Members of the House to discharge a committee. I offered my amendment at 150, realizing that proposition full well, but I offered it because I realized that it would be almost impossible for any Member to go around and secure 218 signatures to any petition. It would be too great an imposition on an individual Member to ask him to go around and see 218 other Members and get them to sign a petition. In principle it is correct and as long as it has been offered I shall be forced to vote for it, but I realize it will be defeated, and the issue will come up whether we will adopt the present resolution with 150 or whether you will lower it down to 100.

Mr. LINTHICUM. Mr. FISH. 1 will yield. Mr. LINTHICUM. Why does the gentleman feel in duty bound to vote for the Graham amendment? The gentleman introduced the resolution for 150 and the gentleman must have thought that was a sufficient number.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. FISH. That is a very fair question. I did not expect the Graham amendment would be introduced. I am for it because I believe in it in principle. I think as a matter of fact it will be a hardship to go around and get 218 signers, so as a compromise I offered 150 as the very minimum, and that may be too low, to require a committee to bring out legislation that may be passed by 110 Members of the House. Now let me say a word, perhaps, as long as I am asked this question, to some of my Democratic friends.

Mr. LINTHICUM. If the gentleman will permit one more question. The gentleman realizes under the Graham motion he would have to get a majority of the Members elected? Mr. FISH. Yes.

Mr. LINTHICUM. Whereas there may not be nearly the number of Members elected on the floor of the House, and therefore you will have to get more Members to sign the motion to discharge a committee than perhaps were present

Mr. FISH. Quite right; but the principle is this, and I think the gentleman will agree if he considers it. The trouble

is many gentlemen have not considered it at all. If you get 218, then, and then only, will you have a majority of the elected Members of the House in favor of that particular bill, but if it is 100 or 150 at no time will you have a majority of elected Members in favor of the legislation that you pass, and that is a fundamental principle practiced in every legislative body in the country, including, I am sure, that from the State which the gentleman represents. Although it takes in most assemblies one man to move to discharge a committee, that man must have a majority of the elected members, not a majority of a quorum, which is proposed in this resolution.

I earnestly hope that the House will provide a means to discharge committees either by a majority or by the compromise which I offered of 150, which was reported out of the Rules Committee. The professional private lobby, otherwise known as the invisible government, has more influence in getting bills reported or in having them chloroformed than individual Members. The lobby is paid to work day and night to either defeat or pass certain bills, whereas the individual House Member has other duties to perform and he is impotent to secure favorable action without the power to discharge a committee. I refer those Members and the public who are interested in the modern operation of the big private lobbies to read the recently published book entitled "Uncle Reuben in Washington," by Charles S. Barrett, president of the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America. He points out that it took more than a generation to win the fight against the railroad lobbies for Federal regulation of interstate and intrastate traffic and another generation to enact the parcels post law against the express company lobbies.

Mr. BLANTON. Will the gentleman yield for a question? Mr. FISH. I will.

Mr. BLANTON. The gentleman stated he was told last Congress that he could not get up his resolution to investigate the Veterans' Bureau for party reasons.

Mr. FISH. That is right.

Mr. BLANTON. Does the gentleman mean to tell the country that his party prevented an investigation of Mr. Forbes's bureau when they were apprised by the resolution of the facts which the Senate later on brought out?

Mr. FISH. If the gentleman has read the papers, he will see that my party put that investigation through the Senate. Mr. BLANTON. Only after the bird escaped.

Mr. FISH. They have not escaped at all.` Now, we are confronted with a condition. What will be one of the first bills brought up to plague especially the Democrats from the South, because this rule works both ways? I believe that one of the first bills brought up, and I will sign that petition, will be to enforce the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, and it will undoubtedly be proposed by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. TINKHAM]. That is one of the few that will be brought up. You can go on almost ad infinitum if you want to consider a lot of bunkum, radical legislation and economic fallacies. Mr. LINTHICUM. Will the gentleman yield for one more question?

Mr. FISH. I will yield.

Mr. LINTHICUM. The gentleman said the investigation of the Veterans' Bureau was brought about by his party in the Senate. Was not the resolution for investigation introduced by Senator WALSH of Massachusetts?

Mr. FISH. No: the gentleman is wrong. Senator WALSH introduced the resolution to consider whether there should be an investigation. The committee consisted of five and they held hearings, under a Republican, of course. I took my resolution around to the chairman, who introduced it without changing it except eliminating the three Congressmen as proposed. I have a great admiration for Senator WALSH of Massachusetts, and I will gladly give him credit for anything I can.

Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FISH. I will.

Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Does not the gentleman think this, perhaps, might be a good Congress in which to bring up a reapportionment of the House so all districts would be represented according to the actual vote?

Mr. FISH. That is another proposition which may be petitioned for, as the gentleman has pointed out. Let us go back to a little history. We witnessed the extreme folly of the present rules at the last session of Congress when a minority of two Members controlled all legislation in the House; when the chairman of the Rules Committee and the majority leader, both of whom were defeated for reelection, controlled absolutely all legislation. It is almost inconceivable to me that this House should be so subservient and should be willing to submit

supinely to such conditions. Important legislation has re

peatedly been smothered in committees due to the fact that the majority of the House had no practical means of discharging the committees. There is a so-called House Calendar for discharge of committees, but it is scarcely ever reached, and is worthless when it is, and amounts to nothing more than a scrap of paper. And that is why I favor a rule to discharge committees from further consideration of legislation after a reasonable length of time.

The main issue before the House will be whether you adopt the 100 proposition or the 150 proposition, and it will be three times as hard to get 150 as it would be to get 100. The first 50 may come easily. The second 50 may be a little more difficult, and the third 50 will be far more difficult. That is the purpose of those of us who initiated this legislation. We desired that it should be difficult. We desired, however, that a majority of the House, or a substantial number of the Merabers of the House, should have the right to bring up legislation. For instance. if we wanted to bring up an adjusted compensation bill, with a majority or a substantial majority, say 150, we could go out and get 150 signatures. But we do not want to reduce it to 100, so that you could go out and bring in any kind of legislation to plague individual Members and obstruct and retard the legislative action of this House.

In the second place, if you permit 100 to be adopted, you will almost surely do away with the Unanimous Consent Calendar. It may be a little thing, but individual Members have some little bills in which they are vitally interested. How in the world can you ever consider the Unanimous Consent Calendar if this 100 proposition goes into effect? It will never be reached, because you will be flooded with bills and resolutions brought up under the 100 rule.

I have three resolutions pending before the Committee on Foreign Affairs. My duty, if the 100 rule is adopted, would be to go out and get signatures for every one of those three resolutions. The first one is to appropriate $20,000,000 for the starving children in Germany; the second one is to call a second limitation of armaments conference, and the third one is to establish a trade commission for the purpose of doing business with Russia. I would feel it my duty, having introduced those resolutions, to get out and secure 100 signatures in order to obtain a record vote of the House on each of them, if the committee refused to bring them out. The absolute purpose of those of us who initiated this legislation was to provide a way to bring up legislation, either through a majority or through at least 35 per cent of the House. We did not even consider for a moment that anybody outside of the radicals would ever consider a proposition to let less than one-fourth of the House legislate for a majority of the House.

Mr. SCHAFER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FISH. Yes.

Mr. SCHAFER. What is your definition of the so-called radical? I have two questions to ask of the gentleman. That is one of them. Another one is this: If you fixed the number to sign a petition at 100 and you had these resolutions introduced and wanted them passed it would be your duty to try to bring them out. You presumably introduced those resolutions because you wanted them passed. Would it not be good to make it possible to have a vote?

Mr. FISH. No, sir. I do not want any legislation to go through this House by the will of 25 per cent of its membership, not even my own, without committee hearings and consideration. Mr. SCHAFER. If the number to sign a petition was fixed in this bill at 100 would not that stop a great many Members from introducing resolutions which they know would be defeated. resolutions which they now introduce for purposes of their own or purposes which only they know?

Mr. FISH. Certainly not.

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FISH. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. The gentleman has stated on repeated occasions that he is opposed to permitting 25 per cent of the membership to legislate. It is surely not his understanding of this resolution that it permits 25 per cent to legislate. After it is brought out it must be called up and acted upon by a majority before the legislation becomes effective.

Mr. FISH. If you permit the 100 amendment to be passed it makes it easy to bring up and pass any legislation upon which there has been no hearings or committee consideration by 110 affirmative votes, a majority of a quorum. But if you leave it at 150 there must be at least 150 men who have attached their signatures to the petition.

Mr. CARTER. The gentleman evidently has not caught my point. The point I make is that this resolution does not change the rules at all with reference to what it takes to pass legisla- |

tion. It simply changes the rule with reference to what it takes to bring legislation before the House for consideration. Mr. FISH. I want to say that if this 100 amendment goes through it will be the most revolutionary proposition we have ever considered, as it makes it possible that a petition signed by 100 Members will bring legislation up for consideration, and with less than 25 per cent of the membership of the House voting affirmatively it can pass. I challenge anybody to deny

that.

Mr. CARTER. I can explain that.

Mr. FISH. Well, then, do it.

Mr. CARTER. It takes 100 Members to bring it before the House from the committee. When it comes before the House, then it takes the customary and necessary majority to pass it. If the gentleman will permit this suggestion, a gentleman has just suggested here this afternoon that the thing that this does is to permit an appeal from a committee of 21, or a committee of 35, to a committee of 100. That is the sum and substance of it.

Mr. FISH. I repeat that no one can deny my proposition that 110 Members of the House can pass any public bill or resolution that is brought up through a petition signed by 100 Members.

Mr. CARTER. You do not mean less than a majority of those voting for it?

Mr. FISH. I say 100 Members can bring out and 110 Members can pass any public bill; and there is no Member that can deny that statement.

Mr. PERLMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FISH. Yes.

Mr. PERLMAN. Is it not a fact that 11 members of a committee can report favorably a bill and 110 Members pass it?

Mr. FISH. That is an absolutely fair question, and there is an absolute answer to it. I am glad the gentleman brought that up. In our form of government we believe in the rule by a majority, and we are supposed to give the majority party the right to appoint committees, which it proceeds to do, and it appoints a majority of its own Members on committees, and the committees hold hearings at which both sides are represented and has them printed. Both the hearings and report are available before the bill is considered in the House. The majority rule is followed all the way through, and that is the concrete and absolute answer to the gentleman's point.

Mr. PERLMAN. Has it not often happened that some members of the majority of the committee will combine with a minority, and that will make a majority of the committee, and they will make a report and pass legislation?

Mr. FISH. Yes; but committees are not generally so constituted. If there are only three members on a committee, that committee represents the majority party. The old Rules Committee under Speaker Cannon had only five members, three of whom were Republicans, but they represented the majority party on all matters of legislation.

Mr. PERLMAN. But, if the gentleman will yield further, he does not get my point. A committee might consist of 12 Republicans and 9 Democrats, and it is possible that 2 Republicans might join with 9 Democrats in reporting a bill, and then 110 Members of the House could pass it.

Mr. FISH. That is perfectly possible, but only after careful consideration by the committee. It is likely to happen only in close Houses. Where one party has a substantial majority there will not be any great danger of one or two Republican members slipping off and enabling the minority to report out a bill. Mr. PERLMAN. Will the gentleman yield further? Mr. FISH. Yes.

Mr. PERLMAN, Would you prefer that 11 members of a committee have greater rights than 100 Members of the House? Mr. FISH. I certainly do not prefer that 11 men should have greater rights than 100 Members of the House, but I want to say to the gentleman that when a bill comes from a committee it is supposed to represent the majority party and is supposed to have had careful consideration, and then when it does come before this House 110 Members can pass it.

Mr. LAGUARDIA. Why does the gentleman use 110 all the time?

Mr. FISH. I am showing you the conditions under which legislation can be passed.

Mr. LAGUARDIA. Is that the irreducible minimum? Mr. FISH. I am simply trying to convey to the House the danger of this proposition, and I am convinced that if it is understood by the Democrats themselves they will never vote for any proposition which will bring before this House radical legislation which can go through by the affirmative vote of 110. There is not a single precedent for it. I would vote at