of the British House of Commons is his impartiality. He has indeed been chosen by a party, because a majority means in England a party. But on his way from his place on the benches to the chair he is expected to shake off and leave behind all party ties and sympathies. Once invested with the wig and gown of office he has no longer any political opinions, and must administer exactly the same treatment to his political friends and to those who have been hitherto his opponents, to the oldest or most powerful minister and to the youngest or least popular member. His duties are limited to the enforcement of the rules and generally to the maintenance of order and decorum in debate, including the selection, when several members rise at the same moment, of the one who is to carry on the discussion. These are duties of great importance, and his position one of great dignity, but neither the duties nor the position imply political power. It makes little difference to any English party in Parliament whether the occupant of the chair has come from their own or from the hostile ranks. The Speaker can lower or raise the tone and efficiency of the House as a whole by the way he presides over it; but a custom as strong as law forbids him to render help to his own side even by private advice. Whatever information as to parliamentary law he may feel free to give must be equally at the disposal of every member.
In America the Speaker has immense political power, and is permitted, nay expected, to use it in the interests of his party. At one time he ruled and led almost as Rouher led and ruled the French Chamber under Louis Napoleon. In calling upon members to speak he prefers those of his own side. He decides in their favour such points of order as are not distinctly covered by the rules. His authority over the arrangement of business is so large that he can frequently advance or postpone particular bills or motions in a way which determines their fate. One much respected Speaker once went the length of intimating that he would not allow a certain bill, to which he strongly objected, to be so much as presented to the House; and this he could do by refusing to recognize the member desiring to present it. Although the Speaker seldom delivers a speech in the House, he may and does advise the other leaders of his party privately; and when they “go into caucus” (i.e., hold a party meeting to determine their action on some pending question) he is present and gives counsel. He is usually the most eminent member of the party who has a seat in the House, and is really, so far as the confidential direction of its policy goes, almost its leader. His most important privilege is, however, the nomination of the numerous standing committees already referred to. In the first Congress (April 1789) the House tried the plan of appointing its committees by ballot; but this worked so ill that in January 1790 the following rule was passed: “All committees shall be appointed by the Speaker unless otherwise specially directed by the House.” This rule has been readopted by each successive Congress since then.22 Not only does he, at the beginning of each Congress, select all the members of each of these committees, he even chooses the chairman of each, and thereby vests the direction of its business in hands approved by himself.23 The chairman is of course always selected from the party which commands the House, and the committe is so composed as to give that party a majority. Since legislation, and so much of the control of current administration as the House has been able to bring within its grasp, belong to these committees, their composition practically determines the action of the House on all questions of moment, and as the chairmanships of the more important committees are the posts of most influence, the disposal of them is a tremendous piece of patronage by which a Speaker can attract support to himself and his own section of the party, reward his friends, give politicians the opportunity of rising to distinction or practically extinguish their congressional career. The Speaker is, of course, far from free in disposing of these places. He has been obliged to secure his own election to the chair by promises to leading members and their friends; and while redeeming such promises, he must also regard the wishes of important groups of men or types of opinion, must compliment particular states by giving a place on good committees to their prominent representatives, must avoid nominations which could alarm particular interests. These conditions surround the exercise of his power with trouble and anxiety. Yet after all it is power, power which in the hands of a capable and ambitious man was from 1890 to 1910 so far-reaching that it was then no exaggeration to call him the second political figure in the United States, with an influence upon the fortunes of men and the course of domestic events superior, in ordinary times and in capable hands, to the president’s, although shorter in its duration and less patent to the world.24 His authority has now been reduced, but it is still great, and may regain its former extension.
The choice of a Speaker is therefore a political event of much significance; and the whole policy of a Congress sometimes turns upon whether the man selected represents one or another of two divergent tendencies in the majority. The distribution of members among the committees, which used to be left to him, but is now in the hands of a committee of the majority, is a critical point in the history of a Congress, and one which is watched with keen interest. As the chairmanships of the chief committees are posts of great significance forming a sort of second set of ministerial office, and as they may be compared to the cabinet offices of Europe, so the Speaker is himself a great party leader as well as the president of a deliberative assembly.
Although expected to serve his party in all possible directions, he must not resort to all possible means. Both in the conduct of debate and in the formation of committees a certain measure of fairness to opponents is required from him. He must not palpably wrest the rules of the House to their disadvantage, though he may decide all doubtful points against them. He must give them a reasonable share of “the floor” (i.e., of debate). He must concede to them proper representation on committees.
The dignity of the Speaker’s office is high. He receives $12,000 a year. In rank he stands next after the vice-president and on a level with the justices of the Supreme Court. Washington society was once agitated by a claim of his wife to take precedence over the wives of these judges, a claim so ominous in a democratic country that efforts were made to have it adjusted without a formal decision.
An Englishman expects to find his House of Commons reproduced in the House of Representatives. He has the more reason for this notion because he knows that the latter was modelled on the former, has borrowed many of its rules and technical expressions, and regards the procedure of the English chamber as a storehouse of precedents for its own guidance.1 The notion is delusive. Resemblances of course there are. But an English parliamentarian who observes the American House at work is more impressed by the points of contrast than by those of similarity. The life and spirit of the two bodies are wholly different.
The room in which the House meets is in the south wing of the Capitol, the Senate and the Supreme Court being lodged in the north wing. It is more than thrice as large as the English House of Commons, with a floor about equal in area to that of Westminster Hall, 139 feet long by 93 feet wide and 36 feet high. Light is admitted through the ceiling. There are on all sides deep galleries running backwards over the lobbies, and capable of holding two thousand five hundred persons. The proportions are so good that it is not till you observe how small a man looks at the farther end, and how faint ordinary voices sound, that you realize its vast size. The seats are arranged in curved concentric rows looking towards the Speaker, whose handsome marble chair is placed on a raised marble platform projecting slightly forward into the room, the clerks and the mace below in front of him, in front of the clerks the official stenographers, to the right the seat of the sergeant-at-arms. Each member has a revolving armchair, and had till 1913 a roomy desk in front of it, where he wrote and kept his papers. Behind these chairs runs a railing, and behind the railing is an open space into which some classes of strangers may be brought, where sofas stand against the wall, and where smoking is occasionally practiced, even by strangers, though the rules forbid it.
When you enter, your first impression is of noise and turmoil, a noise like that of short sharp waves in a Highland loch, fretting under a squall against a rocky shore. The
