t by unanimous consent or by a two-thirds
vote." As an instance of legislative paralysis, he related that
"during the last Congress a very important bill, that providing for the
presidential succession... was reported from a committee of which I had
the honor to be a member, and was placed on the calendar of the House on
the 21st day of April, 1884; and that bill, which was favored by nearly
the entire House, was permitted to die on the calendar because there
never was a moment, when under the rules as they then existed, the bill
could be reached and passed by the House." During the whole of that
session of Congress, the regular calendar was never reached. "Owing
to the fact that we could not transact business under the rules, all
business was done under unanimous consent or under propositions
to suspend the rules upon the two Mondays in each month on which
suspensions were allowed." As a two-thirds majority was necessary to
suspend the rules, any considerable minority had a veto power.

The standing committees, whose ostensible purpose was to prepare
business for consideration, were characterized as legislative
cemeteries. Charles B. Lore of Delaware, referring to the situation
during the previous session, said: "The committees were formed, they
met in their respective committee rooms day after day, week after week,
working up the business which was committed to them by this House, and
they reported to this House 8290 bills. They came from the respective
committees, and they were consigned to the calendars of this House,
which became for them the tomb of the Capulets; most of them were never
heard of afterward. From the Senate there were 2700 bills.... Nine
tenths of the time of the committees of the Forty-eighth Congress was
wasted. We met week after week, month after month, and labored over the
cases prepared, and reported bills to the House. They were put upon the
calendars and there were buried, to be brought in again and again in
succeeding Congresses."

William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania bluntly declared: "No legislation
can be effectually originated outside the Committee on Appropriations,
unless it be a bill which will command unanimous consent or a stray bill
that may get a two-thirds vote, or a pension bill." He explained that
he excepted pension bills "because we have for several years by special
order remitted the whole subject of pensions to a committee who bring in
their bills at sessions held one night i