n each week, when ten or fifteen
gentlemen decide what soldiers may have pensions and what soldiers may
not."

The Democratic party found this situation extremely irritating when it
came into power in the House. It was unable to do anything of importance
or even to define its own party policy, and in the session of Congress
beginning in December, 1885, it sought to correct the situation by
amending the rules. In this undertaking it had sympathy and support
on the Republican side. The duress under which the House labored was
pungently described by Thomas B. Reed, who was just about that time
revealing the ability that gained for him the Republican leadership.
In a speech, delivered on December 16, 1885, he declared: "For the last
three Congresses the representatives of the people of the United
States have been in irons. They have been allowed to transact no public
business except at the dictation and by the permission of a small
coterie of gentlemen, who, while they possessed individually more
wisdom than any of the rest of us, did not possess all the wisdom in the
world."

The coterie alluded to by Mr. Reed was that which controlled the
committee on appropriations. Under the system created by the rules of
the House, bills pour in by tens of thousands. A member of the House, of
a statistical turn of mind, once submitted figures to the House showing
that it would take over sixty-six years to go through the calendars of
one session in regular order, allowing an average of one minute for each
member to debate each bill. To get anything done, the House must proceed
by special order, and as it is essential to pass the appropriations to
keep up the government, a precedence was allowed to business reported
by that committee which in effect gave it a position of mastery. O. R.
Singleton of Mississippi, in the course of the same debate, declared
that there was a "grievance which towers above all others as the Alps
tower above the surrounding hills. It is the power resting with said
committee, and oftentimes employed by it, to arrest any legislation
upon any subject which does not meet its approval. A motion to go into
committee of the whole to consider appropriation bills is always in
order, and takes precedence of all other motions as to the order of
business." The practical effect of the rules was that, instead of
remaining the servant of the House, the committee became its master. Not
only could the committee shut off from a