the interest which is;
and this can be accomplished only by some simplification of our methods
which will centre the public trust in small groups of men who will lead,
not by reason of legal authority, but by reason of their contact with and
amenability to public opinion.

I am striving to indicate my belief that our legislative methods may well
be reformed in the direction of giving more open publicity to every act,
in the direction of setting up some form of responsible leadership on the
floor of our legislative halls so that the people may know who is back of
every bill and back of the opposition to it, and so that it may be dealt
with in the open chamber rather than in the committee room. The light must
be let in on all processes of law-making.

Legislation, as we nowadays conduct it, is not conducted in the open. It
is not threshed out in open debate upon the floors of our assemblies. It
is, on the contrary, framed, digested, and concluded in committee rooms.
It is in committee rooms that legislation not desired by the interests
dies. It is in committee rooms that legislation desired by the interests
is framed and brought forth. There is not enough debate of it in open
house, in most cases, to disclose the real meaning of the proposals made.
Clauses lie quietly unexplained and unchallenged in our statutes which
contain the whole gist and purpose of the act; qualifying phrases which
escape the public attention, casual definitions which do not attract
attention, classifications so technical as not to be generally understood,
and which every one most intimately concerned is careful not to explain or
expound, contain the whole purpose of the law. Only after it has been
enacted and has come to adjudication in the courts is its scheme as a
whole divulged. The beneficiaries are then safe behind their bulwarks.

Of course, the chief triumphs of committee work, of covert phrase and
unexplained classification, are accomplished in the framing of tariffs.
Ever since the passage of the outrageous Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act our
people have been discovering the concealed meanings and purposes which lay
hidden in it. They are discovering item by item how deeply and
deliberately they were deceived and cheated. This did not happen by
accident; it came about by design, by elaborated, secret design. Questions
put upon the floor in the House and Senate were not frankly or truly
answered, and an elaborate piece of legislation was foiste