Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-02-06
HOUSE.

Mr.. Randall, from the committee on rules,
reported an amendment to the special ten
minute objection rule, so as to provide that
objections shall not be called for until ten
minutes debate has proceeded.
Mr.. Reed of Maine disclaimed having taken
anv part in the formation of the amendment
or the original rules.
Mr.. Mcmillan of Tennessee suggested that
that spoke well for both the amendment and
rules
Mr.. Reed said he knew that the gentleman
from Tennessee intended only impertinence
that was his only object; but he (Reed) did
not intend to reply in thai vein, because
there were other questions in the method of
proceeding-queston to which the gentle
man from Tennessee would address himself,
provided he were capable of comprehending
the importance of them He then went on to
attack the system of rules under which the
House worked, which had tied the hands of
the House and made it impossible TO transact
public business. This special rule, this
hybrid affair, would not relieve the House.
1t was attempting to run Niagara through
a quill.
Mr.. Mcmillan said that in response to the
charge of the representative from Maine con-
cerning the pertinence or impertinence of his
remarks. he had only this to say-that the
House would bear witness that among its 1926
members there was not one who had less
cause to criticize impertinence on the part of
others than the representative from Maine
As to the magnitude of his intellect, proba-
bly, it would be rashness on the part of any
man to compare himself to what he (Reed)
thought he was. Probably the gentleman
had spoken in a way that was critical about
others on more occasions here than he could
bprp pl uba tbp nf . ha
rules did not hang around him.
Mr.. Reed thought that in that last sentence
the gentleman had struck his natural level
The other heights to which he had ascended
had been furnished him by the gentlemen
who surrounded him.
MIR. Mcmillan suggested that Mr.. Reed
might improve bis remarks by borrowing.
Mr.. Randall, in reply to Mr.. Reeds attack
upon the rules, said that they had, in almost
three entire volumes, come dow n from former
generations.
Mr.. Reed denied that the rules had come
down from former generations. The majority
of the rules were the same as they had been
before Mr.. Randall took them in charge in
the 46th Congress, but the whole system of
operating business had been changed and
uprooted. The House was cribbed and con-
fined by the present system of rules. The
'ctO RPNti Nae W N'tiS
single member.
The amendment to the rule was adopted
Mr.. Breckenridge of Arkansas, rising to a
question of privilege, sent to the clerks desk
and had read extracts from speeches made
yesterday bv Messrs. Reed of Maine and
Hiscock of New York, rejecting on the COM
mittee on rivers and harbors. At a full
meeting of the committee this morning he
said it had been unanimously adopted that
those remarks should be denounced on the
floor of the House as slander upon the COM
mittee. The committee unanimously de-
nounced the imputations on it as utterly base
and groundless. The committee had no de-
sire TO have insolyent remarks taken from
the Record. 1t was willing to let them stand
az evidence of the kind of criticism that was
directed against the action of the committee
As a member of Congress and gentleman.
he resented the insults which the gentlemen
sought TO heap on their associates.
Mr.. Reed said he felt somewhat panied to
think that the committee on rivers and har-
bors should not feel that it had sufficient
affair on its hands already, but should under
take to indict fellow members for words
spoken in debate. He had felt that il was
enough that the gentlemen of the committee
sat with closed doors that they absorbed the