The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-06
OF DEBATES IN CONGRESS,
The Reports Have Already Grown so
Large as to be Burden
some.
Verbatim Transoriptions and the
Printing of Speeches Never
Delivered.
Comparative Figures That Show ProdiGi-
Gus Increase in tho Reports-A Re
form Very Necessary.

The reports of congressional proceedings
are growing, or nave already grown 80 large
as to be b~urdensome. and in imminent dan
cer of becoming useless, writes James e.
Blaine in the Youths Companion. Thore
are two specific reasons for this increase:
one is the printing OF every trivial detail
with stenographic e1actness, and the other
is the permission in both ranches of using
written essays instead of making actual
speeches in debate,
In the beginning of the government. and
for many years thereafter. the habit OF
speaking from a manuscript in either
branch of congress was unknown. I'm
every important measure that came before
congress. on the expediency of which mem-
hers differed III opinion, there was an &C
tual debate, in which positions were affirmed
and contested with off and speech. In
every conflict of this kind the members of
congress were. ms y rule, in their seats,
many taking part, and the mass so inter
ested as to sit continuously through the
debates.
The habit of speech has greatly changed.
At this tims. any one who will take his seat
in the gallery of the senate. as the senators
assemble, will be interested during the
''morning hour" which Is often marked by
Whist may be called - sharp debate; but
when the morning hour" expires, and the
regular order" is announced, tine specta-
tor will very probably see Il gentleman rise
and unfold a mass OF manuscript and begin
to read.
He will next see. out Of the eighty Eight
senator's, probably seventy-tive, and posi-
bly more, il the senate be full, absent
themselves from their seats and retire to
their committee rooms to write letters and
transact both public and private business,
until the pages shall inform them that the
reading of tine manuscript, in progress
when the Senators left the chamber, is about
to close.
tator, when he seats himself in the gallery,
will probably see repeated, as nearly as the
analogy of proceedings in the two bodies
will allow. all that has been said of the
senate. with the addition Of a habit which
is not extensively, if at all, practiced in the
senate, viz: the permission to print
speeches, not one word of which has been
delivered; n also the setting aside of d
afternoons, generally Saturdays, for de-
bate only, which means that some one
deputed BY the speaker will preside, with
the understanding that no business is to be
done, and that any member who chooses
can come there and deliver a speech upon
any subject he may select. whether it is
pending before congress or not.
The essays which are thus read on q sin
Gle Saturday would often ill a large sized
octave, A,ore extended in point of matter
than a volume of Bancroft or Motley.
Few have reekoned the magnitude of the
increase In the reports. The general pre-
sumption is that 1t comes from the in
oreaaed membe rship of both branches of
congress-. This accounts for part of the
increase, but it is not q sufficient cause for
the whole.
The senate is larger than fifty years g
then. eighty-eight now: The house to-day
is not ose-half larger in membership than
IL was 6fty years ago. But the volume OF
the reports of either house to-day, COM
pared with those Of fifty years ago is pro-
digioIs,y great.
ty-sixth oongress-Match 4, 1889, to March
l84l-take scarcely one-sixth of the
space given to the reports of the Fiftieth
But if We go back only half of fifty years,
q striking illusttasion will be found. Take
both houses of congress from 1861 to 1865.
embracing she Thirty-seventh and Thirty
eighth congresses, and covering the entire
period Of the wss. Ono would suppose that
the proceedings in two congresses, with an
extra session in one of them, during such a
period as 1876 would be extraordinarily
voluminous.
Both houses were filled with remarkable
u6DAbSI6s hu II SAioJS''po LAW "StO "
tinually before each branch were so absorb
ing in interest that almost every senator
and every representative desired to be
heard.
AS the form in which the proceedings are
reported has changed since that time, the
comparison of different periods can be
made with approximate exactness by stat
ing the proceedings in unltorm pages of
1000 words each. From March 4, 1861, to
March 4, 1865, the n7mber of pages filled
by the proceedings WAS 25,40O. Twenty-six
years afterward the Fiftieth congress con-
vened. 1t lasted from March 4, 1887. to
March 4, 1889, and the report Of proceedings
filled Is, 300 pages.
In an uneventful perion, teen, with moth
ing especially to excite or disturb the
country, the number of pages t'lled by the
proceedings of a single congresf is greater
than during the whole period OF the war,
with all its mighty issues at stake.
Ia an earlier era of the government the
contrast would seem still stronger. Wake
the first eighteen congresses. from 1859 to
1S25-thirty-six years-from the inaugurA-
ton of Washington to the inauguration OF
John Quincy Adams. All the discussions
on the subiecs of setting the federal gov
ernInent in motion, which were very able,
and at that time supposed to be very long;
all the proceedings on funding the national
debt; all the discussions on the famous Jay
treaty; all the debates during the stormy
administration OF the elder AdafnE; all the
debates for the period OF Jefferson anc
Madison, on ths embargo ana the war OF
1912; all the proceedings of the ten gears
following the treaty of Client; in short. the
entire proceedings of congress under Wa2h
lngton, John Adams. Jefferson. Madison
and Monroe are recorded in twenty-si1
thousand pages, actually less by two thou
sand three hundred han were recorded II
the debates of both sessions of the Fiftleth
congress. and very little more than the
words of the first session of the Fifty-firs
ongress, which adjourned on the first day
of October last.
Other comparisons of interest may be
made readily. One of the most exciting
congresses-sUpposed to be one of the most
important ever held in the ante-belluu
~period-was the TS%irty-irst, beginning
March 4, lS49, and ending March 4, 1851
The compromise measures of 1850, lnvolv-
ing the phases of the slavery question as il
then existed, called forth a debate which
for t~horouRhness and ability has perhaps
never been equalled, certainly naver sur
passed. in the history of the government.
Men who naturally belonged 70 a former
psriod-Webstsr, Clay. Calhoun, Benton
Cass-were there in full vigor; and thu
younger men Of prestige and power-Sew
ard, Douglas, Chase, Jefferson Davis. Rusk
of Texas-were also there in all the strength
of mature manhood.
-Four years later the Thirty-third congress
convened, extending from March 4, 1853, t.
March 4, 1855. It was, if possible. even
more exciting and excited body than tn
Thirty. first. 1t was the congress which re
peaied the Missouri compromise a meas
ure which led to unpAi alleled aorimony an,
recrimination in debate. All the deep feel
ing which had been exhibited on tn