The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-01-12
BY A SILKEN THREAD
SPEAKER CRISP CONTROLS THE
HOUSE BY A MILD POWER.
Yet His Rule Is Absolute rs Long as Ma
jority Stands at His Back-An Improve
ment Upon Mr. Reeds way-The Speaker
Of the Commons.
Especial Correspondence.1

lSpecial CorreSpondence.I
WASHINGTON, Jan. S.-Congress intends
to get down to business in earnest this time.
Senator Palmer says congress reminds him
of hired man he used to have on the farm
out in Illinois. 1T took him an awful
long time to get down to work" says the
senator. "but when once started you could
not stop him with anything but dinner
horn." The long extra session accomplish
ed nothing but the repeal of the purchase
clause Of the Sherman law, and the session
of last month achieved next to nothing
But now we are promised that things will
hum in the house at least. No one ex
poets much of the senate. It is constitu-
tionally slow and seems to think haste
would be unbecoming to its dignity. But
in the house Speaker Crisp declares the
new tariff bin shall be passed by the mid
die of the present month, and it SO hap
pens that Speaker Crisp's will is law.
What the speaker says usually goes.
1t is an odd fact that, though Mr.. Crisp
was singled out for promotion 10 the speak
ership largely on account of his vigorous
opposition to the SO called tyranny OF
Speaker Reed, as speaker Mr.. Crisp rules
the house with every bit as much absolu-
tism as Mr.. Reed ever did. This does not
mean that Mr.. Crisp is by nature tyrant,
for he is anything but that. He is, rather,
one of those mild hammered, easy going
men who seem to be SO soft and yielding,
and who still have their own way about
pretty nearly everything of Importance.
There Must Be q Leader.
The speaker controls the house not
through love of power, but because the
genius of our legislative institution requires
some control, and if there is to be control
of any personal sort the speaker must be
that person. 1t is now we'll accepted fact
that the American house of representatives
must have leadership, and that in the Sc
lection of one of their number to fill the Of
fee of speaker the majority choose also one
who must needs be more or less of dicta-
tor. II is mistake to suppose that Mr..
Reed was the discoverer or even the prophet
of rule by speaker. That sort of thing had
been going on for years in a mild sort of
way before Mr.. Reed took hold. What he
did was to improve upon the process, to
provide means by which the majority could
always rule and minority never, and to
insure to the speaker not only the right but
the power to control so long as a majority
stood at his back. Mr.. Blaine, Mr. Colfax,
Mr.. Keifer, Mr.. Randall, Mr.. Carlisle had
as speaker been compelled to sit for many
weary days while the minority hissed def
ance at them and blockaded all roads to
action.
A Steady Advance.
The work which Speaker Reed began
Speaker Crisp has finished. AS Reed i'm
proved vastly upon Carlisle Randall and
Blaine, so Crisp has improved upon Reed,
in that he makes ajority rule and speaker
control by virtue of the support of major
ity just as absolute as Reed did and with
out resort to some of the harsh measures
which Reed as a pioneer felt forced to EN-
ploy. In four years, therefore-thanks toa
speaker from the far northeast and one from
the south, to the Republicans and the Dem
ocrats-the American house of representa-
tives is now body organized to do busi-
ness, with the majority able to control and
at the same time to take all responsibility
This revolution could not have been so
quickly and quietly effected if the good
sense Of the country had not indorsed il.
The American people are intensely prac-
tical. They are business people. They
like action, movement, results. The house
as it is now organized satisfies the people
because it is business body.
The Speaker Is Master.
Through his committee on rules the
speaker is absolutely master of the business
of the body, but only so long as he is able
to find majority to support him. Since