The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-17

aDCe WItH tncHfs uy thCm "
 do a thing you cannot do without 1t.
 Nr. Lomax--Is it not a fact in the Congress of the United States at the
 present day, the Committee on Rules,
 without notice. can report any rule
 they see if. and if majority of that
 House adopt it, 1t becomes a rule of the House?
 alr Oates-Yes sir that is in accord
 with Republican precedent. That is
 their method of doing things. If they
 have got the numbers, they do it with
 out regard to parliamentary law.
 Mr. Lomax-Wasn't 1t done the last
 time the Democrats had control of the House? Didn't they substantially adopt
 Reeds rules?
 Mr. Ca es-Well, not in everything. If had time could produce
 the rules. My recollection is that they
 did not adopt that rule. My attention
 is called to the action of thiSConven-
 tion in changing Rule ? under reso- luticn which had been introduced and pending some days tefore action was tlce there at all
 Mr. Howze-I take the position that , this is not an amendment nor d re- | cissIon of the rules of this house. It gives me an orsunity of bestriding my hobby on one O. these Iylles once | more. I think that we have acted too
 much upon the idea that this is the Congress Cf the United States or the Legislature of the State of Alabama,
 hich is not q fact. MT. President, we ere nothing more than a deliberate body, and as a deliberative body, we
 have established our rules and there is not syllable in these rules which this report resci1ds or changes. not one. te. l..
 been acting somewhat upon the rules of Congress and the Legislature in that we have ordered our articles en- grossed and to Q third reading, bu.
 want to call the attention of the house to the fact that there Is not rule in this book under which you are act | ing
 Mir. Hooc-If this resolution reported hy the committee te not rescisslon | 0. Rule 57. then why the necessity of the resolution?
 Mir. Howze-The resolution. as 1 un- Gerstand, and shall attempt 10 show, is simply an explanation of the rules that is what it is, and nothing more. Gaughter.) l stated before l was in- terruptei that we nave been acting
 upon the theory tha. we were quasi Congress O. the United States. or the Legislature of Alabama. in that we crder articles to be engrossed and to i third reading. but there is no rule requiring such action.
 The clock struck eleven o'clock. MT. Pettus-I rise to point of order. The hour of eleven having arrived, the special order Is the motion of the gen. tleman from Dallas to take from the
 tab ble the report of tn Judiciary Com
 mittee and put i. on its passage. MT. Lomax-It cannot displace the
 report of the Committee on Rules.
 The PresiGcnt-In the opinion of the
 Char the report of the Committee on
 Rules $ 8 privileged report and will
 not be displaced by the special order, but the special order will come up im-
 mediately after the disposition of the matter now under considerat ton. MT. Pettus-I would like to ask the Chair, as a matter of parliamentary In. quiry, if the special order Is not a privileged matter and if it can be dis placed?
 The President-The Convention has
 under consideration a privilege mat
 ter. The Committee on Rules may re-
 port at any time, notwithstanding what | may be before the Convention. Mir. Graham (TalIadega)-I ask the Chair to read Rule 30 on page Il.
 
 be made a special order?
 Mir. Graham-No. SIT, but when made
 a special order it shall take precedence at that hour of any other business eX- cept the motion to reconsider. Rule 70 l is explicit.
 The President-That, in the opinion | of the Chair, means tt shall take the precedence of any matter except the
 report from a privileged committee
 and the report of that committee can
 displace any matter. Tho Chair will
 overrule the point of order. The gen. tleman from Jefferson has the floor. Mir. Howze-I want to call 3tten,ion to what I have said to the Convention as to the latter part of Rule 47 in ref erence to the action of this ConVen- tion upon the article before 1t, and such article or section shall lie on the table at least one day and until in regular order 1t shall be taken np for consideration by the Convention" f>ow, MT President, that Is what was done with the article on judiciary. It was | taken up and considered section by sec tion and then under the custom I,e- vailing here-not rule--because thtre | Is no rule to that effect--it was or1t re engrosseG and to a third reading ard that directly in conflict with Rule s2 which says all articles of the COnstitu- tor after their adoption by the Con- vention shall be e1SrGssed before their | delivery to the Committee on Order, | etc That is the rule upon which we are called upCn to act and which we did not act upon. I insist that that | article, when we ordered 1t engrosSed In | the condition in which it was, was | nothing more than directing the Clerk | of the house to copy it. It did not take away f.om the house the privilege of | further action upon that article, and l tueist that every article in this house, that goes through this house, is sub- feet to the action of this house as to | amendment, unti the fina, adoption of that article and the report of the Com | mittee on Order, etc. Mr. President, am borne out in this statement by the | fact that in Rule 33 the report of the | Committed on Order, Consistency and | Harmony of tho Cons titution is also alnenda ble. There Is also d provision that the articles may be amended after tkey come back here in their report | from that Committee on >Order, Con- ! sistency and Harmony of the Consti:
 tuition. say that this argument in fa- | vor of the position l take that these | articles are always subject to correc- l ton by this house until this final re- port is male and adopted. Now. there l is no rule Of tais house which puts this | article beyond the control of this house l n the matter Of amendmen: or other
 wise and that rule that report, brought | in by this committed, is simply an eX-