The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1923-12-26

Ia OPOiiS oySCcm has DcfCloPCs
Which Is Inherently Vicious -
Small Group Dominates Legislative
PrOcedure-Klan Lays Down Pro.
gram for Constructive Reform
Washington, D. C.-In all the his
tory of the United States there have
not been more than a dozen military
engagements comparable in public
importance to the parliamentary bat
tie that marked the opening of the
present Congress. 1t was not spec
tacular, as a great martial conflict
would have been, but the issues in
volved had direct, definite and vital
relationship to the very fundamentals
of American institutions.
The most crucial and timely task
facing this nation is to get "back to
the Constitution" That must be
done if our democracy is to endure.
1t was the spirit and the purpose of
the basic law that the federal legis-
lative machinery should be estab-
lished and maintained upon the rep
resentative principle. 1t was meant
to express the popular will, to act
out in the open, to be free of auto
cratic or oligarchal influences, to
function as deliberative body. All
that has been perverted-and pros
tituted to the selfish aims and ends
of politics. The national legislature
has become both the product and the
exponent Of a new kind of ruling
caste power to such an extent that
it is now mockery, menace to
American traditions.
A spoils system has developed
which is inherently vicious.
Through parliamentary devices
wholly within their control, a few
bosses are dominant throughout the
legislative procedure.
If little handful of these self
selected congressional "leaders" were
personally to appoint three or four
hundred of their fellow members, in
accordance with the bought-and-paid-
for practice of modern American pol
itics, their subsequent control of
Congress would hardly be more COM
plete than is their present power,
based upon parliamentary perver-
sions.
Bossism is repulsive to true Ameri-
canism.
The small group of Progressives
who had the balance of power, and
thus temporarily blocked the Old
Guard organization of the House of
Representatives, were fighting boss
ism. For so doing they have been
branded as radicals" but there was
radical nor revolutionary in
their attitude. They demanded a re-
constructive alteration of the rules
to restore representative functioning.
What they advocated was a getting
"back to the Constitution" The real
the dangerous kind, are
those responsible for the building of
a sinister, secret, boss system, and
who now insist upon its retention in
their hands.
What They Are Fighting
The enemies and distorters of the
Constitution within Congress, those
who perhaps unknowingly pervert
its principles, have a parliamentary
system, based upon un-American
foundations, such as these:
1. Unofficial agencies, like the Sc
cret caucus and the steering COM
mittee," which are purely political
instrumentalities, not responsible to
nor in any way connected with con-
established authority.
Their very existence is a confession
of spoils purposes, predicated upon
the ascendency of politics over pub
lie service.
The closed caucus sires a whole
brood of evil institutions and vicious
influences. 1t is both creator and
creature of the Organization"
Whenever the politicians are driven
to that extremity, it virtually be-
comes the House itself, making abor-
tive every vital safeguard, from pub
licity to majority rule. 1t sets up
the committee on committees"
which in turn does the organizing.
1t approves the speaker and other
elective officials, making a farce of
subsequent and more open proceed
ings in that field. Seniority, some
times fittingly called senility, is its
favorite offspring.
2. Through seniority, the "organ-
ization" and its unconstitutional
methods are practically self-perpetu-
ating. Seniority means that a men,
Der once given a position by and in
the organization shall never be de-