Evening star., 1947-01-19

Senator Smoot is credited in the
record books with an uninterrupted
speech that began on January 80
| 1915, and ran into the next day.
During the Aldrich- -Vreeland cur
rency bill fight in 1908 the elder
Senator La Toilette of Wisconsin
held the floor for more than 18
hours. He was the father of Sen
ator Robert M. La Toilette, who
failed to win denomination last
summer after a long Senate career.
The late Senator Huey Long Of
Louisiana also left his name on
the long distance oratory records.
When the late-lamented NRA was
being extended in 1885 the Louisiana
Kingfish held the floor for Is hours
and 35 minutes.
Les Miserables?
He quoted from Supreme Court
decisions at length, read q Victor
Hugo novel, and as the dinner hour
grew near he regaled his colleagues
with tempting recipes for oysters
and other delicacies of old New Or
leans. AS his speech extended into
the night he nibbled at chocolate
bars and bits of cheese for sus-
tenance
One reason why cloture has been
invoked so rarely under the two
thirds rule is that even when there
is overwhelming support for a
bill, some Senators are reluctant to
vote to limit debate on a measure
they favor In the back of their
minds is the thought that on some
other day they may be in the minor
iity, fighting a bill their section of
the country is against.
The adoption of the Norris lame
duck amendment to the Constitu-
ton in 1888 greatly reduced the
frequency of filibusters, by doing
away with the short dame duck)
session of Congress every other year.
Before that time the fact that each
Congress ended automatically at
noon on March every two years
made it possible for one or two men
to block one bill or force the lead
ers to call up some other measure
by holding the floor in the closing
days of February and March.
In those short sessions there usu-
ally was such a jam of essential
appropriation bills waiting for last
minute approval that one-man fill
busters frequently were successful
Now Congress is free to fix its own
ADJOURNMENT date every year, and
when ast-minute flibuster de-
velops the leaders can revise their
plans for going home.
Adoption of the existing two
thirds cloture rule on March 8, 1917,
was an outgroWth of the Senate's
failure to pass the armed merchant
ship bill before the Sixty-fourth
Congress expired few days earlier.
Before the two-thirds cloture rule
was adopted that day, Senator Hollis
of New Hampshire moved to permit
majority to invoke it. He with
drew his amendment without insist
ing on a test, but other Senators
predicted the time would come when
majority rule would be advocated.
CIoture Not Always Needed.
Even without invoking cloture,
however, the Senate has demon
strated occasionally that a majority
can win an endurance contest with
minority, if the majority is de-
termined to keep the Senate in con-
tinuous session.
In the fight over the seating of
Senator Bilbo, Democrat, of Missis-
sippi, at the opening of this session,
the Republican majority held
party conference the second day
and announced they were prepared
to keep the Senate in day -ald-night
session until a decision was reached.
Before dusk that evening the issue
was settled by negotiation.
The Morse-Taylor plan is the least
drastic of the pending resolutions.
Like the others, it would permit a
majority to act, but would give each
Senator three hours instead of one
after cloture is invoked. 1t also
stipulates that Senator could farm
OUT all or part of his time to a
colleague.
Of course, all Senators would not
be likely to claim that much time,
but, theoretically. . three hours for
each of 96 Senators would still make
possible more than As days of debate,
if the Senate worked a normal day