The Speaker of the House of Representatives

Extract

It is not surprising that the procedure of the American house of representatives should be subject to frequent outbreaks of criticism. The house is the organ which voices the immediate wishes of eighty millions of very active people, who are not the least of humanity in their desire to have what they want. As they usually do not agree as to what they want, and as what they shall have must be determined by a majority of their representatives, there must necessarily be from time to time large minorities of dissatisfied persons. Some of these will, according to the laws of human nature, complain of the processes by which the representatives have attained the result. Just at present we are witnessing an active recurrence of this criticism, accompanied by some interesting prescriptions for alleged troubles. Whether or not the troubles exist and the nature of the proposed remedies are important subjects for examination.

At the outset it is necessary to inquire as to the exact relations of the house of representatives to our form of government. This will sweep away some of the plausible but very superficial theories of those who conceive it a disadvantage that our speakership should differ from the speakership of the house of commons, and who seem to think that our house might easily be directed in its procedure by the president's cabinet, as the house of commons is directed by the mininstry of the crown. We are told with great jauntiness that in the early years of the republic the speaker of the house was simply a presiding officer like the speaker of the house of commons, and not at all a political leader.