Chapter 7
Speakers, Presidents, and National Emergencies
Harold C. Relyea
Specialist in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
At various times in American history, emergencies have arisen--posing,
in varying degrees of severity, the loss of life, property, or public
order--and threatened the well-being of the Nation. The Constitution
created a government of limited powers, and emergency powers, as such,
failed to attract much attention during the Philadelphia Convention of
1787 which created the charter for the new government. It may be argued,
however, that the granting of emergency powers to Congress is implicit
in its Article I, section 8 authority to ``provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare''; the commerce clause; its war, Armed
Forces, and militia powers; and the ``necessary and proper'' clause
empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the
executions of ``the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by
this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.'' The President was authorized to call
special sessions of Congress, perhaps doing so in order that
arrangements for responding to an emergency might be legislated for
executive implementation.
A national emergency may be said to be gravely threatening to the
country, and recognizable in its most extreme form as auguring the
demise of the nation. The more extreme the threat, likely more
widespread will be the consensus that a national emergency exists. At
times, however, the term has been artfully used as political rhetoric to
rally public support, or employed nebulously. According to a dictionary
definition, an emergency is ``an unforeseen combination of circumstances
or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.'' \1\ In the
midst of the Great Depression, a 1934 majority opinion of the Supreme
Court characterized an emergency in terms of urgency and relative
infrequency of occurrence, as well as equivalence to a public calamity
resulting from fire, flood, or like disaster not reasonably subject to
anticipation.\2\ Constitutional law scholar Edward S. Corwin once
explained emergency conditions as being those ``which have not attained
enough of stability or recurrency to admit of their being dealt with
according to rule.'' \3\ During Senate committee hearings on national
emergency powers in 1973, a political scientist described an emergency,
saying: ``It denotes the existence of conditions of varying nature,
intensity and duration, which are perceived to threaten life or well-
being beyond tolerable limits.'' \4\ The term, he explained, ``connotes
the existence of conditions suddenly intensifying the degree of existing
danger to life or well-being beyond that which is accepted as normal.''
\5\
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\1\ Henry Bosley Woolf, ed., Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
(Springfield, MA: G&C Merriam, 1974), p. 372.
\2\ Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 440
(1934).
\3\ Edward S. Corwin, The President: Office and Powers, 1787-1957, 4th
rev. ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1957), p. 3.
\4\ U.S. Senate, Special Committee on the Termination of the National
Emergency, National Emergency, hearing, 93d Cong., 1st sess., Apr. 11,
1973 (Washington: GPO, 1973), p. 277.
\5\ Ibid., p. 279.
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In responding to an emergency situation, Presidents have exercised
such powers as were available by explicit grant or interpretive
implication--so-called implied powers--or otherwise acted of necessity,
trusting to a subsequent acceptance of their actions by Congress, the
courts, and the citizenry. They have, as well, sought statutory bestowal
of new powers. In such circumstances, the Speakers of the House of
Representatives have played varied roles. Presidents also have
occasionally taken an emergency action which they assumed to be
constitutionally permissible. Thus, in the American governmental
experience, the exercise of emergency powers has been somewhat dependent
upon the Chief Executive's view of the office. The authority of a
President in this regard, however, is not determined by the incumbent
alone. Other institutions and their leaders, such as the Speaker of the
House, may have a tempering effect on, or constitute either an obstacle
to, or a sustainer of, the President's actions in response to an
emergency.
In the account that follows, four of the most challenging national
emergencies in the American governmental experience--the Civil War,
World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II--are reviewed with a
view to the role of the Speaker during these crises. That role has been
a varied one due to several factors, not the least of which are
personality, political partisanship, ideology, institutional stature,
and statesmanship.
The Civil War
For several decades after the inauguration of the Federal Government
under the Constitution, controversy and conflict over slavery had
steadily grown in the Nation until it erupted in regional rebellion and
insurrection in late 1860. News of the election of President Abraham
Lincoln, who was known to be hostile to slavery, prompted a public
convention in South Carolina. Convening a few days before Christmas, the
assembled voted unanimously to dissolve the union between South Carolina
and the other States. During the next 2 months, seven States of the
Lower South followed South Carolina in secession. Simultaneously, State
troops began seizing Federal arsenals and forts located within the
secessionist territory. In his fourth and final annual message to
Congress on December 3, 1860, President James Buchanan conceded that,
due to the resignation of Federal judicial officials throughout South
Carolina, ``the whole machinery of the Federal Government necessary for
the distribution of remedial justice among the people has been
demolished.'' He contended, however, that ``the Executive has no
authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal
Government and South Carolina.'' Any attempt in this regard, he felt,
would ``be a naked act of usurpation.'' Consequently, Buchanan indicated
that it was his ``duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all
its bearings,'' observing that ``the emergency may soon arise when you
may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess
the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union.''
Having ``arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated
to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government,'' he
proposed that Congress should call a constitutional convention, or ask
the States to call one, for purposes of adopting a constitutional
amendment recognizing the right of property in slaves in the States
where slavery existed or might thereafter occur.\6\
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\6\ James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers
of the Presidents, vol. 7 (New York: Bureau of National Literature,
1897), pp. 3165-3167.
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By the time of Lincoln's inauguration (March 4, 1861), the Confederate
provisional government had been established (February 4); Jefferson
Davis had been elected (February 9) and installed as the President of
the Confederacy (February 18); an army had been assembled by the
secessionist States; Federal troops, who had been withdrawn to Fort
Sumter in Charleston Harbor, were becoming desperate for relief and
resupply; and the 36th Congress had adjourned (March 3). A dividing
nation was poised to witness ``the high-water mark of the exercise of
executive power in the United States.'' Indeed, in retrospect, it has
been observed: ``No one can ever know just what Lincoln conceived to be
limits of his powers.'' \7\
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\7\ Wilfred E. Binkley, President and Congress (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1947), p. 126.
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A month after his inauguration, the new President notified South
Carolina authorities that an expedition was en route solely to provision
the Fort Sumter troops. The receipt of this message prompted a demand
that the garrison's commander immediately surrender. The commander
demurred, and, on April 12, the fort and its inhabitants, over the next
34 hours, were subjected to continuous, intense fire from shore
batteries until they finally surrendered. The attack galvanized the
North for a defense of the Union. Lincoln, however, did not immediately
call Congress into special session. Instead, for reasons not altogether
clear, he not only delayed convening Congress, but also, with broad
support in the North, engaged in a series of actions which intruded upon
the constitutional authority of the legislature. These included ordering
75,000 of ``the militia of the several States of the Union'' into
Federal service ``to cause the laws to be duly executed,'' and calling
Congress into special session on July 4 ``to consider and determine,
such measures, as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest may
seem to demand;'' blockading the ports of the secessionist States;
adding 19 vessels to the Navy ``for purposes of public defense;''
extending the initial blockade to the ports of Virginia and North
Carolina; and enlarging the Armed Forces with 22,714 men for the regular
Army, 18,000 personnel for the Navy, and 42,032 volunteers for 3-year
terms of service.\8\
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\8\ Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, vol. 7, pp. 3214-3217.
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In his July 4 special session message to Congress, Lincoln indicated
that his actions expanding the Armed Forces, ``whether strictly legal or
not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular and a public
necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify
them. It is believed,'' he continued, ``that nothing has been done
beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.'' \9\ Indeed, in an
act of August 6, 1861, Lincoln's ``acts, proclamations, and orders''
concerning the Army, Navy, militia, and volunteers from the States were
``approved and in all respects legalized and made valid, to the same
intent and with the same effect as if they had been issued and done
under the previous express authority and direction of the Congress.''
\10\ During the next 4 years of civil war, Congress would continue to be
largely supportive of Lincoln's prosecution of the insurrection.
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\9\ Ibid., p. 3225.
\10\ 12 Stat. 326.
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The House Environment.--The 37th Congress, which Lincoln convened in
July, initially met for about a month. Members returned in December for
a second session, which consumed about 200 days of the next year, and a
third session, beginning in December 1862 and ending in early March
1863. The President had party majorities in both Chambers: about two-
thirds of the Senate was Republican and the House counted 106
Republicans, 42 Democrats, and 28 Unionists. The 1862 elections shifted
the House balance to 102 Republicans and 75 Democrats. Despite the
numerical dominance of the Republicans, however, ``no one individual or
faction was able to establish firm control of the congressional agendas
during the Civil War.'' \11\
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\11\ Allan G. Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. xviii.
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Investigation and oversight activities by congressional committees
increased during the Civil War, ``when 15 of 35 select committees were
primarily concerned with wrongdoing or improper performance of duties,''
and similar probes were being conducted by at least six standing
committees. The war affected these inquiries because it added urgency to
proper administrative performance and prompted enlarged Federal
expenditures. There were, as well, committee examinations of matters
more closely connected with the war.\12\
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\12\ Ibid., pp. 60-88.
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Perhaps the best known of the wartime oversight panels was the Joint
Committee on the Conduct of the War. While some of its tactics--secret
testimony, leaks to the press, disallowance of an opportunity to
confront or cross examine accusers--and its bias against West Point
officers remain unacceptable, its probes of the Fort Pillow massacre, in
which Union black troops were murdered and not allowed to surrender, and
the poor condition of Union soldiers returned from Confederate prisons
``were among its more positive achievements.'' Indeed, ``a number of its
investigations exposed corruption, financial mismanagement, and crimes
against humanity,'' with the result that the panel ``deserves praise not
only for exposing these abuses but also for using such disclosures to
invigorate northern public opinion and bolster the resolve to continue
the war. Had the committee's work always been modeled on these
investigations,'' it has been rightly concluded, ``there would be little
debate about its positive, albeit minor, contribution to the Union war
effort.'' \13\
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\13\ Bruce Tap, Over Lincoln's Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of
the War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 253, 255.
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By one estimate, the ``most influential member of the House of
Representatives during this period was Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania,'' whose ``influence over the House exceeded that of its
speakers.'' \14\ An attorney and former member of the Pennsylvania
legislature, he had initially been elected to the House of
Representatives as a Whig in 1848. He was subsequently elected to the
House as a Republican in 1858, and soon became the leader of the
radicals who strongly opposed slavery. He chaired the Ways and Means
Committee during the 37th and 38th Congresses, and died in office in the
summer of 1868.
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\14\ Ronald M. Peters, Jr., The American Speakership: The Office in
Historical Perspective (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1990), p. 54; cf. Hubert Bruce Fuller, The Speakers of the House
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1909), pp. 152-157.
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Speaker Galusha A. Grow.--Born and reared in Pennsylvania, Grow had
been a practicing attorney before he was first elected to the House of
Representatives as a Democrat in 1850. He was returned to the 33d and
34th Congresses as a Democrat, but slavery and related issues prompted
him to change party affiliation and he was elected to the 35th, 36th,
and 37th Congresses as a Republican. A redrawn district contributed to
his electoral defeat in 1862, and he would not return to the House until
1883 when he was elected to fill a seat left vacant by the death of the
incumbent. Grow's oratorical and leadership qualities contributed to his
initially being nominated by former Speaker Nathaniel Banks for the
speakership in 1857. Although Grow had the support of nearly all
Republicans, he lost to Democrat James L. Orr of South Carolina.\15\ He
was nominated again for the speakership in 1860, but the more moderate
William Pennington of New Jersey was the choice.\16\ A long-time
champion of the Homestead Act, Grow was among the leaders who, having
brought the legislation to final passage, saw their efforts defeated by
President Buchanan's veto. The bill enacted by the 37th Congress,
however, was successfully carried into law in May 1862, a few months
before Grow would be defeated for reelection.\17\
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\15\ Robert D. Illisevich, Galusha A. Grow: The People's Candidate
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), p. 156.
\16\ Ibid., pp. 182-183.
\17\ Ibid., pp. 173-191, 196-197; 12 Stat. 392.
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With the convening of the 37th Congress, Grow had the support of
Thaddeus Stevens, who nominated him for the speakership. Less radical
contenders were Schuyler Colfax of Indiana and Frank Blair of Missouri.
The situation was urgent, and ``the Republicans had agreed not to
tolerate any protracted conflict over the speakership.'' On the first
ballot, Grow had 71 votes, 9 short of victory. ``Blair, in second place
with forty, withdrew and urged his supporters to switch their votes;
twenty-eight did,'' and ``Grow won with ninety-nine votes.'' \18\
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\18\ Ibid., pp. 202-203.
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Stevens was instrumental in Grow's capture of the speakership. The two
men had become acquainted some time ago in their native Pennsylvania.
They had come to hold similarly strong views opposing slavery and
supporting the preservation of the Union, and both were resistant to the
efforts of Simon Cameron and Andrew Curtin to control the State
Republican Party. Stevens had nominated Grow for the speakership in
1860, and Grow had recommended Stevens to President-elect Lincoln for a
Cabinet position.\19\
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\19\ Ibid., pp. 194-195.
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``When it came time to make committee assignments, Grow did what was
expected of him--he appointed radicals and friends.'' He also annoyed
some Cabinet secretaries for not consulting with them on appointments
that affected their departments.\20\
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\20\ Ibid., p. 203.
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Described as ``firm, calm, and precise in construing the rules'' of
the House, Grow deferred to Stevens in the party caucus and ``Stevens
was the domineering personality on the floor,'' but he would
occasionally challenge his friend regarding procedure.\21\
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\21\ Ibid., pp. 204-205.
One good example occurred on July 18, 1861, when Henry May of Maryland
asked for the floor to defend himself against charges that he had had
``criminal intercourse'' with the rebels in Richmond. John Hutchins of
Ohio objected to the way in which May attacked the military authorities
in Baltimore. Stevens said May was out of order, but Grow ruled that May
was entitled to the floor. Stevens put his protest into the form of a
motion, which the chair refused to entertain. When Stevens appealed the
decision, Grow insisted he had no control over the train of remarks May
might pursue and, therefore, could not rule him out of order. The chair
was overruled, but May was permitted to continue.\22\
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\22\ Ibid., p. 205.
Perhaps surprising to some, Grow, the radical, got along ``admirably''
with the President, and reportedly ``believed Lincoln to be almost
infallible, a leader who never rubbed Congress the wrong way and who
handled men masterfully.'' \23\ Grow, Stevens, and a caucus of a dozen
other radicals, accepted Lincoln's moderate approach to emancipation,
supporting the President's proposal for Federal assistance to any State
that adopted a plan of gradual emancipation, as well as legislation for
immediate emancipation in the District of Columbia.\24\
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\23\ Ibid.
\24\ Ibid., p. 207.
It was Grow's fortune to be Speaker during one of the nation's
critical moments. The Thirty-seventh Congress faced an awesome task. It
had to raise, organize, and equip military forces, and to find the means
to support them and the government as well. Yet its performance record
was impressive. Before it adjourned in early August, the special session
had passed more than sixty bills, and productivity was to continue into
the second and third sessions. Fortunately, the Republicans enjoyed a
comfortable majority and were able when necessary to ride roughshod over
the Democratic opposition. A call for the question often ended the
Democrat's efforts at prolonged debate.\25\
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\25\ Ibid., p. 204.
Speaker Schuyler Colfax.--Grow's electoral defeat in 1862 assured that
the 38th Congress would have a new Speaker of the House.\26\ The choice
was Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, a newspaperman who had unsuccessfully
sought election to the 32d Congress as a Whig. Two years later, running
as a Republican, he was sent to the House and remained there for the
next 5 Congresses (1855-1864). He and Grow ``became friends and close
allies in their struggle for a free Kansas and a homestead bill.'' \27\
However, his relationship with Stevens, according to one assessment, was
somewhat different than that of his predecessor.
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\26\ Concerning Colfax's preparations and support in this regard, see
Willard H. Smith, Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political
Idol (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952), pp. 182-184, 196.
\27\ Illisevich, Galusha A. Grow: The People's Candidate, p. 112.
Colfax possessed neither will nor mind of his own. Thaddeus Stevens
furnished him with these mental attributes. The fact that Stevens
permitted him to remain as speaker for six years furnishes the best
index of his character. He was the alter ego.\28\
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\28\ Fuller, The Speakers of the House, p. 158; cf. Smith, Schuyler
Colfax, pp. 189-190.
By contrast, an 1868 campaign pamphlet by an anonymous author offered
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the following description of Colfax's speakership.
Every session of Congress has been marked by great bitterness of
feeling, and yet so just has been his ruling, so courteous and kind his
manner to foes as well as friends, that he has been popular with both
parties. Probably not one man in a thousand could have passed through
the trying scenes which he has, with the same equanimity and approbation
of both friends and foes.\29\
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\29\ Anonymous, The Life and Times of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of
the United States House of Representatives and Republican Candidates for
the Vice-Presidency (New York: E.B. Treat, 1868), p. 12; the author is
identified on the title page as ``a distinguished historian.''
Indeed, Colfax was well regarded as a presiding officer, and his
party, still under the iron rule of Stevens in the caucus, enjoyed
dominant majorities during his tenure as Speaker.\30\ As a
Representative, however, he appears to have left no individual mark upon
the statute books. Moreover, ``Colfax's influence on the development or
passage of specific legislation is unclear.'' \31\ In a biography
published shortly after the former Speaker's death, Ovando J. Hollister
summed up his late brother-in-law's role in the House.
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\30\ Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War, p. 116.
\31\ Ibid., p. 118.
The two successive re-elections of Speaker Colfax attest the great
satisfaction he gave in this high office. These were as eventful times
as ever chanced in the annals of men, and the actors played their part
in a manly way, worthy of their place in the line of generations that
has won from the oppressor, maintained, and transmitted liberty. Neither
before nor since have there been greater Houses than those which called
Schuyler Colfax to be their presiding officer; at no time in our history
were the people and their Congresses in closer sympathy, and this was
due in part to the Speaker's faculty of wise and successful political
management.\32\
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\32\ O.J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax (New York: Funk and
Wagnalls, 1886), p. 216.
That political management included consultations with Cabinet members
concerning their preferences for Representatives assigned to the House
committees with which they had to deal. It also involved scheming and
connivance that, according to an entry in the diary of Secretary of the
Navy Gideon Wells, resulted in Lincoln considering him to be ``a little
intriguer,--plausible, aspiring beyond his capacity, and not
trustworthy.'' The diary of John Hay, Lincoln's secretary, reflected
similar White House doubts about Colfax.\33\ Lincoln had preferred
others for the speakership, but when it fell to Colfax, the President
met with him, only to receive ``what was not exactly a pledge of support
but a promise of neutrality in the upcoming fights in Congress between
Radicals and Conservatives.'' \34\ It was, seemingly, less than he had
enjoyed with Grow.
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\33\ Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War, pp. 116-117; another historian
has written that the exact relationship between Colfax and Lincoln ``is
difficult to ascertain,'' but expressed doubt that it was ``the intimate
relationship'' portrayed by Hollister; see Smith, Schuyler Colfax, pp.
168-169.
\34\ David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995),
p. 469.
World War I
When war swept over Europe during the latter months of 1914, the
United States, in terms of emergency conditions confronting the Nation,
was unaffected by the conflict. Initially pursuing a policy of
neutrality, President Woodrow Wilson, in September 1915, reluctantly
agreed to allow American bankers to make general loans to the
belligerent nations. These loans, foreign bond purchases, and foreign
trade tended to favor Great Britain and France. Earlier, in February
1915, Germany had proclaimed the waters around the British Isles a war
zone which neutral ships might enter at their own risk. In May, the
British transatlantic steamer Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine
with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans. Disclosures of
German espionage and sabotage in the United States later in the year,
unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany as of February 1917, and March
revelations of German intrigue to form an alliance with Mexico
contributed to the President calling a special session of Congress on
April 2, when he asked for a declaration of war, which was given final
approval 4 days later.\35\
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\35\ 40 Stat. 1.
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As Wilson led the Nation into war, the ``preponderance of his crisis
authority,'' it has been noted, ``was delegated to him by statutes of
Congress.'' Indeed, ``Wilson chose to demand express legislative
authority for almost every unusual step he felt impelled to take.'' By
comparison, the source of Lincoln's power ``was the Constitution, and he
operated in spite of Congress,'' while the ``basis of Wilson's power was
a group of statutes, and he cooperated with Congress.\36\
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\36\ Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in
the Modern Democracies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1948), p. 242.
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The President also exercised certain discretion over and above that
provided by statute. For example, he armed American merchantmen in
February 1917; created a propaganda and censorship entity in April
1917--the Committee on Public Information--which had no statutory
authority for its limitations on the First Amendment; and he created
various emergency agencies under the broad authority of the Council of
National Defense, which had been statutorily mandated in 1916.\37\
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\37\ Concerning the Committee on Public Information, see Stephen L.
Vaughn, Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the
Committee on Public Information (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1980); concerning the Council of National Defense, its
mandate may be found at 39 Stat. 649-650 and its operations are
discussed in Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Industrial America in the World War:
The Strategy Behind the Line 1917-1918 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923);
see also, generally, William Franklin Willoughby, Government
Organization in War Time and After (New York: D. Appleton, 1919).
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``Among the important statutory delegations to the President,'' it has
been recounted, ``were acts empowering him to take over and operate the
railroads and water systems, to regulate and commandeer all ship-
building facilities in the United States, to regulate and prohibit
exports'' and ``to raise an army by conscription.'' Others authorized
him ``to allocate priorities in transportation, to regulate the conduct
of resident enemy aliens, to take over and operate the telegraph and
telephone systems, to redistribute functions among the executive
agencies of the federal government, to control the foreign language
press, and to censor all communications to and from foreign countries.''
\38\
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\38\ Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p. 243.
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In November 1918, Republican majorities were elected to both Houses of
Congress, and an armistice was signed in Europe, bringing a cessation of
warfare. As peace negotiations, with Wilson participating, began in
Paris in mid-January, many temporary wartime authorities began to
expire; most of the remaining war statutes and agencies were terminated
by an act of March 3, 1921.\39\
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\39\ 41 Stat. 1359.
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The House Environment.--The Presidential contest of 1912 had resulted
in the election of Woodrow Wilson, the first Democrat to occupy the
White House since 1897. His party held a substantial margin of seats
(291 to 127) in the House at the start of his administration, which
quickly dwindled during the next two Congresses and disappeared in 1918;
an initial seven-seat margin in the Senate grew slightly during the next
two Congresses before the opposition gained a two-seat majority in 1918.
The 63d Congress convened about a month after Wilson's March 4, 1913,
inauguration. On April 8, a day after their assembly, the two Houses in
joint session were personally addressed by Wilson--``the first President
to do so since Jefferson stopped the practice in 1801. He wanted the
members of Congress to see that he was a real person,'' one commentator
has observed, ``and a partner in their work, he told them, not `a mere
department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island
of jealous power'.'' \40\ It was the beginning of a new relationship
between the first and second branches.
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\40\ Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., On the Hill: A History of the American
Congress (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 293.
During the new President's first years in office, relations between
the White House and Congress underwent a drastic change. [Theodore]
Roosevelt had fought Congress and had often gone over its head to the
people to get it to act, but he was never able to establish the primacy
of his office over the conservative leadership in the legislature.
[William Howard] Taft had shied away from even contesting for dominance.
But it was now a different Congress. . . . [Wilson's] Democratic
majorities were well organized and led by, and to a large extent
composed of, men who shared the chief executive's goals, were as eager
as he to compile a record of party achievement, and were willing to
follow or cooperate with him. It was a situation made to order for a man
of Wilson's commitment and temperament. . . . Believing strongly in
party government and in his responsibility to be the nation's political
head, Wilson gave forceful leadership to his party in Congress from his
first day in office, telling it what he wanted it to do, introducing and
sponsoring legislation, working closely with the Democratic leaders,
committee heads, and individual members to achieve his programs, and in
the process strengthening and broadening the powers and prestige of the
presidency.\41\
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\41\ Ibid.
The outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914 found the President and
Congress initially in agreement on a policy of strict neutrality. German
submarine warfare soon created a division of opinion between the
neutralists and peace forces, on the one hand, and those demanding the
defense of American's rights on the high seas, on the other. This
division led to conflicts in 1915 and 1916 between the White House and
congressional Democrats. In the first instance, Wilson's refusal to
issue a warning to Americans against traveling on armed merchantmen not
only prompted protests from Democrats in both houses, but also
resolutions mandating such a warning and an entree for congressional
formulation of foreign policy. Vigorous efforts by the President, key
Republicans in Congress, and the press, got the resolutions tabled. The
second controversy arose over Presidentially proposed military
preparedness legislation, which included a new national volunteer
``Continental Army'' program. The measure was held captive in committee
by a peace bloc led by the House Majority Leader, Claude Kitchen. Wilson
had to compromise: the resulting legislation provided for an immediate
expansion of the regular Army, enlargement of the National Guard, and
integration of the Guard into Army organization and command.\42\
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\42\ Ibid., pp. 297-298.
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Although Wilson emphasized a neutrality theme in his 1916 campaign for
reelection, he was almost defeated, edging by his opponent with a
plurality of 23 electoral votes, and saw his party strength in the House
reduced to a majority of only a few seats. At the end of January 1917,
Germany stunned Wilson with the announcement that it was resuming
unrestricted submarine warfare. Shortly thereafter, an American ship was
torpedoed and sunk without warning, prompting the President to break
diplomatic relations with Germany. Near the end of February, Wilson
asked Congress for authority to arm merchant ships and to use other
``instrumentalities or methods'' to protect American shipping. The
House, on March 1, overwhelmingly gave approval to the first part of the
President's request; adamant noninterventionists in the Senate launched
a filibuster against the authorization. Subsequently, Wilson went ahead
with the ship armament on his own authority and called for a special
session of Congress on April 16, then changed the convening to April 2.
That evening he asked the 65th Congress for a declaration of war against
Germany. This was accomplished 4 days later.\43\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Ibid., pp. 299-301.
There followed the passage of a stream of war legislation, beginning
with the appropriations of $4 billion for the army and navy and
authorization for a Liberty Loan of bonds to be sold to the public (four
Liberty Loan drives during the war and a Victory Loan in 1919 raised a
total of $20.5 billion). A Selective Service Bill providing for
universal conscription caused bitter controversy in the House, where
Speaker [Champ] Clark left his chair to oppose the measure. Its
constitutionality--sending drafted men outside the United States--seemed
open to question, but it was enacted on May 18, 1917.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ibid., p. 301.
The stream of war legislation continued, including ``several acts,
urged by the administration and supported by the fervent patriotism and
anti-German feeling of a great majority of the American people and their
representatives in Congress, [which] broke sharply with the relatively
benign atmosphere of political tolerance and freedom of dissent of the
progressive period. Paralleling . . . emergency controls on business,
they seriously abridged civil liberties and traditional American
rights.'' \45\ Meanwhile, in Europe, the arrival of American troops was
decisive in stemming German offensives and launching fierce
counterdrives that moved Allied forces toward the German border.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Ibid., p. 302.
As the conflict in Europe neared an end, Wilson's uncompromising
determination to handle foreign affairs himself and impose on the world
his idealistic vision of an enduring peace headed him on a collision
course with the Senate. On January 8, 1918, he delivered a stirring
address to the Sixty-fifth Congress, boldly outlining fourteen points as
a basis for a moral peace. Among them were proposals for open diplomacy,
freedom of the seas, the reduction of armaments, and ``a general
association of nations.'' Liberals in America and the Allied countries
supported the Fourteen Points with enthusiasm, but many of the
Republicans and militants in Congress were cynical, fearing that Wilson
would not be stern enough with Germany and showing signs of resentment
at his aggrandizement of the role of sole arbiter of post-war
settlements.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Ibid., p. 303.
The conflict continued and became more acute, with many Republicans
separating from Wilson and demanding that he call for Germany's
unconditional surrender. Wilson responded, in part, by appealing to the
voting public to give him stronger party control of each House in the
November 5, 1918, congressional elections. Republicans viewed the
President's tactic as an attack on their patriotism and a violation of
the wartime truce on politics. When the returns came in, ``the
Republicans won the House by fifty seats and the Senate by two seats,
[and] Wilson not only lost his hold over Congress and his goal of a
strong national unity behind him, but because of his ill-advised appeal
seemed even to have suffered a repudiation of his peace policies on the
eve of the war's end.'' \47\ That end came on November 11 with a general
armistice in Europe. Wilson's efforts to negotiate a peace ultimately
came to an end in fall 1919 when the Senate, divided into three
irreconcilable camps, failed to approve any form of the Versailles
Treaty.\48\ During a campaign to rally public support for the treaty,
Wilson collapsed in Pueblo, CO, on September 25, and, after having
returned to Washington, suffered a debilitating stroke on October 2. The
declaration of war against Germany (and Austria-Hungary) was
subsequently terminated by joint resolution on July 2, 1921.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Ibid., pp. 303-304.
\48\ The controversy actually continued into the early months of 1920,
but without any resolve of the impasse realized earlier.
\49\ 42 Stat. 105.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Champ Clark.--When President Wilson addressed a joint session
of the 63d Congress on April 8, 1913, James Beauchamp ``Champ'' Clark of
Missouri was beginning his second speakership. A State legislator, he
had been unsuccessful in his bid for the Democratic nomination for a
House seat in 1890. Two years later, he won his party's nomination and
was elected as a Representative, but lost the reelection contest to a
Republican in 1894. Regaining his House seat in 1896, he served
continuously thereafter until 1920. In the House, he was a floor leader
(1907-1911) before being elected to the speakership in April 1911.
During the 60th Congress, he had led the Democrats who joined a group of
Republican insurgents in a revolt against the dictatorial Speaker Joseph
G. Cannon and his power over the Committee on Rules. While the House had
voted in 1910 to remove the Speaker from serving on the committee,
public dissatisfaction with the Republican majority in that Chamber
resulted in a Democratic landslide in the elections of that year and the
basis for Clark subsequently becoming Speaker.
As a consequence of his distaste for Cannon's dictatorial ways, Clark
changed the Speaker's role in House affairs, leaving the business of
floor scheduling and party caucus management to the floor leader, Oscar
Underwood of Alabama. Under this arrangement, the floor leader and
caucus guided the party program. Clark, as Speaker, was an impartial
presiding officer of the House, but he could, and often did, temporarily
step down from his position to participate actively in legislative
debate.\50\ As a result of his role in the overthrow of Cannon and his
frequent discussion of legislative issues, Clark became the leading
Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1912. At the party nominating
convention, Clark ran ahead of both William Jennings Bryan, his
political adversary, and Woodrow Wilson, but was ultimately defeated
when Bryan threw his support to Wilson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Peters, The American Speakership, pp. 92-94.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During Clark's speakership, the Democrats exercised party governance
through a binding caucus, with Underwood using individual pieces of
legislation for such approval.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Ibid., p. 93.
The caucus rules established a simple majority as a quorum for
business, with two-thirds of those members present and voting required
to approve a motion to bind. It was not always necessary for the
leadership to control two-thirds of the rank and file, but rather some
lesser number, ranging down to two-thirds of a quorum. Of 291 Democratic
members of the Sixty-third Congress, for example, the number required to
bind might have been as few as ninety-eight.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ Ibid., p. 94.
The Speaker could speak in the caucus or offer a motion to bind it,
but he could not control it. Similarly, he could influence the members
of the Committee on Rules regarding the floor agenda and debate, but he
could not control them. As a consequence, compared with the Democratic
floor leader and committee chairmen, it is understandable that the
Speaker might not have been viewed as the best agent for realizing the
President's legislative agenda. By one estimate, the ``operation of the
caucus system used by the Democrats attained its maximum effectiveness
during Wilson's first administration, especially during the Sixty-third
Congress while Underwood served as majority leader.'' Why?
``Progressivism had its moment in the sun, and the Democrats were able
to govern the nation just so long as the policy consensus kept the party
united behind the administration's program.'' \53\ War in Europe
militated against that consensus, as did Underwood's departure for the
Senate in 1915, resulting in the succession of Claude Kitchen of North
Carolina as floor leader.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ Ibid., p. 97.
Basic differences in political philosophy between Wilson and Kitchen
led to a clash of political wills, and they did not work as closely
together as had Wilson and Underwood. Because of this, Wilson began
using congressman John Nance Garner of Texas as his intermediary to the
House. The Democrats had suffered heavy losses in the election of 1914,
bringing their congressional majority down from 290 seats to 231. With
the growing involvement of the United States in European affairs,
Americans became increasingly concerned about the possibility of
engagement in a general European war. Running on the theme that he had
``kept us out of war,'' Wilson was reelected in 1916, but the party
retained control of the House of Representatives by the narrowest of
margins, electing an identical 215 members to the Republicans, and
relying on the support of five independent members to retain
organizational control. Wilson did not keep America out of the war, and
during his second administration he won congressional support for his
war program only at the cost of bitter divisions within the party, which
proved fatal in the 1918 congressional elections, when the Republicans
swept the Congress.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Ibid., pp. 97-98.
Clark admired Kitchen, calling him ``one of the most brilliant
debaters this generation has known--fluent, intelligent, witty,
sarcastic, affable, courageous, and at times eloquent.'' \55\ He
occasionally voted, as a matter of conscience, contrary to the position
of the President. Joining Kitchen, Clark opposed the administration's
highly controversial military conscription plan, and denounced the
proposal on the House floor in April 1917.\56\ He also proved to be a
valuable ally of the White House, however, such as when he frustrated
efforts in September 1917 to establish a powerful joint congressional
committee to oversee the conduct of the American war effort, and
privately assured Wilson that he would render any service to defeat
legislation creating, separate from the traditional Cabinet, a war
cabinet or council, composed of three distinguished citizens, ``with
almost unlimited jurisdiction over plans and policies, to insure the
most vigorous prosecution of the war.'' \57\ When the President lent
support in July 1918 to a local effort to deny Representative George
Huddleston of Alabama the Democratic nomination for reelection to the
House, Clark and Kitchen provided their colleague with letters praising
his patriotic service in Congress. Their intervention was denounced
locally as the interference of a pair of ``super pacifists,'' but
Huddleston captured the nomination and was returned to the House.\58\ In
the closing pages of his autobiography, Clark characterized Wilson as
``a great President,'' but, perhaps best explained his own role when
refuting a newspaper allegation that he had campaigned for Wilson in
1912 in the hope of obtaining a Cabinet position. ``The man who wrote
that,'' counseled Clark, ``did not have sense enough to know that the
Speakership of the House of Representatives is a much bigger place than
is any Cabinet position, and he was not well enough acquainted with me
to know that I would not accept all ten Cabinet portfolios rolled into
one, for I would not be a clerk for any man.'' \59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Champ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics, vol. 2 (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1920), p. 339.
\56\ Seward W. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the
War Congress, 1916-1918 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press,
1966), p. 17.
\57\ Ibid., pp. 57, 89.
\58\ Ibid., pp. 163-164.
\59\ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics, vol. 2, pp. 442-
443.
The Great Depression
In his final State of the Union Message of December 4, 1928, President
Calvin Coolidge advised the legislators that no previous Congress ``has
met a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present
time,'' and concluded that the ``country can regard the present with
satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism.'' \60\ One year
later, the dreamworld envisioned by Coolidge vanished and was replaced
by a nightmare. On October 24, 1929, an over-speculated stock market
suddenly experienced a deluge of selling, which sent prices plummeting.
Panic ensued. In the howling melee of the stock exchange, brokers fought
to sell before it was too late. Rapidly, it became too late.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Fred L. Israel, ed., The State of the Union Messages of the
Presidents, 1790-1966, vol. 3 (New York: Chelsea House-Robert Hector,
1966), p. 2727.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economic crisis was not new to America. The country had experienced
financial setbacks of nationwide proportion in 1857, 1875, and 1893.
History, however, was an enemy in the devising of strategy to deal with
the depression of 1929. The periods of economic difficulty of the past
were but a tumble when compared with the plunge of the Great Depression.
This was the first problem experienced by those attempting to rectify
the plight of the country: they did not recognize the ramifications of
the situation or the extent of damage done and continuing to be done.
Perhaps, too, the administrative machinery was not available or
sufficiently developed to halt the downward economic spiral. It may have
been that the President's philosophy of government was inadequate for
meeting the exigency. In the face of all efforts to halt its progress,
the cancer of economic disaster continued to devastate American society
mercilessly.
The depression demoralized the Nation: it destroyed individual dignity
and self-respect, shattered family structure, and begged actions which
civilized society had almost forgotten. In brief, it created a most
desperate situation, ripe for exploitation by zealots, fanatics, or
demagogs. It also created an emergency which, unlike exigencies of the
past, dealt a kind of violence to the public that neither Armed Forces
nor military weaponry could repel. It was a new type of crisis leading
to a broad extension of executive power.
In 1932, a malcontent and despairing electorate voted against
President Herbert C. Hoover, Coolidge's successor. Although a dedicated
public servant of demonstrated ability, he was replaced with Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who came to the Presidency from the governorship of New York,
and had previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the
Wilson administration. In his inaugural address, the new President was
eloquent, telling the American people ``that the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which
paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.'' More
important, on the exertion of leadership during crisis, he expressed
hope that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority
would prove to be adequate ``to meet the unprecedented tasks before
us,'' but acknowledged that ``temporary departure from that normal
balance'' might be necessary. ``I am prepared under my constitutional
duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a
stricken world may require,'' he said, but, in the event Congress did
not cooperate ``and in the event that the national emergency is still
critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then
confront me''--using ``broad Executive power to wage a war against the
emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in
fact invaded by a foreign foe.'' \61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York:
Random House, 1938), pp. 11, 15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt
called for a special session of Congress. When the proclamation for the
gathering was issued, no purpose for the March 9 assembly was indicated.
Nonetheless, the President's party enjoyed overwhelming majorities in
the House (310 to 117) and Senate (60 to 35). Roosevelt had arrived in
Washington with drafts of two proclamations, one calling for the special
session of Congress and the other declaring a so-called ``bank
holiday,'' which would temporarily close the Nation's banks and restrict
the export of gold by invoking provisions of the Trading With the Enemy
Act.\62\ The bank holiday proclamation was issued on March 6. Between
the evening of the inauguration and the opening of Congress, Roosevelt's
lieutenants, aided by Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, Ogden Mills,
drafted an emergency banking bill. When Congress convened, the House had
no copies of the measure and had to rely upon the Speaker reading from a
draft text. After 38 minutes of debate, the House passed the bill. That
evening, the Senate followed suit. The President then issued a second
proclamation, pursuant to the new banking law, continuing the bank
holiday and the terms and provisions of the March 6 proclamation.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1959), p. 4.
\63\ 48 Stat. 1; Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Year of Crisis, 1933, pp. 24-26, 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thereafter ensued the famous ``hundred days'' when the 73d Congress
enacted a series of 15 major relief and recovery laws, many of which
provided specific emergency powers to the President or broad general
authority to address the crisis gripping the Nation. The Emergency
Banking Relief Act, for example, authorized the President to declare a
condition of national emergency and, ``under such rules and regulations
as he may prescribe,'' regulate banking and related financial matters
affecting the economy. This statute also continued the Chief Executive's
authority to suspend the operations of member banks of the Federal
Reserve System.\64\ Under the authority of the Civilian Conservation
Corps Reforestation Relief Act, the President was granted broad power
``to provide for employing citizens of the United States who are
unemployed, in the construction, maintenance, and carrying on of works
of a public nature in connection with the forestation of lands belonging
to the United States or to the several States.'' Authority also was
granted to house, care for, and compensate such individuals as might be
recruited to carry out programs established pursuant to the act.\65\
After declaring the existence of a national emergency with regard to
unemployment and the disorganization of industry, the National
Industrial Recovery Act authorized the President to establish an
industrial code system and a public works program to facilitate the
restoration of prosperity. The President could establish administrative
agencies to carry out the provisions of the act, and might delegate the
functions and powers vested in him by the statute to those entities.\66\
Additional recovery programs would be given approval by the 74th
Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ 48 Stat. 1.
\65\ 48 Stat. 22.
\66\ 48 Stat. 195.
These federal programs served widespread, enduring, and organized
interests in American society. The political coalition to which they
gave rise lent definition to American political life, and the
consequences were felt in the Congress. The tendency towards stability
was already present, especially within the Democratic party, and the
seniority system had entrenched the power of southern Democrats. The
newcomers who came to town in 1933 and 1935 did not upset it; instead,
those who stayed on enlisted themselves in its long apprenticeship. By
cooperating with those at the top of the power structure, those at the
bottom served their own interests and those of their constituents. This
was a game ideally suited to the character and temperament of the
Democratic party, a party marked by diversity and devoted to logrolling.
From the Roosevelt administration, to the oligopoly on Capitol Hill,
through the growing bureaucracy, to the congressional constituencies,
everyone found something to gain.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Peters, The American Speakership, pp. 106-107.
Indeed, ``Roosevelt was careful to defer to the Democratic barons in
the Congress on the control of federal spending,'' and harmony prevailed
because Federal largesse was particularly sought by the southern States
where the Great Depression had hit the hardest.\68\ ``Conservative
southern opposition to Roosevelt remained quiescent,'' it has been
observed, ``until the court-packing episode of 1937, which triggered the
development of the conservative coalition in the Congress. Roosevelt's
decision to purge the Congress of southern Democrats who had opposed his
reelection in 1936 sealed many southerners in opposition to him.'' \69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Ibid., p. 107.
\69\ Ibid., p. 108; in February 1937, President Roosevelt sent Congress
a draft bill to change the composition of the Federal judiciary, and, in
particular, to allow him to expand the membership of the Supreme Court,
which had recently struck down New Deal recovery legislation; the
following year, he made appeals to party faithful for the defeat of some
southern Democrats seeking reelection to Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from Congress, New Deal efforts at combating the Depression, in
the estimate of one analyst, also resulted in a transformation of the
Presidency as well as inter-branch relations.
Since FDR, the public's expectations of the presidency have been
different than they were before. The public expects leadership from the
president, and it is the president who sets the basic elements of the
national political agenda. But if the president can and must set the
major items on the agenda, he cannot enact them by himself. Instead, he
must seek to persuade the Congress to follow his leadership. This led to
a strengthening of the link between the president and the speakership.
On occasion speakers had been supporters of presidents, but there
existed no norm that demanded it prior to the New Deal. Since the New
Deal, speakers, especially Democratic speakers, have viewed it as their
obligation to support presidents of their own party. Thus, the New Deal
had the ironic effect of solidifying congressional power in the
committee system, which the speaker could influence but not control, and
of imposing on the speaker the duty of supporting a president of his own
party. From 1932 forward, speakers would be caught in a crossfire
between the congressional power structure and their obligation to the
White House.\70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Ibid., pp. 108-109.
Speaker Henry T. Rainey.--Formerly a practicing attorney and county
master in chancery in Illinois, Henry T. Rainey was first elected to the
House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1902. He served in the 58th
Congress and the 8 succeeding Congresses (1903-1921). Unsuccessful in
his 1920 campaign, he was returned 2 years later to the 68th Congress
and served in the next five Congresses (1923-1934) until his death in
office. When the Democrats, after 12 years, were returned to majority
status in the House in 1931, ``power in the party was centered in the
Texas delegation'' with John Nance Garner, ``a leading force in the
party since the Wilson administration,'' elected Speaker.\71\ That year,
``the southern Democrats controlled twenty-seven of forty-seven
chairmanships'' of the House committees.\72\ Emerging as the new floor
leader for the Democrats was Rainey, renowned for his ``progressive
political independence,'' according to his biographer, but a man who had
gained the support of his more conservative colleagues through his
reelection successes and efforts on behalf of farmers and agricultural
relief.\73\ However, in his new position, Rainey ``was never able to win
acceptance within the establishment'' of House southern Democrats ``and
his relationship with Speaker Garner was strained.'' \74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ Ibid., p. 110.
\72\ Ibid., p. 109.
\73\ Robert A. Waller, Rainey of Illinois: A Political Biography, 1903-
1934 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1977), p. 159; see also
Ibid., pp. 138-158.
\74\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ironically, ``Garner's leadership of the Democratic party in the House
brought to him great public visibility,'' as well as ``ample political
assets to enable him to contend for the presidency in 1932.'' \75\
Supported by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, Garner won the
California primary election and entered the Democratic National
Convention with the solid support of the delegations from that State and
Texas. With the convention deadlocked after three ballots, Garner threw
his support to Roosevelt to be the party's Presidential candidate and
was rewarded with the Vice Presidential position on the ticket. When the
Democrats won the Presidential contest, the speakership for the 73d
Congress became open.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\75\ Ibid., p. 113.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainey had been elected his party's floor leader in 1931 ``with a
coalition of southern and northern support,'' but ``he remained very
much an outrider in a leadership structure that was dominated by the
southern oligarchy.'' \76\ Several factors contributed to his election
to succeed Garner as Speaker. In addition to Rainey, four southerners
and a New York City Representative emerged as contenders for the
speakership, with the result that ``the party suffered a complete
geographic split, with candidates from each of its major regions.'' \77\
Within the institution of the House, Rainey was the second-longest-
serving Member, and had earned the respect of many of his Democratic
colleagues as their floor leader and as one in that role who ``was not
disloyal to Garner.'' Moreover, ``Rainey's election was ensured by the
election of 129 new Democrats; of these, ninety-five were from the
North, twelve from border states, and seventeen from the South,'' with
Illinois, his home State, electing the most new Democratic Members--11
in total.\78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\76\ Ibid., p. 114.
\77\ Ibid., p. 115.
\78\ Ibid., pp. 114-115.
These new members were politically tied to President Roosevelt's
commitment to political action. Rainey had for several years advocated a
diffusion of the power structure in the House through the creation of a
party steering and policy committee similar to that employed by the
Republicans. In 1933 he made this proposal a key element in his campaign
platform for the speakership. The concept of a party steering committee
had been strongly opposed by Garner, who favored the management of the
House by the speaker and the committee chairmen. But the idea was very
attractive to new members, who could have no hope of influence under the
leadership of the old guard. . . . Rainey became the first speaker since
Champ Clark to come to the office committed to reform, and like Clark he
was committed to decentralizing reforms.\79\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\79\ Ibid., p. 115; Rainey's biographer notes that when he announced his
intention to seek the speakership, ``Rainey indicated that he expected
considerable support from the newly elected Democrats in the lower
House,'' and identified other factors lending support to his bid for the
speakership, such as being ``a rallying point for all northern Democrats
who were tired of seeing most of the party plums go to the South,''
having a ``rural and small town background [which] would help balance a
party which drew heavily from the urban areas and the Solid South,''
having the precedent that ``[f]our of the Democratic Speakers since the
Forty-seventh Congress . . . elevated from the post of majority leader
and a fifth from acting majority leader,'' and perhaps even the
``striking personal appearance'' of the candidate; see Waller, Rainey of
Illinois, pp. 174-175.
However, after becoming Speaker, Rainey eventually made only slight
changes in the committee system. ``Among forty-five standing committee
chairmen of the House,'' by one estimate, ``there were no uncompensated
violations of seniority.'' \80\ He would, nonetheless, carefully manage
the House committee system in other ways, while attempting to pursue his
reform proposals and lend support to the new President's efforts at
achieving economic recovery.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\80\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 116.
Speaker Rainey's commitment to diffuse power in the House ran head-on
into the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his first hundred days.
However much the speaker and his supporters might have wanted collegial
decision making, the country demanded immediate action that could only
come about by firm control of the House. Rainey did appoint a steering
and policy committee for the Democrats, and created a variety of special
committees designed to involve members in the canvassing of opinion. But
the real business of the House was being done at the other end of
Pennsylvania Avenue, and Speaker Rainey's job was primarily to see to it
that the president's program was expedited. In order to accomplish this,
the speaker held up the appointment of most committees during the
special session called by Roosevelt to deal with the crisis. He
appointed a special committee to deal with the Economy Act, a budget-
cutting measure that gave broad power to the president to cut federal
expenditures, and he used the Rules Committee to bring the New Deal
legislation to the House under special orders that severely limited the
capacity of the membership to amend the bills as reported by
committees.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\81\ Ibid., p. 117.
As Speaker, Rainey, according to his biographer, ``was in an ideal
position to serve as middleman between executive wishes and legislative
fulfillment.'' \82\ Prior to the convening of the 73d Congress, Rainey,
in a January 1933 meeting with Roosevelt, had proposed a program to
balance the budget and warned that increasing taxes ``would be inviting
revolution.'' It was, by one estimate, ``an instance in which a
congressional leader had prepared a complete fiscal program for the
President-elect.'' \83\ Subsequently, authority for the President to cut
Federal expenditures to realize a balanced budget was included in
legislation to maintain government credit.\84\ However, it also enabled
the President to reduce the pensions and allowances of war veterans. In
the course of an unsuccessful attempt to bind the party on the measure
in caucus, Rainey learned of an amendment backed by the veterans' lobby
to prevent the President from completely discontinuing a pension or
other allowance or reduce them by more than 25 percent. Given that
``Democratic unity was shattered by the economy bill,'' the legislation
was brought to the floor ``under a rule providing a two-hour limit, no
opportunity for amendments, and one motion to recommit by anyone
opposing the proposition.'' To avoid the veterans' lobby amendment,
arrangements were made for another Democrat, ``an ardent veterans'
supporter,'' to seek to be recognized in order to move to recommit the
entire bill. Rainey, as prearranged, recognized this man and, as
expected, his motion was defeated, but the terms of the rule had been
satisfied on this point. When the Member with the veterans' lobby
amendment protested, contending that he believed he had caucus agreement
that he would have an opportunity to offer his amendment to the
recommitted measure, ``Rainey coldly replied that he had no knowledge of
a binding agreement.'' Moreover, he voted with those approving the bill.
Thus, ``the Speaker used his right to recognize with decisive effect,
and saved the administration from an embarrassing defeat during its
first few days in office.'' \85\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\82\ Waller, Rainey of Illinois, p. 181; this biographer also
acknowledges that ``the record upon which to construct the climax of
Rainey's career is limited severely'' because ``Franklin Roosevelt did
not preserve memoranda of his personal conferences and phone
conversations'' and ``most of the key legislative transactions were
handled in this fashion;'' Ibid., p. 181.
\83\ Ibid., p. 182.
\84\ 48 Stat. 8.
\85\ Waller, Rainey of Illinois, pp. 182-183.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another occasion, ``Rainey used his influence as Speaker to block
legislation that was not a part of the President's urgent program.'' As
the Senate began considering an industrial recovery bill limiting labor
to a 5-day week and 6-hour day, ``Rainey predicted that if it should
pass the Senate, it would be sidetracked in the House temporarily to
clear the way for more urgent bills.'' When a companion bill to the
Senate legislation was reported in the House, ``Rainey was not inclined
to give the matter preferential treatment on the House floor, and
supported the administration in its demand for considerable revision.''
During the delay, the White House developed its own measure--to be known
as the National Industrial Recovery Act--embracing the reduced labor
hours objectives of the competing House and Senate 30-hour week
bills.\86\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\86\ Ibid., pp. 183-184.
Once the new measure was ready, Rainey announced that both the thirty-
hour week bills had been put on ice. Several House committees wanted
jurisdiction over the new bill. The Speaker assigned it to the Ways and
Means Committee, although it was not directly a revenue measure. Rainey
used his discretionary power in assigning bills to committee to foster
the Roosevelt program. By the close of the session, the bill for
industrial self-government was ready for the President's signature. The
thirty-hour measures were left in limbo.\87\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\87\ Ibid., p. 184.
Not every piece of Presidential legislation offered to achieve
economic recovery, however, required the Speaker's attention. For
example, to enact Roosevelt's ``federal emergency relief, supervision of
stock market operations, relief of small home owners, and railroad
reorganization and relief'' proposals, ``Rainey's services as master
parliamentarian were not needed.'' Nonetheless, the Chief Executive was
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
appreciative of the assistance he provided.
Rainey had identified himself fully with the President's program.
While the Speaker is not called upon to vote during roll calls, the
Illinoisan established a record by being enscribed as supporting New
Deal measures on twenty-three separate occasions during the hundred
days. At the close of the session, Roosevelt made a point of thanking
the legislators through Rainey for their cooperation and teamwork in
meeting the nation's problems.\88\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\ Ibid., p. 185.
When the House convened in January 1934 to begin the 2d session of the
73d Congress, Rainey predicted ``a short, harmonious and constructive
session.'' The approaching fall elections, however, provided House
Members a clear and understandable reason to assert themselves to gain
visibility and an individual record that would justify being returned to
office. This situation, together with the ``presidential decision to
outline needed legislation in his annual message and let Congress iron
out the details proved a detriment to a short and harmonious session,
but it was nonetheless a productive term.'' \89\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\89\ Ibid., p. 187.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the session got underway, Rainey soon engendered Presidential
displeasure on three issues. The first involved a bill providing special
consideration for silver in financial transactions. In March, Rainey
publicly praised the recently reported measure, and said it would likely
pass the House and not incur White House objection. In fact, both the
President and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau were, by one
estimate, ``horrified at this bill's implications.'' Rainey subsequently
got into a heated public dispute with Morgenthau over silver policy,
moved the controversial silver bill, and was surprised by its approval
by the House, which necessitated White House efforts to strike a
compromise on the legislation in the Senate. More tension between the
Speaker and the President ensued, but Roosevelt ultimately obtained
sufficient compromise on the disputed legislation in the Senate that a
veto was avoided. ``The silver inflation debate was the only major
occasion on which the Speaker differed markedly with the President,''
but it was the first of three controversies that left Roosevelt with
less than full confidence in Rainey.\90\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\90\ Ibid., pp. 189-191.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second controversy involved legislation--the Patman bonus bill--
authorizing an immediate payment to World War I veterans based upon
their service certificates. During the latter half of February,
supporters of the bonus bill obtained the requisite number of signatures
on a discharge petition to force the measure out of committee. At that
time, the President warned the House, through Rainey, that it was not
the appropriate time to approve such legislation. Both Rainey and
Roosevelt were unwilling to expend the $2.4 billion authorized by the
bill. When some question arose as to whether or not the President would
allow the proposal to become law without his signature, Rainey wrote for
clarification and received what became a highly public and unequivocal
response from Roosevelt saying he would veto the legislation. The House,
nonetheless, elected to follow an independent course and, in early
March, voted by a 3 to 1 margin to approve the discharge petition.
Thereafter, the House approved the bonus bill on a 295 to 125 vote, but
when it arrived in the Senate, it was reported adversely and died
without a floor vote. Nonetheless, ``Rainey had been unsuccessful in
getting the House to follow the President's guiding hand.'' \91\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\91\ Ibid., pp. 191-192.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The third controversy arose with the Independent Offices
Appropriations bill and adherence to the President's economy program. In
early January, ``Rainey had pledged that the House would keep
`absolutely' within the budget recommendation limits submitted by the
President,'' which was done when the Independent Offices measure was
considered, but ``only by an adroit series of parliamentary moves.'' As
passed by the House, the bill was ``perfectly acceptable to the
President.'' Senate leaders were unsuccessful in their efforts to defeat
amendments providing for the restoration of government employee pay
cuts. When the legislation came back to the House, Rainey did not follow
custom and send it to a conference committee, but took the somewhat
unusual step of referring it back to the committee of origin, presumably
to be crafted into a version acceptable to both the Senate and the
President. The Appropriations Committee, however, declined to redraft
the Senate version, and Democratic leaders failed in two caucuses to
bind their House Members to ignore the Senate amendments to the
legislation. When the Rules Committee reported a special rule on the
measure that would have sent it to a conference committee without
instructions from the House, the rule was overwhelmingly defeated. The
bill was then open to amendment from the House floor, and among those
successfully added was the full restoration of veterans' benefits
reduced by the Economy Act of 1933. Ultimately, House amendments added
$228 million to the President's original recommendations, which both
Houses accepted. The President, however, did not, and he vetoed the
bill. Rainey confidently predicted the veto would be sustained, but he
completely misjudged the situation. The House voted 310 to 72 to
override, with no fewer than 209 Democrats bolting.\92\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\92\ Ibid., pp. 192-194.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the aftermath of this tumult--``Rainey helped to lead one revolt
and was unsuccessful in halting the two others''--speculation and rumor
soon arose that the President was sufficiently displeased with his
party's House leaders that he would welcome a change. Emerging from a
White House meeting in April, Rainey volunteered that the President
``wanted me to stay where I am'' as Speaker of the House.\93\ After the
2d session of the 73d Congress ended in mid-June, Rainey embarked upon
an extensive speaking tour as an ambassador for the New Deal. On August
10, due to fatigue and a slight cold, he elected to be admitted to a
hospital in St. Louis for a few days' rest. Speaker Rainey died
unexpectedly on August 19, 1934, 1 day short of his 74th birthday.\94\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\93\ Ibid., p. 197.
\94\ Ibid., pp. 202-203.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Joseph W. Byrns.--An attorney and former member of the
Tennessee legislature, Joe Byrns was elected to the House in 1908 as a
Democrat and served in the 61st and 13 succeeding Congresses. During the
72d Congress, he chaired the Appropriations Committee. He was among
those who sought the speakership for the 73d Congress, and was made
floor leader by the coalition that elected Rainey as Speaker. Although
he was part of the House leadership that had displeased the President in
1934, his party colleagues in the House had high regard for him, not
only as their floor leader, but also as the chairman of their
Congressional Campaign Committee. ``With his help,'' it has been
observed, ``the Democrats had actually increased their representation in
the House in the off-year election of 1934,'' with the result that many
in his party who had been returned to their seats or were newcomers
``felt themselves indebted to him.'' \95\ Many newspapers expected Byrns
to be the next Speaker after Rainey's death. He had a few competitors
for the position, the strongest of whom might have been Sam Rayburn of
Texas, but he subsequently withdrew for several reasons, not the least
of which was his State's control of several committee chairmanships and
the Vice Presidency. Ultimately, the same coalition of northeastern,
border, and midwestern Democrats who had installed Rainey as Speaker
elected Byrns, with southern supporters, to that position.\96\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 119.
\96\ Ann B. Irish, A Political Biography: Joseph W. Byrns of Tennessee
(Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2001), pp. 190-199.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While some of the President's ``brains trust'' advisers urged him to
announce his support for Rayburn, whom they favored as Speaker,
Roosevelt remained discreetly silent about the contest. By one estimate,
``Byrns was probably not his preference, but he may have thought that
Byrns would win.'' \97\ Nonetheless, ``among all the candidates for the
speakership, the only one who had stood with FDR in opposition to the
[veterans] bonus in the previous session had been Byrns.'' \98\
Moreover, ``Byrns was known for party loyalty, for always being a
regular party supporter. While he had served as majority leader,'' it
has been observed, ``his strong and continuing support of New Deal
legislation, even those measures which he philosophically opposed,
illustrated his party loyalty.'' \99\ In a radio address given shortly
after the convening of the 74th Congress, Speaker Byrns indicated that
it was ``not the function of Congress to initiate executive policies.''
That was the President's responsibility, and Congress ``is and should be
proud to accept his leadership,'' he said. Of the issues he foresaw
ahead, he hoped a noninflationary way could be found to pay the
veterans' bonus.\100\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\97\ Ibid., p. 193.
\98\ Ibid., p. 196.
\99\ Ibid., p. 202.
\100\ Ibid., pp. 216-217.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byrns soon brought the bonus question before the House, the
legislative solution being to provide the necessary $2 billion by
printing more money--a clearly inflationary course of action. He was
among the 90 Members who voted against the legislation. In the aftermath
of Senate approval of the bill, the President personally delivered his
veto message to a joint session of the two Houses of Congress when, at
the conclusion of his remarks, he handed the rejected legislation to
Byrns. Immediately thereafter, the House voted overwhelmingly to
override the veto, ``but Byrns was one of the 98 in opposition.'' The
next day, the Senate vote for an override was insufficient, but Speaker
Byrns' loyalty to the President was, by then, on the record.\101\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\101\ Ibid., pp. 220-221.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byrns next became involved in negotiating a massive emergency relief
appropriations bill. Many House Members wanted to specify the kinds of
jobs that would be created by the legislation, thereby limiting the
discretionary authority of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, whom
they felt was unresponsive to congressional concerns. In a meeting on
this matter, Roosevelt, Byrns, and Appropriations Committee Chairman
James Buchanan reached a compromise: the funds would be appropriated
without directions to the President regarding their expenditure, but the
President would allocate the money himself rather than designating Ickes
to perform this task. Byrns obtained caucus agreement to the compromise
and the bill received overwhelming party support, with only 10 Democrats
voting against it in the House. ``Byrns had held his party in line; here
was an example of his ability to forge consensus among the very
different kinds of Democrats in the House.'' He and Vice President
Garner subsequently intervened with the conference committee on the
legislation to obtain a version acceptable to the President.\102\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\102\ Ibid., pp. 221-222.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next came the Social Security Program. Byrns exerted his influence
early, referring the legislation to the Ways and Means Committee, whose
members he perceived were more favorable to the proposal than the
skeptical members of the Labor Committee. When there was hesitation to
report the bill, Byrns convinced committee members ``that if they wanted
to kill the measure, it should be defeated on the floor during public
debate, not in a secret committee session.'' On the matter of a rule for
bringing the legislation to the floor, ``Byrns insisted the debate be as
open as possible so that members would feel trusted, not coerced.'' He
``based his desire for an open debate on the social security bill on
assurance from Pat Boland's whip organization that the bill would
pass.'' Indications were that an alternative plan to the President's
proposal did not have much support. Such proved to be the case; Byrns'
strategy succeeded.\103\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\103\ Ibid., pp. 223-224.
The House had to consider a number of additional important bills, and
in expediting (or blocking) them, the speaker was influential mostly in
little-noticed ways. These included persuading committees to finish
their consideration so that bills could come to the floor, helping
convince the Rules Committee to schedule bills for floor debate, and
urging efficient floor consideration.\104\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\104\ Ibid., p. 224.
The President's gratification with Byrns became apparent in early May
1935 when ``Roosevelt lightheartedly scolded Senate leaders, suggesting
they could learn from Speaker Byrns's methods and adopt legislation more
expeditiously.'' \105\ When illness prevented William Bankhead from
carrying out his duties as Democratic floor leader, Byrns sometimes
functioned as Speaker and majority leader, ``and won compliments for his
dual leadership role during Bankhead's absence.'' \106\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\105\ Ibid., p. 226.
\106\ Ibid., p. 227.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the sometimes fractious House came to the close of the 1st
session of the 74th Congress in late August, it was clearly evident that
``Byrns had helped the administration achieve its goals,'' the last 3
months being so productive that many termed them the ``second hundred
days.'' \107\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\107\ Ibid., p. 232.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Returning from travel in Asia late in the year, Byrns foresaw
``nothing on the horizon that should cause any controversies'' in the
next session, but quickly added that ``one never knows what is going to
happen in the legislative halls at Washington.'' The unforeseen did
burst on the scene a few days after the new session got underway: the
Supreme Court invalidated the Agricultural Adjustment Act, with the
result that the Nation was left with no farm program. Byrns arranged for
efficient House consideration and passage of a constitutionally
acceptable replacement program.\108\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\108\ Ibid., pp. 241-242.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
More predictable was the early reappearance of veterans' bonus
legislation. The track record on this issue was familiar by now, and
support for such legislation was strengthened by a modest upturn in the
economy and a looming national election. Byrns thought the passage of
such a bill was inevitable. The White House may have concurred, but when
the measure was sent to the President, he perfunctorily vetoed it, only
to have his rejection overridden by both houses.\109\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\109\ Ibid., pp. 242-243.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due, in part, to Bankhead's return to perform his floor leader duties,
``Byrns was not nearly as prominent in the 1936 session as he had been a
year earlier,'' and ``because the long 1935 session had been so
productive, the 1936 session saw less controversy and less necessity for
a speaker to use his position publicly to achieve a result.'' As it
happened, ``Byrns had no chance to compile his own summary of this
session's accomplishments,'' it has been observed, ``but he must have
felt satisfaction as he saw the Seventy-fourth Congress meeting the
goals he had suggested at the outset of his speakership.'' \110\
Approximately 2 weeks prior to the end of the Congress, Speaker Byrns
died suddenly on June 4, 1936.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\110\ Ibid., p. 249.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker William B. Bankhead.--Advised by the House Parliamentarian of
the need for a new Speaker in order that the business of the 74th
Congress could be concluded, House leaders turned to Will Bankhead.\111\
An attorney, State legislator, and city attorney of Huntsville, Bankhead
was first elected to the House of Representatives from Alabama in 1915,
serving in the 65th and 11 succeeding Congresses. His father had been a
Member of the House and the Senate, and during his own service in the
House, his brother was a Senator. Unsuccessful in his bid to become
House majority leader in 1932, he became the acting chairman and then
chairman of the Rules Committee during the 74th Congress. Two years
later, his election as majority leader was secured. In his later
congressional career, Bankhead was beset by health problems. He suffered
major heart attacks in 1932 and 1935, and ``labored with a weak heart
during the remainder of his life.'' \112\ As a consequence, Bankhead
formed a close working relationship with his deputy, Majority Leader Sam
Rayburn. ``Working in close cooperation with the administration, Sam
Rayburn,'' according to one assessment, ``provided the strength that
Bankhead lacked.'' \113\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\111\ Ibid., p. 252.
\112\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 120.
\113\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time of the death of Speaker Byrns in June 1936, the
``Depression continued, but people had confidence that their federal
government was working to end their distress.'' \114\ For many, the
sense of desperation within the country had subsided and the relief
legislation Congress was being asked to enact by the Roosevelt
administration was of a smaller quantity and somewhat less urgent
character than the New Deal proposals of 1933-1934. Indeed, the
exclusively domestic focus of the first Roosevelt administration was
supplemented with growing defense and foreign policy considerations
during the second term. It was in this changing policy environment that
Bankhead played his leadership role.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\114\ Irish, A Political Biography, p. 249.
Bankhead's party loyalty was beyond question; the high regard in which
he was held by minority leaders Bertrand H. Snell and Joseph W. Martin,
Jr. and others is a testimony to his fairness as a presiding officer.
His congressional colleagues remember him as the only Speaker who could
get order in the House merely by standing up. Gavel rapping was seldom
necessary. He followed House precedent and seldom made a formal speech.
When he did leave the chair to speak in behalf of a particular bill, he
was listened to with much more than usual interest.\115\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\115\ Walter J. Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,''
Journal of Southern History, vol. 21, August 1955, p. 354.
Bankhead's efforts (and those of Rayburn) to assist the White House
with securing the passage of legislation addressing the emergency
conditions of the Great Depression were complicated, and sometimes
hampered, by other legislative issues and the President's demands
regarding them. For example, ``the congressional leaders were not
consulted and knew nothing of the President's explosive judiciary
reorganization plan until they were called to the White House a few
hours before it was made public.'' \116\ Subsequently, among the more
``serious consequences'' of this legislation was ``the split it produced
in the Democratic ranks'' with the result that ``congressional leaders
encountered unexpected opposition to less controversial administration
measures.'' \117\ The President's executive reorganization legislation,
which was proposed shortly after his judiciary reorganization plan was
unveiled, was affected, the bill being perceived ``as giving the
President dictatorial power.'' The executive reorganization legislation
``continued to be a headache for Bankhead and other party leaders until
a greatly watered-down version was passed in 1939.'' \118\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\116\ Ibid., p. 355; see also Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm,
1937-1940: A History (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 84-87.
\117\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 356.
\118\ Ibid.; see, generally, Richard Polenberg, Reorganizing Roosevelt's
Government: The Controversy Over Executive Reorganization, 1936-1939
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other fractious issues militating against Bankhead's efforts to gain
support for the President's relief proposals included the Ludlow
resolution, which proposed to amend the Constitution to require a
national referendum to validate any congressional declaration of war and
neutrality legislation.\119\ ``The year 1938,'' by one estimate, ``saw
the culmination of domestic reforms and the shifting of attention to
international affairs.'' \120\ Bankhead served Roosevelt as a
legislative leader through the President's second term. He was not the
only such leader consulted by the President. ``Roosevelt, preferring to
deal with Congress in his own way, frequently chose to consult directly
with chairmen whose committees held the fate of his program,'' and, it
was said, by engaging in such consultations, ``FDR embarrassed Bankhead
to demonstrate his own dominance over Congress.'' \121\ Although
Bankhead was not among those ``urging the President to seek re-election,
he announced his full support of the Roosevelt program and his readiness
to support the President should he decide to seek another term.'' \122\
At the July 1940 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he stood as
a candidate to be Roosevelt's Vice Presidential running mate, but was
not successful. Nonetheless, he subsequently called upon all Democrats
to support the party ticket. Following his own advice, Speaker Bankhead,
about to launch the Democratic campaign in Maryland with a speech in
Baltimore, collapsed suddenly in his hotel room and died a few days
later on September 15, 1940.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\119\ Davis, FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940, pp. 189-190, 392-394, 399-
415, 449-458.
\120\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 357.
\121\ D.B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Lanham,
MD: Madison Books, 1987), p. 245.
\122\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 358.
World War II
At the time of Speaker Bankhead's death, nations of Europe had been at
war for 12 months, and Japan's aggression in China had been underway for
an even longer period of time. The formal entry of the United States
into World War II occurred on December 8, 1941, with a declaration of
war against Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor in the
Hawaiian Islands and other U.S. possessions that had occurred the
previous day.\123\ Three days later, on December 11, war was declared
against Germany and Italy.\124\ As a result of the 1940 elections,
President Roosevelt had been returned to office for an unprecedented
third term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\123\ 55 Stat. 795.
\124\ 55 Stat. 796, 797.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During Roosevelt's first and second Presidential terms (1933-1940), as
totalitarian regimes began threatening the peace of Europe and Asia,
Congress adopted a series of Neutrality Acts restricting arms shipments
and travel by American citizens on the vessels of belligerent
nations.\125\ Two months after war commenced in Europe in September
1939, Congress, at the President's request, modified the neutrality law
by repealing the arms embargo and authorizing ``cash and carry'' exports
of arms and munitions to belligerent powers.\126\ Some advanced
weapons--aircraft carriers and long-range bombers--were procured for
``defensive'' purposes. More bold during the period of professed
neutrality was the President's unilateral transfer of 50 retired
American destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for American defense
bases in British territories located in the Caribbean. The President
also negotiated a series of defense agreements whereby American troops
were either stationed on foreign territory or were utilized to replace
the troops of nations at war in nonbelligerent tasks so that these
countries might commit their own military personnel to combat. Such was
the case with Canada when, in August 1940, it was announced that the
U.S. Navy, in effect, would police the Canadian and American coasts,
providing mutual defense to both borders. Canadian seamen would, of
course, be released to aid the British Navy. In April 1941, American
military and naval personnel, with the agreement of Denmark, were
located in Greenland. In November, the Netherlands concurred with the
introduction of American troops into Dutch Guiana.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\125\ 49 Stat. 1081, 1152; 50 Stat. 121.
\126\ 54 Stat. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the declarations of war and the impending international crisis,
Roosevelt, by one estimate, became ``a President who went beyond Wilson
and even Lincoln in the bold and successful exertion of his
constitutional and statutory powers.'' Congress ``gave the President all
the power he needed to wage a victorious total war, but stubbornly
refused to be shunted to the back of the stage by the leading man.'' The
Supreme Court ``gave judicial sanction to whatever powers and actions
the President and Congress found necessary to the prosecution of the
war, and then post bellum had a lot of strong but unavailing things to
say about the limits of the Constitution-at-War.'' \127\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\127\ Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p. 265; for a catalog of
emergency powers granted to the President during the period of the war,
see U.S. Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, Acts of
Congress Applicable in Time of Emergency, Public Affairs Bulletin 35
(Washington: Legislative Reference Service, 1945).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The 1940 elections gave the Democrats large
majorities in the House (268 to 162) and Senate (66 to 28). As a result
of the 1942 elections, these margins narrowed in the House (218 to 208),
although less so in the Senate (58 to 37). The 1944 elections
strengthened the Democratic majority in the House (242 to 190), but
resulted in only a slight change in the Senate (56 to 38).
Once war came, Congress quickly adjusted itself to the conditions of
war, and it was by no means the anachronism that many--including some of
its own members--predicted it would be. Issues were raised which needed
to be resolved politically, and, as before the war, the President and
the government agencies continued to ask Congress for funds and for
authority. The President was given great powers, but he was not a
dictator, and Congress did not become a rubber stamp in delegating
power. The relationship with the President and the numerous war agencies
raised many problems, for though it was agreed that the prosecution of
the war came within the province of the President, Congress did not wish
to delegate all authority over domestic issues to the expanding
bureaucracy. A wartime President was expected to have more power, to be
able to act without certain congressional restraints, but once this
major premise was granted, the allowable sphere of congressional action
had still to be determined.\128\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\128\ Roland Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1956), pp. 4-5.
In the House, Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Rayburn had
encountered determined opposition to administration legislation from
southern Democrats in 1938, but, ``when administration foreign policy
was involved, the South was inclined to be cooperative.'' \129\ Such
cooperation generally became more widespread as war erupted in Europe
late the following year, and culminated in the declarations of war in
December 1941. When the 1942 elections reduced the Democratic majority
in the House, ``sniping at the administration increased'' during the
78th Congress.\130\ The wartime bureaucracy was a primary object of
attack and derision.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\129\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 357.
\130\ Josephy, On the Hill, p. 336.
In the growing tensions and frustrations of the war economy, citizens
registered complaints of every kind to their Congressmen--against
administrative ineptitudes, against highhanded bureaucrats, controls,
and rationing, against the forty-hour week and strikes, and against real
or assumed injustices to relatives in the armed forces. Many members of
both houses were quick to champion such causes, waging something of a
guerrilla war in the two chambers and through the newspapers and radio
against war agencies and their administrators. Much of the drumfire was
of more than momentary significance, for it reflected a growing
offensive to try to dismantle Roosevelt's prewar domestic reforms and
halt any moves that tended to impose new social ideas.\131\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\131\ Ibid.
It also contributed to a phenomenon, described below, which often
produced consternation and discomfort for both the administration and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the principal congressional leaders of the President's political party.
The proliferation of investigation committees was one of the singular
characteristics of the war Congress. The emphasis on investigation, on
the control of policy after the passage of an Act, was a spontaneous
congressional reaction, as it were, to the increasing number of
activities with which the administrative branch was concerned. At the
beginning of the war, the major investigation committees were the Truman
Committee (Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense
Program), which was interested in questions relating to production; the
Tolan Committee (House Committee on Inter-state Migration), which
broadened its activities from migratory labor to include also general
problems relating to the organization of production; the Murray and
Patman Committees (Senate and House Committees on Small Business); the
Maloney Committee (Senate Special Committee to Investigate Gasoline and
Fuel-Oil Shortages); and the House and Senate Committees on Military
Affairs and on Naval Affairs. There was considerable overlapping of
committee interests inasmuch as jurisdictions were not precisely
determined. Some dozen different committees were concerned with such
controversial subjects as rubber production; manpower policy was
considered by the Labor Committee as well as by the Military Affairs,
Appropriations, Judiciary, and Agricultural Committees, and by the
Truman and Tolan Committees.\132\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\132\ Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War, p. 19;
concerning the Truman committee, see Donald H. Riddle, The Truman
Committee: A Study in Congressional Responsibility (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1964); Harry A. Toulmin, Jr., Diary of
Democracy: The Senate War Investigating Committee (New York: Richard R.
Smith, 1947); Theodore Wilson, ``The Truman Committee, 1941,'' in Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Roger Bruns, eds., Congress Investigates: A
Documented History, 1792-1974, vol. 4 (New York: Chelsea House, 1975),
pp. 3115-3136.
Generally, the congressional situation did not improve as the
prospects for victory in Europe and the Pacific steadily became stronger
during 1943 and 1944 and Roosevelt's return to the White House for a
fourth Presidential term grew more likely. By one estimate, the ``1944
session of Congress, attuned to the presidential election of that year,
was more partisan and quarrelsome than the one of the year before.''
\133\ In the subsequent playout of history, Roosevelt retained the
Presidency and his party increased its majority hold on the House, but
his tenure in office ended suddenly on April 12, 1945, with his death in
Warm Springs, GA. Shortly thereafter, on May 8, came the Allies' victory
in Europe, followed by victory over Japan on August 15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\133\ Josephy, On the Hill, p. 338.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Sam Rayburn.--First elected to the speakership on September
16, 1940, to succeed the fallen Will Bankhead, Samuel T. Rayburn
remained in this position throughout the years of World War II, and
subsequently became the longest serving Speaker--over 17 years--in
American history. A Texas attorney and State legislator, he was first
elected to the House in 1912 as a Democrat, serving in the 63d and the
24 succeeding Congresses. Rayburn became the chairman of the Interstate
and Foreign Commerce Committee during the 72d Congress and remained in
that leadership position for the next two Congresses. In this capacity,
he had endeared himself to the Roosevelt administration by assisting
with the passage of some of the most controversial New Deal
legislation.\134\ Moreover, within a few years after entering the House,
Rayburn became a protege of the influential John Nance Garner, who
became an intermediary to the House for President Wilson, Speaker of the
House (1931-1932), and Vice President (1933-1941).\135\ His close ties
to Roosevelt and Garner, as well as his being a member of the powerful
Texas congressional delegation, militated against his initial attempts
to gain a top House leadership position in 1934.\136\ ``Speaker Byrns's
death in 1936 opened the door for Rayburn,'' it has been said, ``and
Speaker Bankhead's death four years later closed it behind him.'' \137\
Moreover, his long experience in the House would serve him well. Indeed,
according to one considered view, ``Sam Rayburn entered upon the duties
of Speaker of the House with better training for the speakership than
any of the forty-two men who had preceded him.'' \138\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\134\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 123.
\135\ Ibid., p. 120.
\136\ Ibid., pp. 118-119.
\137\ Ibid., p. 121.
\138\ Booth Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn: A Political Partnership
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1971), p. 147.
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The House environment initially encountered by Speaker Rayburn in 1941
was familiar from his recent majority leader experience. ``The
Democratic majority was substantial, but it included a number of members
who were prepared to oppose the administration on almost any given
issue,'' according to one assessment.\139\ Moreover, there were
dangerous cross currents at work.
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\139\ Ibid., p. 155.
The delicate situation was made more so by the necessity of winning
congressional acceptance of a shift in the official government posture
toward the war in Europe. The President, while pushing for a strong
defense program, had sedulously endeavored to turn popular thinking away
from the possibility that the nation might become involved in armed
combat.\140\
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\140\ Ibid.
The President quickly tested Rayburn's skills as a legislative manager
working on his behalf. In early January, administration draftsmen began
developing a bill authorizing the President to have the Armed Forces
place orders for such defense articles as they required, as well as for
such additional quantities of such materials as the United States might
lend or lease to other nations. Great Britain, which had just repelled
savage and sustained German air attacks, would be the immediate
beneficiary. Rayburn contributed to perfecting the final version of the
lend-lease legislation, which was introduced by Majority Leader John
McCormack as H.R. 1776, ``A Bill to Further Promote the Defense of the
United States.'' \141\
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\141\ See, generally, Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-
Lease, 1939-1941 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969).
The bill defined defense articles so broadly as to make nearly
anything a defense article if the President said so. It authorized the
Chief Executive to order any government official to have manufactured in
arsenals, shipyards, factories or to procure in any way any defense
article for the use of any country the President named--
``notwithstanding the provisions of other laws.'' The President also
could order any defense article to be sold, exchanged, transferred,
leased, lent, or tested, inspected, proved, repaired, outfitted or
reconditioned, for the use of any party he might name--again without
regard to other laws. The bill provided that defense information might
be communicated to any government the President named and that any
defense article could be released for export to any country he named.
And it authorized the President to issue such orders as he considered
necessary to carry out any part of the act.\142\
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\142\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, p. 159.
Rayburn began gathering votes in support of the legislation. He could
count on the southern Democrats, who were ``almost unanimously
interventionist while the Republicans were hopelessly split.'' After
canvassing other colleagues, he perfected four specific modifications,
to be approved in committee, which would garner additional votes for the
measure on the floor. ``Rayburn thought it might also be well, as an
insurance measure, to do some trading with representatives from farm
states by providing that cash payments would be made for food and other
raw materials provided under terms of the bill.'' Finally, ``during the
two days of debate Rayburn successfully stifled efforts by isolationist
members to amend it into innocuousness.'' The House adopted the
legislation in early February by a margin of almost 100 votes.\143\ It
was subsequently signed into law on March 11, 1941.\144\
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\143\ Ibid., pp. 160-162.
\144\ 55 Stat. 31.
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An even more daunting task, however, soon fell to Rayburn. The
military conscription law enacted in September 1940, providing that Army
draftees would be in uniform for only 1 year of training, would expire
unless it was statutorily extended before the end of August. In
continuing the draft law, Roosevelt wanted to extend tours of service to
18 months. Opposition to extending the law was widespread and highly
emotional. Initially, Rayburn personally appealed to many of his
colleagues, being ``no less convinced than Roosevelt that an extension
of the draft was imperative for national security.'' \145\ Up to the
moment the final vote began, the outcome was uncertain. The clerk
completed the first call of names and then started the second required
call to obtain the votes of those who had not initially answered. The
result was a tie, which meant defeat for the draft extension bill, but
many Members were coming to the well of the House to be recognized to
change their votes. When this process reached a point where the vote was
203 to 202 in favor of the legislation, Rayburn announced the final vote
and declared the bill had passed. Protests broke out. The Speaker
recognized a Member opposed to the bill, who asked for a recapitulation
of the vote, a purely mechanical examination of the vote to determine
that each Member had been correctly recorded. When this was completed,
Rayburn declared there was no correction in the vote, ``the vote stands,
and without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table.'' The
tabling of the motion to reconsider meant that no reconsideration could
occur without unanimous consent. The draft extension bill had been saved
in the House by a single vote and the adroit action of the Speaker.\146\
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\145\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, pp. 164-165.
\146\ Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn: A Biography (New York: Hawthorn
Books, 1975), pp. 171-172.
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In the closing weeks of 1941, Rayburn was instrumental in obtaining
passage of amendments to the Neutrality Acts which would allow armed
American merchant ships to enter combat zones or the ports of
belligerent nations. He gained some votes by persuading the President to
send him a letter making a personal appeal for the amendments. This he
read on the floor to the Members, but, to garner a sufficient number of
votes for the amendments, he also agreed to allow an antistrike bill,
which he had blocked because he considered it unfair, to come to the
floor. ``If Rayburn deserved credit for winning repeal of the neutrality
restrictions,'' it was observed, ``he also shared blame for allowing a
harsh antistrike measure to pass the House a few days later.'' \147\ The
political climate, necessitating such tradeoffs, would shift
significantly shortly thereafter with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the
entry of the United States into World War II.
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\147\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, p. 272.
United, at least, in their desire to win the war, Democrats and
Republicans temporarily put aside their differences to give Franklin
Roosevelt the basic laws he needed to strengthen the war effort.
Victories came deceptively easy for the House leadership as Congress
handed the President vast wartime powers, appropriated staggering sums
for the military, found new revenue to finance the war by adding some 25
million Americans to the tax rolls, and expanded the draft to include
18-year-olds. ``No administration in time of war ever had greater
cooperation than we have given the present administration,'' said House
Republican Leader Joe Martin.\148\
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\148\ Ibid., p. 279.
This last action--extending the draft to 18-year-olds--was costly for
Democrats in the House and Rayburn could see the result when he convened
the 1943 session: 50 Members from his party in the previous Congress
were gone, and his margin over the minority was 11 votes. The
precariousness of the situation soon became apparent when a large number
of southern Democrats failed to appear on the House floor to cast their
votes for an initial group of administration bills, causing them to be
defeated. Rayburn, however, declined to punish the absentees.\149\
Nonetheless, his efforts on behalf of the administration during the year
brought him public praise from both the President and the First
Lady.\150\ There was even a fleeting possibility that Rayburn might
become Roosevelt's Vice Presidential running mate on the 1944
ticket.\151\ Rayburn was reelected to the House where he once again was
installed as Speaker and the Democrats again held a 50 vote margin.
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\149\ Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, p. 213.
\150\ Ibid., p. 215.
\151\ Ibid., pp. 215-220, 222; Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, pp. 291-297.
Renewed optimism gripped Washington as 1945 began. It promised to be
an eventful year. The Democrats firmly controlled Congress. Political
appointees could see four more years of job security ahead. In Europe,
the allies were drawing a tight ring around Hitler's Germany; in the
Pacific, U.S. Marines were advancing rapidly toward a final showdown
with Japan. The war would be over in a year, according to most
predictions.\152\
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\152\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, p. 301.
Indeed, it was an eventful year: the Presidency of Franklin D.
Roosevelt came to an end with his death, and the end of World War II
came with the dawning of the Atomic Age. The career of Sam Rayburn as
Speaker of the House, however, continued for many years after the
conclusion of the national emergencies which had first tested his
leadership.