Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [127]
A House-Senate conference hastily recommended that the President be given enough funds to build not four but five big new battleships. But at 10:00 P.M. on 3 March, Senator Tillman, his face ugly with anger, vowed to filibuster every cent in funds not yet appropriated unless South Carolina was bought off with pork-barrel money. “I’ll stand here and read Byron till I drop dead in my tracks.” At 2:00 A.M., he got his way. He yielded the floor to Senator Quay, who promptly embarked on another set of dilatory tactics.
Outside, the moon was setting, and the Capitol dome was obscured with shadow. In the tobacco-stale House, legislators snored at their desks. Word of Tillman’s victory came to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He got to his feet in sudden agitation, a bony, bearded, goatlike figure. “Mr. Speaker, if the House will bear with me …”
Joseph Gurney Cannon was sixty-six, and had been enduring Senate filibusters for nearly half his life. He had seen the House’s power decline steadily, till it functioned as almost a legislative bureau of supply to the Senate, sending money and parchment down the corridor on demand. Only last fall, Roosevelt and the Republican “leaders” had not even bothered to include Speaker Henderson in their tariff conference at Oyster Bay. To Cannon’s proud sensibility, the night just ending marked the nadir of what had once been the greatest deliberative body in the world.
Yet in this dark hour he felt dawn coming for himself. Later today, the retiring Speaker would lay down the gavel, and he—“Uncle Joe” of Danville, Illinois, the tightest wad and toughest talker in Congress—would take it up. Long years of frustration against the Senate surged in Cannon’s breast. His face reddened, and he began to shout, rousing his colleagues from sleep:
I am in earnest, with a message to the House touching this bill.… We have rules, sometimes invoked by our Democratic friends and sometimes by ourselves—each responsible to the people after all’s said and done—by which a majority, right or wrong, mistaken or otherwise, can legislate.
In another body, there are no rules. In another body, legislation is had by unanimous consent … and in the expiring hours of the session we are powerless without that unanimous consent. Help me Cassius, or I sink!
When Cannon lost his temper, he made even Senator Tillman seem tame. His body jerked in spasms, and he grew so hot he would tear off his coat and collar and douse himself with ice water. Now, however, he fought for his dignity, and for that of the House of Representatives:
I am getting to be a somewhat aged man. I pray God that my life may be spared until an intelligent and righteous sentiment, north and south, pervading both the great parties, will lash anybody into obedience to the right of the majority to rule.
Applause roared and rolled out of the chamber into the marble hall. Nobody in the Senate heard it: that body had voted itself a short recess. The House followed suit. Congressmen emerged blearily into the chill air and dispersed in quest of beds, breakfast, and fresh clothes. A pallor tinged the sky beyond East Capitol Street. One by one, the naphtha lamps winked out.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S CARRIAGE rolled up the Hill shortly after 10:00. He found both assemblies back in session. As tradition required, he went to the President’s Room to sign late bills. But the green baize table was bare. He sat waiting in a plump leather chair, his Cabinet officers ringed around him. George Washington and his Cabinet looked down from the walls. A black bust of McKinley stared into space. Finally, bills began to come in. He scrutinized and signed them to the ticking of a grandfather clock. The naval-construction appropriation was satisfying, but he still saw no confirmation of his choice for Collector of Charleston. He was not downcast, having long since decided to put Crum in office, if necessary, by means of interim and recess executive power. Perhaps the next Senate