Then you are in the presence of real greatness. What then? Why, the Speaker looks over _your_ bill, and then _he_ tells _you_ whether _he_ thinks it ought to come up or not!
There is a condition which I commend to the patriotic consideration of the American people. Contemplate that for a method of procedure in the legislative body of a great and free republic.
Who is the Speaker of this House who sets up his immaculate and infallible judgment against the judgment of all comers? Is there anything different or superior in the credentials that he carries from the credentials that were issued to you and to me from 70,000,000 of American people? When he entered this House at the beginning of the Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses he was simply a Congressman-elect, bearing credentials like every other man on this floor. He has no greater power now than any other member, save the additional power we ourselves bestowed upon him by electing him Speaker and then adopting this set of rules. The question that now arises to confront us is: Have we put a club in the hands of some one else to beat us to death? Have we elevated one man on a pinnacle so high that he can not now see those who elevated him? Is the Speaker of this House a mere mortal man of common flesh and clay, or is he supernatural and immortal? What miracle was wrought at his birth? Did a star shoot from its orbit when he was born, or did he come into existence in the good old-fashioned way that ushered the rest of us into this vale of tears?
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
I make no onslaught on the individual. I have a high regard for the Speaker of this House personally and for him politically; but we face the fact that we have adopted a set of rules in this body that are an absolute disgrace to the legislative body of any republic.
Throughout the entire three years of my service in this body I have been up against the little machine that dominates the proceedings and the deliberations of this House. During the entire three years prior to this time I have always treated that machine with the deference due to its age and its reputation. I trust you will excuse my frankness when I tell you that from this time on I shall devote a little of my time and a tithe of my energy to putting a few spokes in the wheel of that machine that the designers of the vehicle never ordered. [Laughter.]