Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/58

50 CONGRESSIONAL PAPERS. NO. II— THE SENATE. purpose. In the Senate this is rarely done. The usual course is to refer every bill to the appropriate committee and await the Committee's action as reported by their chairman. If not reported in the usual manner the bill may be regarded as dead, unless the committee are directed to consider the subject by special vote of the Senate. When onee reported favorably, without amendment, and placed upon the "calendar" its passage is a foregone conclusion. It is only a question of time, regulated, generally, by its numerical order upon the calendar. By common consent, whenever any bill or resolution, has been favorably reported from committee, the report adopted, and the bill or resolution placed upon the calendar, its final passage is conceded, and the yeas and nays are never called except upon important bills, or upon such measures as it is desired to make a "record." A knowledge of this simple fact will explain to the amazed spectator who for the first time visits the Senate galleries, the apparent indifference of three or four score Senators to what is passing before them. The presiding officer will put through, perhaps, thirty or forty bills of greater or less importance, in as many minutes, calling for the ayes and noes, verbally, in the usual way, declare the bills passed, one after another, and all the while not a Senator responds for or against. This method of passing bills is called "by unanimous consent," which presupposes every vote in favor of a bill, and is so recorded unless open objection is made. It does not indicate, as would seem to the casual observer, a sublime indifference of Senators to important legislation, but is only an expeditious method of passing measures that have been carefully considered and agreed upon. The adoption of this method, practically unknown in the House, except during the closing hours of a session, enables the Senate to gain time, both in the consideration and final passage of bills. It also enables the enrolling clerks of the House to "anticipate" some of their work, and to enroll a large number of bills in advance. A given number of bills having passed the House, and having been reported favorably to the Senate and placed upon the calendar without amendment, their final passage in exactly the same form as reported, is only a question of time. Consequently, the House enrolling clerks can enroll the bills, leaving the date of the passage blank, and thus do much work that would otherwise fail for want of time. No bill— even if passed without opposition by both houses of Congress — can become a law, unless it is enrolled upon parchment and presented to and signed by the President of the United States before the hour fixed for final adjournment. The Senate and House might pass a thousand bills in good faith and every one of them fail to become laws if sufficient time was not given to enroll them. Owing to the indecent haste with' which all kinds of bills are crowded through Congress during the closing hours of the session, many bills fail for this reason, and the number would be largely increased were it not for the "probabilities" indicated by the Senate Calendar which enables the en- rolling clerks to "take time by the forelock."

The Senate has numerous other advantages over the House which enables it to transact business more rapidly, or rather to give more time to the consideration of important matters. It has less members. Much less time is consumed in calling the yeas and nays. The immense amount of work required to prepare the great appropriation bills, is all done by the House. The Senate has only to revise and amend. If the House Committee on Appropriations does its work well, — the Senate has but little to do comparatively.

Ordinarily, the Post-Office, Pension and Indian appropriation bills pass the Senate with few amendments. The Military Academy, Navy, the consular and diplomatic, the River and Harbor, and the fortification bills, will be considerably amended. The Deficiency bills pass substantially as reported, while the "tug of war" comes on the Legislative, the Sundry Civil, and the Array. The Sundry Civil, is known as the "Omnibus" bill, as, like the vehicle from which it