Congress, The (1989)

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[birds chirping]

MADISON: What is government itself,

but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

James Madison.

♪

♪

♪

♪

McCULLOUGH: That's the place where our government works.

It's the engine of democracy.

This is our most important building.

We're so accustomed to seeing our history measured

by the presidency that we forget the extent to which

the real story of our country takes place right there.

That's the place to go.

To the hill.

All the voices are there.

SPEAKER: The House will be in order,

our prayer will be offered by the Chaplin.

CHAPLIN: Oh God as we think on the glories of

your spiritual world...

TOUR GUIDE: Alright folks, as you enter the Rotunda

please grab a ticket,

one per person for a tour of the historic section

of the building.

TOUR GUIDE: I'm standing in the original section

of the Capitol,

George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant...

TOUR GUIDE: John Quincy Adams...

[speaking in foreign language].

MACARTHUR: Old soldiers never die,

they just fade away.

CONGRESSMAN: Senator McCarthy,

have you no sense of decency sir?

CHAIR: Mr. Rodino?

RODINO: Aye.

CONGRESSMAN: It is possible for an American to disagree

with you on aid to the countries...

CHAIR: Ms. Jordan? JORDAN: Aye.

CONGRESSMAN: And still love God and still...

CONGRESSWOMAN: Mr. Speaker the official state song of my

home state is entitled,

"Beautiful Nebraska" I want my colleagues to

know about the accomplishment...

ROGERS: With Congress, every time they make a joke

it's a law, uh, you know...

[audience laughter and applause].

And every time,

every time they make a law, it's a joke.

[audience laughter and applause].

SMITH: Look, look, there it is!

MCGANN: Who, what?

SMITH: The Capitol dome.

COOK: Yes sir, big as life, been there a long time now.

MCGANN: Yes, sir, this way Senator.

[street noise].

MCDOWELL: The Congress, and the President,

and I guess the Supreme Court, they're the three things we got.

But the Congress is where we speak.

The Congress is where we are.

The Congress is where ordinary mortals go about

the business of compromise.

Of compromise which gets us through the day.

FIELDS: Congress is the first branch of government

in the sense that it is the reminder that

people in a republic are supposed to do

their own business,

and they are not supposed to abdicate their business

to someone else.

STENNIS: There were still some lingering thoughts,

you know, that they made a mistake in giving up

the idea of a king.

Well, Benjamin Franklin came along.

Said, the story is, he came along and he, he stopped and

listened a moment.

And when there was a chance to say a word,

he just said this, says,

"“In America the people govern."”

BRYCE: This huge gray hall,

filled with perpetual clamor,

this multitude of keen and eager faces,

this ceaseless coming and going of many feet,

this irreverent public,

watching from the galleries and forcing its way

on to the floor,

all speak to the beholder's mind of the mighty democracy,

destined in another century to form one-half

of civilized mankind, whose affairs are here debated.

Of what tremendous struggles may not this hall become the

theatre in ages yet far distant when the parliaments of Europe

have shrunk to insignificance?

[cow mooing]

NARRATOR: One mile east and feet above the Potomac River,

on what was once called Jenkins Heights,

stands the most recognizable building in America.

Designed by and English man, inspired by a Russian church,

decorated by Italian craftsmen,

and built in part by sl*ves,

it is the nearest thing Americans have to

a national temple.

Davey Crockett sat here.

So did Joseph Pulitzer and Horace Greeley and

William Randolph Hearst and Emily Dickinson's father,

and Isidor Straus,

the founder of Macy's and a man who pitched a

perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies in .

Over , men and women have served here:

farmers and housewives,

Rhodes Scholars and ex-sl*ves,

astronauts and priests,

basketball stars and convicted felons,

school teachers and playwrights.

And lawyers, always lawyers.

JEFFERSON: If the present Congress err too much

in talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which

the people send lawyers,

whose trade is talk by the hour?

NARRATOR: One member has gone insane in office.

One has taken maternity leave and several have

served jail terms for bribery.

Members have fought on the floor with fists

and fire tongs,

shot each other on dueling grounds,

and been shot at from the galleries.

from Congress have become president.

In years Congress has in the name of the

people pushed open the West, built railroads,

freed sl*ves, made w*r,

passed Social Security, put G.I.s through college,

and paid to land men on the moon.

They've driven Indians from their land,

outlawed alcohol, and filibustered without mercy.

They've created Mother's Day and

Daylight Saving's Time,

dominated presidents and been dominated by them,

started wars, and stopped them.

"“Congress,"” Thomas Jefferson said,

"“Is the great commanding theater of this nation.

It is the place where laws are made."

COOKE: He was once asked by a rather impatient man

of the Constitutional Convention,

"“Mr. Madison, could you please tell us what

are the principles,

if there are any, to be of American government?"”

And he said, "“Yes, there are three;

compromise, compromise, compromise."”

McCULLOUGH: I'm most impressed by their imagination.

This was a leap of imagination,

the idea that you're going to turn over to the

people through their representatives the power

to make w*r and the power to tax.

ROBERTS: That the people who were going to either take

your money away or take your sons away

were the people who had to go home every single,

at that point, it wasn't every weekend,

but it was the notion that they had to be up for

re-election every two years.

BRODER: It's hard to imagine that when they met in New York,

there was no structure for them to begin with.

And they invented this Congress that still exists today,

recognizing that every decision they made in those two years

would become a precedent for as long as

the Congress endured.

If that's not a miracle,

that we had that kind of political talent

available in a small country of four million people

at that time in our history,

I don't know what a miracle is.

♪

ADAMS: You and I, dear friend,

have been sent into life at a time when

the greatest lawgivers would have wished to live.

How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of

making an election of government for themselves

and their children?

John Adams.

NARRATOR: In ,

kings still ruled in France and England,

a czar in St. Petersburg, a sultan in Constantinople,

a divinely invested emperor in Peking,

and a shogun in Japan.

But on March th, ,

in the sun-filled chambers of New York's City Hall,

newly remodeled as a temporary Capitol,

the first Congress of the United States took up

its business under the new Constitution.

Only members showed up, however,

and the first Congress adjourned without a quorum.

AMES: This is a very mortifying situation,

we lose credit, spirit, everything.

The public will forget the government before it is born.

The resurrection of the infant will come before its birth.

Representative Fischer Ames.

NARRATOR: When they finally all assembled,

Congress addressed itself to ten constitutional amendments,

a Bill of Rights,

guaranteeing among other things the separation

of church and state.

The House then picked a former preacher for

its first speaker,

Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania.

They created new departments of State,

Treasury, and w*r,

devised the machinery of committees,

and set President George Washington's salary

at the huge sum of $, a year,

all the time improvising freely.

They were inventing Congress and they were

inventing themselves.

ADAMS: I am Vice President.

In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.

But I am also president of the Senate.

When the President comes into the Senate,

who shall I be?

John Adams?

McDOWELL: I would like to have been a reporter

at the first Congress, in the first days,

when those guys, uh, uh, came in there to invent what

they'd planned at Philadelphia.

And, there was a moment when, uh, the President had

a treaty for the Senate to ratify.

Well, the Senate had never ratified a treaty,

there'd never been a Senate, there'd never been a treaty.

George Washington bore the treaty to the Capitol

in his hand, and he delivered it to the Senate,

and he said in effect, "Ratify it."

And the Senate, uh, took it and looked at it a while

and said, "Well, uh, yes sir. Yeah."

And it came clear that Washington expected them

to ratify it.

And the Senate asserted itself,

not knowing what it was asserting and said,

"We'll have to look at it."

Washington paced the halls,

irritated, angered, the cong...

the Senate told him that they believed it would

take till tomorrow, or maybe another day.

And Washington had to leave the Capitol and go home,

and he never returned to the Capitol.

But the Senate had asserted that it

would do what the Founders,

which George Washington agreed with,

they ratified a treaty by arguing about it and making a

little change somewhere and the government was operating.

ABIGAIL: After leaving Baltimore we wandered about for

two hours without finding a guide or a path.

Woods are all you can see from the time you leave

Baltimore until you reach the city,

which is so only in name.

I have been to Georgetown.

It is the very dirtiest hole I ever saw for a place

of any trade, or respectability of inhabitants.

Abigail Adams.

NARRATOR: After a year in New York,

and ten in Philadelphia,

Congress finally found a permanent home.

The government settled on the banks of the Potomac.

At the west end of Jenkins Heights.

The move was made in June, .

The governments documents came by sailing ship.

Clerks, Congressmen and John Adams,

now President Adams, by stagecoach and horseback.

A Library of Congress was established and a sum of

$,, voted to purchase all Louisiana Territory,

doubling the size of the country.

An additional appropriation of $,

went to Lewis and Clark to find out what

$ million had bought.

Congress was boisterous, homespun,

enlivened now by a two-party system,

and outraged over British harassment of American shipping.

Some wanted w*r.

Most persuasive of these "“w*r hawks"” was a

young Congressman from Kentucky.

QUINCY ADAMS: Clay is an eloquent man,

with very popular manners and great political management,

his school has been the world,

and in that he is proficient.

His morals, public and private, are loose,

but he has all the virtues indispensable to a popular man.

NARRATOR: On November th, ,

his first day as a member of the House of Representatives,

Henry Clay was elected Speaker.

He was tall, gallant, shrewd, and ambitious, a natural leader.

Only years old he took his place in the great chamber and

quickly challenged the White House and its handling

of foreign affairs.

The balance of power shifted to Congress,

and to Henry Clay.

CLAY: Sir, no man in the nation wants peace more that I;

but I prefer the troubled ocean of w*r,

with all its calamities,

to the tranquil and putrescent pool of ignominious peace!

NARRATOR: In June of ,

the Congress of the United States declared w*r

for the first time,

then adjourned without voting the taxes to pay for it.

Two years later, the British invaded Washington.

Congress was not in session when the British army marched

into the city and burned the Capitol.

But the problems had just begun.

McCULLOUGH: Two great questions have prevailed all the way

through from the time of the earliest Congress

right up until the present.

And those are civil rights and growth.

BRODER: I suppose the crucial moment in the th century was

when this nation was trying to avert the tragedy

of the Civil w*r,

which finally overpowered the statesmen of that era.

But there were men, Clay, and others,

who tried and used up their lives and careers

trying to avert that calamity.

And that would have been a time to have been a fly on

the wall in the Capitol.

TROLLOPE: The mists of morning still hung around the

magnificent building when first it broke upon our view,

we were struck with admiration and surprise.

None of us, I believe,

expected to see so imposing a structure on that

side of the Atlantic.

The beauty and majesty of the American capitol might defy

an abler pen than mine to do it justice.

It stands so finely too, high, and alone.

Frances Trollope.

NARRATOR: By the Capitol had been rebuilt under

the direction of Benjamin Latrobe and

Charles Bullfinch.

There were spacious new chambers for both houses,

joined by a handsome Rotunda, and a low wooden dome,

sheathed in copper.

A proud Congress sat while the artist

Samuel F.B. Morse

painted it in session in its new quarters,

then subsidized his new telegraph system.

Growth and "“improvements"” were the spirit of the times.

But, because of confusion as to whether the

Senate or the House had authority in the Rotunda,

merchants set up shop there,

and sold stoves, pianos, and mousetraps.

CALHOUN: Let us then bind the Republic together with

a perfect system of roads and canals.

Let us conquer space, we are rapidly,

I was about to say fearfully, growing.

John C. Calhoun.

NARRATOR: But there was one problem that could

unbind the Republic.

As each new state was added to the Union,

it threatened to tear the country apart.

Southerners feared the North might forbid sl*very;

northerners feared sl*very might move west.

CHAPMAN: There was never a moment in our history

when sl*very was not a sleeping serpent.

It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations

of the Constitutional Convention,

thereafter sl*very was on everyone's mind,

if not always on his tongue.

NARRATOR: The first great crisis came in .

After fierce debate,

Congress passed the Missouri Compromise,

admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri

as a sl*ve state.

Henry Clay engineered the compromise,

using all the force of his extraordinary personality.

There was widespread relief.

They had saved the Union for now.

CLAY: All legislation, is founded upon the principle

of mutual concession.

Let him who elevates himself above humanity, say,

if he pleases, "“I never will compromise,"”

but let no one who is not above the frailties of our

common nature disdain compromise.

NARRATOR: It was a time of oratory,

and there were giants on Capitol Hill,

Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri,

the voice of Western expansion who had once

shot Andrew Jackson in a street brawl,

Sam Houston, future president of Texas,

who sat in the House chamber whittling a pine stick;

John Quincy Adams, "“Old Man Eloquent,"” who,

like no other former president,

went back to serve in the House,

and Webster, "“God-like Daniel,"”

of Massachusetts.

It was said no man was ever so great as

Daniel Webster looked.

Or sounded.

WEBSTER: When my eyes shall be turned to behold

for the last time the sun in the heavens,

may I not see him shining on the broken fragments

of a once glorious Union,

on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched,

it may be, in fraternal blood!

Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold

the gorgeous ensign of the Republic,

still full high advanced liberty and union,

now and forever, one and inseparable!

NARRATOR: Speech by speech, compromise after compromise,

words held the country together.

Generations of schoolchildren learned

Webster's words by heart and took them to heart.

BASSETT: Before delivering a speech he often

appeared absent-minded.

Rising to his feet he seemed to recover perfect

self-possession,

which was aided by thrusting the right hand within

the folds of his vest,

while the left hung gracefully by his side.

His dark complexion grew warm with inward fire,

his eyes would start from their cavernous depths.

NARRATOR: Webster was a genial host,

a warm friend of business and of the sideboard decanter,

and not averse to taking cash gifts from admirers.

Henry Clay, too, enjoyed his whiskey and high living,

gambling, and horse racing.

A "“w*r Hawk"” no more,

he had become the supreme charmer of American politics,

the Great Compromiser.

CALHOUN: I don't like Henry Clay.

He is a bad man, an imposter,

a creator of wicked schemes.

I wouldn't speak to him but by God, I love him.

John C. Calhoun.

NARRATOR: Somber, intellectual John C. Calhoun

had no interest in compromise.

Like Clay, he was a sl*ve owner,

but unlike Clay,

he became so single-minded in his defense of the

institution that he seemed possessed.

He gave up the Vice-Presidency to take a seat in the

Senate to lead the Southern cause.

CALHOUN: Nothing can be more unfounded and false

than the prevalent opinion that all men are born

free and equal for it

rests upon the assumption of a fact which is contrary

to universal observation.

John C. Calhoun.

CLAY: Here is or country upon the very verge of a Civil w*r

which everyone pretends to be anxious to avoid,

yet everyone wants his own way,

irrespective of the wishes of others.

Henry Clay.

STEVENS: The feeling among the Southern members for

dissolution of the Union is becoming more general.

Men are now beginning to talk of it seriously who months

ago hardly permitted themselves to think of it the

crisis is not far ahead.

Alexander Stevens.

NARRATOR: When the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid,

there were only post offices in the country.

By , there were ,.

Gold had been found in California.

Texas was in the Union.

The country now stretched all the way to the Pacific.

O'SULLIVAN: It is our manifest destiny to overspread

the continent allotted by providence for the free

development of our yearly multiplying millions.

ADAMS: There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land,

and whether one government can comprehend the whole.

NARRATOR: The next crisis came in over California:

would the new state be sl*ve or free?

Clay took the floor on February th.

He had arrived at the Capitol so weak he had to be

helped up the steps, but in the overheated chamber,

he spoke nearly three hours,

pleading for another compromise.

He warned that the Union might be destroyed,

and called for a free California,

to please the North.

To please the South,

he proposed to strengthen the law that returned

runaway sl*ves to their owners.

Clay knew what a concession he was asking of Webster

and the North.

CLAY: You are numerically more powerful than the sl*ve states

and greatness and magnanimity should ever be allied together.

NARRATOR: Calhoun, racked with fever,

too ill even to talk,

sat wrapped in a black cloak,

glaring defiance while his speech was read for him

by James Mason of Virginia.

He was sure the abolitionists would make

sl*ves into masters,

and masters into sl*ves.

On March th, Daniel Webster took his turn.

Plagued by insomnia for weeks,

he reinforced himself with drugs.

It was his last great speech.

WEBSTER: Mr. President, I wish to speak today,

not as a Massachusetts man nor as a Northern man

but as an American and a member of the Senate,

I speak for the preservation of the Union.

Hear me for my cause.

NARRATOR: He had made a brave decision.

He would support the Clay Compromise,

including the Fugitive sl*ve Law his constituents

so despised because he thought it the only

way to stave off civil w*r.

Clay and Webster won.

The Compromise of held the Union together for

ten more years, but Webster,

Clay, and Calhoun were spent:

defiant until the end,

Calhoun died even before the Compromise was

enacted into law.

Clay and Webster died in .

Henry Clay of Kentucky was the first man to lie in state

in the Rotunda of the Capitol.

MCDOWELL: I like, uh, I like oratory,

it's a, it's a, uh, one of my character failings.

And, uh, Webster, Clay, Calhoun,

apparently were three just magic orators.

Uh, I would have sat, and I would have listened,

as you would listen to a great Wurlitzer somewhere.

Uh, I would have, uh, I hope,

uh, been absolutely awed at the way,

in the middle of all that mellifluence raging,

they were isolating issues,

as very few members are able to do today,

they were speaking about the greatest divisions

in the country, uh,

with incredible precision apart from their eloquence.

But when I'm in the presence of that,

I, I read about it the next day,

I sit and listen as to the concert.

NARRATOR: Now Capitol Hill became a construction site.

Two huge new wings were planned,

grand stairways, sumptuous reception rooms,

and new dome.

[horses neigh]

♪

[hammering]

The architect was from the North,

Thomas Walter of Pennsylvania.

The man in charge was from the South,

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.

But while the Capitol was growing,

the country was coming apart.

Finally, words failed.

On the floor of the Senate,

South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks

savagely beat the abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner

of Massachusetts with a cane.

Sumner tried so desperately to get away he wrenched

his desk loose from the floor.

Members of the House began carrying pistols.

In November of ,

Abraham Lincoln was elected president.

In December, South Carolina seceded from the Union.

There were more and more empty seats in

the new chambers.

On January st, ,

Senator Jefferson Davis rose to speak.

DAVIS: I am sure I feel no hostility toward you,

Senators of the North.

I am sure there is not one of you,

whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us,

to whom I cannot say,

in the presence of my God,

I wish you well.

NARRATOR: Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on

the east steps,

beneath the booms and scaffolding for the colossal

new dome of cast iron.

Cannon guarded the Capitol grounds.

Sharpshooters lined the roof.

Despite protest at the cost,

Lincoln insisted that work on the unfinished dome go on.

"“I take it as a sign,"”

he said, "“that the Union will continue."”

But on April th, , w*r came.

Now there was another American Congress,

the Provincial Congress of the Confederate States of America

in Montgomery, Alabama.

WOMAN: Washington City was no longer a name to the mother

waiting and praying in the distant hamlet,

her boy was camped on the floor of the Rotunda.

Never till that hour did the federal city become to the

heart of the American people truly the capital of the nation.

NARRATOR: The Capitol became a makeshift barracks,

then a hospital.

Congress and the country were now confronting

their greatest crisis.

At noon, December nd, ,

as the w*r dragged on,

a -foot bronze goddess of "“Freedom Triumphant"”

was at last hoisted into place.

The great dome was finished.

In January of , Congress passed a

constitutional amendment abolishing sl*very everywhere

and for all time.

Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first Black man ever

to serve in the United States Senate,

filling the seat last held by Jefferson Davis.

Only one Southern senator had remained loyal to the Union,

Vice President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.

When he assumed the presidency after

Lincoln's assassination,

a violent power struggle broke out between Congress

and the executive.

Johnson's reconstruction plan was too lenient for

Radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens

of Pennsylvania, who wanted to vigorously enforce

civil rights throughout the South.

In , Congress voted to impeach the President.

Johnson survived removal by only one vote.

But Congress, not the President,

would continue to dominate Washington for the

next three decades.

BOY: Not a bad desk either,

Daniel Webster used to use it.

SMITH: Daniel Webster sat here?

Holy mackerel.

BOY: Give me something to sh**t at Senator,

if you figure on doing any talking.

SMITH: Oh no, I'm just gonna sit around and listen.

BOY: That's a way to get reelected.

POET: These hardy knaves and stupid fools.

Some apish and pragmatic mules.

Some servile acquiescing tools.

These, these compose the Congress!

When Jove resolved to send a curse,

and all the woes of life rehearse,

not plague, not famine,

but much worse, He cursed us with a Congress!

NARRATOR: Government during the first years

meant building, and then saving a nation.

Now, in the aftermath of Civil w*r,

it often meant exploiting it.

TWAIN: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that

there is no distinctly native American

criminal class except Congress.

Reader.

Suppose you were an idiot.

And suppose you were a member of Congress.

But I repeat myself.

Mark Twain.

[cow moo's]

NARRATOR: The lead parts on the Capital Hill now,

were assumed by a new breed:

the Bosses.

Through their political machines and

the power of patronage,

many Senators controlled the state legislatures

that elected them.

BRYCE: Scarcely any of the great railwaymen

go into Congress,

a fact of much significance when one considers that

they are really the most powerful people in the country.

The absence of railwaymen by no means implies the

absence of railway influence,

for it is as easy for a company to influence

legislation form without Congress as from within.

DONNELLY: We meet in the midst of a nation brought

to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin.

Corruption dominates.

From the same prolific womb of injustice,

we breed the two great classes, tramps and millionaires.

NARRATOR: Leland Stanford of California was president and

director of the Central Pacific Railroad,

the whole time he sat in the Senate,

now known as the "“Millionaires' Club."”

But most conspicuous of the Bosses was

Senator Roscoe Conkling,

Republican of New York.

He was handsome and hugely vain.

Women thought him gorgeous.

He was for big business and the railroads,

they made the country great.

He sneered at reformers,

and called the Civil Service the "“snivel service."”

BLAINE: The contempt of that large-minded gentleman

is so wilting; his haughty disdain,

his grandiloquent swell,

his majestic, super-eminent, turkey-gobbler strut has been

so crushing that it was an act of the greatest temerity

for me to venture upon a controversy with him.

James G. Blaine.

NARRATOR: Conkling's chief rival for the

public spotlight was speaker

James Gillespie Blaine of Maine.

Able and warmhearted,

he might have become president had he not,

like so many others, accepted financial support from

the "“interests,"” in his case, the Little Rock Railroad.

He became the symbol of a whole political era,

the Tattooed Man.

In the deadlocked presidential election of ,

a backroom deal between Republican and Democratic

bosses in Congress sent Rutherford B. Hayes

to the presidency,

instead of Samuel Tilden who had actually won

the popular vote.

In exchange federal troops were withdrawn from the South.

Reconstruction collapsed.

The few blacks in Congress disappeared almost overnight.

It would be years before Congress seriously

considered civil rights again.

WHITE: This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes' temporary

farewell to the American Congress,

but let me say, Phoenix-like,

he will rise up someday and come again.

Representative George White.

NARRATOR: But even in the age of the Bosses, Congress passed

the Land Grant College Act,

granted millions of acres to homesteaders,

finally enacted Civil Service Reform,

and set up the Interstate Commerce Commission to

regulate the railroads.

Government and the Congress grew,

and one man in Washington was big enough

to keep it all going.

MAN: He was a slow-moving giant hulk,

out of whose collar rose an enormous, round,

clean-shaven baby face like a Casaba melon from a

fat black stalk.

NARRATOR: He was also distinguished by his belief

that the purpose of Congress was to accomplish something,

and in the end,

he gave up his power on a matter of principle.

Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine,

the Speaker of the House,

stood six foot three and weighed nearly pounds.

His wit could be withering.

He remarked of two colleagues that,

"“They never opened their mouths without subtracting

from the sum of human knowledge,"”

and he defined a statesman as

"“a successful politician who is dead."”

On seeing his portrait as rendered by

John Singer Sargent, Reed said,

"“All my enemies are revenged."”

When asked whether he would attend the funeral of

a political enemy,

Reed said, "“No, but I approve of it."”

He was called "“Czar Reed."” In one stormy session,

relying on his authority as Speaker,

he began to count as present any member currently

in the chamber,

whether he answered the roll call or not.

Members screamed in outrage and,

when Reed kept on counting, hid under their desks.

The Speaker kept on, and when others tried to leave,

he had the doors locked.

From then on "“Reed Rules"” were in effect.

A minority could no longer block legislation

with its silence.

Reed's st Congress in was the first to

spend a billion dollars in peacetime.

To handle it all members of Congress were finally

authorized to maintain a personal staff of one.

And still, the country was growing.

Hawaii was annexed in .

The next year the Spanish-American w*r

brought Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands

into the American empire.

Reed liked none of it.

Imperialism, he believed,

was contrary to American ideals.

REED: At the beginning of this year,

the quarrels which other nations have we did not have

our drum beat did not encircle the world with our martial airs.

Our g*ns were not called upon to throw

projectiles which cost,

each of them the price of a happy home.

Thomas Brackett Reed.

NARRATOR: Rather than preside over a House that supported a

policy he despised, he resigned.

Asked once if his party was likely ever to nominate

him for the presidency,

Reed said,

"“They might do worse, and I think they will."”

He went out on the eve of the new century.

McDOWELL: Great bosses are not the story of

the Congress or of American politics.

The Congress is the story and how in the end it always

asserts itself against the bosses.

And the public view does prevail.

♪

McCULLOUGH: It was the new th century,

all kinds of miraculous events were taking place,

changes taking place and people felt the

country had grown too big,

that the government was out of touch with the people,

that there were many people in society who were not

getting a fair shake and they wanted that corrected.

CANNON: I have been a member of this House three successive

sessions and during that time I have caught the measles,

the whooping cough, and the influenza,

but I have never been able to catch the Speaker's eye.

NARRATOR: For reform-minded Congressmen in the sins

of the old order could be summed up in a name,

Joseph Gurney Cannon, Speaker of the House,

known as "“Foul-Mouthed Joe."”

MAN: Uncle Joe's restless teeth bit off large untidy

sections from the near end of a maltreated cigar,

until his wet lips were strewn with sodden, shredded leaves,

and the neglected fitful smolder at the cigar's far end

seemed to be in greater danger from flood than from fire.

NARRATOR: He swore unrepentantly,

spat into an umbrella stand when no spittoon was handy,

and boasted,

"“I have oats in my pocket and hayseed in my hair."”

Nobody disliked Uncle Joe personally.

But as Speaker,

he was the absolute dictator his opponents called him.

The voters of Danville, Illinois

had first sent him to Congress in ,

and his beliefs had not changed since then.

He ran the Rules Committee and the Rules Committee

decided which bills should be considered.

No bill came to the floor of which he did not approve.

One after another he strangled progressive measures

to regulate the railroads, break up the trusts,

guard public health and public lands.

CANNON: I am goddamned tired of listening to

all this babble for reform,

America is a hell of a success,

the country don't need any legislation.

NARRATOR: No one who valued his career in Congress

dared cross him.

Until .

The revolt was led by an idealistic former judge from

Red Willow County, Nebraska, a progressive Republican

named George W. Norris.

On St. Patrick's Day,

with Cannon's Irish allies out of the House,

Norris introduced a resolution that he'd been

carrying in his pocket for months.

It gave the House, not the Speaker,

the power to elect the Rules Committee.

Cannon ruled it out of order but was himself overruled by a

combination of Democrats and insurgent Republicans.

After hours of debate, the resolution carried.

The iron rule of Speaker Cannon was ended.

WOMAN: For three days Uncle Joe has been like

an old gray wolf at bay,

I don't especially admire him.

He is a flippant, coarse-natured,

brazen old man but today I am sorry for him.

McCULLOUGH: It was an extremely important change in

our country because Joe Cannon stood for no change.

What is was what should remain in his view when in fact

we did need legislation and these insurgents,

Progressives, spoke out.

La FOLLETTE: The supreme issue is that the encroachment

of the powerful few upon the rights of the many.

It is against the system built up by privilege,

that we must make unceasing warfare.

Robert La Follette.

NARRATOR: Senator Robert M. La Follette

of Wisconsin, charging that fewer than

men controlled the great business interests

of the whole nation,

became the conscience of the new Progressive movement.

WOMAN: "“Colliers Weekly,"” years from now,

the future historians will say that this was the period

of the greatest ethical advance made by

this nation in any decade.

NARRATOR: There was unprecedented cooperation now

between the new progressive Congress and the new

progressive president, Woodrow Wilson.

A former professor of history, Wilson had once written a book

on congressional government,

without ever actually visiting Capitol Hill.

His thesis was that Congress didn't work very well.

Calling Congress into special session in the spring of ,

he went in person to present his program,

something no president had done since John Adams.

By custom, Congress took long recesses,

but Wilson would keep the rd Congress in Washington,

fighting and arguing and making laws for

a year and a half straight.

The rd Congress was the last Congress before the

th Amendment transferred the election of Senators

from the state legislatures to the people.

It was the greatest single change in Congress

in its history.

A graduated income tax was adopted.

A Federal Reserve Act stabilized the

nation's banking system.

Congress went on to pass tougher antitrust laws and

create the Federal Trade Commission,

improve conditions for merchant sailors,

ease credit for farmers, provide workman's compensation

for federal employees,

and limit child labor in mines and factories.

But everything changed on the rainy night of

April nd, ,

when President Wilson went before another extraordinary

session of Congress,

this time to ask for a declaration of w*r

against Germany.

On the morning of Wilson's speech,

the first woman ever to serve in Congress took her seat far

back on the Republican side, Jeanette Rankin of Montana.

RANKIN: I love my country, but I cannot vote for w*r.

I vote no.

NARRATOR: She was not alone, but other progressives voted

for w*r and split the movement.

The alliance between Congress and the President ended

in a quarrel over America's role in the world.

♪

NARRATOR: By the s crusades and crusaders were

out of fashion.

The Speaker of the House was Nicholas Longworth,

a dapper, popular, Ohio Republican who had

no interest whatsoever in reform.

There were still men on Capitol Hill who wore white

linen suits and black bow ties,

who looked like the cartoonist's image of the

old-time politician and dipped snuff from the lacquer

box on the Senate rostrum.

But there were younger voices, too,

Congressman Fiorello La Guardia was one.

A Progressive Republican and sometime Socialist from

New York, he could denounce exploiters in six languages.

And there was one unyielding old voice.

For years George Norris fought almost alone trying

to develop the resources of the Tennessee Valley,

a part of the country where he had no constituents but,

"“a property,"” he said, "“which belongs to all of us,

a source of human happiness."”

Now, in , the people sent heavy Democratic majorities to

Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt

to the White House.

Their partnership would transform American government

and make a reality of George Norris's dream.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA,

including the giant Norris Dam,

became a showpiece for the new generation of

progressives that called themselves "New Dealers."

[propellers whirling].

NORRIS: I hope this autogyro won't be as much up in the air

as the Senate was balancing the budget.

[crowd laughing].

[applause].

[propellers whirling].

NARRATOR: In the midst of the Great Depression the

progressive movement continued.

New Deal legislation represented the most sweeping

reforms in history.

Foremost among the New Dealers was

Senator Robert Wagner,

born in Germany,

soft-spoken but tough-minded,

who had learned his politics in the New York City streets.

Legislation he sponsored guaranteed labor's

right to organize,

provided Social Security to the elderly,

and public housing for the poor.

And there were others,

Congressman Sam Rayburn of Texas and his

eager young protégé Lyndon Johnson;

in the Senate, Hugo Black of Alabama,

Alben Barkley of Kentucky, Harry Truman of Missouri.

The old progressive call was being sounded now by

Robert M. La Follette, Jr.

TV ANCHOR: Harry Truman used to say,

"“If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,"”

but in July of ,

if Congressmen couldn't stand the heat they'd have

to get out of Washington where the temperature

hit degrees.

♪

And if there was one congressman who always let his

constituents know how hot things were in

the Nation's capital,

it was cowboy congressman, Percy Gassaway.

GASSAWAY: I never saw such hot weather in my life,

I tell you what's a fact, Mr. Congressman,

I can actually cook an egg right here in a frying pan on

the steps of this house building, right now.

TV ANCHOR: The heat wave become a hard-boiled fact.

But like the egg,

Congressman Gassaway kept his sunny side up.

GASSAWAY: Boy listen here,

this is the hottest place this side of hell, believe me.

CONGRESSMAN: You're telling me.

NARRATOR: On a chill night in December ,

the Capitol dome was a blaze of lights.

The following day the president went before Congress.

ROOSEVELT: Yesterday December, th, ,

a date which will live in infamy,

the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately

attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

TAMES: It was just, just electric,

the, uh, the feeling in there.

In fact, it was a combination of fear and excitement and

determination and not only could you feel it,

but you could smell it.

It was almost like the smell of the high school gym

before the big game.

CHAIR: Sasscer? Aye.

Rio?

RIO: Aye. CHAIR: Aye.

Caulkin? Aye.

Cunningham?

SPEAKER: On this roll call members voted "“aye,"”

one voted "“no,"”

the rules are suspended and the resolution agreed to.

[applause].

NARRATOR: This time only one member of Congress opposed a

declaration of w*r, as she had in ,

Jeannette Rankin voted no.

McDOWELL: I have resolved that it's a hat.

Uh, it's a hat.

It's a very majestic, nice hat, but a little bit ludicrous,

on something that we all care very much about,

which is the Democratic system and the notion that the people

are under that hat, somewhere the body politic,

to stretch that metaphor, is at work,

and that we're all ok,

and that the people are being represented under that thing.

And I can live with that corny thought.

TAMES: It's almost a reverence that the um,

like being in a Russian cathedral or

a Greek cathedral where, when you look up to the dome,

theres the, painted the icons and the saints and

God himself is looking down at you.

Well, I have that feeling that I'm in a political cathedral,

the world's greatest political cathedral.

ROBERTS: It's not just beautiful to walk

into from the outside,

but you walk in and there are tiles on the floors

and mosaics on the ceilings and you just come upon

some totally accidental spot where there'll be

stained glass out of the blue or there are

just windows leading to nowhere or stairs

that dead-end someplace and it's great fun to

tiptoe around it.

It would be a true disaster if the modern demands of security

keep American children from the ability to just sort

of roam the Capitol building.

McCULLOUGH: It's like a little town or a small medieval state.

There's a bank, there's a post office.

There's a subway, it has its own police force,

Something like doorkeepers,

no end of clerks.

There's a carpentry shop, an upholsterer,

a resident architect, a resident physician.

There's a daily newspaper,

"“The Congressional Record,"”

there are restaurants,

it's, um, a world within a world,

and some people, I think, probably never come out.

There's at least one ghost.

McDOWELL: The, the, the Capitol building contains

its own history.

I mean you can go deep enough you find some old tubs in the

basement where the old members could go two centuries ago and

get a hot bath, or whatever.

It's all there, and the way it's grown and expanded is all

marked on the walls.

So, if you like museums,

it's the best museum in the United States,

but it's a museum in which the life throbs, every day.

TOUR GUIDE: And from this point,

a whisper can be heard feet away due to

an architectural defect.

John Quincy Adams would sit here at his desk pretending

like he was taking a cat nap, he was really listening to the

opposition on the other side, whispering.

BRODER: And it's also kind of a wonderful place if

you just let yourself have the freedom to do it,

to stand still for a moment and look at the people who are

coming there to see their Congress at work.

It's marvelous to see their expressions as the dignity and

the beauty of that building reach them for the first time.

♪

♪

♪

♪

One of the things I'm going to do when I retire,

and it sounds ridiculous,

is just give myself a few weeks to explore

the Capitol building.

I have been covering up there for years now and

I still get lost in that building.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

McCULLOUGH: In the old House of Representatives which

is now Statuary Hall the members of the House

looked up at two statues, which are still there.

One was a figure representing liberty and the other behind

them was Clio,

the muse of history keeping note of their actions

and holding the clock.

Very important idea,

that what they did there didn't just matter at the

moment but for time to come,

that they would be measured by history,

that they would have to live up to standards that would

be set by historical precedent.

Well, you know what they look up to in the present-day

House of Representatives, the television cameras.

HUGHES: I Franklin Delano Roosevelt

do solemnly swear...

TRUMAN: That I will faithfully execute the office

of President of the United States...

EISENHOWER: And will to the best of my ability...

KENNEDY: Preserve, protect, and defend...

JOHNSON: The Constitution of the United States.

NIXON: So help me God.

[applause].

[car horn].

NARRATOR: After the w*r, business went on as usual in

the cloakrooms, back corridors, and dining rooms.

There was the old backslapping, arm-twisting, lapel-grabbing,

hand-shaking, finger-jabbing,

head-scratching, and lint-picking.

Crusaders were mounted against jellyfish and comic books,

to make chili without beans the official food of the

United States, and to establish a national

"“Mule Appreciation Day."”

But now America was a world power,

and the forces that had provoked and stirred the

country from the start, growth and civil rights,

had become inseparable,

and they confronted Congress everywhere:

the recovery of Europe and military intervention,

voting rights and civil liberties,

the exploration of space,

and the responsibility of science and the old conflict

of power and ethics.

The heroes on the Hill were no longer great orators.

They were committee chairmen,

investigators, and managers.

CHAIR: The total number of votes cast is ,

of which Senator Sam Rayburn has received ,

therefore, Honorable Sam Rayburn is duly elected

Speaker of the House of Representatives

for the th time.

[applause].

NARRATOR: The ultimate manager was Sam Rayburn of Texas

who served in Congress for years,

of them as Speaker of the House.

He preferred persuasion to power

and distrusted speechmaking,

telling generation after generation of newcomers,

"“You don't have to explain what you don't say."”

TAMES: One day I was leaving the Capitol and I ran into

Sam Rayburn and he was outside and he looked at me

as I came out.

I said, "“Mr. Speaker?"”

He says, "“What are you doing?"”

I said, "“Nothing."”

So he said, "“Well, come with me."”

And so the two of us walked around the Capitol

from the House side to the west side all the way

around to the Senate side and back again and

during the whole time he was telling me about what he

thought of the Capitol.

He said, "“This has, this has been my, this has been my home.

It's been my whole life.

It's been my wife. It's been my children.

I love this old building."”

McCULLOUGH: Congress doesn't just legislate, of course.

It investigates.

And particularly in the era of television we have come to

understand that this investigative power is not only

an aspect of Congressional character and Congressional

performance but it's a way in which certain individuals in

Congress become instantly, overnight famous.

McCARTHY: Answer that yes or no, do you know this man?

RESPONDENT: I will not answer it yes or no,

my answer of the question is...

McCARTHY: You're ordered to answer it.

RESPONDENT: I'm answering it the way I can,

I've said that your statements about him have made it unsafe

for me to answer that question and I will therefore refuse to

answer the question on the grounds it would

intend to incriminate me.

McCARTHY: You have that right if you think

it will incriminate you.

HOFFA: And I would be very happy to have

our legal counsel here,

our legislative representative here,

assisting me and spending as much time as necessary to

acquaint the American people with the fact that this

is a strike-breaking union-busting bill,

in my opinion.

KENNEDY: Mr. Hoffa, this bill is not a strike-breaking

union-busting bill,

you're the best argument I know for it,

your testimony here this afternoon,

your complete indifference to the fact numerous people

who hold responsible positions in your union come

before this committee and take the fifth amendment

because an honest answer might tend to incriminate them,

your complete indifference to it I think

makes this bill essential.

NARRATOR: In the s, Congress and the country were

conservative and legislators were divided between

"“Show Horses"” and "“Work Horses"”"

One who came to combine the qualities of both

was silver-tongued Senator Everett Dirksen,

Conservative Republican of Illinois,

known to his colleagues as,

"“The Wizard of Ooze."”

TAMES: Senator Dirksen, I think,

was a shrewd political clown.

But in the sense that he used humor to make his points

and to put down people.

Not once did he ever call me George.

He'd always say, "“Dear boy, what can I do for you,

dear boy?"”

Maggie Smith used to always introduce legislation to make

the rose the national flower and Dirksen would always get up

and oppose her.

And he'd say, you know, "“A rose, a rose, a rose,

by any other name would be as sweet as the

senior Senator from Maine.

But as for me,

give me the marigold who asks nothing except a

little spot in the garden and a little care."”

And, and, and, Margaret would go down in defeat.

TV REPORTER: And the Capitol gets its face washed

by the fire department.

They do a thorough job and the statues emerge dripping,

but spotless.

And with no dirt left on the doorstep,

Congress can get away to a fresh start.

All this proves that while you can't take the

government to the cleaners,

you can take the cleaners to the government.

McDOWELL: We enjoy bashing Congress,

and have since before Mark Twain because there's

something ludicrous about ordinary mortals

being that pompous.

There's something just funny about ordinary people,

which is what the founders had in mind,

the representatives of ordinary people being so formal,

so bureaucratic, so structured,

so filled with not quite American graciousness.

ROBERTS: It's the only group of people in this country that has

to go out year after year and beg for their job and say,

"“Please, please, please send me back to

that building with the dome."”

And so that it makes you feel superior to the Congress

because we're the people who get to decide that.

BURNS: We enjoy bashing Congress because they are us.

We have no illusions.

We know that they do essentially represent the good

and the bad in us.

And what's an easier scapegoat than to pick on somebody who

has the job, has the responsibility,

and is supposed to rise above us,

and so often fails to rise above us?

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Ives.

MUNSON: Somebody better wake up McCafferty

we need his vote.

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Evans.

DANTA: McCafferty's asleep again.

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Everett.

SENATOR: Wake up McCafferty we need his vote.

EVERETT: Yes.

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Farmer? SENATOR: Need his vote...

FARMER: No. SENATOR: Wake up the Senator.

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Foley? FOLEY: Yes.

VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. Frank?

McCAFFERTY: Opposed, sir, uh, uh, uh, I'm opposed.

SENATOR: No, no, Senator, not yet.

And I believe that you're not opposed.

McDOWELL: Congress is a take-off on itself,

at the surface, and the public picks that up fast.

But as the public about its' Congressman,

how is your Congressman?

Well, he's better than those other ones, ah,

he's pretty good.

I've known the guy,

I knew his grandmother, ah, he's alright,

ah, he's pretty good.

The average American member of Congress

gets about -% approval rating from

his or her own constituents.

The rest of Congress ranks below newspapermen for

having any, any quality.

FIELDS: The criticism of Congress,

that says, in essence, Congress has a way of

making situations complicated.

Of making it harder to do things.

Of, of making it impossible to move in a streamlined fashion.

This is a way of saying that democracy is

a pain in the neck.

Which of course it is.

And that style of criticism of Congress is not much a

criticism of the individuals who are there now,

many of whom deserve more criticism than

they have received,

so much as it is a criticism of the whole idea of

a government by, as well as for the people,

and that is a criticism of democracy.

I wonder whether the ideal of democracy lives,

in a real sense, in our country today.

KING Jr.: In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital

to cash a check.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent

words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence,

they were signing a promissory note to which every

American was to fall heir.

This note was the promise that all men, yes,

Black men as well as White men,

would be guaranteed the unalienable rights

of life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness, it is obvious today...

BRODER: I don't think I've seen any debates that came closer to

really dealing with the heart and soul of American than the

debates on civil rights in the late s and s.

These were people who knew that they had been cast

by history in the position of righting a

historic wrong and they entered that debate knowing

that they would be judged by this chapter of

their lives more than any other part of it.

That was the highest drama that I've ever seen up there.

NARRATOR: Civil rights could no longer be ignored.

But Congress still seemed unable to act,

as filibuster after filibuster thwarted the majority will,

turning back or weakening every civil rights measure

that came before it.

Congress was not yet ready to lead.

["“Hail to the Chief"” playing].

♪

McDOWELL: I, uh, stood, and sat, and crouched in the Rotunda

all night when John F. Kennedy

lay in state.

And I remember that night,

there were just the honor guard and a

pretty steady flow of people,

and here came, at some moment before dawn,

old Everett Dirksen,

the Republican leader,

and stood in the Rotunda with me and two casual tourists,

and talked about the Congress,

talked about the Capitol,

talked about John Kennedy.

Other members of Congress wandered through.

Policemen and guards joined.

And we talked all night about the Capitol, the Congress,

the traditions of the country.

Jokes were told.

We had funny times.

Dirksen told hilarious stories about Kennedy,

about the Capitol, about the history of the country.

There was no stuffy reverence involved.

It was the best possible wake.

And, it was the best night in the Capitol that

I could ever imagine.

NARRATOR: Now, with Lyndon Johnson the Senate's

most masterful manager, in the White House,

Congress moved at last to make good on the

promise of the Constitution,

passing the most sweeping civil rights bills

since Reconstruction.

"“Stronger than all the armies on earth,"”

Everett Dirksen reminded his colleagues,

"“Is an idea whose time has come.

The time has come for equal opportunity."”

Words could still change votes.

BURNS: It elevates me to see the dome,

but then I begin to think what happens under that dome

and I get de-elevated.

What part of us are they representing?

Are they representing our real needs or are they

representing artificial needs, our selfish needs,

or are they representing the best in us?

Most of our government is an elaborate set of compromises.

It's really the political equivalent of the

stock exchange on Wall Street.

The question is, when government has to rise above

trading and brokerage, does it do so?

And so often Congress fails to rise above trading.

McDOWELL: I think that the danger to Congress is

the weakening of the party system.

We have a bunch of independent operators,

it's harder for people to see the point of rallying

as a group.

That really troubles me because it makes compromise harder.

It makes factions that develop

develop around a sort of zealotry of left or right.

McCULLOUGH: Very often they are not voting for or

against an issue for the reasons that seem apparent.

They're voting for some other reason because they have a

grudge against someone or because they have to satisfy

some old ambition that is in no way on the surface or because

they're doing a friend a favor or because they're willing to

risk their political skin and vote their conscience.

FULBRIGHT: Would the President, if there was no resolution,

be with or without constitutional authority

to send U.S. soldiers to South Vietnam in the

numbers that are there today?

If there were no resolution.

KENNAN: It would be my view, as I indicated Mr. Chairman,

that he does have that author, authority.

FULBRIGHT: Would you say the same is to the authority

to b*mb North Vietnam as opposed to repelling and

attacking South Vietnam?

KENNAN: Well I don't see it as opposed to, to it uh, uh, uh...

FULBRIGHT: Well in contrast...

KENNAN: I believe that the objectives and the reason that

we're in there have been made repeatedly clear uh, uh...

FULBRIGHT: Well the answers, "“yes"” then is, is that it?

FIELDS: When I hear members of Congress themselves

say you know, we have abused our power,

we have interfered in foreign policy.

I say to myself, where did these people study

their own history?

Legislatures have the right of appropriation,

so they may inhibit the powers of the Executive and

if they're not proud of that right they

should move aside for somebody to sit there

who will take pride in it.

ERVIN: I believe Congress set up the FBI to determine

what was going on in this country, didn't it?

ERLICHMAN: Among other things, Mr. Chairman.

ERVIN: It set up the CIA to determine what was going on in

respect to foreign intelligence, didn't it?

ERLICHMAN: Yes sir, among other agencies.

ERVIN: It set up the National Security Agency, didn't it?

ERLICHMAN: And the Defense Intelligence Agency.

ERVIN: And the Defense Intelligence Agency...

ERLICHMAN: And a number of others.

ERVIN: But it didn't set up the plumbers, did it?

ERLICHMAN: Of course, the Congress doesn't do everything,

Mr. Chairman.

ERVIN: No, Congress is the only one that's got

legislative power and I don't know anything any

law that gave the President the power to set up...

ROBERTS: This is a remarkably strong democracy and

I remember a member of Congress going to

Greece right after President Nixon was forced

to resign and saying,

"“Do not underestimate the strength of

the American democracy.

The Commander-in-Chief of the American armed forces

was forced out of office and not one soldier left

the barracks to defend him."”

Now, to us, that's a given.

We wouldn't imagine a soldier leaving the barracks.

But in most lands that is very, very unusual indeed.

RODINO: All those in favor please signify by saying,

"“Aye,"” all those opposed, "“No."”

SECRETARY: Mr. Donohue? DONOHUE: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Brooks? BROOKS: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Mann? MANN: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Sarbanes? SARBANES: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Hutchinson? HUTCHINSON: No.

SECRETARY: Mr. McClory? McCLORY: No.

SECRETARY: Mr. Drinan? DRINAN: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Rangel? RANGEL: Aye.

SECRETARY: Ms. Jordan? JORDAN: Aye.

SECRETARY: Mr. Rodino? RODINO: Aye.

SECRETARY: members have voted, "“aye,"”

members have voted "“no."”

COOKE: I think the finest moment was the last two days

hearings of the House Judiciary Committee,

in which spoke with such extraordinary seriousness and

candor in those two ways, without rhetorical flourishes,

which was astonishing,

granting that they are Americans,

uh, it showed the Supreme Court taught the

President that he is the servant of the people and

that the people are supreme.

ROBERTS: At the end of any session you always see

the stories about the dams in Mississippi or the roads

in Tennessee or whatever,

but the fact of the matter is that's what they're

elected to do.

They are here in Washington to represent the

energy-producing states

versus the energy-using states,

the rural areas versus the urban areas.

And I think quite frankly, by the time the whole messy

business is over with, Congress after Congress,

that they've done a pretty good job of it.

BRODER: The promise of Congress is that at the heart of the

government will be people who are very much like ourselves,

who are part of our local community,

not separated from it, and bring to the center of

government the sensibilities, the sensitivities,

and we hope, the common sense that you find

in American communities across the land.

McDOWELL: I'm hopelessly optimistic,

disqualified of any intellectual pretenses when I

say that of course the Republic has a future because

the Congress is there and because the Congress works.

The system does work.

And when we say, oh,

but we're moving into a period we

can't possibly salvage,

we moved into the Civil w*r, we salvaged,

we went on, we've been through nearly every

variation of trouble that you can go through.

And I think Congress can adapt to the world of the

atom b*mb and high technology and has a

better chance to prevail than any other way to try.

So, I'm optimistic.

COOKE: Madison said, "Self-interest is the,

is the engine of government."

And you know, somebody got up and said,

"“Mr. Madison, are you saying that the

frailty of human nature is the only basis of government?"”

And Madison said, "“I know no other."”

MITCHELL: They're listening to him,

anything might happen now.

SMITH: Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask.

Get up there with that lady that's up on top

of this Capitol dome,

that lady that stands for liberty.

Take a look at this country through her eyes if

you really want to see something.

And you won't just see scenery;

you'll see the whole parade of what Man's

carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting.

And fighting for something better than just jungle law,

fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet,

free and decent, like he was created,

no matter what his race, color, or creed.

[street noise].

McCULLOUGH: What impresses me most is that the founders

were willing to trust to human personality and

human intelligence, that man, woman, after all,

is not entirely misguided.

That we have the wits to solve our own problems,

that the best judge of how we should be led and

governed is us.

♪

♪

♪

[overlapping chatter].

[gavel pounding]

CONGRESSMAN: Let me say to the gentleman further observing

the right to object,

let me say to the gentleman that the problem

is that democracy sometimes gets a little messy and

you do in fact when you're managing bills...

CONGRESSMAN: No other agriculture exporting country

is taking the whipping like we are in the international market.

CONGRESSMAN: Cause joint resolution ,

joint resolution to congratulate

King Bhumibol Adulyadej

of Thailand on his th birthday

on December , .

TOUR GUIDE: Virginia sandstone columns on top of

each column for decoration we have a tobacco leaf and

a tobacco blossom and...

CONGRESSMAN: What did the President know and when

did he know it?

CONGRESSMAN: I reserve the right to object, I'm,

I'm trying to uh figure out what it is we're doing here,

do I understand we're now coming back...

CONGRESSMAN: This bill is not what the poor need,

it's not what the country needs and it's certainly not what

this Congress should pass.

CONGRESSMAN: Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself

with the remarks made by Congressman Tom Bevel

today on the five-inch guided projectile,

and I ask that that...

CONGRESSMAN: Mr. Speaker, I ask you to announce consent to

take from the speaker's desk HJRES- and ask

for its immediate consideration...

CONGRESSMAN: Congressional consent that all members

may have five legislative days in which to revise and

extend their remarks on HJRES...

CONGRESSMAN: I understand that we are now going to try

by unanimous consent to overturn the provisions of the

rule by which this bill was brought to the

floor that limited time to debate...

CONGRESSWOMAN: I congratulate the, uh,

Clean City Committees and the Cities of Western Nebraska,

North Platte, Ogallala, Kimball, Scottsbluff,

Gering, and Alliance...

ERVIN: I believe congress set up the FBI to determine what was

going on in this country, didn't it?

ERLICHMAN: Among other things, Mr. Chairman.

ERVIN: Yes, it set up the CIA to determine what was going on...

SECRETARY: members have voted, "“aye,"”

members have voted, "“no."”

CONGRESSMAN: Will the gentleman yield...

CONGRESSMAN: My opinion and um,

I'm not going to object to this,

but I, but I, I will, I will tell the gentleman...

CONGRESSMAN: The committee will recess until : Monday next.

CONGRESSMAN: : when?

CONGRESSMAN: Monday morning. CONGRESSMAN: Monday morning.

CONGRESSMAN: Monday next? CONGRESSMAN: Monday next.

CONGRESSMAN: Oh, Monday next.

TAMES: About women showed up. They were elderly.

They were concerned with Social Security,

so they sent a note into Dirksen who was on the floor.

So he comes tippy-toeing out with that great mass

of white hair, just looking the way he does.

And he looks up and down and he says,

"“Girls, I was on the floor,

defending the Republic against the onslaughts of

the opposition when I was informed that

lovely ladies wish to see me.

I immediately removed the armor of the warrior and

put on the cloak of the poet.

Now what do you girls wish of me?"”

There was absolute silence.

And then one little lady in the back pipes up and says,

"“Nothing, Senator, we just want to hear you talk."”

[street noise].