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Show Why Has Not a Reform Been Made in the Rules of the U. S. Senate? By CITARLES 0. DAWES, Vice President. In the United States senate anyone can talk as long as he pleases on any subject on or off the earth, whether or not it is relevant to the subject sub-ject which we meet to discuss and act upon. This situation has obtained ia tho senate of the United States for 119 years alone in the senate of the United States of all the great deliberative bodies of the earth. The senate cannot be properly a deliberative body when through unlimited un-limited debate it has surrendered, to the whim and ulterior purposes of individuals and minorities, the right to allot its own time. Why has not a reform been made in the rules of the senate? Simply bocauso this right of unlimited debate, acted upon by authorities and individuals, in-dividuals, has been found to give personal power and prerogative to individual indi-vidual senators and minorities which they can and have exercised to : thwart tho right of the majority of the senate to act as a body something ! unheard of in the first 17 years of the senate, something not resorted to in the early days of tho senate, but a custom which has grown up until each senator knows that the power of obstruction afforded by the present rules '; gives to him a personal power and personal prerogative to be used for 'j sectional and selfish interests. |
