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were there. I can not remember in the six years I have been in the Senate when I think a speech saved or defeated a measure. It may have been in a few cases that the argument on one side, when it was equally balanced, did it. In fact the oratory that used to sway men is not the oratory of today. Men can not be swayed in the same way, they do business in a more direct way than they used to do. It is so even of juries, it is so on the hustings, it is so in any forum. I do not say that oratory is retrograding entirely, but I say we depend less and less upon the force of eloquence in promoting legislation and in promoting any public cause.

I have not gone into detail about how the laws are made. You understand the machinery of government without my being pedagogic in stating it to you, but I want to speak simply of the difference between the manufacture of laws at the present time and in the former days. Then it was more the individual effort and was more the expression from a free people, and the laws of today are made by the combination. You remember Blackstone defines law to be a rule of human conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the State. Now I could name to you a certain Senator who was the supreme power in the State in the last legislature. I want to say as an illustration, that he gathered about him three or four Senators who were willing to act with him; there were enough others who acted with him and it did not make any difference whether the House of Repre sentatives wanted it or did not, they held the negative power on everything that came up. And there was one man who was painstaking, who had a sense of duty, worked hard, looked after everything, an able, thorough, hard working fellow, and he watched for the good of the State and the reputation of the Senate in a general way on those bills. I will not name the man, but I want to say to you from my experience that that man absolutely controlled wherever

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he desired to do so, the legislation of that last General Assembly, and he was a Senator who did it. He was not a prominent lawyer, I do not think he ever addressed the President of the Senate except to move to adjourn, I do not think he ever made a speech in the Senate, perhaps on one occasion, but by thorough hard work and control and organization he controlled the legislation I think more than any ten men in either the House or the Senate. I simply give that to you as an illustration of what modern legislation is.

You understand when a bill is introduced it goes to the appropriate committee; if that committee report it out it is advanced to its readings and its passage, and if the committee do not want to report it out it dies in the committee. I remember the question was raised as to the power of the Senate to take a bill out of committee and the chairman of the committee said he thought it was an insult for the Senate to order a bill out. In truth, it would be an insult to a member of the Senate if he did not have more power as a Senator than even a chairman of a committee. The Senate has the power at any time to bring that bill before the bar of the Senate for action.

The use of the gavel is a wonderful power in large legis lative bodies. In the National Congress with its large membership it is impossible for every man to be heard when he wants to be and all the time he wants to be. So the presiding officer of the National Congress has great power in discriminating as to who shall be heard, when a bill comes up for consideration; it is an inherent power and one that lawfully, justly and morally comes to him in the power of discrimination. But I hold that when a presiding officer by the gavel declares a proposition carried when it is actually dead, who by his gavel undertakes to defeat the will of the majority, becomes revolutionary and reactionary. (Applause.) It is not one of the constitutional forms of

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legislation to clothe the speaker with that power, and I claim that the office of a presiding officer is to give expres sion to the will of the majority of the body, under the constitution, the law and the rules of the body, and that is all the power he should have.

I remember that I exercised once, and maybe twice a different power than this. That is not bragging, but it is honor bright, only twice did I exercise that power and I got caught at it. I remember two Senators came into my room and said, "Northcott, the other side have got us in a hole on this garnishment bill; the democrats have got the popular side of it and we have got to put it off until we can gather ourselves together, and I am going to move a postponement, and don't call the roll, because if you do they will claim we are against the measure and it will put us in the light where our position will be misconstrued. Now help us out." Well, I belong to the debtor class, I have a good deal of sympathy with the poor man, and I always believed a man ought to have a pretty liberal allowance, and I believe in the rights of labor. There is a good deal of demagogery in arraying class against class and employer against employe. I did not look into the merits of that; these two Senators that came to me were good fellows, I wanted to favor them and did not see any harm in letting them get themselves together. They went to a democrat and asked him to make the motion, they had him with them. He made the motion to postpone, and while. two of the Senators on his side went to him to get him to withdraw it I put the motion. Some fellow said, "Mr. President," but nobody said "roll call." No, he would not have been heard if he had said it, I was safe on that point. But I had intended to put that matter through without roll call, and one of the same Senators said I looked like I had been sheep stealing when I did it, and I felt a little that way, though I had not tried to overcome the will of the

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majority at any time, did not believe it was the thing to do it and we had enough votes without it, as a rule. (Laughter and applause.) If our fellows were not attending to business they ought not to be helped out, but the consequence of that little act was that the Chicago papers came out and said that I was opposed to the laboring man, that I had been bought up, said that "Mr. Northcott who poses as an honest man has let that bill go through against protest," and they had a picture of me with a rope around my neck and some fellow dragging me along after his chariot wheels. I tried to keep that from my wife when I saw the picture-and I think she never will think as much of me again.

But the gavel, as a rule, is misused and the tendency is that way. If I were a member of a legislative body and the presiding officer undertook to deprive me of my constitutional rights I would feel like throwing a brick or an ink stand at his head, as hard as I could. He has no more right, because he is there, to deprive me of my constitutional rights, than I have to attack him. And I claim it is the most dangerous power, that wielded by the gavel placed in the hands of one man. It is antagonistic to every spirit of representative government, and I want to say to you men in all earnestness, while I have spoken with some levity in regard to the matter of laws and legislation and how they are made, I want to say to you that if we do not call to the rescue of the public government the force and intelligence and character of our people, the proposition is a very doubtful one as to our future. The only way to meet this matter is to bring into action the intelligence and character of the country, to go to the ballot box every two years to ratify what the ward caucus has done. But go to the caucus and the convention. Until the community understands the machinery of politics you will not have the great government that is expected of us.

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You must understand the machinery of politics and take part in it, young men must be taught that if they want a voice in the government they must go to the caucus and the convention. You can not have it at the ballot box alone, because you ratify the choice of two different bodies when you go there. You say the machinery of politics is corrupt; if so then that which governs your community is corrupt. You say you will not participate in the corruption of machine politics, then you say you will not protect the government. It is just as much the duty of the citizen to take part, practically, efficiently, energetically in public affairs as to fight when the country is in danger and until you do call into force the character and intelligence of the government you are not going to have that high order of government which is necessary. You may say that the press and publicity is a cure for many evils; I say to you that publicity is the purgative of government; no vicious or bad law can go upon the statute books unless the metropolitan press is in favor of it. If they are intelligent and diligent in pursuing malicious legislation they can overcome it, and publicity is one of the greatest cures you have. The great majority of the people are right, what you want to have them do is to participate in politics, take part in the caucus and in the convention. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT HOLDOM: Mr. Travous, who kindly gave way to Gov. Northcott, will now respond to the toast, "The Mother-in-law." Most of us are married men, and more or less indebted to some good woman as mother-in-law for our wives.

MR. TRAVOUS: Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: This is a serious matter. All agree that the mother-in-law is a difficult subject to handle and I am timid about giving my views public expression. Then, I have learned since coming here that the mother-in-law is related to a number