July 5, 1909

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Senator from Kansas desires t? offer an amendment to. the so-~a~led " Brown joint resolution. If there be no obJection, the joint resolution will be taken up and the amendment will be now received.

. The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded to consider the joint resolution (S. J. R. 40) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. BRISTOW. I desire to add to the joint resolution what I send to the desk. ·

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Secretary will read the pro- -posed amendment. •

The Secretary. It is proposed to add to Senate joint resolution :section 3 of Article I be so amended that the same shall be as

"ARTICLE I.

" SEC. 3. That the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, who shall be chosen by a direct vote of the people of the several States, for six years; and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the h~;; ~~:1~~t~~· branch of the state legislatures; and each Senator shall hlr. ALDRICH. . Mr. President, I shall at the proper time J raise the question that that amendment is not in order. The : unanimous-consent agreement relates to an amendment to the Constitution w:H:h reference to the income tax and no consent has been given for the consideration of such a proposition. If we can undertake to change the Constitution with reference to the election of Senators, we can change it in every possible respect as to the right of the people to have a regulation of the franchise in all the States and 'Territories. I object very strenu- · ously to any -such amendment, and at the proper time I shall raise the question of order against it.

1\Ir. BRISTOW. I should like to know what the question of order would be. _

Mr. ALDRICH. It will be that we have by unanimous consent agreed t6 vote at 1 o'clock upon a constitutional amendment providing for an income tax, and that nothing else is in order.

l\Ir. BRISTOW. But this is an amendment to the joint ' resolution proposing that amendment.

l\Ir. ALDRICH. It must be an amendment which is germane to the proposition and not an amendment to change the whole Constitution of the United States.

l\Ir. BRISTOW. This is not an amendment to change the whole Constitution of the United States. It is simply an addition to the present amendment which seeks to change the Constitution, and it adds another paragraph only. · I desire to say that · the election of Senators by the people has been largely discussed, and, in my judgment, there is a e · very wide sentiment throughout the country in favor of it. Originally, it is known to everyone, it was the purpose of the framers of the Constitution that the President should be elected by an electoral college selected by the people. The membership of such college, it was supposed, would be superior in wisdom and judgment to the average citizen, so that we would have a wiser selection of the President · than if it depended upon popu- agamst it? lar elections. But the evolution of our political affairs has completely changed this system of the election of President. The President is to-day nominated and elected by a direct vote in fact although in theory the electoral college elects, but only in theo'ry. . · The Senate was to be chosen by the legislatures of the various States in joint session, because it was believed that the members of the legislature would be better equipped to select men to fill the office of Sen · Senator than would the average citizenship. But in many of the States this pa.rt of the Constitution is being done away with by the direct primary, and in some of them by re- priate it? quiring under state laws the Senators to be nominated and -roted for at the general election. · There · is no reason why in . this age of the world, in this period o! our progress, the people should not have an opportunity to select the men who will represent them in this body. If there ever was any occasion for the legislature to elect Senators, that occasion has long since passed, because of the wide dissemination of popular knowledge. The American people in the various States are as well qualified to select their Senators as the members of their legislatures representing them in their legislative bodies. .

Then the legisla.tures a.re elected now to transact state business, and the election of Senators is sometimes an incidental ma.tter. There is not any reason why the people of every State should not have the right and the opportunity to vote directly for the men who are to represent them in this body. I can not understand why any Senator should object to giving the people of his State the right to select the men who will represent them here. My judgment is that any man who is not willing for the people whom he represents to express a direct choice as to whether he shall, or shall not. continue to represent them here, is either afraid that he is not the choice of the people whom he represents, o:r tt is a confession that he does not represent them as they want him to represent them.

So I shall insist, first, that this amendment is in order and, second that it ought to be passed.

1\Ir. ALDRICH. hlr. President, I shall raise another question on the amendment, and I give notice of it now, in order that there may be no misapprehension about it. It i in violation of the unanimous-consent agreement that nu business shall be done other than tariff business. · ·

Mr. STONE. Mr. President, I desire to consume- a.bout ten minutes or so of the valuable time of the Senate to say a few words respecting the resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution, authorizing the imposition of an income tax. I wisb to- read a declaration contained in the Democratic national platform which was promulgated at Denver in 1908. It is as follows::

We favor an income tax as part of our revenue system, and - we urge the submission of a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing Congress to levy and collect a tax upon individual and corporate incomes, to the end that wealth may bear its proportionate share of the burdens of the Federal Government.

That declaration, clear and explicit, is alone sufficient to determine my attitude with rega.rd to the resolution to be voted upon .to-day. I am gratified to note this one more example, in addition . ?n t<;> those I have heretofore pointed out, of Republicans following ill the wake of Democratic leadership and along lines blazed by our Democratic pioneers. The President has taken his · stand on the Denver platform, and a Republican Senator has culled one of its declarations and formulated it into the legislative proposition now before the Senate. I am happy to note these repeated evidences of enlightened progressiveness on the part of our Republican brethren. I hope, however, that when the Senator from Nebraska [l\fr. Brown], whose resolution has been selected by the Finance Committee as the basis of this proposition, thereby giving to that Senator the distinction of authorship, goes before the people and the legislature of his St;ate to urge ~e ratification of the proposed amendment, he will not frul to inform them that he got his idea from a Demo­ cratic platform and from the utterances of Mr. Bryan, the leading Democrat and the most distinguished citizen of his State. I am entirely willing to have our friends . on the other side appropriate the good things of Democracy, but I think they ought to have- candor and fairness enough to accord proper credit to the s_ource~ of their inspiration, otherwise it would be an act of political p1rn.cy.

.Mr. BROWN. l\fr, President--

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Missouri yield to the Senator from Nebraska?

Mr. STONE. For a question or an explanation. -

:Mr. BROWN. Does the Senator from Missouri mean to be understood as being of the opinion that the source, as he calls it-~he Democratic source--0f this joint resolution is anything Mr. STONE. Oh, no; I was congratulating the Senator . and party colleagues that they had at last become so favorably impressed by these Democratic influences.

Mr. BROWN. Is the Senator complaining because of what he calls "an appropriation of this idea?"

Mr. STONE. I am not complaining; .I aJI!. complimenting e.nd congratulating.

l\Ir. BJ:lOw_N. . Does not the Senator understand that if there is ever anything good found in the Democratic platform and the people .are to get the benefit of it, somebody has to appro­ ~lr. ~TONE. I am perfectly willing that you should appro- ' priate it, only I have been urging, as a matter of fairness, that when you go before the people of Nebraska you should not neglect to inform them that you had caught this idea from the Democratic platform. No doubt that would help you to carry it through ..

l\1r. President, fear has been expressed that more than onefourth of the States will withhold their consent to the amendment and reject it, and then it is apprehen d that an argument will be based on that circumstance.to induce the Supreme Court to adhere fo the doctrine announced in the Pollock case if ever the constitutionality of an income tax is again before that tribunal. That an effort will be made-a powerful and wellorganized effort-to defeat the amendment can be accepted from the start as certain. What·the result of that struggle will be I am not wise enough to forecast. I believe there is an overwhelming popular sentiment in favor of the Government, operating through its appointed agencies, being clothed with the power to impose a general income tax. There are many thousands who do not believe that that power should be exercised, or that such a tax - should be authorized, except in times of stress and grave emergency; but thousands who thus believe being patriotic citizens, will support the proposition to clothe the Government with the power. Mr. President, I believe in the policy of an income tax, but I wish here and now to say that I have never regarded with great favor the proposition to exempt incomes below a given sum from the operation of the law. That notion of exempting the smaller incomes from the tax does not appeal to me. Although I have been ready at all times to support what is known as the " Bailey-Cummins amendment," I would prefer a graduated income tax, levying the smallest per cent upon the smallest class of incomes, and then increasing the rate along some well-considered scale of progression. I would prefer; when incomes are being taxed, that every man who has an income, and certainly a net income, should contribute something to the support of the Government; however, it is hardly worth while to enter upon a discussion of that question now, and I will not.

Mi·. President, I can not persuade myself that more than one-fourth of our American States will reject this proposed amendment to the Constitution. But if that should happen it still could . not be said that the people, speaking in the larger sense, were opposed to the proposition. If 12 States should by bare majorities in each reject the proposition, and 33 States should agree to it, as they would by large majorities, it would still be manifest that the great body of the people favored the amendment. And then, again, if it be true that the Constitution in its present form is broad enough to _ authorize the imposition of a general income tax, the failure to secure an adoption of the proposed amendment would not change the constitutional status as it exists to-day. If the Supreme Court should be called upon to review the Pollock case, and should be in- clined to return to its earlier and, I think, sounder rulings, namely, that an income tax was within the Constitution, I can see no good reason why the court would hesitate to adopt that course even if this amendment should fail of ratification. If the court should go outside the record to consider extraneous matter, or should listen to an argument predicated on the alleged fact that the people had rejected the amendment, every justice would know that on the contrary the great mass of the people favored the proposition, and every man would know what influences operated, and how they operated, to defeat the proposition. It seems to me this is an opportune time to launch this amendment. If the President is sincere, and I have no doubt that he is, and if such men as the junior Senator from New York [Mr. RooT] are sincere, and I have no doubt that they are-with all these powerful Republican influences favoring the amendment, and with the Democratic party solidly behind it, it seems to me that our united efforts to write this amendment into the fundamental law _ ought to succeed. At all events, speaking for myself, I am more than willing to put the issue to the test.

Mr. President, before closing I wish to say a few words upon everybody. another subject not wholly dissociated from the question immediately before us. In 1896, the Democratic national convention declared that the deficit in our revenues at that time was due to the decision of the Supreme Court setting aside the income-tax law of 1894; and the convention further declared that that decision overruled previous decisions of the court, and thus announced a new judicial doctrine on the subject of income taxation; and then the convention declared that it was the duty of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remained after that decision, or which might come from its reversal by the court as it might be in future constituted, to the end that the burdens of taxation might be equally and impartially laid, and so forth. During the campaign of that year the Democratic party and the Democratic candidates were furiously and wantonly assailed for attacking the Supreme Court, and for threat- · ening to "pack" the court with subservient judges so as to secure a reversal of the decision referred to. I have recently read some of the wild ravings of Republican orators and editors during that memorable campaign. The Republican candidate, Mr. McKinley, and ex-President Harrison, and Senators and Representatives, and great metropolitan journals joined in this hue and cry.- There was never a falser or more vicious charge made against a party declaration or a party purpose. The convention did protest, and on a basis of absolute truth had a right to protest, that the decision of the , court was in contravention of repeated previous utterances of that tribunal; and the convention did insist, as with the most perfect propriety it had a right to insist, that Congress should continue to exercise all the power it had remaining after that decision so long as it stood as the judgment of the court, and until it should be reversed, if .ever it should be reversed, when the personal composition of the court b,ad changed. There was no threat or desire or thought upon the part of any Democrat to "pack" the court, but we had sense enough to know that the decision - would not in all human probability be changed as long as the personnel of the court remained as it then was; and we had sense enough to know that in the natural course of things the elderly men who sat upon the bench would pass away and that new men would succeed them--

1\f r. BEVERIDGE. Will the Senator permit a question?

Mr. STONE. I would rather the Senator would wait.

l\fr. BEVERIDGE. All right.

Mr. STONE. And we had sense enough to know that the decision complained of not only did not have the popular approval, but did not have the approval of the great majority of the lawyers constituting the American bar. In view of · these things, the convention had a right to declare, without being accused of discourtesy to the court or of making an assault upon it, that the questions involved and passed upon should be again submitted for judicial determination. Mr. President, we have passed far beyond that period, I know, and perhaps it does no good to speak of it now. Still, I can not let this opportune occasion go by without impressing as far as I can upon public attention the malevolent and mendacious character of the politics practiced at that time by our overvirtuous Republican friends. Since then Mr. Roosevelt, a Republican President, has spoken with blunt and almost vulgar harshness of decisions rendered by some of our high federal courts, and yet he remained for years the very idol of the great mass of Republicans. Since then we have been told by the present Chief Magistrate, in substance at least, that with the changed personnel of the court the income-tax decision against which the people have been protesting ever since it was made might not be adhered to if the question should be again submitted. Why, Mr. President, that was the very thing, said in 1896, that roused Republican cohorts · from far and · near into assaulting the Democratic party as a dangerous, if not treasonable, organization. And, sir, during this very debate I have heard great Republican Senators, standing here on this floor, urging the necessity of resubmitting this question to the court, and urging it for the very reasons assigned in the Democratic platform of 1896. I have heard them say that all talk about the proposition to resubmit the question through legislative action as being indelicate was a "morbid, ill-founded sentiment." Ah, 1\Ir. President, our Republican friends, at least, all of them, are not now what they were. A wonderful change has come over the spirit of their dreams, or the dreams of some of them, since the sound and fury of that mighty - struggle of near thirteen years ago have died away. What they denounced as almost treasonable then they now applaud as virtuous and patriotic. And this is another instance demonstrating the ultimate wisdom and justice of Democratic policy i and to impress that fact, now so well illustrated, is about the only excuse I have for adverting to a subject which can not be wholly pleasant to Mr. President, that is . all I care to say regarding the joint resolution proposed by the Senator from Nebraska.

Just a word now relating to the amendment, so called, offered this morning by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. BRISTOW]. I would cheerfully vote for both propositions, for both are wellknown Democratic propositions, but it seems to me that it would not be wise policy to couple the two, even if permissible under the rules of the Senate. Both are substantive, distinct, and wholly different propositions relating to wholly different subjects. If they were combined into one single proposition and we should be called to vote upon them in that form, and without division, I fear, while trying to accomplish two things, we would endanger both. I have no doubt there are Senators and Members of the House who might and would vote against the double proposition, being favorable to one proposition and against the other; and for the same reason it might subject the whole scheme to failure if it should be submitted in that form to the legislatures of the States. I think it is in every way far better to deal with the two things separately. If the Senator from Kansas desires to submit a separate amendment for the popular election of S _ Senators, I will join him in supporting it. " I would be glad to have the amendment suggested by the Senator from Kansas added to the pending bill, if it can be done under the rules of the Senate, although I doubt if it can be done. The proposition now before the Senate is not offered as an amendment to the tariff bill, but as a distinct and separate proposition. I would be glad to have the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kansas brought to a vote in the Senate and the House, but I do not think it would be wise to combine the two and thus add to the danger and difficulty of passing either. Trying to do too many things, even good things, at one time too often results in doing nothing.