The Congress

<v Voiceover>The Congress is underwritten by the Ameritech Foundation, Ameritech, parent of the Bell companies of the Great Lakes region and provider of voice and data communications, cellular phone service, directory publishing and other information businesses. <v David McCullough>What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. James Madison. <v Speaker>[intro music] <v David 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.

<v Congressman 1>The house will be in order. Our prayer will be offered by the chaplain. <v Chaplain>Well, God as we think on the glories of your spiritual world. <v Tour Guide>As you enter the rotunda, please grab a ticket, one per person for a tour of the historic section of the building. <v Reporter 1>I'm standing in the original section of the Capitol, George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant. <v Reporter 2>John Quincy Adams [speaking foreign language] <v Douglas MacArthur>Old soldiers never die. They just fade away. <v Joseph N. Welch>Senator McCarthy, have you no sense of decency, sir?

<v Unidentified>It is possible for an American to disagree with you on aid to the countries and still love God and still love this country. <v Congresswoman 1>The official state song of my home state is entitled Beautiful Nebraska. I want my colleagues to know about the accomplishments-- <v Will Rogers>With Congress every time they make a joke, it's a laugh, you know. Every time they make a law, it's a joke. <v James Stewart>Look look, there it is! <v Actor 1>What? <v James Stewart>The Capitol dome. <v Actor 1>Yes, sir, big as life, been there a long time now. <v Actor 2>Yes, sir. This way, Senator. <v Charles McDowell>The Congress and the president and I guess the Supreme Court, they're the-- 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. <v Barbara 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.

<v John Stennis>It was still some lingering thought, you know, that they made a mistake in giving up the idea of a king. Benjamin Franklin came along, said the story as he came along, and he stopped and listen a moment, and when there was a chance to see it would, he-- he just said, this is in America the people govern. <v Voice Actor 1>This huge gray hole filled with perpetual clamor is a multitude of keen and eager faces, the ceaseless coming and going of many feet, this irreverent public watching from the galleries and forcing its way onto the floor all speak to the beholders 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 whole become the theater in ages, yet far distant when the parliaments of Europe have shrunk to insignificance. <v Speaker>[piano music]

<v David McCullough>One mile east and eighty eight feet above the Potomac River on what was once called Jenkins' Heights stands the most recognizable building in America. Designed by an Englishman, inspired by a Russian church, decorated by Italian craftsmen and built in part by slaves, it is the nearest thing Americans have to a national temple. Davy Crockett sat here, so did Joseph Pulitzer and Horace Greeley. 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 1964. Over 10000 men and women have served here, farmers and housewives. Rhodes Scholars and ex slaves. Astronauts and priests. Basketball stars and convicted felons. Schoolteachers and playwrights. And lawyers. Always lawyers. <v Unidentified>If the present Congress air too much in talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers whose trade is talk by the hour?

<v David McCullough>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. Twenty three from Congress have become president. In 200 years, Congress has, in the name of the people pushed open the west, built railroads, freed slaves, made war, passed Social Security, put GIs through college and paid to land men on the moon. They've driven Indians from their land, outlawed alcohol. Filibustered without mercy. They've created Mother's Day and Daylight Savings 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. <v Alistair Cooke>He was once asked by a rather impatient man at 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.

<v David McCullough>I'm most impressed by their imagination. This was a leap of the imagination, the idea that you're going to turn over the-- to the people through their representatives, the power to make war and the power to tax. <v Cokie Roberts>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 there was the notion that they had to be up for reelection every two years. <v David 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. <v Speaker>[music]

<v Voice Actor 2>You and I, dear friend, consented to life at a time when the greatest lawgivers would wish 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. <v David McCullough>In 1789, King 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 4th, 1789, in the sun-filled chambers of New York City Hall, newly remodeled as a temporary capitol, the first Congress of the United States took up its business under the new Constitution. Only 21 members showed up, however, and the first Congress adjourned without a quorum. <v Voice Actor 3>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 Fisher Ames.

<v David McCullough>When they finally all assembled, Congress, addressed itself to 10 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 war and devised the machinery of committees and set President George Washington's salary at the huge sum of 25000 dollars a year, all the time improvising freely. They were inventing Congress and they were inventing themselves. <v Voice Actor 4>I am vice president. In this I have nothing, but I may be everything, but I'm also president of the Senate. When the president comes into the Senate, who shall I be? John Adams. <v Charles McDowell>I'd like to have been a reporter at the first Congress in the first days when those guys came in there to invent what they'd planned at Philadelphia. And there was a moment when the president had a treaty for the Senate to ratify. The Senate, had never ratified a treaty. There had never been a Senate, that had 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 took it and looked at it a while and said, Well, yes, sir, yeah. And it became 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 Congress-- 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 the treaty by arguing about it and making a little change somewhere. And the government was operating.

<v Voice Actor 5>After leaving Baltimore, we wondered 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 a name. I have been to Georgetown, it is the very dirtiest hole I ever saw for a place of any trade or respectability of inhabitance. Abigail Adams.

<v David McCullough>After a year in New York and 10 in Philadelphia, Congress finally found a permanent home government settled on the banks of the Potomac at the west end of Jenkins' Heights. The move was made in June 1800. The government's documents came by sailing ship. Clerks, Congressman and John Adams, now President Adams by Stagecoach and Horseback. A Library of Congress was established and a sum of 15 million dollars voted to purchase all Louisiana territory, doubling the size of the country. An additional appropriation of 2500 dollars went to Lewis and Clark to find out what 15 million dollars had bought. Congress was boisterous, homespun, enlivened now by a two party system and outraged over British harassment of American shipping, some wanted war. Most persuasive of these warhawks was a young congressman from Kentucky. <v Voice Actor 6>Clay is an eloquent man with very popular manners and great political management. His school has been the world in that he is proficient. His morals, public and private, are loose, but he has all the virtues indispensable to a popular man.

<v David McCullough>On November 4th, 1811, 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 35 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. <v Voice Actor 7>Sir, no man in the nation wants peace more than I, but I prefer the troubled ocean of war with all its calamities to the tranquil and putrescent pool of ignominious peace. <v David McCullough>In June of 1812, the Congress of the United States declared war for the first time, then adjourned without voting the taxes to pay for it. . <v Speaker>["Rule Britannia!" instrumental plays].

<v David McCullough>Two years later, the British invaded Washington. Congress was not in session when the British army marched into the city and burned the capital. But the problems had just begun. <v David McCullough>Two great questions have prevailed all the way through from the time of the earliest Congresses right up until the present. And those are civil rights and growth. <v David Broder>I suppose the crucial moment in the 19th century was when this nation was trying to avert the tragedy of the civil war, 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 capital. <v Speaker>[instrumental music] <v Voice Actor 8>The midst 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 capital might defy an abler pen than mine to do it justice. It stands so finely too high and alone. Frances Trollope.

<v David McCullough>By 1819, the capital had been rebuilt under the direction of Benjamin Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch, 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 FB 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. <v Voice Actor 9>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.

<v David McCullough>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 slavery. Northerners feared slavery might move west. <v Voice Actor 10>There was never a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent, it lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the constitutional convention. Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind, if not always on his tongue. <v David McCullough>The first great crisis came in 1820. After fierce debate, Congress passed the Missouri compromise, admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave 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. <v Voice Actor 11>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.

<v David McCullough>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. <v Voice Actor 12>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 feud's or drenched, it may be in fraternal blood. Let there last people and lingering glance, rather behold, the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, still full, high advanced liberty and union now and forever. One and inseparable.

<v David McCullough>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. <v Voice Actor 13>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.

<v David McCullough>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 war hawk, no more, he had become the supreme charmer of American politics, the great compromiser. <v Voice Actor 9>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. <v David McCullough>Somber intellectual John C. Calhoun had no interest in compromise. Like Clay, he was a slave 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.

<v Voice Actor 9>Nothing can be more unfounded and false than the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal before it rests upon the assumption of a fact which is contrary to universal observation. John C. Calhoun. <v Voice Actor 14>Here is our country upon the very verge of a civil war which everyone pretends to be anxious to avoid, yet everyone wants his own way, irrespective of the wishes of others. Henry Clay. <v Voice Actor 15>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 12 months ago hardly permitted themselves to think of it. The crisis is not far ahead. Alexander Stephens. <v Speaker>[music]

<v David McCullough>When the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid, there were only 209 post offices in the country, by 1850, there were 21551. Gold had been found in California, Texas was in the union, the country now stretched all the way to the Pacific. <v Voice Actor 16>It is our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. <v Voice Actor 17>There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land and whether one government can comprehend the whole. <v David McCullough>The next crisis came in 1850 over California. Would the new state be slave or free? Clay took the floor on February 5th. 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 slaves to their owners. Clay knew what a concession he was asking of Webster and the North. <v Voice Actor 18>You are numerically more powerful than the slave states, and greatness and magnanimity should ever be allied together.

<v David McCullough>Calhoun, wracked 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 slaves into masters and masters into slaves. On March 7th, Daniel Webster took his turn. Plagued by insomnia for weeks, he reinforced himself with drugs, it was his last great speech. <v Voice Actor 19>Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man or 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. <v David McCullough>He had made a brave decision he would support the Clay compromise, including the fugitive slave law, his constituents so despised because he thought it the only way to stave off civil war. Clay and Webster won the compromise of 1850, 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 1852. Henry Clay of Kentucky was the first man to lie in state in the rotunda of the Capitol.

<v Charles McDowell>I like-- I like oratory, it's a-- it's a one of my character failings, and Webster, Clay, Calhoun apparently were-- were three just magic orators. I would have sat and I would have listened as you would listen to a great Wurlitzer somewhere. I would have, I hope, 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 with incredible precision, apart from their eloquence. But when I'm in the presence of that, I read about it the next day. I sit and listen as to the concert. <v Speaker>[music]

<v David McCullough>Now, Capitol Hill became a construction site, two huge new wings were planned, grand stairways, sumptuous reception rooms and a new dome. 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 1860, 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 21st, 1861, Senator Jefferson Davis rose to speak. <v Voice Actor 20>I am sure I feel no hostility towards you, senators of the North, I am sure there is not one of you whatever sharp discussion that may have been between us to whom I cannot say in the presence of my God, I wish you well.

<v Speaker>["The Battle Hymn of the Republic" instrumental plays] <v David McCullough>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 12th, 1861, war came. Now there was another American Congress, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama. <v Voice Actor 21>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.

<v David McCullough>The capital became a makeshift barracks, then a hospital. Congress and the country, were now confronting their greatest crisis. At noon, December 2nd, 1863, as the war dragged on, a 19 foot bronze goddess of freedom triumphant was at last hoisted into place. The great dome was finished. <v Speaker>[instrumental music]. <v David McCullough>In January of 1865, Congress passed a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery everywhere, and for all time. Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black man ever to serve in the United States Senate, filling a 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 1868, 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. <v Child Actor>Not a bad desk either. Daniel Webster used to use it.

<v James Stewart>Daniel Webster sat here. <v Child Actor>Give you something to shoot at, Senator, if you figure on doing any talking. <v James Stewart>Oh no, I'm just going to sit around and listen. <v Child Actor>That's the way to get reelected. <v Voice Actor 22>These hardy knaves and stupid fools, some apish, pragmatic mules, some servile acquiescing tools. These, these compose the Congress. When Jove resolved to send the curse and all the woes of life rehearse, not plague, not famine, but much worse, he cursed us with a Congress. <v David McCullough>Government during the first 76 years meant building and then saving a nation. Now, in the aftermath of civil war, it often meant exploiting it. <v Voice Actor 23>It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. Reader, suppose you are an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself. Mark Twain.

<v David McCullough>The lead parts on Capitol Hill now are 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. <v Voice Actor 24>Scarcely any of the great railway men go into Congress, the fact of much significance when one considers that they are really the most powerful people in the country, the absence of railway men by no means implies the absence of railway influence, for it is as easy for a company to influence legislation from without Congress as from within. <v Voice Actor 25>We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates. From the same prolific room of injustice, we breed the two great classes, tramps and Millionaires. <v David McCullough>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 Millionaire's 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.

<v Voice Actor 26>The contempt of that large minded gentleman is so wilting. His haughty disdain his grand eloquent 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. <v David McCullough>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 1876, 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. <v Speaker>[instrumental music].

<v David McCullough>In exchange, federal troops were withdrawn from the South. Reconstruction collapsed. The few blacks in Congress disappeared almost overnight. It would be 75 years before Congress seriously considered civil rights again. <v Voice Actor 27>This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes temporary farewell to the American Congress. Let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up someday and come again. Representative George White. <v Speaker>[instrumental music] <v David McCullough>But even in the age of the bosses, Congress passed the Land Grant College Act granted millions of acres to homesteaders, finally an active 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. <v Voice Actor 28>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 stork.

<v David McCullough>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 300 pounds, his wit could be withering. He remarked of two colleagues that they never open 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 51st Congress in 1889 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 1897, the next year, the Spanish American War brought Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands into the American empire. Reed like none of it. Imperialism, he believed, was contrary to American ideals. <v Voice Actor 29>At the beginning of this year, the quarrels which other nations have we did not have. Our drumbeat did not encircle the world with our marshall airs. Our gun were not called upon to throw projectiles, which cost each of them the price of a happy home. Thomas Brackett Reed.

<v David McCullough>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. <v Charles 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. <v Speaker>[instrumental music]

<v David McCullough>It was the new 20th 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. <v Voice Actor 30>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. <v David McCullough>For reform minded congressman in 1910, the sins of the old order could be summed up in a name. Joseph Gurney Cannon, Speaker of the House known as Foulmouthed Joe. <v Voice Actor 31>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 a greater danger from flood than from fire.

<v David McCullough>He swore unrepentantly spat into an umbrella stand when no spitoon 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 1872 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. <v Voice Actor 32>I am God damn tired of listening to all this babble for reform. America is a hell of a success. Country don't need any legislation.

<v David McCullough>No one who valued his career in Congress dared cross him until 1910. 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 29 hours of debate, the resolution carried. The iron rule of Speaker Cannon was ended. <v Voice Actor 33>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'm sorry for him. <v David 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.

<v Voice Actor 34>The supreme issue is 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. <v David McCullough>Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin charging that fewer than 100 men controlled the great business interests of the whole nation, became the conscience of the new progressive movement. <v Voice Actor 35>Collier's weekly 50 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. <v David McCullough>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 1913, 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 63rd Congress in Washington fighting and arguing and making laws for a year and a half straight. The sixty third Congress was the last Congress before the 17th 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 anti-trust 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 2nd, 1917, when President Wilson went before another extraordinary session of Congress, this time to ask for a declaration of war 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, Jeannette Rankin of Montana.

<v Voice Actor 36>I love my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no.

<v David McCullough>She was not alone, but other progressives voted for war and split the movement, the alliance between Congress and the president ended in a quarrel over America's role in the world. <v Speaker>[instrumental music] <v David McCullough>By the 1920s, 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 cartoonish image of the old time politician dipped snuff from the lacquer box in the Senate rostrum. But there were younger voices, too. Congressman Fiorello La Guardia was one a progressive Republican and sometimes socialist from New York. He could denounce exploiters in six languages, and there was one unyielding old voice. <v Speaker>[instrumental music]

<v David McCullough>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 1932, 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 who called themselves new dealers. <v Man>I hope this autogiro won't be as much up in the air as the Senate was in balancing the budget.

<v David McCullough>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 protege, Lyndon Johnson. In the Senate, Hugo Black of Alabama, Alvin Barkley of Kentucky, Harry Truman of Missouri. The old progressive call was being sounded now by Robert M. La Follette, Jr.. <v Voiceover>Harry Truman used to say, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But in July of 1935, if congressmen couldn't stand the heat, they'd have to get out of Washington where the temperature hit 105 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.

<v Percy Gassaway>I never saw such a hot weather in my life. I tell you, what's fact, Mr. Congressman. I can actually cook an egg right here in a frying pan on the steps in of this house building right now. <v Congressman 2>The heat wave became a hard boiled fact. But like the egg, Congressman Gassaway kept his sunny side up. <v Percy Gassaway>Boy, listen here. This is the hottest places this side of hell believe me. <v Congressman 2>You're telling me. <v David McCullough>On a chill night in December 1941, the Capitol dome was ablaze of lights. The following day, the president went before Congress. <v Franklin D. Roosevelt>December 7th, 1941, 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.

<v George Tames>It was just electric, the-- the feeling in there. In fact, it was-- it was a combination of a fear and excitement and determination. And not only could you feel it, but you could smell it. It was almost like the smell of a high school gym before the big game. <v Congressman 3>Aye. ?Rio?? <v Mr. Rio>Aye. <v Congressman 3>?Hulcan?? <v Mr. Hulcan>Aye. <v Congressman 3>Cunningham? <v Congressman 4>On this roll call, three hundred and eighty eight members voted aye. One voted no. The rules were suspended. And the resolution is legal. <v David McCullough>This time, only one member of Congress opposed a declaration of war, as she had in 1917, Jeannette Rankin voted no.

<v Charles McDowell>I have resolved that it's a hat. 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 it work? And we're all OK and that the people are being represented under that thing. And I can live with that corny thought. <v George Tames>It's almost a reverence that the-- like being in a Russian cathedral or a Greek cathedral where when you look up to the dome, there's the pay-- the icons and the very saints. And God himself is looking down at you. Well, you have-- I have that feeling that I'm in a political cathedral, the world's greatest political cathedral. <v Cokie 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 they're just windows leading to nowhere or stairs that dead end some place. 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.

<v David 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; has its own police force. Something like forty four doorkeepers, no end of clerkes, there's a carpentry shop. Upholsterer. Resident architect, a resident physician. There's a daily newspaper, The Congressional Record. There are restaurants. It's a world within a world. And some people, I think, probably never come out. There's at least one ghost. <v Charles McDowell>The-- the Capitol building contains its own history, and you can go deep enough, you found 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 in 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.

<v Tour Guide>And from this point, a whisper can be heard 50 feet away due to an architectural defect, John Quincy Adams would sit here around his desk like he was taking a catnap. He was really listening to the opposition on the other side. <v David Broder>And it's also a 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. <v Speaker>[instrumental music].

<v David Broder>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 30 years now, and I still get lost in that building.

<v David 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 is 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 had 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.

<v Franklin D. Roosevelt>I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear. <v Harry S. Truman>That I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.

<v Dwight D. Eisenhower>And will, to the best of my ability. <v John F. Kennedy>Preserve, protect and defend. <v Lyndon Johnson>The Constitution of the United States. <v Richard Nixon>So help me God. <v David McCullough>After the war business went on as usual in the cloak rooms, back corridors and dining rooms, there was the old back slapping, arm twisting, lapel grabbing, handshaking, finger jabbing, head scratching and lint picking. Crusades 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, 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. <v Congressman 5>Total number of votes cast four hundred and twenty six of which the Honorable Sam Rayburn has received two hundred and seventeen. Therefore, under the [inaudible]

<v David McCullough>The ultimate manager was Sam Rayburn of Texas, who served in Congress for 48 years, 17 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. <v George 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, 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 says this has-- this has been my-- this has been my home has been my whole life. It's been my wife has been my children. I love this old building. <v David 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.

<v Joseph McCarthy>Answer that. Yes or no. Do you know this man? <v Man 1>I will not answer it yes or no. My answer to the question ins--. <v Joseph McCarthy>You're ordered to answer it. <v Man 1>I'm answering it the way I can. I said that your statements about him have made it unsafe for me to answer that question. And I will therefore I refuse to answer the question on the ground it would incriminate me. <v Joseph McCarthy>You have that right if you think it will incriminate you. <v Jimmy Hoffa>And I would be very happy to have our legal counsel here, our legislative representative here, assisting me in 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. <v John F. Kennedy>Well, Mr. Hoffa, this bill is not a strike breaking union busting bill. You are the best argument I know for it. Your testimony here this afternoon, your complete indifference to the fact that 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. <v David McCullough>In the 1950s, 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 with silver tongued Senator Everett Dirksen, conservative Republican of Illinois, known to his colleagues as The Wizard of Ooze.

<v George 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 a 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 a senior senator from Maine. But as for me, give me the marigold who asks for nothing except a little spot in the garden and a little care. And Margaret would go down in defeat. <v Voiceover>And the Capitol gets its face washed by the fire department. They do a thorough job on the statue's emerged dripping, but spotless and with no dirt left on their 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.

<v Charles 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 sort-- not quite American graciousness. <v Cokie 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 you are the people who get to decide that.

<v James MacGregor 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 a responsibility and is supposed to rise above us and so often fails to rise above us. <v Actor 3>Mr. ?Eves? <v Actor 4>Somebody better wake up McCafferty. <v Actor 3>Mr. ?Evans? <v Actor 5>?McCafferty? is sleep again. <v Actor 3>Mr. ?Everett? <v Actor 6>Wake up McCafferty. We need his vote. <v Actor 7>Yes. <v Actor 3>Mr ?Farmer? <v Actor 9>No. <v Actor 3>Mr. ?Fulley? <v Actor 10>Yes.

<v Actor 3>Mr. ?Frank? <v Actor 11>Opposed, sir! Opposed! <v Actor 3>No no Senator, not yet. And I believe that you're not opposed. <v Charles McDowell>Congress is a takeoff on itself at the surface and the public picks that up fast, but ask the public about its Congressman. How's your congressman? Well, he's better than those other ones. He's pretty good. I've known the guy. I know his grandmother. He's all right. He's pretty good. The average American member of Congress gets about a 60, 65 percent approval rating from his or her own constituents. The rest of Congress ranks below newspapermen for having any-- any quality. <v Barbara 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 so much a criticism of the individuals who are there now, many of whom deserve even 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. <v Martin Luther 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 the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall out. This note was a 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--

<v David Broder>I don't think I've seen any debates that came closer to really dealing with the heart and soul of America than the debates on civil rights in the late 50s and 1960s. 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 I've ever seen up there. <v David McCullough>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.

<v Speaker>["Hail to the Chief" plays] <v Charles McDowell>I stood and sat and crouched in the rotunda all night when John F. Kennedy lay in state, and I remember that night just the honor guard and the steady flow of people. And here came some moment before dawn, old Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader, and stood in the rotunda with me and two casual tourists, talked about the Congress, talked about the Capitol, talked about John Kennedy and 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. <v David McCullough>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 bill 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.

<v James MacGregor Burns>It elevates me to see the dome, but then I begin to think of 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 our 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. <v Charles McDowell>I think 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 hard. It makes factions that develop develop around the sort of zealotry of the left or right.

<v David McCullough>Very often they are not voting for or against an issue for the-- 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. <v Chairman>Would the president if there was no resolution, be with or without constitutional authority to send US soldiers to South Vietnam in the numbers that are there today, if there were no resolution.

<v Congressman 6>It would be my view, as I indicated, Mr. Chairman, that he does have that authority. <v Chairman>Would you say the same as to the authority to bomb North Vietnam as opposed to repelling and attack in South Vietnam? <v Congressman 6>Well, I don't see it as opposed to it. <v Chairman>Well, in contracts--. <v Congressman 6>I believe that the objectives and the reason that we're in there have been made repeatedly clear. <v Chairman>Well, the answer is yes then, is it? Is that it? <v Barbara 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 that 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. <v Sam Ervin>I believe Congress set up the FBI to determine what was going on in this country, didn't it?

<v Man 2>Among other things, Mr. Chairman. <v Sam Ervin>It set up the CIA to determine what was going on in respect to foreign intelligence, didn't it? <v Man 2>Yes, sir. Among other agencies. <v Sam Ervin>It set up the National Security Agency, didn't it? <v Man 2>And the Defense Intelligence Agency. <v Sam Ervin>And the Defense Intelligence Agency. <v Man 2>And a number of others. <v Sam Ervin>But it didn't set up the plumbers, did it? <v Man 2>Of course, the Congress doesn't do everything, Mr. Chairman. <v Sam Ervin>No. The Congress is the only one has got legislative power. And I don't know anything in the law that gave the president the power-- <v Cokie 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. <v Congressman 7>All those in favor please signify by saying aye. All those opposed no. Mr. ?Donaghue?.

<v Mr. Donaghue>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. Brooks. <v Mr. Brooks>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. ?Mann?. <v Mr. Mann>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. Sarbanes. <v Mr. Sarbanes>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. ?Hutchinson?. <v Mr. Hutchinson>No. <v Congressman 7>Mr. ?McClaughry? <v Mr. McClaughry>No. <v Congressman 7>Mr. Drinan. <v Mr. Drinan>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. Rangel. <v Mr. Rangel>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Miss Jordan. <v Miss Jordan>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Mr. Rodino. <v Mr. Rodino>Aye. <v Congressman 7>Twenty seven members have voted aye, 11 members have voted no. <v Alistair Cooke>I think the finest moment was the last two days hearings of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, which spoke with such extraordinary seriousness and candor in those two days without rhetorical flourishes, which was astonishing granting that they're Americans it showed the Supreme Court taught the president that he is the servant of the people and that the people are supreme. <v Cokie 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 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.

<v Voice Actor 37>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. <v Charles 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 war. We salvaged. We went on. We've been through nearly every variation of trouble that you can go through. And I think the Congress can adapt to the world of the atom bomb and high technology and has a better chance to prevail than any other way to try. So I'm optimistic.

<v Alistair 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? Madison said, I know no other. <v Actor 12>They're listening to him. Anything might happen now.

<v James Stewart>Just get up off the ground. That's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up at the 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, but 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. Fighting so as he can stand on his own two feet free and decent, like he was created no matter what his race color or creed. <v David McCullough>What impresses me most is that the founders were willing to trust a human personality and human intelligence, that man woman, after all, is not entirely misguided, that we have the wits to solve our own problems. <v Speaker>[instrumental music].

<v David McCullough>That the best judge of how we should be led and governed is us. <v Congressman 9>Let me say to the gentleman further reserving 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--. <v Congressman 10>No other agriculture exporting country is taking the whipping like we are in the International market.

<v Congressman 11>House Joint Resolution 412 joint resolution to congratulate King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand on his 16th birthday on December 5-- <v Congresswoman 2>There are 16 Virginia sandstone columns on top of each column for decoration. We have tobacco leaf and the tobacco blossom-- <v Congressman 12>What did the president know and when did he know it? <v Congressman 13>I reserve the right to object. I'm trying to figure out what it is we're doing here. Understand where--. <v Congressman 14>This bill is, not what the poor need is not what the country needs and is certainly what-- not what this Congress should pass. <v Congressman 15>Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks made by Congressman Tom Bevill today on the five inch guided projectile. <v Congressman 16>Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the speaker's desk H.J. Res. 412 and ask for its immediate-- <v Congressman 17>For the unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.J. Res. <v Congressman 18>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 of debate--

<v Congresswoman 3>I will congratulate the claims city committees and these cities of western Nebraska, North Platte, Ogallala, Kimball-- <v Congressman 19>I believe Congress set up the FBI to determine what was going on in this country didn't it? <v Sam Ervin>Among other things, Mr. Chairman. <v Sam Ervin>It set up the CIA to determine what was going on--. <v Congressman 20>Twenty seven members who voted aye. 11 members who voted no. <v Congressman 21>Will the gentleman yield? <v Congressman 22>My opinion and I'm not going to object to this, but I will-- I will tell the gentleman--. <v Congressman 23>The committee will recess until 10:30, Monday next. <v Congressman 24>10:30 when? <v Congressman 23>Monday morning. <v Congressman 24>Monday next. <v Congressman 23>Monday next. <v George Tames>About 40 women showed up, they were elderly, they were concerned with Social Security, but they sent a note in to Dirksen who was on the floor. So he comes tiptoeing out with that great mass of white hair, just looking the way he does. And and he looks up and down and he says, Girls, I was on the floor defending the republic against the onslaught of the opposition. When I was informed that 40 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, says Nothing Senator, we just want to hear you talk. <v Voiceover>The Congress was underwritten by the Ameritech Foundation, Ameritech, parent of the Bell companies of the Great Lakes region and provider of voice and data communications, cellular phone service, directory publishing and other information businesses.