Barney Frank gets off a good line now and then. The late Morris Udall was known for his self-deprecating sense of humor. But probably no national lawmaker has ever caused more parenthetical insertions of “Laughter” in the Congressional Record than Thomas B. Reed, the Maine Republican who was speaker of the House during the better part of the 1890s.
Reed was no comedian. His appearance might have been conducive to buffoonery — he stood six feet two inches tall and weighed upwards of 300 pounds — but he didn’t clown around. Instead, he issued a steady stream of witticisms, especially in debate, where his knack for the memorable putdown came into play. The stupidity of a pair of fellow House members once coaxed this crack from Reed: “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” Another time, he informed a garrulous opponent: “The gentleman’s time has expired, and I have the floor; and I want to say it is an improvement to the floor.” He could be equally droll in private moments. At a Washington dinner party, a wealthy lawyer named Joseph Choate made the preposterous assertion that he’d never been present at either a poker game or horse race. To which the host replied, “I wish I could say that.” “Why don’t you say it?” Reed interjected. “Choate just did.” Reed was so good at this sort of thing that he could get away with exulting in it. After leaving one opponent visibly flummoxed on the House floor, Reed said, “Having embedded that fly in the liquid amber of my remarks, I will proceed.”
(Simon & Schuster/Simon & Schuster) - ‘Mr. Speaker!: The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed The Man Who Broke the Filibuster’ by James Grant. Simon Schuster. 426 pp. $28
As James Grant points out in this astute new biography, however, Reed was much more than a barrel of Congressional laughs. First elected to the House in 1877, he served at a time when that body often tied itself in procedural knots. The “filibuster” of Grant’s subtitle was not the limitless speechifying sometimes found in today’s U.S. Senate, but a passive-aggressive form of delay: Members of the obstinate minority could derail a bill simply by refusing to answer a quorum call. There they were, in plain view on the House floor, but by rule and tradition any member who kept his mouth shut when his name was called could not be counted, and lacking a quorum the House would have to move on to other business or adjourn.
Reed deplored this practice while in the minority, arguing that it was not only obstructionist but insulting; it amounted to a member saying, “You cannot prove I am here unless I choose to open my mouth.” On becoming speaker at the age of 50, in 1889, Reed was determined to bring the recurrent fiction to an end. In a well-done set-piece, Grant restages the ensuing drama. “I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me as present,” raged a Democrat, “and I desire to read from parliamentary law on that subject.” “The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present,” Reed answered. “Does he deny it?” Reed pushed through the rule change he wanted, only to have a later, Democratic speaker undo his work and then eat crow by partially reinstituting the reform when he found the House unmanageable.
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