Organizing for insurgency: Intraparty organization and the development of the house insurgency, 1908-1910

Studies in American Political Development

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 86-110

  Bloch Rubin, Ruth ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84884888961     PISSN: 0898588X     EISSN: 14698692     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0898588X13000096     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. John Mandt Nelson, "Meeting Minutes," January 10, 1910, Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), John Mandt Nelson Papers, Box
2. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3291.
3. George W. Norris, Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of George W. Norris (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1945), 113.
4. Kenneth W. Hechler, Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era (New York: Russell &Russell, 1964), 70-71.
5. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3436. As discussed in the article's penultimate section, this amended resolution stripped Cannon of his seat on the Rules Committee, but allowed the Speaker to retain appointment power to other standing committees.
6. Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 10.
7. Joseph Cooper and David W. Brady, "Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn," American Political Science Review 75 (1981): 416.
8. For example, see Charles R. Atkinson, The Committee on Rules and the Overthrow of Speaker Cannon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1911);
9. Anne Firor Scott, "A Progressive Wind from the South," Journal of Southern History 29 (1963): 53-70;
10. Charles O. Jones, "Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives," Journal of Politics 30 (1968): 617-46;
11. Sarah A. Binder, Minority Rights, Majority Rule: Partisanship and the Development of Congress (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997);
12. David Brady and David Epstein, "Intraparty Preferences, Heterogeneity, and the Origins of the Modern Congress: Progressive Reformers in the House and Senate, 1890-1920," Journal of Law, Economics &Organization 13 (1997): 26-49;
13. Donald R. Wolfensberger, "The Motion to Recommit in the House: The Creation, Evisceration, and Restoration of a Minority Right," in Party, Process, and Political Change, ed. David Brady and Mathew D. McCubbins (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 271-95;
14. Adam Sheingate, "Creativity and Constraint in the U.S. House of Representatives" in Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power, ed. James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 168-203.
15. Eric Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 14.
16. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, "Democratic Party Platform of 1908," July 7, 1908, The American Presidency Project, http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29589 (date accessed: February 4, 2013).
17. Jones, "Joseph G. Cannon and Howard Smith," 626.
18. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins, Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party in Government in the U.S. House of Representatives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 20-30.
19. Keith Krehbiel, Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 165-72.
20. David W. Rohde, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 35-37.
21. Eric Schickler and Andrew Rich, "Controlling the Floor: Parties as Procedural Coalitions in the House," American Journal of Political Science 41 (1997): 1342.
22. John D. Baker, "The Character of the Congressional Revo- lution of 1910," Journal of American History 60 (1973): 683.
23. Edward E. Higgins to William H. Taft, March 8, 1909, LOC, Victor Murdock Papers, Box 23.
24. Richmond P. Hobson to Murdock, November 24, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22.
25. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76.
26. Henry E. Brady and David Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Lanham, MD: Rowman &Littlefield, 2004), 12.
27. ArchibaldW. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide (New York: Doubleday, Doran &Co., 1930), 5-8.
28. Paul Pierson, "The Costs of Marginalization: Qualitative Methods in the Study of American Politics," Comparative Political Studies 40 (2007): 145-69.
29. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 70.
30. Gretchen Ritter, Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of Finance in America, 1865-1896 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
31. Overproduction of agricultural commodities, once encouraged by advocates of western settlement, led to falling prices. Claire Strom, "James J. Hill: Empire Builder as Farmer," Minnesota History Magazine 54 (1995): 242-53.
32. see Richard F. Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000);
33. Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State 1877-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
34. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 71.
35. The western progressive Republicans were joined by a handful of representatives who, by some accounts, believed parliamentary reform would either ease the passage of their favored legislation- as was the case for Rep. George A. Pearre (R-MD) and Rep. Charles Fowler (R-NJ)-or promote "good government" more broadly, as articulated by Rep. Augustus Gardner (R-MA). Blair Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle Joe Cannon's Experiment with Personal Power (New York: Norton &Company, 1951), 174-75.
36. In the period prior to Joseph Cannon's tenure as Speaker there was no lack of objections to House rules. In 1902, for example, Rep. Francis Cushman (R-WA) railed against the chamber's repressive legislative calendar, arguing that House rules enabled party leaders to push through at least some legislation by arbitrary procedure for partisan or personal benefit. "The Calendar!" he cried, "That is a misnomer. It ought to be called a cemetery. For therein lie the whitening bones of legislative hopes." However, scholars generally characterize the speeches leveled against House rules prior to the Insurgency as disorganized and polemic. Insurgent speeches, by contrast, were typically dispassionate and analytic. Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Sess., 1902, 35, 4320.
37. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p.
38. Congressional Record, 60th Congress, 1st Sess., 1907, 42, 426-429;
39. Murdock to White, December 9, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.
40. James S. Sherman to Col. H.L. Swords, February 6, 1909, New York Public Library Rare Books and Manuscript Division (NYPL), James Schoolcraft Sherman Papers, Box 17, File "1909 Feb, 6-7."
41. Hechler, Insurgency, 194.
42. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers Box 10, p. 13-14.
43. Sitting behind Nelson just after he had delivered his speech for parliamentary reform, Norris leaned forward and promised the congressman: "John, I'll be with you on that." Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 2.
44. Hechler, Insurgency, 45;
45. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 108.
46. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 2.
47. Hechler, Insurgency, 45.
48. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 135;
49. "Hepburn May Contest," The Washington Post, December 2, 1908, p.1;
50. See Hechler, Insurgency, 44;
51. Poindexter to Taft, November 10, 1908, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8.
52. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p.
53. Eastern Insurgents had perhaps the most to lose from a more equitable regional distribution of power in the House, as the region tended to dominate House proceedings. Nelson's meeting minutes, however, reveal that this group of reformers believed that the status quo favored stand-pat eastern interests and limited their own access to the chamber's most powerful offices. Nelson, "Meeting Minutes," January 26, 1909, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1-2.
54. Nelson, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p.
55. Nelson, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 7-8.
56. More broadly, the Insurgents' attention to matters of organization as a means of structuring consistent participation, ideological cohesion, and common strategy suggests a sort of institutional isomorphism between parties and their constitutive intraparty organizations. Indeed, the Insurgents' use of these party-like mechanisms to keep group members invested in their collective objective is striking. Whereas it is probably not the case that intraparty organizations are simply "nascent parties within parties, seeking to pour new wine into old bottles," the fact that Insurgent organizers looked to their party coalition for structural inspiration suggests a strong affinity between the two phenomena. James W. Ceaser, "Political Parties-Declining, Stabilizing, or Resurging?" in The New American Political System, 2nd ed., ed. Anthony King (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1990), 90-91.
57. Hechler, Insurgency, 195.
58. Nelson, "Meeting Minutes," January 10, 1910, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 3.
59. Nelson, "Meeting Minutes," February 8, 1909, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10.
60. Charles F. Scott to Alex Butts, November 14, 1908, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 21, Folder "S"
61. Lawrence F. Abbott to Murdoch, March 13, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22, Folder "Abbott, Lawrence F."; Collier to Murdock, March 10, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22, Folder "Collier
62. Robert J." Both Murdock and La Follette, who had left his post as governor of Wisconsin in January 1906 to serve the state as a senator, edited such publications.
63. Haskell to Murdock, December 20, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22, Folder "Haskell, Henry J."
64. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.
65. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 14.
66. Hechler, Insurgency, 46-47.
67. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.
68. Hechler, Insurgency, 48-49.
69. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76.
70. Hechler, Insurgency, 196. The historical record is unclear as to who initiated the cross-party coalition. According to Nelson, he and Gardner approached Clark through Rep. Albert Burleson (D-TX), while Clark claims he reached out to the Insurgents first. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 16.
71. Nelson explained the nature of the cross-party collaboration: "We only agreed to stand together on this issue and not on party policies generally." Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 16.
72. Wallace D. Bassford to Higgins (and forwarded to Victor Murdock), March 9, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23, Folder "Success Magazine."
73. Congressional Record, 60th Congress, 2nd Sess., 1909, 43, 3570.
74. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 18.
75. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, Wisconsin Historical Society, John Mandt Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 18.
76. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 18-19.
77. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.
78. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 21-22.
79. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 1st Sess., 1909, 44, 33-34.
80. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76.
81. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 1st Sess., 1909, 44, 33.
82. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.
83. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.
84. Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 180;
85. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.
86. Hechler, Insurgency, 63.
87. Hechler, Insurgency, 197.
88. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 256, 271-273.
89. "Without Quarter," Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1910, p. I1;
90. Joseph Bristow to White, January 5, 1910, LOC, William Allen White Papers, Box 3.
91. Nelson to Hechler, "Annotated Interview Notes," February 13, 1939, Wisconsin Historical Society, John Mandt Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 23.
92. See Keith Krehbiel and Alan Wiseman, "Joseph G. Cannon: Majoritarian from Illinois," Legislative Studies Quarterly 26 (2001): 357-89;
93. Eric D. Lawrence, Forrest Maltzman, and Paul J. Wahlbeck, "The Politics of Speaker Cannon's Committee Assignments," American Journal of Political Science 45 (2001): 551-62.
94. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10;
95. Murdock to White, December 27, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.
96. Murdock to White, December 9, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.
97. William J. Cary to Poindexter, October 21, 1909, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 9, Folder "C Special Correspondence."
98. See also Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 79.
99. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 8.
100. Hechler, Insurgency, 63-64. Atkinson, The Committee on Rules, 76-78.
101. In a recent article, Miller and Squire note that some Insurgent participants in the Cannon Revolt were motivated principally by electoral concerns, rather than a strong commitment to the cause of rules reform. Their analysis comports with the account presented here-in short, that the electoral benefits of association with the Insurgent cause could be substantial given certain district characteristics. Susan Miller and Peverill Squire, "Who Rebelled? An Analysis of the Motivations of the Republicans Who Voted Against Speaker Cannon," American Politics Research 40 (2013): 387-416.
102. Asle J. Gronna to Poindexter, July 2, 1910, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 13;
103. Deed H. Meyer to Poindexter, July 13, 1910, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 12.
104. See also Mark Sullivan to Murdock, March 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23;
105. "Townsend of Michigan for Speaker," Arthur Capper, November 19, 1908, BHL, Townsend Papers, Box 1, Folder 1.
106. Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 217.
107. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 117-18.
108. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3428.
109. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3436. Joining the Insurgents were a score of formerly stand-pat Republicans-legislators who had previously refrained from participating in the rules fight because of their unwillingness to break party bonds.
110. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 106-7.
111. Nelson to Hechler, "Miscellaneous Interviews," February 5-7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 11;