"[T]he Senate of the United States is unique among all legislative bodies in the world. It is the only important chamber in which debate cannot be curbed - in which there cannot be action when a majority of members are willing and eager to act. Parliamentary obstruction - filibustering - is a political sport for which the season is always open."
-Lindsay Rogers, 'The Most Remarkable of all the Inventions of Modern Politics,' Parliamentary Affairs 3, Winter 1949. "Of course a most agreeable part of the Senator’s life is his daily association with his colleagues. There is enough of the boy left in even the oldest Senator to give to the Senate something of the quality of a class in school."
-Senator George Wharton Pepper, 'What is the Senate?' Forum 74, December 1925. "It is scarcely necessary to emphasize the very great importance of committee appointments in the Senate."
-Senator Robert LaFollette, Sr., A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences, 1911. "This, then, is the Senate, the House of individuals, a body of representative American[s], representing the many elements of the nation’s make-up, exhibiting the vitality of a various people, speaking for the several parts of a country of many parts and many interests, a whole and yet full of sharp and political contrasts; a body of counselors who act, if not always wisely or without personal and party bias, yet always with energy and without haste."
-Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States, 1911. |