No measure is proposed, no bill passes, no member speaks except by the Speaker's will.

He constructs the committees and selects their chairmen and lays out their work.

With a dozen members, every one of whom votes and acts beneath his thumb, the Speaker transacts the story of the House.

So far as the other three hundred and forty odd members are concerned, the folk who sent them might as well have written a letter.

They live as much without art or part or lot in planning and executing House affairs as do the caged menagerie animals in the planning and execution of the affairs of what show they happen to exist as the attractions.