81			APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.
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		       	       The Apportionment Bill,
			             ----------
			               SPEECH
				         OF
				HON. OTTO G. FOELKER
				    OF NEW YORK,
			`  IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVS,
			     Thursday, February 9, 1911,

On the Bill (H.R. 30566) for the reapportionment of Representatives in the 
Congress among the several States under the Thirteenth Decennial Census
	Mr. FOELKER said:
	Mr. SPEAKER: I know of no more important subject of legislation that 
will occupy the attention of the last few days of the Sixty-first Congress than 
the bill at present under discussion.  What we decide upon now will not only 
decide the size of the House of Representatives for the next 10 years, but will 
establish a precedent for the future, the ultimate importance of which can not 
be estimated.  The question simplifies itself into tow considerations, whether 
we shall keep the membership of the House from growing an larger or whether we 
shall increase it so that no State shall lose any of its members, regardless of 
the right and justice of such a loss, and so say to the future that whenever a 
new apportionment shall be made it shall be estimated, not upon the legitimate 
growth of each State, but always  with the idea that representation shall be 
based that, no matter how much a State may lose in population in population in 
comparison with other States, they shall never lose any part of their quota of 
Representatives.  A most dangerous precedent, Mr. Speaker, subversive of every 
principle of representative government, and to my mind so full of real peril to 
our form of government that it should be most emphatically opposed.
	Is there any doubt in the minds of the Members of this Congress that 
the House is an unwieldy body?  I believe that we all recognize this fact.  If 
we are to keep up the present method of reapportionment, will it not be a still 
more unwieldy body?  As a matter of fact, it should never have been allowed to 
increase to more than 300 Members.  It has ceased already to be a deliberative 
body.  At times when I see this magnificent body of men, picked from the 
citizenship of this great country to represent all that is best in America 
ideals, with a large majority willing and anxious to pass legislation that the 
people need and demand and yet absolutely helpless to do anything because some 
small committee opposes, it seems to me that already we are suffering from that 
peculiar weakness known as “giantism,” which makes the 7-foot giant in the 
circus so weak in the knew and unfits him fir anything else than to be looked 
at by an awe-struck and admiring public.
	The events of the last few years in Congress have sufficiently proven 
that the people resent and dislike the control of this large body of men by the 
small numbers that make up its committees, and with every increase in 
membership this condition will grow worse instead of better, until at last, 
instead of being a House of Representatives, a deliberative body, making the 
laws of the country and passing upon the important business of the Commonwealth, 
it will be simply, absolutely—what it is now partially—a body of automata, 
nodding their heads in helpless assent at the motion of the chairman of a 
committee or the bang of the Speaker’s gavel.
	Mr. Speaker, there is another item which I should think, in these days 
when we hear so much of economy in the public departments, that should be 
considered, and that is the cost of adding 42 Members to the House of 
Representatives.  Do you realize that, with salaries, estimated mileage, clerk 
hire, stationary account, and franking privileges, the total additional cost is 
over a half a million estimated most moderately?  In fact, I believe that the 
amount would more nearly figure up to a million dollars annually of cost to the 
country if everything were considered.
	 And there is an aspect to the question, Mr. Speaker, which should also 
be considered, and that is that far from any section at present having too few 
Members, everyone who believes in absolute justice to all parts of the country 
is forced to admit that there is more than one State in the Union that has 
to-day more Representatives than they are entitled to by any law of justice or 
any fair method of estimating the proper number of Representatives to a 
district.  On December 16, 1910, I introduced a joint resolution proposing an 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which reads as follows:

Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States.
	Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring 
therein).  That the following section is proposed as amended to subdivision 3 of 
section 2 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States, which, when 
ratified by the legislatures of thee-fourths of the several States, shall be 
valid and binding to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution:
	“3. The number of Representatives shall not exceed 400, and each State 
shall have at least 1 Representative.  With the certificate or return of 
elections of each Representative shall also be returned a statement of the 
number of votes cast for all candidates for Representatives in Congress in such 
district; and the Representatives so certified or returned as elected shall, 
upon every matter every coming before the House of Representatives, have 1 vote 
for each 10,000 votes so certified as voting for a Representative in Congress 
in such district.
	“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several 
States which may be included within this Union according to their respective 
numbers, as the same shall appear by the actual enumeration thereof to be made 
the tenth year of each decade, such apportionment to be made by the Congress at 
the first session of that body following each enumeration,  or if such 
apportionment shall fall for any reason at the first session following the 
enumeration, then as soon thereafter as Congress shall agree upon such 
apportionment.
	Whether the remedy I proposed I that resolution was the best one I will 
not venture to say, but that a remedy is needed for an iniquitous condition can 
not, I think, be gainsaid, because, as the representation is apportioned even 
now, many Members are elected by so small a proportion of the population of 
their district that to call them representatives is more humorous that truthful.  
I had hoped that there would have been sufficient discussion of this resolution 
quoted that if the plan proposed had not been practical at least some other plan 
would have been devised whereby all of the people would be directly represented, 
while at the same time this body would have been made more compact, more capable 
of acting as a deliberative body, and less subject to the dominating influence 
of individual leaders for the control of small committees.
	Much as I regret, therefore, Mr. Speaker, to differ with many members of 
the House, I am compelled to cast my vote against the proposed increase of 
membership







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