The Congress (1989)

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Transcript
00:00:00What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men
00:00:15were angels, no government would be necessary. James Madison.
00:01:30That's the place where our government works. It's the engine of democracy. This is our
00:01:42most important building. We're so accustomed to seeing our history measured by the presidency
00:01:52that we forget the extent to which the real story of our country takes place right there.
00:02:00That's the place to go, to the hill. All the voices are there.
00:02:08The house will be in order. Our prayer will be offered by the chapel.
00:02:12Oh God, as we think on the glories of your spiritual world, may we also see your glories
00:02:17in real life.
00:02:18As you enter the rotunda, please grab a ticket, one per person, for a tour of the historic
00:02:21section of the building.
00:02:22Now standing in the original section of the Capitol, George Washington and Pierre Lamont.
00:02:28John Quincy Adams.
00:02:32Those soldiers never die. They just fade away.
00:02:40Senator McCarthy, have you no sense of decency, sir?
00:02:45Mr. Rubino. Aye.
00:02:47It is possible for an American to disagree with you on aid to the countries and still
00:02:55love God and still love this country.
00:02:57Mr. Speaker, the official state song of my home state is entitled, Beautiful Nebraska.
00:03:03I want my colleagues to know about the accomplishments of Nebraska.
00:03:07With Congress, every time they make a joke, it's a lie. You know, every time they make
00:03:14a lie, it's a joke.
00:03:18Look, look, there it is.
00:03:20Who?
00:03:21What?
00:03:22The Capitol dome.
00:03:23Yes, sir. Big as life. Been there a long time now.
00:03:27Yes, sir. This way, Senator.
00:03:38The Congress and the President, and I guess the Supreme Court, they're the three things
00:03:43we got. But the Congress is where we speak. The Congress is where we are. The Congress
00:03:50is where ordinary mortals go about the business of compromise, of compromise which gets us
00:04:00through the day.
00:04:02Congress is the first branch of government in the sense that it is the reminder that
00:04:08people in a republic are supposed to do their own business, and they are not supposed to
00:04:15abdicate their business to someone else.
00:04:20There was still some lingering thought, you know, that they made a mistake in giving up
00:04:24the idea of a king. Benjamin Franklin came along, said the story is. He came along and
00:04:32he stopped and listened a moment, and when there was a chance to say a word, he just
00:04:39said this. He says, In America, the people govern.
00:04:44This huge grey hall, filled with perpetual clamour, this multitude of keen and eager
00:04:51faces, this ceaseless coming and going of many feet, this irreverent public watching
00:04:56from the galleries and forcing its way onto the floor, all speak to the beholder's mind
00:05:01of the mighty democracy destined in another century to form one half of civilised mankind
00:05:08whose affairs are here debated. Of what tremendous struggles may not this hall become the theatre
00:05:13in ages yet far distant, when the parliaments of Europe have shrunk to insignificance?
00:05:22One mile east and 88 feet above the Potomac River, on what was once called Jenkins Heights,
00:05:29stands the most recognisable building in America. Designed by an English architect,
00:05:36designed by an Englishman, inspired by a Russian church, decorated by Italian craftsmen and
00:05:41built in part by slaves, it is the nearest thing Americans have to a national temple.
00:05:49Davy Crockett sat here, so did Joseph Pulitzer and Horace Greeley, and William Randolph Hurst
00:05:56and Emily Dickinson's father, and Isidore Strauss, the founder of Macy's, and a man
00:06:02who pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964.
00:06:08Over 10,000 men and women have served here. Farmers and housewives, Rhodes scholars and
00:06:15ex-slaves, astronauts and priests, basketball stars and convicted felons, school teachers
00:06:25and playwrights, and lawyers, always lawyers.
00:06:32If the present Congress err too much in talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which
00:06:39the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade is talk by the hour?
00:06:47One member has gone insane in office. One has taken maternity leave and several have
00:06:53served jail terms for bribery. Members have fought on the floor with fists and fire tongs,
00:07:00shot each other on dueling grounds, and been shot at from the galleries.
00:07:06Twenty-three from Congress have become president.
00:07:10In 200 years, Congress has, in the name of the people, pushed open the West, built railroads,
00:07:16freed slaves, made war, passed Social Security, put G.I.s through college,
00:07:22and paid to land men on the moon.
00:07:26They've driven Indians from their land, outlawed alcohol, and filibustered without mercy.
00:07:34They've created Mother's Day and Daylight Savings Time,
00:07:38dominated presidents and been dominated by them,
00:07:43started wars and stopped them.
00:07:48Congress, Thomas Jefferson said, is the great commanding theater of this nation.
00:07:55It is the place where laws are made.
00:08:02He was once asked by a rather impatient man at the Constitutional Convention,
00:08:07Mr. Madison, could you please tell us what are the principles, if there are any,
00:08:12to be of American government? And he said, yes, there are three.
00:08:16Compromise, compromise, compromise.
00:08:21I'm most impressed by their imagination. This was a leap of the imagination.
00:08:26The idea that you're going to turn over to the people, through their representatives,
00:08:30the power to make war and the power to tax.
00:08:33That the people who were going to either take your money away or take your sons away
00:08:37were the people who had to go home every single, at that point it wasn't every weekend,
00:08:42but it was the notion that they had to be up for re-election every two years.
00:08:46It's hard to imagine that when they met in New York,
00:08:52there was no structure for them to begin with.
00:08:55And they invented this Congress that still exists today,
00:09:00recognizing that every decision they made in those two years
00:09:04would become a precedent for as long as the Congress endured.
00:09:10If that's not a miracle, that we had that kind of political talent
00:09:14available in a small country of four million people at that time in our history,
00:09:21I don't know what a miracle is.
00:09:31You and I, dear friend, have been sent into life
00:09:34at a time when the greatest lawgivers would have wished to live.
00:09:38How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity
00:09:41of making an election of government for themselves and their children.
00:09:46John Adams.
00:09:51In 1789, King struck a deal with the United States
00:09:56In 1789, King still ruled in France and England,
00:10:00a czar in St. Petersburg, a sultan in Constantinople,
00:10:05a divinely invested emperor in Peking, and a shogun in Japan.
00:10:13But on March 4, 1789, in the sun-filled chambers of New York City Hall,
00:10:19newly remodeled as a temporary capital,
00:10:22the First Congress of the United States took up its business
00:10:25under the new Constitution.
00:10:28Only 21 members showed up, however,
00:10:31and the First Congress adjourned without a quorum.
00:10:35This is a very mortifying situation.
00:10:38We lose credit, spirit, everything.
00:10:40The public will forget the government before it is born.
00:10:44The resurrection of the infant will come before its birth.
00:10:48Representative Fisher Ames.
00:10:51When they finally all assembled, Congress addressed itself
00:10:54to ten constitutional amendments, a bill of rights,
00:10:57guaranteeing, among other things, the separation of church and state.
00:11:02The House then picked a former preacher for its first speaker,
00:11:05Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania.
00:11:11They created new departments of state, treasury, and war,
00:11:15devised the machinery of committees,
00:11:17and set President George Washington's salary
00:11:19at the huge sum of $25,000 a year,
00:11:23all the time improvising freely.
00:11:27They were inventing Congress, and they were inventing themselves.
00:11:32I am vice president. In this I am nothing.
00:11:35But I may be everything.
00:11:37But I am also president of the Senate.
00:11:40When the president comes into the Senate, who shall I be?
00:11:43When the president comes into the Senate, who shall I be?
00:11:47John Adams?
00:11:51I'd like to have been a reporter at the first Congress,
00:11:54in the first days, when those guys came in there
00:11:58to invent what they'd planned at Philadelphia.
00:12:03And there was a moment when the president had a treaty
00:12:07for the Senate to ratify.
00:12:09Well, the Senate had never ratified a treaty,
00:12:11there'd never been a Senate, there'd never been a treaty.
00:12:14George Washington bore the treaty to the Capitol in his hand,
00:12:18and he delivered it to the Senate,
00:12:20and he said, in effect, ratify it.
00:12:23And the Senate took it and looked at it a while
00:12:26and said, well, yes, sir, yeah.
00:12:30And it became clear that Washington expected them to ratify it.
00:12:35And the Senate asserted itself,
00:12:38not knowing what it was asserting,
00:12:40and said, we'll have to look at it.
00:12:43Washington paced the halls, irritated, angered.
00:12:49The Senate told him that they believed it would take till tomorrow,
00:12:54or maybe another day,
00:12:56and Washington had to leave the Capitol and go home,
00:12:59and he never returned to the Capitol.
00:13:02But the Senate had asserted that it would do what the founders,
00:13:06which George Washington agreed with,
00:13:08they ratified a treaty by arguing about it
00:13:11and making a little change somewhere,
00:13:13and the government was operating.
00:13:18After leaving Baltimore, we wandered about for two hours
00:13:22without finding a guide or a path.
00:13:24Woods are all you can see from the time you leave Baltimore
00:13:28until you reach the city, which is so only in name.
00:13:33I have been to Georgetown.
00:13:35It is the very dirtiest hole I ever saw
00:13:38for a place of any trade or respectability of inhabitants.
00:13:43Abigail Adams.
00:13:46After a year in New York and ten in Philadelphia,
00:13:49Congress finally found a permanent home.
00:13:52Government settled on the banks of the Potomac
00:13:55at the west end of Jenkins Heights.
00:14:00The move was made in June, 1800.
00:14:03The government's documents came by sailing ship.
00:14:06Clerks, congressmen, and John Adams,
00:14:09now President Adams, by stagecoach and horseback.
00:14:15A Library of Congress was established,
00:14:18and a sum of $15 million voted to purchase
00:14:21all Louisiana territory, doubling the size of the country.
00:14:25An additional appropriation of $2,500 went to Lewis and Clark
00:14:30to find out what $15 million had bought.
00:14:38Congress was boisterous, homespun, enlivened now
00:14:42by a two-party system,
00:14:44and outraged over British harassment of American shipping.
00:14:48Some wanted war.
00:14:50Most persuasive of these war hawks
00:14:53was a young congressman from Kentucky.
00:14:56Clay is an eloquent man with very popular manners
00:14:59and great political management.
00:15:01His school has been the world, and in that he is proficient.
00:15:05His morals, public and private, are loose.
00:15:08But he has all the virtues indispensable to a popular man.
00:15:14On November 4, 1811, his first day
00:15:17as a member of the House of Representatives,
00:15:19Henry Clay was elected Speaker.
00:15:21He was tall, gallant, shrewd, and ambitious.
00:15:25A natural leader.
00:15:27Only 35 years old, he took his place in the Great Chamber
00:15:31and quickly challenged the White House
00:15:33in its handling of foreign affairs.
00:15:35The balance of power shifted to Congress and to Henry Clay.
00:15:40Sir, no man in the nation wants peace more than I,
00:15:44but I prefer the troubled ocean of war with all its calamities
00:15:48to the tranquil and putrescent pool of ignominious peace.
00:15:53In June of 1812, the Congress of the United States
00:15:57declared war for the first time,
00:16:00then adjourned without voting the taxes to pay for it.
00:16:04Two years later, the British invaded Washington.
00:16:07Congress was not in session when the British Army
00:16:10marched into the city and burned the capital.
00:16:15But the problems had just begun.
00:16:18Two great questions have prevailed all the way through
00:16:23from the time of the earliest Congresses
00:16:26right up until the present,
00:16:28and those are civil rights and growth.
00:16:32I suppose the crucial moment in the 19th century
00:16:35was when this nation was trying to avert
00:16:37the tragedy of the Civil War,
00:16:39which finally overpowered the statesmen of that era.
00:16:43But there were men, Clay and others,
00:16:46who tried and used up their lives and careers
00:16:50trying to avert that calamity,
00:16:52and that would have been a time
00:16:54to have been a fly on the wall in the capital.
00:17:06The mists of mourning still hung around the magnificent building
00:17:10when first it broke upon our view.
00:17:12We were struck with admiration
00:17:14and surprise.
00:17:15None of us, I believe, expected to see so imposing a structure
00:17:20on that side of the Atlantic.
00:17:22The beauty and majesty of the American capital
00:17:25might defy an abler pen than mine to do it justice.
00:17:29It stands so finely too, high and alone.
00:17:33Francis Trollope.
00:17:37By 1819, the capital had been rebuilt
00:17:40under the direction of Benjamin Latour.
00:17:43There were spacious new chambers for both houses,
00:17:46joined by a handsome rotunda
00:17:48and a low wooden dome sheathed in copper.
00:17:52A proud Congress sat while the artist Samuel F.B. Morse
00:17:56painted it in session in its new quarters,
00:17:59then subsidized his new telegraph system.
00:18:02Growth and improvements were the spirit of the times.
00:18:06But because of confusion as to whether the Senate or the House
00:18:10had authority in the rotunda,
00:18:12merchants set up shop there
00:18:14and sold stoves, pianos, and mousetraps.
00:18:18Let us then bind the Republic together
00:18:21with a perfect system of roads and canals.
00:18:24Let us conquer space.
00:18:26We are rapidly, I was about to say fearfully, growing.
00:18:31John C. Calhoun.
00:18:33But there was one problem that could unbind the Republic.
00:18:38As each new state was added to the Union,
00:18:41it threatened to tear the country apart.
00:18:44Southerners feared the North might forbid slavery.
00:18:48Northerners feared slavery might move west.
00:18:52There was never a moment in our history
00:18:55when slavery was not a sleeping serpent.
00:18:58It lay coiled up under the table
00:19:00during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.
00:19:04Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind,
00:19:07if not always on his tongue.
00:19:14The first great crisis came in 1820.
00:19:17After fierce debate, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise,
00:19:21admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.
00:19:26Henry Clay engineered the Compromise
00:19:29using all the force of his extraordinary ideas.
00:19:33There was widespread relief.
00:19:36They had saved the Union, for now.
00:19:39All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.
00:19:44Let him who elevates himself above humanity
00:19:48say if he pleases, I never will compromise.
00:19:52But let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature
00:19:57disdain compromise.
00:20:01It was a time of oratory,
00:20:04and there were giants on Capitol Hill.
00:20:07Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, the voice of western expansion,
00:20:12who had once shot Andrew Jackson in a street brawl.
00:20:16Sam Houston, future president of Texas,
00:20:19who sat in the House chamber whittling a pine stick.
00:20:23John Quincy Atkinson,
00:20:26John Quincy Adams, old man eloquent,
00:20:29who, like no other former president, went back to serve in the House.
00:20:34And Webster, godlike Daniel of Massachusetts.
00:20:38It was said no man was ever so great as Daniel Webster looked, or sounded.
00:20:44When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time
00:20:51the sun in the heavens,
00:20:54may I not see him shining on the broken fragments
00:20:59of a once glorious union,
00:21:02on a land rent with civil feuds,
00:21:05or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.
00:21:10Let their last feeble and lingering glance
00:21:16rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic,
00:21:20still full, high, advanced, liberty and union,
00:21:26now and forever, one and inseparable.
00:21:37Speech by speech, compromise after compromise,
00:21:41words held the country together.
00:21:44Generations of school children learned Webster's words by heart
00:21:48and took them to heart.
00:21:51Before delivering a speech, he often appeared absent-minded.
00:21:56Rising to his feet, he seemed to recover perfect self-possession,
00:22:01which was aided by thrusting the right hand within the folds of his vest,
00:22:06while the left hung gracefully by his side.
00:22:10His dark complexion grew warm with inward fire.
00:22:14His eyes would start from their cavernous depths.
00:22:21Webster was a genial host, a warm friend of business
00:22:24and of the sideboard decanter,
00:22:27and not averse to taking cash gifts from admirers.
00:22:31Henry Clay, too, enjoyed his whiskey and high living,
00:22:34gambling and horse racing.
00:22:37A war hawk no more, he had become the supreme charmer of American politics,
00:22:42the great compromiser.
00:22:45I don't like Henry Clay.
00:22:47He is a bad man, an imposter, a creator of wicked schemes.
00:22:52I wouldn't speak to him, but by God, I love him.
00:22:56John C. Calhoun.
00:22:58Somber, intellectual John C. Calhoun had no interest in compromise.
00:23:04Like Clay, he was a slave owner,
00:23:06but unlike Clay, he became so single-minded in his defense of the institution
00:23:11that he seemed possessed.
00:23:14He gave up the vice presidency to take a seat in the Senate
00:23:18to lead the Southern cause.
00:23:24Nothing can be more unfounded and false
00:23:26than the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal,
00:23:30for it rests upon the assumption of a fact
00:23:33which is contrary to universal observation.
00:23:36John C. Calhoun.
00:23:40Here is our country upon the very verge of a civil war
00:23:44which everyone pretends to be anxious to avoid,
00:23:47yet everyone wants his own way, irrespective of the wishes of others.
00:23:52Henry Clay.
00:23:56The feeling among the Southern members for dissolution of the Union
00:23:59is becoming more general.
00:24:01Men are now beginning to talk of it seriously
00:24:04who 12 months ago hardly permitted themselves to think of it.
00:24:08The crisis is not far ahead.
00:24:11Alexander Stevens.
00:24:18When the cornerstone of the capital was laid,
00:24:20there were only 209 post offices in the country.
00:24:24By 1850, there were 21,551.
00:24:30Gold had been found in California.
00:24:32Texas was in the Union.
00:24:34The country now stretched all the way to the Pacific.
00:24:39It is our manifest destiny
00:24:42to overspread the continent allotted by Providence
00:24:46for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.
00:24:52There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land
00:24:56and whether one government can comprehend the whole.
00:25:02The next crisis came in 1850 over California.
00:25:06Would the new state be slave or free?
00:25:10Clay took the floor on February 5th.
00:25:13He had arrived at the capital so weak he had to be helped up the steps,
00:25:17but in the overheated chamber he spoke nearly three hours,
00:25:21pleading for another compromise.
00:25:23He warned that the Union might be destroyed
00:25:26and called for a free California to please the North.
00:25:30To please the South, he proposed to strengthen the law
00:25:33that returned runaway slaves to their owners.
00:25:37Clay knew what a concession he was asking of Webster and the North.
00:25:41You are numerically more powerful than the slave states,
00:25:45and greatness and magnanimity should ever be allied together.
00:25:49Calhoun, racked with fever, too ill even to talk,
00:25:53sat wrapped in a black cloak, glaring defiance,
00:25:56while his speech was read for him by James Mason of Virginia.
00:26:01He was sure the abolitionists would make slaves into masters
00:26:05and masters into slaves.
00:26:09On March 7th, Daniel Webster took his turn.
00:26:13Plagued by insomnia for weeks,
00:26:16he reinforced himself with drugs.
00:26:18It was his last great speech.
00:26:22Mr. President, I wish to speak today
00:26:25not as a Massachusetts man nor as a northern man,
00:26:29but as an American and a member of the Senate.
00:26:33I speak for the preservation of the Union.
00:26:37Hear me for my cause.
00:26:40He had made a brave decision.
00:26:43He had made a brave decision.
00:26:45He would support the Clay Compromise,
00:26:47including the fugitive slave law his constituents so despised,
00:26:51because he thought it the only way to stave off civil war.
00:26:57Clay and Webster won.
00:26:59The Compromise of 1850 held the Union together for ten more years.
00:27:05But Webster, Clay and Calhoun were spent.
00:27:09Defiant until the end,
00:27:11Calhoun died even before the Compromise was enacted into law.
00:27:16Clay and Webster died in 1852.
00:27:21Henry Clay of Kentucky was the first man
00:27:24to lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol.
00:27:32I like oratory.
00:27:34It's one of my character failings.
00:27:38Webster, Clay, Calhoun apparently were three just magic arters.
00:27:45I would have sat and I would have listened
00:27:47as you would listen to a great Wurlitzer somewhere.
00:27:52I would have, I hope, been absolutely awed
00:27:56at the way in the middle of all that malefluence raging.
00:28:01They were isolating issues, as very few members are able to do today.
00:28:06They were speaking about the greatest divisions in the country
00:28:10with incredible precision apart from their eloquence.
00:28:14But when I'm in the presence of that, I read about it the next day.
00:28:17I sit and listen as to the concert.
00:28:25Now Capitol Hill became a construction site.
00:28:28Two huge new wings were planned.
00:28:31Grand stairways, sumptuous reception rooms, and a new dome.
00:28:35The
00:29:00architect was from the north, Thomas Walter of Pennsylvania.
00:29:04The man in charge was from the south, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.
00:29:11But while the Capitol was growing, the country was coming apart.
00:29:17Finally, words failed.
00:29:20On the floor of the Senate, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks
00:29:24savagely beat the abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane.
00:29:31Sumner tried so desperately to get away,
00:29:33he wrenched his desk loose from the floor.
00:29:37Members of the House began carrying pistols.
00:29:43In November of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president.
00:29:47In December, South Carolina seceded from the Union.
00:29:52There were more and more empty seats in the new chambers.
00:29:55On January 21st, 1861, Senator Jefferson Davis rose to speak.
00:30:01I am sure I feel no hostility toward you, Senators of the North.
00:30:06I am sure there is not one of you would ever sharp discussion there may have been between us
00:30:11to whom I cannot say in the presence of my God, I wish you well.
00:30:16Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on the East Steps,
00:30:19beneath the booms and scaffolding for the colossal new dome of cast iron.
00:30:24Cannon guarded the Capitol grounds.
00:30:26Sharpshooters lined the roof.
00:30:32Despite protest at the cost, Lincoln insisted that work on the unfinished dome go on.
00:30:37I take it as a sign, he said, that the Union will continue.
00:30:42But on April 12th, 1861, war came.
00:30:48Now, there was another American Congress,
00:30:50the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.
00:30:57Washington City was no longer a name to the mother waiting and praying in the distant hamlet.
00:31:04Her boy was camped on the floor of the rotunda.
00:31:08Never till that hour did they hear her voice.
00:31:13She was the mother of three children.
00:31:16She was the mother of three children.
00:31:19She was the mother of three children.
00:31:21She was on the floor of the rotunda.
00:31:24Never till that hour did the Federal City become to the heart of the American people,
00:31:30truly the capital of the nation.
00:31:34The Capitol became a makeshift barracks, then a hospital.
00:31:40Congress and the country were now confronting their greatest crisis.
00:31:45At noon, December 2nd, 1863, as the war dragged on,
00:31:50a 19-foot bronze goddess of freedom triumphant was at last hoisted into place.
00:31:56The Great Dome was finished.
00:31:58The Great Dome was finished.
00:32:10In January of 1865, Congress passed a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery everywhere and for all time.
00:32:20Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black man ever to serve in the United States Senate,
00:32:26filling the seat last held by Jefferson Davis.
00:32:32Only one Southern senator had remained loyal to the Union,
00:32:36Vice President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.
00:32:39When he assumed the presidency after Lincoln's assassination,
00:32:43a violent power struggle broke out between Congress and the executive.
00:32:47Johnson's reconstruction plan was too lenient for radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania,
00:32:53who wanted to vigorously enforce civil rights throughout the South.
00:32:58In 1868, Congress voted to impeach the president.
00:33:02Johnson survived removal by only one vote.
00:33:06But Congress, not the president, would continue to dominate Washington for the next three decades.
00:33:15Not a bad desk either. Daniel Webster used to use it.
00:33:19Daniel Webster sat here?
00:33:20Give me something to shoot at, Senator, if you figure on doing any talking.
00:33:24Hold on, I'm just going to sit around and listen.
00:33:26That's a way to get re-elected.
00:33:35These hardy knaves and stupid fools.
00:33:38Some apish and pragmatic mules.
00:33:41Some servile, acquiescing tools.
00:33:45These, these, and these.
00:33:47These fools.
00:33:49These, these, compose the Congress.
00:33:55When Jove resolved to send a curse, and all the woes of life rehearse,
00:34:00not plague, not famine, but much worse,
00:34:04he cursed us with a Congress.
00:34:11Government during the first 76 years meant building and then saving a nation.
00:34:17Now, in the aftermath of Civil War, it often meant exploiting it.
00:34:27It could probably be shown by facts and figures
00:34:30that there is no distinctly Native American criminal class except Congress.
00:34:36Reader, suppose you were an idiot.
00:34:39And suppose you were a member of Congress.
00:34:42But I repeat myself.
00:34:44Mark Twain.
00:34:47The lead parts on Capitol Hill now were assumed by a new breed.
00:34:51The bosses.
00:34:53Through their political machines and the power of patronage,
00:34:57many senators controlled the state legislatures that elected them.
00:35:01Scarcely any of the great railway men go into Congress.
00:35:05A fact of much significance when one considers
00:35:07that they are really the most powerful people in the country.
00:35:10The absence of railway men by no means implies the absence of railway influence.
00:35:13For it is as easy for a company to influence legislation
00:35:16from without Congress as from within.
00:35:20We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge
00:35:24of moral, political, and material ruin.
00:35:28Corruption dominates.
00:35:30From the same prolific womb of injustice,
00:35:33we breed the two great classes,
00:35:36tramps and millionaires.
00:35:39Leland Stanford of California was president and director
00:35:43of the Central Pacific Railroad the whole time he sat in the Senate,
00:35:47now known as the Millionaire's Club.
00:35:51But most conspicuous of the bosses was Senator Roscoe Conkling,
00:35:55Republican of New York.
00:35:57He was handsome and hugely vain.
00:36:00Women thought him gorgeous.
00:36:02He was for big business and the railroads.
00:36:05They made the country great.
00:36:06He sneered at reformers and called the civil service
00:36:10the Snivel Service.
00:36:12The contempt of that large-minded gentleman is so wilting.
00:36:17His haughty disdain, his grand eloquence swell,
00:36:21his majestic, super-eminent, turkey-gobblish strut
00:36:25has been so crushing that it was an act of the greatest temerity
00:36:29for me to venture upon a controversy with him.
00:36:33James G. Blaine,
00:36:34James G. Blaine.
00:36:37Conkling's chief rival for the public spotlight
00:36:40was Speaker James Gillespie Blaine of Maine.
00:36:43Able and warm-hearted, he might have become president
00:36:47had he not, like so many others,
00:36:49accepted financial support from the interests.
00:36:52In his case, the Little Rock Railroad.
00:36:55He became the symbol of a whole political era,
00:36:59the tattooed man.
00:37:04In the deadlocked presidential election of 1876,
00:37:08a backroom deal between Republican and Democratic bosses in Congress
00:37:12sent Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency
00:37:15instead of Samuel Tilden, who had actually won the popular vote.
00:37:19In exchange, federal troops were withdrawn from the South.
00:37:23Reconstruction collapsed.
00:37:25The few blacks in Congress disappeared almost overnight.
00:37:29It would be 75 years before Congress seriously considered civil rights again.
00:37:35This, Mr. Chairman,
00:37:38is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress.
00:37:44Let me say Phoenix-like,
00:37:46he will rise up someday and come again.
00:37:52Representative George White.
00:38:00But even in the age of the bosses,
00:38:03Congress passed the Land-Grant College Act,
00:38:06granted millions of acres to homesteaders,
00:38:09finally enacted civil service reform,
00:38:12and set up the Interstate Commerce Commission
00:38:14to regulate the railroads.
00:38:18Government and the Congress grew,
00:38:21and one man in Washington was big enough to keep it all going.
00:38:24He was a slow-moving giant hulk,
00:38:27out of whose color rose an enormous, round, clean-shaven baby face
00:38:33like a cassava melon from a fat black stalk.
00:38:38He was also distinguished by his belief
00:38:41that the purpose of Congress was to accomplish something,
00:38:44and in the end, he gave up his power on a matter of principle.
00:38:48Thomas Brackett Reed,
00:38:49Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine,
00:38:51the Speaker of the House,
00:38:53stood 6'3", and weighed nearly 300 pounds.
00:38:56His wit could be withering.
00:38:59He remarked of two colleagues
00:39:01that they never opened their mouths
00:39:03without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
00:39:07And he defined a statesman
00:39:09as a successful politician who is dead.
00:39:13On seeing his portrait,
00:39:15as rendered by John Singer Sargent,
00:39:16Reed said,
00:39:18All my enemies are revenged.
00:39:20When asked whether he would attend
00:39:22the funeral of a political enemy,
00:39:24Reed said,
00:39:26No, but I approve of it.
00:39:28He was called Czar Reed.
00:39:31In one stormy session,
00:39:33relying on his authority as Speaker,
00:39:35he began to count as present
00:39:37any member currently in the chamber,
00:39:39whether he answered the roll call or not.
00:39:41Members screamed in outrage,
00:39:43and when Reed kept on counting,
00:39:44hid under their desks.
00:39:46The Speaker kept on,
00:39:48and when others tried to leave,
00:39:50he had the doors locked.
00:39:52From then on, Reed rules were in effect.
00:39:55A minority could no longer block
00:39:57legislation with its silence.
00:40:05Reed's 51st Congress in 1889
00:40:07was the first to spend
00:40:09a billion dollars in peacetime.
00:40:11To handle it all,
00:40:12members of Congress
00:40:14were finally authorized
00:40:16to maintain a personal staff,
00:40:18of one.
00:40:20And still the country was growing.
00:40:22Hawaii was annexed in 1897.
00:40:25The next year,
00:40:27the Spanish-American War
00:40:29brought Puerto Rico
00:40:31and the Philippine Islands
00:40:33into the American Empire.
00:40:35Reed liked none of it.
00:40:37Imperialism, he believed,
00:40:39was contrary to American ideals.
00:40:40At the beginning of this year,
00:40:42the quarrels which other nations have,
00:40:44we did not have.
00:40:46Our drumbeat did not encircle
00:40:48the world with our martial airs.
00:40:51Our guns were not called upon
00:40:53to throw projectiles,
00:40:55which cost each of them
00:40:57the price of a happy home.
00:40:59Thomas Brackett Reed.
00:41:05Rather than preside over a house
00:41:07that supported a policy he despised,
00:41:10he resigned.
00:41:12Asked once if his party
00:41:14was likely ever to nominate him
00:41:16for the presidency, Reed said,
00:41:18they might do worse,
00:41:20and I think they will.
00:41:22He went out on the eve
00:41:24of the new century.
00:41:30Great bosses are not the story
00:41:33of the Congress
00:41:35or of American politics.
00:41:37The Congress is the story
00:41:38and how in the end
00:41:40it always asserts itself
00:41:42against the bosses,
00:41:44and the public view does prevail.
00:42:09It was the new 20th century.
00:42:12All kinds of miraculous events
00:42:14were taking place,
00:42:16changes taking place,
00:42:18and people felt the country
00:42:20had grown too big,
00:42:22that the government was
00:42:24out of touch with the people,
00:42:26that there were many people
00:42:28in society who were not getting
00:42:30a fair shake,
00:42:32and they wanted that corrected.
00:42:34I have been a member of this house
00:42:36three successive sessions,
00:42:38and in that time I have caught
00:42:40the measles, the whooping cough,
00:42:42and the influenza,
00:42:44but I have never been able
00:42:46to catch the Speaker's eye.
00:42:48For reform-minded congressmen
00:42:50in 1910, the sins of the old order
00:42:52could be summed up in a name,
00:42:54Joseph Gurney Cannon,
00:42:56Speaker of the House,
00:42:58known as Foul Mouth Joe.
00:43:00Uncle Joe's restless teeth
00:43:02bit off large, untidy sections
00:43:04from the near end
00:43:06of a maltreated cigar
00:43:08lined with sodden,
00:43:10shredded leaves,
00:43:12and a neglected,
00:43:14fitful smolder at the cigar's
00:43:16far end seemed to be
00:43:18in a greater danger from flood
00:43:20than from fire.
00:43:22He swore unrepentantly,
00:43:24spat into an umbrella stand
00:43:26when no spittoon was handy,
00:43:28and boasted,
00:43:30I have oats in my pocket
00:43:32and hay seed in my hair.
00:43:34Nobody disliked Uncle Joe
00:43:36personally, but as Speaker
00:43:38of the House,
00:43:40the voters of Danville, Illinois
00:43:42had first sent him to Congress
00:43:44in 1872, and his beliefs
00:43:46had not changed since then.
00:43:48He ran the Rules Committee,
00:43:50and the Rules Committee decided
00:43:52which bills should be considered.
00:43:54No bill came to the floor
00:43:56of which he did not approve.
00:43:58One after another,
00:44:00he strangled progressive measures
00:44:02to regulate the railroads,
00:44:04break up the trusts,
00:44:06guard public health
00:44:08and, I am tired of listening
00:44:10to all this babble for reform.
00:44:12America's a hell of a success.
00:44:14The country don't need
00:44:16any legislation.
00:44:18No one who valued his career
00:44:20in Congress dared cross him
00:44:22until 1910.
00:44:25The revolt was led by
00:44:27an idealistic former judge
00:44:29from Red Willow County, Nebraska,
00:44:31a progressive Republican
00:44:33named George W. Norris.
00:44:35On St. Patrick's Day,
00:44:36with Cannon's Irish allies
00:44:38out of the House,
00:44:40Norris introduced a resolution
00:44:42that he'd been carrying
00:44:44in his pocket for months.
00:44:46It gave the House,
00:44:48not the Speaker,
00:44:50the power to elect
00:44:52the Rules Committee.
00:44:54Cannon ruled it out of order,
00:44:56but was himself overruled
00:44:58by a combination of Democrats
00:45:00and insurgent Republicans.
00:45:02After 29 hours of debate,
00:45:04the resolution carried.
00:45:06For three days,
00:45:08Uncle Joe has been like
00:45:10an old gray wolf at bay.
00:45:12I don't especially admire him.
00:45:14He is a flippant,
00:45:16coarse-natured, brazen old man.
00:45:18But today, I'm sorry for him.
00:45:30It was an extremely
00:45:32important change in our country
00:45:34because Joe Cannon stood
00:45:36for change.
00:45:38What is was what should remain,
00:45:40in his view,
00:45:42when, in fact,
00:45:44we did need legislation,
00:45:46and these insurgents,
00:45:48progressives, spoke out.
00:45:50The supreme issue
00:45:52is the encroachment
00:45:54of the powerful few
00:45:56upon the rights of the many.
00:45:58It is against the system
00:46:00built up by privilege
00:46:02that we must make
00:46:04unceasing warfare.
00:46:06Senator Robert M. La Follette
00:46:08of Wisconsin,
00:46:10charging that fewer than 100 men
00:46:12controlled the great business interests
00:46:14of the whole nation,
00:46:16became the conscience
00:46:18of the new progressive movement.
00:46:23Collier's Weekly.
00:46:25Fifty years from now,
00:46:27the future historians will say
00:46:29that this was the period
00:46:31of the greatest ethical advance
00:46:33made by this nation
00:46:34in the last decade.
00:46:38There was unprecedented
00:46:40cooperation now between
00:46:42the new progressive Congress
00:46:44and the new progressive President,
00:46:46Woodrow Wilson.
00:46:48A former professor of history,
00:46:50Wilson had once written a book
00:46:52on congressional government
00:46:54without ever actually visiting
00:46:56Capitol Hill.
00:46:58His thesis was that Congress
00:47:00didn't work very well.
00:47:02Calling Congress into special session
00:47:04meant his program,
00:47:06something no president had done
00:47:08since John Adams.
00:47:10By custom,
00:47:12Congress took long recesses,
00:47:14but Wilson would keep
00:47:16the 63rd Congress in Washington
00:47:18fighting and arguing and making laws
00:47:20for a year and a half straight.
00:47:34The 63rd Congress
00:47:36was the last Congress
00:47:38before the 17th Amendment
00:47:40transferred the election of senators
00:47:42from the state legislatures
00:47:44to the people.
00:47:46It was the greatest single change
00:47:48in Congress in its history.
00:47:50A graduated income tax
00:47:52was adopted.
00:47:54A Federal Reserve Act
00:47:56stabilized the nation's
00:47:58banking system.
00:48:00Congress went on to pass
00:48:02tougher antitrust laws
00:48:04to protect farmers,
00:48:06provide workman's compensation
00:48:08for federal employees,
00:48:10and limit child labor
00:48:12in mines and factories.
00:48:18But everything changed
00:48:20on the rainy night
00:48:22of April 2nd, 1917,
00:48:24when President Wilson
00:48:26went before another
00:48:28extraordinary session of Congress,
00:48:30this time to ask for
00:48:32a declaration of war
00:48:34on the beach.
00:48:36The first woman ever
00:48:38to serve in Congress
00:48:40took her seat far back
00:48:42on the Republican side,
00:48:44Jeannette Rankin of Montana.
00:48:46I love my country,
00:48:48but I cannot vote for war.
00:48:50I vote no.
00:48:53She was not alone,
00:48:55but other progressives
00:48:57voted for war
00:48:59and split the movement.
00:49:01The alliance between Congress
00:49:02and the people
00:49:04in a quarrel over
00:49:06America's role in the world.
00:49:26By the 1920s,
00:49:28Crusades and Crusaders
00:49:30were out of fashion.
00:49:32The leader of the House
00:49:34was Nicholas Longworth,
00:49:36a dapper, popular Ohio Republican
00:49:38who had no interest
00:49:40whatsoever in reform.
00:49:42There were still men
00:49:44on Capitol Hill
00:49:46who wore white linen suits
00:49:48and black bow ties,
00:49:50who looked like the cartoonist's
00:49:52image of the old-time politician
00:49:54and dipped snuff
00:49:56from the lacquer box
00:49:58on the Senate rostrum.
00:50:00But there were
00:50:02a progressive Republican
00:50:04and sometimes socialist from New York.
00:50:06He could denounce exploiters
00:50:08in six languages.
00:50:10And there was one
00:50:12unyielding old voice.
00:50:14For years,
00:50:16George Norris fought almost alone
00:50:18trying to develop the resources
00:50:20of the Tennessee Valley,
00:50:22a part of the country
00:50:24where he had no constituents,
00:50:26but a property, he said,
00:50:28which belongs to all of us,
00:50:30a source of human happiness.
00:50:32In 1952,
00:50:34the people sent
00:50:36heavy Democratic majorities
00:50:38to Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
00:50:40to the White House.
00:50:42Their partnership would transform
00:50:44American government
00:50:46and make a reality
00:50:48of George Norris' dream.
00:50:50The Tennessee Valley Authority,
00:50:52TVA,
00:50:54including the giant Norris Dam,
00:50:56became a showpiece
00:50:58for the new generation
00:51:00of progressives
00:51:02in the Tennessee Valley.
00:51:14I hope this auto gyro
00:51:16won't be as much up in the air
00:51:18as the Senate was
00:51:20in balancing the budget.
00:51:33In the midst of the Great Depression,
00:51:35the progressive movement continued.
00:51:37New Deal legislation
00:51:39represented the most sweeping reforms
00:51:41in history.
00:51:43Foremost among the New Dealers
00:51:45was Senator Robert Wagner,
00:51:47born in Germany,
00:51:49soft-spoken but tough-minded,
00:51:51who had learned his politics
00:51:53in the New York City streets.
00:51:55Legislation he sponsored
00:51:57guaranteed labor's right
00:51:59to organize,
00:52:00provided Social Security
00:52:02to the elderly,
00:52:04and public housing for the poor.
00:52:06And there were others.
00:52:08Congressman Sam Rayburn of Texas
00:52:10and his eager young protege,
00:52:12Lyndon Johnson.
00:52:14In the Senate,
00:52:16Hugo Black of Alabama,
00:52:18Albin Barkley of Kentucky,
00:52:20Harry Truman of Missouri.
00:52:22The old progressive call
00:52:24was being sounded now
00:52:26by Robert M. La Follette, Jr.
00:52:28Harry Truman used to say,
00:52:30if you can't stand the heat,
00:52:32get out of the kitchen.
00:52:34But in July of 1935,
00:52:36if congressmen couldn't stand the heat,
00:52:38they'd have to get out of Washington
00:52:40where the temperature
00:52:42hit 105 degrees.
00:52:47And if there was one congressman
00:52:49who always let his constituents know
00:52:51how hot things were
00:52:53in the nation's capital,
00:52:55it was cowboy congressman
00:52:57John Gassaway.
00:52:59I never saw such hot weather in my life.
00:53:01I'll tell you what's a fact,
00:53:03Mr. Congressman.
00:53:05I can actually cook an egg
00:53:07right here in a frying pan
00:53:09on the steps of this house building
00:53:11right now.
00:53:13The heat wave became a hard-boiled fact.
00:53:15But like the egg,
00:53:17Congressman Gassaway
00:53:19kept his sunny side up.
00:53:21Boy, listen here.
00:53:23This is the hottest place
00:53:25this side of hell,
00:53:27this side of hell.
00:53:29In 1941,
00:53:31the Capitol Dome
00:53:33was ablaze of lights.
00:53:35The following day,
00:53:37the president went before congress.
00:53:39December 7, 1941,
00:53:42a date which will live in infamy.
00:53:45The United States of America
00:53:48was suddenly and deliberately attacked
00:53:51by naval and air forces
00:53:54of the Empire of Japan.
00:53:57It was almost electric,
00:53:59the feeling in there.
00:54:01In fact,
00:54:03it was a combination
00:54:05of fear and excitement
00:54:07and determination.
00:54:09Not only could you feel it,
00:54:11but you could smell it.
00:54:13It was almost like the smell
00:54:15of a high school gym
00:54:17before the big game.
00:54:19Hosser, aye.
00:54:21Rios, aye.
00:54:23Culkin, aye.
00:54:25Cunningham.
00:54:27All members voted aye.
00:54:29One voted no.
00:54:32The rules were suspended
00:54:34and the resolution was reached.
00:54:40This time,
00:54:42only one member of congress
00:54:44opposed a declaration of war.
00:54:46As she had in 1917,
00:54:48Jeanette Rankin voted no.
00:54:58I have resolved that it's a hat.
00:55:04It's a hat.
00:55:06It's a very majestic, nice hat,
00:55:08but a little bit ludicrous
00:55:10on something that we all
00:55:12care very much about,
00:55:14which is the democratic system
00:55:16and the notion that the people
00:55:18are under that hat somewhere,
00:55:20the body politic,
00:55:22to stretch that metaphor,
00:55:24is at work,
00:55:25that we're all okay,
00:55:27and that the people
00:55:29are being represented under that thing,
00:55:31and I can live with that corny thought.
00:55:33It's almost a reverence
00:55:35that the,
00:55:37like being in a Russian cathedral
00:55:40or a Greek cathedral,
00:55:42where when you look up to the dome,
00:55:44there's the paint,
00:55:46the icons and the various saints
00:55:48and God himself is looking down at you.
00:55:51Well, I have that feeling
00:55:53that I'm in a political cathedral
00:55:55or the world's greatest
00:55:57political cathedral.
00:55:59It's not just beautiful
00:56:01to walk into from the outside,
00:56:03but you walk in
00:56:05and there are tiles on the floors
00:56:07and mosaics on the ceilings,
00:56:09and you'll just come upon
00:56:11some totally accidental spot
00:56:13where there'll be stained glass
00:56:15out of the blue,
00:56:17or there are just windows
00:56:19leading to nowhere
00:56:21or stairs that dead-end someplace,
00:56:23and it's great fun
00:56:25and a disaster
00:56:27if the modern demands of security
00:56:29keep American children
00:56:31from the ability
00:56:33to just sort of roam
00:56:35the Capitol building.
00:56:37It's like a little town
00:56:39or a small medieval state.
00:56:41There's a bank,
00:56:43there's a post office,
00:56:45there's a subway,
00:56:47it has its own police force,
00:56:49something like 44 doorkeepers,
00:56:52no end of clerks,
00:56:54there's a carpentry shop,
00:56:56an upholsterer,
00:56:59a resident architect,
00:57:01a resident physician,
00:57:04there's a daily newspaper,
00:57:06a congressional record,
00:57:08there are restaurants.
00:57:14It's a world within a world,
00:57:18and some people, I think,
00:57:20probably never come out.
00:57:22There's at least one ghost.
00:57:30The Capitol building
00:57:32contains its own history.
00:57:34I mean, you can go deep enough,
00:57:36you find some old tubs
00:57:38in the basement
00:57:40where the old members
00:57:42could go two centuries ago
00:57:44and get a hot bath or whatever.
00:57:46It's all there,
00:57:48and the way it's grown
00:57:50so if you like museums,
00:57:52it's the best museum
00:57:54in the United States,
00:57:56but it's a museum
00:57:58in which the life throbs every day.
00:58:03And from this point,
00:58:05a whisper can be heard
00:58:0750 feet away
00:58:09due to an architectural defect.
00:58:11John Quincy Adams
00:58:13would sit here at his desk
00:58:15pretending like he was
00:58:17taking a cat nap.
00:58:19And it's also a kind of
00:58:21a wonderful place
00:58:23if you just let yourself
00:58:25have the freedom to do it,
00:58:27to stand still for a moment
00:58:29and look at the people
00:58:31who are coming there
00:58:33to see their Congress at work.
00:58:35It's marvelous to see
00:58:37their expressions
00:58:39as the dignity
00:58:41and the beauty of that building
00:58:43reach them for the first time.
00:58:49violin plays softly
00:59:19violin plays softly
00:59:50piano plays softly
01:00:02One of the things I'm going to do
01:00:04when I retire,
01:00:06and this sounds ridiculous,
01:00:08is just give myself a few weeks
01:00:10to explore the Capitol building.
01:00:12I have been covering up there
01:00:14for 30 years now,
01:00:16and I still get lost
01:00:17in that building.
01:00:19violin plays
01:00:47violin plays
01:01:17violin plays
01:01:40In the old
01:01:42House of Representatives,
01:01:44which is now Statuary Hall,
01:01:45the members of the House
01:01:47looked up
01:01:49at two statues
01:01:51which are still there.
01:01:53One is a figure
01:01:55representing liberty,
01:01:57and the other,
01:01:59behind them,
01:02:01was Clio, the muse of history,
01:02:03keeping note of their actions
01:02:05and holding the clock.
01:02:08Very important
01:02:10idea
01:02:12that what they did there
01:02:13didn't just matter at the moment,
01:02:15but for time to come,
01:02:17that they would be measured
01:02:19by history,
01:02:20that they had to live up to standards
01:02:22that would be set
01:02:24by historical precedent.
01:02:27Well, you know what they look up to
01:02:29in the present-day
01:02:31House of Representatives,
01:02:33the television cameras.
01:02:40I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
01:02:43do solemnly swear
01:02:45that I will faithfully execute
01:02:47the office of President
01:02:48of the United States
01:02:50and will, to the best of my ability,
01:02:52preserve, protect, and defend
01:02:54the Constitution
01:02:56of the United States.
01:02:58So help me God.
01:03:00applause
01:03:05After the war,
01:03:07business went on as usual
01:03:09in the cloakrooms,
01:03:10back corridors, and dining rooms.
01:03:11There was the old back-slapping,
01:03:13arm-twisting,
01:03:15lapel-grabbing,
01:03:16hand-shaking,
01:03:17finger-jabbing,
01:03:18head-scratching,
01:03:19and lint-picking.
01:03:21Crusades were mounted
01:03:22against jellyfish
01:03:23and comic books
01:03:25to make chili without beans
01:03:27the official food
01:03:28of the United States
01:03:30and to establish
01:03:31a national mule appreciation day.
01:03:35But now America
01:03:36was a world power,
01:03:38and the forces that had provoked
01:03:39and stirred the country
01:03:40from the start,
01:03:42growth and civil rights,
01:03:44had become inseparable,
01:03:46and they confronted
01:03:47Congress everywhere.
01:03:50The recovery of Europe
01:03:51and military intervention,
01:03:54voting rights
01:03:55and civil liberties,
01:03:58the exploration of space
01:04:00and the responsibility
01:04:01of science,
01:04:04and the old conflict
01:04:05of power and ethics.
01:04:10The heroes on the Hill
01:04:11were no longer
01:04:12great orators.
01:04:15They were committee chairmen,
01:04:17investigators,
01:04:20and managers.
01:04:23The total number of votes cast
01:04:25is 426,
01:04:27of which the Honorable Sam Rayburn
01:04:29has received 217.
01:04:32Therefore,
01:04:33Honorable Sam Rayburn,
01:04:35the junior electors,
01:04:36people in the House
01:04:37who represented
01:04:38the 17th Congress.
01:04:45The ultimate manager
01:04:46was Sam Rayburn of Texas,
01:04:48who served in Congress
01:04:49for 48 years,
01:04:5117 of them
01:04:52as Speaker of the House.
01:04:55He preferred persuasion
01:04:56to power
01:04:57and distrusted speech making,
01:04:59telling generation
01:05:00after generation
01:05:01of newcomers,
01:05:03you don't have to explain
01:05:04what you don't say.
01:05:05One day,
01:05:06I was leaving the Capitol
01:05:07and I ran into Sam Rayburn.
01:05:09And he was outside
01:05:10and he looked at me
01:05:11as I came out.
01:05:12I said,
01:05:13Mr. Speaker,
01:05:14and he says,
01:05:15what are you doing?
01:05:16I said, nothing.
01:05:17So he said,
01:05:18well, come with me.
01:05:19And so the two of us
01:05:20walked around the Capitol
01:05:21from the House side
01:05:22to the West side
01:05:23all the way around
01:05:24to the Senate side
01:05:25and back again.
01:05:27And during the whole time,
01:05:28he was telling me
01:05:29about what he thought
01:05:31of the Capitol.
01:05:32He says,
01:05:33this has been my
01:05:34this has been my home.
01:05:35It's been my whole life.
01:05:36It's been my wife.
01:05:37It's been my children.
01:05:40I love this old building.
01:05:46Congress doesn't just
01:05:47legislate, of course,
01:05:48it investigates.
01:05:49And particularly
01:05:50in the era of television,
01:05:52we have come to understand
01:05:54that this investigative power
01:05:55is not only
01:05:57an aspect of
01:05:58congressional character
01:05:59and congressional performance,
01:06:01but it's a way in which
01:06:02certain individuals
01:06:03in Congress
01:06:04become instantly,
01:06:05overnight, famous.
01:06:07Answer that yes or no.
01:06:08Do you know this, ma'am?
01:06:09I will not answer it
01:06:10yes or no.
01:06:11My answer to the question is
01:06:12You are ordered to answer it.
01:06:14I'm answering it
01:06:15the way I can.
01:06:16I've said that your
01:06:17statements about him
01:06:18have made it unsafe
01:06:19for me to answer
01:06:20that question.
01:06:21And I will, therefore,
01:06:22refuse to answer
01:06:23the question on the ground
01:06:24that it would tend
01:06:25to incriminate me.
01:06:26You have that right.
01:06:27I think it would
01:06:28incriminate you.
01:06:29And I would be very happy
01:06:30to have our legal counsel
01:06:31here, our legislative
01:06:32representative here,
01:06:33assisting me in spending
01:06:34as much time as necessary
01:06:36to acquaint the
01:06:37American people
01:06:38with the fact that
01:06:39this is a strike-breaking
01:06:40union-busting bill,
01:06:41in my opinion.
01:06:42Well, Mr. Hoffer,
01:06:43this bill is not a
01:06:44strike-breaking
01:06:45union-busting bill.
01:06:46You're the best argument
01:06:47I know for it.
01:06:48Your testimony here
01:06:49this afternoon,
01:06:50your complete indifference
01:06:51to the fact that
01:06:52numerous people
01:06:53who hold responsible
01:06:54positions in your union
01:06:55come before this committee
01:06:56and take the Fifth Amendment
01:06:57because an honest answer
01:06:58might tend to
01:06:59incriminate them,
01:07:00your complete indifference
01:07:01to it,
01:07:02I think makes
01:07:03this bill essential.
01:07:04In the 1950s,
01:07:07Congress and the country
01:07:08were conservative,
01:07:10and legislators were
01:07:11divided between
01:07:12show horses
01:07:13and work horses.
01:07:15One who came to
01:07:16combine the qualities
01:07:17of both was
01:07:18silver-tongued
01:07:19Senator Everett Dirksen,
01:07:21conservative Republican
01:07:22of Illinois,
01:07:23known to his colleagues
01:07:25as the Wizard of Ooze.
01:07:28Senator Dirksen,
01:07:29I think,
01:07:30was a shrewd
01:07:31political clown,
01:07:34but in the sense that
01:07:35he used humor
01:07:38to make his points
01:07:39and to put down people.
01:07:41Not once did he ever
01:07:42call me George.
01:07:44He'd always say,
01:07:45Dear boy,
01:07:46what can I do for you,
01:07:48dear boy?
01:07:50Maggie Smith used to
01:07:51always introduce
01:07:52legislation to make
01:07:53the rose a national flower,
01:07:57and Dirksen would
01:07:58always get up and
01:07:59he'd say, you know,
01:08:00a rose, a rose,
01:08:01a rose by any other name
01:08:03would be as sweet
01:08:04as a senior senator
01:08:05from Maine.
01:08:07But as for me,
01:08:08give me the marigold,
01:08:09who asks of nothing
01:08:11except a little spot
01:08:12in the garden
01:08:13and a little care.
01:08:15And then Margaret
01:08:17would go down in defeat.
01:08:19And the Capitol
01:08:20gets its face washed
01:08:21by the fire department.
01:08:25They do a thorough job
01:08:26and the statues emerge
01:08:28dripping but spotless.
01:08:32And with no dirt left
01:08:33on their doorstep,
01:08:34Congress can get away
01:08:35to a fresh start.
01:08:41All this proves
01:08:42that while you can't
01:08:43take the government
01:08:44to the cleaners,
01:08:45you can take the cleaners
01:08:46to the government.
01:08:52We enjoy bashing Congress
01:08:54and have since
01:08:55before Mark Twain
01:08:57because there's something
01:08:58ludicrous about
01:09:00ordinary mortals
01:09:01being that pompous.
01:09:03There's something
01:09:04just funny
01:09:06about ordinary people,
01:09:08which is what the founders
01:09:09had in mind,
01:09:10the representatives
01:09:11of ordinary people
01:09:12being so formal,
01:09:14so bureaucratic,
01:09:15so structured,
01:09:16so filled with sort of
01:09:18not quite American
01:09:19graciousness.
01:09:23It's the only group
01:09:24of people in this country
01:09:25that has to go out
01:09:26year after year
01:09:27and beg for their job
01:09:29and say,
01:09:30please, please, please
01:09:32send me back
01:09:33to that building
01:09:34with the dome
01:09:35so that it makes you
01:09:36feel superior
01:09:37to the Congress
01:09:38because you're the people
01:09:39who get to decide that.
01:09:42We enjoy bashing Congress
01:09:44because they are us.
01:09:46We have no illusions.
01:09:48We know that they do
01:09:49essentially represent
01:09:50the good and the bad in us.
01:09:52And what's an easier scapegoat
01:09:54than to pick on somebody
01:09:56who has the job,
01:09:58has the responsibility,
01:10:00and is supposed to rise above us
01:10:02and so often fails
01:10:03to rise above us?
01:10:05Mr. Eaves.
01:10:06Somebody better wake up
01:10:07McCaffrey.
01:10:08We need his vote.
01:10:09Mr. Evans.
01:10:10McCaffrey is asleep again.
01:10:12Mr. Everett.
01:10:13Wake up McCaffrey.
01:10:14We need his vote.
01:10:16Mr. Farmer.
01:10:18No.
01:10:20Mr. Foley.
01:10:22Yes.
01:10:23Mr. Frank.
01:10:25Opposed, sir.
01:10:26I'm opposed.
01:10:27No, no, Senator, not yet.
01:10:30And I believe
01:10:31that you're not opposed.
01:10:34Congress is a takeoff
01:10:36on itself at the surface,
01:10:38and the public
01:10:39picks that up fast.
01:10:41But ask the public
01:10:42about its congressman.
01:10:44How's your congressman?
01:10:46Well, he's better
01:10:47than those other ones.
01:10:49He's pretty good.
01:10:50I've known a guy.
01:10:51I knew his grandmother.
01:10:52He's all right.
01:10:54He's pretty good.
01:10:56The average American member
01:10:57of Congress gets
01:10:58about a 60, 65 percent
01:11:00approval rating
01:11:01from his or her own constituents.
01:11:03The rest of Congress
01:11:04ranks below newspaper men
01:11:06for having any inequality.
01:11:14The criticism of Congress
01:11:17that says, in essence,
01:11:19Congress has a way
01:11:20of making situations complicated,
01:11:24of making it harder
01:11:25to do things,
01:11:27of making it impossible
01:11:29to move in a streamlined fashion.
01:11:32This is a way of saying
01:11:33that democracy is a pain
01:11:34in the neck,
01:11:35which, of course, it is.
01:11:37And that style of criticism
01:11:38of Congress
01:11:39is not so much a criticism
01:11:41of the individuals
01:11:42who are there now,
01:11:44many of whom deserve
01:11:45even more criticism
01:11:47than they have received,
01:11:48so much as it is a criticism
01:11:50of the whole idea
01:11:52of a government
01:11:54by, as well as for,
01:11:57the people.
01:11:59And that is a criticism
01:12:00of democracy.
01:12:01I wonder whether
01:12:03the ideal of democracy
01:12:06lives in a real sense
01:12:08in our country today.
01:12:16In a sense,
01:12:17we've come to our nation's capital
01:12:19to cash a check.
01:12:22When the architects
01:12:24of our republic
01:12:26wrote the magnificent words
01:12:28of the Constitution
01:12:30and the Declaration
01:12:31of Independence,
01:12:33they were signing
01:12:35a promissory note
01:12:37to whichever American
01:12:39was to fall out.
01:12:41This note was a promise
01:12:44that all men,
01:12:46yes, black men
01:12:48as well as white men,
01:12:50would be guaranteed
01:12:52the unalienable rights
01:12:54of life, liberty,
01:12:56and the pursuit of happiness.
01:12:59It is obvious today...
01:13:02I don't think I've seen
01:13:03any debates
01:13:05that came closer
01:13:06to really dealing
01:13:08with the heart and soul
01:13:09of America
01:13:11than the debates
01:13:12on civil rights
01:13:13in the late 50s and 1960s.
01:13:16These were people
01:13:17who knew that they had
01:13:19been cast by history
01:13:21in the position
01:13:22of righting a historic wrong.
01:13:26And they entered that debate
01:13:28knowing that they would be judged
01:13:31by this chapter of their lives
01:13:33more than any other part of it.
01:13:36That was the highest drama
01:13:37I've ever seen up there.
01:13:40Civil rights could
01:13:41no longer be ignored,
01:13:43but Congress still seemed
01:13:44unable to act
01:13:46as filibuster after filibuster
01:13:48thwarted the majority will,
01:13:50turning back or weakening
01:13:52every civil rights measure
01:13:53that came before it.
01:13:56Congress was not yet
01:13:57ready to lead.
01:14:00♪♪
01:14:08♪♪
01:14:16I stood and sat
01:14:18and crouched in the rotunda
01:14:20all night when
01:14:21John F. Kennedy lay in state.
01:14:26And I remember that night
01:14:27there were just the Honor Guard
01:14:29and a pretty steady
01:14:30flow of people.
01:14:37And here came
01:14:38at some moment before dawn
01:14:40old Everett Dirksen,
01:14:41the Republican leader,
01:14:43and stood in the rotunda
01:14:44with me and two casual tourists
01:14:47and talked about the Congress,
01:14:50talked about the Capitol,
01:14:51talked about the people,
01:14:53talked about the Capitol,
01:14:54talked about John Kennedy.
01:14:56Other members of Congress
01:14:57wandered through.
01:14:59Policemen and guards joined,
01:15:02and we talked all night
01:15:05about the Capitol,
01:15:07the Congress,
01:15:08the traditions of the country.
01:15:10Jokes were told.
01:15:12We had funny times.
01:15:13Dirksen told hilarious stories
01:15:16about Kennedy,
01:15:17about the Capitol,
01:15:19about the history
01:15:20of the country.
01:15:21There was no
01:15:22stuffy reverence involved.
01:15:24It was the best possible wake,
01:15:26and it was the best night
01:15:28in the Capitol
01:15:29that I could ever imagine.
01:15:35Now with Lyndon Johnson,
01:15:36the Senate's most masterful manager
01:15:38in the White House,
01:15:40Congress moved at last
01:15:41to make good on the promise
01:15:42of the Constitution,
01:15:45passing the most sweeping
01:15:46civil rights bill
01:15:47since Reconstruction.
01:15:52Stronger than all the armies
01:15:53on earth,
01:15:55Everett Dirksen reminded
01:15:56his colleagues,
01:15:57is an idea
01:15:58whose time has come.
01:16:01The time has come
01:16:02for equal opportunity.
01:16:05Words could still change votes.
01:16:16It elevates me
01:16:17to see the dome,
01:16:19but then I begin to think
01:16:20of what happens
01:16:21under that dome,
01:16:22and I get de-elevated.
01:16:25What part of us
01:16:26are they representing?
01:16:27Are they representing
01:16:28our real needs,
01:16:30or are they representing
01:16:31our artificial needs,
01:16:33our selfish needs,
01:16:35or are they representing
01:16:36the best in us?
01:16:39Most of our government
01:16:41is an elaborate
01:16:43set of compromises.
01:16:45It's really
01:16:46the political equivalent
01:16:47to the stock exchange
01:16:48on Wall Street.
01:16:50The question is,
01:16:51when government
01:16:52has to rise above trading
01:16:54and brokerage,
01:16:55does it do so?
01:16:56And so often,
01:16:57Congress fails
01:16:58to rise above trading.
01:17:01I think the danger
01:17:02to Congress
01:17:04is the weakening
01:17:06of the party system.
01:17:08We have a bunch
01:17:09of independent operators.
01:17:11It's harder for people
01:17:12to see the point
01:17:13of rallying as a group.
01:17:16That really troubles me,
01:17:19because it makes
01:17:20compromise harder.
01:17:23It makes factions
01:17:25that develop around
01:17:27a sort of zealotry
01:17:29of left or right.
01:17:30Very often,
01:17:31they are not voting
01:17:33for or against an issue
01:17:35for the reasons
01:17:37that seem apparent.
01:17:39They're voting
01:17:40for some other reason,
01:17:41because they have a grudge
01:17:42against someone,
01:17:43or because they have
01:17:44to satisfy some old ambition
01:17:48that is in no way
01:17:50on the surface,
01:17:52or because they're doing
01:17:53a friend a favor,
01:17:55or because they're willing
01:17:57to risk their political skin
01:17:59and vote their conscience.
01:18:01Would the president,
01:18:03if there was no resolution,
01:18:06be with or without
01:18:07constitutional authority
01:18:09to send U.S. soldiers
01:18:10to South Vietnam
01:18:11in the numbers
01:18:12that are there today?
01:18:14If there were no resolution.
01:18:16It would be my view,
01:18:17as I indicated, Mr. Chairman,
01:18:19that he does have
01:18:20that authority.
01:18:21Would you say the same
01:18:22as to the authority
01:18:23to bomb North Vietnam
01:18:25as opposed to repelling
01:18:26an attack in South Vietnam?
01:18:28Well, I don't see it
01:18:29as opposed to it.
01:18:31Well, in contrast,
01:18:32if you like.
01:18:33I believe that the objectives
01:18:34and the reason
01:18:35that we're in there
01:18:36have been made
01:18:37repeatedly clear
01:18:38by the president.
01:18:39Well, the answer is yes, then.
01:18:40Is that it?
01:18:41When I hear members
01:18:42of Congress themselves say,
01:18:45you know, we have abused
01:18:46our power,
01:18:47we have interfered
01:18:48in foreign policy,
01:18:49I say to myself,
01:18:51where did these people
01:18:52study their own history?
01:18:56Legislatures have the right
01:18:58of appropriation
01:18:59so that they may inhibit
01:19:02the powers of the executive.
01:19:04And if they're not proud
01:19:05of that right,
01:19:06they should move aside
01:19:07for somebody to sit there
01:19:09who will take pride in it.
01:19:12I believe Congress
01:19:13set up the FBI
01:19:15to determine what was
01:19:16going on in this country,
01:19:18didn't it?
01:19:19Among other things,
01:19:20Mr. Chairman.
01:19:21It set up the CIA
01:19:22to determine what was
01:19:23going on in respect
01:19:24to foreign intelligence,
01:19:25didn't it?
01:19:26Yes, sir.
01:19:27Among other agencies.
01:19:28It set up the
01:19:29National Security Agency,
01:19:31didn't it?
01:19:32And the Defense Intelligence
01:19:33Agency.
01:19:34And the Defense Intelligence
01:19:35Agency.
01:19:36And a number of others.
01:19:37But it didn't set up
01:19:38the plumbers, did it?
01:19:39Of course, the Congress
01:19:40doesn't do everything,
01:19:41Mr. Chairman.
01:19:42No, but Congress is the
01:19:43only one that's got
01:19:44legislative power,
01:19:45and I don't know anything
01:19:46in the law that gave
01:19:47the President the power
01:19:48to set himself up.
01:19:49This is a remarkably
01:19:50strong democracy,
01:19:51and I remember
01:19:53a member of Congress
01:19:54going to Greece
01:19:55right after President Nixon
01:19:57was forced to resign
01:19:59and saying,
01:20:00do not underestimate
01:20:02the strength
01:20:03of the American democracy.
01:20:05The Commander-in-Chief
01:20:07of the American Armed Forces
01:20:09was forced out of office,
01:20:11and not one soldier
01:20:13left the barracks
01:20:14to defend him.
01:20:15Now, to us,
01:20:16that's a given.
01:20:17We wouldn't imagine
01:20:18a soldier leaving the barracks,
01:20:19but in most lands,
01:20:21that is very,
01:20:22very unusual indeed.
01:20:24All those in favor,
01:20:26please signify by saying aye.
01:20:29All those opposed, no.
01:20:31Mr. Donohue.
01:20:32Aye.
01:20:34Mr. Brooks.
01:20:35Aye.
01:20:37Mr. Mann.
01:20:38Aye.
01:20:40Mr. Sarbanes.
01:20:42Aye.
01:20:44Mr. Hutchinson.
01:20:45No.
01:20:48Mr. McClory.
01:20:49No.
01:20:51Mr. Grinan.
01:20:52Aye.
01:20:54Mr. Rangel.
01:20:55Aye.
01:20:58Ms. Jordan.
01:20:59Aye.
01:21:00Mr. Rodino.
01:21:02Aye.
01:21:05Twenty-seven members have voted aye.
01:21:08Eleven members have voted no.
01:21:10I think the finest moment
01:21:12was the last two days' hearings
01:21:16of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974,
01:21:19which spoke with such
01:21:21extraordinary seriousness and candor
01:21:23in those two days,
01:21:24without rhetorical flourishes,
01:21:26which was astonishing,
01:21:27granting that they are Americans.
01:21:30It showed,
01:21:32the Supreme Court taught the President
01:21:34that he is the servant of the people
01:21:36and that the people are supreme.
01:21:45At the end of any session,
01:21:47you always see the stories
01:21:48about the dams in Mississippi
01:21:51or the roads in Tennessee or whatever,
01:21:53but the fact of the matter is
01:21:54that's what they're elected to do.
01:21:56They are here in Washington
01:21:58to represent the energy-producing states
01:22:01versus the energy-using states.
01:22:03The rural areas versus the urban areas.
01:22:07And I think, quite frankly,
01:22:08by the time the whole messy business
01:22:10is over with, Congress after Congress,
01:22:12that they've done a pretty good job of it.
01:22:17The promise of Congress
01:22:19is that at the heart of the government
01:22:22will be people who are very much like ourselves,
01:22:27who are part of our local community,
01:22:31not separated from it,
01:22:33and bring to the center of government
01:22:35the sensibilities, the sensitivities,
01:22:38and we hope, the common sense
01:22:41that you find in American communities
01:22:43across the land.
01:22:52I'm hopelessly optimistic,
01:22:55disqualified of any intellectual pretenses
01:22:59when I say that, of course,
01:23:01the republic has a future
01:23:03because the Congress is there
01:23:05and because the Congress works.
01:23:07The system does work, and when we say,
01:23:10oh, but we're moving into a period
01:23:12we can't possibly salvage,
01:23:14we moved into the Civil War,
01:23:16we salvaged, we went on.
01:23:19We've been through nearly every variation
01:23:22of trouble that you can go through,
01:23:25and I think the Congress
01:23:26can adapt to the world of the atom bomb
01:23:29and high technology
01:23:30and has a better chance to prevail
01:23:33than any other way to try.
01:23:35So I'm optimistic.
01:23:38Madison said self-interest
01:23:40is the engine of government,
01:23:43and you know, somebody got up and said,
01:23:45Mr. Madison, are you saying
01:23:47that the frailty of human nature
01:23:50is the only basis of government?
01:23:52And Madison said, I know no other.
01:23:56They're listening to him.
01:23:57Anything might happen now.
01:23:58Just get up off the ground.
01:24:00That's all I ask.
01:24:02Get up there with that lady
01:24:03that's up on top of this Capitol dome,
01:24:05that lady that stands for liberty.
01:24:08Take a look at this country through her eyes
01:24:10if you really want to see something.
01:24:12And you won't just see scenery.
01:24:14You'll see the whole parade
01:24:16of what man's carved out for himself
01:24:18after centuries of fighting
01:24:20and fighting for something better
01:24:22than just jungle law,
01:24:23fighting so as he can stand on his own two feet
01:24:26free and decent like he was created,
01:24:29no matter what his race, color, or creed.
01:24:48What impresses me most is that the founders
01:24:50were willing to trust a human personality
01:24:52and human intelligence,
01:24:54that man, woman, after all,
01:24:56is not entirely misguided,
01:24:59that we have the wits to solve our own problems,
01:25:03that the best judge of how we should be led
01:25:06and governed is us.
01:25:22¦
01:25:32¦
01:25:42¦
01:25:58Let me say to the gentleman,
01:25:59further reserving the right to object,
01:26:01let me say to the gentleman
01:26:02that the problem is that democracy
01:26:04sometimes gets a little messy,
01:26:05and you do, in fact, when you're managing bills
01:26:07under a democratic...
01:26:08No other agriculture-exporting country
01:26:10is taking the whipping like we are
01:26:12in the international market.
01:26:13House Joint Resolution 412,
01:26:16Joint Resolution to Congratulate
01:26:18King Vamabal Abdulyadej of Thailand
01:26:22on his 60th birthday on December 5, 19...
01:26:24There are 16 Virginia sandstone columns.
01:26:27On top of each column, for decoration,
01:26:30we have tobacco leaf and the tobacco blossom.
01:26:33What did the president know,
01:26:36and when did he know it?
01:26:37I reserve the right to object.
01:26:38I'm trying to figure out
01:26:40what it is we're doing here.
01:26:42This bill is not what the poor need,
01:26:44it's not what the country needs,
01:26:45and it's certainly not what this Congress should pass.
01:26:48Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself
01:26:50with the remarks made by Congressman Tom Bevel
01:26:53today on the five-inch guided projectile.
01:26:55Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent
01:26:57to take from the speaker's desk H.J. Russ 412
01:27:02and ask for its immediate consideration.
01:27:03I ask unanimous consent that all members
01:27:04may have five legislative days
01:27:06and wish to revise and extend their remarks
01:27:08on H.J. Russ...
01:27:09I understand that we are now going to try,
01:27:12by unanimous consent,
01:27:13to overturn the provisions of the rule
01:27:16by which this bill was brought to the floor
01:27:18that limited time of debate...
01:27:20So I congratulate the Clean City Committees
01:27:23and these cities of western Nebraska,
01:27:26North Platte, Ogallala, Kimball,
01:27:28Scottsbluff, Geary, and Alliance.
01:27:29I believe Carr set up the FBI
01:27:31to determine what was going on in this country,
01:27:34didn't he?
01:27:35Among other things, Mr. Chairman.
01:27:37Yes, it set up the CIA
01:27:38to determine what was going on...
01:27:40Twenty-seven members have voted aye.
01:27:42Eleven members have voted no.
01:27:44Gentlemen...
01:27:45This is my opinion,
01:27:46and I'm not going to object to this,
01:27:48but I will tell the gentlemen that...
01:27:51The committee will recess until 10.30 Monday next.
01:27:5510.30 when?
01:27:57Monday morning.
01:27:58Monday morning.
01:27:59Monday next.
01:28:00Monday next.
01:28:02About 40 women showed up.
01:28:04They were elderly.
01:28:05They were concerned with Social Security.
01:28:07So they sent a note in to Dirksen,
01:28:09who was on the floor.
01:28:10So he comes tippy-toeing out
01:28:12with that great mass of white hair,
01:28:14just looking the way he does,
01:28:16and he looks up and down, and he says,
01:28:19Girls...
01:28:21I was on the floor...
01:28:25defending the Republic
01:28:29against the onslaughts of the opposition
01:28:32when I was informed
01:28:34that 40 lovely ladies
01:28:39wished to see me.
01:28:41I immediately removed
01:28:44the armor of the warrior
01:28:47and put on the cloak of the poet.
01:28:52Now...
01:28:54What do you girls wish of me?
01:28:59There's absolute silence,
01:29:01and then one little lady in the back
01:29:03pipes up and says,
01:29:04Nothing, Senator.
01:29:06We just want to hear you talk.