Organizing for Insurgency:Intraparty Organization and theDevelopment of the HouseInsurgency, 1908–1910

Ruth Bloch Rubin, University of California, Berkeley

A legislative “breakpoint,” the Cannon Revolt profoundly transformed congressional operation, spurring a seriesof reforms that ultimately led to the disintegration of traditional modes of partisan authority and the creation ofnew patterns of governance. In this article, I argue that the Cannon Revolt affords an opportunity to examine acrucial, but poorly understood, dynamic in congressional politics. Whereas spatial theories of Congress typicallyhold that legislators located at the floor median are decisive actors in chamber politics, the archival account pre-sented here suggests that these legislators require the scaffolding of an intraparty organization to secure pivotalstatus. As I demonstrate, intraparty organization enabled a ragtag group of Republican reformers opposed toCannon’s “czar rule” to draft and unite behind a common proposal for parliamentary reform, and to buildthe cross-party coalition that scholars agree was critical to its passage. In this account, the influence of the so-called“Insurgent” Republicans hinged on their collective capacity to hang together in sufficient numbers to hold thebalance of power in the chamber—in effect, organizing all potentially pivotal votes into one bloc essential to sus-taining the majority party coalition.

We are banded together for a single purposeand no other. Our sole aim as a body is torestore to the House of Representatives com-plete power of legislation in accordance withthe will of a majority of its members. We arestriving to destroy the system of autocraticcontrol which has reached its climax underthe present speaker.1

— Resolution adopted by the Insurgent Bloc,January 10, 1910

“I present a matter made privileged by the Constitu-tion!”2 Rising from his seat, Rep. George W. Norris(R-NE) strode past his Republican colleagues to thewell of the House floor. Handing the waiting clerk asheaf of papers, Norris turned to Speaker JosephCannon (R-IL) and demanded that his proposal berecognized. Though House rules would normallyhave found the matter out of order, Norris citedCannon’s ruling from the previous afternoon,stating that measures pertaining to the Constitutionwere granted privilege over regular House business.3

Given the Speaker’s recent ruling and the fact thathis proposal concerned a matter explicitly discussedin the Constitution, Norris argued that the measureSpecial thanks to Greg Elinson, Eric Schickler, Rob Van Hou-

weling, and participants in the APD Working Group at the Univer-sity of California, Berkeley, for their constructive and helpfulfeedback. I also wish to thank the editors and anonymous reviewersat Studies for their valuable suggestions; any remaining errors aremy own. I am greatly indebted to the archival staff at the Libraryof Congress, New York Public Library, University of WashingtonSpecial Collections Library, University of Michigan Bentley Histori-cal Library, and the Wisconsin State Historical Society. Thisresearch was generously funded by the Institute for GovernmentalStudies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the NationalScience Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

1. John Mandt Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 10, 1910,Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), John Mandt Nelson Papers,Box 10. Responding to a smear campaign orchestrated by theTaft Administration and Cannon’s allies in the legislature, the Insur-gents issued this resolution to make clear to the public their politi-cal objectives and continued affiliation with the Republican Party.

2. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3291.3. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,

3241–3250. On March 16, 1910, Census Committee chairmanRep. Edgar Crumpacker (R-IN) motioned that a measure callingfor a new census be debated on the House floor. Though underHouse rules Crumpacker’s proposal was unlikely to be considered,as the measure had only recently been reported to the full chamberand many more bills should have received first consideration, thechairman hoped his loyalty to the Speaker would tip the scales infavor of his motion. As expected, Cannon ruled RepresentativeCrumpacker’s request to be in order. The Speaker declared:“Taking of the census as to population [has] invariably beenadmitted as involving constitutional privilege, presenting a privi-lege higher than any rule of the House would give.”

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superseded existing legislation scheduled for con-sideration. In the congressman’s own words:

It was the hour for which I had been waitingpatiently. I had in my pocket a resolution tochange the rules of the House. Unknown toanyone, even to my closest insurgent colleagues,I had carried it for a long time, certain that inthe flush of its power the Cannon machinewould overreach itself. The paper upon whichI had written my resolution had become so tat-tered it scarcely hung together. That was thebest evidence of long waiting for the minutethat had come, and the frequency with whichI had studied it alone in my office.4

As the clerk prepared to read the resolution aloud tothe chamber, Cannon granted that if the matter wasin fact privileged by the Constitution, then Norrishad a right to present it. Whispers became shouts asHouse members learned the resolution would stripthe Speaker of his power to sit on and appointlegislators to the Committee on Rules, the primarymeans by which majority party leaders controlledfloor activity and managed the chamber body.5 Realiz-ing his perilous position, Cannon sought delay as hemustered Republican supporters to vote down therules change. Over the next several days, the Housedebated the proposed resolution and Norris’s rightto introduce it, while the Speaker deliberated withhis closest colleagues over the best course of action.6

Eventually, Cannon was forced to allow the Norris res-olution to come to a vote, ever hopeful that theRepublicans loyal to him would outnumber the cross-party coalition rallied against him. Ultimately, anamended version of the resolution passed, 191 to156, ending the era of czar rule in the House.7

A legislative “breakpoint,” the passage of the Norrisresolution profoundly transformed congressionaloperation.8 Indeed, in an institution renowned forits continuity, the Cannon Revolt marks one of the

few times in American history where the structureof Congress substantially changed. Although the1910 rebellion did not itself greatly compromise themajority party’s control of House activity, it prompteda series of reforms that would lead to the gradual dis-integration of traditional modes of partisan authorityand the creation of new patterns of legislative govern-ance.9 Moreover, because the Cannon Revolt’ssuccess hinged on cooperation between a smallsegment of the Republican Party and a unified Demo-cratic minority, the episode stands as a testament tothe transformative power of cross-party coalitions. Atthe level of mass politics, the successful pursuit of par-liamentary reform illustrates the capacity of partisanand legislative institutions to respond to sectionalpressures. For these reasons, scholars have rightfullypursued a rich understanding of this moment in con-gressional history.

Consistent with his own account, both historicaland contemporary treatments of the Cannon Revolttend to identify Norris as the central actor responsiblefor executing the rebellion.10 Although many of theseworks acknowledge the important role of the minorityparty in helping to build a procedural majority infavor of rules reform, scholars often take Democraticsupport for granted, paying little attention to thestructural conditions internal to the RepublicanParty that facilitated Norris’s success and assured thecooperation of House Democrats. Binder, forexample, argues that it was Norris who “secured”the necessary Republican votes to form what sheterms an “easily fostered” coalition with the minorityparty.11 Likewise, Sheingate writes, “Beyond [his]opportunistic timing, Norris exploited the complexfeatures of House rules . . . to move authority overthe rules out of the hands of Speaker Cannon . . .

4. George W. Norris, Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of GeorgeW. Norris (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1945), 113.

5. The resolution provided a new structure for the Committeeon Rules, requiring that the committee be geographically and pol-itically representative. The redesigned committee would consist offifteen members, eight representing the majority party and seventhe minority party, distributed throughout the country. The resol-ution denied the Speaker the right to sit on the committee andstripped him of the power to appoint House members to standingcommittees. Norris’s proposed Committee on Rules would, amongits new duties, appoint House members to other standing commit-tees. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 115.

6. Kenneth W. Hechler, Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of theTaft Era (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), 70–71.

7. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45, 3436.As discussed in the article’s penultimate section, this amended res-olution stripped Cannon of his seat on the Rules Committee, butallowed the Speaker to retain appointment power to other standingcommittees.

8. Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for Ameri-can Political Development (New York: Cambridge University Press,2004), 10.

9. Joseph Cooper and David W. Brady, “Institutional Contextand Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn,” Amer-ican Political Science Review 75 (1981): 416.

10. For example, see Charles R. Atkinson, The Committee onRules and the Overthrow of Speaker Cannon (New York: Columbia Uni-versity Press, 1911); Anne Firor Scott, “A Progressive Wind from theSouth,” Journal of Southern History 29 (1963): 53–70; Charles O.Jones, “Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay on theLimits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,” Journal ofPolitics 30 (1968): 617–46; Sarah A. Binder, Minority Rights, MajorityRule: Partisanship and the Development of Congress (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 1997); David Brady and David Epstein,“Intraparty Preferences, Heterogeneity, and the Origins of theModern Congress: Progressive Reformers in the House andSenate, 1890–1920,” Journal of Law, Economics & Organization 13(1997): 26–49; Donald R. Wolfensberger, “The Motion to Recom-mit in the House: The Creation, Evisceration, and Restoration ofa Minority Right,” in Party, Process, and Political Change, ed. DavidBrady and Mathew D. McCubbins (Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 2007), 271–95; Adam Sheingate, “Creativity and Constraintin the U.S. House of Representatives” in Explaining InstitutionalChange: Ambiguity, Agency and Power, ed. James Mahoney and Kath-leen Thelen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 168–203.

11. Binder, Minority Rights, 134–35.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN2

[and to] the House floor, where the power of a pro-cedural majority held sway.”12

This article, by contrast, highlights the efforts ofNorris’s Republican allies to construct an intrapartyorganization, and demonstrates how the develop-ment of such organizational capacity was essential tothe successful prosecution of rules reform.13 As Idemonstrate in the following pages, intraparty organ-ization enabled a ragtag group of Republican dissi-dents to draft and unite behind a common rulesreform proposal, and to build the cross-partycoalition that scholars agree was critical to the legis-lation’s passage. From a developmental perspective,the structure and capacity of the so-called “Insur-gency” expanded incrementally, as Republican refor-mers struggled to balance their strong sense ofindividualism and diverse convictions with the needfor disciplined action and alliance with the minorityparty. After finding informal means of coordinationinsufficient to either hold members to a commonobjective, or draw Democratic support, the Insurgentreformers worked to institutionalize their presence—devising a series of mechanisms to foster consistentparticipation, cohesive strategy, and electoral and pol-itical security for individual reformers.

In tracing the development of Insurgent organiz-ation, I hope to persuade the reader that onecannot attribute the reformers’ success merely tothe combined circumstances of Norris’s ingenuityand Democratic support for rules reform. First, as amatter of historical record, Norris’s strategic exploita-tion of Cannon’s ruling on constitutional privilegereflected a tactic proposed and considered by theInsurgent Committee on Procedure in 1909.Second, the resolution Norris offered on the floorof the House in March 1910 was nearly the same res-olution the Insurgent bloc had drafted and passed inFebruary 1909. Third, the procedural majority ofDemocrats and progressive Republicans in favor ofrules reform was a necessary but not sufficient con-dition for the revolt to succeed. Indeed, archivalmaterials indicate that Democratic participation wasnot inevitable. Rather, the cross-party coalitionformed between the minority party and Republicandissidents resulted from the Insurgency’s hard-foughtefforts to win the trust of Democratic leaders. In sum:

if the Republican reformers were to have seceded enmasse from their party coalition at any point duringthe 60th (1907–1909) and 61st (1909–1911) Con-gresses, they would have comprised a bloc of votes suf-ficient to grant the Democrats majority status.However, organization would prove essential toassure the Insurgents’ collective defection and to con-struct a procedural majority in favor of rules reform.

In this article, I argue that Insurgent Republicanintraparty organization furthered three objectivesessential to challenging Speaker Cannon and reform-ing House rules. First, the organization enabled refor-mers to coordinate strategy amongst themselves,helping to resolve among Insurgents both ideologicaldisputes over what aspects of rules reform would takefirst priority, as well as practical disagreements overhow their policy goals would best be achieved. Thatis, intraparty organization offered a structural appar-atus through which the dissidents could design,field-test, and ultimately promote their “commoncarrier” proposals.14

Second, intraparty organization provided theInsurgents with a variety of mechanisms to encouragecontinued collective action. By leveraging their con-nections with influential progressive newspaper andmagazine editors, the reformers were able to rewardloyal members, and rebuke—to devastating effect—those who rejoined the Speaker. Additionally, refor-mers deployed their intraparty organization topromote the electoral prospects of loyal Insurgents,rally constituent support for the group’s agenda,stoke animosity toward their opposition, and solicitand disburse campaign assistance to vulnerablemembers. Although individual Insurgents had longcooperated on an informal, ad hoc basis withmembers of their state delegations, this new electoralalliance operated at a scale and scope previouslyreached only by organized political parties.15 Theseactivities helped reformers to offset and minimizethe cost of their disloyalty and to increase the cost toRepublican leaders of continuing to persecute them.

Third, by promoting group cohesion, intrapartyorganization helped to make the Insurgents a morecredible partner for the Democratic opposition, asmany minority members shared the reformers’ desireto limit Cannon’s authority, but doubted the strengthof the Republican dissidents’ convictions. Withlimited prospects for success absent an organized

12. Sheingate, “Creativity and Constraint,” 197.13. Intraparty organization refers to the formation of an

internally bounded alliance between co-partisans, with an associ-ated institutional apparatus to support and enforce that alliance.By internally bounded, I mean that such alliances are composedof an identifiable set of co-partisans selected on the basis of somecriteria set forth explicitly or implicitly by the group. Althoughtheir design may vary, intraparty organizations are characterizedby one or more of the following organizational features: membersidentify publicly with the group and meet together regularly,members provide or seek resources for the group, and membersconsent to be bound by a group position or strategy on one ormore policy or procedural issues.

14. Eric Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovationand the Development of the U.S. Congress (Princeton: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 2001), 14.

15. Indeed, the activities of the Insurgents would ultimatelyhelp to form the basis of the Progressive Party. Beginning in thesummer of 1910, progressive members of the Insurgency in theHouse and Senate began to use the group’s electoral infrastructureand contacts with the press to organize a third-party challenge inthe 1912 presidential election. Robert Collier to Robert La Folletteand Victor Murdock, July 1, 1910, Library of Congress ManuscriptDivision (LOC), Robert La Follette Papers, Box 63.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 3

bloc of Republican defectors, House Democrats wereunwilling to pursue parliamentary reform aggres-sively—despite having pledged to prioritize changesto chamber rules in their 1908 party platform.16 Infact, many members of the minority party preferredto bide their time in anticipation of upcomingelections and allow Cannon to remain in office as aconvenient symbol of Republican intransigence.However, as the Democratic leadership observed theInsurgents maintain unity in the face of considerablepressure from “Regular” Republicans, they came tobelieve that a viable coalition was indeed possible.

In many ways, the Cannon Revolt stands as a singu-lar event in congressional history. However, in anation governed by two heterogeneous parties, it isnot uncommon for a faction of majority party legis-lators to find themselves at ideological odds withtheir party leadership, yet lacking in sufficient lever-age to successfully bargain for more favorable pol-icies. In this respect, the Cannon Revolt is but onecase in a more regular pattern in American legislativepolitics. As I develop in the following section, anddemonstrate through a detailed archival study of theCannon Revolt, intraparty organization offers dissi-dent majority party members one possible strategyto address this challenge.

1. ORGANIZING DISSENT: A THEORY OF INTRAPARTYORGANIZATION

Through organization, dissident Republicans soughtto construct a pivotal bloc out of a group of legislatorswhose individual views and actions clashed with thoseof their party leaders. In his seminal account ofCannon’s leadership, Charles Jones argues that theInsurgents “could always take their one bargainingadvantage—the vote—and join the Democrats tocurb the powers of the Speaker.”17 However, with aHouse body of several hundred members, any oneInsurgent was unlikely to hold the vote that wouldtip the balance of power from a Republican majorityopposing rules change to a cross-party coalition favor-ing parliamentary reform.18 In part, this was becauseSpeaker Cannon and his allies had a range of oppor-tunities and resources with which to secure thenecessary number of votes without winning thesupport of any one dissident party member.

In more theoretical terms, Cox and McCubbinshave argued that the range of tools at the disposal ofmajority party leaders—including the capacity to set

the chamber’s agenda and to punish dissidentmembers—serves the interests of the majority partyat large. In their view, members of the majority partyagree to delegate agenda-setting powers and the auth-ority to punish recalcitrant legislators to the leadershipof the party. Party leaders, in turn, use these powers tofurther the preferences of a majority of the majoritycoalition, while preventing attempts to fracture thecoalition with alternative proposals. Cox and McCub-bins conclude that this sort of cooperation amountsto “cartelized” control of the chamber’s agenda andprocedures, and predict that only those proposalsfavored by the leadership of the majority party arelikely to come to a vote on the chamber floor.19

A prominent critic of party-cartel theory, Krehbielhas questioned the extent to which majority partyleaders are able to control legislative proceedingsand dictate the behavior of their membership. Inhis view, the floor median retains ultimate say overthe chamber’s agenda. If dissatisfied by any given pro-posal put forward by the majority party, the majorityparty member at the floor median may choose toside with the opposition, thereby granting it control.Aware of this possibility, majority party leaders con-dition their proposals on the preferences of themedian member, even when doing so leads to anoutcome they do not prefer. For Krehbiel, thepivotal role of the floor median extends even to pro-cedural considerations.20 According to this model, adissident member of the majority party located atthe floor median can extract significant concessionsfrom party leaders in exchange for her vote.

Striking a balance between these two models ofcongressional activity, Rohde argues that the powerof party leaders waxes and wanes as the uniformityof members’ preferences change. When membersstrongly agree on the substance of their party’sagenda, they are more willing to delegate power toleaders who will promote that agenda. Conversely,when a party is internally divided over matters ofpolicy, members prefer to retain as much individualpower as possible.21 Further developing Rohde’sanalysis, Schickler and Rich condition the relativeinfluence of the floor median on the size and ideo-logical homogeneity of the majority party. In theirview, the majority party member at the floor mediancan exert maximum influence when she is includedamong a “sufficient number of party dissidents to con-stitute a permanent majority should [she] ally withthe minority party.”22 With a slim majority, party

16. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, “Democratic PartyPlatform of 1908,” July 7, 1908, The American Presidency Project,http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29589 (dateaccessed: 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. Cox and McCubbins, Setting the Agenda, 31.20. Keith Krehbiel, Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 165–72.21. David W. Rohde, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 35–37.22. Eric Schickler and Andrew Rich, “Controlling the Floor:

Parties as Procedural Coalitions in the House,” American Journal ofPolitical Science 41 (1997): 1342.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN4

leaders have limited incentive to punish the floormedian should she defect on an individual vote, forfear they would lose her permanently to the opposi-tion. It is only when party leaders control a sizableand unified majority that they can exert the sort oflegislative control described in the party-cartelmodel. However, to the extent that majority partyleaders can obtain members’ cooperation by provid-ing material inducements or threatening punish-ment, even the median voter is subject to someinfluence by majority party leaders.

In debating the nature of majority party control, allof the authors cited make similar assumptions aboutthe floor median. Adopting a spatial logic, both Coxand McCubbins, and Krehbiel, conceptualize thefloor median as a single actor. Schickler and Richimply that the floor median is either one individualor a group of individuals at or near the medianacting with single purpose; in their view, dissidentswill choose to defect from the majority party enmasse or not at all.

However, these assumptions do not always hold. AsSchickler and Rich suggest, it is often the case thatmajority party leaders must contend with a collectionof dissident members clustered at the floor median.In spatial terms, these members may be so closely con-centrated that no one individual is necessarily pivotalto chamber outcomes in instances in which some butnot all of these “median members” are required tomaintain a majority coalition. When combined withthe prospect of partisan carrots and sticks, thisinsight reveals a crucial collective-action dynamic.

Stated succinctly, when multiple members are con-centrated at the floor median, each member has anincentive to let her peers do the work of defectionand herself accept a side payment or simply avoidpunishment in exchange for holding the party line.In this view, even though dissidents share a commoninterest in getting their majority leadership to com-promise on a given policy or procedural matter,each individual legislator may be better able to maxi-mize her personal gain through cooperation withparty leaders, provided that sufficient numbers ofher colleagues successfully defect and thereby pullthe policy or procedural outcome toward themedian.23 In short, the optimal strategy for any indi-vidual is to “free ride” on the defection of others.Even when members share the same policy or pro-cedural interest and are committed to bearing theburden of defection, they may have difficulty translat-ing their broad agreement into a specific set of policyproposals or procedural tactics.24 Party leaders can

exploit these weaknesses further, co-opting certainproposals as necessary to divide median membersand maintain a floor majority.

To return to the Cannon Revolt: absent a guaranteethat any individual Insurgent’s vote would be pivotalto unseating the Speaker, the reformers were collec-tively at the mercy of Republican leaders. The influ-ence of party dissidents like George Norris and hisInsurgent colleagues hinged on their collectivecapacity to hang together in sufficient numbers tohold the balance of power in the chamber—ineffect, organizing all potentially pivotal votes intoone bloc essential to sustaining the majority partycoalition. Having secured a pivotal role within theRepublican coalition, the reformers could more cred-ibly negotiate with Cannon and the Democratic lea-dership, and more freely defect from their party’sranks. Indeed, the intraparty organization developedby dissident Republicans provided them the requisitecredibility to parley with Democratic leaders, and gaveminority leaders the confidence that any resultingalliance would not erode in the face of majorityparty pressure.

Given the potential for division and disorderamong co-partisan dissidents, organization is impera-tive to transform votes into substantive outcomes. As Idemonstrate in the remainder of this article, intra-party organization helps legislators to commit to acommon strategy and, in banding together on acourse of unified action, limit the threat of partisanpunishment. Intraparty organization also promotesmembers’ electoral prospects, which, in turn, recom-mits individuals to the organization’s cause. Finally,intraparty organization centralizes authority anddecision making, such that dissident members cannegotiate effectively with majority and minorityparty leaders and credibly redeem the terms of theiragreements. In these ways, intraparty organizationoffers a powerful scaffolding from which dissidentmajority party members can achieve more desirablepolicy and procedural outcomes at the expense oftheir party leaders.

Despite its clear advantages, intraparty organiz-ation is not without significant cost. Like institution-building more generally, constructing and thenmaintaining this kind of organization requires a con-siderable outlay of time, creative energy, and materialresources. Moreover, intraparty organization gener-ates leverage by committing its members to adhereto the group’s positions, once they are taken,thus constraining individual autonomy for the sakeof organizational unity. In light of these costs,members of Congress are likely to rely on existing leg-islative institutions to effect their desired outcomes,where possible. Only when the costs of organization23. In some instances, it may be sufficient to simply threaten

defection until compromise is induced.24. Cox and McCubbins allude to this dynamic, noting that

“[p]otential defectors must coordinate, not just in the sense ofjumping at the same time but also in the sense of negotiating,before actually defecting, with their prospective new partners over

the division of spoils.” Cox and McCubbins, Setting the Agenda, 31,emphasis in the original.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 5

are outweighed by its benefits will legislators pursueintraparty organization. As we shall see, the Republi-can reformers embraced intraparty organizationonly as a last resort. After having failed to achievetheir desired policy goals through independentaction, the reformers sought increasingly formalizedmodes of organization to achieve their collectiveaims.

Although intraparty organization enabled progress-ive reformers to assure themselves a pivotal positionwithin Republican ranks, their relationship with theDemocratic minority proved more complicated.On the one hand, without united Democratic support,the Insurgent bloc lacked sufficient votes to curbthe Speaker’s powers, making Democratic coope-ration crucial to the reformers’ success. On theother hand, without Republican defectors, the Demo-cratic Party would remain in the minority, unable toredeem the pledge of its 1908 platform. Runningcounter to the Democrats’ desire for rules reformwas the belief held by many in the party that itwould soon be in the majority; consequently, some“Democrats were not eager to destroy the sourcesof the [S]peaker’s power.”25 Anticipating their riseto power, Democratic leaders weighed the benefitsof redeeming their party pledge with the electoraladvantage of Cannon’s “utter unpopularity . . . .throughout the country.”26 As I demonstrate, Demo-cratic leaders strategically balanced these competingambitions—actively leveraging their cross-partycoalition with Insurgent members to extract key con-cessions favorable to the minority from Republicanleaders, while simultaneously pressing the Republi-can dissidents to moderate their proposed ruleschanges in favor of majority rights.

In contrast to the view of House Democrats as “astrong minority party fighting to reinforce minorityrights,” the historical record makes clear that Demo-cratic legislators viewed themselves as auxiliaries inthe fight against Cannon, relying on the Insurgentsto develop a successful floor strategy and initiatereform proposals.27 Writing to Rep. Victor Murdock(R-KS) in November 1909, Rep. Richmond Hobson(D-AL) requested that the Insurgents notify him “ifthere is anything which you ‘Progressives’ haveplanned . . . in which the Democrats will be calledupon to assist,” explaining to Murdock that it wasup to the Insurgents to dictate the terms of anyengagement.28 Although unified Democraticsupport, like Insurgent cohesion, was necessary tocurb Cannon’s authority, Democratic participation

in the revolt hinged on the Insurgents’ own initiative.Unity within the Democratic caucus was far fromassured, and would require aggressive efforts by min-ority leaders to solidify their ranks. These actions, inturn, depended on Democratic leaders’ own confi-dence that the Insurgents would uphold the termsof cross-party cooperation.29

2. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH AND SOURCES OFEVIDENCE

In this article, I treat the Cannon Revolt as a casestudy to illustrate how attention to intraparty organiz-ation can improve our understanding of this majorepisode of legislative development. Although a casestudy research design limits our ability to generalizewith certainty about the role of intraparty organiz-ation in the U.S. Congress, we can neverthelessderive analytic leverage “from a close knowledge ofthe case and context, which can directly contributeto more valid descriptive and causal inference,” asBrady and Collier observe.30 Here, I seek to convincethe reader that the Cannon Revolt was unlikely tooccur as it did without the establishment and develop-ment of Insurgent organization. I exploit the longi-tudinal variation within the case itself to maximizeanalytic traction and to help rule out alternativeexplanations. As we will see, the Republican dissidentsinitially sought to achieve rules reform indepen-dently; it was the failure of these efforts that ledthem to pursue greater collaboration. The reformers’inability to curb the powers of the Speaker throughindividual action strongly suggests that some type oforganization was necessary to achieve the reformers’ends. Likewise, the Insurgents’ subsequent decisionsto work ever more closely indicates that their initialde minimis organization was insufficient. Given thiswithin-case variation, it is reasonable to concludethat a strong, formal Insurgent organization wasinstrumental in changing House rules. Additionally,variation in the Democratic response to the Insur-gency lends credence to the view that demonstrateddissident cohesion was a necessary condition for theformation of a cross-party coalition in favor of rulesreform.

To trace the development of the Insurgent bloc as itformed in the House at the turn of the twentiethcentury, I exploit a diverse collection of archival evi-dence. Specifically, I draw on the personal papers ofInsurgent legislators and Republican leaders inCongress and the White House, period newspapersand the papers of Progressive Era journalists, andmaterials published in the Congressional Record and25. John D. Baker, “The Character of the Congressional Revo-

lution of 1910,” Journal of American History 60 (1973): 683.26. Edward E. Higgins to William H. Taft, March 8, 1909, LOC,

Victor Murdock Papers, Box 23.27. Binder, Minority Rights, 135.28. Richmond P. Hobson to Murdock, November 24, 1909,

LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22.

29. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76.30. Henry E. Brady and David Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry:

Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,2004), 12.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN6

House Journal. To detail the substance and develop-ment of Insurgent strategy, I rely on the organization’sinternal records, including meeting minutes, pro-posed resolutions, and attendance logs. Thesematerials were collated and maintained by Rep.John M. Nelson (R-WI), who was appointed by his col-leagues to act as secretary for the Insurgent organiz-ation. Nelson’s materials reveal no evident bias; hisrecords are attentive to both the successes and limit-ations of the Insurgent organization. Though theserecords provide the best available account of thebloc’s internal workings, including the thought pro-cesses and preferences of its membership, I alsodraw on Insurgent correspondence where possibleto verify and contextualize the data.31

As the article unfolds, the reader will observe thatthe scope of the inquiry widens at certain stages toinclude nonlegislative actors, including members ofthe progressive-affiliated press and the Taft Adminis-tration. I introduce these actors for two reasons.First, Insurgent leaders regularly communicatedwith progressive editors to inflame public opinionagainst Cannon, and later to reward loyal reformersand punish those who deserted their cause. In otherwords, Insurgent leaders deployed the progressivepress as a mechanism to encourage continued collec-tive action.32 Likewise, the Insurgents sought Taft’sendorsement of their reform efforts throughouttheir campaign, hopeful that the president would per-suade Cannon to relinquish his powers gracefully.Perhaps more important, Cannon and his alliesappealed to Taft both to counter the Insurgents’

mobilization and to defend the reputation of theRepublican Party.33 Second, in light of the critiquesleveled at “institution by institution” accounts ofAmerican politics, broadening the narrative’s focusto include nonlegislative actors permits a more com-prehensive treatment of Insurgent organization andRepublican mobilization to police irregularity in theparty’s ranks.34

In the following section I briefly describe the politi-cal and economic conditions that precipitated Insur-gent unrest and the reformers’ revolt againstSpeaker Cannon. I then detail the development ofthe House Insurgent organization, paying particularattention to the reasons the Insurgents sought tocollaborate and to the particular organizationalmechanisms they implemented over time. Whereappropriate, I further consider how House Democratsreacted to Insurgent activity. To conclude, I revisit thefateful series of events that led to Cannon’s downfall,tracing out how the Insurgent bloc made GeorgeNorris’s entrepreneurship and Democratic collabor-ation possible, and how the organization was lateradapted to accommodate new progressive causes.

3. PRECIPITATING UNREST

In his early years as Speaker, Cannon’s drive to centra-lize party leadership and consolidate it in House insti-tutions met with little resistance from the chamber’sRepublican and Democratic membership. Using thesame tools vested in the speakership that others hadused to expand the power of that office, Cannonextended his control over committee and flooractivity.35 Coupled with his strategic post as chairmanof the Committee on the Rules, Cannon could fullyregulate the flow of legislation, debate, and amend-ment—blocking those bills he opposed, while expe-diting the passage of those he favored. As Schicklerargues, these changes initially proved advantageousto Republican representatives, assuaging party

31. Included in the Nelson papers are a series of transcribedinterviews with the congressman conducted by Kenneth Hechleras part of the latter’s research for Insurgency: Personalities and Politicsof the Taft Era. Attentive to concerns of potential bias, these inter-views are used primarily to contextualize the information providedby the bloc’s meeting minutes.

32. Nevertheless, the relationship between the Insurgentmembers and their journalist colleagues is complex. The historicalrecord reveals that House reformers often communicated with pro-gressive Republican editors, and were largely successful in influen-cing news coverage of the Insurgent organization. The Insurgents’success notwithstanding, the newspaper editors were, for their part,independently committed to parliamentary reform. As a result, it isproblematic to argue either that the Insurgents were fully respon-sible for the coverage they received, or that the coverage theyreceived is an entirely independent variable that influenced thereformers’ ultimate success. Nonetheless, correspondence amongInsurgents and members of the press suggests that progressive pub-lications were an important resource for Insurgent legislators, andthat with the cooperation of sympathetic journalists, certain elec-toral and organizational objectives were advanced. See correspon-dence with the editors of Collier’s Magazine, The AmericanMagazine, and Kansas City Star: Collier to Murdock, March 10,1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22; Collier to Murdock, March19, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22; Richard Lloyd Jones toMurdock, May 13, 1910, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 28, Folder“F”; John S. Phillips to Murdock, March 15, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 22, Folder “Phillips, John S.”; Henry J. Haskell toMurdock, January 28, 1910, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 28,Folder “Haskell, Henry J.”

33. Taft’s personal correspondence corroborates this view ofhistory, suggesting that the president was reluctant to intervene inthe congressional contest and did so only as a result of appeals byRepublican and Insurgent leaders. Taft to William Allen White,March 12, 1909, LOC, William Allen White Papers, Box 2; Archi-bald W. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Mili-tary Aide (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1930), 5–8.

34. Paul Pierson, “The Costs of Marginalization: QualitativeMethods in the Study of American Politics,” Comparative PoliticalStudies 40 (2007): 145–69.

35. Following a pattern of congressional leadership pioneeredby former Speaker Thomas Reed (R-ME), Cannon placed membersof Congress loyal to him in committee chairmanships and packedsupporters into key committees, sometimes displacing moresenior, independent Republicans. He also tightened the rules ofrecognition on the floor, refusing to grant recognition tomembers who had not explained their intentions to him inadvance. Randall Strahan, Leading Representatives: The Agency ofLeaders in the Politics and Development of the U.S. House (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 7

infighting by preventing consideration of divisive legis-lation. Likewise, House Democrats and Republicanscollectively benefitted from the chamber’s increasedclout in intra- and interbranch negotiations.36

Regrettably for Cannon, his pursuit of legislativeand partisan control ultimately ran afoul of the agrar-ian crisis smoldering in the western regions of thecountry. In the years following the Civil War, the rail-roads’ penetration into western territories, andinnovations in agricultural science and machinery,encouraged farmers in the region to devote more oftheir resources and land to agricultural production.37

Newly settled in the region, Union veterans were thebackbone of farm expansion, supplying the humancapital necessary to cultivate greater acreage.38 Toafford the machinery that would make it possible togrow and harvest crops sufficient for railroads to trans-port to meet eastern demand, farmers requiredadditional financial capital. To acquire such capitalthey mortgaged their land, which often resulted inpermanent debt, as well as enmity toward theeastern companies that supplied farmers with mort-gages.39 Agrarian debt was compounded by theappreciation of the dollar’s purchasing power ascrop prices fell.40 At the same time, farmers facedexorbitant prices on machinery and equipmentbecause these industries were protected by a seriesof domestic tariffs. Farmers’ limited access to banksdrove up interest rates, further exacerbating theplight of the debtor.41

Faced with the loss of property and savings, ruralcommunities demanded relief from their state andnational governments. At the state level, poli-ticians—foremost among them, then-GovernorRobert La Follette (R-WI)—responded by wrestingpolitical control of the region from railroad and

corporate interests.42 At the national level, WilliamJennings Bryan and his populist Democrats, alongwith progressive Republicans, pressed for furtherregulation of the railroads, conservation of naturalresources, the establishment of postal savings banks,more equitable taxation, and direct democracy.43

Cannon, however, refused to accommodate therestive constituencies agitating for nationwide econ-omic and political reform. Firmly allied with easternfinance capital and industrial interests, the Speakerfound the reformers’ agenda of government activismunacceptable. Unwilling to alter the status quo oryield to Republicans who advocated principles thatran counter to strict party regularity, Cannon usedthe tools of his office to rebuff efforts to pass reformlegislation. However, “[b]y constricting the opportu-nities for individual members . . . to shape Housedecision making, Cannon created an explosive situ-ation where members were willing to attack theHouse to effect change.”44 Indeed, without the insti-tutional means to meet their constituents’ demandsfor assistance, Republican reformers trained theirsights on the chamber’s parliamentary rules andprocedures.45

4. THE LIMITS OF INDEPENDENT ACTION AND INFORMALORGANIZATION

The first attacks against Cannon’s command of Houseproceedings were levied by individual Republican dis-sidents. These sporadic strikes met with little success.Relying on his control of the “right to recognition”and the House Rules Committee, Cannon easily dif-fused their protests. Having failed to achieve reformindependently, the dissidents attempted to work

36. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 70.37. The vast majority of Insurgent members of Congress hailed

from the mid and far West: California, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Min-nesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, andWisconsin. A minority of Insurgents represented districts in themid-Atlantic and New England: Massachusetts, Maryland, NewJersey, New York, Vermont, and West Virginia.

38. Many Union soldiers took advantage of the Homestead Actof 1862 to move westward at the close of the Civil War. As veterans ofthe Grand Army of the Republic, they were confirmed LincolnRepublicans, proclaiming “Vote the way you shot!” Their increasedpresence in western states assured Republicans control of theregion. Hechler, Insurgency, 17.

39. Gretchen Ritter, Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The AntimonopolyTradition and the Politics of Finance in America, 1865–1896(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

40. Overproduction of agricultural commodities, once encour-aged by advocates of western settlement, led to falling prices. ClaireStrom, “James J. Hill: Empire Builder as Farmer,” Minnesota HistoryMagazine 54 (1995): 242–53.

41. For more on the economic circumstances that rooted thepolitical movements of the time, see Richard F. Bensel, The PoliticalEconomy of American Industrialization, 1877–1900 (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 2000); Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform:Farmers, Workers, and the American State 1877–1917 (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1999).

42. According to Nelson, “Bob La Follette was the moving forcebehind this great fight to reform the rules of the House of Repre-sentatives, insofar as it is possible to single out one man who pro-vided the inspiration for a great deal of the movement. It must ofcourse be recognized that no one individual had control over theprogress of the movement, nor was any one individual responsiblefor the crystallization of the discontent in the first rules revolutionof March of 1910, yet La Follette provided much of the impetus.”Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February 5–7,1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1.

43. While populist Democrats were often more radical in theirdemands than progressive Republicans, both movements called forsimilar reforms—with the exception of currency reform. As thejournalist William Allen White described the difference betweenthe two groups: “The Insurgents caught the Populists swimmingand stole all of their clothing except the frayed underdrawers offree silver.” Hechler, Insurgency, 21–22.

44. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 71.45. The western progressive Republicans were joined by a

handful of representatives who, by some accounts, believed parlia-mentary reform would either ease the passage of their favored legis-lation—as was the case for Rep. George A. Pearre (R-MD) and Rep.Charles Fowler (R-NJ)—or promote “good government” morebroadly, as articulated by Rep. Augustus Gardner (R-MA). BlairBolles, Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle Joe Cannon’s Experiment with PersonalPower (New York: Norton & Company, 1951), 174–75.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN8

more collaboratively, first by circulating a petitionand later through private correspondence andimpromptu gatherings on the House floor. In bothinstances, the reformers sought to move beyond aconsensus that changes to House rules were necess-ary, but found that their limited organization wasinsufficient to effectively coordinate and prioritizemembers’ preferences and, in turn, to develop ashared plan of action.

Over the course of the first session of the 60thCongress, calls for parliamentary reform were madeby those legislators who later became the mainstaysof the Insurgent organization.46 Frustrated byCannon’s steadfast refusal to entertain western legis-lators’ private appeals for programmatic relief intheir home states, progressive Republicans Nelsonand Murdock repeatedly spoke out against “theimmense power concentrated in the Speakership.”47

Though their speeches garnered considerablefavor from President Theodore Roosevelt, reform-minded representatives and senators of both parties,and members of the press, they cost both menpolitically.48 Never content to turn a blind eye tothe “slings and arrows” of parliamentary reformor a breach in party regularity, Cannon “vowed

vengeance.”49 From Cannon’s perspective, it was arelatively simple and routine matter to punish indi-vidual dissenters. The Speaker shunted Nelson todead committees and threatened Murdock throughthe Kansas Republican machine.50 Although bothmen objected to Cannon’s actions, neither couldmuster an effective response to lessen or counter hispenalty’s toll.51

More important, reformers Nelson and Murdockwere ill-equipped to overcome the peculiar proceduralfeatures of the House that effectively precluded rulesreform. Parliamentary reformers faced at least threedifferent procedural obstacles. First, the Speaker con-trolled the right to recognition, severely constraininga legislator’s opportunity to mount a protest on theHouse floor. Second, if the Speaker were to grant rec-ognition and a legislator were to introduce an amend-ment to reform House rules, the Committee onRules—packed with members loyal to the Speaker—would have jurisdiction and thus the ability to burythe proposal.52 Third, were the Committee on Rulesto report the resolution to the floor (a very improbablescenario), a single legislator would be unlikely to havethe capacity to forge the cross-party coalition necessaryto win passage. As historian and former member ofCongress Kenneth Hechler observes, Nelson andMurdock would come to see that the “reason theInsurgents needed to throw up a connected series ofbreastworks was their failure to achieve any resultsthrough haphazard individual effort.”53

In March 1908, mindful that the institutionalenvironment necessitated some measure of coordi-nation, Nelson circulated a petition calling “for achange in some of the rules” among like-mindedRepublicans.54 The purpose of the petition wastwofold. First, the reformers needed a politically

46. In the period prior to Joseph Cannon’s tenure as Speakerthere was no lack of objections to House rules. In 1902, for example,Rep. Francis Cushman (R-WA) railed against the chamber’s repres-sive legislative calendar, arguing that House rules enabled partyleaders to push through at least some legislation by arbitrary pro-cedure for partisan or personal benefit. “The Calendar!” hecried, “That is a misnomer. It ought to be called a cemetery. Fortherein lie the whitening bones of legislative hopes.” However, scho-lars generally characterize the speeches leveled against House rulesprior to the Insurgency as disorganized and polemic. Insurgentspeeches, by contrast, were typically dispassionate and analytic. Con-gressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Sess., 1902, 35, 4320.

47. In most instances, Nelson and Murdock were granted rec-ognition to make their speeches during floor debate on appropria-tions bills, where it was House custom for members “to speak on anysubject under the sun.” Nelson explained that the custom for widerecognition when considering appropriations legislation on thefloor acted “as a device to give the members a chance to makespeeches for home consumption, and to ease up the tensioncaused by the powers that be, giving [members] no chance tospeak on bills that [were] really under consideration.” Nelson toHechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” February 13, 1939, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 12.

48. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” February13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 13. Roosevelt’s relation-ship with the Insurgents varied considerably over time. Early inhis first term, Roosevelt vowed to work with Cannon to pushthrough the Republican agenda. In doing so, he achieved amomentary detente with the House leader. When it became clearthat Cannon was intent on obstructing the progressive legislationRoosevelt had made the linchpin of his own agenda, the president’srelationship with the Speaker cooled. By late 1907, Roosevelt soughtto straddle the cleavage between growing public opposition toCannon in the West and the need to maintain a cohesive Republi-can majority for President-elect William Howard Taft. While hewould later be a vigorous proponent of the Insurgent cause, as anelected official Roosevelt proved largely diffident to the organiz-ation—refusing, at one point, even to make introductions to Tafton the group’s behalf.

49. Nelson recounted: “I found out that this speech was sent toUncle Joe Cannon by an obliging enemy. He only laughed and saidthat everybody took a knock at the rules, but just the same he neverforgave me for it, as I found out afterwards.” Nelson to Hechler,“Annotated Interview Notes - Part Two,” February 13, 1939, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.

50. As Nelson explained, “The Cannon crowd vowed ven-geance and I got no favorable committee assignments. I wasplaced upon the Election Committee, No. 2, the Committee onArts and Expositions, and the dead Committee on Pacific Rail-roads.” Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes - PartTwo,” February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10; Con-gressional Record, 60th Congress, 1st Sess., 1907, 42, 426–429;Murdock to White, December 9, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.

51. Cannon’s determination to exact retribution should not betaken as an indication that the reformers posed a credible threat tothe speakership. The institutional impediments to rules reformmade it incredibly unlikely that the men would achieve theirobjective.

52. 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 “1909Feb, 6–7.”

53. Hechler, Insurgency, 194.54. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” February

13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers Box 10, p. 13–14.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 9

sensitive means to identify potential colleagues withwhom to collaborate. Though some, like Norris,approached Nelson and Murdock following theirspeeches in the House, others sympathetic to thecause were cautious to express their support.Second, the early Insurgents sought to commitfellow reformers to action; the petition would act asa contract among members to press for substantivechange. For Nelson, “[T]his was the beginning . . .of the [I]nsurgent movement.”55

In fact, it would prove to be a slow start. Without aclear sense of what “change in some of the rules”entailed, and lacking a plan to guide the reformers’efforts or a means to enforce the petitioners’ pact toprioritize the matter, other concerns took pre-cedence. In western states, surging populist sentimentforecast a strong Democratic year, with Bryan leadingthe ticket. With the 1908 presidential election in fullswing, members of the Republican Party—Insurgentand “Regular” alike—were pressed into service onparty nominee Taft’s behalf.

The results of the 1908 election gave the Insurgentsmuch to celebrate. The GOP maintained its majorityin the House (219–172) and progressive Republicanlosses were few. Swept into office by the tide of westernopinion inimical to Cannon’s rule, a new cohort oflegislators swelled the Insurgents’ ranks. As shownin Table 1, although the majority of Insurgentshailed from midwestern states—seven from Iowa,five from Kansas, four each from Nebraska and Min-nesota, three from Ohio, and nine from Wiscon-sin—roughly a third of the membership drew fromeastern and western delegations, includingVermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Mary-land, California and Washington.56 Were thethirty-odd Insurgents to join with House Democrats,the Republican leadership would lose control of thechamber, making parliamentary reform possible.57

However, building a cross-party coalition wouldrequire a level of organization and commitment to

cooperation the Insurgents lacked. Indeed, theloose federation generated by Nelson’s petition wasinsufficient to compel adherence to any commonplan or strategy.58

Writing several decades after the Cannon Revolt,Norris recalled “that the single objective whichbrought these men together was the taking fromthe Speaker of the vast, brutal power which therules of the House gave him.”59 Though the Insur-gents agreed on the necessity of parliamentaryreform, they remained deeply divided over its pro-spective substance. In letters and impromptu conver-sations on the floor of the House, membersentertained a variety of strategies they hoped wouldbest achieve legislative accord.60 Rep. Miles Poindex-ter (R-WA) and Rep. Charles Fowler (R-NJ) arguedthat removing the Speaker from his seat on the Com-mittee on Rules would be sufficient to end the House

Table 1. Insurgent Membership by State Delegation

Everis A. Hayes (R-CA) Andrew J. Volstead (R-MN)Duncan E. McKinlay (R-CA)∗ Edmund H. Hinshaw (R-NE)Gilbert N. Haugen (R-IA) Moses P. Kinkaid (R-NE)William P. Hepburn (R-IA) George W. Norris (R-NE)Elbert H. Hubbard (R-IA) Ernest M. Pollard (R-NE)∗

James W. Good (R-IA) Charles N. Fowler (R-NJ)Nathan E. Kendall (R-IA) Herbert Parsons (R-NY)∗

Charles E. Pickett (R-IA) Asle J. Gronna (R-ND)Frank P. Woods (R-IA) David A. Hollingsworth

(R-OH)Daniel R. Anthony (R-KS)∗ Leonard P. Howland

(R-OH)∗

Philip P. Campbell (R-KS)∗ Adna R. Johnson (R-OH)Edmond H. Madison (R-KS) David J. Foster (R-VT)Victor Murdock (R-KS) Miles Poindexter (R-WA)Charles F. Scott (R-KS)∗ William J. Cary (R-WI)Augustus P. Gardner (R-MA) Henry Allen Cooper (R-WI)William C. Lovering (R-MA) James H. Davidson (R-WI)George A. Pearre (R-MD)∗ John J. Esch (R-WI)Charles E. Townsend (R-MI)∗ Arthur W. Kopp (R-WI)James C. McLaughlin (R-MI)∗ Gustav Kustermann (R-WI)Charles R. Davis (R-MN) Irvine L. Lenroot (R-WI)Charles A. Lindbergh (R-MN) Elmer A. Morse (R-WI)Halvor Steenerson (R-MN) John M. Nelson (R-WI)

∗ These ten Insurgents were identified as having “cold feet” in thebloc’s February whip count and winter attendance logs. Of the tencongressmen, seven left the Insurgent organization (Scott,Anthony, Campbell, McLaughlin, Pearre, McKinlay, and Foster).Source: Nelson, “Attendance Records” and “Vote on Resolution ofFeb. 9 & 10,” WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10.

55. Sitting behind Nelson just after he had delivered his speechfor parliamentary reform, Norris leaned forward and promised thecongressman: “John, I’ll be with you on that.” Nelson to Hechler,“Miscellaneous Interviews,” February 5–7, 1939, WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 2.

56. Though sectional divisions would rankle the ProgressiveParty a short decade later, there is little archival evidence tosuggest that a single state delegation dominated Insurgent proceed-ings in the House. Indeed, while the Wisconsin delegation boastedthe largest state membership, leadership positions were not distrib-uted in a way that favored that delegation in particular. The Wiscon-sin delegation’s principal influence came insofar as members fromWisconsin typically supported more radical reform measures, andvoted cohesively in their favor. However, Wisconsin members’capacity to dominate the substance of Insurgent proposals waslimited by the reticence of some eastern reformers—whom theInsurgent leadership was unwilling to alienate.

57. At the time, the House numbered 391 members. Because amajority in the House required 196 members, twenty-four Insur-gents would need to cooperate with the opposition to overpowerCannon’s regime.

58. Hechler, Insurgency, 45; Miles Poindexter to NormanHapgood, November 17, 1908, University of Washington Librariesand Special Collections (UWSC), Miles Poindexter Papers, Box 8,Folder “Special Correspondence H.”

59. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 108.60. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February

5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 2.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN10

dictatorship. Among those who believed autocraticcommittee assignments to be the source of legislativediscord, Rep. William Hepburn (R-IA) suggested theSpeaker be allowed to fill no more than one-third ofeach committee’s seats. Others argued this proposalwould unduly restrict the majority party, suggestinginstead that the Speaker appoint no more than three-fifths of all seats. Norris, for his part, proposed thatthe Speaker be stripped of the power of appointmentaltogether. Still others viewed restrictions on recog-nition as the source of Cannon’s authority; some pro-posed changes to the legislative calendar, such thatweekly committees were given the opportunity tointroduce legislation on the floor.61 Rules to dis-charge legislation from committees—in the form ofpetitions or other procedures—were favored asalternatives.62

Nor could the Insurgents reach agreement onmore practical matters of political strategy, as evi-denced by their initial haphazard efforts to challengeCannon for the speakership. Indeed, upon returningto Washington in November 1908, many Insurgentsworked at cross-purposes, promoting a crowd ofnames to oppose Cannon, rather than throwingtheir combined support behind a consensus candi-date.63 Correspondence among Insurgents reveals ahost of competing ambitions, as individuals soughtto solicit support for themselves or regional allies.64

With the opposition to his rule deeply divided,Cannon had little to fear.65 For the Insurgents, the

lesson of their initial campaign was clear: absentorganizational mechanisms to translate members’broad commitment to rules reform into an agreed-upon and actionable plan, their efforts were unlikelyto succeed.

5. THE SEEDS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

Cognizant that prolonged internal wrangling wouldjeopardize their cause, Nelson called a formalmeeting to devise a cohesive strategy for the bloc.66

As Nelson recounted, “All those Republicans whomwe believed favored a change of the rule [wereinvited to attend] . . . We found that they numberedabout thirty-five.”67 In this meeting, and throughoutthe winter of 1908–9, the Insurgents worked to estab-lish rules of procedure and a committee structure tofacilitate the group’s decision making. The Insurgentswere particularly concerned that their most radicalmembers would balk at compromising with thebloc’s more moderate rules reformers and, instead,set out on their own. Accordingly, they implementedseveral mechanisms to bind these and other membersto the organization without resorting to explicit coer-cion. Hoping to redirect the energies of radical dissi-dents into the organization itself, the Insurgentsappointed them to various leadership positionswithin the group. To discourage defection more gen-erally and promote consistency in debate, they reliedon official note taking to record the statements madein conference by Insurgent members as a means forholding them accountable in private, and, if necess-ary, in public. Determined to widen public supportfor rules reform among the electorate, the Insurgentscarefully cultivated relationships with sympatheticnewspaper and magazine editors. As we shall see,these efforts would later prove crucial to the successof the organization; in the summer and fall of 1909,the reformers relied heavily on their relationshipwith the press to reward legislators loyal to the Insur-gency and to punish those who defected from itsranks.

Persuading those amenable to rules reform tobroach the issue without the sanction of the Republi-can caucus proved difficult. Potential Insurgents

61. Hechler, Insurgency, 45.62. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 135; “Hepburn May Contest,” The

Washington Post, December 2, 1908, p.1; Poindexter to TheodoreBurton, November 10, 1908, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8,Folder “A Special Correspondence.” See also Poindexter to W. H.W. Rees, November 24, 1908, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8,Folder “Correspondence P and Q.”

63. One might think that the Insurgents believed Cannonwould be reelected and that, consequently, there would be littlevalue in devoting resources to a unified campaign. However, Insur-gent correspondence suggests otherwise; letters reveal thatmembers believed speed of entry into the race was the primary vari-able in determining a rival candidate’s success. Poindexter toHapgood, November 17, 1908, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8,Folder “Special Correspondence H.”

64. While Fowler flooded the mail with pleas for support in hisbid for the speakership, western Insurgents busily mobilizedaround local candidates. Fowler to Poindexter, November 6, 1908,UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8, Folder “Special CorrespondenceA”; Poindexter to Fowler, November 14, 1908, UWSC, PoindexterPapers, Box 8, Folder “Special Correspondence A”; William EwartHumphrey to Poindexter, December 7, 1908, UWSC, PoindexterPapers, Box 8, Folder “Special Correspondence A.”

65. With the Insurgents divided, Cannon sought to clinch hiscontrol of the speakership for another term by persuading theWhite House to remain neutral on the matter. Cannon had somereason to fear that either President Roosevelt or President-electTaft would intervene on the progressive Republicans’ behalf, asthe Speaker had proved a liability in the West. Dispatching hisclose confidant, Vice President-elect James Sherman, to speakwith Taft and Roosevelt, Cannon convinced the White House thatinterfering in the battle over House rules would derail the party’scapacity to implement its legislative agenda. Unbeknownst to the

Insurgents, Taft withdrew his support of their budding cause.Shortly after the 1908 election, Poindexter wrote to President-electTaft, urging him to consider supporting the bid of a progressiveRepublican to replace Cannon as Speaker. Taft did not respond.See Hechler, Insurgency, 44; Poindexter to Taft, November 10,1908, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 8.

66. As Hechler observes, “Political strategy should have dic-tated a firm cohesion as the prime necessity of the Insurgents,but they failed to come to any agreement and thus lost much oftheir bargaining power.” Hechler, Insurgency, 45.

67. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” February13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 14. Other accounts,including that of Hechler, hold that the group numbered nomore than twenty-five.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 11

feared the consequences of open participation in agroup that sought to defy the Speaker, well awarethat Cannon had dealt harshly with party dissidentsin the past.68 Answering this set of concerns rep-resented a key organizational challenge for the Insur-gency. A solution presented itself when, after somediscussion, Hepburn volunteered to host the Insur-gent meetings in his committee room. Though a“dyed-in-the-wool machine man on other issues,”Hepburn believed strongly in the importance of par-liamentary reform and the decentralization of poweraway from the Speaker.69 Hepburn’s party orthodoxyon other matters reassured would-be participants thattheir involvement in the rules reform effort would notdamage their Republican credentials. Moreover, as anestablished figure in the Republican hierarchy, thecongressman’s presence offered cover for Insurgentsapprehensive about Cannon’s possible response.70

Meeting in Hepburn’s committee room in earlyDecember 1908, the Insurgents agreed that thefirst step must be to define the scope and nature ofthe parliamentary reforms they would collectivelypursue. To this end, the group elected a regionallyand politically diverse subcommittee, led byHepburn, to identify and prioritize the possiblechanges to House rules.71 The following week theInsurgents reconvened to hear the subcommittee’sreport. The subcommittee identified House commit-tee assignments and the legislative calendar as initialtargets for reform. First, the subcommittee proposedthat the House appoint a committee of nine memberswho would be charged with making assignments tostanding committees.72 Second, to ensure that

legislation flowed freely from committees to theHouse floor, they recommended that two free daysbe allocated each week during which the Speakerwould be required to call upon each committee toreport out legislation.73 By instituting these “calendardays,” the reformers hoped to increase floor access,particularly for less powerful committees.

In subsequent meetings in January 1909, the Insur-gents debated the merits of the subcommittee’sreport and the substance of its proposals. Althoughthe group agreed on the importance of reformingcommittee assignment procedure, members dividedover how drastic the changes should be. Hard-linereformers like Norris insisted that the Speaker beexplicitly stripped of his power to assign committeeseats, whereas others believed party leaders oughtto work together with a proposed new House-appointed “Committee on Committees.” Ultimately,the bloc agreed with Norris, voting 18–5 in supportof completely divesting the Speaker of appointmentauthority.

In an effort to address what some western Insur-gents believed to be the outsized influence ofeastern industrial and finance capital interestswithin the Republican coalition, the reformersdecided to make geographical representation anexplicit part of their agenda. To this end, the Insur-gents proposed that when appointing members tothe Committee on Rules, each legislator’s regionalaffiliation be taken into account. Concerned thatthe Speaker might continue to exert influence inthis domain, Norris sought to imbue regional del-egations with the authority to directly elect one repre-sentative apiece, proposing to the Insurgents “that theCommittee on Rules should be elected by the mem-bership of the House from geographical divisions.”74

In the end, the group decided that the Committee onRules, with a mechanism in place to ensure that itsmembership would be regionally representative,would also assume the duties of the proposed“Committee on Committees” and assign committee

68. One local Kansas politician counseled Murdock againstbreaking with Cannon, even for the sake of pleasing his constitu-ents: “As you will have ‘Uncle Joe’ on your neck up there—staywith him, we will protect your rear.” J. A. Burnette to Murdock,December 23, 1908, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 21, Folder“B.” However, for some would-be Insurgents, Cannon’s penchantfor punishment motivated their membership. Nelson explained,“I won Gussie Gardner over to our side in the fight on the Rules,by pointing out to him the injustices which Cannon had done tohim personally, in the way of removing him from his committeechairmanship.” Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” Feb-ruary 5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 5.

69. According to Nelson, “In many caucuses, Hepburn wouldarise and read the riot act to Uncle Joe, but when the vote wastaken and afterward, Hepburn would inevitably submit to theparty steamroller and remain regular.” Nelson to Hechler, “Miscel-laneous Interviews,” February 5–7, 1939, Wisconsin HistoricalSociety, John Mandt Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 3.

70. According to Murdock, “It was only through the use of theheadquarters of Hepburn, a dyed-in-the-wool machine man onother issues, that most . . . consented to attend.” Hechler, Insurgency,195.

71. The committee consisted of Rep. William Hepburn (R-IA),Rep. Charles Townsend (R-MI), Rep. Henry Cooper (R-WI), Rep.Everis Hayes (R-CA), and Rep. David Foster (R-VT).

72. The text of the Insurgent proposal: “The House shall electat the commencement of each Congress the following standingcommittees . . . The House shall select a committee of ninemembers whose duty it shall be to nominate to the House the

proper number of Representatives and delegates to constitute theabove committees.” Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” December 16,1908, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1.

73. The text of the Insurgent proposal: “On each Tuesday andThursday, the Speaker shall call the committees . . . and such callshall not be omitted unless by a vote on the day the House shallconsent to such omission.” Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” December16, 1908, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1–2.

74. In the Insurgents’ final resolution, voted on in February1909, the proposed Committee on Rules and Committees wouldconsist of fifteen members: nine majority members, six minoritymembers. By contrast, the Norris Resolution offered on theHouse floor in March 1910 called for eight majority membersand seven minority members to be appointed to the proposedCommittee on Rules and Committees. Nelson, “MeetingMinutes,” January 18, 1909, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1–2.Meeting minutes suggest that no further action was taken on theNorris proposal at this time. Nelson, “February 4th Resolution,”February 4, 1909, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 3.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN12

seats.75 Unlike concern over the role of the Speaker,which divided the Insurgents, prioritizing geographi-cal representation proved to be an appealing andpopular notion, as members from all states stood tobenefit from a procedural guarantee of regionalinterests.76

Over the course of these winter meetings, theInsurgents developed a series of internal organiz-ational procedures. For expediency’s sake, thegroup agreed to formally adopt the basic structureof the typical congressional conference. Committeeswould be created to manage discrete tasks, reportingtheir progress at regularly held member-wide meet-ings.77 Attendees would follow basic rules of parlia-mentary order, and one individual would act aschair to settle disputes and keep matters germane.Though the duty of chair would rotate amongmembers, Nelson was appointed permanent secretaryof the House Insurgency. As secretary, Nelson wasresponsible for calling meetings, arranging meetingspace, keeping detailed meeting minutes, andoccasionally acting as whip for the group.

These organizational choices promoted two criticalobjectives. In part, these duties facilitated group effi-ciency: with logistics accounted for, members couldfocus on the substantive business at hand. But thesesame features also furthered collective action. AsNelson explained:

[I] kept very complete minutes of all of themeetings; Murdock once objected to thiswhile I was reading the minutes, but I realizedthat only by recording every motion andspeech could all of the members of ourgroup be tied together and kept from driftingback. Another technique was to give certainpeople committee chairmanships to maintaintheir interest; thus Murdock was made Chair-man of the Publicity Committee.78

Nelson’s account makes clear that Insurgent leaderswere concerned about two potential sources of defec-tion from their ranks. On the one hand, some Insur-gent members might be persuaded to return toCannon’s fold, unwilling or unable to bear the costsof achieving rules reform. To prevent thesemembers from “drifting back,” the Insurgent leader-ship kept careful records of their debate proceedings,so that any individuals who might consider abandon-ing the cause could be reminded of their initial com-mitment to reform. On the other hand, the Insurgentleaders initially feared the defection of members whowere deeply committed to a specific vision of rulesreform and unwilling to compromise to ensuregroup cohesion.79 To prevent these individuals fromabandoning the Insurgent cause, the bloc’s leadershipsought to deepen their investment in the organization,as well as the cause—offering them leadership pos-itions “to maintain their interest,” and provide anoutlet for their entrepreneurial proclivities.80

Though anxious to unify their bloc, the Insurgentsnevertheless sought to preserve a meaningful degreeof autonomy for individual members. Attentive to thepotential contradictions of modeling the Insurgentbloc on the centralized authority of the Republicanmachine, the group tried to reflect in its organiz-ational design a critique of the party structure it wasseeking to reform. Indeed, as Hechler argues, indesigning the bloc’s administrative arrangements,the Insurgents were keenly aware that “centralizingpower and authority in one leader . . . would beaping the very organization that they were fightingin the House.”81 Although majority votes weredeemed acceptable during internal debates over thesubstantive details of the Insurgents’ proposed resol-ution, the majority would not be permitted todictate how individual members would vote if the res-olution were to reach the chamber floor.

The Insurgents also declined to implement organ-izational mechanisms that would empower thegroup’s leadership to enforce collective behavior.8275. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 26, 1909, WHS, Nelson

Papers, Box 10, p. 1–2. Members debated whether the Committeeon Rules ought to be the same committee that was tasked withassigning committee positions, and whether members on eithercommittee could simultaneously sit on a standing committee. Ina series of close votes, it was decided that the Committee onRules would also assign committee seats, but that membership onthe proposed “Committee on Rules and Committees” would notpreclude legislators from sitting on other standing committees.

76. Eastern Insurgents had perhaps the most to lose from amore equitable regional distribution of power in the House, asthe region tended to dominate House proceedings. Nelson’smeeting minutes, however, reveal that this group of reformersbelieved that the status quo favored stand-pat eastern interestsand limited their own access to the chamber’s most powerfuloffices. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 26, 1909, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 1–2. See also Hechler, Insurgency, 41–42.

77. The Insurgents eventually formed a Committee on Pro-cedure, a Committee on Publicity, a Committee on Recruitment,and a Steering or Executive Committee to direct the group’sstrategy.

78. Nelson, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February 5–7, 1939,WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 7. See also Hechler, Insurgency, 196.

79. Nelson, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February 5–7, 1939,WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 7–8.

80. More broadly, the Insurgents’ attention to matters oforganization as a means of structuring consistent participation,ideological cohesion, and common strategy suggests a sort of insti-tutional isomorphism between parties and their constitutive intra-party organizations. Indeed, the Insurgents’ use of theseparty-like mechanisms to keep group members invested in their col-lective objective is striking. Whereas it is probably not the case thatintraparty organizations are simply “nascent parties within parties,seeking to pour new wine into old bottles,” the fact that Insurgentorganizers looked to their party coalition for structural inspirationsuggests 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.

81. Hechler, Insurgency, 195.82. Murdock to White, August 1, 1910, LOC, White Papers,

Box 4.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 13

Rather, the Insurgents hoped that knowledgethat unity was the bloc’s singular point of leveragewould be sufficient to motivate consensus andcooperation.83 Indeed, in the months preceding theopening of the 61st Congress in March 1909, theInsurgents carefully screened members of the incom-ing congressional class to ensure that new recruitswould not threaten the group’s hard-won consensus.Representing western, midwestern, and eastern inter-ests, respectively, Rep. Everis A. Hayes (R-CA),Murdock, and Rep. George Pearre (R-MD) distribu-ted literature on rules reform to newly elected Repub-lican members of Congress, and correspondedindividually with interested legislators to assess their“sympathy with [Insurgent] principles . . . and[their] support of this movement.” In so doing, theInsurgents were able to incorporate those newmembers who supported the substance of the organ-ization’s desired reforms.84

During this period, the Insurgents met frequentlyto develop a strategy for winning passage of their par-liamentary reforms. As Rep. Ernest Pollard (R-NE)reported from the Committee on Procedure, theyhad not yet found a way to bring up the proposedrules changes for consideration with the Speaker’sconsent. However, Pollard suggested it might be poss-ible to offer “amendments to some proposed rule ofthe Committee on Rules, and then vot[e] to over-turnthe decision of the Speaker” that the rules amend-ments were out of order. Pollard believed thatforcing a vote against the Speaker on a ruling at anytime in the congressional session might be used tosecure certain concessions from the majority leader-ship. After considerable discussion of Pollard’s idea,the Insurgents agreed that “it would be unwise todo anything revolutionary.”85 Better to wait for theopening of the new Congress in March 1909, whenthe rules would once again come up for adoption.Though the evidence is only suggestive, one maywonder whether Norris recalled Pollard’s proposalwhen, a year later, he offered his own resolution onthe House floor with the aim of overthrowing theSpeaker.86

Though the majority of the Insurgents’ formal con-ferences were devoted to debating the substance andlogistics of procedural change, a subsection of thegroup coordinated with their colleagues in theSenate to rally public opinion in favor of reformmeasures.87 Throughout the Insurgent campaign,reformers with strong ties to popular progressiveRepublican newspapers and magazines workedtogether with sympathetic journalists outside thehalls of Congress to “spread sentiment against thepresent House rules” and to dispel allegations madeagainst the bloc by “stand-pat” newspapers.88

For their part, progressive newspapers and maga-zines routinely commissioned Insurgent members towrite articles describing their activities in Congressand explaining the rationale behind their reformefforts.89 They also encouraged their readership towrite to Cannon, imploring the Speaker to acquiesceto the Insurgent cause. These efforts culminated in acampaign by Success Magazine, a widely read nationalpublication during this period, to document publicsupport for rules reform and opposition to thepresent Speakership. Success Magazine mailed ballotsto 22,500 of its subscribers, asking recipients to voteon proposed rules reform measures and to evaluateCannon’s and Taft’s performances in office.90

83. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 10, 1910, WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 3.

84. Poindexter to Murdock, February 20, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 22, Folder “Poindexter, Miles”; William P. Sheffield toMurdock, February 16, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22,Folder “Sheffield, William Paine”; Irving L. Lenroot to Murdock,February 16, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 22, Folder“Lenroot, I. L.”

85. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” February 8, 1909, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10.

86. In contrast to Pollard, Norris recognized that Cannon’sruling on constitutional privilege provided an opening to bringhis resolution to the floor. However, in Norris’s view, the criticalfactor was giving the House the chance to overturn the Speaker,thus devolving decision-making authority to the chamber body.“The entire membership knew with equal sureness that Mr.Cannon would sustain that point of order [against Norris’s right

to propose his resolution], and that I would appeal at once. It wasthen up to the House to decide whether my resolution was in order,and whether the House desired to consider it.” Norris, FightingLiberal, 115–16.

87. Although the House Insurgents received little counselfrom their Senate counterparts on most aspects of their reformefforts, there is strong archival evidence that the two organizationscoordinated on matters of press. La Follette and Murdock corre-sponded frequently to share news reports, material to be printed,and “story pitches.” Even early on in the Insurgent campaign, thetwo chamber organizations worked closely together; in October1908, La Follette wrote to Murdock urging the congressman torun Insurgent editorials previously printed in La Follette Magazinein Kansas newspapers. F.W. Mackenzie to Murdock, October 22,1908, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 21, Folder “M.”

88. Charles F. Scott to Alex Butts, November 14, 1908, LOC,Murdock Papers, Box 21, Folder “S”; Lawrence F. Abbott toMurdoch, 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, Robert J.” BothMurdock and La Follette, who had left his post as governor of Wis-consin in January 1906 to serve the state as a senator, edited suchpublications.

89. Haskell to Murdock, December 20, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 22, Folder “Haskell, Henry J.”

90. The text of the Success Magazine ballot: “Please mail thisballot to SUCCESS MAGAZINE immediately . . . Answers to thequestions below will be regarded by SUCCESS MAGAZINE as absol-utely confidential as regards authorship. (1.) With what politicalparty are you in general sympathy? (2.) For what Presidential candi-date did you vote in November, 1908? (3.) Do you now believe thatyour vote was wisely cast? (4.) Are you satisfied with the first ninemonths [sic] experience in the administration of President Taft?(5.) Do you approve the position of Senator Aldrich in the recenttariff legislation? (6.) Do you approve the position of SpeakerCannon in the recent tariff legislation? (7.) Do you approve the pos-ition of President Taft in the recent tariff legislation? (8.) Is it your

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN14

Readers were asked to return the completed ballots tothe magazine at their own expense. The magazinereceived an astonishing number of completedballots— more than 18,000— along with hundredsof letters from readers articulating their views on par-liamentary procedure, Speaker Cannon, and the Taftadministration.

After compiling the results of its informal publicopinion poll, Success consulted with Insurgent

members “on the question of getting the largest poss-ible influence on the figures by method of presen-tation to Congress.”91 Ultimately, in addition topublishing the results of the survey in their magazine,the editors of Success decided to provide a copy toevery member of Congress and to the White House(as summarized in Table 2).92 At a time when inter-continental correspondence was costly and modernpublic opinion polling did not yet exist, Success Maga-zine’s national campaign was a very impressive achieve-ment. Moreover, the effort provides evidence for theunique partnership between congressional reformersand progressive members of the press.

At the close of February 1909, the Insurgentsworked to finalize the resolution they would presentat the opening of the new Congress the followingweek. After months of revision, the final resolutiondenied the Speaker membership on any standing orconference committee, and expanded the size andscope of the Committee on Rules to accommodate

Table 2. Selected Results of the Success Magazine Survey

Question Republican Respondents Democratic Respondents

Do you approve the position ofSpeaker Cannon in the recenttariff legislation?

Yes: 7% (490)No: 93% (6,485)Total votes cast: 6,975

Yes: 2% (40)No: 98% (2,447)Total votes cast: 2,487

Is it your desire that President Taftshould support and cooperatewith Senator Aldrich and SpeakerCannon in the general publicpolicies which they represent?

Yes: 10% (689)No: 90% (6,293)Total votes cast: 6,982

Are you satisfied with the first ninemonths’ experience in theadministration of President Taft?

Yes: 55% (3,092)No: 44% (2,490)Total votes cast: 5,582

Yes: 20% (500)No: 80% (2,053)Total votes cast: 2,553

Question InsurgentDistrict

Stand-PatDistrict

“Cold Feet”District

DemocraticDistrict

Do you approve the position ofyour Representative inCongress in the Speakershipcontest last spring?

Yes: 90% (550)No: 10% (62)Total votescast: 612

Yes: 14% (33)No: 86% (199)Total votescast: 232

Yes: 15% (22)No: 85% (121)Total votescast: 143

Yes: 31% (10)No: 69% (22)Total votescast: 32

Would you vote for yourRepresentative of Congress ifthere should be another electionthis month provided that hewere opposed by a reputableman of the opposite party?

Yes: 93% (191)No: 7% (14)Total votescast: 205

Yes: 23% (157)No: 77% (522)Total votescast: 679

Blank cells indicate cases where the data were not tabulated by the editors of Success.Source: “Is President Taft Leader or Follower in His Party?” Success Magazine, January 1910, pp. 31–32.

desire that President Taft should support and co-operate withSenator Aldrich and Speaker Cannon in the general public policieswhich they represent? (9.) Do you desire that he should opposethem? (10.) Who is your Representative in Congress? (11.) Towhat political party does he belong? (12.) Did he support JosephG. Cannon for Speaker of the House, and in the fight on therules at the beginning of the special session? (13.) Do youapprove his position in the Speakership contest? (14.) Would youvote for him if there should be another election this month, pro-vided that he were opposed by a reputable man of the oppositeparty? (15.) Is it your desire that he support the administrationand policies of Speaker Cannon, or would you prefer that heoppose them?” Readers were asked to record their name, state,and city or town on the ballot. “Questions to Success MagazineMembers of Auxiliary Editorial Board,” 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 23, Folder “Success Magazine.”

91. Higgins to Murdock, December 3, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 23, Folder “Success Magazine.”

92. “Is President Taft Leader or Follower in His Party?” SuccessMagazine, January 1910, p. 31.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 15

greater political and geographical representation.93

Members of the newly designated Committee onRules and Committees would be selected by represen-tatives grouped together into geographical regions,such that each region would select one legislator tojoin the Committee. Thus constituted, the Committeewould appoint House members to all other standingcommittees. Additional provisions specified thedetails of the revised legislative calendar.94 Withonly a few modifications, this resolution—drafted,debated, and passed by the Insurgents in 1909—would be submitted to the House by Norris oneyear later.95

6. COLD FEET: A SETBACK FOR THE INSURGENCY

Up to this point, the Insurgents had managed tobalance the need for coordination and consensuswith the preservation of individual opinion. Thecrucial vote to adopt the Insurgent resolution upsetthis hard-won equilibrium; Nelson’s written whipcount for the resolution reveals a growing reticencewithin a significant fraction of the Insurgent member-ship. To the surprise of Insurgent leaders, the individ-uals balking at the reform proposal were not thegroup’s most radical dissidents—whose stridentviews had long been feared as an obstacle to compro-mise—but rather the bloc’s moderate membership.Scribbling “cold foot” next to eleven names, Nelsonidentified a contingent of Insurgents who believedthe proposed reforms to be overly broad andextreme.96 Though the Insurgents had successfullykept their radical members in line, the group’sinternal vote revealed a new fracture. The reformerswould have to find new institutional tools to managethis unexpected challenge.

The reticence of “cold foot” Insurgents discour-aged the bloc’s leaders. Why were members abandon-ing their commitment to parliamentary reform nowthat the resolution was finally drafted? Had the Insur-gent leaders ignored seeds of discord sown monthsbefore, and were only now seeing them bear fruit?Nelson believed that the Insurgents had long har-bored a subset of members ultimately indifferent torules reform, but he had also assumed they wouldnot have remained with the bloc for so long hadthey intended to defect. For his part, Murdock

blamed the Regular Republicans, arguing thatCannon had coerced more vulnerable Insurgents—legislators with sizable stand-pat constituencies,pending legislation before the House, or patronagerequests for which Cannon’s favor would be necess-ary—to return to the party’s Old Guard.97 In theend, twenty-nine Insurgents joined in signing the res-olution, eight of the ten “cold foot” members votedfor a resolution pertaining only to the legislativecalendar, and seven then seceded from the group.98

With its membership thus diminished, the Insur-gents’ successful pursuit of rules reform nowdepended on every member of the Democratic min-ority voting in favor of the measure.99

The divisive internal vote proved to be a criticalmoment of realization for Insurgent leaders. ForNelson and his colleagues, it was a reminder thatmere agreement on the group’s broad goal of parlia-mentary reform would not be sufficient to securethe measure’s passage. By design, the organizationwas ill prepared to enforce discipline or voting regu-larity in its ranks. Unwilling to compromise individualautonomy by implementing a binding majority vote,the Insurgents insisted that collective action beassured without coercive measures. Despite this,Nelson and fellow members of the Steering Commit-tee concluded that they needed new ways to incenti-vize cohesion and prevent future eleventh-hourdefections.100

For others, the vote underscored the continuedpower of the party leadership and the correspondingweakness of the Insurgent organization to defenditself from the Speaker’s incursion. Murdock, forone, recognized that Cannon could continue toweaken the organization by siphoning off individualmembers or small groups of members over time.Rep. Henry Allen Cooper (R-WI) shared Murdock’sconcern, and believed that the Democratic leader-ship would not view the bloc as a credible ally forthis precise reason.101 And, without the support ofthe Democratic minority, the Insurgents’ revision ofHouse rules would be impossible to achieve.

But despite the divisions laid bare by the internalvote on their reform resolution, the Insurgents’coordination and resolve impressed the Democraticleadership. Initially concerned that the Insurgentswould seek compromise with the Speaker, securinglittle for the minority party, the bloc’s size andorganization now persuaded the Democratic

93. The resolution created a “Committee on Rules and Com-mittees to consist of fifteen members, nine of whom shall belongto the party having the largest representation in the House andsix of whom shall belong to the party or parties having lesser rep-resentation in the House.” Nelson, “Feb. 1909 Resolution, Anno-tated,” WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10.

94. Nelson, “Feb. 1909 Resolution, Annotated,” WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10.

95. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.

96. Nelson, “Vote on Resolution of Feb. 9 & 10,” WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10.

97. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” February13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 14.

98. Hechler, Insurgency, 46–47.99. At the close of the 60th Congress, the bloc of twenty-nine

Insurgents required the full Democratic minority (167 members)to break the Republican majority (223 members), 196 to 194.

100. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.

101. Hechler, Insurgency, 48–49.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN16

leadership that a profitable alliance could be formedwith the remaining twenty-nine Insurgents.102

Together, the Insurgent bloc and the Democraticminority would constitute a chamber majoritycapable of enacting parliamentary reform. In thedays before the start of the 61st Congress, MinorityLeader James “Champ” Clark (D-MO) workedclosely with the Insurgent Steering Committee—Nelson, Rep. Augustus Gardner (R-MA), and Rep.Edmond Madison (R-KS)—to decide upon a jointplan of action.103 The legislators agreed to pressfor the adoption of the Insurgent resolutionduring the perfunctory adoption of House rules atthe opening of the new Congress.104 If the Insur-gency remained unified and the cross-party coalitionheld, reform would be assured. If, instead, the Insur-gents divided over the resolution on the floor, theDemocrats made clear the consequence. Writing toMurdock, Clark’s clerk warned: “The Democratswill stand fast if the insurgents muster their forces .. . if the latter lose their courage and fail that day,there will be no use for them to get Democratic aidlater on.”105

7. FRACTURING THE CROSS-PARTY INITIATIVE FORRULES REFORM

Before the coalition could act on its plan, however,the Republican Regulars surprised the House by pro-posing a resolution to establish a legislative calendarvery similar to that favored by the eight “mild” Insur-gents.106 Just as the Regulars intended, the “CalendarWednesday” proposal widened the breach betweenthe militant Insurgents intent on stripping theSpeaker of his power to appoint committees and themore moderate reformers who sought a morelimited intervention. Drawing laughter on theHouse floor, Murdock characterized the resolutionas “a Trojan Horse . . . and sticking out of thepaunch of that horse I think I see several notable

cold feet.”107 Though the Democrats and Insurgentleaders denounced the resolution, many membersof both parties were hard pressed to oppose the Regu-lars’ proposal. The eight men who preferred limitingrules changes to the legislative calendar sided withthe Republican machine, along with two other “coldfoot” Insurgents identified by Nelson in his Februarywhip count. Despite uniform Democratic opposition,the Insurgent bloc was too small in size to prevent theRegulars’ resolution from passing by a slim majority,168–163.108

Meeting in Hepburn’s committee room followingthe vote, the Insurgents agreed that they had muchto learn from Cannon’s victory and the “cold foot”defections from their ranks. On the one hand, theepisode made clear that the Insurgent organizationcould not withstand attrition by small concessions.Unless the Insurgents could find a way to preventthe majority leadership from picking off the group’smore moderate members, the bloc would cease tobe pivotal. On the other hand, the slim majority ofthe recent vote suggested that the Insurgents’ cross-party alliance might be sufficient to break the Speak-er’s hold on the House. Had the Insurgents pre-vented just three of their members from defecting,the Speaker’s majority would have fallen.109

For students of congressional politics, this episodereveals at least two details of theoretical significance.First, Cannon’s careful pursuit of less radical refor-mers suggests that the Speaker considered someportion of the Insurgent membership to be criticalto maintaining a Republican majority. In this view,the moderate reformers Cannon targeted were, asindividuals, pivotal to the policy outcome. Had theynot defected from the bloc, the entire Insurgentgroup would have been pivotal—the reformers’unity would have assured Cannon’s defeat.

Second, Cannon’s tactical concession to fracturethe Insurgent bloc speaks to the danger ofco-optation for intraparty organizations. By incorpor-ating a relatively innocuous part of the Insurgentagenda into Republican doctrine, the Speakerforced the bloc into a quandary: either the Insurgentscould require those members who would have beensatisfied with Cannon’s concession to stick with theirmore radical colleagues to secure a better outcome,or the organization could permit members to voteas they saw fit. In either event, Insurgent cohesionwas likely to fray considerably, suggesting that

102. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76.103. 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.

104. Nelson explained the nature of the cross-party collabor-ation: “We only agreed to stand together on this issue and not onparty policies generally.” Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated InterviewNotes,” February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 16.

105. Wallace D. Bassford to Higgins (and forwarded to VictorMurdock), March 9, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23, Folder“Success Magazine.”

106. The eight-man Insurgent resolution and the RegularRepublicans’ proposal differed in two respects. One, the lattersought to make the calendar day for the call of legislation fromcommittees Wednesday rather than Tuesday. Two, the Regularswanted to allow the “Calendar Wednesday” to be set aside by amajority, rather than two-thirds, vote, as the Insurgents preferred.

107. Congressional Record, 60th Congress, 2nd Sess., 1909, 43,3570.

108. Congressional Record, 60th Congress, 2nd Sess., 1909, 43,3572. It appears that the Democratic leadership determined that,as a matter of principle, the Insurgents could not be held accoun-table for dividing over the “concession resolution.” Democraticleaders were sympathetic toward the mild, less radical Insurgents,who, they believed, were bound to support any reform proposal,regardless of its origins.

109. Hechler, Insurgency, 49.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 17

co-optation is an efficient strategy for party leaderslooking to weaken intraparty organization. However,the Insurgent case also suggests that there are limitsto the appeal of co-optation as a means of undermin-ing intraparty organization. As the preferences ofmild, less radical members of the intraparty organiz-ation diverge farther from those of party leaders,the larger the concession the party will need tooffer to break these members’ allegiance to thebloc. Additionally, to the extent that an intrapartyorganization’s more radical members are able tokeep more moderate concessions off the bloc’sagenda, these members can reduce the potentialrisk of co-optation by party leaders.

Anxious to further fracture the nascentInsurgent-Democratic coalition before the Houseprepared to adopt new rules, Cannon petitioned Pre-sident Taft for aid. The Speaker persuaded the presi-dent that the Insurgents’ proposal for rules reformwould destroy the machinery necessary to pass theupcoming tariff bill and other critical Republicanlegislation.110 Confronting the Insurgent leadershipin a meeting at the White House, Taft condemnedthe bloc for “conniv[ing]” with Democrats “to over-throw the House Organization.”111 Though the Insur-gents tried to assure the president that they had nointention of disrupting the passage of tariff legis-lation, Taft remained unconvinced.112 Leaving theWhite House, Nelson described the group’s newlyformed consensus on Taft: “We realized then thathe was against us.”113 Even Democrats marveled at

Taft’s commitment to Cannon and the stand-patfaction of the Republican Party. As a clerk in Clark’soffice observed: “much pressure is being brought tobear by Cannon and his forces and by Taft, who hasgone over bag and baggage to the reactionaries.”114

Taft’s opposition to the Insurgent bloc fortifiedCannon and offered new means to discipline theparty’s dissenting faction. Indeed, in the days that fol-lowed their tense meeting with the president, theInsurgents found that “the whole administration wasbrought to bear against [them].” The White Housethreatened to withhold patronage, the RepublicanNational Committee promised to mount primarychallenges and limit campaign assistance, and sena-tors from Insurgent states pressed their counterpartsin the House to abandon the fight and rejoin theSpeaker.115

To Cannon’s and Taft’s surprise, the Insurgent blocproved remarkably resistant in the face of the admin-istration’s assault.116 In part, as we have seen, theInsurgents’ solidarity can be attributed to thesupport and encouragement of the progressivepress, which the reformers had carefully cultivatedin the preceding months. The editors of McClure’sMagazine, Everybody’s Magazine, American Magazine,The Outlook, and Collier’s Weekly—national publicationswith some of the widest circulations in the country—privately urged the bloc to continue fighting against“Cannonism.”117 In print, they excoriated theSpeaker and ran in-depth features on Insurgentmembers, extolling their efforts against Cannon andbranding them American patriots. The close voteover the Regulars’ legislative calendar resolutionfurther bolstered the Insurgents’ resolve to holdtogether.118 Despite their loss, the Insurgents

110. Explaining his position to progressive Republican journal-ist and newspaper editor White, Taft wrote: “I have got to regard theRepublican party as the instrumentality through which to try toaccomplish something. When, therefore, certain Republicansdecline to go into a caucus, and stand out 30 against 190, itwould be the sacrifice of every interest I represent to side withthe [I]nsurgents, however much sympathy I may feel with the prin-ciple in respect to the House rules that they seek to carry out. Veryearly in the campaign I thought of encouraging a movement to beatCannon, but I found that he was so strongly intrenched [sic] withthe membership of the House that that was impossible. I thentried to secure some modification of the rules, and I am not at allsure that if the [I]nsurgents remained in the caucus we mightnot do something of the sort, because there were a great many inthe caucus who sympathize with the principle; but the difficultywhich the thirty [I]nsurgents are going to find, in my judgment,is that Cannon will be able to control enough Democrats todefeat them on the vote, and then they will be left utterly in thehole.” Taft to White, March 12, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.

111. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 18.

112. Hechler, Insurgency, 51–53. Whereas Roosevelt hadencouraged the fractious progressive elements in the RepublicanParty, and resented Cannon’s tariff policy, President Taft viewedthe “test of Republicanism” as “compliance with the party plat-form.” Cannon’s expressed commitment to implement the Repub-lican platform—as he professed to Taft: “I am willing to aid you tocarry out the party’s pledges”—merged the two leaders’ interests.Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 303.

113. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, Wisconsin Historical Society, John Mandt NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 18.

114. Bassford to Higgins (and forwarded to Murdock), March9, 1909, LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23, Folder “Success Magazine.”

115. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 18–19.

116. As Nelson recounted: “Mr. Gardner, Mr. Madison, andmyself agreed to stick to the fight but we wondered what the boyswould do. One by one the boys dropped in or called up by tele-phone. I did not find one coward . . . there were no cold feet inthe crowd.” Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Feb-ruary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 20.

117. In a joint letter to the Insurgents, the editors stated thattheir readership exceeds five million Americans across the UnitedStates. “News Endorsement,” 1909, Wisconsin Historical Society,John Mandt Nelson Papers, Box 10. Writing to Murdock, theeditor of American Magazine promised: “Some of us periodicalmen are sending you a round robin of encouragement today bywire. All power to the elbows of you and your fellows in thisfight.” Phillips to Murdock, March 15, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 22, Folder “Phillips, John S.”

118. It may be tempting to think that the Insurgents’ greatercohesion is attributable to the group’s improved ideological agree-ment—having lost more moderate members to the Regulars.However, the substance of debates recorded in meeting minutessuggests that “radical” members were not homogenous in their pre-ferences for parliamentary reform. Moreover, there was strong dis-agreement among the remaining Insurgents over the extent towhich the bloc should cooperate with the Democratic minority.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN18

believed themselves well positioned to cast the decid-ing votes on rules reform.119

Cannon, however, had other plans. While theInsurgents looked forward to victory, the Speakerquietly negotiated a series of backroom deals withDemocrats to forge a majority coalition opposed tosignificant changes in House rules.120 The Speakerawarded tariff favors, promised top committee assign-ments, and agreed to a few minor rules changes thatenhanced minority rights in order to secure sixteenDemocratic votes against the Insurgent-Democraticresolution amending House procedure, andanother seven defectors to enact Cannon’s approvedrules reform.121 Using distributive politics to build analternative cross-party coalition, Cannon reallocatedthe pivotal votes from the Insurgents to this groupof defecting Democrats.122

On March 15, 1909, the Insurgent bloc and Demo-cratic leadership readied for a close—but, theyexpected, ultimately victorious—fight to adopt newHouse rules. Their hopes were dashed, however, onthe rocks of Cannon’s new alliance. After defeatingthe motion to re-adopt the old rules as planned,Clark proposed a modified version of the Insurgentresolution and moved for a vote on the prop-osition.123 Although the Insurgents voted as a bloc

in favor of Clark’s resolution, the measure neverthe-less failed, due to Democratic defection to theCannon camp.124 Following the failure of Clark’s res-olution, a Democratic defector introduced the rulesproposal agreed to by the Speaker, which generallypreserved the status quo but granted an extensionof some minority rights.125 During debate over theresolution, the Insurgents met repeatedly to “confer-ence,” in a last-ditch effort to counter Democraticdefections.126 Insurgent efforts notwithstanding,Cannon’s distributive coalition held together andthe measure passed, 211–173, despite uniform oppo-sition from the Insurgent bloc and a majority ofDemocrats.127

Approaching the Insurgent group after the failedvote, Clark apologized to Nelson and the bloc’s lea-dership: “You kept your word—you gave me onemore vote than you promised, but I lost [the]Democrats.”128

Frustrated by the defeat, the Insurgents nonethelesstook heart that their organization remained unitedthroughout the battle.129 Had Cannon failed to reori-ent existing party coalitions to create a new set ofpivotal votes, the Insurgents would have controlledthe twenty-one votes necessary to maintain the Repub-lican majority and sufficient to turn the balance ofpower over to the Democratic leadership. Perhapsmore important, Clark and his House Democrats hadlearned that the reformers could deliver on the termsof a future alliance. The minority leader vowed thathe would not fumble a second chance to achieverules reform if one were provided by the Insurgents.130

8. REGROUPING THE RANKS, REBUFFING THE REGULARS

Given the tight vote on their resolution, the Insur-gents’ task was clear: they had to continue to holdtogether in the face of Cannon’s renewed efforts tofragment their organization, while granting Clark suf-ficient time to whip his coalition into line. With this inmind, the reformers redoubled their efforts to

Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 10, 1910, WHS, Nelson Papers,Box 10.

119. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.

120. Cannon negotiated deals with two separate factions of theDemocratic Party. First, he promised tariff concessions on sugar andother commodities grown in southern delta regions—winning thesupport of representatives from South Carolina and Louisiana.Second, the Speaker struck a deal with Tammany Democrats, offer-ing several important committee positions in exchange for thegroup’s support.

121. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 21–22. See alsoSchickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 76. According to Success Magazine,“Tariff changes were threatened against certain Southern Demo-crats as the price of their adherence to their party caucus. Valuablecommittee appointments and rich ‘perquisites’ were offered, andwould have been instantly granted to any of the Insurgents orDemocrats who would consent to leave his associates in the lurch. . . Threats of vengeance against those who held out were, ofcourse, freely and vigorously made; the form which these threatstook being, as a rule, the promised refusal of the Speaker toappoint a recalcitrant to any committee more important thanthat on Acoustics and Ventilation of the Capitol.” “The FightAgainst Cannonism,” Success Magazine, LOC, Murdock Papers,Box 23, Folder “Success Magazine.”

122. Nelson recounted that a reporter covering the Speaker’snegotiations with the Democrats told the Insurgents: “When[Cannon and his lieutenants] heard that you had eighteen menpresent they went into the air. They knew that there were enoughwho did not attend, being out of town, to make the twenty-four[the Insurgents] needed . . . It was the next day that the Speaker’sforces began to work on the Democrats.” Nelson to Hechler, “Anno-tated Interview Notes,” February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers,Box 10, p. 20.

123. Clark’s proposal called for an expanded Committee onRules and deprived the Speaker of the power to appoint

committees, as the Insurgent resolution stipulated. By this time, theInsurgent resolution lacked a legislative calendar provision, as ithad been passed in some form by the Regulars.

124. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 1st Sess., 1909, 44,33-34.

125. The Cannon resolution provided for a motion to recom-mit for the minority party and required a two-thirds vote, ratherthan a majority vote, to set aside Calendar Wednesday. Schickler,Disjointed Pluralism, 76.

126. Hechler, Insurgency, 197.127. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 1st Sess., 1909, 44, 33.128. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-

ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.129. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-

ary 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 22.130. Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 180; Nelson to Hechler, “Anno-

tated Interview Notes,” February 13, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers,Box 10, p. 22.

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 19

prevent defection from their ranks—abstaining fromother divisive policy battles, leveraging their organiz-ation to promote the electoral fortunes of loyal Insur-gent members, and deploying the press in a new,targeted way to deter disloyalty—in the hopes ofholding the group together for the remainder ofthe 61st Congress.131

Believing the window for rules reform temporarilyclosed (at least until the opening of a new Congress),the Insurgents debated the merits of pursuing otherprogressive policy goals, in particular, tariff reform.Gardner, and more conservative members of theInsurgency, were in strong support of the tariff bill’sswift passage, and encouraged the bloc to rallyaround Cannon’s legislation. At the same time, “afew radical Insurgents wanted to use the threat ofdelaying the tariff as a club to force Taft to supportthe anti-Cannon movement,” and urged the organiz-ation to refrain from supporting the House bill.132

Unwilling to risk fracturing the bloc over issues tan-gential to their primary cause, the bloc’s SteeringCommittee advised that the Insurgent organizationabstain from the tariff fight altogether. Followingthe Steering Committee’s recommendation, theInsurgents agreed to keep their organization out ofthe tariff debate and to cease work on rules revisionuntil the pending legislation safely passed.

Like their Insurgent counterparts, RepublicanRegulars had learned from their near-death experi-ence. Troubled that his continued dominance overthe chamber was due only to Democratic defections,the Speaker and his stand-pat allies persuaded Taft tojoin forces in punishing the party’s dissidents, ratherthan merely reprimanding them for their disloyalty.The White House believed Cannon’s growing unpo-pularity to be a liability, but the Speaker shrewdlyexploited the president’s growing insecurity that hispredecessor, Roosevelt, would use the Insurgency asa platform to challenge Taft for the 1912 Republicannomination. If Taft were unable to quash the Insur-gency and unite the Republican Party, Rooseveltwould have all the more reason to return to nationalpolitics.133 In consultation with the Speaker, Taftdenied the Insurgents patronage appointments andfunded primary challengers in dissident districts.134

In the House, Cannon “cut off the heads of the[Insurgent] Republicans who had chairmanships,”assigning one to “the worst committee in the House -the Committee on Ventilation and Acoustics.”135

Although scholars dispute the extent and efficacyof the Regulars’ disciplinary strategy, the historicalrecord leaves little doubt that the Insurgents bothexperienced and feared Republican retribution.136

Correspondence among House Insurgents suggeststhat “some fellows were worried a great deal aboutpatronage,” while others felt “the old machinecrowd . . . growing in activity.”137 Even the Insurgentleadership acknowledged “the risk of calling ameeting of the House Insurgents” when “[reformist]sentiment here [in Congress] is struggling against thefumes of Chloroform.”138 Insurgent Rep. WilliamCary (R-WI) confided to Poindexter: “We are goingto be punished for our stand . . . the ‘System’ isworking hard . . . and will spend plenty ofmoney.”139 Floor speeches and news coverage fromthe period corroborate these accounts.140

Faced with Cannon’s aggressive counterattacks, theInsurgents’ efforts to maintain their organizationtook on increased urgency. With an eye toward theupcoming primary elections of 1910, the Insurgentscontinued to use the progressive-affiliated press tostir up anti-Cannon sentiment in their districts.Reaching out to sympathetic members of the press,the Insurgents provided ammunition for the wide-spread denunciation of the Speaker and his“corrupt system.”141 In so doing, they hoped notonly to defend their own seats against primary chal-lenges sponsored by the Republican machine, butalso to make it increasingly untenable for Taft tosupport Cannon. These anti-Cannon jeremiads

131. Hechler, Insurgency, 63.132. Hechler, Insurgency, 197.133. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 256, 271-273.134. “To Crush Insurgents,” Washington Post, January 5, 1910, p.

1; “Without Quarter,” Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1910, p. I1;Joseph Bristow to White, January 5, 1910, LOC, William AllenWhite Papers, Box 3.

135. Nelson to Hechler, “Annotated Interview Notes,” Febru-ary 13, 1939, Wisconsin Historical Society, John Mandt NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 23.

136. See Keith Krehbiel and Alan Wiseman, “JosephG. Cannon: Majoritarian from Illinois,” Legislative Studies Quarterly26 (2001): 357–89; Eric D. Lawrence, Forrest Maltzman, and PaulJ. Wahlbeck, “The Politics of Speaker Cannon’s Committee Assign-ments,” American Journal of Political Science 45 (2001): 551–62.

137. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10; Murdock toWhite, December 27, 1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.

138. Nelson explains that not every Insurgent faced the samekind or level of threat: “Not very much pressure was exerted onme personally, although Casson, Watson and Babcock [Republicanwhips] told me adroitly and in a nice, joshing way what the conse-quences of my bolting would be. The Regulars regarded men likeCooper and myself as definitely lost and not worth any amount ofpersuasion; they were interested in the weak fellows.” Nelson toHechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February 5–7, 1939, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10; Murdock to White, December 9,1909, LOC, White Papers, Box 2.

139. William J. Cary to Poindexter, October 21, 1909, UWSC,Poindexter Papers, Box 9, Folder “C Special Correspondence.”

140. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,3320–23. Addressing the House, Cooper described the Insurgents’predicament: “If, in the House, a member votes against rulesadopted by the caucus his political destiny is in the hands of theSpeaker. He can be punished by the Speaker for voting againstthe rules adopted by a caucus . . . [the Speaker] can punishthem, discredit them in the eyes of their constituents, lessen theirinfluence on this floor, coerce them into doing his will.”

141. Rufus Rockwell Wilson to Poindexter, October 7, 1909,UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 9, Folder “W–Z Special Correspon-dence.” See also Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 79.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN20

afforded an additional benefit: in Nelson’s words, theInsurgents could use “these powerful organs of publicopinion . . . in bringing wayward members back intothe [I]nsurgent ranks.”142

The shift in public sentiment occasioned by Insur-gent maneuvering prompted some Republican Regu-lars to consider “whether it would not be moreexpedient to support the Insurgent fight againstCannon.”143 The Regulars hoped that, by droppingCannon and thus appeasing the Insurgents, theparty might present a more united front againstDemocrats in the 1910 elections. Public opinion wassuch that even Taft began to weigh the cost of his alle-giance to the Speaker.144 Ultimately, the publicrelations campaign lessened the Regulars’ capacityto criticize the Insurgents’ efforts publicly, improvedthe bloc’s ability to remain unified, and defrayedthe political cost to individual reformers of rebellion.

To supplement the work of the press, the reformersinitiated a collaborative campaign to defend Insur-gent seats. Members routinely drafted letters ofsupport and requested the same from their col-leagues. These letters were then published in districtnews outlets and circulated more broadly within thecommunity as evidence of a particular member’sInsurgent bona fides.145 Insurgent legislators also tra-velled regularly to their fellows’ districts to givespeeches and rally local elites to the anti-Cannoncause.146 Finally, the reformers organized a wide-ranging campaign finance program, in whichmembers donated surplus funds to colleagues ident-ified by the Insurgent leadership as particularly inneed of assistance.147 With nearly unanimous partici-pation from the bloc’s twenty-odd members, theInsurgents’ electoral collaboration represented anincreasingly important aspect of their organization.It is important to note, however, that collaborationto defend Insurgent seats did not take place

independently of the group’s broader efforts.Indeed, there is no evidence that these types of activi-ties took place prior to the summer of 1909 or afterthe collapse of the Insurgent organization in theaftermath of its success.148

As the Insurgent campaign moved into the fall of1909, the group turned to the press with a new aim,distinct from its broader campaign to foster publicopposition to Cannon. Here, the group focused onmembers “who were pledged to stand againstCannon and didn’t,” legislators like Rep. CharlesTownsend (R-MI)—a “cold foot” defector who,having declared himself against Cannon and for “revi-sion and liberalizing of House rules” in his 1908 elec-tion campaign, permanently abandoned theInsurgency after the Calendar Wednesday vote.149

Insurgent leaders collaborated with friendly progress-ive editors to make clear to the public that “leadingInsurgents felt that Mr. Townsend had virtuallydeserted their cause and gone over to the ‘Canno-nites’ in the final ‘show-down,’” and that “in votinghe was neither with the [I]nsurgents nor with the[R]egulars—he just straddled.”150 The press attacksagainst Townsend were so fierce that he was forced toexplain why, “at a critical stage of the contest in hisown party to curtail the power of the speaker, [he]deserted to the speaker’s forces,” and to defend hisactions in a series of interviews and editorials printedin locally circulating newspapers and magazines.151

142. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 8.

143. Hechler, Insurgency, 63–64. Atkinson, The Committee onRules, 76–78.

144. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 222–23.145. In a recent article, Miller and Squire note that some Insur-

gent participants in the Cannon Revolt were motivated principallyby electoral concerns, rather than a strong commitment to thecause of rules reform. Their analysis comports with the account pre-sented here—in short, that the electoral benefits of association withthe Insurgent cause could be substantial given certain districtcharacteristics. Susan Miller and Peverill Squire, “Who Rebelled?An Analysis of the Motivations of the Republicans Who VotedAgainst Speaker Cannon,” American Politics Research 40 (2013):387–416.

146. Poindexter to R.L. Farnsworth, October 3, 1909, UWSC,Poindexter Papers, Box 9, Folder “F Special Correspondence”;Poindexter to Bartlett Sinclair, October 27, 1909, UWSC, Poindex-ter Papers, Box 9, Folder “S Special Correspondence.”

147. Asle J. Gronna to Poindexter, July 2, 1910, UWSC, Poin-dexter Papers, Box 13; Poindexter to G. G. Ripley, February 25,1910, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 11; Deed H. Meyer to Poin-dexter, July 13, 1910, UWSC, Poindexter Papers, Box 12.

148. The one exception to this generalization is that membersof the Insurgency who joined the Progressive Party in 1912 contin-ued to collaborate on electoral matters. As I argue elsewhere in thisarticle, the Progressive Party itself can be seen as an outgrowth ofInsurgent activity.

149. In 1908, Townsend declared: “What the country demandsis a revision of rules . . . I am in favor of rules reform and shall doeverything to accomplish that end.” “Townsend Is Out for Senator-ship,” The Independent, December 3, 1908, University of MichiganBentley Historical Library (BHL), Charles Townsend Papers, Box1, Folder 1. See also Mark Sullivan to Murdock, March 1909,LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23; “Townsend of Michigan forSpeaker,” Arthur Capper, November 19, 1908, BHL, TownsendPapers, Box 1, Folder 1.

150. Higgins to C. H. Edgar, December 9, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 23. “Townsend Did Not Gain Many Friends,” Big RapidsPioneer, March 19, 1909, BHL, Townsend Papers, Box 1, Folder 1.Writing for the Cedar Springs Liberal, editor George A. Linkdeclared: “Congressman Townsend has disappointed his friendsby a painful lack of candor in his attitude Monday at the organiz-ation of the new House. He has been applauded by good citizenseverywhere for his stand for freedom from the Cannon despotism,and his pitiful flop when it came to a showdown has amazed andshocked those citizens who place liberty and popular rights aboveparty expediency.” George A. Link, Cedar Springs Liberal, March17, 1909, BHL, Townsend Papers, Box 1, Folder 1.

151. Townsend also called upon several Democratic congress-men to vouch for his Insurgent bona fides. “Stands By Townsend,”in The Daily News, December 1909, BHL, Townsend Papers, Box 1,Folder 1; “Indignant at Townsend’s Foes,” in The Adrian Times,December 1909, BHL, Townsend Papers, Box 1, Folder 1; “Is Mr.Townsend a Progressive?” in The Detroit Patriot, December 1909,LOC, Murdock Papers, Box 23; “Townsend Wins Another

ORGANIZING FOR INSURGENCY 21

In criticizing Townsend’s actions, the Insurgentsdid not expect to draw the errant congressman backinto their fold. Rather, the Insurgent leadershiphoped to make an example of Townsend—to “starta backfire in his district”—and thus deter futuredefections by the bloc’s remaining members.152 Forthose members still wavering on the fringes of theInsurgent organization, Nelson recounted that theSteering Committee “built fires underneath themthrough the newspapers in their districts, andinduced certain of their constituents to bring pressureto bear upon them, and as a result they stayed withus.”153 Combining the power of the press andshrewd electoral maneuvering, the Insurgents heldtheir ground together throughout the summer andfall of 1909, demonstrating a continued resolve toimplement rules reform both to their Republicanantagonists and potential Democratic partners.

Having withstood the Regulars’ barrage, the Insur-gents could now bring their coalition of pivotal votesto bear in the investigation of Taft’s Secretary of theInterior, Richard Ballinger. In November 1909, aseries of magazine reports were published allegingthat Ballinger had engaged in illegal activities topermit and conceal the sale of land slated for conser-vation by the U.S. Forestry Service. In January 1910,the House voted to appoint a special committee toinvestigate the matter. On January 7, as the chamberdebated a resolution authorizing the investigatorycommittee, Norris offered an amendment requiringthat the House, rather than the Speaker, elect the pro-posed committee’s members. The amendmentcarried, 149–146, with twenty-six Insurgents joiningthe Democrats to subdue Cannon’s forces.154

Meeting the next day, the Insurgents agreed thatthey would insist on the appointment of one oftheir own to the committee and would also refuseto allow Cannon’s most loyal aides to be seated.155

Eager to avoid a public battle, Taft assured the Insur-gents that their views would receive full consideration.The bloc succeeded in getting an Insurgentappointed to the committee, and when the Regularsthreatened to reject two of the Democratic nominees,the reformers forced a compromise.156 The size andresilience of the Insurgent bloc privileged the groupduring negotiations with the president and the

Republican caucus, giving it, in Gardner’s words,“the advantage of trading with the Regulars.”157

Over the next several weeks, the Insurgents contin-ued to meet to discuss the results of the investigatorycommittee and the prospect for future rules reform.Concerned that the public might confuse the pro-gressive reformers’ alliance with the Democrats andthe group’s involvement in the investigation with itsprimary, Republican, aim of parliamentary reform,the bloc agreed that all rules resolutions ought tobe proposed by a Republican Insurgent. To makethis distinction clear to the public, the Insurgentsdrafted a statement to be circulated in their districtsexplaining their “single purpose.”158 The bloc alsoconsidered strategies to counter Taft’s repeatedcharge that the Insurgents sought to delay progressivelegislation with rules reform, debating how to“emphasize to the country that [they] were notobstructing . . . consideration [of such reform,] butendeavoring to bring [it] up.”159 During discussionof rules reform, the Insurgents further debated themerits of expanding the Committee on Rules, butcame to little agreement.160 With “tacit agreementin our group that no resolution be sprung suddenly,”the Insurgents settled in for the long wait to theopening of the 62nd Congress.161

9. AN UNEXPECTED VICTORY

“The break came before we expected it.”162 OnMarch 17, 1910, Norris submitted the resolutionthat would ultimately undo Cannon’s control of theRules Committee. By all accounts, Norris alone recog-nized that Cannon’s ruling on constitutional privilegeprovided a window of opportunity to present theInsurgents’ sought-after parliamentary reforms onthe House floor. Indeed, the congressman’s astuteprocedural move caught his fellow reformers una-wares. The substance of his proposal, however, wasquite familiar to them: the so-called “Norris Resol-ution” was an amended version of the internal resol-ution passed by the Insurgent organization in 1909,outlining the substance of the group’s preferredrules changes.163 Moreover, to secure passage of

Victory,” in The Detroit News, March 2, 1909, BHL, Townsend Papers,Box 1, Folder 1.

152. Higgins to Murdock, December 8, 1909, LOC, MurdockPapers, Box 23.

153. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 8.

154. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,404.

155. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 8, 1910, WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10.

156. Hechler, Insurgency, 64–65.

157. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 8, 1910, WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 2.

158. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 10, 1910, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 3.

159. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 31, 1910, WHS,Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 2.

160. Nelson, “Meeting Minutes,” January 8, 1910, WHS, NelsonPapers, Box 10, p. 1.

161. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.

162. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 10.

163. The Congressman had amended the proposal to reflectthe passage of components of the reformers’ agenda that theSpeaker had successfully co-opted. Specifically, Norris removedthe provision establishing legislative calendar days.

RUTH BLOCH RUBIN22

“his” resolution, Norris relied crucially on the Insur-gency’s hard-won alliance with the Democratic min-ority. In short, the congressman’s entrepreneurialefforts directly followed from the work and strategyof the Insurgent organization.

As soon as it became clear to the House that Norrishad struck a critical blow for parliamentary reform bybringing to the floor the Insurgent resolution, theRepublican leadership sought to parry the congress-man’s procedural move. The Regulars objected,arguing that the proposal ought not to fall underthe Speaker’s expanded notion of privilege. In thedebate that followed, the Insurgents marshaled theirforces to defend the resolution and Norris’s right topropose it. In an effort to secure Democraticsupport, Poindexter began the Insurgents’ line ofdefense with the argument that rules reform “is ofgreater importance for the minority than it is forthe majority.”164 To impress upon the House thenecessity of limiting the Speaker’s power, Coopercalled upon Murdock, Norris, and Fowler to describethe punishment Cannon meted out as a consequenceof their rebellion.165 Minority Leader Clark and hisdeputies endorsed the resolution and offered alitany of parliamentary precedents in support ofNorris’s view of constitutional privilege. Without suffi-cient votes on the floor to defeat the Insurgent-Democratic coalition, the Regulars franticallydeployed members to corral those colleagues absentfrom the chamber. In an effort to obstruct this mobil-ization, the Insurgents refused Republican demandsfor a recess, badgering the House Sergeant-at-Armsto bar legislators from leaving the chamber on thegrounds that a quorum had to be maintained.166

Unable to immediately muster sufficient numbersto assure their majority, the Regulars were forced tonegotiate with the Insurgent bloc and Democratic lea-dership to reach a compromise. Initially, the Regularsproposed that the Rules Committee be expanded toallow the Speaker to retain his seat on the committee.Adamant that the Speaker relinquish control overHouse rules, the Insurgents refused the plan. In thehopes of luring remaining moderate reformers fromthe Insurgent ranks, the Regulars offered a “gentle-man’s agreement” that the Speaker would not sit onthe new committee. This potentially divisive offerwas also rebuffed. The Regulars returned with anoffer to further expand the proposed committee tofifteen legislators, so long as the Speaker wouldremain a member. Again, the Insurgents insistedthat Cannon’s removal from the Committee onRules was nonnegotiable.

Hamstrung by the Speaker’s command that underno circumstances should his deputies capitulate onhis committee membership, the Regulars had littlechoice but to yield on everything else—agreeing tothe entire Norris resolution, on the condition thatCannon remain on the Rules Committee. Pressingtheir advantage, the Insurgents leveraged their blocof pivotal votes to win complete concession. IfCannon refused to relent, the Insurgents threatened,the bloc would give up negotiations and join theDemocrats to pass the Norris resolution in its entirety.Summarizing the bargaining dynamic, one Regularlamented: “They didn’t offer us anything; I thinkwe’ll be beaten.”167 Unwilling to believe that somefavorable compromise could not be reached, andever hopeful that further delay would provide suffi-cient time to muster Republican supporters to votedown the rules change, Cannon insisted that nego-tiation continue.168

Though in a strong position to bargain with theRegulars, the Insurgents were forced to modify theproposed resolution to meet Democratic demands.The minority leadership persuaded the bloc tostrike the provision requiring that the Committeeon Rules be geographically representative. They alsopersuaded the Insurgents to reduce the size of theproposed committee from fifteen to ten members, asuggestion previously made by the Regulars butrejected by the bloc. While the Democrats concededthat the Speaker must be barred from sitting on thenewly constituted Rules Committee, they stipulatedthat the Speaker’s power to assign members toother standing committees remain intact. Thoughthe Insurgents opposed these changes, the bloc hadlittle choice but to accept the Democrats’ requests.For Norris, “The Democrats knew their votes meantvictory . . . we could not win this fight without agreeingto the Democratic proposal . . . as bitter as the dosewas, we must take it.”169

In contrast to the Insurgents’ pivotal status withinthe Republican coalition, the group lacked sufficientleverage to dictate the terms of the resolution toHouse Democrats. Without the minority party’svotes, the Insurgents knew that parliamentaryreform of any sort would be impossible to achieve.Similarly, the Democratic minority understood theywould get little reform without the Insurgent bloc.However, the Democratic leadership saw an advan-tage in preserving “Cannonism” as a campaign issueand believed it possible to displace Republicans inthe next election. Consequently, they were notentirely opposed to the status quo. Indeed, the Insur-gents believed there was some likelihood that Clarkwould renege on the reformers’ cross-party alliance

164. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,3296–97.

165. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,3304.

166. Atkinson, The Committee on Rules, 106–7.

167. Hechler, Insurgency, 70–72.168. Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 217.169. Norris, Fighting Liberal, 117–18.

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for just these reasons. In this view, the Insurgents’capacity to maintain their pivotal status, and obtainfavorable policy outcomes, was crucially limited bythe actions and incentives of the minority party.

Negotiations having deteriorated, Cannonaccepted that he had little recourse but to rule thatNorris’s claim to constitutional privilege and his resol-ution were out of order. And as expected, Cannon’sdecision was overturned 182–163, with the Demo-crats and Insurgents voting solidly against theSpeaker.170 Then, voting on the amended resolutionfavored by the minority leadership, the Housepassed the rules change, 191–156, again with theInsurgent-Democratic coalition holding sway.171 Asthe last of the votes were tallied, the Insurgents con-gratulated themselves. Where haphazard individualeffort had failed, intraparty organization had suc-ceeded—empowering the Insurgent reformers tonegotiate with leaders of both parties to extract pol-icies more favorable than the status quo. Against allodds, they had successfully forged an alliance withthe Democratic minority, overwhelmed the Republi-can machine, and forced concessions on rulesreform.172

Though the reformers’ intraparty organizationfragmented in the immediate aftermath of theCannon Revolt, the bones of the Insurgency were res-urrected a decade later to serve similar ends. At theclose of the 67th Congress in December 1923, pro-gressive Republicans once again mobilized in favorof rules reform and in opposition to their party’schoice for the Speakership. Despite efforts by Repub-lican leaders to dissipate their resistance, the refor-mers demonstrated remarkable unity, opposing theSpeaker in nine ballots on the chamber floor andforcing House leaders to allow full debate on ruleschanges in return for their votes. As was the caseduring their fight against Cannon, the reformers’success can be attributed to their organizationalefforts. Just as their colleagues had a decade prior,the reformers appointed a cadre of leaders to serveas the organization’s vanguard and met regularly inconference to plan strategy and articulate the sub-stance of their desired parliamentary changes.Perhaps not surprisingly, these efforts produced asimilar political dynamic. Indeed, as Schickler

argues, this “formal organization among the progress-ive Republicans enabled them to stay togetherthrough the long series of roll calls on the speaker-ship, and to select leaders to negotiate a settle-ment.”173 Adopting more theoretical terms, we canobserve that this second Insurgency proved successfulprecisely because the dissidents—like their predeces-sors—found a way to coordinate their defection anddiscourage potential free-riding.

10. REVISITING THE SPEAKER’S FALL

Although the 1910 parliamentary reforms were moremodest in scope and effect than their advocates hadinitially hoped, the Cannon Revolt was nonethelessan extraordinary episode in congressional develop-ment.174 In the face of a seemingly intractable statusquo, progressive members of the Republican Partydevised an institutional arrangement powerfulenough to overcome the Speaker’s vast politicalmachine and revise House rules. Between 1908 and1910, the Insurgent reformers developed mechan-isms to encourage consistent participation, cohesivestrategy, and individual electoral and political secur-ity. In uniting members behind a common plan ofaction, the Insurgents were able to establish theirsought-after alliance with the Democratic minority.Having secured cross-party cooperation, the refor-mers presided over a coalition sufficient to breakthe Speaker’s hold on the House. Absent their organ-ization, it is unlikely that individual reformers wouldhave successfully drafted or passed new proceduresto govern chamber activity.

Insurgent organization provides an excellentexample of the strategic benefit and substantive influ-ence of intraparty organization. And, as this accountdemonstrates, there is much to be gained from thestudy of intraparty dynamics. First, students of legisla-tive politics have long highlighted the role of themajority party in driving congressional development,but little attention has been paid to the ways in whichintraparty groups—like the House Insurgents—candurably reshape their political environment.

Second, the Insurgents’ campaign to achieve rulesreform makes clear that coordination and organiz-ation are not the purview solely of majority partyleaders, but are also integral to the success of dissi-dent blocs. Analyzing intraparty organization allowsus to advance the debate over the power of “partiesversus pivots” by incorporating a dynamic dimension.By focusing on the need for strategic action amongpotentially pivotal members of Congress, we canbetter understand when congressional pivots will be

170. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,3428.

171. Congressional Record, 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., 1910, 45,3436. Joining the Insurgents were a score of formerly stand-patRepublicans—legislators who had previously refrained from partici-pating in the rules fight because of their unwillingness to breakparty bonds.

172. As Schickler argues, however, the substance and outcomeof this reform effort reflected the competing interests of theInsurgent-Democratic coalition. Though the Insurgents succeededin removing Cannon from the Rules Committee, Democratic inter-ests precluded further reform of the sort the bloc had initially advo-cated. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 83.

173. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 106–7.174. Nelson to Hechler, “Miscellaneous Interviews,” February

5–7, 1939, WHS, Nelson Papers, Box 10, p. 11; Schickler, DisjointedPluralism, 81.

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able to fully exercise their authority over party leadersand when, by contrast, party leaders will be able tofully control their rank and file.

Third, the Insurgents’ reliance on the Democraticminority to implement rules reform suggests thatintraparty power is conditioned by an interpartydynamic. Specifically, the extent to which the Insur-gents were pivotal was bounded by their ability tocredibly threaten to work against the interests oftheir own party by defecting to the opposition.Simply put, a legislator is pivotal only if she can threa-ten to leave, and a legislator can only threaten to leaveif she can credibly work with the other party. Drawingfrom the Insurgent case, had the Democratic leader-ship expressed hostility to reformers’ aims, the blocwould have had difficulty persuading the Speakerthat its threat to ally with the minority was credible.Consequently, in understanding the conditionsunder which legislators are likely to influence theirparty’s agenda, we must account for each party’s will-ingness to collaborate with its opposition’s dissidentmembership.

Finally, an emphasis on intraparty politics revealsthat political parties are not the only organizationsthat matter in Congress. In fact, the Insurgents’ suc-cessful pursuit of parliamentary reform suggests thatintraparty organization may be a critical means ofsecuring responsiveness in both congressional andpartisan institutions. In this respect, the Insurgencyfunctioned as a “pseudo-party.” Not only did theInsurgents secure rules reform, but they gave anearly voice to the progressive elements of the national

electorate in Congress, working to institutionalizetheir presence within the confines of the Americantwo-party system and laying the foundation for the for-mation of the Progressive Party.

APPENDIX: ARCHIVES CONSULTED

Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan(BHL). Ann Arbor, MI.

Charles Townsend Papers

Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (LOC).Washington, DC.

Robert La Follette PapersVictor Murdock PapersWilliam Howard Taft PapersWilliam Allen White Papers

New York Public Library, Rare Books and ManuscriptDivision (NYPL). New York, NY.

James Schoolcraft Sherman Papers

Special Collections Library, University of Washington(UWSC). Seattle, WA.

Miles Poindexter Papers

Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS). Madison, WI.

John Mandt Nelson Papers

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