For yours, the country has rebelled against recurring exhibitions of what, with a line irony, has been called "senatorial courtesy." It is quite true that evil or ill-considered legislation has been talked to death, but it is equally true that other legislation, wise and beneficent in purpose and import, has shared the same fate. This last shameful exhibition, which, by blocking the resolution to provide protection for American merchantmen, made this great government "helpless and contemptible," did not stop there. It also prevented the passage of the bill to legalize joint foreign selling agencies, of the whole program of conservation and government land development, of the army appropriation bill, the sundry civil bill, the general deficiency bill and the measure making provision for the support and enlarged usefulness of the Military Academy, it blocked that belated justice to Colombia, which the President so strongly urged.

An extreme case of this character has been required to force the Senate to action. Unlimited debate has been defended in the past by able and high-minded Senators and by a considerable and influential section of the press. It has been asserted, with a show of reason, that the Senate's leisurely procedure and prolonged deliberation were essentials of its being, designed to protect the country against the radicalism of the lower house and against the tendency of that branch to yield to an excited popular clamor. This decision has been well received in the South, because the South has not forgotten that the infamous "force bill" owed its defeat to a filibuster conducted by Senator Gorman. 