Rural Rule

Which is the more binding upon Congress -- the House-made rules of the House of Representatives or an ambiguous clause in the Constitution of the U.S.? Last week the House, encouraged by Speaker Nicholas Longworth, voted in favor of its rules, 265-87. As always, the House voted in accordance with its political interests, the only unusual feature of this vote being that the political interests of the majority of both parties were identical.

The Constitution provides that a census shall be taken every ten years. Agreeably, Congress permitted a census to be taken in 1920.

The Constitution also provides that "representatives shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers."

Now, if these two provisions had never been considered in conjunction, and if a reapportionment of Representatives in accordance with a new census had never been taken, only the 13 original states would be represented in Congress today. But almost without a break there has been a reapportionment every ten years. Since 1882 there has been no break in this constitutional tradition.

Early in the session, Representative Barbour of California introduced a bill, based on the 1920 census, to leave unchanged the present total membership of the House, 435, but to bring the apportionment up to date by:

1) Increasing the number from the following states: California, three; Michigan, two; Ohio, two; Connecticut, one; New Jersey, one; North Carolina, one; Texas, one; Washington, one.

2) Decreasing the number from the following states: Missouri, whose representation would be cut by two, and the following states, which would suffer a loss of one: Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Vermont, Rhode Island.

The bill having been killed by the committee to which it was referred, Mr. Barbour last week moved to bring the bill to a vote on the floor of the House on the ground of "high Constitutional privilege."

Speaker Longworth could have ruled in favor of Congressman Barbour. He refused to do so, although he admitted that precedent dictated that he should. Instead, he asked the House to vote on it, with the result which he well foresaw.

Why did a vast majority of the House Democrats and Republicans disfavor reapportionment? Briefly, for as many different local reasons as there were Congressmen against the bill. Two typical reasons:

Southern Congressmen, some of whose states would lose, said that many Negroes who had gone north in 1920 were returning, and therefore the 1920 census would be unfair to them. (Negroes count as population in the South, not as voters.)

New York Democrats feared that the Republican party in power would juggle the metropolitan redistricting to their disadvantage. Upstate Republicans feared that nationally the redistricting would be harmful to prohibition.

The most significant issue is that of "rural" v. "urban" representation. Rural communities dominate Congress, but the shift of population is to urban centres. (In 1910, 54% of the people of the U.S. lived on farms or in little villages; in 1920, only 48%.) Rural Congressmen of both parties want no change, lest in the change the urban powers get control of the parties.

Said the indignant New York Herald Tribune:

"The position of the Census Committee, which recently went on record as favoring postponement of reapportionment until after 1930, is usurpatory and indefensible. And the House is becoming an accomplice in this defiance of law by countenancing the committee's obstinate inaction."

/-During the entire session, both in the House and in the Senate, the Democrats have been unable to find an important point of difference with the smoothly running Republican majority.