however, for no effort was made to make other arrangements for the accommodation of reporters until July 7, 1797.

The immediate occasion which led to a consideration of the difficulties of the reporters was the Senate investigation of the conduct of William Blount, of Tennessee, which led to his expulsion from the Senate on July 8, 1797. On the eve of the trial an unsuccessful motion was made to admit "such printers as may request it" and to provide them "with stands on the floor of the Senate, to enable them to take notes of their proceedings on the present occasion." 52 Since the Senate was unwilling to provide for the accommodation of the reporters or to have them sit on the Senate floor, the debates on this important event were not recorded. Such an innovation had to wait for the defeat of the Federalists and for the removal of the capital from Philadelphia to Washington, and even later. Until decades later no one dreamed of publishing verbatim reports. Moreover, from the outset the reports of the debates of Congress were partisan in accordance with the political leanings of the newspaper editors. Even in the House of Representatives, where the reporters were generally admitted to the floor, complaints were made over misrepresentations. Many newspaper editors, therefore, did not bother to attend the sessions of the Senate except on rare occasions. The names

of most of the reporters of the early debates, particularly in the Senate, are unknown. William Duane can be singled out as a reporter because of his genius in controversy and management which brought him to loggerheads with both Houses of Congress. In 1797 Duane was brought before the bar of the House on charges of having misrepresented the House debates in his reports published in the Aurora.53 He was forbidden entrance into the House as a reporter, and 3 years later, on March 28, 1800, the Senate attempted to arrest him for breach of privilege, but Duane had fled the city." Partisan politics, therefore, was a factor in the refusal of the Senate to open its debates to the public.

Duane followed Congress to Washington and in the Aurora, December 2, 1801, announced that he was "prepared to give the proceedings of Congress with regularity and fidelity." But Samuel Harrison Smith, editor of the Universal Gazette, preceded Duane and even Congress and founded the National Intelligencer, the political organ of Jefferson. In its columns much fuller reports of the debates of the House of Representatives appeared than had heretofore been made. This may also, in part, be attributed to the fact that the Federalists no longer had a majority in the House and the reporters were again given access to the floor. When the new Capitol of the United States was erected in Washington, the galleries were so far removed from the floor of the Senate that the remarks of its Members could not be heard distinctly enough in the galleries to be reported accurately. Moreover, for misrepresentation of the remarks of the Senators, the reporters risked being expelled or sued for libel. As they indignantly resented these restrictions, considering them to be a gross reflection upon their professional honor, they stayed away from the Senate galleries and for more than a year after Congress moved to Washington the debates were not reported in the newspapers. The debates of the House, however, were regularly reported by the reporters and "long handed" men who, at the discretion of the Speaker of that body, sat in the galleries or on the floor.

Finally, but somewhat reluctantly, the Senate faced the issue and considered the admission of the reporters to the main floor. On January 5, 1802, Smith wrote Abraham Baldwin, of Georgia, president pro tempore of the Senate, stating that he was "desirous of taking notes of the proceedings of the Senate * * * in such a manner as to render them correct" and through him requested "liberty to occupy a position in the lower area of the Chamber."55 On this date the Senate by a vote of 16 (13 Senators from the South and 3 from the North) to 12 (11 Senators from the North and 1 from the South) resolved that stenographers and note-takers who wished to take notes on the debates of that body should be admitted and assigned to "such place * * * as the President shall allot."56 At this time the Federalists no longer were in control of the Senate.

52 Senate Journal, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Congresses, 388; Minutes of the Senate, 4th Cong., 1st sess., 9-10, mss.. Papers of the United States Senate, National Archives.

3 Richard Hildreth, History of the United States, 6 volumes (New York, 1863), V, 411.

54 Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 1st sess., 68-95, 103, 109, 111-112, 113-115, 117-119, 121-124, 184; Proceedings of the Senate in the Case of William Duane, 35-48, Mss., Papers of the United States Senate. 56 Samuel H. Smith to Abraham Baldwin, January 5, 1802, in Papers of the United States Senate.

56 Annals of Congress, 7th Cong., 1st sess., 22-23; Senate Journal, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Congresses, 165-66. The Senate voted as follows: Yeas-Joseph Anderson (Tenn.), Abraham Baldwin (Ga.), John Breckinridge (Ky.), John Brown (Ky.), William Cocke (Tenn.), John Ewing Colhoun (S. C.), Christopher Ellery (R. I.), Theodore Foster (R. I.), Jesse Franklin (N. C.), James Jackson (Ga.), George Logan (Pa.), Stevens T. Mason (Va.), Wilson C. Nicholas (Va.), David Stone (N. C.), Thomas Sumter (S. C.), and Robert Wright (Md.). Nay-Nathaniel Chipman (Vt.), Jonathan Dayton (N. J.), Dwight Foster (Mass.), James Hillhouse (Conn.), John E. Howard (Md.), Jonathan Mason (Mass.), Gouverneur Morris (N. Y.), Aaron Ogden (N. J.), Simeon Olcott (N. H.), James Sheafe (N. H.), Uriah Tracy (Conn.), and Samuel White (Del.).

Heretofore, no stenographer or note-taker had been admitted to the floor of the Senate for the purpose of reporting the debates of that body, and the assignment of a seat to Smith as a reporter was another step toward official reporting of the debates of Congress. On January 8, 1802, the debates of the Senate began to appear regularly in the National Intelligencer, which was then a triweekly paper. In the words of the editor, this action opened the doors of the Senate to public information, and might be considered "the prelude to a more genuine sympathy between the Senate and the people of the United States." 57 Thus, in reality, the persistence of the South in its demand that the doors of the Senate be opened to the public was a factor in the establishment of a more democratic government in the United States.

Smith and other newspaper editors made no pretense of publishing verbatim reports of the debates of Congress. Such an accomplishment had to wait for the perfection of a better shorthand system in the middle of the nineteenth century. Apparently the published reports were satisfactory, however, to most of the Senators.58 If the reporters of the debates had any doubt as to the accuracy of their notes they usually called upon Members of Congress for copies of their speeches or the substance of their remarks. For example, John Quincy Adams recorded in his Memoirs on November 4, 1803, that Samuel H. Smith, editor of the National Intelligencer, had requested that Adams "give him the substance of what I said on the debate yesterday, for publication, as other gentlemen on both sides of the question had promised him they would. I agreed to furnish him with it." 59

In 1810, Smith retired as editor of the National Intelligencer. His successor, Joseph Gales, Jr., had attended the University of North Carolina and had been trained as a reporter and journalist by his father. Two years later he was joined by his brother-in-law, William W. Seaton, of Virginia, also a journalist and a reporter. For over 50 years the debates of Congress appeared in the National Intelligencer, and to its editors the Nation is indebted for the preservation of the debates of Congress in a usable form. Forty-five years after the convening of the First Congress the compilation of the debates of that body was begun in the Annals of Congress. From fragmentary material Gales and Seaton succeeded in weaving together a remarkably coherent record. The columns of the Annals of Congress provide a particularly illuminating picture with respect to the preservation of the debates of Congress prior to the admission of the reporters on the floor of the Senate.

Despite the diligence and care used by Gales and Seaton in compiling the debates in the Annals of Congress, some of the debates of both Houses published in the newspapers were overlooked. An unusually prolonged investigation would be required to permit a detailed statement as to such omissions. Since the publication of the Annals of Congress other source material has come to light. For the First Congress, for example, the Journal of William Maclay, covering the period from April 24, 1789, to March 3, 1791, has been published. Also, fragments of three debates have been preserved in the papers of John Adams. They are the debates of July 13, 1789, on the Power of Removal; September 22, 1789, on the location of the Permanent Seat of Government; and January 25, 1790, on Unfinished Business.62 Among other sources extant for the debates of the Senate are the papers of Rufus King, of New York. In his papers are excerpts of speeches from the debates on the appointment of Gouverneur Morris as Minister to France in January, 1792; on the appointment of John Jay as Minister to England, April 14 to 21, 1794; on the bill providing for certain limitations for the suspension of the fourth article of the peace treaty between the United States and Great Britain; and on the question of seating Gallatin, February 1794.63 Other fragments of debates have survived in the papers of Members of the Senate and also in contemporary newspapers after December 11, 1795.

57 Annals of Congress, 7th Cong., 1st sess., 22-23; National Intelligencer (Washington), Jan. 8, 1802.

58 In the collected debates in the Annals of Congress there are no references to complaints of Senators about misrepresentation of remarks, but some were made by Members of the House of Representatives. 4 Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, I, 271.

60 National Intelligencer, Jan. 24, 1843; September 5, 1853; Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872 (New York, 1873), 232-233; McPherson, Reporting the Debates of the House of Representatives during the First Congress, 1789-91, in loc. cit., XXX, 64-65; Congressional Record, 77th Cong., 2d sess., Appendix, 2182-2185.

1 The Journal of William Maclay was first published, in an incomplete edition, by George W. Harris in 1880. Ten years later Edgar S. Maclay prepared another edition, published by D. Appleton & Co., in which only a few pages which had been used for a scrapbook were omitted. In 1927 Albert and Charles Boni, of New York, reprinted the 1890 edition, with an introduction by Charles A. Beard.

62 Charles Francis Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams, 10 volumes (Boston, 1850-56), III, 408-14. 63 Charles R. King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 6 volumes (New York, 1894-1900), I, 419-21, 521-23, 525-27, 529-38.

Under the resolution of the Confederation of September 13, 1788, the first session of the Federal Congress was called to meet in New York City, March 4, 1789, but it was April 6 before quorums in both Houses were present. Samuel A. Otis, selected as Secretary to the Senate, was charged with the responsibility of recording the proceedings of that body and with the custody of the records created by it. While he had the responsibility of keeping the records, much of the work was done by others, as is indicated by the fact that the entries on the manuscript copies are in various handwritings. Perhaps this is one explanation for the complaints over the inaccuracies in the Journals.64

Most of the manuscript copies of the committee reports and other papers of the Senate are now housed in the National Archives.65 A comparison of the printed Journals with the manuscript copies reveals certain differences. The Original Minutes of Committees and the rough manuscript journals of the Senate are often more informative than the printed Journals. In the transcribed corrected copies of the journals, citations to the Minutes are made on the margin, but such notes are omitted from the printed Journals.66 For example, in the Minutes for October 24, 1791, the dates of the departure of the Senators from Congress is recorded, but this information does not appear in the printed volumes.67 Neither is the order of the business of the day always identical in the manuscript and printed copies of the Journal. In some instances the printed Journal is more explicit.68

Verbatim transcripts of the speeches of the Senators of this early period would be of real historical value, not only for the proper understanding of their political views, but also as evidence of their personal idiosyncrasies, for a man often disclosed himself completely in debate. The few speeches of the Senators of this period that have been preserved present some aspects of the speaker's argument, but they are written not so much in the speaker's as in the reporter's vocabulary; inevitably most of the record is not what the speaker actually said, but what the reporter thought he said. It is impossible to recover the debates of the Senate, but some light may be thrown on the motives that influenced the Senators to vote as they did on important legislation by studying every contemporary source available. In addition to such sources as contemporary newspapers, Maclay's Journal, fragments of debates extant, the printed and manuscript copies of the Journals, and the Senate papers, consisting of letters, petitions, memorials, resolutions, bills, committee reports, Minutes of Committees, the rough and transcribed corrected copies of the Journals, there are also the letters of the Senators themselves. Some of these have been published and a few still remain in the hands of private owners or in public depositories; but many have been destroyed. Since the debates of the Senate, with few exceptions, were not reported until the reporters were admitted to the floor of the Senate, beginning on January 5, 1802, the letters of the Senators, both official and personal, constitute an important source. These should be collected and edited. From the induction of the Federal Government, Members of Congress saw the need of keeping their constituents informed concerning their views on congressional legislation. To meet this exigency they began to address letters to their constituents, many of which were printed in the newspapers and served as a modern campaign platform. Private letters to members of their families or to their friends often reveal their own political acumen and also that of their colleagues on important issues and vital legislation. No wonder John Adams wrote Jefferson, on June 30, 1813; "But, above all, shall I request you to collect the circular letters from Members of Congress, in the middle and southern States, to their constituents? I would give all I am worth for a complete collection of those letters." 69

Senator PEPPER. Mr. Chairman, broadcasting the proceedings of legislatures is nothing new. In Australia, for example, the Parliament in July 1946 voted to broadcast all of its proceedings, uncut, and a joint committee was designated to control the broadcasts and to allot time to either House according to the importance of the question being debated and the public interest.

64 See, for example, Journal of Maclay, 2, 21, 23, 132, 143, 144, 175.

65 The manuscript copy of the first volume of the journal of the First Congress is missing from the papers in the National Archives.

66 Journal of the Senate of the First Congress, II, July 6 and 9, 1790, mss.. Papers of the United States Senate.

67 Original Minutes of Committees, 2d Cong., 1st sess., October 24, 1791, mss., ibid.

68 See, for example, ibid., October 27, 1791, and Senate Journal, 2d Cong., 1st sess., 328.

6 Adams (ed.), Works of John Adams, X, 48.

72183-48-16

At this point, I should like to insert in the record an article on the Australian system furnished to me by the Australian News and Information Bureau, the official information service of the Australian Government, which explains in detail the operation of the Australian system.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be received. (The article above referred to is as follows:)

AUSTRALIAN NEWS AND INFormation Bureau,

New York 20, N. Y., January 14, 1947.

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER,
United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: I was very interested to notice your reported suggestion that arrangements should be made to broadcast the sittings of the United States Senate, so that Americans could hear their representatives at work.

A few months ago the Australian Parliament introduced special legislation to permit the broadcasting of parliamentary debates in the Senate and House of Representatives. Radio listeners welcomed the development as a means of widening their knowledge of parliamentary activities and national affairs.

For your information I am enclosing a copy of an article containing some details of the Australian arrangement. This came to our bureau recently from Canberra and covers some of the atmospheric and technical aspects of the Australian plan. I thought it might be of use to you if the United States Senate decides to explore the broadcasting proposal more fully.

If you require any additional information on the Australian broadcasting arrangement it could probably be obtained through the facilities of this bureau. We would be only too happy to assist you in this matter.

Yours faithfully,

GSC:LLC.

Enc. Democracy on the Air.

GAVIN S. CASEY, Director.

DEMOCRACY ON THE AIR

(By P. D. Mantle)

(Australia's Federal Parliament at Canberra is not afraid of the "mike," and regular broadcasts are made of sessions of both Houses.)

First broadcasts of the House of Representatives began on July 10, 1946, enabling the great listening public to hear and judge for themselves the debates conducted by their parliamentary representatives. Hitherto, they have had to rely mainly on newspaper reports, necessarily limited through lack of space.

The idea of broadcasting parliamentary proceedings is not new. For more than 10 years the people of New Zealand have heard broadcasts from their legislature, but these have been confined to the lower House.

Australia will be the first country in the world regularly to broadcast the proceedings of both Senate and House of Representatives. While Parliament is in session, the Australian Broadcasting Commission's alternative network in each capital city, and in Newcastle, will give listeners the opportunity to hear every word of the debates from opening prayers until the House adjourns.

In this way it is hoped that the proceedings of Parliament will become familiar in most Australian homes, that the methods of conducting the country's business will be known and appreciated by the people.

Both government and opposition approved the general principle of broadcasting when the Senate brought down a bill that later became the Parliamentary Proceedings Act, 1946. There was some difference of opinion on various clauses, but the bill had very few opponents. All parties realized that a more informed interest by the electors of Australia would be most desirable.

At first it was proposed to broadcast only part of the debates, but, as it was thought that this might lead to a practice of "hogging the mike," it was decided to have complete service from broadcasting stations in each capital and New castle.

It was first necessary to amend a wartime act which had ordered that the true name of every broadcaster be given. In Parliament, individual members are always referred to by the name of their constituency and ministers by their portfolios. The act was amended to preserve this custom. Provision also had to be

made to extend parliamentary privilege to cover radio transmission, so that members would have legal protection for any statements they made.

A joint committee was established to control the broadcasts, its nine members including the president and two members of the senate, the speaker and five representatives. They allot time on the air to either house, according to the importance of the debate and its interest to the public, and have power to decide which parts will be recorded for retransmission.

Transmitters are connected by land-line to Canberra the federal capital. The program announcer in Sydney monitors the service from Canberra as the time approaches the opening of Parliament, usually 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

"One minute to go," say Canberra, and Sydney plays the music by which Australians identify the broadcasts. A few seconds before the hour, Canberra makes its announcement and then listeners hear the sergeant-at-arms declaiming, "Honorable members, Mr. Speaker." Formerly the phrase was, "Gentlemen, Mr. Speaker," but the wording was changed when Dame Enid Lyons was elected to Parliament.

The speaker bows left and right to the members, who remain standing until he has read the prayers.

"Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to vouchsafe Thy blessing upon this Parliament. Direct and prosper our deliberations to the advancement of Thy glory and the true welfare of the people of Australia.' Then follows the Lord's Prayer, and members resume their seats.

"Any petitions?" asks Mr. Speaker, "Notices of motion?" Then he calls for questions without notice-and the game is on.

This is a busy hour for the technicians in their little control room from which they look through a glass panel on to the floor of the house. They have the difficult job of bringing in each member who bobs up to speak, trying to catch interjections, and maintaining the right modulation for men of varying voices who may be close to, or distant from, a microphone. Their job is difficult, as they listen through a monitoring loudspeaker which gives no indication of the direction from which the voices come.

It would be technically unsound to leave all microphones alive all the time. A good deal of private conversation goes on while members are speaking and if it were all picked up at strength, the result would be confusion to the listener.

So far as possible, the engineers of the postmaster general's department cut in only the microphones being used by the man with "the call" or the deliberate interjector.

One

There are 12 microphones on the floor of the house of representatives. cardiod mike is left open for the use of Mr. Speaker, and a similar one at the far end of the tables serves those members whose seats are at the top of the horseshoe formation.

The remainder are velocity microphones with two active faces. As the floor slopes up toward the back, stands are used so that back-benchers will not be speaking over the tops of the microphones. Four velocities on each side of the house cater for private members. Ministerial benches and opposition front benches are served by two more on the central table. The "fields" of the instruments overlap so that there is no dead spot where a speaker may not be heard. Radio listeners can hear every word addressed to the house.

In the sound-proof control room of each house is a diagrammatic representation of the chamber, colored in red, yellow, blue, and green.

In each colored section is a press button which brings into circuit the microphone serving the particular block of benches which it represents. So, at an instant, the engineer can identify the particular part of the house and open the appropriate microphone.

A similar colored panel carries the faders to control output level according to the speaker's volume or his distance back from the instrument which picks up his voice. So that the radio audience may not be alternately straining to hear and deafened with the volume, it is necessary to keep constant watch on the visual level indicator and make adjustments on the controls.

Experience already is teaching the operators what to expect from each member of the house. They are gradually learning the level of each man's voice and can attune the control in anticipation when a member rises to speak.

During question time there is considerable interjection, and as the aim of the broadcasts is to give the true parliamentary scene to listeners, every endeavor is made to bring in the remarks of seated members who often contribute humor and sound sense in this way.