g the fitness of each applicant for a position in that
department.

A CRITICAL SURVEY

It appears, then, these two general types of legislation, the one
proposing local improvements, the other seeking social justice for the
Negro race, were preeminent in the measures proposed by the Negro
Congressmen. On the other hand, however, most of these measures,
regardless of merit, met in general one of three fates: they were
either sidetracked in committee, reported adversely, or defeated after
debate in open session.

The character of measures proposed by these Congressmen has been the
subject of much adverse criticism. Not a few persons have considered
as weakness the tendency to propose measures relating to local
improvements, and those racial rather than national in character. The
records of Congress show, however, that the motives impelling the
Negro Congressmen to propose the type of legislation stated differed
in no wise from those underlying similar actions of other Congressmen.
Discussing the service of Congress, Mr. Munro, in his _Government of
the United States_, says: "First among the merits of congressional
government as it has existed in the United States for over one hundred
and thirty years, is the fidelity with which law-making has reflected
the public opinion of the country."[113] Mr. Munro further says that
while Congress has not always been immediately responsive to popular
sentiment, it has seldom failed to act when there has come to it an
"audible mandate" from the whole country.

If, therefore, the Congress as a whole must be somewhat immediately
responsive to the expressed public will, what, indeed, is the precise
course of action that a representative, as a matter of policy, must
pursue? He is regarded, in the first instance, as representing not his
State, but rather a particular Congressional district of his State.
His tenure of office runs for but two years, at the expiration of
which he must submit to his constituents not a record of constructive
statesmanship, based upon his fealty to measures of national or
international importance, but rather one alleging the skill with which
he has protected the peculiar interests of his district. That he has
sought to obtain a new customs house, has opposed a tariff for revenue
only, has defended the principle of bimetallism, not indeed in
relation to the wider demands of the nation, but because of the
particular demands of his constituency, are matters o