er officers,"[147]
but it makes no mention of the speaker's powers. The right to appoint
the committees is not conferred on the speaker by the Constitution. The
extent and character of the powers exercised by that official are
determined very largely by the rules and usages of the House. This is
the source of his power to appoint the chairman and other members of the
various standing committees.

The speaker is elected at the beginning of each Congress and retains his
office during the life of that body. The same is now true of the
standing committees which he appoints, though previous to 1861 they were
appointed for the session only.

The speaker is, of course, a member of the dominant party in the House,
and is expected to use the powers and prerogatives of his office to
advance in all reasonable ways the interests of the party which he
represents. The selection of committees which he makes is naturally
enough influenced by various considerations of a political and personal
nature. It is largely determined by the influences to which he owes his
elevation to the speakership. In return for the support of influential
members in his own party certain important chairmanships have been
promised in advance. And even where no definite pledges have been made
he must use the appointive power in a manner that will be acceptable to
his party. This does not always prevent him, however, from exercising
enough freedom in making up the committees to insure him a large measure
of control over legislation.

All the chairmanships and a majority of the places on each committee are
given to the members of his own party. As the speaker's right to appoint
does not carry with it the power to remove, he has no control over a
committee after it is appointed. The committees, as a matter of fact,
are in no true sense responsible either to the speaker or to the House
itself, since once appointed they can do as they please. They are in
fact just so many small, independent, irresponsible bodies, each
controlling in its own way and from motives known only to itself the
particular branch of legislation assigned to it. The only semblance of
responsibility attaching to the committee is found in the party
affiliation of the majority of its members with the majority in the
House. But ineffectual and intangible as this is, it is rendered even
more so by the fact that the opposition party is also represented on
each committee. This allows the dominant p