We met week after week, month after month, and labored over the cases prepared, and reported bills to the House.

They were put upon the calendars and there were buried, to be brought in again and again in succeeding Congresses." William D.Kelley of Pennsylvania bluntly declared: "No legislation can be effectually originated outside the Committee on Appropriations, unless it be a bill which will command unanimous consent or a stray bill that may get a two-thirds vote, or a pension bill." He explained that he excepted pension bills "because we have for several years by special order remitted the whole subject of pensions to a committee who bring in their bills at sessions held one night in each week, when ten or fifteen gentlemen decide what soldiers may have pensions and what soldiers may not." The Democratic party found this situation extremely irritating when it came into power in the House.

It was unable to do anything of importance or even to define its own party policy, and in the session of Congress beginning in December, 1885, it sought to correct the situation by amending the rules.

In this undertaking it had sympathy and support on the Republican side.

The duress under which the House labored was pungently described by Thomas B.Reed, who was just about that time revealing the ability that gained for him the Republican leadership.
In a speech, delivered on December 16, 1885, he declared: "For the last three Congresses the representatives of the people of the United States have been in irons.