Benjamin Harrison himself had been a member of the ruling group of Senators, and as he was fully imbued with their ideas as to the proper place of the President he was careful to avoid interference with legislative procedure.

Such was the party harmony that an extensive program of legislation was put through without serious difficulty, after obstruction had been overcome in the House by an amendment of the rules.
In the House of Representatives, the quorum is a majority of the whole membership.

This rule enabled the minority to stop business at any time when the majority party was not present in sufficient strength to maintain the quorum by its own vote.

On several occasions, the Democrats left the House nominally without a quorum by the subterfuge of refusing to answer to their names on the roll call.

Speaker Reed determined to end this practice by counting as present any members actually in the chamber.