Bertrand Snell - House Committee Chairman

House Committee Chairman

In 1923 Snell became chairman of the important House Rules Committee. This position gave him great power in Congress and the Republican party, because he was in a position to frame legislation and legislative strategy. When Nicholas Longworth ascended to the Speakership and John Q. Tilson became majority floor leader in 1925, they, along with Snell, effectively controlled in concert the House of Representatives. Snell's first job as chairman of the Rules Committee was to fend off a challenge by insurgent Republicans and Democrats to ease restrictions on discharge petitions. Snell helped fashion a compromise that allowed regular Republican leaders a modicum of control.

When Longworth became Speaker in 1925, the Old Guard reestablished its dominance in the lower chamber. In this, the regular Republicans were aided by Snell's Rules Committee in restricting Democrats and insurgent Republicans from interfering with President Calvin Coolidge's program of spending cuts and tax reduction. To Democrats' complaints that Snell was too restrictive with the rules, the New Yorker responded that the opposition would undoubtedly do the same if and when they came back to power in the House—which they did. During these years Snell also played a role as a go-between for Congress and his college friend from Amherst, President Coolidge. This was not always a popular job, especially when differences arose between the president and Congress.

Snell backed Herbert Hoover for the 1928 GOP presidential nomination, albeit somewhat unenthusiastically. He would have preferred for President Calvin Coolidge to run for another term. Snell's relations with the engineer president soured slightly when Hoover tried unsuccessfully to seize the initiative in New York patronage. Snell's dream of eventually becoming Speaker was dashed with the onset of the Great Depression. In the wake of the 1930 midterm elections, the Republicans lost control of the House. After Longworth died in April 1931, Tilson and Snell tusseled for the job of minority leader. Despite being favored by the president, Tilson lost the race to Snell, who appealed to both the Old Guard and to the insurgents. Tilson was too closely associated with the increasingly unpopular Hoover, and Snell had made some concessions to the progressive Republicans.