p. 28, Vol. VII, pp. 116-134, Vol. XI, p. 148, Vol. XX, p. 12, Vol. XXI, pp. 175, 179-183, 191.

80 Council Journal, 1838-1839, p. 41; House Journal, 1838-1839, pp. 24, 26, 37; Laws of Iowa, 1838-1839, p. 28.

81 Proceedings of the Iowa State Bar Association, Vol. XVIII, pp. 39, 41, 44.

82 Iowa Applied History Series, Vol. II, pp. vii, viii, ix; Laws of Iowa, 1907, pp. 227, 228, 285; House Journal, 1909, pp. 562, 1004-1006, 1384; Senate Journal, 1909, p. 1744.

83 Senate Journal, 1911, p. 44; Senate File, No. 105 (1913); Senate File, No. 91 (1915); House File, No. 184 (1913); House File, No. 14 (1915); Laws of Iowa, 1911, p. 164; Proceedings of the Iowa State Bar Association, Vol. XXII, p. 215; Columbia Law Review, Vol. VIII, p. 166.

84 Iowa Applied History Series, Vol. I, pp. vii, ix, xiii, Vol. II, pp. ix-xi. 85 Columbia Law Review, Vol. VIII, p. 171.

86 House Journal, 1911, pp. 1058, 1366; Senate Journal, 1913, pp. 218, 464, 1915, pp. 154, 564, 773; Senate File, No. 105 (1913), Sec. 4.

87 Proceedings of the Iowa State Bar Association, Vol. XXI, pp. 128, 129. 88 Stimson's Popular Law-making, p. 363.

89 The Register and Leader (Des Moines), April 16, 1913.

90 Ilbert's The Mechanics of Law Making, p. 195.

91 Columbia Law Review, Vol. VIII, pp. 160, 168; Iowa Applied History Series, Vol. II, p. v.

92 Iowa Applied History Series, Vol. II, pp. xi, xii.

THE COMMITTEE SYSTEM

BY

FRANK E. HORACK

I

ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF COMMITTEES

THE Committee as a method of handling legislative matters has come to be a most important if not the dominant factor in statute law-making. In its modern form and workings this method may be defined as a system which, while including all committees, centers legislation in those great committees that continue through the legislative session and are known as "the standing committees". Each one of these great committees "has charge of a specific division of the business of the house in such manner, that all matters falling within that division are regularly and usually referred to that committee for preparative consideration previous to final action upon them by the house."'1

ORIGIN OF COMMITTEES

It appears that the committee system originated in England long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Indeed, Mr. J. Franklin Jameson has pointed out that its germs are to be found as far back as the reign of Edward I: it is seen distinctly by 1340 in the appointment of a committee for the special purpose of framing a particular statute from a petition.2 Again, Sir Thomas Smith in his treatise on the Commonwealth of England, written in 1577, shows conclusively that committees for framing laws were then an important feature of legislative procedure in Parliament. "The Committees", he says, "are such as either the Lords in the higher