470 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Leaders of the Bepublican opposition have declared Mr. Un- derwood the most resonrcefnl antagonist they have ever found upon the Democratic side of the Honse. Mr. Underwood *s position when the Sixty-second Congress was called into special session by President Taft for the pur* pose of passing the reciprocity legislation, was one of tre- mendous difficulties. He was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, with which he had been associated daring the preparation of the Dingley and Payne tariff bills. The Democrats had a majority of nearly seventy. They had not had possession of the House for sixteen years and were polit- ically hungry and thirsty for patronage. They represented every element of Democracy. They saw ahead a glimmering hope for the election of a Democratic President in 1912 and full access to the places and prerogatives of a Democratic administration, and each man of the two hundred and twenty- eight Democrats was full of ambition to secure a position of influence in the House, in order that he might eventually ob- tain a commanding seat at the feast. In all this discord, Mr. Underwood was elected chairman of the Ways and Means Committee without a dissenting voice. The Democrats were anxious to revise the tariff, in order to keep faith with the people, but they had many plans for re- vision and a thousand shades of opinion. The House Lead- er's task was to hold these men in line, to get them to work harmoniously and effectively. The first tariff bills formulated in the House under Mr. Underwood's direction were vetoed by President Taft, on August 22, 1912. This action made it possible for the Democrats of the country to elect Woodrow Wilson President of the United States and unhorse a Bepub- lican majority in the Senate. But Mr. Underwood's field of endeavor in the House has not been confined to the tariff. Indeed, it would take a volume, and a very large one at that, to recount the full history of his activities in the halls of Congress. He was influential in abol- ishing the fee system which obtained in many departments of the government ; he first proposed the construction of a gov-
