placed on the committee on the Judiciary and on the special committee of nine appointed by the chair to investigate the right of Brigham Henry Roberts, elected representative in congress from Utah to a seat in the fifty-sixth Congress. He, with Representative de Armond of Missouri, made the minority report recommending that Roberts be seated as his right under the constitution of the United States and that when seated he be expelled from the house on the ground that he was then practising polygamy. He was reelected to the fifty-seventh Congress in 1900 by a plurality of seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-six votes. On the assembling of congress in December, 1902, he was prominently named as an available candidate for speaker of the house, at the time of the vacancy caused by the withdrawal of Speaker Henderson. He was appointed in his second Congress by Speaker Henderson a member of the committee on Elections, No. 2, on that of Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and was continued on the Judiciary committee on which he had served so acceptably during the fifty-sixth Congress. In his first term he made a speech in opposition to the passage of the Porto Rico tariff bill, calling out favorable comment from the opposition, and adverse criticism from his own party. He also departed from the views and policy of his party in the discussion of Cuban reciprocity. He opposed the machine methods of the Republican party in Maine. He was reelected in 1902 to the fifty-eighth Congress and was continued on the committee on the Judiciary. In April, 1904, when an inquiry as to what action had been taken by the Department of Justice regarding an investigation of the coal trust, was referred to the committee, Representative Littlefield was foremost in questioning the witnesses and was chairman of a subcommittee to investigate the subject. In September, 1904, Mr. Littlefield was elected to the fifty-ninth Congress.
He was married on February 18, 1879, to Clara N., daughter of General William and Caroline Ayer, of Montville, Maine. Mr. Littlefield received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Bates college in 1902. He was brought up a strict Free Baptist and is a consistent temperance man neither using intoxicating liquors nor tobacco. He is recognized to be uncompromisingly honest and straightforward, holding to the highest ideals, self confident, authoritative and aggressive; having superb belief in himself and the cause he advocates. His eloquence though not silver-tongued, persuasive or alluring, is
