the fifty-sixth Congress he succeeded Nelson Dingley, Jr., deceased, as chairman of the committee on Ways and Means and also served on the committee on Insular Affairs. In January, 1899, he was appointed by President McKinley one of the members of the Joint High Commission to negotiate a treaty with Canada. He was unanimously elected speaker pro tempore of the United States house of representatives during the temporary absence of Mr. Speaker Reed in April 1898, and as such he signed the act annexing Hawaii, and other important bills. He was a member of the Republican national conventions of 1896, 1900 and 1904 serving in 1900 as chairman of the committee on Credentials. On the assembling of the fifty-eighth Congress he was a prominent candidate before the house for the speakership.
He was married April 23, 1873, to Gertrude, daughter of Oscar Fitzhugh and Arietta (Terry) Knapp of Auburn, New York, and their son, William Knapp Payne, became the junior member of the Auburn law firm of Payne, Van Sickle and Payne, of which his father was the senior member. Mr. Payne was always a forceful personage and while at home on the farm led the workmen of whom he was one, and was able to "hoe his row" with the most experienced farm-hand when fourteen years old. In college he was at the head of his class. As a lawyer he was highly successful. He built up an extensive practice early in his career and for twelve years prior to his election to congress he was engaged in most important cases in the court of his circuit. Since he entered congress he has given much attention to the law but as he remains in Washington during the entire sessions of that body has been obliged to decline many large retainers. As a legislator he has been a leader on the floor of the house and in the committee rooms. As a boy of twelve he says he had a strong impulse to become a public speaker, and when fourteen to become a lawyer. This first impulse was born of chagrin caused by a failure, through diffidence, in rehearsing a declamation before an audience. He has refused any office not in line with his profession and he accepted his first nomination to congress as a matter of duty, as his friends desired to break up a political combine existing in the district. Whatever of ambition he possessed, resulted from a habit of trying to do as well as possible the duty that each day brought with it. Home, school, early companionship, private study and especially reading history—the lives of public men and the political and tariff
