reasonable way, but makes them plethoric, full, big, and fair in proportions, shall have work remitted to him in future, and be able to rise and tell us with some exactness how many clerks there are in this bill, what their grades and classes, what their exact compensation; so that we may vote sums of money demanded by the public service upon ascertained data. I think we had better have a general inquiry as to what has become of the reform bill. I wonder, indeed, that the honorable Senator who gave it his labor and produced it has not looked after it and piloted it through the mazes of senatorial action. These are inquiries that I should like to have answered. Then our friend from Illinois might be spared the labor that he gives to this subject of finance from time to time, and I do not know that it would not lead generally to better humor all over, as well as better government. I should really like, in earnest, to know what has become of the great reform bill.

Mr. SHERMAN. I should really like to know how to reply to the Senator from California; but I believe I will not enter into any extended discussion of this subject. He asks what has become of a bill referred to the Com. mittee on Finance. I have stated that that bill-a very excellent bill-is before the Committee on Finance, and has been carefully considered by that committee; but it proposes to increase the compensation of nearly all the employés of the Treasury Department, in order to make it more efficient, and the Committee on Finance were not disposed to do that at the present session of Congress. They did not wish to increase the expenditures of the Treasury or of any other Department. They thought it was better to postpone the reorganization of this Department until the clerical force could be reduced. That is a sufficient answer to that. In fact, I believe the Senator from Maine is satisfied with our course; or if not satisfied, at least he did not express his dissatisfaction.

Now, Mr. President, the Senator from California no doubt would desire to cast some reproach on the Secretary of the Treasury in inding fault on this subject. I do not think that is right. Whether we like the Secretary of the Treasury or not, he has to administer a great Department of the Government, and I believe he administers it honestly, as he conceives. He has no more force now than has been employed for years. In order to satisfy the Senator that we have pretty full informa tion on the subject, I ask the Senator now to listen while a letter is read from the Secretary of the Treasury on this very point; but I doubt very much whether he will listen to it. I ask that the communication which I send to the desk be read, and then I will add some further statements.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. POMEROY in the chair.) The communication will be read, if there be no objection.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, March 31, 1868. SIR: Respectfully referring to my letter of the 28th ultimo, I have the honor to submit herewith the result of the reexamination of the estimates for the support of the Treasury Department during the ensuing fiscal year, which are now under consideration by the Senate Committee on Appropriations in connection with the pending legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill, and also by the Finance Committee.

The Department is ignorant of the basis from which the calculations of the bill, as it now stands, were made. Our estimates were carefully prepared, and while I have caused them to be reduced somewhat in amount, still a sense of duty in the discharge of the vast and important trusts devolved by law upon this Department restrains me from advising such reductions as are comprised in the present bill. No one appreciates more sensibly than the Secretary the necessity for economy in the public expenditures, passing as all do in review before him; no one will endeavor more earnestly to promote this end; but to accomplish it he should be provided with proper

means.

There are several considerations which should not be lost sight of in examining the expenditures of the Treasury Department, and especially in attempting to reduce them, now that the rebellion has ceased, to the amount of the expenditures prior to its commencement in 1861.

Reduction upon such a scale is hopeless for many years to come, until we can dispense with the internal revenue system, not in existence before the war,

the annual collections of which in a single year exceeded three hundred and ten million dollars, and must hereafter continue to be large; until our receipts from customs are reduced to $64,000,000 collected under specific rates of duty as in 1860, instead of $176,000,000 at ad valorem rates as at prosent; until our public debt of $2,500,000,000, including our currency circulation, is paid off, the accounts of expenditures which gave rise to it adjusted, and the current business growing out of it terminated. So long must the expenses of this Department in nearly every branch of its operations remain at about their present standard, reduced, of course, from time to time as accumulated business is by degrees disposed of. The fact is that the accumulations of the war are not yet cleared away notwithstanding our best efforts to this end. In several of the accounting offices especially, the time of a great number of clerks has been diverted from this accumulated business to the settlement of bounty claims which pressed upon the Department under the acts passed since the war, but to carry which into effect no additional force was provided until within a few weeks.

It should be remembered, as stated in my former letter, that all public accounts are settled by law at the Treasury Department and every dollar of public receipts or expenditures thus passes through it, involving every branch of the Government. Hence its business is increased or diminished by changes in the business of every other executive branch, but not in the same ratio. Local activity in either the State, War, Navy, Post Office, or Interior Departments may not perhaps extend to any other of those Departments; it does extend, however, to the Treasury, and a slight general activity in all these other Departnients produces a comparatively surprising activity at the Treasury Department, where all centre for supplies and to which all account. It will therefore be understood that the activity of every branch of the Government during the rebellion, especially the unparalleled activity of the War and Navy Departments, increased enormously the business of this Department, and while it may be possible to bring back at present some of the other Departments to a comparative peace footing, yet permanent results remain with us, in paying their debts, and settling their bills, which many years will hardly alter.

It seems almost impracticable to determine now what should be the exact permanent force of the Department.

The most correct conclusion arrived at is embodied in the bill now before Congress for the reorganization of the Treasury to which I beg respectfully to refer. In the meantime for the numbers of officers, clerks, &c., and their salaries, I have been unable to reduce to any very considerable degree our regular estimates. My own idea is that we had better employ to-day the largest force that can be of advantage on the back work of the war, because the longer its completion is put off the more unproductive will be its results and the weaker the accountability of public debtors. Hence I cannot recommend so unwise an economy in my judgment, as a decrease in the accounting force of the Department, or, in fact, of any branch of it at present, for all are intimately connected. The persons employed are usefully and, in my judgment, necessarily employed. A reduction of their number does not lessen the expenses of the Department in the end; it simply spreads them out over a longer period, and the result will inevitably be that the delay will finally cost more than the apparent, but fictitious momentary saving.

To these general remarks I desire to add that I consider it of vital importance to the successful working of our independent Treasury system that the salaries of the officers intrusted with large amounts of public money, exposed in cities-where all are located-to peculiar temptation, should not be diminished.

If called upon to point out the most serious evil at present threatening this system, I should be obliged to answer "the meager compensation of competent and responsible officers." It is the old story. Private enterprise offers superior compensation, and we lose many of our best men because we cannot pay them adequately, We have now a case of defalcation in the courts which probably would not have occurred had an adequate salary have been paid by the United States. If the appropriation for additional compensation under the sub-Treasury system is limited to its present reduced amount by the bill now before you, the important office of the United States Assistant Treasurer at New York city will be so crippled thereby that we shall be unable to continue its business safely or properly.

I inclose an additional section to the bill continuing for three years the temporary positions created for the period during the rebellion and for one year thereafter. Besides these, which were established by specific provisions of law, there are employés paid from appropriations which have for the last few years been made in gross amounts for additional clerk hire throughout the entire Department. The force paid from these appropriations is used to strengthen any particular branch of the business where additional assistance is required, and of necessity varies from time to time. In my judgment, it

cannot yet be dispensed with.

The estimate for the contingent expenses of the Department shows an apparent increase over last year; there is, however, an actual decrease, from the fact that no appropriations are asked for the respective bureaus as heretofore, but the Department itself will take charge of these expenditures, thereby reducing the aggregate expenses, as has been the case in the expenditures for stationery since they were merged under one head.

The items in regard to fuel, labor, lights, and miscellaneous items for the Treasury buildings are necessarily increased on account of the early completion, furnishing, fitting up, and care of the north wing of

the Treasury building, and five rented buildings for the use of the Department. For the details in regard to the bureaus, I respectfully refer to the reports from the heads of those bureaus, herewith transmitted, and should the committee desire any further detailed explanation the Department will promptly respond.

I beg to call particular attention to the items for administering the internal revenue laws.

I transmit herewith a communication under date of the 28th instant from the Director of the Mint objecting to the proviso contained on page 41 of the Lill, lines one thousand and two to one thousand and five inclusive, to which your attention is respectfully called. As the deductions or profits referred to in this proviso are now paid into the Treasury and appropriated for the incidental expenses of the Mint or branch mint, and are subsequently drawn out on the usual requisitions, and the accounts rendered are subject to the supervision of the accounting officers of the Treasury, I am of the opinion that the legislation proposed in the provision referred to is unnecessary, and will be embarrassing to the operations of the Mint. I also transmit a copy of a letter of the Director of the Mint, inclosing a communication from the superintendent of the branch mint in San Francisco, together with a statement exhibiting the amount of wastage upon gold and silver deposits, and the receipts and expenditures of the branch mint from its first organization until the present time.

The estimates for the branch mint at San Francisco and for the assay oflice in New York are not greater at the present time than for previous years, and I see no good reason for reducing the annual appropriations as proposed in the llouse bill, and I therefore respectfully recommend, in order that the operations of these institutions for the current year may not be embarrassed, that the usual appropriation be allowed.

I have been thus earnest in stating the case, hecause if the bill passes in its present condition I am convinced that the Treasury Department cannot perform the duties devolved upon it by law during the coming year.

With the hope that the views herein expressed and the requests herewith submitted will meet with the approbation of the committee, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HUGH MCCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury. Chairman Senate Finance Committee.

HON. JOHN SHERMAN,

Mr. SHERMAN. The Senate will see from that letter that this matter has been pretty thoroughly inquired into; and I will state to him in addition to that, that we have corresponded with every head of bureau in the Treasury Department who are, not like the Secretary of the Treasury, political opponents of ours, but nearly all of them political friends, and therefore, according to the logic of my friend from California, he would believe them much more readily. The voluminous communications of the First Comptroller, the Second Comptroller, the Commissioner of Customs, the six Auditors, and the Register of the Treasury, are now upon the table covering every point. In every case where we could find the slightest reason for a reduction of their estimates, we have reduced them; and if the Senator will look at the bill, he will see that in some cases we have reduced the amounts. In regard to this very item, $210,000 were appropriated last year, of which $60,000 were for the purpose of increasing temporarily the pay of certain employés. That was adopted after a long debate. The Committee on Finance concluded to drop that and only appropriate $150,000 necessary to pay for temporary clerks only; and in regard to that item the Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter dated June 8, says:

"If these items are omitted, we shall be obliged to discharge one hundred and fifty clerks on or about the 1st day of July, to the serious injury of the public service."

Senators may ask where these one hundred and fifty clerks are employed. They are distributed, according to the exigencies of the service, among the various bureaus. Fortytwo clerks, I believe, are assigned to the Second Auditor, and so they are sent from They are probably now made specially necesplace to place through the different bureaus. sary on account of the large amount of work to be done on military bounties. I have no doubt that after a while they may be dispensed with. - A word now in regard to the bill referred to by the Secretary of the Treasury. That increases largely the compensation of the officers of the Treasury Department. We did not think the present a wise time to commence the reorganization of this Department, and therefore we withheld the bill. If we had reported

that bill it would have largely increased the pay to these same employés.

Mr. TRUMBULL. It did not increase the aggregate. Did it not diminish the number? Mr. SHERMAN. Perhaps not, for the officers named, but it would have increased the aggregate. At any rate, we thought the unquestionable effect would be to increase the experses of the Treasury Department at present, and we did not feel disposed to report it. It raised the pay of all the employés, all the clerks, and all the officers of the Treasury Department, I think without exception.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Oh, no; that is a great mistake.

Mr. SHERMAN. It is very common to say that a particular plan to reorganize a Department will decrease the aggregate expense while it is increasing the pay. That always involves an absurdity, because if the number of em ployés under the new organization is found not to be sufficient to do the work they always ask for an increase, and the result is an increased expenditure. That will be the case in regard to that bill. At any rate that bill is now pend. ing before the Committee on Finance. We concluded not to act upon it at this session, simply because it does raise the pay of the employés. In lieu of that we have provided by another amendment for an increase of the pay of the Comptrollers and Auditors to a limited amount.

Mr. CONNESS. I was not aware that the measure introduced by the honorable Senator from Maine [Mr. FESSENDEN] increased the compensation of all the officers in the Treasury. On the contrary, I understood that it was to be a great reform, that although it did put up a few salaries of men deserving increased compensation, it so organized the labor of the Department that the sum total would be less than is now paid, and would be brought to an ascertained amount. That is what I understood. However, the honorable Senator from Ohio has had it in his charge for a great many months and ought to know.

Mr. FESSENDEN. The Senator from Ohio is entirely mistaken in saying that it increases the pay of all the employés. It increases the pay of comparatively a very small number of them.

Mr. CONNESS. That of course I leave to be adjusted between the author of the bill and the chairman of the Committee on Finance. I supposed that the passage of the bill would be a great public advantage. If it makes too great an advance in the salaries of the employés of the Treasury the Committee on Finance have the privilege of cutting those down and reporting the bill to us.

But, Mr. President, I rose more to say that the honorable Senator was not authorized by anything I had said to describe me as simply wishing to make an attack on the Secretary of the Treasury; and I take it he only did it to give himself an opportunity to spring to that official's defense. I certainly made no attack upon him. I did not name him. I said we were considering unascertained appropriations; that there was inexactness about them, and that was confessed; that I had just listened to a speech from the honorable Senator who has this bill in charge who said he could not state anything about it under certain heads. Now, sir, I do not think-and I wish to say that while I am up-that the Secretary of the Treasury is one of the worst of men-far from it. I do not think that he is the best fitted for that office in this country by far. But I never have assailed that officer to any extent; certainly never as much as I felt like doing, and felt that he deserved. I have been of the opinion that that practice here is not very well timed, and that it perhaps had better not be followed; that it produces no great public good. My own opinion is that those engaged in carrying on great Departments of the Government ought to have the confidence of the people; and when I have felt from time to time like criticising the head of the Treasury Department I have restrained myself by considerations of this

character. But there was nothing said by me that should induce the honorable chairman of the Committee on Finance to spring to the Secretary's defense. I think that had better be left to others to do.

I am not among those, as suggested by the Senator from Ohio, who doubt the truth of statements made by political opponents. I believe there are as honorable and truthful men ranking among my opponents, politically, as there are on the side that I am on; but I have not a very high opinion of the kind of politics that I understand to be those of the Secretary of the Treasury. As I understand him, he took office and began as a Republican, and as I understand him now he is not a Democrat. If I were called upon to describe him I should describe him, and I think the country would agree with me, as a bad Republican merely, so bad that he has lost his standing with the party that gave him office, and yet holds on to the office.

Mr. HOWE. Uncurrent.

Mr. CONNESS. Yes, uncurrent; and yet he has held on to the office. It has been said of persons who get high offices particularly that|| few die and none resign. In my opinion that officer, when he was unable longer to coöperate as a member of the great Union party of the country, through whom he had acquired his high place, should have in honor laid down his office. There was only one consideration, perhaps, that could have induced him honorably to keep it, and that was a conviction that his keeping it was necessary to the safety and honor of the country. Nobody would agree with him if he were to give that reason; and that could not be the reason why he has held it. I have no opinion, in point of fact, of the politics of those gentlemen who have continued in office and at the head of Departments under this Administration who acquired their power by professing one class of opinions and then held it by continually violating those opinions.

So much for politics. The honorable Senator, if I have consumed time upon the subject, is responsible for it, for I did not talk of politics when up before. I simply desired to aid my friend from Illinois, who always has an eye to these matters, and who has given a good deal of labor to endeavoring to correct abuses in the Treasury Department. Guided by his experience and instructed by it, I certainly shall not intrude myself upon the Senate much, nor attempt to accomplish much public good; for all his efforts thus far, I think, have been vain, or nearly so. However, I hope he will not grow weary of well doing, but will keep on in the right way and direction.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will remind Senators that the question is on the amendment moved by the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I am well aware of that. I do not rise to continue the debate, but simply to express my admiration of the manner in which the honorable Senator from California comes to the rescue of, or to back up, the Senator from Illinois. If he had not sat down with the statement that that was his object, nobody could misunderstand the course of his remarks so as to suppose that he could have had any desire or purpose to enlighten the Senate upon the subject-matter before it, for he has made no attempt at that.

The Senator, on rising to reply to some remarks that I had submitted to the Senate, had the grace to say that he had received no light at all from the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. That, I have no doubt, is altogether my fault. I was in hopes that the honorable Senator himself would be luminous on this subject and would give the Senate some light. If the Senate really have received any light upon the question as to whether an increase of the clerical force of the several Departments is really necessary to the service of the country or not from the remarks of the honorable Senator I shall be very glad.

The Senator, in a sort of facetions way, undertakes to tell the Senate of the United States that the " generous" chairman of the Committee on Appropriations has lent himself to the purposes of the Treasury Department. He does not say that in words; but that is the substance of it; that out of good nature, out of an abundance of generosity, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is willing to lend himself to the purposes of the Secretary of the Treasury to deplete the Treasury of the United States; to take away its money; that I am willing to make this bill plethoric; that that has been the office and the function I have performed that I come here with a bill which he would facetiously tell the Senate of the United States I wished to impose upon the country, to take money out of the Treasury; and my honorable friend, with an abundance of good nature, seems to enjoy exhibiting me to the country in that light. Sir, I do not know but that the Senate will get that impression. I do not know but that I have done something or said something which justifies the impres sion that the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations has really been disposed to make this bill plethoric, redundant, overflow. ing with money from the Treasury of the United States; and I do not know but that the Senate of the United States will believe that my associates upon the Committee on Appropriations have lent themselves to that purpose.

But I would say to the honorable Senator that all such allusions as that, whether in good nature or otherwise, are a gratuity which he ought not to feel that I can afford he should indulge in; and however he is entertained by it, it is a cheap kind of entertainment which I do not fancy. He may. When he knows more about the duties of the Committee on Appropriations he will have less to say about it; and when he understands more of its duties he will be in a better condition to enlighten the Senate upon the particular subject before the Senate on this proposition. I do not know a great deal about it, but I presume I know more about the clerks and the clerical force of the Treasury Department than the honorable Senator does, or will know on that subject, unless he addresses himself particularly to it. I do not say this, of course, out of any disrespect to him or to charge him with any want of general information; but I say it simply that having attended to my particular duty in fixing the appropriations for this branch of the service I am not to be told by that Senator, either in a general or special way, that I cannot enlighten him upon that subject, and that, therefore, I have no information on the subject myself!

Mr. President, I undertake to say that the Committee on Appropriations have made this appropriation bill as it came from the committee in conformity to the law; we have provided for the service demanded by the law; and when the Senator from California undertakes to criticise our report he had better examine and see where the short-coming is. If he says we are depleting the Treasury, let him look at the bill and see where we propose to draw a dollar out of the Treasury not authorized by the statutes of the United States. I undertake to say to that Senator and to the Senate that the bill as it came from the committee authorizes nothing for the Treasury Department or any other Department of the Government, except what is not only justified but demanded by the public service.

Mr. TRUMBULL. This amendment that we are discussing did not come from the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. No, sir; and I had tried to make a distinction between the labors of the Committee on Appropriations and the labors which we deemed belonged to the Committee on Finance; but I could not enlighten my honorable friend from California on that subject; and so I succeeded in getting the compliment of a willingness to deplete the Treasury, out of a generosity which in this respect the honorable Senator knows as well as anybody would not be public virtue by any

means. Sir, is it an immaterial matter that a Senator of the United States, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, feels that it is an act of generosity that he may draw millions out of the Treasury; and does the Senator think he pays me a compliment when he says that of my generosity I make a bill plethoric of millions from the Treasury? I do not understand the compliment in that way. It is a left-handed compliment.

Now, sir, all I did say, and all I meant to say on that subject, was that the Committee on Appropriations made this appropriation bill in conformity to the statutes. We provided for the service according to the law, and where we found no law to authorize it we turned it over to the Committee on Finance, which is the organ of the Treasury Department, to provide for that temporary service which lies outside of the law; and that is what the chairman of that committee is attempting to do now. How far he ought to go I said I did not know, because it was not a subject which we had investigated; but I do know this-I suppose we all know who are tolerably well informed in regard to the public service-that outside of the clerks provided and specifically authorized by statutes we have been for several years authorizing, by appropriating a general sum$300,000 in 1866, $210,000 last year-the employment of temporary clerks upon the idea that they might not be wanted more than a year. Last year, probably, it was hoped that $210,000 would employ all the temporary clerks necessary, and that this year we should not want any; but the Senator from Ohio, who has charge particularly of matters of finance, who is the organ of that Department, tells you that now they want a portion of the temporary force continued to the extent that will be allowed by an appropriation of $150,000. I wish to make the distinction that on this preeise question I do not undertake to instruct the Senate; and if my honorable friend from California is not instructed on the subject I am not at fault about that. I did not undertake to instruct him, but I did undertake to tell him what we had done; and when he says to me and the Senate that I shed no light on this subject, if that is what he means, I take no offense.

I said when up before that I did know, in regard to the Second Comptroller's office, that there was a force now actually employed there to the extent of forty-three clerks, which we had not undertaken to provide for. Those clerks were paid last year out of what is called a lapsed fund, and it is exhausted, as I am told. Now, whether the Senate of the United States think that those forty-three clerks can be dispensed with from the Second Comptroller's office, is a question for them to judge. The Secretary of the Treasury says no. The chairman of the Committee on Finance, whose duty it is to know whether it is so or not, thinks you cannot afford it; the public service will suffer if it is done. I have no more right to express any other opinions than any other gentleman whose duty it is not to inquire into that subject.

Mr. CONNESS. Mr. President, but for the fear that it would spoil a very excellent speech that we have heard from the honorable Senator from Maine, I should have corrected him some time ago by stating that he has totally misunderstood what I intended to say; and certainly I must think that he did not listen with care to what I did say. I understood him to confess that in regard to these temporary clerks he knew nothing and could state nothing; and that I think was about how I put it. But the honorable Senator holds me responsible for representing to the Senate and the country that he is an extravagant organ of the Committee on Appropriations. Now, sir, I do not believe that. I did not say that. I could not have said it.

As to my knowledge of this subject I do not profess a great deal. What I knew on it I stated. If that was little, the honorable Senator might have been content to have let that

pass without making it appear to be so infinitesimally small. But, sir, it is a good and a happy conclusion that I have arrived at, that with the honorable chairman at the head of that committee, in all that relates to his legitimate duties always well informed, there is not so much necessity for myself and others being particularly and exactly informed; but the honorable Senator should have had no blame for restating here what he said himself, that of certain matters comprehended by this bill and the pending amendment he did not know anything, or did not know much. That was what I understood from him.

I desired also to do what I have done, call attention to the attempt to reform this whole service with a view of having it kept in mind and brought up at an early day; and with what I said I am entirely content.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. TRUMBULL. I will state in a word what this amendment is, as I have called for the yeas and nays upon it.

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shire; and that is whether there was any authority of law already existing for the appointment of those additional number of more than one hundred ladies and thirteen gentlemen in that office.

Mr. PATTERSON, of New Hampshire. I would prefer to refer that question to the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. TRUMBULL. The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary does not have jurisdiction of the Treasury Department by any means. He has been very unsuccessful, as the Senator from California has said, in trying to check any of these abuses, if there are abuses.

Mr. PATTERSON, of New Hampshire. I should say that I understand that the gentleman himself who holds the office is illegally in his place.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I was about to state that I had heard it said privately on the floor of the Senate since this debate commenced that the head of one of the bureaus or divisions in the Treasury Department had stated not very long ago that he had more clerks than he knew what to do with.

Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. He probably said that to some one who applied for a place. It is a proposition to appropriate $150,000 Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not know whether to be expended by the Secretary of the Treas- anybody applied to get a new clerk. I have ury, in his discretion, in employing what are not been in the habit of applying for new clerks. called temporary clerks, which he is to classify I think it not unlikely that if Senators would in his discretion, and that means, I suppose, speak out there would be evidence that that that he is to pay them according to different is the condition of things in some of the divisclasses, as he shall judge they deserve. A ions or bureaus of the Treasury Department. similar appropriation, under a different name, I happen to know of one case of the clerk who has been made for several years. I think, from came to me, who was apprehensive because the what I have been informed to-day, the appro- business had fallen off that he would lose his priation was $210,000 last year; and before place. I do not propose to take up time in that it was some three hundred thousand dol-regard to this matter. I wish to record my lars, which was distributed by the Secretary vote against appropriations of this kind. of the Treasury among the clerks of the Department, in part by increasing their sala ries and giving to such as he thought proper an increased compensation. We once had here a report from the officers of the Department as to how it was distributed. Now, I think it is about time that we stopped appropriating money at the rate of $150,000 at a time, to be placed in the hands of any officer of this Government, to be used in his discretion in this way.

I know but little about the clerks in these

Departments, but little of the necessity for the number that are employed; but it has come to my knowledge within a few days, in a single instance, that a clerk has applied to me, stating that the work in the particular branch of the Department where he was engaged was falling off, and he was very much afraid that he would be discharged because there was no work to do, and he wanted me to interfere in his behalf if I could, to try and have him put somewhere where he would be retained. I know very little about these clerks; it is very seldom that I make any recommendations in any of the Departments. I presume that the case I have just mentioned is not a single one, but that there are many other like cases. In deed, I have heard it said to-day privatelyMr. PATTERSON, of New Hampshire, I should like to ask a question.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Very well.

Mr. PATTERSON, of New Hampshire. I want to ask the gentleman if this $150,000 will be sufficient? I ask the question for this reason the Committee on Retrenchment had occasion to call upon the Register of the Treasury to know how many additional appointments had been made in his Department since he entered upon its duties; and we found that there had been thirteen gentlemen| and one hundred and seventeen ladies, their pay involving an expenditure of $9,100 per month, which would be $109,200 per year under that gentleman alone, simply in the Register's office. I wish to suggest to the Senator that if the other bureaus have increased in the same proportion, this appropriation ought to be a million instead of $150,000.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I should like to ask a question now of the Senator from New Hamp- ||

Mr. FESSENDEN. I think this question is a very simple one. I wish the Senate to understand it, and then of course they will do as they please about it.

For several years during the war, by acts of Congress, we went on increasing the force in the Treasury Department. In addition to that for some years past we have been in the habit, on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury, of giving a certain amount to be used for the employment of temporary clerks. It began under Mr. Chase, and has been con

tinued since. The matter has been discussed here, I think, every year, and every year the necessity of the thing has been made apparent.

There are at this moment in the Treasury Department-not all here, but some at the subTreasurer's office in New York, and some, I suppose, in other offices where they are actually needed-one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty temporary clerks, most of whom are absolutely essential to the transaction of the business of the Department. If you refuse to appropriate this $150,000 of course the employment of those clerks must stop; a very considerable number of whom the various Assistant Treasurers at New York have severally said are absolutely essential to the conduct of business in that office must be dispensed with. So to a less extent in Philadelphia, and so in the Treasury Department proper here. You must either provide by law for the employment of these clerks, and thus make them legal, or you must appropriate money to allow them to be employed temporarily, and leave it to the Secretary of the Treasury to expend that money, or you must dismiss the clerks.

Mr. TRUMBULL. This appropriation does not contemplate paying clerks at New York or Philadelphia.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Yes, it does.

Mr. TRUMBULL. It comes in under "incidental and contingent expenses of the Treasury Department."

Mr. FESSENDEN. Very well; that is part of the Treasury Department.

Mr. TRUMBULL. There are other appropriations for them.

Mr. HOWE. They are appropriated for separately.

is possible, Mr. President, that a Secretary of the Treasury, I do not say the Secretary of the Treasury, but it is possible that a Secretary of the Treasury may have favorites as well as other men. It is possible he may have human frailties as well as other men, and that there may be favorite persons around him that he would like to give employment to, and whose salaries he would like to increase.

But the Senator from Maine wants to know if the Senator from Illinois does not know the difference between classifying clerks and paying them extra. I supposed that by classifying these clerks he meant paying one $1,800 and another $1,200, and that is done under the name of classification. It is possible that a person less pure, having fewer human frailties than the present Secretary of the Treasury has, might go into that office and might desire that a favorite person should be so classified as to get $1,800, when another clerk just as good practically was so classified as to get only $1,200. I can conceive that that would be possible with other persons than the Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. RAMSEY. I hope the Senator from Illinois will now give way. He has made a sufficient explanation.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I give way to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. RAMSEY. adjourn.

I renew my motion to

Mr. SHERMAN. I hope the Senator will allow us to finish this amendment. Let us take the vote, because I want to be absent to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. RAMSEY. I will withdraw the motion if there is a possibility of a vote immediately; otherwise not.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota withdraws his motion.

Mr. SHERMAN. I desire to submit a privileged motion. I move that when the Senate adjourns to-day it adjourn to meet at two o'clock to-morrow; Senators understand the reason.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion can be entertained if there be no objection. The motion was agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. CATTELL. I only want a single minute to say that, as a member of the Finance Committee, I felt it my duty personally to call at the Treasury Department in regard to this item now under consideration; that my information was obtained from Mr. Hartley, the Assistant Secretary, at a personal interview, and that he brought into my presence several of the heads of bureaus and divisions, and satisfied me conclusively that this sum was absolutely necessary to the working of the Treas ury Department. Upon that information, thus obtained on my own personal application to the Department, I voted in the Finance Committee in favor of reporting this amendment, and I shall vote for it now.

Mr. CONKLING. I shall vote against this amendment, and I shall do it with full consciousness of the futility of doing so. The Treasury Department having made this requisition, I take it for granted, for the purpose of this remark, that it is to be answered by the Senate, and I rise for the purpose of saying that if it shall be adopted we shall have some cause of consolation, I think, in the fact it is not $210,000, and that it does not involve all the latitude of discretion which last year and the year before was committed to the Secretary of the Treasury.

And now I want to make one single remark, to which I ask the attention of Senators. Last year the language of the act, as it appears in the estimates, was:

"And provided further, That the Secretary may award such additional compensation to officers and clerks as in his judgment may be deemed just and may be required by the public service."

And opposite that is the item of $210,000. Now, what do Senators suppose was done with

that $210,000? I am told by a member of the other House, who received his information from the Treasury Department itself in explanation of another thing, that about one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty thousand dollars was devoted to the pay of temporary clerks, and that the rest of this money was distributed upon the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, $1,000 or $1,500 being given in every instance to the head of a bureau, all of whom I am told received it except one, and these additions thus conferred by the favor of the Secretary ranged from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. In that way about sixty percent. of the money having been devoted to the employment of temporary clerks the financial officer of the Government managed to get rid of the residue. That residue, in charity to the Treasury, is not included in this amendment, and when it prevails we may console ourselves by remembering that here is a clear gain of sixty or seventy or eighty thousand dollars, looking to the past, whichever the precise amount may be. I shall vote against it.

Mr. RAMSEY. I move that the Senate do now adjourn.

Mr. CAMERON. Before that motion is put, I wish the Senator from Minnesota to allow me to make a motion.

Mr. RAMSEY. I withdraw the motion. Mr. CAMERON. Just a moment. I wish to move a reconsideration of the vote which adjourned the Senate until two o'clock to

morrow.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It is moved that the vote by which the Senate agreed to meet to-morrow at two o'clock be reconsidered.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I hope not.

Mr. CONNESS called for the yeas and nays; and they were ordered.

Mr. CAMERON. I desire to say that I can see no good reason for adjourning until two o'clock to-morrow different from any other day. I am perfectly willing, if Senators think it wise, that we shall meet every evening at six o'clock and sit the whole night to do so. I think in warm weather it would be better; but I do not think we should adjourn till a late hour to-morrow for a special object, because some of us have been invited to a wedding; let me speak out plainly; I was trying to find some other word. It is hardly fair that the Senate

of the United States, so near the termination of the session, should adjourn to go to a wedding like a parcel of young boys. We are old men, or ought to be. It was supposed when this body was provided for that it would contain aged, prudent, and wise men. I am very young myself; but there are many old men here, and I think all the old men at least would be better employed in attending to their duties here than in going to a wedding to-morrow.

Besides, there is no particular reason why this body should adjourn to go to the wedding of anybody, and, as is suggested to me by the Senator from California, [Mr. CONNESS,] it never has been done in the history of the Senate. I do not think there is any special reason why we should go to the wedding of the Senator who is to be married to-morrow. He is not the first man who was married, and I trust he is not the last who will be. Let us come here at our regular hour and perform our duties as we ought to do. If any of the Senators have a special desire to go to this wedding let them go, and those of us who remain here will attend to our duties as well as we can. I hope we shall reconsider the vote.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. CONNESS. On that motion I call for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered; and being taken, resulted-yeas 23, nays 13; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Bayard, Cole, Conkling, Corbett, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Hendricks, Howe, McCreery, Morgan, Patterson of New Hampshire, Patterson of Tennessee, Ramsey, Ross, Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Williams, and Yates-23.

NAYS-Messrs. Cameron, Conness, Cragin Fre

linghuysen, Harlan, McDonald, Pomeroy, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade, and Wilson-13. ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cattell, Chandler, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry, Grimes, Henderson, Howard, Johnson, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Norton, Nye, Rice, Saulsbury, Vickers, and Willey-20.

So the motion was agreed to.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate stands adjourned until to-morrow at two o'clock.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

WEDNESDAY, June 24, 1868.

The House met at twelve o'clock m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. C. B. Bornton. The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.

IMPRISONMENT OF WARREN AND COSTELLO. The SPEAKER laid before the House, by unanimous consent, the following message from the President of the United States: To the House of Representatives:

I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th instant, upon the subject of Messrs. Warren and Costello, who have been convicted and sentenced to penal imprisonment in Great Britain. ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, June 23, 1868.

The message and accompanying report were referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and ordered to be printed.

DIMINUTION OF THE ARMY.

The SPEAKER also laid before the House a communication from the Secretary of War, transmitting a statement of the estimated diminution of the Army by various causes up to January 1, 1869, and to July 1 of the same year; which was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, and ordered to be printed.

RECONSTRUCTION EXPENSES.

The SPEAKER also laid before the House a communication from the Secretary of War, transmitting a communication from the Paymaster General, submitting estimates of the amount required for deficiencies in the appropriations for the execution of the reconstruction acts for the balance of the present fiscal year, with an estimate for the next fiscal year; which was referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and ordered to be printed.

ARKANSAS MEMBERS.

Mr. SCOFIELD. I rise to submit a privileged report from the Committee of Elections. The committee have carefully examined the credentials

Mr. BROOKS. I rise to a question of order. On the 15th of this month the House adopted the following resolution :

"Resolved, That after the report of the tax bill by the Committee of Ways and Means in pursuance of the order just passed, no other business shall be in order but the consideration of the bill so reported by said committee, except reports from the Committee on Enrolled Bills."

In giving construction to that order, the Speaker said:

"This resolution only excepts the reports of the Committee on Enrolled Bills. There are two cases beside, arising under the Constitution of the United States, which the House cannot exclude. One is the veto of the President of the United States." "The other case is where a member claims the right to be sworn in from any State where there has been legislation."

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The SPEAKER. The Chair will correct the gentleman right at this point. The reporter of the Globe did not hear correctly what the Speaker said. The Chair has here, in a corrected form, the correct statement of what he said, as follows:

"The other case is where a member claims the right to be sworn in from any State in regard to which there has been recent legislation."

Those are the words which the Speaker used, as the House will remember.

Mr. BROOKS. And the Speaker goes on to say:

"The question may be referred to a committee; it may be postponed, but it must come before the House."