omitted a part of the phraseology employed a year ago in a similar amendment; it had dropped that part of the phraseology which gave a large sum of money to the Secretary with which, at his option, to increase the salaries of officers and clerks. I do not suppose it was intended as a strategic movement; but if it was, I congratulate the Senator who thought of it upon the dexterity with which this has been done; he divided to conquer that was the idea-to give it to the Senate in installments; first, to have the Senate vote the amount of money necessary to pay the temporary clerks, with the idea that sixty or eighty thousand dollars was to be omitted; and then in place of adopting the old language, and giving that sum to the Secretary to dispense among the heads of bureaus and clerks, under another form to increase the appropriation for salaries, so that now we come back to where we were last year, and the same inequality is to be preserved. The heads of bureaus in the Treasury Department are to be paid an increased salary by direct appropriation, and then the residue of the sum as it was fixed last year is to be lodged in the hands of the Secretary with which to employ temporary clerks. I cannot think that this is right; I cannot see that it is defensible upon the merits as to those men who are here; I cannot say that it is defensible in respect to the invidious distinction that it establishes; and I cannot see that it is right in its graduation of the amounts, when you remember the differences in prices existing now and existing at the time when the appropriation bill was passed which provided for it last year.

I have heard it said by Senators here that living is very expensive in Washington. Certainly it is; living is very expensive everywhere. It is expensive in the city of New York; expensive in the city of Albany; expensive in the city of Buffalo, and in other cities in which judges reside who perform large services, and do not receive, many of them, a salary as great as this. It seems to me, Mr. President, that this cannot be defended; and the way to avoid the injustice of excluding other persons on the one hand or of loading 'the bill with many on the other is, I submit, to vote down this amendment, and leave the law where it now is.

The honorable Senator from Iowa spoke of the Commissioner of Pensions. I agree with him entirely that he was a very pure and competent man, but I did not understand, although I once had a talk with him on the subject, that he resigned exclusively or chiefly on account of the inadequacy of his pay. The Senator, however, may have better information on that point than I have. The Commissioner of Patents also resigned some time ago. Did he resign on account of the inadequacy of the pay, I should like to inquire?

Mr. HARLAN. I am not able to give positive information; but I think in the latter case the officer resigned because of some misunderstanding between him and the head of the Department.

Mr. FESSENDEN. But his salary is higher, is it not?

Mr. HARLAN. Yes; his salary is $4,500|| a year. I will say for the information of the Senator from New York, that I know that the late Commissioner of Patents remained in office at the request of the head of the Department for some time after he had expressed a desire, for private reasons, to retire."

Mr. CONKLING. I do not mean to question the Senator's statement: on the contrary, I agree that that gentleman was a valuable officer, and that his retirement was to be deplored. It has been said-and I was going to remark on that point-that the salary of the Commissioner of Patents is $4,500. So it is; and in my opinion it is a most exorbitant and unreasonable salary for any services that have been rendered in that office for a long time. I knew the late Commissioner of Patents very well; I served with him in the House of Representatives; and I have no hesitation in saying that any individual, or any Government which paid to him

$4,500 for any services which he rendered, or to resist the decisions of the respective Houses was capable of rendering, paid a salary utterly of Congress until the mandate comes to them exorbitant, I might say ludicrously out of in the form of a law. They resist even the proportion to the services. And so by going || action of the executive authorities. The Compthrough the tariff of salaries I presume we can troller has frequently resisted the decisions of find many instances of hardship where salaries the Secretary of the Treasury himself. They are too low, and many instances such as I con- are independent judicial officers to protect the ceive this one that I have spoken of last to be, Treasury, without whose official sanction no in which the salary is too high; and when we money can be drawn from the Treasury even have bills reorganizing the Departments, as I upon the requisition of other officers. They hope we shall, Senators who are competent to are officers of a judicial character, performing do it will, I hope, adjust this more to their own important judicial functions, and therefore they and the public satisfaction, but for the time are older in grade and higher in rank than an being I hope we shall not enter on the course Assistant Secretary of the Treasury or of any we do when we adopt an amendment like this. Department.

Mr. HARLAN. I hope the Senate will not adopt the Senator's advice at least in one particular. He requests that this amendment be voted down, and then that the committee's amendment be voted down. It seems to me it would be but doing justice to the mover of this to put this amendment on; if the other is right this is right, and let them stand together. Mr. CONKLING. I beg the Senator's pardon. There may be an amendment pending || which had escaped my attention. I did not undertand that the amendment with reference to the Commissioner of the General Land Office was pending; I spoke of the amendment reported to the Senate from the Committee of the Whole, the amendment which was adopted upon the motion of the honorable chairman of the Committee on Finance.

Mr. HARLAN. And to that is now pending an amendment to put the Commissioner of the General Land Office in the same category with the Auditors of the Treasury.

Mr. CONKLING. Then I am very glad to concur with my friend that if the amendment is to be adopted that officer ought to be added to it. I think it would be grossly unjust to exclude him. My proposition is to vote down the entire amendment.

Mr. SHERMAN. I have a few words to say in regard to these officers, but not in regard to the particular case pointed out by the Senator from New York. If in the opinion of the Senate or of any Senator the present Register of the Treasury is not a good officer and ought not to have this increase of salary extended to him, I have not the slightest disposition to include his case. My own impression is that the present incumbent is a good officer, and is attending to his duties faithfully and honestly and very vigilantly; but at the same time I do not wish to embarrass this proposition by the fact that, as it stands, he will be a beneficiary under it. He has never applied for an increase of salary, never alluded to it any way, directly or indirectly, so far as I know, to any member of the committee. This effort has been made chiefly for the benefit of the Comptrollers and Auditors, and we confine the amendment simply to that class of officers who are the heads of bureaus in the Treasury Department; but I should be perfectly willing, if any Senator has any doubt about it, to confine it solely to the Comptrollers and Auditors. I will state now the reason why we did not extend it to the Assistant Secretary of the Treas ury_and_to the Assistant Secretaries of the various Departments.

These Assistant Secretaries do not perform judicial duties. Their functions, although their name is quite high sounding, are far less important than those of the Comptrollers and Auditors.

Mr. HARLAN. Allow me to say to the Senator that he errs greatly as to the duties assigned to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. SHERMAN. I am not speaking of him. Mr. HARLAN. His duties require him to supervise, to some extent, the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Commissioner of Pensions.

Mr. SHERMAN. I am speaking of the Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury and the Assistant Postmasters General. Senators will remember that the Comptrollers and Auditors are really judges. They actually have at times

It is only recently that the heads of Departments have had Assistant Secretaries. They are new officers. Legally, they are nothing but chief clerks of the Secretary or head of the Department. The character of duties imposed on them is not the same as on these other offi cers. True, if there is a vacancy in the office of head of the Department, they may temporarily fill that office; but while they are discharging their ordinary duties, their office is simply that of a deputy or a leading chief clerk of the Secretary or head of Department, while the Comptrollers and Auditors have to perform higher functions, independent functions imposed on them by law, often in antagonism even to the head of the Department. We have in the Treasury Department six Auditors. None of them are selected with a view to politics; and so with the three Comptrollers; and yet it happens that these officers agree in political opinion with a majority of the Senate, all of them, I believe, though there may perhaps be one or two exceptions. They were most of them appointed years ago, during Mr. Lincoln's administration. They are admitted to be able and excellent officers. There are Mr. Taylor and Mr. Brodhead and Mr. Sargent; and the Auditors are all men of capacity and ability.

It must be remembered that these officers have for the last three years by law received a higher salary than the annual compensation fixed by the old acts; that is to say, authority has been conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury for three years to make them an additional allowance, and that has been done. They have actually been drawing $4,500 and $4,000 a year, precisely the amount that we now propose to give them by law, so that this proposition is not to increase their salaries as to them, but is simply to provide in a different mode what they have received for the last three years. We have the personal statement of these officers that their salary is totally inadequate for the support of themselves and their families living here in a plain, homely style; and we all know the fact that upon $3,000 a year a man occupying their position would have great difficulty in making the ends meet. Now, is it necessary for the United States of America, in the present condition of affairs, to starve out these officers who guard the Treasury of the nation, who perform the highest judicial functions, whose duties every day are of the highest importance, and reduce their salaries? This is not a proposition for an increase of salaries. It is a proposition to continue the pay that for three years has been given to them with your knowledge and by the sanction of law.

I submit to Senators whether under these circumstances you ought to embarrass a proposition of this kind, which has been examined by one of your committees, and made known more than a month ago to the Committee on Appropriations, by adding to it other provisions. Suppose it is true that the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and the Assistant Postmasters General, and the Commissioner of Pensions receive too low a salary? By the rule of the Senate you cannot provide for them in this bill without giving the requisite notice. If it is necessary to provide for them, notice can now be given, and the increase can be voted on the miscellaneous appropriation bill, or any of the other appropriation bills that are

coming up; but the officers whose cases are covered by this amendment have been provided for, according to our rules, by an amendment carefully considered, and an amendment which appeals to the good sense of every Senator.

There is one other consideration that I desire to suggest. There is already a great jealousy and a great feeling naturally in the Treasury Department on account of the inequality of the salaries in that Department. The officers created by recent laws receive higher salaries than those whose offices date longer back. For instance, the Treasurer of the United States, General Spinner, an officer of the highest character, gets $6,500 a year. Can any man say that General Spinner's duties are any more important than those of the First Comptroller of the Treasury, whose signature is required on every paper?

Mr. FESSENDEN. Let me say to the Senator, with regard to the Treasurer, that his salary was fixed on an entirely different principle; and that is, his personal responsibility for money, which is very large, for which he gives very heavy bond, and it was thought his salary should be somewhat in proportion to that.

Mr. SHERMAN. The Senator must not understand me as complaining of the amount paid to General Spinner, because I think his services are worth to the United States much more than his salary.

Mr. CHANDLER. Allow me to suggest that the Treasurer of the United States gives a bond in the amount of $5,000,000.

$3,500 a year, and there it stands yet. It has been filled by Elisha Whittlesey, and by some of the ablest and best men this country has ever produced. The salary was established seventy years ago on a gold standard, at $3,500, the same amount that you now pay to R. W. Taylor, when money has not half the purchasable value it had when the salary was fixed. So with the Auditors; the salary of an Auditor was fixed fifty years ago, in 1817, at $3,000. It was then higher than the salary of all the other officers around them; but now new offices have been created, new wants have been supplied, new salaries have been fixed by law, and in accordance with the liberal spirit of the times, the changed value of money, and the expanded wealth of the country, Congress has given more liberal salaries; and now, when these old and faithful officers, performing the highest functions in this Government, come here and ask to be put upon something like a footing of equality with those who perform even minor duties in their own Department, is it worth while to tell them that their pay will keep body and soul together? Is it right to say that the First Comptroller of the Treasury ought not to receive as much as the Comptroller of the Currency? One controls the whole Treasury, passes upon every account, directly or indi rectly; the other controls the currency of sixteen hundred banks. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue collects between two and three hundred millions of money a year. It is a very important office; but the Comptroller of the Treasury has to pass upon the accounts for every dollar thus collected, besides all the other money brought into the Treasury from customs and other sources.

It seemed to me for these reasons, when this matter came up before the Committee on Finance, that this was one of those plain, pal

Mr. SHERMAN. Then I will waive that case. I have no doubt General Spinner earns his salary. But take the case of the Comptroller of the Currency: there is an officer with no pecuniary responsibility, who gives no bond. He is a man of unquestioned ability, who has risen from a subordinate place in the Depart-pable cases of injustice where, while we did ment until he occupies his present position with conceded ability. His salary is $5,000. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue has a salary of $6,000. Here are the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Comptroller of the Currency, neither of whom performs anything like the responsible duties of either of the Comptrollers proper of the Treasury, getting a much larger salary. Is it not something to a man of pride and feeling that those whose accounts he must supervise, who cannot draw any money from the Treasury until their judgment and their action is passed upon by him, should receive a higher salary than he does himself? Is that right? Does it not tend to create that want of esprit du corps, that sense of wounded honor, which every member of the Senate would feel under similar circumstances? Would I be willing to perform at a lower salary higher duties? Would I be willing that a man should perform subordinate duties to me, and that I should supervise and control his conduct, and yet he receive a greater salary than I? If so, it must be an admission on my part that I am unfit to receive the salary proportioned to the duties I perform. That is this case.

Go into the other Departments, and you find that the heads of bureaus in the War Department now receive under law $7,105 a year, and yet every account passed upon by the Quartermaster General, the Paymaster General, the Commissary General, and the Surgeon General must pass under the supervision of these accounting officers of the Treasury Department. These bureau officers are in that sense subordinate, because the accounting officers perform judicial functions over them, finally act on what they do, and yet these bureau officers in the War Department receive nearly twice the compensation of the First Comptroller. The reason is this: the first office created in the Treasury Department after that of the Secretary of the Treasury was the Comptroller of the Treasury. The very name imports the character of the office. The second officers are Auditors. These are independent judicial officers. They were created a long time back. The office of Comptroller was created in 1799, and the pay was then fixed at

not want to enter upon any general indiscriminate increase of salaries, provision must be made for the Auditors and Comptrollers. As I said before, if, in the opinion of Senators, the Register (who, I concede, is an officer of no more importance than the head of a bureau in any other Department) and the Solicitor of the Treasury ought not to be included among the Auditors and the Comptrollers, strike them off. I do not appear here to plead for the interests of any particular officer; but I do say that as to the accounting officers you ought to do justice to them, even if you are not able now to do justice to other meritorious officers of the Government. As soon as we come back to specie payments and lower prices, as soon as we settle down upon the peace basis, I have no doubt the whole civil list will be revised, and these officers will be scaled according to the nature of their services; but in the mean time we ought not to lower the compensation paid to these high officers; and as we have now taken away from the Secretary of the Treasury the power to give them $1,000 a year extra, which has been allowed by Secretary Chase, and Secretary FESSENDEN, and Secretary McCulloch, which enabled the Secretaries to equalize the salaries to some extent, we ought not to reduce their pay to the injustice and detriment of high officers of the Government, whose responsibility and integrity no man can question or deny.

I know from men, who would not speak a falsehood, that in regard to some of these officers they will not be able to continue in the discharge of their duties unless they have something like a compensation sufficient to maintain them with manly and reasonable independence. Some of these men have large families. You cannot always compare the exercise of duties by these officers with the performance of mere clerical duties, because there are obligations resting on these officers that do not rest on clerks and others. It may not be very pleasant, but it is true that official station brings with it obligations, and the higher that station the stronger those obligations are. It may cost no more to feed with bread a Comptroller of the Treasury than it does the

poorest clerk; but still there are obligations resting upon him, from the nature of his office, his social duty, his social position, which imposes upon him an expenditure that is not demanded of others. And, sir, unless you are blind to a fact which we know exists at all times and in all ages and among all conditions of men in every form of government, there is a distinction made in salaries as to the character of employment, the nature of the service, the responsibility and the intelligence required for the discharge of the duties. No man is fit to be Comptroller or Auditor who could not in private life, in private business, get a larger salary than even the amount you now propose to give.

With these considerations I shall leave the matter entirely to the Senate.

Mr. CONNESS. Mr. President, the object of the speech made by the honorable Senator who has just taken his seat is to show the Senate that it should vote to continue, as he describes it, the salary to the Comptroller and Auditors of the Treasury, to now put in the form of a regular salary the amount they have been heretofore receiving in the shape of salary and annual allowance in addition thereto; and also to convince the Senate that, in order that that may be done the pending amendment should not be adopted.

I listened with some attention to the honorable Senator, and I indorse in the most thorough manner everything that he said of the Comptrollers of the Treasury and the justice of allowing them the salary proposed. If my friend were equally candid and equally generous and equally informed (as he may be) in regard to the duties performed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, I undertake to say that he would not have made the speech that he has with the purpose of defeating the pending amendment. He has described to us the judicial character of the functions performed by the Comptrollers of the Treasury. I agree with him that they are of the most important character. I know how earnestly the honorable Senator from Ohio has spoken and feels on this question.

I repeat again that I agree with him, but that he does great injustice to the pending proposition without, perhaps, intending to do so. There are no duties performed by the Comptrollers of the Treasury that transcend in importance the duties performed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. His is essentially both a judicial and an administrative position. There is not a preemption claim belonginging to a citizen in this broad land that is not passed upon by that officer. There is not a claim for a grant of land but that the piles and heaps of papers are passed upon by him and examined and decided. Millions upon millions of dollars worth of property are determined by that officer constantly and continuously; and I think that there is not a Senator in Congress, nor a member of the other House, who would acquaint himself with the duties that officer performs and the manner in which they are performed and the length of time required in their performance, who would not agree at once to compensate him fairly and enable him to live as a gentleman should.

But the honorable Senator from Ohio deprecates the adoption of this pending amendment lest it should affect the amendment he proposed and which was adopted in committee. I regret to see this. I know that it is not in any spirit of defending the officers that belong to the Treasury Department, but it is because the honorable Senator from Ohio, chairman of the Finance Committee, is so well informed touching the duties of the officers of the Treasury Department, with which he is so intimately connected.

I might appeal to my friend, the Senator from Indiana, [Mr. HENDRICKS,] touching the character of the duties and functions performed by the Commissioner of the General Land Of fice. I think that it is due to all the officers that we should courageously determine which of them should have an increase of salary, and

give it to them. There was a proposition pending here a while ago that might have been adopted to buy $15,000 worth of books, which perhaps would never have counted the people or the Government the weight of a straw, which would make the entire compensation that is spoken of for these officers if it had obtained. We vote ten or fifteen thousand dollars away here in many ways, and we refuse to give to the occupants of important offices upon which the true and honest administration of public affairs, the public revenue and public means depend, and, indeed, by which the public credit is sustained, a fair compensation for their ser vices. Now, sir, I am not afraid, for one, to vote such a compensation upon any or all occasions, and I hope to have the vote of the honorable Senator from Ohio in behalf of the pending amendment, and I shall be glad then to vote for his amendment; but I am not willing to make "fish of one and flesh of another." I think that it is time that we dealt with evenhanded justice toward the officers engaged in conducting the great business affairs of the country and the Government.

Mr. CHANDLER. I am of opinion that great injustice is being done by the amendment put on this bill from the Committee on Finance. I find that the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who signs all Treasury warwants and whose duties are certainly next to those of the Secretary, receives $3,500 a year; and yet you put his subordinates over him in point of salary. You put his subordinates at $4,500 and leave him at $3,500. And, sir, this morning I suppose I have been approached by twenty, it may be thirty, perhaps forty of the heads of bureaus in the other Departments of the Government, a very large number, and they all claim that their duties are as great as those whose salaries have been advanced, some of them greater. It is perfectly evident to me that we must either kill the proposition of the Committee on Finance or go into a general

advancement of salaries from the head down and equalize them. If you raise the salaries of these subordinate officers to $4,500 there is no reason whatever why their chief should remain at $3,500. I have before me a proposition to raise the salary of the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, designated to sign Treasury warrants to $5,000 a year. It ought to be. If his subordinates are raised to $4,500, of course his salary should be $5,000. I suppose it is not in order for me now to move that his salary be made $5,000; but I simply state the fact that this thing must either be stopped or be carried out.

I have finally come to the conclusion that there is only one remedy for all of this proposed extravagance, and that is to reduce the salaries of Senators to $3,000, and then claim that no man is entitled to more salary than a Senator. Do that, and we shall be able to stop it; and I shall move to-morrow, if this bill is not passed to-night, that the salaries of members of Congress be reduced to $3,000, and that that sum be the limit of any subordinate's pay. Then, sir, I hope we shall be able to stop this extravagance.

Mr. RAMSEY. What will you do with the President's salary of $25,000?

Mr. CHANDLER. I would cut off his extras. The President really receives $56,000 instead of $25,000. There is no other way but for us to cut down our own salaries, and then we shall stop this eternal clamor for advance of salaries. We have either got to stop the advance proposed by the Committee on Finance, or else advance every grade, provide that the female clerks, as my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. CAMERON] proposed, shall receive the same pay as men who perform the same service, and that all other clerks be advanced in proportion with those who have been advanced. Carry it out through all the bureaus and Departments, and I think perhaps five, ten, or fifteen million of dollars will accomplish it.

Mr. STEWART. Will the Senator allow me to make a suggestion?

Mr. CHANDLER. Certainly.

Mr. STEWART. I would suggest that in bringing in a proposition for the reduction of the salaries of members of the Senate, the Senator enlarge the proposition a little and provide for equalizing the incomes of Senators. [Laughter.] We will all vote for it. [Laughter.]

Mr. RAMSEY. Make a common fund of the surplus income. [Laughter.]

Mr. CHANDLER. I understand that my friend from Nevada has the largest of any one here from his gold mines, and he would probably suffer the most. But, sir, this thing has got to be stopped, or else we may as well abandon all restrictions and raise all salaries in the ratio already applied to some by the amendment you have adopted.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment to the amendment, upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. CHANDLER. I have voted against all advancement, but I shall vote for including in this section all that are offered.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 26, nays 9; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Chandler, Conness, Corbett, Davis, Doolittle, Drake, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Hendricks, Howard, Johnson, McDonald, Morrill of Vermont, Nye, Ramsey, Ross. Sherman, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Trumbull,Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Yates-26.

NAYS-Messrs. Cole, Cragin, Edmunds, Ferry, McCreery, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Patterson of New Hampshire, and Wilson-9.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Buckalew, Cameron, Cattell, Conkling, Dixon, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Howe, Morton, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, Saulsbury, Sprague, Van Winkle, and Wade-21.

So the amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. WILSON. I propose to amend this amendment by striking out in the fifth and sixth lines the words "of the Solicitor, the Register, and the supervising architect of the Treasury."

Mr. SHERMAN. You had better leave in the supervising architect.

Mr. WILSON. Very well; I will make the motion simply to strike out the Solicitor and the Register.

Mr. SUMNER. Why not strike out the Register alone? Why not take the vote on that proposition by itself.

Mr. WILSON. We may as well vote on both. The Senator who moved this amendment told us that certain officers named in it, the Auditors and Comptrollers, had judicial functions. Certainly the Register of the Treasury has not; neither has the Solicitor; and I think they ought to be stricken out at any

rate.

Mr. SHERMAN. I will make no objection to the motion.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Does the Senator from Massachusetts propose to disallow the Solicitor

decision in most of the contested or doubtful cases is upon the Secretary of the particular Department with which the claim is connected. Take an important claim connected with the quartermaster's department; the Quartermaster General decides upon it, and then the Secretary of War decides upon it, and mainly the labors of the Auditors and Comptrollers are routine. There is not this difference that is talked about between these officers. I merely rose to say one word for the Solicitor of the Treasury. I think that is one of the most important offices of the Government.

Mr. CRAGIN. I should like to suggest to the Senator from Indiana one way in which the Solicitor of the Treasury has been in the habit of having an increase of salary heretofore. In a case in the custom-house at Boston, in the settlement of a claim there, the collector and naval officer I think paid over to Mr. Jordan $4,000, which he accepted, whether for services or otherwise I do not know, but he certainly accepted it.

Mr. HENDRICKS. The present Solicitor? Mr. CRAGIN. The present Solicitor.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I do not choose to vote in regard to fixing permanently the salaries of the officers of this country on any rumor to the prejudice of a particular officer. The question is what is the grade of the office, what compensation a lawyer who is able to take charge of that bureau ought to have. He has the most important causes to superintend. I never heard anything against the present Solicitor.

Mr. CRAGIN. I will state that the fact I mentioned is stated in a report of a committee of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Jordan himself has adinitted it over and over again.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Let there be higher authority than a report of a secret committee of the House of Representatives. I do not consider any man's good name damaged much by that.

Mr. CRAGIN. The testimony of Mr. Jordan, as reported, shows the fact.

Mr. HENDRICKS. What he said I dare say would be all right, but I do not speak for him personally. I know but very little about him personally; but I know that the causes which are being tried in the courts below are well prepared in the Department. I have had occasion to meet some of them.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] to the amendment made as in Committee of the Whole.

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

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I understood the Senator who moved the original proposition, and argued its necessity, to agree to the motion of the Senator from Massachusetts, to strike out the Solicitor and Register, and I suppose therefore the Senate will not object

Mr. EDMUNDS. I ask to have the question divided, so as to take the vote separately, first on the Solicitor and then on the Register.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. A division of the question is called for. The question being divided, the first vote is on the motion to strike out "the Solicitor."

The question being taken by yeas and nays,

,,

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 19, nays 21; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Cattell, Conkling. Cragin, Davis, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, McCreery, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Sherman, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Wade, and Wilson-19.

NAYS-Messrs. Chandler, Conness, Corbett, Doolittle, Drake, Fessenden, Harlan, Hendricks, Howard, Johnson, McDonald, Ramsey. Ross, Sprague, Tipton, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Yates-21.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Buckalew, Cameron, Cole, Dixon, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Howe, Morton, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, and Saulsbury-16.

So the second branch of the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. HARLAN. I move to add the following words after "Commissioner of General Land Office" in the amendment as it stands : The Commissioner of Pensions and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Mr. WILSON. I ask for the yeas and nays on that.

The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. HENDRICKS. Can there be a separation of the proposition?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. I suppose so. Mr. HENDRICKS. I call for a division of the question. I think the office of Commissioner of Indian Affairs is a very important one. The other is merely clerical; anybody can decide whether disability accrued because of service or not.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question being divided, the first vote is on inserting "the Commissioner of Pensions."

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 21, nays 19; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Chandler, Corbett, Doolittle, Drake, Fessenden, Harlan, Howard, Johnson, McDonald, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Ramsey, Sprague, Stewart, Tipton, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Yates-21.

NAYS-Messrs. Cattell, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Cragin, Davis, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen. Hendricks, McCreery, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Sherman, Sumner, Thayer, Wade, and Wilson-19.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Buckalew, Cameron, Dixon, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Howe, Morton, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, Ross, and Saulsbury-16.

So the first branch of the amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the second clause of the amendment, to insert the Commissioner of Indian Af fairs.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 20, nays 20; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Chandler, Cole, Corbett, Doolittle, Drake, Harlan, Hendricks, Howard, McDonald, Nye, Ramsey, Ross. Sprague, Tipton, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Yates-20.

NAYS-Messrs. Cattell, Conkling, Conness, Cragin, Davis, Edmunds, Ferry, Fessenden, Frelinghuysen, McCreery, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Patterson of New Hampshire, Sherman, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Wade, and Wilson-20. ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Buckalew, Cameron, Dixon, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Howe, Johnson, Morton, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, and Saulsbury-16.

So the second clause of the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I move to amend the amendment by inserting just preceding the amendment proposed by the Senator from Iowa the words "the Assistant Secretary of the Interior."

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I would like to have the Senator state on what authority he moves that.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I propose this amendment upon the same authority the other amend ments have had for their support. They were propositions made by individual members of the Senate.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. They were instructed to move those by committees, and notice was given. The Senator's motion is not in accordance with the rule, I submit.

Mr. CONKLING. Neither were the others; they were not referred to our committee.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Yes, they were laid on the table yesterday and referred to our committee.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I wish to inquire whether the rule applies in such cases as this. This is not an amendment to the original bill, but an amendment to an amendment. I do not understand that the rule covers an amendment to an amendment. It only covers an amendment proposed to an appropriation bill. This is an amendment to an amendment. I raise that question.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Upon that point I hope the Chair will allow me to make a suggestion. It seems to me that the Senator from Maine must be correct, because you never can anticipate the amendments that may be necessary to an amendment. We can anticipate what amendments we desire to offer to an appropriation bill; but when an amendment is made to it it brings up a new question, and it seems to me it is in order to offer an amendment to that amendment without giving notice.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Whatever the Senator's theory may be the fact does not justify his inference in this case, because the amendment here has offered no new light, I take it, to any of the propositions

Mr. TRUMBULL. Certainly it is. Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I cannot conceive that it has. It has not changed the char. acter of the service at all.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I have voted for three or four amendments to the amendment that I never would have voted for as independent propositions. I merely voted for them as amendments to the original amendment.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I should like to have the rule read.

The Chief Clerk read the last clause of the thirtieth rule, as follows:

"All amendments to general appropriation bills reported from committees of the Senate, proposing new items of appropriation, shall, one day before they are offered, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations."

Mr. FESSENDEN. Our rule has been that no amendment should be received to an appropriation bill increasing the appropriations unless it was offered from a committee; but that rule was never held to apply to an amendment to an amendment. If a committee offered an amendment, which brought the case within the rule, it was always held to be in order for a Senator to move an amendment to that amendment, because it was no part of the bill.

Mr. EDMUNDS. What would the rule amount to if you could get around it all the time in that way?

Mr. FESSENDEN. Then make your rule so that we cannot get around it.

Mr. EDMUNDS. That seems impossible. Mr. FESSENDEN. The ruling has always been that where a committee offered an amendment, an amendment might be offered by any body to that amendment increasing the amount or doing anything else. Now, we have a rule that an amendment must be referred to the Committee on Appropriations a day beforehand. When that has been done, and the amendment is offered in the Senate, why cannot anybody offer an amendment to that amendment, which then for the first time comes before the Senate?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair is of opinion that an amendment to an amendment does not come within the provision of the rule. Any Senator may offer an amend. ment to an amendment without submitting it to the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. CONNESS. If it increases the amount of appropriation. Is that the decision?

are offered to an appropriation bill. Under this construction what, then, is to prevent any Senator from moving to hitch on to such an amendment a provision appropriating $1,000,000? When you add a new name to the list in this amendment you increase the appropriation, and in fact make a new additional appropria tion. The Senate will see at once that if it is decided that an amendment to an amendment does not come within the spirit of our rules, as a matter of course it will be the easiest thing in the world for us to upset this whole rule. Suppose, for instance, the Committee on Appropriations should report an amendment appropriating $100,000 for the Agricultural Department, and then the Senator from Illi nois, without authority from any committee, should move as an amendment to that amend ment an appropriation of $500,000 for the increase of the judiciary fund. That would be perfectly proper according to his doctrine, but by it this whole rule would be defeated.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not know that there is any question before the Senate. If there is I should like to reply to the Senator from Ohio.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is nothing before the Senate unless the amend

ment.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I appeal, and wish to say a word on that question.

Mr. SHERMAN. The Chair has not decided it, as I understand.

Mr. TRUMBULL. The Chair has decided

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair has intimated the opinion that an amendment to an amendment does not come within the rule relating to amendments being referred to the Committee on Appropriations. The question had better be settled.

Mr. SHERMAN. With perfect respect, I take an appeal from the decision of the Chair, because it virtually upsets the rule.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Then I suppose it is in order to reply to the Senator from Ohio.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The ques tion is, Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the Senate?

Mr. TRUMBULL. This is a new rule; and it is the first time we have ever had a practical application of it to any extent. We have always been able to get along very well without such a rule. The Senator from Ohio, after adopting a new rule, is for giving it an application that would prevent the Senate from amending an amendment. It would be like the previous question here in the Senate. An amendment is intended to be proposed by some Senator, and he sends it quietly to the Committee on Appropriations. Neither the Senator from Ohio nor myself have ever heard of it. It comes into the Senate here for the first time, and we are to take that precisely as it is presented, and we cannot move to amend it; that is to say, we are to take the sum as proposed.

Mr. SHERMAN. This point of order is made upon the old rule. The objection now made does not come under the new rule. The objection now made is that the amendment of the Senator from Oregon does not come from any standing committee. That is the objection of the Senator from Maine, and it is an objec tion made under the old rule.

Mr. TRUMBULL. We have been discussing it with regard to the point whether it came within the new rule. Now, if the Senator puts his appeal upon some other ground, it is a change of front.

difference in the case of an amendment to an amendment.

Mr. SHERMAN. There is one view of this matter which I wish to present to the Senate. Each name inserted here increases the appropriation, because the section as I offered it makes an appropriation to pay the increase of salary. This is a very important rule; and if you allow this proceeding it upsets the whole rule. Amendments of a legislative character

it on, though I did not get an opportunity to state it very fully.

Mr. TRUMBULL. The principle would be the same, I suppose; but the ground upon which it was argued by the Senator from Ohio, I understood, was that the proposition was not in order under the new rule. But suppose you take it under the old rule, was it ever the understanding in the Senate that if an amendment was moved by a committee a Senator could not

move an amendment to it? That was never my understanding. I never knew of such a rule. This is the first time that it was attempted to be applied; and to give to the new rule the construction contended for by the Senator from Ohio virtually amounts to having none, is to having the previous question, which the Senate has never agreed to and I hope never will.

Mr. CONKLING. Will the Senator allow me to make a suggestion to him on that point? It seems to me it does not amount to the previous question. An amendment, notice having been given, and it being in order, is under consideration. Anybody may move to amend that amendment, so that his amendment does not amount to a further proposition to appropriate; but the moment he offers an amend ment of that particular kind, the rule takes hold of it. If a Senator gives notice of an amendment to increase a salary, when his amendment comes up I may move to increase it still more, or I may move to reduce it, because that is all germane; but when I come to propose as an independent proposition to give some other man an increased salary, to put in some further appropriation, but putting it in the parliamentary form of an amendment to his amendment, then I submit that the spirit of the rule attaches to it, and ought to attach to it if the rule is to mean anything, just as much as it would if I waited till he sat down and proposed the same words in an independent amendment.

Mr. TRUMBULL. That is a refinement upon the rule that I think cannot be sustained. The Senator from New York admits that if notice of an amendment is given to increase the appropriation, it would be competent, when that amendment came up, for a member of the Senate to move to change that particular sum, to reduce it or to increase it, but he cannot move to amend it in any other respect. That is not the meaning of the rule that he may amend it in one way and not in another.

Mr. CONKLING. The Senator hardly does me justice in saying that I contend that we cannot amend it in any other respect. I do not say that. I only suggest to him that when he comes to move to amend it in the particular respect of proposing a new and independent appropriation, then it falls not only within the spirit, but as I submit to him, within the letter of the rule.

Mr. TRUMBULL. The precise point is here: the Senator from Ohio originally moves to increase the salary of the Comptrollers of the Treasury. I understood the Senator from New York to admit that it would be competent for the Senator from Oregon to move to increase the salary of the Comptrollers still more. Then the Senator from Ohio proposes to increase that appropriation, but he insists that we cannot move to add to it the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury or any other officer. I should like to know why not? What principle is in that if we can increase the same?

Mr SHERMAN. I should like to ask my friend a question. Suppose, in pursuance of notice, an amendment is offered in the regular way to appropriate $100,000 for the improvement of the harbor of Chicago. That is an amendment of which due notice has been given. Suppose, as an amendment to that amendment, some one should propose an appropriation of $500,000 for the improve. ment of the harbor of Milwaukee. There is an amendment to an amendment, but it is an amendment proposing an increased appropriation. Is not that within the rule?

Mr. CONKLING. Allow me to suggest that it proposes not merely, as the Senator from Ohio says, an increase of the appropriation, but, in the language of the rule, new item of appropriation. That is the point, a new item of appropriation.

Mr. TRUMBULL. But it is an amendment to an amendment, and not an amendment to the bill.

Mr. SHERMAN. This is precisely that case. Here is an amendment that has been carefully considered, that has gone through all

the forms required, appropriating so much money to pay certain designated officers, and now here is an amendment to it to pay another designated officer not named in the amendment another additional sum. It seems to me that unless we intend to upset the rules which have been established to promote the convenience of business, we must hold that this is not in order..

Mr. EDMUNDS. This is a question of a great deal of practical importance, and I hope Senators will give it sufficient attention to decide it according to the real merit that it may have, because the decision now made will stand as the construction of the rule for all

other cases. The particular item upon which we are now engaged is not of so much practical consequence, but of course this settles the meaning of the rule, and if the meaning of the rule be settled in the manner that the Chair indicates his construction is, it is equivalent to a repeal of the rule, because that construction permits the rule to be overborne indirectly, when directly the rule absolutely prohibits the increase of the amount appropriated in an appropriation bill unless you go through with certain forms. If there was any value in having this rule-and we have had it now for eighteen years as a necessary rule in this bodythat this taking of money out of the Treasury to pay for particular items of appropriation should always be considered first in a committee, so that there might be a careful investigation of the proofs and grounds on which the appropriation should go, then I say that it is of a great deal of consequence that we should adhere to that spirit, and that is certainly the spirit and object and groundwork of the rule.

Now, it is claimed by the Senator from Illinois, that inasmuch as he can by the form of proceeding, not the substance of proceeding, but by the mere form of proceeding, evade the letter of the rule in the strictest and most technical parliamentary sense, that gives him the right to swing around the substance and defeat it entirely. That I deny. In every sense except the mere technical one I am speaking of, in every sense that we should act on in construing a statute, the term amendment to an appropriation bill or to any other bill includes the whole series of amendments, an amendment to an amendment, and an amendment to that, if parliamentary usage would permit you to go as far. They all belong to the bill, but in different degrees; each is the link in the chain that connects the remotest one to the bill. So that in any general and fair sense of the use of language an amendment to an amendment is just as much a proposed amendment to a bill as the first amendment is. The mere technical difference is purely the form of coming at it.

The question is whether the Senate is determined, in order to adhere to what appears to be a literal form in that narrow sense, to overthrow the whole substance of the provision of this rule. I do not think there is a Senator who hears me who is a lawyer or a judge, if this were a statute and he were on the bench, would not feel bound to declare that an amendment to an amendment in this narrow and verbal sense in which we are now speaking of it was in substance and reality an amendment proposed to the principal thing. If there is any such person, I venture to say that his salary ought to be reduced, instead of increased, on the first appropriation bill that shall come up.

One of the first rules of construction in all civilized courts is that you shall not adhere to the letter to the injury of the substance, that you are to look through the mere shell of phraseology to the real purpose and design of this statute of your body, as it is one, in order to reach its true construction. This purpose and design was to prevent the attaching to appropriation bills of new items of expenditure, increasing the price or cost to the people, until those proposals should have been subjected to the careful and rigid scrutiny of a committee. That was the object, and yet

gentlemen coolly propose, by a literal construction, to take the very heart out of this rule. It cannot be fairly done, and I hope the Senate, independent of what their wishes may be as to this particular amendment, will so vote as to give this rule some life in the future.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I am so much alarmed as to my salary being cut down for disagreeing with the honorable Senator from Vermont that I am going to say a word or two.

Mr. EDMUNDS. You are not a judge; I spoke about a judge.

Mr. FESSENDEN. You said "lawyer or judge." I used to be a lawyer, and therefore I may come, perhaps, within the description.

I raised this question for the sake of having it settled by the Senate, and I have been thinking of it before. The old rule was that an amendment increasing an appropriation could only be moved in a certain way, among others, by permission or direction of a committee of the Senate. If I remember rightly, under that rule, when such a motion was made by a committee it was then at the mercy of the Senate, and anybody might offer an amendment to that putting on an additional appropriation if he saw fit. I may be wrong in my recollection; but that is my recollection of the practice. If the practice is otherwise, my argument fails. The Chief Clerk undoubtedly will know better than most of us whether I am right or not in that particular.

Now, here comes another ciause, and that is that no such amendment shall be offered unless it has been submitted to the Committee on Appropriations a day beforehand. That apparently stands in precisely the same position, and would be subject to the same rules of practice that the other is. And yet I cannot help seeing that the effect of it, if carried to that extent, is substantially to defeat the rule, and that the better construction would be that any amendment to an amendment of that nature proposing to increase appropriations or to make new items of appropriation ought not to be allowed, because the result of it would be, as Senators can readily see, to destroy the operation of the rule, and I do not see any difficulty that would come pratically from following the rule; for if Senators desire to put any thing of that sort in they ought to give notice of it beforehand.

Still I revert to that original position that if we follow the analogy of the former practice of the Senate under the old rule, any amendment may be proposed to an amendment to a bill; and when you come to look at the philosophy of the thing it may be proper. A bill is before the Senate; it is printed and laid ou the table, and every Senator can examine it. If he desires to make an amendment to it, he ought to know it in season, and the rule provides that he shall put that amendment in proper shape and have it referred to the Committee on Appropriations. But the Senate is not bound to take notice of all the amendments thus presented. They are not printed; they go directly to the Committee on Appropriations; nobody knows anything about them; and then they come in here in the ordinary way. Senators do not have the same notice of them that they have of the original bill. Therefore the reasoning would not seem to apply to them. Still I see what the effect would be of the construction which I think, in analogy to the old rule, the Chair has correctly put on this rule, and that is, that any amendment may be offered to an amendment. If the Senate choose to correct that, and say that under this new rule it shall not be allowed, I shall have no regrets about it, because the rule will then be made absolute.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I did not suppose when I proposed this amendment that it was strictly in accordance with the rule; but I expected that its justice would commend itself so to the Senate that no objection would be made, for the very palpable reason that the Commissioner of the General Land Office has had his salary raised, and the Commissioner of Pensions has