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standing committees; I do not know precisely how many. Some of these committees meet and do business and some of them do not. I have the honor of being a member of a committee of the Senate which has not met this session, to my knowledge. I have received no notice of it, if they have met. I speak of the Committee on Manufactures, presided over by the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, [Mr. SPRAGUE.] I have the honor, also, of being a member of another committee which has met, and which has important duties to perform. Each of these committees employs a clerk. There are, I will not undertake to say how many, standing committees in all; but twenty-four, I think, as I judge by a hasty glance; and every one of these standing committees is furnished with a clerk at about eighteen hundred dollars a year, whether they meet or not; and I undertake to say that not half of them meet at all; at any rate if they do, it is not more than twice a year. For what purpose are these clerks furnished to such committees? For the benefit of the chairman to perform his business, to do his work. I will not say that that is improper. I do not say that it is improper. I do not know but that it is proper; but I say if the honorable Senator wishes to reduce the clerical force and save the Government expense it seems to me it would be more proper to begin with the committees here in this body which never meet, and have not even a pretense of any labor to perform, and still are furnished with a clerk, than to go to the Executive Mansion and deprive the Presdent of two or three clerks.

In my judgment the President needs all the aid that he has. I do not believe that when the law of 1866 was passed, he was furnished with any more assistants than he needed. The whole executive business of this country is to be performed by three or four or five clerks. I no not think it is too much. I think he is entitled to all that assistance, and while I have not the slightest doubt that the honorable chairman of the Committee on Appropriations has acted in good faith, honestly in this matter, as he always does, and believes that here can be a proper saving, I do think he has made a mistake. I think the Senate ought not to adopt this amendment. But if the honorable Senator were to substitute for this amendment a proposition that committees of the Senate which do not meet over twice a year shall be deprived of their clerks, he would save to the Government twice as much money as this does, and it would come with much better grace from the Committee on Appropriations than does this amendment.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment reported by the committee.

The question being put there were on a divis ion-ayes 11, noes 7; no quorum voting.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered; and being taken, resulted-yeas 19, nays 12; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Cole, Conkling, Conness, Edmunds, Ferry, Harlan, Howard, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson-19.

NAYS-Messrs. Bayard, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Hendricks, McCreery, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury, Sherman, Sprague, and Willey-12.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Fessenden, Fowler, Frelinghuyson, Grimes, Henderson, Howe, Johnson, Morton, Norton, Nye, Ramsey, Van Winkle, Vickers, Williams, and Yates-23.

So the amendment was agreed to. The next amendment was in line three hundred and two, to strike out the words "five hundred and thirty-eight" and to insert " hundred and twenty;" so that the clause will read:

seven

For compensation to the laborer in charge of the water-closets in the Capitol, $720.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and nine, to strike out the words "sixteen thousand and eighty" and to insert "nine

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For compensation of two watchmen at the Presi-instructed by the Committee on Foreign Rela

dent's House, $1,800.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hun. dred and fourteen, to strike out "seven hundred and twenty" and to insert "one thousand;" so that the clause will read:

For compensation of the doorkeeper at the President's House, $1,000.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was after line three

hundred and fourteen, to strike out the following clause:

For compensation of assistant doorkeeper at the President's House, $720.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was to strike out lines three hundred and seventeen, three hundred and eighteen, and three hundred and nineteen, in the following words:

For compensation of one night watchman at the public stables and carpenters' shops south of the Capitol, $1,000.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and twenty-one, to strike out "thirty-six hundred and to insert "five thousand;" that the clause will read:

SO

For compensation of five watchmen in reservation No. 2, $5,000.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and twenty-four, to strike out "five" and insert "seven;" so that the clause will read : For compensation of drawkeepers at the Potomac bridge, and for fuel, oil, and lamps, $7,000.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and thirty-one, to strike out "seven hundred and twenty" and to insert "eight hundred and sixty-four;" so that the clause will read:

For compensation of furnace keeper under the old Hall of the House of Representatives, $864.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and forty-one, to insert after the word Congress," the words "and Supreme Court room;" so that the clause will read :

66

For compensation of the person in charge of the heating apparatus of the Library of Congress and Supreme Court room, $1,000.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and fifty-two, after the appropriation for compensation of the officers of the Department of State, to insert the following proviso:

Provided, That the act of August 18, 1856, entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act requiring foreign regulations of commerce to be laid annually before Congress,' approved August 16, 1842, and for other purposes," and also that the second section of the act of July 25, 1866, entitled "An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic expenses of the Government for the year ending 30th June, 1867, and for other purposes,' be, and the same are hereby, repealed.

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Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. If the Senator will allow me, I wish to amend the amendment of the committee, by inserting the words "third section of the " in the first line; so as to read:

Provided, That the third section of the act of August 18, 1856, &c.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. That modification will will be made, if there is no objection.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. The object of the amendment of the committee is to repeal that third section instead of the act itself. That may obviate the objection which the Senator may have to it.

tions to oppose the adoption of this amendment, and to move instead thereof an appro priation for the officers whose offices it is proposed by this amendment to destroy. This amendment is aimed at certain officers in the Department of State; and if you look at it, you will see it is divided into two clauses. The first is as follows:

"That the act of August 18, 1856, entitled 'An act to amend an act entitled "An act requiring foreign regulations of commerce to be laid annually before Congress," approved August 18, 1842, and for other purposes, shall be repealed""

This has now been amended on the motion of the Senator from Maine by making the repeal applicable only to the last section of the act of 1856, the effect of which is to destroy the office known as that of superintendent of statistics and one clerk in the office. The section is as follows:

"That the Secretary of State be, and is hereby, authorized and required to appoint one clerk, who shall have charge of statistics in said Department, and shall be called 'Superintendent of Statistics,' and shall receive a salary of $2,000 per annum, and shall be allowed, as an assistant, one clerk of the third class, which clerk the Secretary of State is hereby authorized and required to appoint."

That section, it will be observed, naturally belongs to the statute where it appears. The object of this statute is to provide that commercial information communicated by consuls shall be reported to Congress, and further, that consuls shall be bound to procure such information. But you will observe that if the statute simply provided for the communication of such information to Congress, and that conguls should communicate that information to the Department of State, it would not go far enough. There must be a provision for the examination and systematizing of that information; and this is found in the third section, which it is now proposed to repeal, under which the Secretary of State is authorized to appoint a clerk, whose duty it shall be to receive, examine, and arrange these statistics. Now, the question that you are to decide is, whether you are to give up that branch of duty in the Department of State. It was assigned to that Department as long ago as 1856, and it has been discharged faithfully, I believe, ever since.

You will remember, sir, that only a year or more ago a superintendent of statistics was appointed in the Treasury Department with a salary of $3,500 a year. It was the opinion of the committee that the service done at the Department of State in examining, arranging, and reporting these consular statistics might properly be assigned to the general Bureau of Statistics at the Department of the Treasury, if it were deemed important to continue that bureau. I have heard some objections to it partly on the ground that the present superintendent was not in all respects what would be desired for the place. On that, however, I do not express any opinion. I think that all the statistics of the Government, what I would call the statistics proper, should pass through one bureau; that it is not expedient to have one general bureau at the Treasury Department and another special bureau at the State DepartAt the same time, I must observe that the committee in making their present proposition do not undertake to transfer from the State Department the bureau which was created there in 1856, but they abolish it. They leave all the consular statistics which may be received there, and which now for twelve years have been examined, arranged, and reported by a special clerk in that Department, unprovided

ment.

for.

It seems to me that it is not expedient to touch this subject until we are prepared to

systematize it by bringing all the statistics that are gathered together at one department or another into one bureau. No such thing is proposed by this amendment. Therefore, I have to submit, that, all things considered, it will be expedient, at least for the present, not to adopt the amendment; in short, to leave this little Bureau of Statistics, if it may be so called, or rather this clerkship of statistics at the State Department, to go on for the pres ent as it has for the last twelve years, and meanwhile the committee, perhaps, can take into consideration the expediency of carrying out the suggestion which I have ventured to make, by consolidating all these statistical inquiries under one head.

That is all that I have to say with regard to the first part of this amendment; and this brings me to the second.

Mr. CONKLING. Before the Senator leaves this point, I will inquire who holds the place in this Department now?

Mr. SUMNER. I do not know his name. I do not find the name on the list in the Congressional Directory. I have nothing but that before me.

Mr. FESSENDEN. You will find it in the Blue Book.

Mr. SUMNER. I have not the Blue Book here. If there is one at the Secretary's desk I should like to have it. In the statute he is called a clerk:

"That the Secretary of State be, and is hereby, authorized and required to appoint one clerk, who shall have charge of statistics in said Department, and shall be called Superintendent of Statistics,' and shall receive a salary of $2,000 per annum, and shail be allowed, as an assistant, one clerk of the third class, which clerk the Secretary of State is hereby authorized and required to appoint."

In reply to the Senator from New York, I would say that according to the Blue Book the Superintendent of Statistics is Benjamin F. Hall; under the head of "where born," "New York;" under the head "whence appointed," "New York."

Mr. CONKLING. As I have interrupted the Senator once, I beg to inquire whether Mr. Benjamin F. Hall holds this office now?

Mr. SUMNER. I only know by the Blue Book. This is all I know about it.

Mr. CONKLING. I was about to inquire, then, in what geographical range he exercised his functions, if the Senator knew he held the office?

Mr. SUMNER. I know nothing about it beyond the Blue Book.

Mr. CONKLING. I know a great deal about it beyond the Blue Book, and I thought the Senator might know what was the geographical range of his functions.

Mr. SUMNER. No, I do not. This brings me, then, to the second clause of the amend ment, which is as follows: "And also that the second section of the act of July 25, 1866, entitled 'An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic expenses of the Government for the year ending 30th June, 1867, and for other purposes, "shall be repealed. In order to understand this amendment, I will read the section which it is proposed to repeal. It is the second section of the consular and diplomatic bill for 1866, as follows:

"That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a Second Assistant Secretary of State in the Department of State, and also an Examiner of Claims for the same Department, whose salary shall be $3,000 per annum; and the salary of the Second Assistant Secretary of State shall be $3,500 per annum; and such sums are hereby appropriated."

It will be remembered by Senators that this section passed after very considerable discussion, in the course of which there were various propositions, differing in character, and the Senate at last harmonized on this in the form which it now has. One of the propositions was that we should create an office to be called a Solicitor of Claims. Objection was made to that title, and also, I think, to the salary pro posed; but it was felt that something of the kind was needed there; that there was a vast deal of business under the head of claims, or

of subjects kindred to claims, involving legal inquiries which the Secretary himself could not undertake to investigate. It was considered that he needed some additional assistance of that kind; and after a very careful inquiry the Senate, according to my recollection, by a large vote, agreed to create an office to be called an Examiner of Claims, with a salary of $3,000. I may say that since that office was created circumstances from time to time have made me considerably acquainted with the business that has passed through the hands of its incumbent, who is well known, I believe, to the Senator from New York, Mr. E. Peshine Smith, also of New York. I have always found him a faithful, attentive, laborious officer. It seems to me he has a great deal of business assigned to him, and that he performs a very important function in the Department of State. A Senator asks me if he is the gentleman who was once reporter of some of the New York courts. I understand that he is; a lawyer of learning, of judgment, and of industry. I think it would be very hard upon the Department of State to deprive it now of the services of such an officer, one who by experience has become even more useful than he was at the beginning. I think that the public interests would suffer very much if that office were abolished. This is all I have to say upon that at present.

And that brings me to the other proposition to abolish the office of Second Assistant Secretary of State. Again I say I think it will be hard to do that. It would be hard on the gentleman who now holds that office, Mr. Hunter, well known to this Senate, who has been in the Department of State now for more than forty years, who may be called at this moment the living index of the Department. I believe it would be a great loss to that Department and a detriment to the public interests if his office were abolished. Of course with the abolition of his office he is set afloat; he is deprived of his place in that Department where he has labored for forty years; and where he has accumulated an experience which nobody else in the country has. It seems to me that he is needed there.

But the question arises, shall we have a Second Assistant Secretary of State? On that I desire to say a word. Why not? The business of the Department of State is now large and increasing. The foreign relations of our Government are more extensive at this moment than they have ever been before. Our consular posts are everywhere-on every coast, in every sea. Our diplomatic posts are at every considerable capital of the world. Every consul, every minister communicates habitually with the Department of State, and his letters are habitually answered. This cannot be done in a perfunctory way, nor can it be done without a great deal of assistance. There must be many minds and many hands employed in the conduct of all that extensive correspondence, and yet there are in the Department of State comparatively few hands. There are fewer than there are in any other Department of the Government; and thus it is that the Department of State, which in the arrangement of our Cabinet was placed at the head, is actually at the foot in the number of persons that it is able to employ at home within its own walls. It has the smallest body of clerks of any one of the Departments.

Then allow me, sir, to call your attention to another distinction. Unlike other Departments, the Department of State has no heads of bureaus; it has no chiefs of sections. It has its Secretary of State, and now under existing laws it has a First Assistant Secretary, and a Second Assistant Secretary, and an examiner of claims; and that is all. If you look at the other Departments, you will see the difference. Take the Treasury Department. I know well the difference between the business proper that passes through the Treasury Department and the business proper that passes through the Department of State. There is a difference which I do not disguise; but I sub

mit that there is not a difference so great as to justify the enormous disproportion in firstclass agents or employés in the Department. Looking at the Treasury Department you will see that there are no less than nineteen different persons who may be called, though they have another name, Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury. There are first the two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury who go by that name. You have then a Special Commissioner of the Revenue, Mr. Wells. You have then a supervising architect, who may be considered the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in matters of architecture. You have then the director of the Bureau of Statistics, Mr. Delmar. You have then the First Comptroller; then the Second Comptroller; then six Audit ors. Then you have the Treasurer of the United States; then the Register of the Treas. ury, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Commissioner of Customs. Then you have a whole bureau recently created of vast importance, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, with a Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and three deputy commissioners. Then you have in the Treasury a Solicitor of the Treasury, and an Assistant Solicitor of the Treasury. Besides all these, you have the Coast Survey, with its enlightened superintendent, Professor Pierce; making, as I have already. said, more than twenty different persons in the Treasury Depart ment alone, all of them with a compensation equal to that of an assistant Secretary.

Mr. FESSENDEN. And the light-house establishment.

Mr. SUMNER. There is also the lighthouse establishment, the Senator from Maine reminds me. I had forgotten that. All of these officers have salaries as large, at least, as an Assistant Secretary of a Department, and some of them larger. For instance, the Treasurer of the United States has a salary of $6,000; the Commissioner of Internal Revenue a salary now of $6,000 also; the Solicitor a salary of $4,000; and the Comptroller of the Currency $5,000. So much for the Treasury Depart

ment.

If you look at the War Department you will find that the number of heads of bureaus there is full as large, if not larger, than in the Treas ury Department itself. It is true you no longer have an Assistant Secretary of War, but you have an Adjutant General with five different assistant adjutant generals; and be it remem bered all of them residing in the city of Washington, with their names in the Washington Directory. You have two inspectors general; you have an acting quartermaster general, an assistant quartermaster general, then a deputy quartermaster general, and still two other quartermaster generals. Then you have a subsistence department, with also a Commissary General, an assistant commissary gen. eral, and an assistant to the commissary gen. eral. Then you have the medical department, with a Surgeon General, an assistant surgeon general, assistant medical purveyor, com piler of medical records, and five assistant surgeons. You have then the pay department, with a Paymaster General, and three different paymasters under him. You have then the chief of engineers, with a corps of engineers under him. Then you have an ordnance department, with a chief of ordnance, an inspector of armories and arsenals, principal assistant to the chief of ordnance, and also another assistant to the chief of ordnance. Then you have the Bureau of Military Justice, with a Judge Advocate General, and four other judge advo cates under him. Then you have a signal department, with a chief signal officer. Then you have the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, with a Commissioner, being the excellent and distinguished Major General Howard, and an assistant commissioner under him, and an acting assistant adjutant general, commissary of subsistence, and a chief medical officer. Besides that you have the military department of Washington, with a commandant and an assistant adjutant general.

I might go through all the Departments of the Government with the same result. I might take up the Navy Department and show the different heads of bureaus there, all of them confirmed by this Senate, and every one in the character of his duties not unlike an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I might go also to the Post Office Department and show you there three Assistant Postmasters General. But I stop; I will not take your time. I wish to impress upon the Senate, if the Senate will pardon me, the importance of continuing this office in the Department of State. I think you cannot take it away without interfering essentially with the business of that Department, and without doing injustice, which I believe you will not willingly do, to an old and valuable public servant. Because he is called Assistant Secretary of State I hope you will not argue that on that account he should be cut adrift. It may be said that there ought to be only one Assistant Secretary of State; I presume to suggest that as in other Departments there are heads of bureaus and functionaries who in point of fact in the service that they render are, substantially, Assistant Secretaries, so in the Department of State itself there should be more than one person who should render that class of service, call him Assistant Secretary of State, or something else, or whatever you please.

In order to present this question for the votes of the Senate and to present the amendments of the committee which are consolidated in one, separately, I will move to strike out all that part of the amendment of the committee which repeals the second section of the act of July 25, 1866, relating to the examiner of claims and Assistant Secretary of State.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I suggest to the Senator that he will reach the same result, perhaps, if he moves to divide the question, so as to take the question first on the first proposition contained in the amendment.

Mr. SUMNER. Very well; any way that will be agreeable to the Senator. I merely wish to get at the result.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. POMEROY in the chair.) Does the Senator from Maine move to divide the amendment of the committee?

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I suggest whether it would not be more convenient to the Senator from Massachusetts in that way.

Mr. SUMNER. If I move to strike out the last part I get at the result, and unless the Senator from Maine should prefer to have it presented in some other way, I will move to strike out of the amendment of the committee the words:

And also that the second section of the act of July 25, 1866, entitled "An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic expenses of the Government for the year ending 30th June, 1867, and for other purposes.'

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment to the amendment, striking out the words indicated by the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I will say a word or two in explanation of the action of the committee. By the third section of the act of 1866 a Second Assistant Secretary of State and an examiner of claims were provided for in these words:

"That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a Second Assistant Secretary for the Department of State; and also an examiner of claims for the same Department, whose salary shall be $3,000; and the salary of the Assistant Secretary of State shall be $3,500 per annum; and such sums are hereby appropriated."

Most of the statutes providing for additional service in the year 1866 were for temporary service, for additional service deemed to be necessary growing out of the particular circumstances in which the Government in several Departments found itself at the close of the war. By an examination of the statutes it will be seen that almost all the Departments were increased during the year 1866, and in most of the laws, I think, for that year this additional force was regarded as temporary. Certainly

some of it was, I know, and as a general proposition I think it is true that the additional force was not contemplated as a permanent addition to the service of the several Departments of the Government to which it was added during the years 1865 and 1866. Some of it, I know, was limited to a period of two years.

Now, sir, I do not know, and have no right to know, what influenced the House of Representatives, but I suppose that this consideration had something to do with it. The House of Representatives made no appropriation for these officers, for the Second Assistant Secretary of State and for the examiner of claims, which had been provided for by the act of 1866, as I suppose under the circumstances to which I have referred. Finding the House of Representatives to have acted thus, the question naturally arose in the committee, "What is the duty of the Committee on Appropriations on the part of the Senate?" Shall we concur in the proposition of the House? Is it fair to presume that they have examined this branch of the service, and understand what its relations are and what its needs are, and if so, what ought the committee to do?" Finding no appropriation for these two officers, and finding the law upon the statute-book creating these two offices, assigning them certain duties, the committee came to the conclusion that perhaps it was its duty to submit to the Senate the proposition of dispensing with these offices altogether; for surely it could hardly be expected that Congress would refuse to make an appropriation for offices provided for by law, and yet leave the statute creating them unrepealed. So the Senate. Committee on Appropriations instructed me to report this amend

ment.

Now, Mr. President, whether this service is absolutely necessary or not I do not know. The Committee on Appropriations, I am free to say, had no especial, and no very general information on that subject. We are obliged to rely upon such presumptions as arise naturally from the history of the Government. Looking at that, we know that this branch of the service got along well enough during the war with one Assistant Secretary of State. We know well enough that the duties of that Department cannot be more onerous now than they were during the war. We certainly know that during the war we were obliged to provide for additional force in many of the Depart ments. We had, I think, two Assistant Secretaries of War during the period of the rebellion; we have only one now. We had two Assistant Secretaries of the Navy during that period; we have only one now. We had, I think, two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury; am sure we have but one in fact, though I think there are two in law, at the present time. But I do not suppose that the Senator from Massachusetts will contend that the business of the Department of State has increased correspondingly with that of some of the other Departments of the Government. While in some of the Departments of the Government it is practicable to go back to the period anterior to the war, what would be called the peace establishment anterior to the war, it must be confessed by those who are at all acquainted with the business of the Government that there are certain departments of the Government where the business has really increased since the conclusion of the war. That is the case in some of the bureaus of the Treasury. The committee, therefore, felt bound to act upon the general information within its knowledge, and the conclusion to which we came was, that these additional officers, like others, were created during the exigencies of the war, and were probably not expected to exist long afterward; and reasoning from this general information, and adopting the action of the House of Representatives, that the House had not chosen to provide for these officers, on the supposition, as we supposed, that they were not necessary, the committee deemed it its duty to present this amendment for the consideration of the Senate. If

the Senator from Massachusetts has satisfied the Senate that the exigencies of the war still exist in the State Department, that although during the war it was not necessary and not until 1866 that there should be a Second Assistant Secretary of State, the exigency does exist now which did not exist during the war, then of course the Senate will not concur in the action of the committee.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am glad that the honorable chairman of the Committee on Appropriations makes no serious, if any, opposition to this amendment.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. The Senator is mistaken.

Mr. JOHNSON. I considered it no serious opposition, because he concluded by saying that, if the honorable member from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, supposed that the exigencies of the war in one sense still existed, perhaps the Senate would be for continuing the policy that led to the adoption of the original law.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I believe my language was "if the Senator from Massachusetts had satisfied the Senate."

Mr. JOHNSON. I was in hopes that he had satisfied my friend, and I am not entirely sure that he has not done so. That will be tested when the vote is given.

The war, to be sure, is over, Mr. President, and happily over; but the business of the State Department is just as burdensome now as it was during the pendency of the war; and from my knowledge of it, obtained during the past three or four years, I am satisfied that it is very important that there should be an Assistant Secretary of State, even independent of the value of the particular incumbent. But so far as that incumbent is concerned I do not think I exaggerate when I say that his services could not be supplied at this time by any other citizen as well as they are now performed by him. He has been in the Department for a great many years, and during a great many Administrations, and has given entire satisfaction to every one of them; and I am convinced that without his aid, they would have found it much more difficult to conduct the Department as satisfactorily as they have done.

As to the other officer, it is equally important that he should be retained." The claims against the United States that are presented to the State Department are very numerous and very large, and it is very important for the interests of the Government that there should be some officer specially charged with the examination of such claims. That involves, of course, a good deal of labor, and requires that there should be some officer particularly competent in matters of that kind. I concur with the head of the State Department in thinking that it is all important that this particular officer should be retained. He has saved, I believe, thousands upon thousands of dollars to the Treasury, and if he is permitted to remain there the result will be found equally beneficial to the Government.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Mr. President, I do not know that there is any opposition to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts; but I rise simply for the purpose of adding my testimony to the fact that in the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Relations it is necessary to retain both the examiner of claims and the Second Assistant Secretary of State. The office of examiner of claims is a matter that has grown up in consequence of claims filed which arise out of the war, and of course they are more numerous now than they could have been at any time during the war itself. I know that at the time this statute was passed I examined this matter very carefully with regard to the necessity of having such an officer, and I came to the conclusion that it was an assistance the Secretary of State was fairly entitled to. It is perfectly impossible for him to examine himself the claims that are filed in his Department and decide upon them without the aid of a good lawyer, and for the

purpose of having them thoroughly examined and presented to him it was absolutely neces sary to appoint somebody, and I have heard no objection to the man selected.

With regard to the office of Second Assistant Secretary of State, it was made for a special purpose. Mr. Hunter, who now holds that office, had been chief clerk of the Department on a salary, I believe, of $2,000.

Mr. SUMNER. Less than that the greater part of the time.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Or $1,800 for a great number of years, and was a most valuable officer. He had a family; and a mar like him, situated as he was, having been there so long, so absolutely essential to the proper conduct of the business of the Department from his experience and intelligence, was fairly entitled to a salary which would give him a decent livelihood in these times; and for the purpose of doing that it was thought advisable and proper to create the new office of Second As sistant Secretary of State for his special benefit; in the first instance for the sake of giving him a salary which was adequate to his services. It was put upon that ground, and it was passed, I think, with very great unanimity. He is a gentleman, I believe, having no politics particularly offensive to nobody, but devoted to the business of his office, and master of the ordinary business of the State Department. Now, in consequence of his old office being filled, the effect of repealing this law, would be to just put Mr. Hunter out of office, at a time of life when he cannot turn to any other business; and it would be very unjust to him to do so.

On reflecting upon the subject I am satisfied that the office ought to be permanent, without referring to the case of Mr. Hunter at all. There should be somebody in an office of that description familiar with the business. I believe such is the idea in England, though the Senator from Massachusetts can say a great deal better how it is there. In that Government, I understand, there are certain officers holding high rank, assistants, who are permanent, and remain as such, men of long experience, whose appointments are not political and who are not changed. When Mr. Hunter shall retire it will be proper, in my judgment, to put somebody in his place who has been in the Department a long time and is competent to discharge those duties, if such a man can be found-the ordinary business of the Department-who knows all about it, where to look for everything, business which he has done as chief clerk, which perhaps a chief clerk might do, to be sure; but which you cannot find every man competent to de, as prices are at present, who would do it for the salary of a chief clerk which Mr. Hunter so long received. The principal Assistant Secretary of State holds an office more of a political character. He oversees the appointments, consular appointments particularly. He aids the Secretary in writing his communications to foreign ministers, &c., and is more intimately connected with the Secretary himself, and with a change of administration is likely to go out of office. That particular place is not in its nature per

manent.

So, sir, notwithstanding this office was originally created for the purpose of doing justice to a most valuable public servant, I am satisfied that it should remain; that it should be in its nature permanent; that we shall always need two Assistant Secretaries of State having distinct duties, one of whom is to be considered a man to remain, and without whose aid no new Secretary can get along, and the other of a different and perhaps a political character.

My colleague has adverted to the fact that there were two Assistant Secretaries of the War Department, and also two Assistant Secretaries for the Navy Department, and that one of each has been dispensed with. That is very true; and why? Because there are in those Departments heads of bureaus, as suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts; the business is divided up into departments, bureaus properly so called, which have at their head generally

experienced men understanding the business of the offices, and one Assistant Secretary is enough, undoubtedly, in each of those Departments. As remarked by the Senator from Massachusetts, that division of labor does not take place to that extent in the Department of State; and thus the Assistant Secretaries are all the men there who answer at all to those positions.

Now, sir, with regard to the other point, and that is the statistical matter. My opinion is that there ought to be but one Bureau of Statistics, to which all these things ought to be referred. I am unwilling to dispense with the valuable information that we get by reason of collecting these statistics. As all of us understand, they are the digests of communications made by our consuls abroad with regard to our trade and commerce and other matters of interest. They have been made for the last dozen years, and they are valuable; and if the repealing of that branch of the statutes was to eventuate in dispensing with this collation of this information received from our consuls abroad I should be opposed to it. I think it would have been better for the Committee on Appropriations to have proposed an amendment for the transfer of it to the Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury Department, and of all the papers relating to it, rather than to have attempted to dispense with it generally. I do not know but that if you repeal the statute it may go there as a matter of course, and the papers be transferred; but all the communications that are made by our consuls of this information, which is of so much value and which ought to be collated, are made to the Department of State, and if it is not to be collated there, all that correspondence with the Depart ment of State must necessarily be transferred to the statistical bureau of the Treasury. You will notice that this information is very frequently mixed up with political matter, or rather with matter or information which is not perhaps proper to be communicated to the public at the time when it is collated.

Therefore it has been managed in the Department of State; so that that which was in its nature confidential and ought to be kept secret should not pass out of the archives of the Department itself, and that which was of general commercial information should be gathered into a volume by itself. I suppose that is the reason. Still an amendment might be made, undoubtedly, by which all that information could be transferred to the statistical bureau which we have now in existence in the Treasury Department. I am not so particular about that, and if the Committee on Appropriations think it necessary to repeal the law on that point I have no particular objection. My friend, the Senator from New York, says he has some information relating to that subject, which I shall be very glad to hear. He will probably enlighten us, as he always does. But, with regard to the other particular matter, which the honorable Senator from Massachusetts has moved to strike out, I think it absolutely necessary that it should be stricken out. These things were provided for two years ago after very considerable examination and careful deliberation, and I have no doubt at all that they ought to remain, for the present at least.

Mr. CONKLING. Mr. President, when the Senate shall have refused to sustain the Committee on Appropriations in recommending reductions so often that reducing expenditures becomes hopeless such recommendations ought to cease. A great soothsayer has said that"Things without remedy Should be without regard."

loyalty to be a proud submission to something or other of which at the time he was talking; and there seems to be a sort of common lawif it were on a large scale it would be, perhaps, a comity of nations-which obliges the members of committees of this body to act, if necessary, as efficiently as fiery dragons in defending the Department with which their committee has relations on every side against the incursions and encroachments of the Committee on Appropriations.

This morning we proposed to reduce this "magnificent household" of the President, as I heard it called three or four years ago in the House of Representatives. It shocked my sense then, and it has ever since; but it might with great propriety in definition have been called a royal household for the President-a thing gross and unpardonable, as I believed at the time; but certainly unpardonable now. We proposed to reduce it to the point at which Abraham Lincoln uncomplainingly received it, and with it administered the affairs of the Government; and immediately the sword of my gallant friend from Connecticut [Mr. DIXON] leaped from its scabbard. I waited curiously to know for which committee he spoke, and at length he announced himself, that he appeared as a member of the Committee on Manufactures! He said it had not met; but I inferred that his business had been to manufacture plausible, although with great respect to him, poor excuses for continuing expenditures which cannot be defended. But after a most gallant, dashing, and brilliant foray my friend, the Senator, permitted an incoming Administration, now that the war is over, now that pardons are put out by general law, by proclamations of amnesty, as they are called, in place of being stricken off like hand-bills on a machine, as i saw them some time ago at the White House, we are permitted to dispense with the pardoning clerk and with the other people who go to make up the magnificent appointments of this Executive household.

Then we come to the State Department, and the hunt is headed, of course, by the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. SUMNER.] who is never found sleeping upon his post when anybody proposes a suggestion looking to curtailment in the Department of State. That is as I supposed it would be. Before the Clerk had finished the reading of this amendment I instinctively turned to the Senator from Massachusetts to see the orb of the State Department rise and shed light upon the impropriety and shortcoming of the Committee on Appropriations. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations says that the honorable Senator from Massachusetts was already on his feet before I expected to see him rise. [Laughter.] I retract anything I said in derogation of that statement.

Now, Mr. President, what is all this? The first question in the order in which some Senator treated it is, whether there shall be two Assistant Secretaries of State? Has the jaded ingenuity of the Senator from Massachusetts-I venture to say it is jaded, because it has been exercised so much and so often in favor of these applications-has the ingenuity of the Senator from Massachusetts started any reason why we should have now two Assistant Secretaries of State? I know he said the War Department and the Treasury Department are organized with heads of bureaus. If I were to stop and discuss that I think I could give ample reasons to warrant the saying that it makes nothing in favor of the idea that we are to have in the State Department, and in that Department alone, two Assistant Secretaries. Why is it that the Foreign Office of the Government from the morning of the Government until the war was able successfully to proceed without such a suggestion?

Mr. WILSON. It is since the war that the office of this Assistant Secretary has been cre ated.

And yet I am inclined to think the committee would indulge itself in recommendations of reductions after the Senate had shown that its face was set like flint against them. There would be a sort of luxury in these recommendations to me if it were only to enjoy the pleasure I had from witnessing these exhibitions of Mr. CONKLING. I am aware of it. After loyalty on the part of distinguished members the completion of the war this office was creof this body. Edmund Burke, I think, definedated; but that is no matter for any purpose;

I never said that he was the reporter. Somebody else must have said it.

I will admit that it was after the war had Mr. DIXON. I think my friend is entirely ostensibly, and to a great extent really no mistaken. I have heard of Mr. Smith fredoubt led to an accumulation and a diversityquently, but never of this identical Mr. Smith. of business in the State Department, which required or was argued to require additional help, that a Second Assistant Secretary was supplied; and now, when looking to the future, that exigency has gone, why is it, I inquire, that we ought to have two Assistant Secretaries of State?

The incumbent is an excellent man, says one Senator, and another agrees with him. I have no doubt of it. If he is so excellent that he ought to be the Assistant Secretary, the underchief of the Department, that argument might be interesting to the gentleman who now holds that place, for it might make this proposed incumbent formidable as a competitor, should a change be proposed. But is it logical to say that because a particular man who does not occupy an office would make an excellent incumbent for that office, therefore you should create a mate to it, to the end that he may occupy an office the fac simile of the one to which you say he belongs, but which he does not happen to possess? Mr. Hunter is a good man, I have no doubt; I have heard always that he was in his way, and I have no belief to the contrary; but if Mr. Hunter is desirable in the State Department, not as an underSecretary, but in a place subordinate to that, then, according to practice, the actual experiment and the actual proof of the question, he belongs in the position of chief clerk of the Department, with pay appropriate to that place and appropriate to him.

Is there anything more to be said about it? Not, I submit, unless the argument is sound that whenever you cannot put a man in the place which you think he would adorn you are to create another place as near like that as you can make it in order that you may put him, if not on the same pedestal, on an equal footing.

Two other suggestions are made. One is as to Mr. E. Peshine Smith, who, my friend from Connecticut truly suggested, was once the reporter of our State, a good lawyer, a man of high respectability, and of unusual ability and attainment. Mr. E. Peshine Smith holds the place of examiner of claims in the State Department, and from this circumstance is derived again an argument personal to Mr. Smith, that he ought to be continued. Mr. President, I presume that I am not the only member of this body who knows that Mr. E. Peshine Smith, with or without this appropriation bill, with or without this amendment, does not intend and is not to be induced to hold hereafter this place. I doubt if he holds it now; but I have no information which will enable me to say that technically and formally his connection with it is severed; but it is matter of notoriety that Mr. Smith is to have charge of a daily journal in the State of New York, of which, I think, he has charge now. Therefore we may as well lay out of the case whatever there is personal to Mr. Smith, or whatever cogency there is in the fact that a man so good as Mr. Smith in the past held this place.

If the State Department hereafter requires an officer, in addition to the staff of that Department, to examine accounts or claims, that fact will no doubt appear instantaneously with the exigency, and then we can act upon it; but the theory now is that we are to continue it because Mr. Smith, an excellent man, is there. This is the argument, in effect, made by the Senator from Massachusetts, who introduced prominently the fact that Mr. E. Peshine Smith was there; and then by way of aiding and abetting him, my ingenious friend, [Mr. DIXON,] who is always sagacious and on the alert, interjected as a make weight that this might be the reporter of the State of New York, with a view to magnify the force of this suggestion; and in that the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, gracefully and apparently without any reluctance consented that this was the Mr. Smith.

Mr. CONKLING. I beg pardon of the Senator from Connecticut. I am so accustomed to hearing timely and sagacious suggestions from him that hearing a "still small voice" in this neighborhood on this occasion making that ingenious allusion, I took it for granted that it must proceed from the sagacious leader of the party to which my friend belongs. I have long admired the dexterity with which, "in season and out of season," he put in make-weights like that. I do not know of any gentleman who excels him in that; and when I heard this, it sounded to me so like him that I took it for granted that it came from the political inventor from Connecticut. [Laughter.] However, I acquit the Senator of the authorship of the suggestion; but it came from somebody in his neighborhood; it came from an adjoining town to the Senator, precisely from which one in his neighborhood I do not know.

Now, Mr. President, to drop this matter of the examiner of claims, the information I had as a member of the committee, and that I have gathered from various sources was and is that this officer in the State Department is not a necessity looking to the future, and that the necessity which justified it in the past is diminishing so rapidly that it would be an improvident thing to appropriate for it in the

future.

Now, we come to the remaining one of this trio, the Superintendent of Statistics. I recollect when the Monitor engaged the Merrimac down in Hampton Roads, hearing some naval gentleman discoursing and describing, with great volume and zeal, the action, and talking about iron-clads. He said there never was such an invention; it was the prettiest thing and the handiest thing that ever was; and, said he, every family ought to have one. Now, I do not know but that every family ought to have a bureau of statistics and somebody to superintend it. [Laughter.] The Senator from Maine [Mr. FESSENDEN] does not think so. He is not accustomed to thinking things which will not stand the test of reason and argument; and when I heard him say-I believe I am right in addressing this to him; I think I can fasten it on him-when I heard him say that the Bureau of Statistics ought to be consolidated, ought to have some local habitation and name somewhere in some one place, I felt very sure that I was right in thinking that, too. thought about it several times and had concluded that that would be an excellent suggestion and a practical one. There is such a place in the Treasury Department, and it seems to be one of those instances again in which the office and the incumbency of the office present some sort of repugnance or dissatisfaction. There is in the estimation of some Senators a man in the place who ought not to be there; but who the man is outside that ought to be there, I do not know, and it is not important I should; I shall be permitted to vote for his confirmation, following other Senators, when his name comes here, if he is appointed by the President, as I believe he is to be.

I had

But there in that Department is a Bureau of Statistics, and there it should not be in this bureau, or clerkship, as the Senator from Massachusetts called it, if statistics are to be perpetuated in the State Department. The two things are repugnant; as we say sometimes in court, they cannot both be true, and one or the other ought to be overset. The House of Representatives, in looking at this, very likely found out something about the facts. The facts in general terms are these: The person who holds this office is one with whom I have long had an acquaintance; I knew him more than twenty years ago, and I have seen him from time to time ever since, and certainly I have no wish if the facts would

warrant me in dcing it, to criticise him in any respect.

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE.

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. MCPHERSON, its Clerk, announced that the House had agreed to the report of the committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill (H. R. No. 1059) to relieve certain citizens of North Caro

lina of disabilities.

The message also announced that the House had passed a joint resolution (H. R. No. 306) to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to remit the duties on certain articles contributed to the National Association of American Sharpshooters, in which the concurrrnce of the Senate was requested.

ENROLLED BILLS SIGNED.

The message also announced that the Speaker of the House had signed the following enrolled bills and joint resolutions; and they were thereupon signed by the President pro tempore of the Senate:

A joint resolution (H. R. No. 266) to authorize the enlargement of the Hygeia Hotel, at Fortress Monroe, Virginia;

A joint resolution (H. R. No. 262) authorizing certain distilled spirits to the Surgeon General for the use of the Army hospitals;

A bill (H. R. No. 659) granting a pension to Sarah E. Pickell;

A bill (H. R. No. 516) for the relief of the widow and minor children of Benjamin B. Naylor, late a pilot on the gunboat Patapsco; A bill (H. R. No. 454) granting a pension to John Kelley;

A bill (H. R. No. 524) granting a pension to Austin M. Partridge;

A bill (H. R. No. 526) increasing the pension of Susan A. Mitchell;

A bill (H. R. No. 520) to place the name of Josephine K. Bugher on the pension-roll;

A bill (H. R. No. 519) granting a pension to Eliza J. Rennard, widow of William K. Rennard, deceased, late a private in tenth Ohio volunteers of war of 1861;

A bill (H. R. No. 517) granting a pension to Cornelia K. Schmidt, widow of Adam Schmidt, late a private in company A, thirty-seventh Ohio volunteers;

A bill (H. R. No. 280) granting a pension to Margaret Huston;

A bill (H. R. No. 258) for the relief of Mary B. Craig;

A bill (H. R. No. 257) for the relief of James L. Dickerson;

A bill (H. R. No. 246) granting a pension to Milton Anderson;

A bill (H. R. No. 152) for the relief of the widow and children of Henry E. Morse;

A bill (H. R. No. 665) granting a pension to Susan V. Berg;

A bill (H. R. No. 667) granting a pension to Mary Graham;

A bill (H. R. No. 668) granting a pension to Elizabeth Butler, widow of Cyrus Butler; A bill (H. R. No. 769) granting a pension to David Howe;

A bill (H. R. No. 772) granting a pension to Robert McCrory;

A bill (H. R. No. 774) granting a pension to Amos Whitam;

A bill (H. R. No. 776) granting a pension to Zephaniah Knapp, of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania;

A bill (H. R. No. 823) granting a pension to George W. Lochor;

A bill (H. R. No. 824) granting a pension to Annie Vaughn;

A bill (H. R. No. 826) granting a pension to Michael Mellon;

A bill (H. R. No. 827) granting a pension to Ann Wilson;

A bill (H. R. No. 828) for the relief of Captain William McKean;

A bill (H. R. No. 829) granting a pension to Mrs. Susan Ten Eyck Williamson; and A bill (H. R. No. 455) granting a pension to David Van Nordstrand.

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