OMISSION TO RETURN LIBRARY PROPERTY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

APRIL 12, 1912.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. PROUTY, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 22643.]

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom was referred H. R. 22643, report the same back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass without amendment.

TO PROHIBIT RAISING FUNDS FOR LOBBYING

PURPOSES.

APRIL 12, 1912.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. PROUTY, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 22912.]

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom was referred H. R. 22912, report the same back to the House with the recommendation that it be amended by striking out the word "accordingly" in the seventh line thereof and inserting in lieu thereof the following:

By a fine of not more than $500, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both, at the discretion of the court having jurisdiction thereof.

And that so amended it pass.

Section 1 of this bill is designed to correct a serious abuse that has grown up here, as elsewhere, namely, professional lobbying under disguise. It prevents anyone from lobbying for hire without disclosing that fact, and, upon request, disclosing by whom hired. It does not prevent anyone from appealing to the committees or Members of Congress, as attorney or otherwise, for hire, if that fact is disclosed. But the committee feels that Congressmen have a right to know in what capacity one appears before them whether as a real friend of the measure or as a paid attorney or lobbyist.

Section 2 is intended to abate two things: First, the raising of large sums of money by civil-service employees for the purpose of lobbying through measures in their behalf. Second, the preventing of professional lobbyists taking advantage of such employees to extort money or promise of money from them under the hope of securing desired legislation. We believe it is alike wrong for such employees to use money received from the Government to set in motion influences to secure more money from it and for the professional lobbyist to take part of such money, designed for the employee, for his supposed service in securing it, without the real situation being disclosed to Congress before the bill is passed.

It recently came to the attention of this committee that there was a contract concerning a bill it had favorably recommended, and which had passed both branches of Congress, that provided that the one who had charge of getting the bill through Congress was to receive $5 a month for one year from the advance in salary granted one class of employees and $10 a month for a like time from another class. The committee believes that such contracts ought to be declared void and against public policy.

ESTABLISHMENT OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

DEPARTMENTS.

APRIL 13, 1912.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. LEVER, from the Committee on Agriculture, submitted the

following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 22871.]

The Committee on Agriculture, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 22871) to establish agricultural extension departments in connection with agricultural colleges in the several States receiving the benefits of an act of Congress approved July 2, 1862, and of acts supplementary thereto, having considered the same, beg to report it back to the House with amendments and with the unanimous recommendation that the bill as amended do pass.

The object of the bill is to establish agricultural extension departments under the direction of the land-grant colleges of the several States to aid in carrying to the people useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics through field instruction, demonstrations, publications, and otherwise.

The Federal Government has committed itself emphatically and irrevocably to the policy of appropriating money to aid in the encouragement, development, and preservation of agriculture, both in the maintenance of its most efficient Department of Agriculture and through a series of legislative enactments endowing agricultural colleges and establishing agricultural experiment stations in the several States. Thus agriculture has been recognized as of supreme importance to the Nation, and is so recognized by every thoughtful student of present economic conditions.

Liberal as we have been toward our agriculture, the fact remains that this Government expends less money for its encouragement and development, in proportion to its population and the extent of its agricultural area, than any nation of Europe, with the possible exception of Spain. It was recently pointed out, in a reliable farm journal, that less than 1 per cent of the annual total appropriations of the Government is expended for purposes of aiding agriculture a most significant statement when agriculture is unquestionably the basic