620 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



tution upon the plan by which it is now known and which has received 

 the deliberate assent of the Committee of the Judiciary of the Senate 

 and of the Senate itself. How the Senator gets at his theory of Smith- 

 son's intentions I do not know. If he has ever read Smithson's will, 

 he will not find one word of all that he has said in it; and we, who do 

 know something about the history of Smithson, know the peculiar 

 reasons which induced him to give this legacy to the United States. 



But, sir, the Senator has remarked about an exhibition given at the 

 Institution a few days since. I wish to explain that. It might be 

 supposed by members of the Senate that this 25 cents a head was a 

 fee to the Institution. No such thing. The Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion has a remarkably fine lecture room, and it is v^ry often applied 

 for l)y individuals who wish to lecture there. In no case is it given 

 to an individual who charges. The only case in which anyone is 

 allowed to charge is where the object is charitable or religious. 

 Church congregations have sometimes applied for it when a lecture 

 was to be delivered, and they have been allowed in that case to use 

 the hall, and they themselves charge 25 cents for each hearer of 

 the lecture — making a fund for the building of their church or for 

 the charitable object which is to be subserved, whatever it may be. 

 These are the only cases where a charge is made. The lectures of the 

 Smithsonian Institution are always free; and I believe they are a little 

 more valuable than most lectures in the country for which people pay 

 very willingly. 



Now, so far as the Government giving 110,000 a year to this Insti- 

 tution is concerned, it is an entire mistake. The Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution accommodated and obliged the Government by admitting 

 within their walls these collections for which the Government had no 

 proper place, the Government only paying the expense of their pres- 

 ervation; that is all. The Smithsonian Institution does not derive 

 any value to its funds from these appropriations by the Government. 

 So in regard to the distribution of these enormous collections, the 

 Institution is not benefited a fraction. All we want is a little appro- 

 priation to defray the expense which the Institution must incur in 

 classifying and separating these specimens of natural history for 

 distriljution. I do not object to the amendment of the Senator from 

 North Carolina, and I purposely refrain from much that I might say, 

 that I may not consume the time of the Senate. 



Mr. Simon Cameron. I am one of those who were here at the time 

 of the reception by this Government of the Smithsonian legacy, and 

 one of those who voted to receive that donation from a philanthropic 

 man in England, who died and left us his money. I recollect very 

 well that the arguments of those who were opposed to receiving it 

 were that it would be a constant tax on us; that the giving to us of 

 those $500,000 would result in the expenditure of millions; and all the 



