CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



aid them, if need be, because this is a question 

 which goes way down into the pocket of every 

 man in this country. It involves untold mil- 

 lions of money, for however we may doubt about 

 some things, death and taxes are certain, and the 

 people can well afford the trifling expense of 

 investing this committee with ample power and 

 facilities to investigate this whole subject to the 

 bottom, and bring all the light that it is possible 

 to be brought upon it. 



" It does not meet my views, it does not 

 strike me as a strong argument, to say that there 

 is not ample capacity in the two Houses to ob- 

 tain this light; that we have not got enough 

 men of commercial and industrial information, 

 men of business attainments, to investigate the 

 subject. If we have not nine men with gener- 

 al acquaintance with business pursuits, then we 

 had better be turned out and send somebody 

 here who has got such information ; and I beg 

 to say that knowledge of the constitutional 

 powers of Congress is as important as special 

 knowledge of commerce or other industry. If 

 we have the information to take up this report 

 and intelligently act upon it, to frame a bill 

 based upon the information, we surely have the 

 intelligence to obtain the information, and you 

 have then a body directly responsible to the 

 States and the people for what they do, unen- 

 cumbered by any outsiders. 



" Therefore and I say it with all deference 

 to rny friend from Arkansas, whose sound judg- 

 ment I recognize I believe the suggestion I 

 make would be an improvement upon his sub- 

 stitute ; but I am so much better satisfied with 

 his substitute than the original bill, I will not 

 endanger it by amendments." 



Mr. Eaton : " I now call for the regular order." 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, 

 resumed the consideration of the bill (S. No. 

 900) to provide for the appointment of a com- 

 mission to investigate the question of the tariff. 



Mr. Kernan, of New York : " The bill re- 

 ported provides for the appointment by the 

 President of the United States, by and with 

 the advice and consent of the Senate, of nine 

 commissioners from private life from civil life, 

 as the bill says who are to make this investi- 

 gation and report from time to time to Con- 

 gress, making their final report not later than 

 December, 1881. The other bill introduced 

 and referred to the Committee on Finance pro- 

 vides that there shall be a commission of three 

 Senators to be appointed by the Senate, three 

 members of the House of Representatives to be 

 appointed by the Speaker of the House, and 

 three others, not members of either House, to be 

 selected by and associated with them. I have 

 great respect and full appreciation of the abil- 

 ity that there is in the House and in the Sen- 

 ate, but in my judgment we shall have the 

 information better, more fully, more thorough- 

 ly collected and matured by a commission of 

 persons selected from civil life rather than by 

 members of the two Houses, with three se- 

 lected from civil life. 

 VOL. xx. 12 A 



"First, we all know that members sitting 

 here many months each year will not have the 

 time to devote exclusively to this subject which 

 is requisite to get the information in order that 

 there may be timely action by Congress upon 

 the question. Secondly, I prefer to get the 

 facts, the figures, the views of men not in Con- 

 gress, from this commission, that we may have 

 them before us and examine them before we 

 get to debating or examining the subject. I 

 think it is better that these facts, figures, and 

 information should come from men not on the 

 floor of either House, because if any of us on 

 the floor of either House be upon the commis- 

 sion, we shall be disposed naturally to seek to 

 carry out the preconceived views we have on 

 the various phases and sides of this question ; 

 but a commission of experts who are not here 

 will represent all views of the tariff, the free- 

 traders, the protectionists, and men who think 

 it should be only for revenue without protec- 

 tion. I presume we shall have on this com- 

 mission appointed by the President and the 

 Senate men who will represent fairly the intel- 

 ligence and the experience of experts on all 

 these subjects, and when their report comes to 

 the two Houses we shall all start to examine 

 arid make up our minds on the subject without 

 being committed by having been on the com- 

 mission and engaged in the struggle there. 



" Human nature is human nature everywhere. 

 Suppose we appoint men from the two Houses 

 representing different views. They will strug- 

 gle on the commission. They are intelligent 

 men, but each will be seeking rather to carry 

 out the preconceived views that he has on the 

 subject ; whereas if we take these experts, these 

 political economists, these business men, repre- 

 sentatives of all these interests, from private 

 life, and let them examine, argue, call out the 

 facts making for the one theory or the other, 

 they will doubtless be committed in favor of 

 the one view or the other; but the two Houses 

 will have their facts, their figures, their argu- 

 ments, their recommendations, to commence 

 the argument with, and I think, therefore, it 

 will be more useful. 



" The information they will give us, the views 

 they will send us, the recommendations they 

 may make, the facts and figures they will lay 

 before us, derived from experience of our own 

 and other countries, will aid us and will assist 

 us in making up our opinions at the outset by 

 examination, and we shall not get a little of the 

 partisan on the one side or the other before we 

 come into an examination of the question for 

 ourselves in the two Houses. 



" For that reason I think it better to have 

 these representatives of the various views on 

 the tariff question selected from civil life, and 

 let them send their majority and their minority 

 or their individual views to us, giving us the 

 facts and the figures and the information which 

 they gather upon which they base their recom- 

 mendations. 



" I think that the practice and experience of 



