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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



committee, and it is done continually. Half 

 the business that is referred to our commit- 

 tees is referred upon the motion of the mem- 

 bers of the respective committees themselves." 



Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, when this subject was before the Senate 

 the other day, the discussion as to the nature 

 of the committee to be appointed for this pur- 

 pose was very slight indeed. The subject 

 seems rather to have been opened in a manner 

 which in old times, when there was any such 

 difference of parties as amounted to any thing, 

 might have been called the opening of a presi- 

 dential campaign. If I had been a stranger 

 here and had not known that the politics of 

 the country were pretty much all one way, and 

 had listened to the speech of an honorable 

 and respectable gentleman that I did listen to, 

 I should have said that the presidential cam- 

 paign was about to be opened in form, and 

 that that mental malaria which sometimes 

 obscures the eyes of great men, and of which 

 they are themselves unconscious, had obscured 

 the mental vision of the distinguished Senator 

 who made a speech on that occasion, not al- 

 luding to myself, so that in seeing the bright- 

 ness of a distant object he had gone into 

 what a Massachusetts Senator once called the 

 4 sounding and glittering generalities' of af- 

 fairs with a view to open to the eyes of the 

 American people the fact that we had sud- 

 denly fallen upon very evil times ; that, instead 

 of having improved public affairs after emer- 

 ging from the war, and after having emerged 

 from that condition of things which was rather 

 worse than war in all civil reepeets the period 

 of the administration of Mr. Johnson we 

 had been rapidly growing worse and worse 

 ever since, and that the whole people were 

 crying aloud for vengeance upon the entire 

 body of public officers who were plundering 

 them in every direction, and for reform in a 

 dozen respects that were of course entirely 

 new, such as reducing taxes and a variety of 

 other things which no other means of reaching 

 could be attained than that of reviving a com- 

 mittee that expired in the last Congress ! 



"But of course, Mr. President, this would 

 be an entire mistake on the present occasion. 

 I am sure that no unconscious malady has at- 

 tacked my honorable friend from Illinois. I 

 am sure that he is looking with an eye single 

 and an eye clear to the mere details of public 

 administration. I am sure that he believes, 

 as I believe, and I am sure that he knows as I 

 know (so far as any public man engaged in 

 affairs can know about large operations), that 

 the administration of this Government for the 

 last three years, in respect to the fidelity of 

 the whole body of its twenty thousand agents, 

 leaving out deputy-postmasters, will compare 

 favorably with any administration that ever 

 preceded it from the days of George "Washing- 

 ton to this day, when you take into consider- 

 ation the number of persons necessarily em- 

 ployed in the Government now, compared to 



its early days, and the larger amount of the 

 transactions that they are obliged to perform. 



"But what I have now said is intended to 

 meet, in the humble and weak way which I 

 confess is the only way I can meet, the obser- 

 vations of my good friend from Illinois, which 

 had the appearance, and which were treated 

 in a good many of the public papers as having 

 had the intention, certainly the effect, to pro- 

 duce the impression upon the public mind that 

 we were now in a very extraordinary condition 

 of evil as it respects the administration of our 

 Government, and that extraordinary measure* 

 in this great crisis must be resorted to. I 

 think the contrary is quite true, and that our 

 simple business is to go straightly and calmly 

 on, as we have done in the last few years, ap- 

 plying a correction to every wrong that comes 

 to our knowledge, improving by legislation 

 every possible means which can be adopted to 

 dimmish the public expenditures and to insure 

 faithfulness in the public service." 



Mr. Thurman said: "In respect to this mat- 

 ter, I must confess that I am a little surprised 

 at the objections to the amendment of the 

 Senator from Illinois, objections made by gen- 

 tlemen, every one of whom I venture to say 

 voted for the appointment of the joint com- 

 mittee on retrenchment, with far larger pow- 

 ers than would be conferred on this commit- 

 tee if the amendment of the Senator from 

 Illinois should be adopted. But let it be so, 

 Mr. President. The majority of the Chamber 

 can shape this resolution and pass it just as 

 they please. They can pass it in such wise 

 that the country will believe that there is an 

 earnest determination to ascertain whether 

 there are abuses and frauds, and there are 

 some people in the country who will not take 

 the round and whitewashing statement of the 

 Senator from Vermont, much as he is respect- 

 ed, as complete and conclusive evidence of the 

 purity of the officeholders of the United States. 

 There are some people uncharitable enough to 

 require further evidence than that, and who 

 think that something like a grand-jury ought 

 to sit to make these inquiries. You may pass 

 a resolution that will be regarded all over 

 the country as evidence that the Senate in- 

 tends to make a thorough investigation, or 

 you may pass it in such form that the whole 

 country will see, or a least will think they see, 

 that you mean that there shall be no investi- 

 gation at all. The responsibility is upon the 

 majority of the Senate." 



Mr. Schurz, of Missouri, said: "I do not 

 think there is a Senator on this floor, unless 

 he became a member of this body during this 

 Congress, who has not at least once voted for 

 the powers formerly conferred on the Com- 

 mittee on Retrenchment, and I have yet to 

 hear of the first objection that was made to 

 the practice. It was done by general con- 

 sent ; it was considered a matter of eminent 

 propriety. I have never heard a single com- 

 plaint of the abuse of this power except in 



