CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 





dition to my amendment, I do not know what 

 I would have done. 



" Now, I wish to call the attention of this 

 Committee of the Whole to this fact: the leader 

 of this House, the Chairman of the Committee 

 of Ways and Means (Mr. Dawes), knowing the 

 existence of this great evil of the low salaries 

 of these custom-house officers, during the 

 whole of the two years of the term of this Con- 

 press, with the control of the business of this 

 House in his hands, has waited until within 

 the last seven working days of this session he- 

 fore ho has brought in an amendment which at 

 the proper time I should have been very glad 

 to vote for. I agree that the salaries of those 

 officers are too small. But why antagonize my 

 amendment with one to increase their salaries? 

 " I want to call attention of gentlemen to 

 one or two things in relation to the amendment 

 I have offered. It proposes to throw off our 

 mileage and the mileage of members of future 

 < ' Tigresses. It cuts off what has been a wrong, 

 and substitutes in its stead a just method of 

 paying the actual expenses of members com- 

 ini here. That cuts off $133,000 a year. 



" And this Congress has gone further, and 

 thrown off the franking privilege, which was a 

 great expense to the country and was of no 

 benefit to any member of Congress. Ever 

 since I have been in Congress the franking 

 privilege has cost me at least $2,500 a year. 

 I have had to pay $1,500 a year for a clerk to 

 take care of my books and documents, and I 

 have paid out of my own pocket about $1,000 

 a ye.ir for the speeches of my fellow-members 

 and for other valuable documents to send to my 

 constituents. 



" Now, in raising our salaries, not to $8,000 

 a year, as some gentlemen seem to suppose, 

 I nit to $7,500, this amendment cuts off from 

 the expenses of succeeding Congresses some 

 $300,000. But, without g.nng into any calcu- 

 lation of the amount saved by this amendment, 

 it only increases the amount appropriated by 

 tins bill some $1,200,000, by raising all the sal- 

 aries that are now too low. 



' Now, I am willing to be pretty liberal in 

 raising salaries. A dollar to-day does not go 

 more than one tenth as far as a dollar went in 

 1801, when the most of these salaries were 

 fixed. In my district in 1801 a man could buy 

 the best mutton for two cents a ponnd ; he 

 could buy the best cow for ten dollars; the 

 best woman-help in the family, better than we 

 can now get for any money, could be obtained 

 then for seventeen cents a week. The best 

 horse in the country could be purchased for 

 fifty dollars ; the best' men, such as would now 

 make good superintendents of railroads, could 

 be obtained to superintend farms for fifty dol- 

 lars a year each." 



The Chairman : " Objection being made to 

 the withdrawal of the amendment, the ques- 

 tion will be taken upon it." 



The question was taken; and the amend- 

 ment was not agreed to. 



Mr. Hawley, of Connecticut, said: "I have 

 no extended speech to make ; I do not care for 

 more than two minutes out of the five allowed 

 me under the rule. But I want to say, because 

 I believe it, that these gentlemen here who 

 profess to belong to the dominant political 

 party, and are supporting this proposition, are 

 digging the grave of that party. I am perfect- 

 ly well aware that they are not alone in this 

 respect ; that one party already has its grave 

 dug, and the other wants to lie side by side 

 with it. Back of these political parties, or the 

 men who nominally represent them, are the 

 American people, who will have something 

 further to say on this question. 



" For one, I care so little about parties or 

 elections that, if this is to be the style of legis- 

 lation, I am willing, if not to assist in digging 

 the grave, to attend the funeral. I do not 

 care what party may come afterward, we can- 

 not, in my opinion, have one worse than a par- 

 ty which, six months after the most ardent 

 professions of economy, begins, in the last few 

 hours of a session, the work of raising in this 

 House the salaries of its members, so that we 

 may put into our pockets five or six thousand 

 dollars which we never dreamed of having 

 until two or three weeks ago. 



" That is my idea of the action of this House 

 to-night. I say the country will not approve 

 it ; our own party will not approve it. There 

 is no good reason for it. Nothing but parlia- 

 mentary etiquette restrains me from character- 

 izing this proposition as in my heart I believe 

 it ought to be characterized. If gentlemen 

 really believe these salaries ought to be raised 

 as a matter of abstract right, if there is no self- 

 ish, money-loving spirit in the movement, if 

 there is no dishonorable motive at the root of 

 the matter, let us then make a reasonable ad- 

 dition to these salaries which shall take effect 

 after this Congress adjourns." 



Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania, said : " Mr. 

 Chairman, I do not think there is any occasion 

 for an exhibition of excessive virtue on this 

 question; nor is there any good cause for a 

 flutter. It may not be amiss for me to recall 

 at this time a little experience I have had in 

 this connection. I was here in 1865-'6G, and, 

 upon a call of the yeas and nays, I was one of 

 three men on this floor who voted to increase 

 the congressional salary from $3,000 to $5,000. 

 I did so for the reason (which I told my people 

 at home) that I thought I was worth the in- 

 creased sum ; that I knew I spent more. 

 Every Republican paper in my district com- 

 mended my vote, and said that I had more 

 courage than all the men who voted on the 

 other side. What was the result ? The seeds 

 we sowed upon that occasion ripened into n 

 vast harvest; and within a few days afterward 

 both Houses of Congress voted to make the in- 

 crease from $3,000 to $5,000. I never had a 

 constituent who objected to my course upon 

 that question. 



"I am in favor of the increase now proposed. 



