CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



163 



se; but I have certain privileges, and those 

 pn\ ;|. . .-s I si. all Min-l\ claim. 1 shall not be 



1 nor howled down. 



" Everybody, Mr. Speaker, I think, will ad- 

 mit that the passage of the salary bill on last 

 March was unfortunate and inopportune. If 

 there had been any doubt upon that question, 

 the almost unanimous voice of the people set- 

 tii-'l it. And, sir, it was a matter upon which 

 tin- people might well pass it was the voting 

 of money from the public purse to pay public 

 .itits. Now, there cnn be no question as to 

 that bring a subject-matter which the people 

 mi^ht consider. There can be no question as 

 t" what was the result of that consideration. 

 It \vns sharp, swift, and immediate condemna- 

 tion, imd it was so marked and so undoubted 

 that I see no humiliation on the part of any 

 gentleman hero following that direction of the 

 I KM. pie on this subject-matter. I, of course, 

 feel no humiliation. I have no back-track to 

 take, no new record to make; but I do not, 

 from this comfortable stand-point, gloat over 

 the gentlemen who have changed their views, 

 because there was the best reason for change. 

 The people passed upon the subject they had a 

 right to pass upon 1 The contract for pay, and 

 this is the fair formula to put it in, was a two- 

 sided contract, and the party paying the money 

 vetoed the bill involving the increase. The 

 public stamped its disapproval upon it, and, 

 therefore, I see no inconsistency on the part 

 of gentlemen like the gentleman from Massa- 

 chusetts (Mr. Butler) taking ground now in 

 favor of substantial repeal as that gentleman 

 here assures us he does. 



" He has been instructed on a matter where 

 he originally voted as he pleased, subject to 

 the disapproval of the other contracting party, 

 and, therefore, I repeat again there is no hu- 

 miliation here in responding on this question 

 to the people's voice. 



" Xow, sir, I cannot vote for the proposition 

 which is at present before the House, because 

 I believe that it is an evasion of the public de- 

 mand. It evades our instructions from our 

 constituencies, whose money we are passing 

 upon. The people have decided in favor of 

 substantial repeal. There have been gentle- 

 men enough hero who, within the last ten 

 days, have reiterated this proposition to carry- 

 it if they will vote as they have talked. But 

 the proposition before the House is not repeal 

 simon pure. This House has already passed 

 upon it that it is not. Less than a week ago 

 on the motion of the gentleman from Indiana 

 (Mr. Orth) this whole matter was committed 

 to the special committee, with instructions to 

 report a repeal of the salary increase, so far as 

 the same was practicable under the Consti- 

 tution, and to go back to the old salary and 

 allowances; but instead of these allowanced 

 briiifr unfairly distributed, as was the case under 

 the mileage law, to lump the mileage and aver- 

 age it among the members as salary. The 

 committee reported such an equalizing bill to 



this House. It involved substantial repeal. It 

 took no more money from the Treasury than 

 the old law. It equalized mileage, not aa I 

 would rather have Been it done, from the 

 pockets of members who draw exoenive mile- 

 age, into the Treasury, but from the pocket of 

 one member into that of another. Hut, to far 

 as that goes, it was one kind of equalization. 

 I, for one, was willing to stand to it, and the 

 committee reported a bill fixing the salaries at 

 $5,500, the $500 over the old law being the 

 average amount of mileage and stationery al- 

 lowances. 



" I tried to bring the House to vote upon 

 that proposition. I was in favor, as I have boon 

 from the beginning, of not incumbering bills 

 that carried repeal on their forefront with any 

 thing that would clog them. But I could get 

 no direct vote on the proposition, though 

 members enough would talk for it. 



"And now, sir, after the House has voted 

 first upon one thing and then another, after it 

 has instructed its committee to fix our salaries 

 at $5,500, right in the face of the report of 

 the committee a proposition is put in here by 

 which at the end of a fortnight's hard fighting, 

 with the eyes of everybody upon us, we seek 

 to get out of the fray by increasing our salaries 

 in the sum of $500. 



"Sir, it is not the amount that the people 

 will care about. It was not, as has been often 

 stated in this discussion, any particular sum 

 that awakened the country last spring, but it 

 was the conduct of the business that roused 

 the people ; and to-day, sir, this House cannot 

 afford, as the upshot of all this agony for ' re- 

 peal,' to again increase our salaries over the 

 old figure and negative the idea of repeal. 

 Sir, the people do not expect that from us. 

 They expect us to go back to the old law or to 

 its equivalent. Is there any gentleman here 

 that can give us a reason why we should add 

 $500 to what we formerly received ? And, 

 what is the worst of it, no option is given us 

 in voting. The gentleman from Illinois who 

 springs this proposition refuses to allow me to 

 move an amendment inserting $5,500 for 

 $6,000, and refuses to allow the gentleman 

 from Massachusetts (Mr. Dawes) to ofler as a 

 substitute the bill reported by the select com- 

 mittee." 



The Speaker: "The question now is, will 

 the House order that the bill as amended by 

 the substitute of the gentleman from Illinois 

 be engrossed and read a third time." 

 The question was taken as follows : 

 YEAS Messrs. Adams, Albert, Archer, Ashe, 

 Atkins Avcrill, Barrere, Barry, Ban, Beck, Begple, 

 Bell, Biery, Bowen, Bradlev, Bright, BofSnton, Bur- 

 chard, Benjamin F. Butler, Roderick R. Butler, Cain, 

 Cannon, Cessna, Amos Clark, Jr.. Clayton, Clement*, 

 Clinton L. Cobb, Stephen A. Cobb, Comingo, Cook, 

 Creamer, Crocker, Crooke, Crossland. Crounse, 

 Criitchfield, Darrall, Davis, De Witt, Duell, Durham, 

 KMrrdge, Elliott, Farwell, Field, Freeman, Garfield, 

 Giddingu, Glover, Robert 8. Hale, Hamilton, llun- 

 C'H'k, I farmer, Benjamin W. Harris, Henry K. Har- 

 ris, Harrison, Ilntnorn, Havens, John B. Hawley, 



