CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



171 



" Two policies present themselves in dealing 

 with the problems which are upon us ; the one 

 charging that ignorance is massed upon the one 

 side and the other charging that disloyalty is 

 massed on the other. Two parties present them- 

 selves ; the one asks you to send down there bay- 

 onets, and the other asks you to give them such 

 aid as the Federal Government may properly do 

 in increasing their intelligence and establishing 

 their systems of education ; one demands of 

 the Federal Government bayonets, the other 

 demands of the Federal Government such aid 

 as it gives to commerce, such aid as it gives to 

 agriculture, for educational purposes, in fur- 

 nishing the necessary assistance in building up 

 systems of education." 



Mr. Cox, of New York, said: "I will accept 

 the gentleman's statement. I will say that I 

 have been opposed to all this bureaucratic sys- 

 tem, Freedmen's Bureau and all; ay, to the 

 Agricultural Bureau, if you please. And what 

 good has this bureau done? It has depre- 

 ciated the value of the State school system. It 

 has done no good except to collect statistics 

 which could just as well be collected in some 

 other mode. I remember well when this 

 thing commenced with a small appropriation. 

 It was then said by gentlemen on this side of 

 the House that that was only the entering 

 wedge, and the institution has since grown 

 until the people who seem to understand that 

 powers are being aggregated in this Federal 

 centre have themselves spoken. And even 

 the eloquent gentleman from Massachusetts 

 (Mr. Dawes) was compelled, in addressing the 

 State Republican Convention of Massachusetts, 

 to say that the Republican party had to call a 

 halt in centralizing power or his party would 

 be lost. I know they speak that way. Sir, 

 as I have said, I am opposed to the creation of 

 all these bureaus. The only way is to cut 

 them up by the roots, and it will be done by 

 the next Congress if not by this ; for, although 

 we may not have a majority in the Senate in 

 the next Congress, we shall have power in this 

 House to stop the passage of the laws." 



Mr. Townsend, of Pennsylvania, said : 

 "Mr. Chairman, I join issue with my friend 

 from New York when he says there is no 

 power in the Constitution under which to 

 establish a bureau of this character. You will 

 find in the Constitution that Congress has 

 power to do many things that are there set 

 forth in the ninth section, and at the end of 

 that section Congress has specific power to 

 make all laws that may be necessary to pro- 

 vide for carrying into execution the foregoing 

 powers and all other powers vested by the 

 Constitution in the Government of the United 

 States or any department thereof. There is no 

 special power mentioned in the Constitution 

 whereby Congress can institute a United States 

 bank. There is no power in that instrument 

 whereby there can be instituted a Bureau of 

 Education or of Agriculture or a Bureau of 

 Statistics. The question of the power of Con- 



gress was mooted when the question of the 

 charter of the United States Bank came before 

 the Supreme Court of the United States, and 

 John Marshall, the greatest jurist that ever sat 

 on the bench, decided that under that clause 

 there was power to create such a bank. He 

 said : 



Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the 

 scope of the Constitution, and all means which are 

 appropriate, which are plainly adapted to the end, 

 which are not prohibited but which consist with the 

 letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitu- 

 tional. 



" Under this construction of the Constitu- 

 tion we have created the bureaus mentioned, 

 for Congress has the right to decide whether 

 such bureaus are necessary and proper; if 

 Congress decides that they are, the question 

 of constitutionality ends." 



Mr. Willard, of Vermont, said : " I desire to 

 say to the committee that I cannot consider 

 this question as one to be passed upon simply 

 as a question affecting education. I hold that 

 a member of this committee may be as warmly 

 in favor of the highest degree of education and 

 culture as the gentleman from Massachusetts 

 (Mr. G. F. Hoar) or the gentleman from Penn- 

 sylvania (Mr. Townsend), and still be opposed 

 to increasing the force of this Bureau of Edu- 

 cation. And for this reason : the education of 

 the people, the schools of this country, is com- 

 mitted, and should be committed, to the care 

 of the localities in which those schools exist. 

 There is no State in the Union that would 

 sooner rebel against any Federal interference 

 with its system of schools than the State of 

 Massachusetts ; there is no section of this coun- 

 try that would sooner resist any Federal inter- 

 ference with its methods of education than 

 New England; and there is no section of the 

 country, I believe, that has any better schools 

 or any higher system of education. And this 

 has come to be their distinction, because the 

 people believe that they are the best guardians 

 of their educational interests, and they do not 

 care to have the views of other people imposed 

 upon them in this matter of education. 



" It may be true that the information col- 

 lected by this bureau may be of some value. 

 So you might create a hundred bureaus in this 

 Government to collect information tha't would 

 be of some value to the people. And those 

 who press these appropriations upon our atten- 

 tion seem to proceed upon the assumption of 

 that as the only question at issue, whether the 

 information collected by this bureau is valua- 

 ble or not. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that that 

 is not an element which should have the small- 

 est influence in deciding this question. We 

 might inquire into a great variety of subjects ; 

 we might get information that would be valua- 

 ble upon large numbers of topics ; we might 

 print that information at the public expense, and 

 distribute it throughout the country; and it 

 might be a source of some profit to the people. 

 But that would be no reason why our action 



