CONGRESS. (THE RULES.) 



227 



bill to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post- 

 Roads ; and the Indian bill to the Committee on In- 

 dian Affairs. This leaves with the Committee on 

 Appropriations the following-named bills, namely : 

 Legislative, executive, and judicial, sundry civil, defi- 

 ciency, fortification, pension, and District of Columbia 

 bills, which include more than half the annual appro- 

 priations for carrying on the Government. The total 

 appropriations for the fiscal year 1885-'86 are $215,- 

 511,595.24, of which sum $114,824,465.45 was appro- 

 priated in the bills last named.. The remaining ex- 

 penditures of the Government are provided for by 

 permanent appropriations. The Committee on Ap- 

 propriations was created on the 2d of March, 1865 

 (second session Thirty-eighth Congress), but was not 

 appointed until the following Congress. Prior to its 

 creation, the general appropriation bills were reported 

 by the Committee on \Vays and Means, which com- 

 mittee was further divided by the transfer of its ju- 

 risdiction on the subjects of banking and bank cur- 

 rency, and the Pacific Railroad to standing committees 

 on those subjects. On the 14th of September, 1837 

 (first session Twenty-fifth Congress), the House 

 adopted the following rule, viz. : u It shall also be 

 the duty of the Committee on Appropriations, within 

 thirty days after their appointment, at every session 

 of Congress, commencing on the first Monday of De- 

 cember, to report the general appropriation bills." 

 On the 2d of March, 1865, the House adopted the fol- 

 lowing amendment to the foregoing clause, viz., " or, 

 in failure thereof, the reasons for such failure." 



Under these provisions, the various appropriation 

 bills were reported within the time prescribed, or the 

 failure theretbr explained, with but few exceptions, 

 until the revision of the rules in the second session of 

 the Forty-sixth Congress. 



In that revision, "the requirement as to reporting 

 these bills was omitted, and from that time the gen- 

 eral appropriation bills have been reported as the com- 

 mittee saw fit. 



For nearly forty years of our history the appro- 

 priations were made in one act, entitled, " An act 

 making appropriations for the support of the Govern- 

 ment." The first separate bill for the expenses of the 

 Post-Office Department was passed in 1844. In 1847 

 the appropriations were made in nine separate bills 

 viz., army, civil and diplomatic, deficiencies, fortifi- 

 cations, Indians, Military Academy, navy, pensions, 

 and post-office. In 1856, the consular and diplomatic 

 appropriations were for the first time embodied in a 

 separate bill. In 1857, the legislative, executive, and 

 judicial bill first appeared in its present form. In 

 1862, the sundry civil bill was established, containing 

 the various miscellaneous items not embraced in the 

 other bills ; and in 1880, the agricultural and District 

 of Columbia bills were established, the agricultural 

 bill being transferred to the Committee on Agricult- 

 ure. With but few exceptions, the river and harbor 

 bill was prepared and reported by the Committee on 

 Commerce, until the creation of the Committee on 

 Rivers and Harbors in 1883, when it was assigned to 

 that committee. As showing the great increase of 

 appropriations for the support of the Government, it 

 may be stated that each one of our principal general 

 appropriation bills embraces as much money as the 

 whole amount of the net ordinary expenditures of the 

 Government during the first ten years of its existence, 

 and the specific objects to be investigated and pro- 

 vided for in these bills have so greatly increased in 

 number that it has become a very considerable task 

 even to enumerate them. For several years past, the 

 various general appropriation bills have been reported 

 at such late periods in the session as to preclude their 

 careful and thorough investigation by members not on 

 the Committee on Appropriations. 'The committee is 

 of opinion that the distribution proposed will enable 

 all these bills to be reported at earlier periods in the 

 session, will permit a more careful and thorough con- 

 sideration of each bill by the committee having juris- 

 diction of it, and also by the House, resulting in more 



considerate and economic legislation, and will obviate 

 the necessity for the passage of any of these bills 

 under a suspension of the rules, which has been BO 

 frequently done in late years." 



On the other hand, Mr. Randall, of Pennsyl- 

 vania, in the minority report, said : 



Before the war, the Committee of Ways and Means 

 prepared and reported the necessary appropriation 

 bills to execute the laws and carry on the Govern- 

 mentj and it also arranged the taxes requisite to pro- 

 vide income sufficient to meet the proposed expendi- 

 tures. Those who were for lessening taxes were of 

 course in favor of economical expenditures, and those 

 who were not, favored the largest appropriations. In- 

 stead of returning to the old system, it is proposed 

 still further to separate these closely related and in- 

 terdependent subjects. General appropriation bills 

 are to be still further divided and scattered, and the 

 result inevitably will be that it will be impossible to 

 keep up any just relations between receipts and ex- 

 penditures. 



Experience and observation demonstrate such dis- 

 tribution leads to continually increasing appropria- 

 tions, and renders it more difficult to keep expendi- 

 tures within the limits of receipts. In the instances 

 where appropriation bills have been taken from the 

 Committee on Appropriations and given to the com- 

 mittees having charge of general legislation on the 

 same subjects, it is susceptible of proof that those 

 particular appropriations have steadily increased, and 

 to such . a degree that, if the same ratio of increase 

 were to be followed in all the other appropriations, the 

 result would be not only to exhaust the surplus reve- 

 nue, but compel the levying of increased taxation. 



The best interests of the people require that the 

 subject of appropriations should mainly be committed 

 to the charge of one committee not that one set of 

 men is abler or more honest than another set, but 

 because experience has shown it is the safest course to 

 pursue. Such body of men can make careful scrutiny 

 into every detail by itself, and, in connection with 

 others, and taking a survey of the whole field of re- 

 ceipts and expenditures, it will be responsible to the 

 House to see to it that the latter shall be reduced to 

 an economical basis, and kept within the limits of the 

 public revenue. 



If that responsibility be disseminated through many 

 committees, it will become so loose and uncertain as to 

 be lost altogether, and it is not unlikely, as we have 

 been told in debate on this floor by men of the high- 

 est distinction in our councils, that if the proposed 

 distribution of appropriation bills among the several 

 committees shall take place it will be at the " peril of 

 the public interests, and will release the grasp which 

 the Committee on Appropriations can alone keep on 

 the purse-strings of the Government." The result, 

 as we have also been told, would " absolutely break 

 down all economy and good order and good manage- 

 ment of the finances." 



Another of the important amendments rec- 

 ommended in the majority report was the 

 striking oat from the third clause of Rule XXI 

 the following prohibition as to new legislation : 



Nor shall any provision in any such bill or amend- 

 ment thereto changing existing law be in order, ex- 

 cept such as, being germane to the subject-matter of 

 the bill, shall retrench expenditures by the reduction 

 of the number and salary of the officers of the United 

 States, by the reduction of the compensation of any 

 person paid out of the Treasury of the United States, 

 or bv the reduction of amounts of money covered by 

 the bill : Provided, That it shall be in order further 

 to amend such bill upon the report of the committee 

 having jurisdiction of the subject-matter of such 

 amendment, which amendment, being germane to the 

 subject- matter of the bill, shall retrench expenditures. 



