CONGRESS. (APPORTIONMENT or RKPRKSEXTATIVES.) 



223 



people can In- relied upon to disclose in 

 .'ii the first of June everything 

 iiing llicir jirivntc alTairs, their mental 

 iiiliiinii-. that tin- census schedules 

 ni tlic\ can not bo relied upon to give 

 :l aii-wers at this time as to whether or 

 . v were residents of certain localities at 

 ne Ilial they should have been enumerated 

 I he h\v. This is the sum ami snbMance 

 of this whole matter. If tho people of New 

 an lie trusted to give truthful an- 

 to questions directed at their sanity and 

 . they can bo trusted now to 

 uthful answers to tle only other question 

 iry for them to reply to in order 

 ify the enumeration taken in June. 

 . this demand for a re-enumeration is no 

 uiiusiial or unreasonable proposition. It is a 

 repetition of a demand that is made by 

 is municipalities and States once every ten 

 It is a very rare thing, if indeed it ever 

 . that a census is taken in this country 

 passes wholly unquestioned in every 

 locality, and I believe that never yet has there 

 ;i stronger showing of inaccuracy of any 



- heretofore taken as there has been as to 

 Vventh census in the city of New York. 



Certainly there has never been as strong a 

 demand so persistently and unanimously urged 

 hy any locality as that which has come up from 

 my city: and yet time and again recounts have 

 ; I lowed. While General Grant was Presi- 

 dent of the United States a recount was allowed 

 in New York and Philadelphia, both on a much 

 slighter showing than we "have now presented. 

 Kansas City, Mo., and various other cities and 

 localities throughout the country have had a re- 

 enumeration to verify the first returns of this 

 -. The whole State of South Carolina was 

 re-enumerated under the tenth census; and the 

 instances of these re-enumerations have been too 

 frequent and too many to justify any attempt 

 upon my part to state them all. 



" It is not a crime to ask to be counted, and, 

 until the undignified and vituperative responses 

 of some of the Federal officials to the requests 

 of the New York authorities were promulgated, 

 the people of that city and State were not aware 

 that there was any special obloquy attached to a 

 request for a full and fair enumeration. 



" If New York city is allowed to have her 

 people counted she will be entitled certainly to 

 one more Representative than this bill provides 

 for, and probably to two; and it is the plain 

 duty of this Congress to afford her every reason- 

 able opportunity to show the full number of her 

 Inhabitants, and especially so in view of the fact 

 that there have recently been admitted to the 

 Union, the States' to which I have referred, and 

 which will have, under any circumstances, a 

 power and influence in the Government wholly 

 disproportioned to their population. 



'The city of New York is ready at any time 

 t<> afford every facility to the Federal authori- 



make any investigation and any enumera- 

 tion that they may be disposed to make. The 



officers of that city arc at tho command 



of the census authorities to join with them in 



ng a canvass of the population. Anything 



i in an enumeration of all the inhabitants 



of that city will be a plain denial of justice to 



our people. Political screeds, promulgated from 

 the Interior Department, ami directed ut the 

 Chief Kxc cutiveof our State, will not answer tin: 

 just demand of our people to have themselves 

 counted in the eleventh census." 



Mr. Holman, of Indiana, criticised the meas- 

 ure for increasing the membership of the House: 



"The present number is 882. The number 

 fixed by the last apportionment was 825 and 7 

 members added since by the admission of new 

 Statis, and this bill increases the number from 

 882 to 856. The evidence around us on all hands 

 is that even the present number of members is 

 too large for safe, prudent, and intelligent legis- 

 lation. Certainly gentlemen will admit that to 

 secure intelligent legislation each member must 

 have an opportunity to understand fully what is 

 transpiring. That can not be done even now. 

 Indeed, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that even now, 

 with 382 memoers in this House, it is impossible 

 for all gentlemen to keep the run of current 

 business. Many are too remote from the clerk's 

 desk to even hear in the midst of the confusion 

 incident to a large assembly the reading of bills 

 on which they are called. 



" I have not indulged the hope that there 

 would be any reduction in the number of Repre- 

 sentatives from the present number. It would 

 require a very strong sentiment of reform in 

 Congress to effect that, and a large amount of 

 self-denial on the part of the statesmen of the 

 several States of the Union. Indeed, as has been 

 already stated by the gentlemen from Minnesota, 

 ever since the organization of our Government, 

 when the number of members of this House was 

 65 never since that time, except on one occa- 

 sion, has the House of Representatives been 

 willing to reduce the numbers, and in every 

 other apportionment the number has been in- 

 creased. That exception was in 1843. That was 

 a very, interesting period of our history. The 

 apportionment of 1843 was an incident to the 

 political contest of 1840. 



" The spirit of reform had taken at that period 

 a stronger hold on the American people than 

 has occurred at any other period in our history. 

 The political ground swell of 1840 had in the 

 main grown out of the surplus in our Treasury 

 in previous years, the result of excessive tariff 

 taxation and the excessive inflation of the cur- 

 rency with worthless paper money, and the re- 

 coil incident to them which prostrated every in- 

 dustry and brought our people face to face with 

 the demand for searching reforms in the Govern- 

 ment. That canvass of 1840 produced a won- 

 derful effect upon the public mind. 



" It was a political cyclone in which the old 

 party organizations were badly broken to pieces. 

 The party triumph in that campaign turned to 

 ashes, but its purifying effect was felt for years 

 afterward in the economic methods as well as in 

 the general policy of our country. So that, look- 

 ing oack to the history of that period, it is not 

 remarkable that the statesmen of that era were 

 able to look at the question of the number of 

 members of this House with self-denying impar- 

 tiality, with no object in view except the pub- 

 lic good. The good of our country is undoubt- 

 edly the desire of all of us now, but local consid- 

 erations and patriotic pride in our several States 

 control in a very large degree our political ac- 



