452 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Did gentlemen wish to exclude all light upon the subject to prevent 

 the country receiving such information as it was in their power to 

 give to keep from public view the facts connected with the expendi- 

 ture of the money? It was strange that any gentleman should be 

 found willing to say that he did not want a committee which might 

 ascertain all the facts and report them to the country. Various com- 

 plaints had been made as to the expenditure of the money, the struc- 

 ture of the building, and the material of which it was composed. Were 

 gentlemen willing to exclude all those facts which it was requisite 

 should be known in order to arrive at correct conclusions, and intelli- 

 gently to direct the future operations of the Institution^ If all was 

 going on well, if the building was properly constructed, and the money 

 had been properly expended, let the country understand it. He trusted 

 that the House would adopt his proposition and that a committee would 

 be appointed. 



Mr. ROBERT MCCLELLAND, of Michigan, said that he was not 

 opposed to the appointment of the committee contemplated by the 

 amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. At the 

 same time, if he had no other reasons than those which had been 

 assigned by the gentleman from Tennessee, he (Mr. McClelland) should 

 be radically opposed to such an appointment. Reports had been sent 

 in by the Board of Regents that were very full and ample in regard 

 to all the facts that the people throughout the country could desire to 

 know concerning this Institution. One very full report of all facts 

 touching the Institution had been laid before the House at the last ses- 

 sion of Congress. The House had refused to print it. That report, 

 his friend from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] would find, had set forth, in 

 a simple and lucid manner, everything connected with the Institution 

 since its organization everything that had been done under the law 

 passed by Congress down to that time. He (Mr. McClelland), for one, 

 as a member of the Board of Regents, would say that it was not afraid 

 of any investigation by a committee of this House or otherwise. He 

 would go as far as any reasonable man in favor of economy and 

 retrenchment; and he would say that the Board of Regents, so far as 

 his knowledge extended, had acted upon both these principles in every 

 step they had taken. He was astonished, on entering upon his official 

 duties, to find that almost every report which had been put in circula- 

 tion in regard to the Institution was entirely false and groundless. 

 He hoped that every gentleman here who was a friend to the Institu- 

 tion would permit a committee to be appointed, and that it might be 

 composed of members who were radically opposed to the Institution, 

 so that no barrier should be interposed to the most rigorous and 

 searching scrutiny. And (continued Mr. McClelland) if that com- 

 mittee shall give to the country such a report as I know they will give, 

 for none other can they make, the effect will be to raise the Institu- 



