FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1873-75. 741 



Protestant Episcopal Church, and at the head of the leading 

 university of my State, if not of the great Southwest. He 

 is eminent for his high literary and scientific attainments, 

 and has been a scholar all his life; and his head, like mine 

 and that of my friend, begins to bleach from the effect of 

 years. Many gentlemen on this floor are acquainted with 

 him personally or by character, and there will be no contro- 

 versy, I am sure, about his fitness for this duty. But I have 

 .placed the discussion upon higher ground. The question 

 is, whether it is not a wiser, better, more politic arrange- 

 ment, other things equal, to distribute these offices a little 

 more, rather than to concentrate the whole regency within 

 a few States upon the Atlantic coast. With these remarks 

 I leave the question. 



Mr. MONROE. Mr. Speaker, I desire to say a word in 

 Tegard to what has been said of the action of the committee 

 on this subject. It is a matter of great delicacy to discuss 

 this question here in the House to any great extent, and to 

 discuss the multitude of names that would at once be offered 

 here if the question of the claims of the several States were 

 to be fully examined on this floor; for their claims are all 

 very excellent and very valid. I am not without some sym- 

 pathy with the local feeling expressed by the gentleman from 

 Tennessee, [Mr. Maynard.] As a member of the committee 

 I represent Ohio. Now, Ohio is a State also ; there is some 

 land in Ohio ; it is quite a piece of territory, and I could 

 not help thinking of a large number of accomplished gen- 

 tlemen and dear friends of mine in that State, some of whom 

 I would be very glad to have named for these places, and 

 men whom I know would have filled them with credit to 

 themselves and with high usefulness to the objects of the 

 institution. But I saw at once that this was just one of those 

 questions in which we must give up local preferences. In 

 discussing a question of science, of all others, I imagine on 

 the whole a man will be most useful who can be most capa- 

 ble, and who can yield most readily to local preference be- 

 longing to his own district. I recognized the necessity for 

 that; and, although I had no doubt I had even in my own 

 congressional district, where there are four colleges of a very 

 high order, the very best men in the world to fill these vacan- 

 cies, I thought it quite right to make the great sacrifice of 

 yielding up this question of the local claims of my congres- 

 sional district. 



What is there of locality about these great names in 

 science ? Who cares anything about where their domicile 

 is ? How inferior any question of that sort is in comparison 



