1070 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
in principle. It is a precedent that will return to haunt us for every 
day and every year that we may continue here. I shall vote against 
the amendment in any form it may be presented. 
Mr. W. Cau. Mr. President, I take it that it will not be disputed 
that every act of legislation to be justified must be based upon some 
public policy, or it must be in the line of some wise and reasonable 
public policy. Suppose we examine the proposition of the Senator 
from Tennessee, and the Senator from Texas, and the Senator from 
Arkansas in the light of this truth. What is the proposition, and 
what is the public policy which they avow upon this floor as the foun- 
dation of their action here? 
It is to discourage all devotion to the public service, superior merit, 
and disinterestedness. A man may serve the country. faithfully, fie 
may be a great public benefactor, as Professor Baird was; he may give 
his services to the Government ane the people asa penebrobar: and those 
services are not to be measured by the gratitude of the people and the 
value to the world and to his country, but by the idea that he did not 
drive a hard bargain with the Government; that he was disinterested 
in his devotion to the public service; that, like Shylock the Jew, he 
must make a contract and take the pound literally, and take it as his 
pay. 
Mr. President, governments are not based upon the idea of contract- 
ing for services. They act with the power of the law and of command, 
and they compensate according to the service rendered. There is no 
other correct principle upon which to found our action. 
The public policy of every government must be to encourage emi- 
nent virtue, eminent ability. And how encourage it? By refusing to 
reward it? By saying that this man’s wife shall be left in comparative 
destitution after he devoted his life and gave the service of his house 
to the Government, giving to the Government the offices in which 
these duties were performed for fifteen years, which is in itself, I am 
told, very nearly worth, at the price the Government is paying rent 
in this city, the amount proposed to be given to this man, who devoted 
himself to what? To enlarging the field of subsistence, the food sup- 
ply of mankind. He gave his nights and his days, and it is said lost 
his life at a comparatively early age from the severity and continuous- 
ness of his labor. 
Because he refused to receive compensation and gave this service 
voluntarily we are told that the public policy and-safe precedent for- 
bid that we should be generous and liberal to those whom he has left 
behind; that‘is, that we shall say to everybody, ‘‘ Our public policy is to 
discourage and to censure and to punish the man who exhibits superior 
capacity, superior morality, devotion, and disinterestedness in the 
country’s service.” 
