FIFTIETH CONGRESS, 1887-1889. 1077 
- consumed in the support of himself and his wife and his daughter. In 
looking back at the record of the service, it is discovered that it had 
passed sub silentio, without the observation of this people or of Con- 
gress, that all this had been done by him without stipulating for pay- 
ment or exacting compensation; and now it is said that when looking 
at the past we see that though these services might be done by the 
‘strong man in his life and his confidence in its endurance, in the actual 
- situation of his death it has all been done at the expense of his wife 
-and his daughter. 
The nation looking at that can not say, ‘We might have accepted 
it from you, we might have endured it without being too careful of 
our own duties toward you;” but when we find at the end all that we 
are asked to do is to do afterwards what would have been just to have 
done at the time, how are we to discharge that obligation and upon 
what direct proposition or consideration on both sides? Read the 
simple clause of the amendment of the committee in the bill: 
To enable the Secretary of the Treasury to pay Mrs. Mary H. C. Baird, widow of 
the late Spencer F. Baird, $50,000, in full compensation for the services and expenses 
of the said Spencer F. Baird during his administration of the office of Commissioner 
of Fish and Fisheries, from February 257 1871, to the time of his death, in August, 
1887. , 
Supposing I will not say a munificent but a just employer, finding 
that his salaries had been punctually paid in the lifetime of his employee, 
_ had found in the calculation of opportunities of future provision for 
those dependent on him that he had been cut off, and it had been the 
habit to give extraordinary value to this employer’s administration in 
his affairs, could he not without seeming to defraud any rightful claims 
upon him say, ‘‘I will now reckon up what is proper to be paid, not 
as a gift, not as a gratuity, not as a bounty, but in my own calculation 
of what I will have measured as a just satisfaction of these long 
enumerated and uncompensated services ?” 
It is thus, then, Mr. President, that we are absolutely free from any 
pretension that we have not the power under the Constitution of 
estimating services to the public welfare and fixing their compensation. 
I must think, then, there is nothing left for us but to say, ‘‘As this 
was not done in advance and has passed long without recognition as 
needing compensation, it should be done now.” It is too late, they say, 
for us, because there is no such relation of stipulation and obligation 
as to permit us to measure and compensate as we now see to be just. 
Mr. Cuttom. Mr. President, I do not believe there is any Senator 
on this floor who appreciates more highly the very distinguished work 
of Professor Baird than Ido. It so happened, by the favor of the 
Presiding Officer of the Senate, that I was thrown with him in con- 
nection with the administration of the affairs of the Smithsonian 
Institute, and thereby came to know more of his life and services than 
