FIFTIETH CONGRESS, 1887-1889. 1081 
providing proper compensation for the valuable officers of this Govy- 
ernment isalmost acrime. There has not been a session, I think, since 
I have had the honor of a seat upon this floor when some case has not 
been presented where such injustice has been done the individual that’ 
provision was made for extra compensation for some officer of the 
Government. 
There is no case that has ever been brought to my attention where 
the equities were so strong as in this case. As has been well said by 
other Senators, the services of Professor Baird excelled those of any 
other man in this generation. Not only did he perform the extra 
duties, as stated by the Senators from Massachusetts and New York, 
but I have the very best reason for believing that his own private 
property, the use of his own dwelling, was freely given to the Govy- 
ernment in order that the great work he had in hand might go on. 
In this very bill, and inevery appropriation bill, I think, since 1 have 
been a member of the Senate, you have made provision for your ofli- 
cers who have performed not half the duty, to my best belief, and I 
say this with a full knowledge of the careful consideration which the 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations gives to every item of 
this character. If there is any criticism on him and the members of 
the committee it is that they are too close, too parsimonious. In the 
very bill under consideration we have appropriated several thousand 
dollars for officers of our own body, men who have performed extra- 
ordinary duties and who are entitled to compensation. We required 
two or three of the most efficient clerks that we have in this body to 
give their time out of office hours to make an index and compile the 
records of the executive sessions from 1829 to the end of the Fortieth 
Congress, and it would have been cruel not to have compensated them 
for that work. Others who have compiled indexes and papers for the 
Senate have been paid for it. Their compensation has not been so 
great in the aggregate as the amount proposed to be given in this 
case, but it has been equally as great, and indeed greater, when you 
compare the service that was rendered. 
Therefore, Mr. President, in the committee and here I take great 
pleasure in saying that in my best judgment this is a proper appro- 
- priation to be made, and I shall vote for it with great pleasure. 
Mr. J. B. Becx. Mr. President, I agreed to this appropriation in 
the committee very cheerfully. I did so, perhaps, because I was as 
familiar with the great work performed by Professor Baird from the 
beginning as most men. When Congress first began to investigate the 
questions as to the cause of the decrease of food fishes in this country 
it was an experiment; a small appropriation was made, as the Senator 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] very well said, to see what could be 
done. 
Professor Baird was an employee of the Smithsonian Institution, 
