1082 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
drawing from it the only salary he received, it being a scientific insti- 
tution, established by Mr. Smithson for the purpose of ‘diffusing 
knowledge among men. We knew that Professor Baird was the best 
man to do the work, and he was willing to help us develop it and see 
what could be done in that direction, and he did it cheerfully. 
Two years afterwards Congress passed a law largely extending his 
duties, labors, and responsibilities. The experiment was progressing 
satisfactorily; nobody could do the work but Professor Baird. Con- — 
gress was anxiously looking to see the development, often without 
making the proper appropriations to carry it on. In fact, it grew up, 
as many things have done, as the Signal Service grew- up, and as 
very many of the great institutions here have grown into great impor- 
tance from small beginnings, from experiments to established facts, so 
the Fish Commission kept on progressing until it became one of the 
great institutions of the country. 
While many leading men in both Houses were iting: whether it 
would be a success, Professor Baird was entirely confident that it 
would be, and he went on developing by his experiments that it would — 
be, proving it by results year by year, until it became assured. 
In the meantime I know, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows, 
for I visited his house time and again when we were working together 
in the House of Representatives, that Professor Baird was living in a 
plain house on New York avenue, plenty big enough for him and his 
family, for it was a small one and an unpretentious one, but he carried 
the clerks of the Fish Commission, our employees for whom we were 
bound to provide, to his own house, furnished them with workrooms 
for nothing, and when the work increased so that it could not be done ° 
there, using, as his statement and that of Senator Edmunds shows, in 
large part the money which belonged to his wife, inherited from her 
father, he built a house on Massachusetts avenue, and used the base- 
ment and other rooms of that building for our employees to do our 
work, not only charging no rent, but furnishing fuel, lights, and ~ 
everything needed to carry it on. Afterwards, at an expense of thou- 
sands of dollars, which he had no sort of need to expend on his own 
account or for the comfort of his family, he added to his house for 
the purpose of better and more effectually carrying on the work of 
the Fish Commission. In short, he actually spent for the Govern- 
ment, if only moderate rent and actual costs, without interest, is 
allowed, more than half the amount now proposed to be restored to 
his family in this bill. 
I need not tell Senators what Professor Baird did. They know its 
The country knows it. I remember his coming to the Appropriations 
Committee room one day, after he had proved how most of the different 
varieties of fish could be hatched and where they could be most advan- 
tageously distributed, with a new discovery, of which he was very 
