1284 ; CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
from the country where they were made. They are not works that 
can be estimated by any valuation or appraisal, but depend largely 
upon the imagination. Having had some experience in committees 
that have viewed and investigated such matters, I have found that no 
two persons agree as to their value. They are somewhat like the 
Sibylline Leaves. They come to us first with an estimate of a few 
thousand dollars, as these did originally 
Mr. Voorness. The Senator is mistaken about that. 
Mr. Hate. And they have been constantly increasing in value. It 
is an additional argument in favor of passing this bill and getting rid 
of it, that if we do not pass it now at $14,000 it will come in next 
year at $20,000. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] says 
to me in an aside that he has no doubt that will be so. The Senator 
from Indiana will appreciate that consideration. It may be that he 
would favor it if more money should be called for. 
Mr. Voorness. That is an argument in favor of the passage of 
the bill now. 
Mr. Dawes. Will the Senator allow me to interrupt him? 
Mr. Hate. Certainly. 
Mr. Dawes. I have no doubt that as years go on more and more 
the real value of these specimens will be appreciated, and that will 
increase their value in the market. I agree with the Senator that if 
we had purchased them five years ago in the market we could have 
got them for much less than now. Every year that we come to be 
more and more familiar with what is done there these specimens 
will be prized above all others. 
Mr. Harr. What I was coming at is that there is a pronounced 
demand for this kind of appropriation from the laboring men and the 
farmers of the country. The representatives of that sentiment which 
the Senator from Indiana so earnestly and eloquently urged upon the 
Senate the other day, the downtrodden and oppressed farmers of the 
country, who are disregarded by Congress, who are passed over in 
their claims in favor of fanciful things and in favor of monopolists, 
desire this appropriation! Nothing can carry to the breast of the 
Western farmer so complete and thrilling a feeling of satisfaction with 
the Congress of the United States as to know that it is hunting up 
old relics from Japan, collections that have been for years and years 
here in Washington, and without which the Government has gone on in 
avery respectable fashion, but which now, in obedience to their demand, 
are being purchased for their benefit! It is not a fanciful thing, Mr. 
President; it is a real thing, the desire that the great West has for the 
purchase of these products of Japanese art! 
Fourteen thousand dollars is a small sum to the farmer of the West. 
He is willing to expend it for these objects; he is entirely satisfied; 
and the Senator from Indiana is doing much in this cause that he is 
