FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1889-1891. 1285 
now pleading to pacify the farmers whom the other day he unduly 
stirred up. I congratulate him that he is engaged now in a crusade 
that will be beneficial to the farmers of the country and will tend to 
make them more content. And for that reason, and to relieve the 
burdens under which they exist, I am going to yote with him, because 
I thought the other day that he was stimulating a feeling of discon- 
tent on the part of the farmers, and now I see that he has slept over 
it and that he has found something that they are interested in, and 
that he knows will go through, and we are all going to join him and 
put him in favor in sending this appropriation through. 
Mr. Voornesgs. Mr. President, I will forgive the very mean speech 
that preceded a very excellent conclusion and will ask for a vote, only 
saying that General Capron was a very acceptable Commissioner of 
Agriculture in his day, and this little appropriation goes to his widow 
in her poverty. Now I hope we shall have a vote. 
Mr. J. H. Berry. I desire to ask the Senator from Indiana if ‘it is 
true that these works of art have been offered for $2,000? 
Mr. Vooruess. I will not put it in any offensive way, but I will 
answer in this way: I was trying to tax my best recollection when 
the Senator made that statement, and my best recollection is—I am 
not to be held responsible if it is a little different from that-—that I 
introduced a bill for the purchase of the Capron collection for $10,000. 
Then the committee asked officially the officers who had these works 
in charge at the Smithsonian Institution for an estimate of their value, 
and they made an estimate over the amount that was asked for them. 
Then I amended the bill myself in accordance with it. 
I represent a constituency, Mr. President, who would not abolish 
the Smithsonian Institution or the National Museum, and I suppose 
the Senator from Maine [Mr. Hale] would criticise *them for not 
doing so; but, as I stated, I forgive him for his speech for the sake of 
the vote he is going to give. 
Mr. G. F. Hoar. Isuppose everybody is in favor of ornamenting this 
capital and making it to the American people who come here attractive 
to a reasonable and proper extent with works of art. A good many 
of us have voted for larger expenditures than this for single objects 
which hardly come within that designation when they are completed. 
I remember Mr. Sumner said that the most polite thing he ever knew 
in his life was when a distinguished Englishman walked with him 
straight by the statue of Andrew Jackson and did not manifest the 
slightest consciousness that there was such a thing in sight. 
Now, I thinkin the selection of these works we can trust, better 
than we can ourselves, the judgment of the men who have the charge 
of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum. Professor 
Baird, I believe, reserved this large space in the National Museum to 
their custody and exhibition; they are among the most attractive and 
