c ClM^zJi ^^^ J'iiq HOLLINGER pH8.5 MILL RUN F3-1543 lAL COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS— WMT IT HAS DONE. a4 % t(?/76 SPEECH OP ROSOOE COJ^KLma OF MW YORK, l:X /^ . IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 29, 1862. ^'he House having under consideration the report of the select committee on Government contracts — Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING said: Mr. Speaker: On the 17th of July last, in common with about fifty other members of this House,! voted against the permission then asked by the committee on Government contracts to do much which since that time they have done. It was the opinion then of some of the oldest and most experienced members of the House that such a proceeding as that proposed would not be wise under any circumstances. It seemed so to me. It seemed to me that no committee could be so honest or so eminent that it would be suitable to clothe it with the unheard of powers asked for on that occasion. It seemed to me unfit to create a supervisory board and set it over all the Departments of the Government to review, at its own pleasure and in its own way, j the integrity and motive of eviery man engaged in the administration of public afftiirs. It seemed to i me that a rovingcommission, virtually irrespons- ible, to sit in judgment, open or secret, at its op- tion, upon the honesty or fraud of all future con- tracts and transactions, to be entered into by any Department ofthe Government, was open to grave objections, and found little argument in its favor of a kind calculated to commend it to the sound discretion of the House. We had at that time, as we have at all times, power to call for every contract from time to time, and to inspect and in- quire into all the transactions of each Depart- ment of the Government. We had then, as we have now, two standing committees, with but little occupation, whose duties are identical with those professed by this committee; we could instruct them as often as the House should deem it neces- sary to inquire and report; and therefore it seemed to me that the enormous powers asked for were fraught with dangerous objections, and likely to be productive of pernicious and odious results. The hesitation ofthe House, however, aroused the displeasure of at least one member of the com- mittee. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] felt himself attacked, and came to the- defense. He protested his innocence of bad mo- tives which no one had imputed to him; he denied several charges which no one had made, and hinted broadly that he would resign unless the House indulged him in the permissron asked for. That indulgence was granted, and I think it safe to say now, that experience has vindicated and approved every objection then insisted upon. The doings ofthe committee — its extraordinary doings —have led to the most wide-spread misapprehen- sions and exaggerations. They have filled the whole country with'indiscriminate suspicion and distrust. The political complexion of the com- mittee is such that its sayings and doings were cal- culated to have far greater efiect than would have been the case if it had stood in political antago- nism to the present Administration. Its flitting constantly from State to State, sometimes from one side ofthe Union to the other, the vague mys- tery in which it has been enshrouded, with its still vaguer givings out, its secret sessions, and above all, the sweeping and unmeasured declarations of some of its members, have engendered the belief, not only at home but abroad-^and I judge from the foreign papers, more abroad than at home — that corruption and venality are universal in this country, and that swindling and theft, like the frogs of Egypt, have entered the very kneading- troughs of the land. Such an impression is a wicked aspersion upon the American people; it is as false of them as of any nation in history, and if possible more false now in the hour of their pa- triotic trial than ever in the time of their pros- perity and peace. I charge no man with a design to do this great wrong, but it has been done, and as an humble lover of my country I deplore it with impatient regret. In addition to this all-em- bracing injury, proceedings of the committee have done injustice— pgjcoss, irreparable injustice, to in- dividuals and classes^ 'So much is admitted now, thoUjgi| not voluntarily admitted; but it is said to have OTisen from Inadvertence and mistake. So be it; that does not lighten the obloquy which has blasted private character aad public reputation. My proposition is that the nation, the Govern- ment, classes of individuals, and individuals them- selves, have suffered In character; that we have lost caste, and that much harm has come, not from detecting or exposing fraud or extravagance, but from magnifying and exaggerating what has hap- pened, and charging and publishing to the world what has never happened at all. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] said the other day, if I read him aright in the Globe, that the plundering under this present Administration had been as great as the expenditures under thathated dynasty which the people had hurled fcom power. Sir, if that statement is true, the American people would be justified in resorting to anything short of revolution to snatch power from men who wield it for such horrible prostitution. Mr. DAWES. I am sorry that the gentleman did not read me aright in the Globe. If he read me aright he would have seen that I said it would nearly equal that. Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I will read the statement precisely as it appears in the Globe, re- vised by the gentleman himself. I have no pur- pose to do him an injustice. Said the gentleman from Massachusetts: " The gentleman must remember that in the first year of a Republican Administration, which came into power upon pi-of'essions of reform and retrenchment, there is indubita- i)le evidence abroad in tlie land tliat somebody has plun- dered the public Treasury well nigh in that single year as much as the entire current yearly expenses of llie Govern- ment during, the Administration whicli the people hurled from power because of its corruption." I say that if this statement can be verified the people would be warranted in rising en masse and demanding, by any means short of revolution, the correction of abuses and evils too intolerable and atrocious to be longer endured. Groundless as it may be, it has gone forth as an announcement by the committee — gone beyond recall. Yes, sir, a poisoned arrow, poisoned with the virus of exaggeration, and feathered with the franking privilege, has been shot far and wide to the remotest confines of the loyal States of the Republic. Like other statements and insinuations made by that gentleman, however elaborately they may have been prepared and conned over, this is a reproach, an impeachment of the existing Gov- ernment, which 1 think, on reflection, he will long to recall. But, sir, another evil, greater, perhaps, than any other, has resulted from these anom- alous proceedings. A system of semi-judicial, one-sided trial and condemnation has been inau- gurated for the first time, I am happy to know, in the history of the nation; a system which finds no place in any enlightened jurisprudence, nor in the genius ofany free Government, and no defense in any sound code of morals ; a system utterly sub- versive of the plainest principles and safeguards of justice and the rights of the citizen. Jurisdic- tion has been assumed of the characters of men, and their rights of property, and judgments blast- ing to both have been pronounced on ex parte test- imony, testimony taken in secret, and of which the parties aspersed were never informed. Men have thus been tried unheard, and convicted, stig- matized, and hung up to fester in infamy as long as their names can retain a place on the roll of remembered names. The gentleman from Massachusetts felt con- strained to admit the odious character of such a mode of investigation in ordinary cases; but he contended that the principle of justice embodied in the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Colfax] had no application here — and why, forsooth ? I ask the attention of the House to the distinction to which the gentleman from Massachusetts is driven — worthy, I must say, of this extraordinary age of invention, and of the strait in which the inventor finds himself placed. Why, says the gentleman, if you were only to deal with a man's character, you ought to give him notice and hear him; but if you are to deal with his character and properly too, then you may try andcondemn him unheard on ex parte test- imony. He says his committee was appointed to investigate fraud " in contracts," and notjn persons, and that, therefore, they were right in organizing a star chamber, and condemning men without their knowing that they were accused; cleaving down the rights and characters of citi- zens, and leaving them to find it out when some abstract of concealed evidence went over the wires, telegraphed from the West or from the East, and only confirmed when this report came in as a sort of corollary at the commencement of this session. The gentleman must have borrowed somebody's thunder, I think, before making that suggestion. He must have heard learned lawyers talk who have declared that if you fairly try and convict a man as a traitor, you cannot take away his lands; but if you only call him a traitor, and assume that he is a traitor, you can take all his property for- ever by a little proceeding in rem; so the gentle- man considers this a proceeding in rem, and thinks that he has violated no principle of justice or hu- manity in the investigations he has made, or in the indelible stigmas he has attempted to afllx. Sir, contracts do not commit fraud. Persons commit fraud. If there be fraud in a contract somebody has put it there, somebody has com- mitted it. I would like to know how to investi- gate frauds in contracts without bringing into question the character and acts of individuals. If the investigation was solely as to things, and did not relate to persons, I hope every member of the House will take home to himself this question: how came this committee to report and publish to the world the names of individuals and to pass final judgment on them as the guilty actors in transactions denounced in the report as worse than fraudulent? How comes it that theft is charged upon civilians and soldiers, and painted in colors blacker than the hues of common fraud or rob- bery, because laid at the door of those who stood in a double trust, not merely as citizens of this Re- public, upon whom confidence and lionors have been showered, in the hour of its agony, but as the sworn trustees to guard its Treasury and its funds? Sir, if the doctrine put forth by the gentleman from Massachusetts is sound, what becomes of the principle which lies at the foundation of the right of trial by jury? Wiiat did Edmund Burke mean when he said that the greatest object of civil government was to get twelve honest men into the jury box? What becomes of that prin- ciple inwrought with every jurisprudence, from the twelve tables down, which gave the Athenian, and has given the meanest culprit ever since, the right to say, " strike, but hear me?" The gen- tleman said that the gentleman from Indiana [IVIr. Colfax] complained the other day because the committee did not send for General Fremont and ask him to consult with them and assist them in the investigation of fraudulent contracts. No, sir. The gentleman from Indiana never said that. The gentleman from Indiana complained, and I say " Amen," that not the committee, but a frac- tion of it, went to the far West, and in the ab- sence of a major general in the field, while he stood facing the enemies of his country, privily, clandestinely, collected ex parte and even hearsay evidence against him, tending to blast his charac- ter as a general, as a citizen, and as a man, and came back with it in their pocket, never inform- ing him that he had been drawn into question; never giving him an opportunity to offer an ex- planation or to hand in the name of a witness. That, if I apprehended the gentleman from In- diana, was the complaint he made. I refer to it now merely as an illustration, because I have other matters to discuss within my hour than the rights or wrongs of Major General Fremont. It may be that the committee deemed all its acts entirely defensible; but that is not the question, and will not be the question for us to pass upon. The House must, for itself and in its own behalf, pronounce its own judgment as to the just and proper mode in which committees should pro- ceed. The gentleman from Massachusetts evinced great sensitiveness and emotion at the idea that the committee might be discharged by the House. There seems no reason for his taking the matter so much to heart, and he must have mistaken some- what the spirit in which such a motion may be made or supfjorted. I suppose that in theory of parliamentary law, at least, a committee has no interest in such a question, pro or con. Commit- tees are creatures of the House, and the body which had the power to give has the power to take away. I should be very sorry to have it supposed, when I vote — as I shall whenever the opportunity is pre- sented — to dissolve the committee, that my action implied any personal discourtesy to any gentleman of the House, whether he be a member of the com- mittee or not. Gentlemen around me say that these are their sentiments also. The simple idea' is, that this is a pioneer experiment, anew thing, never tried before, and it has turned out badly, and the House ought to dispense with it. And now, sir, having spoken of some evils, which, I think, have flowedfrom raising this com- mittee and enlarging its powers, I would like to put the question, what practical good has resulted from these unusual proceedings to offset the harm it must be admitted they have done? It is claimed in the first place, as I understand, that frauds have been detected which, without such a committee, would not have been found out. It is claimed, in the second place, that money has been saved by the committee, which would other- wise have been lost. Mr. Speaker, I have taken some pains to inform myself on both these points, and do not under- stand that either of them can be successfully main- tained. I think no fraud has even been developed by the committee which would have remained buried had they not dug it up. Their reportsets out with the steamboat Cataline. Well, sir, that affair was notorious all over the State of New York before I left my home to come to the ses- ' sion at which this committee was created. It passed in review in a court of justice, where the witnesses were called /iro and con., many months ago. So with the purchase of ships by George Morgan, in New York; that, too, was publicly known, the knowledge of it was as public as the New York Herald could make it before the com- mittee ever gave it its attention. So with regard to the fortifications at St. Louis. Mr. HOLMAN. Will the gentleman from New York inform the House what information he had in reference to the fortifications at St. Louis prior to the last session of Congress, and also what investigation had occurred before a court of justice in reference to the Cataline before we ad- journed last summer? Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. My friend puts two questions to me, which I will be happy to answer, though they both rest upon false prem- ises. I did not say that the matter of the steam- boat Cataline had been investigated in court be- fore the adjournment of the last session. I said it had been done many months ago. Mr. HOLMAN. I ask the gentleman whether he did not intend to leave the impression that this investigation took place before the organization of this committee ? Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I intended most specifically to leave the impression that nothing in this report that I have ever read, or that any man has read, has added one scintilla of material fact to that which was notorious before the report was made, and notorious by means of informa- tion totally independent of the committee. I mean to say that I heard in general about the affair at my home, and heard the particulars about it in the city of New York on my way to the session of Congress which created the committee. Mr. HOLMAN. I trust the gentleman will answer my question. I ask him whether he did not intend to convey the impression upon the mind of the House that this investigation occurred be- fore the creation of the committee? Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I should be happy to oblige the gentleman, if I could make the admis- sion he asks me to; but I cannot. Candor com- pels me to answer that I did not intend to create any such impression. If I had, I should have been very likely to say so, as it is quite my habit to say what I mean. I repeat, that there may be no doubt about my meaning, that the affair of the steamboat Cataline was notorious in the country before this committee was raised , and that it passed in review before a court in New York long months ago. I had no other impression upon my own mind, and I intended to convey no other. The other question of the gentleman from In- diana about the fortifications at St. Loius being a topic of discussion before our adjournment last summer, seems to me very far fetched, because those fortifications were not built before that ad- journment, and if they did not exist at that time, perhaps the gentleman will be able himself to judge how long they had then been talked about. 'What I say is, that those fortifications, and iheir alleged extravagance, had become food for item- men of newspapers and others before the com- mittee ever saw thenijOr took testimony about them. This is true, not only of the fortifications, but of the trash relating to the department of the West. The fifty pairs of kid gloves, the retinue of mounted men going to Jeflferson City, the splendor of quarters and equipage, and a great variety of clap-trap was got up by those who had the advantage of the committee of being earlier on the ground. My friend from Indiana, [Mr. Col- fax,] in a letter written, I believe, to his own paper in Indiana, had referred fully to all that history and tattle along time before. Mr. COLFAX. I d'id not indorse the tattle. Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. No, sir; the gen- i tleman did not indorse or countenance it in any way. Now, I return to the statement that I am not aware that a single transaction has been un- earthed by this committee which, without their excavations, has not become known to the public. Mr. DAWES. 1 dislike to interrupt the gen- tleman from New York. Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. It gives me great pleasure to yield to the gentleman. Mr. DAWES. I should like to have my friend tell us what he knew of the New Bedford and Starbuck matter until the investigation was made by the committee, the matter disclosed, and the money paid back? Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. Oh, Mr. Speaker, I should not have forgotten the Starbuck-New- Eedford matter. That is a part of my case. That has been paraded and reparaded; it has appeared and disappeared and reappeared, and been made to stalk over the stage; the changes have been rung upon itas something for which the gratitude of the nation was due to the rescuers of ^6,166 48, until no man could forget the New Bedford trans- action, even if he wanted to. The gentleman from Massachusetts said the other day in his speech that he and his associates hadsaved "/aftwiows" sums of money to the Treas- ury. I have read somewhere that the actor Gar- rick once said that he would give a hundred pounds if he could say " Oh," as Whitfield did. Sir, I would give a hundred pounds, if I was not too poor, if I could only say '^fabulous," as the gen- tleman from Massachusetts did. Yes, sir, fabu- lous indeed, entirely fabulous. [Laughter.] Let us see a little about the dollars and cents which these gentlemen have saved to the Govern- ment. In the first place, this report puts forth — and the gentleman from Massachusetts, with that extreme temperance and moderation of assertion which is one of his distinguishing characteristics, repeated the other day that $6,166 48 was saved to the Treasury — " we saved it," says the gentle- man, $6,166 48; that is the amount exactly; it is engraved on my memory. The gentleman im- presses us with a vague belief that by some sort of alchemy, by some sleight-of-hand, known only to the committee, this amount of specie was ex- tracted from the crucible of fraud, lugged all the way to Washington, and dropped into an empty Treasury, resounding as it struck the bottom. [Laughter.] Now, I undertake, confining myself to evidence before us, to say that the committee on Govern- ment contracts no more recovered this money, no more determined the question whether it should be returned to the Treasury, than I did, not a bit. What was done in this case.' Mr. Aspinwall, of New York, one of the men who has run the gauntlet of this committee, and remains undefiled with the soil of accusation — Mr. Aspinwall, of New York, recommended to Commodore Breeze a man by the name of Starbuck, to buy vesseig. Starbuck went to New Bedford, and bought two vessels, the Roman and the Badger. He paid a small sum and turned them over to the Govern- ment for a large sum, which he was ])aid, and $6,166 48 is the amount of over payment. The committee claim, in the grave language of the gen- tleman from Massachusetts, that they brought back and put into the Treasury this amount of money; it must have happened when they came back from a foray on one of those " gay and fes- tive" occasions when they " took the field in per- son" to investigate contracts. Now, Mr. Speaker, let us look for a moment at the title by which the committee is to hold the credit of saving this sum. Atone of the first meet- ings of the committee, they called, as we might have done, upon the Navy Department, for a com- plete statement of contracts and purchases, with the names and residence of the parties. On reach- ing the city of New York, they called before them Commodore Breeze, and this was before going to New Bedford at all — and I am now partly upon a rejoinder to the point of which my friend from Indiana [Mr. Holman] is tenacious — I want to show him, not only that the money could have been recovered without acommittee,but that there was no Christopher Columbus upon this commit- tee, no man who discovered a continent or even a fraud. Commodore Breeze, in his statement be- fore the committee, conveyed to them fully for all practical purposes, preliminary to the Govern- ment instituting legal proceedings, the facts and circumstances in regard to this transaction. And what is more important still, he testified that he had already given the facts to the Department. They asked him if these vessels had recently changed hands before the Government had re- ceived them. I will read from his testimony: '* Answer. I heard indirectly that they had been sold at a much less price to snifleUody else, whether at auction or not I do not If now. But the Government paid about seven t4jousand three hundred dollars each for them. VVIien I got then) to the doeliof the yard J had to expend some two thousand dollars upou them by way of repairs. " Question. Who was this agent you employed .' " Answer. His name was Starbuck. " Question. Of whom did he make the purchase? " Answer. They were citizens of New Bedfordj but I do not recollect their names." Then follows a statement about the arrangement made by Mr. Aspinwall for the payment for these vessels; and then comes this evidence: " Q,uestion. Who made the payment? " Answer. Mr. Aspinwall ; and hence I wrote to the De- partment at Washington that, under the circumstances, I desired that Mr. Aspinwall might be considered the pur- chaser and not myself. They acceded to that request, in- asmuch as I was ordered to coal the vessels and dispatch them. " Question. At what price did you understand that these vessels liad been purchased sliortly before they were pur- chased by the Government.' " Answer. A letter was written to one of my lieutenants, by a resident of New Bedford, expressing his surprise at the price paid, and stated that the vessels had been sold a short time before for $2,500 each. " Question. Were the vessels worth more than $2,500 each .' " ^inswer. One of them certainly was not; and the other, after we put the repairs on her, niiglit have been worth about what we paid for her. " Qiiesiion. State whether you informed the Navy Depart- ment of the circumstances under which these vessels were purchased through the agency of Mr. Aspinwall? " Jlnswer. Certainly." Now, Mr. Speaker, after that testimony was delivered, thecommittee wentto New Bedford, and there the collector of that port and some other public officers and a commission merchant ap- peared before them and told the story over again more fully than Commodore Breeze had done, but whether more fully than he had communicated to the Department, does not appear. Shortly after- ward the district attorney of the southern district of New York instituted proceedings for the re- covery of the money. In consequence of these proceedings, Starbuck disgorged and paid back the money to Mr. Cisco, the sub-Treasurer at New York, and a certificate of that fact was handed to the committee, and they sent it by mail to the Sec- retary of the Treasury, and then put down in their journal, with solemn formality, that on such a day was transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, through the acting chairman of the committee, a certificate of deposit with Mr. Cisco for $6,166 48. Now, my point is this: Commodore Breeze had ascertained this fraud and had lodged in the Navy Department information of the fact. The remain- ing step necessary was to direct the district attor- ney for the southerli district of New York to pros- ecute the claim, and I want to know whether it was necessary to send a committee of seven mem- bers of this House, with a stenographer and Ser- geant-at-Arms, all the way up to New Bedford to see the collector of the customs there and others, who have constant communication with the Gov- ernment here, and are no doubt frequently here themselves; and especially when Starbuck, the known actor in the matter, was all the time a busi- ness man, not in New Bedford, but in New York .-' Mr. DAWES. The gentleman omits to state that, after all these papers were laid before the Navy Department by Commodore Breeze, the Navy Department nevertheless paid for the vessel the full price asked for by this charter; and he omits to state — I suppose because it did not at- tract his attention — that the reason the district attorney instituted process was because the com- mittee, on their return from New Bedford, laid their testimony before him, and was in his oflice when it was instituted, and when the money waa paid over. I suppose that that did not attract his attention. Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. Will the Chair be kind enough to inform me how much time I have left.? The SPEAKER. Eighteen minutes. Mr. DAWES. Permit me Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. The gentleman will pardon me, I trust, for declining to yield fur- ther; my time is so nearly gone. Mr. DAWES. I do not want to consume the gentleman's time. Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. Let me set the gentleman right about his facts. Neither the Navy Department nor the Government ever paid Star- buck at all. Howland & Aspinwall paid him, having advanced the money or credit to him be- fore he left New York to buy the ships. All the Government had to do with making payment was to reimburse Howland & Aspinwall. This was done, of course. They had advanced the mftney in good faith, and were entitled to its repayment on every principle of equity, regardless of Star- buck's acts. This disposes of all the gentleman says 1 omitted to state, except that the Govern- ment had not been as expeditious as it might have been, and in ordinary times probably would have been, in taking steps to reclaim from Starbuck the excess of money in his hands. This is as natural as it is true. The pressure of events has been such that, no doubt, all classes of prosecu- tions directed by the Executive Departments at Washington are far in arrears, unless, perhaps, it be those of a very important public nature. But it would all have come in due time, committee or no committee. I am fully persuaded that it is an error to suppose that a congressional committee was needed, or essentially useful, either in the Starbuck or the Boker matter, which latter has been referred to as a saving of $1,300,000 by the committee. The Boker contract, as will be seen from Ihereport of General Ripley, (pp. 75 to 84, in- clusive,) needed no investigation or action beyond that instituted by the appropriate Department. The whole facts were of record in the War Office, and underwent thorough scrutiny there in the regular old-fashioned way. The matter was re- ferred to the commission on contracts for arms, and after that was adjusted by the Secretary of Now, Mr. Speaker, passing by several other things, I come to the cost of such investigations. The present committee is an expensive luxury; it can hardly be deemed one of the necessaries of life; I do not know but it should have been taxed in the tax bill, as one of the showy ornaments of legislation. There is an expense account which ought to be preserved as one of the relics of the rebellion, and I propose to take it out and air it a little this morning. The gross sum cannot yet be stated accurately, but I understand that 00,000 has already been received by these gentlemen, who have made the tour of the continent at the public expense. In addition to this sum considerable 6 amountG are still outstanding. These amounts are thousands more, I call the attention of the House to the journal of the committee, containing as it does, ail entry such as otherjournals do notcontain, an entry which I commend to the curious and the honest. While the committee remained here, that is before it began to rove, two things are notice- able in its journal; one is, that it was content with the homely phraseology of civil life, and the other is, that some one was responsible as the author and mover of the resolutions of the committee. The form was, "on motion of Mr. So and So, resolved." But when they took the field, they dropped resolved and adopted the more expressive and authoritative military term of "ordered." One of the first orders they made, is an order which Kobody stands sponsor for; it is anonymous and rteeds to be carefully read to be comprehended. I commend it to those accomplished in the science •of statutory construction, and to those who would iike to know how money is sometimes rapidly acquired. Here it is, August 29, 1861, at New York .: " Ordered, That the Sergeant-at-Arms be directed to pay, as a ffd.it of Hie expenses of this committee, tlie traveling and other necessary expenses of the several members there- of, and also llieir necessary traveling and other expenses while attending to the duties of tlie committee; the allow- ance for traveling from their respective places of residence, and pay while on the duties of the committee to be the same as that usually paid to witnesses." That is twenty cents a mile, ten cents each way, an d a per diem of two dollars beside. Now, sir, there a^e some unpleasant rumors on this subject owing to " mistakes of the printer," or to " con- founding different men of the same name." It is said that members of this reform committee have taken the amount of money indicated there, and had their expenses profusely paid beside out of the impoverished public Treasury. I can hardly believe it. I suggest to the lawyers of the House somequestions in regard to such an appropriation of public money to private use 'merely as ques- tions of law. The Constitution of the United States says that Representatives in Congress shall receive a compensation to be " ascertained by law." That ds what the Constitution says. The law says that each Representative shall receive $6,000 a Congress — that is, for the two sessions — and mileage by the most usually traveled route from his home to the capital. That, then, is the amount "ascertained bylaw." Now, if there is any law or warrant anywhere by which f5,000, besides all their pay, had been put into the pockets of certain members of this body before they made their re- port on the 17th of December — and some thou- sands more have been taken since that time — I should Jike to hear that statute read, even though it should consume all my time. The gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Dawes,] in his modest recitals of his labors, stated that he had ridden and ridden " while others S'kpt." There is something very touchingin that; Jack Downing would have called it "teching." On a previous occasion the same gentleman asserted that he had ridden six thousand miles "without compensation." I confess, in thelightof the facts as they turn out, these long rides are hard; they must be s© irksome and fatiguing. I pity the gentleman, as I see him now in my mind's eye the chosen champion of economy, the knight-errant of scru- pulous honesty and pecuniary exactness, mounted on his favorite Rosanante, attended by hisfaithful Sancho Panza, the sergeant-at-arms, and attended further by a stenographer to record his heroic struggles with those who would take anything from the Treasury, leaving his home slowly and sadly, in these troublous times, and proceeding from Boston to St. Louis, from St. Louis to New Bedford, from New Bedford to Harrisburg, from Harrisburg to New York, and all for the low price of twenty cents a mile, besides free living and pay per diem. There is nothing like it for cheapness; it beats the showman's advertisement where he says," thespeakingpig,thefatboy,TomThumb, and the slippery wiggler, and all for the low price of one shilling." Now, Mr. Speaker, this com- mittee never received from this House, eyen if the House could give it, any permission to take this money and convert it to private use. On the con- trary, the resolution was, "That the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House be directed to attend in person, or by assistant, the sittings of the com- mittee, and serve all the subpenas put into his hands by tha committee, pay the fees of all witnesses, and the necessary expenses of the committee." There is not a shadow of right to mileage here, still less to per diem. They report, December 17, that" the members" had traveled betwee