1504 OONGRESSION.A.L RECORD-SENATE. MARCH 1, 

By Mr. JORGENSEN: Papers relating to the claim of Mrs . .A.delina 

T. Blick-to the Committee on War Claims. 

By Mr. KASSON: The joint resolution of the General Assembly of 

Iowa, urging an amendment to the patent laws so ·as to protect innocent purchasers offatented articles-to the Committee on Patents. 

Also, memorial o the Iowa State board of health, for a national 

quarantine inspection, so as to prevent the spread of small-pox-to 

the Select Committee an the Public Health. 

By Mr. LINDSEY: Papers relating to the claim of Tous.saint 

Mesplie-to the Committee on Claims. 

By Mr. MOORE: Papers relating to the claim ofT. L. Taylor, administrator of the estat.e of Andrew Taylor, deceased-to the Committee on War Claims. 

By Mr. MOREY: The petition of 500 citizens of Fayette County, 

Ohio, for legislation regulating charges for railway transportationto the Committee on Commerce. 

Also, the petition of citizens of Monroe1 Butler County, Ohio, asking 

for legislation to protect innocent purcha-sers of patented articlesto the Committee on Patents . . ByMr.MOSGROVE: Four petitions of ex-soldiers of the twentyfifth Congressional district of Pennsylvania, for the early passa.O'e of 

House bill No. 1440, for the establisment of a soldiers' home at Erie, 

Pennsylvania-severally to the Committee on Military Affairs . .Also, the petition of citizens of Clarion County, Pennsylvania, for 

legislation for the suppression of polygamy-to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

By Mr. NEAL: The resolutions of the annual conference of the 

liethodist Episcopal Church, for legislation for the suppression of 

polygamy-to the same committee. ·By Mr. ORTH: The petition of certain citizens of Indiana, praying 

that a pension be granted to SamuelH. Cole-to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. 

By Mr. PAGE: The petition of citizens of Oakland, California, 

asking for the prompt pa~ge.of the bill to incorporate the Maritime 

Canal Company of Nicara~a-to the Committee on Foreign ~airs. 

By Mr. PETTIBONE : rapers relating to the claim of Robert 

Hays-to the Committee on War Claims. 

By Mr. ·PETTIGREW: Papers.relating to the claim of Edwin 

Parleman-to the Committee on Clillms. 

By Mr. PIERCE: The petition of citizens of Indiana, for the improvement of the Wabash River-to the Committee on Commerce. 

Also, a bill appropriating .$25(),000 for the improvement of the 

Wabash River-to the same committee. 

By Mr. W. W. RICE : The petition of Warren Newcomb and others, 

citizens of Wellfleet, Massa-chusetts, for the abrogation of the .articles af the Washington treaty relating to the fisheries-to the Committee on Foreign ..A.ffaus. . By Mr. ·RITCHIE: The petition of Oliver B. Veritz and12 others, 

citizens of'Ottokee, Fulton County, Ohio .~r the amendment of the 

pension laws-to the Committee on lnva.J.i<l Pensions. 

Also, the petition of 46 stave-manufacturing companies, of Northwestern Ohio, who ~ve employment to 1,970 men, protesting aga.inst 

any increase of duties on low grades of sugar.,....-to the Committee on Ways and Means. 

By Mr. ROSECRANS: Two petitions of citizens of San Francisco, 

California, prnying Congress to favor the maritime canal companyto the Committee on Foreign Affairs. · By 1\Ir. SHALLENBERGER: The petition of C. W. Hazzard and 

others, discharged soldiers of Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, and 

vicinity, in favor of the early passage of the bill establishing a soldiers' home at Erie, Pennsylvania-to the Committee on Military 

Affairs. 

By Mr. STEELE: The petition of Henry Heister and 100 others, 

for legislation to regulate charges for railway transportation-to the 

Committee on Commerce. 

By Mr. WILLIAM G. THOMPSON: Memorial of the Board of 

Health of Des Moines, Iowa, for the establishment of a national quarantine to prevent the spread of small-pox-to the Committee on the 

Public Health. 

Also, the resolutions of the Legislature of Iowa, praying for a law 

of Congress to protect innocent purchasers of patented articles for 

personal use-to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

Also, the resolutions adopted at a meeting of citizens of Muscatine, 

Iowa, for legislation for the suppression of polygamy-to the Committee on the J ndiciary. 

By Mr. TUCKER: The petition of citizens of Virginia, for the re- peal of inspection fees on tobacco intended for export-to the Committee on Ways and Means. 

By Mr. TYLER: Memorial of Charles Morgan, William H. Bliss, 

Rev. J . .A.. Sherburn, and 90 others, citizens of Rochester, Vermont, 

asking for prompt and efficient legislation for the suppression of 

polygamy-to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

Also, the petition of S. W. Dike, W. B. Hevrich, J. L. Denison, as a committee of the citizens of Royalton, Vermont, in mass-meeting assembled, a-sking for the enactment of laws for the suppression of 

polyga.IIly-to the same committee. · .By Mr. Y .A.N VOORIDS: The petitiou of 360 citizens of Rochester, 

New Tork, for the ropeal of the tax on bank deposits and the twocent stamp on bank checks and drafts---to the Committee on Ways 

andMeans. · 

By Mr. W .A.DSWORTH: Papers relating to the claim of Frederick 

Foote, of Falls Church, Vir~inia-to the Committee on War Claims. 

By\Mr. WAIT: The petition of citizens of Woodstock, Connecticut, for such legislation as will lead to a speedy suppression of 

polygamy-to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

By Mr. W .A.RD: The petition of Wilde Post, No. 25, Grand Army 

of the Republic, of Chester1 Pennsylvania, in favor of the bill for the 

establishment of a soldiers home at Erie, Pennsylvania-to the Com· mittee on Military Affairs. 

By Mr. WILLITS: The petitions of Bach & .A.rel and 70 others, otr 

Ann Arbor, and of Clark, Baker & Co. and 77 others, of Adrian, Michl .. gan, for the repeal of the tax on barnk deposits and the two-cent· stamp on checks and drafts-to the Committee on Ways and Means . By Mr. WILSON: The petitionof.A.ndyMcGarrellandothers, citi · zens of West Virginia, relative to the duty on imported iron plate 1 

coated with tin or teme metal-to the same committee. 

By Mr. G. D. WISE: The petition of D. Buckner & Co., to h-1-· .e refunded to them the amount of tax alleged to have been illegally 

collected from them on manufactured tobacco-to the same com- mittee. 

Also, t~e petition of Gordon & Allen and others, of Richmond, Virginia asking for the refunding of the amount of tax paid by them on tobacco alleged to have been illegally assessed-to the same com- mittee. 

By Mr. YOUNG: The petition of Alexander Cameron and 25 others, 

of Richmond, Virginia, in relation to the repeal of the tax on tobaccoto the same committee. 

SENATE. 

WEDNESDAY, March 1,1882. 

Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. J. J. BULLOCK, D. D. 

The Journal of yesterday's proceedings w~s read and approved. 

EXECUTIVE COMl\WNICATION. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore laid before the Senate a communication from the Secretary of War, transmitting, in Tesponse to a resolution of Jan nary 30, 1882, a report of the Adjutant-General containing 

reports of the commanding generals of the divisions of the Missouri 

and the Pacific in relation to Indians held as prisoners under orders 

of the War Department; which was referred to the Committee on Iudian Affairs, and ordered to be printed. 

PETITIONS A..~ MEMORIALS. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore presented resolutions of the New 

York Historical Society in favor of the purchase by Congress of the 

Benjamin ~'ranklin papers and documents, now in London; which were referred to the Committee on the Library. 

Mr. ·MCDILL. I present joint resolutions of the Lecisla.ture of 

Iowa in reference to the patent laws, and I desire that t'hey may be 

printed in the REcoRD. 

Mr. ALLISON. I think they had better be read. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. They can be read, but could be 

printed in the RECORD without reading. The resolutions will be 

read. 

The resolutions were read, and referred to the Committee on Pat· 

ents, as follows : Joint resolution No. 3. 

Be it resolved by tM General .Aaaembly of the State of IOUJa, 1. That in view of the 

vexations, litigation. and extortions forced upon the people of this State by barbwireJ.. drivs-well, and otherpatent-ri~htmonopolies, we do hereby earnestly request our ;:;enators and Representatives m Congress to use their influence to have the 

patent laws of the United States so amended that while they will secure due and 

ample reward to the inventive genius of our country, they will also protect tho 

people from the recurrence of such unjust exactions. 

2. Resolved, That the secretary of state be, and he is hereby, instructed to trans- mit a copy of the foregoing resolution to each of our Senators and Represelltati vee in Congress. 

Approved February 23, 1882. 

STATE OF low A., 

Office Secretary of State : 

I, J'. A. T. Hull, secret~ of state of the State of Iowa, hereby certify the foregoing to be a true copy of joint resolution No.3 passed by the nmeteenth General 

Assembly and on file m this office. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the great seal of 

the State, at Des Moines, this 24th day of February, A. D. 1882. 

(SEAL.] J. A. T. HULL, Secretary of State. 

Mr. SHERl\I.A......~ presented a petition of citizens of Ohio, praying 

for legislation r~~nlating charges for railroad transportation; which was referred to me Committee on Commerce. 

Mr. McPHERSON presented a petition of the Historical Society of 

New Jersey, praying Congress to :hlake an appropriation for the purchase of the Benjamin Franklin papers; which was referred to tbe 

Committee on the Library. "' 

Mr. :r.fcPHERSON. I holain my hand several petitions from glass- blowers and those en~aged in the manufacture of glass, not orily in 

New Jersey but in other Sta~es, praying Congress for some correc- tion ofthe tarifflaws. Theystatethat "thetarifflaws ofthiscountry were evidently formed for the protection of the manufacturing 

interests of the country, and.the import duties imposed upon manu-
i882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1505 

factured demijohns were wisely laid. Yet the spirit of this law is 

being constantly violated, and the law itself nullified, by the practice of certain importers of manufactured glass, who cause to be 

shipped to this countrydemijohnsofvarious sizes filled with vinegar or other fluids, which are either free of duty or on which the duties are very low; on their arrival here they are emptied of their contents 

and sold in our markets, to the great disadvantage of our trade and 

detriment of the glass-manufacturing interest." This they also state 

to be true of wine, beer, ale, and mineral-water bottles. 

The petition fJ:om which I read is numerously signed bycitizensof 

Millville City, in New Jersey. I move that it be referred to the Committee on Finance, together with one from Glassboroug.J~·z New Jersey, 

another from Williamstown, New Jers~y, another of .Lil{e character 

from Ellenville, New York, and another from Stroudsburgh, in the 

State of Pennsylvania. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Mr. VOORHEES presented a petition of citizens of Indiana, praying 

for legislation regulating charges for railroad transportation; which was referred to the Committee on Commerce. 

1\ir. DAWES presented a petition of H. W. Eldrege and320 others, 

citizens of Massachusetts, praying for the abolition of polygamy in 

the Territory of Utah; which was referred to the Committee on the 

Judiciary. 

Mr. BLAIR presented a memorial of citizens of Concord, New 

Hampshire, condemning polygamous Mormonism, and in favor of le~lation to effect its abolition; which was referred to the Comlllltt.ee on the Judiciary. 

Mr. MILLER, of California, presented a resolution of the San 

Jose Camp Army and Navy Republican League of San Jose, California, remonstrating against the repeal of the arrears of pensions 

act; which was referred to the Committee on Pensions. 

Mr. l!'ERRY presented a petition of James L. Stringham and 32 

others, citizens ofMichi~an, praying for legislation regulating charges 

for railroad transportation; which wa-s referred to the Committee on Commerce. _ Mr. SEWELL presented a petition of ministers and elders of Presbyterian churches in New Jersey, praying for reform in the method 

of appointment to the civil service ; which was referred to the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment. 

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE. 

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. McPHERSON, 

its Clerk, announced that the House had passed the bill (S. No. 1046) 

for the relief of the Eastern Shawnee Indians at the Quapaw agency, 

Indian Territory. 

The message also announced that the House had passed the following bills; in which it requested the concurrence of the Senate: 

A bill (H. R. No. 42'22) making appropriations for the support of 

the Military Academy for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, and 

for other purposes ; 

A bill (H. R. No. 4454) to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River at or near Keithsburgh, in the State of 

Illinois, and to establish it as a post-road; and ·A bill (H. R. No. 4680) to repeal discriminating duties on tea and 

coffee, the products of the possessions of the Netherlands. 

The message further announced that the House insisted upon its 

disagreement to the amendments of the Senate to the bill (H. R .. No. 

42"21) to provide for certain of the most urgent deficiencies_ in the 

appropriations for the service of the Government for the fiscal year 

ending June 30, 1882, and for other purposes, insisted upon by the 

Senate, agreed to the conference asked by the Senate on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. FRANK 

HISCOCK of New York, Mr. GEORGE M. ROBESON of New Jersey, and 

Mr. S. S. Cox of New York, managers at the conference on its part. 

ENROLLED BILL SIGNED. 

The message also announced that the Speaker of the Honse had 

signed the enrolled bill (S. No. 58) for the relief of William H. Gill; 

and it was thereupon signed by the President pro tempore. 

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 

Mr. PLUMB, from the Committee on Public Lands, to whom was referred the joint resolution (S. R. No. 2) to authorize the Secretary 

of the Interior to certify lands for agricultural college purposes to 

the State of Kansa-s, reported it without amendmettt, and submitted a report thereon, which was ordered to be printed. 

He also, from the same committee, to whom was referred the bill 

(S. No. 1286) amending "An act to amend the act e.atitled 'An act 

to encourage the growth of timber on western prairies,' approved 

March 13, 1874," reported it without amendment. 

Mr. DAWES, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom wa-s referred the bill (S. No. 1186) to provide suitable a!!ricultural lands 

for the Son thern band of Ute Indians in lieu of land's heretofore provided for allotment to them, reported it with amendments. 

Mr. HARRISON, from the(;ommitteeonMilitary Affairs, to whom 

was recommitted the bill (S. No. 297) for the relief of Mark Walker, 

reported it with amendments. 

Mr. ROLLINS. The Committ-ee on Naval Affairs, t9 whom wa-s referred the bill (S. No. 636) to refer the claim of Captain Horatio 

Nelson, late master of the steamship Morning Star, to the Court of . Claims for adjudication, have instructed me to report the same adXIII-95 

versely, and ask that it be indefinitely postponed. The bill was originally referred to the Committee on Claims, and reported from 

the Committee on Claims, and referred to the Committee on Naval 

Affairs. 

The bill was postponed indefinitely. 

BILLS ~TRODUCED. 

:Mr. McMILLAN asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave 

to introduce a bill (S. No. 1343) to place John Jones, late captain 

of the First Minnesota Battery, on the retired list of the Army; which wa-s read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Military 

Affairs. . Mr. LAPHAM a-sked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave 

to introduce a bill (S. No. 1344) for the relief of Myra Clark Gaines; 

which was read twice by its title, and ~eferred to the Committee on Private Land Claims. 

Mr. SHERMAN (by request) asked and, by unanimous consent, 

obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1345) granting pensions to 

Wilson W. Brown and others; which was read twice by its title, 

and referred to the Committee on Pensions. 

Mr. KELLOGG asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave 

to introduce a bill (S. No. 1346) to provide for ocean mail service 

between the United States and foreign ports; which was read twice 

by its Htle, and referred to the Committee on Commerce. 

He also asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1347) for a public building at Opelousa-s, Louisiana; which was read twice by its title, and referred to the Com- mi~ee on Public Buildings and Grounds. 

He also asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1348) for a public building at Shreveport, Louisiana; which wa-s read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. 

Mr. McPHERSON (by request) asked and, by unanimous consent, 

obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1349) to extend the corporate existence of the national banking associations ; which was read 

twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Finance. 

Mr. GROOME asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to 

introduce a bill (S. No. 1350) to amend the general incorporation law 

of the District of Columbia; which wa-s read twice by its title, and 

referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia. 

Mr. VOORHEES aakedand, by unanimous consent, obtained leave 

to introduce a bill (S. No.1351) granting a pension toLewisJ. Blair; 

which was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Pensions. 

He also a-sked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1352) to protect innocent purchasers of patented 

articles; which was read twice by its title; and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

Mr. VEST asked and, by unaniti:tous consent, obtained leave 11o 

introduce a bill (S. No. 1353) to prohibit the issue of bank notes or currency by. national banks which may be or~anized or reorganized 

after July 1, 1882; which was read twice by 1ts title. 

Mr. VEST. I see from the papers this morning that the AttorneyGeneral has delivered an official" opinion to the effect that under 

existing laws, without any additional legislation by Congress, the 

national banks can continue their existence with the same privileges 

and powers now conferred by existing statutes. By the report of 

the Comptroller of the Currency it appears that three hundred and 

ninety-three of these instituti9ns will go out of existence between the 

1st day of May, 1882, and the 1st of February, 1883. Without some . legislation on the part of Con~ress, the present banking system must 

continue for an indefinite period of time, according to the opinion to 

which I have referred. 

I simply desire to bring this question fairly and squarely before the 

representatives of the people. For that reason I have introduced the 

bill, which provides that that fea.ture of the present law which con- fers upon national banks the power to issue currency upon bonds of 

the United States shall cease as to all banks organized or reorganized 

after the 1st of July, 1882. 

I believe, if I may be permitted to say so, that the present Committee on Finance are opposed to any such legislation-! presume 

that they are-but all I ask of them is that this bill shall not be sent 

to the tomb of the Capulets, as otherfinancialmeasuresof a similar 

character have been, but that at any rate they will accord me the 

courtesy and the Senate the privilege of a fair discussion and vote 

upon this bill, whether they report it favorably or unfavorably. 

I move that the bill be referred to the Committee on Finance. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Mr. McDILL (by request) asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 1354) to establish depositories 

and provide for the distribution of public documents; which was read twice lly its title, and referred to the Committee on Printing. 

Mr. JONAS asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to 

introduce a bill (S. No. 1355) to provide for ocean mail service between the United States and foreign ports; which was read twice by its 

title, and referred to the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads. 

Mr. BLAIR asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to 

introduce a bill (S. No.13.l)6) for the relief of Betsey A. Mower; which was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Pensions. 

Mr. GARLAND asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave 
1506 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MAROli 1, 

to introduce a bill (S. l'{o. 1357) t.o provide for ocean maiJ service 

between the United States and foreign ports; which was read twice 

by its title, and referred to the Committee on Post-Offices and PostRoads. 

COM:\ION-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 

Mr. KELLOGG submitted the following resolution, which was 

read: 

Whereas the property and happiness of the people, the prese~a~on; of liberty and of the republican form of government, depend upon mental disCipline aJ?-d the 

general difi'usion of knowledge, which in their turn depend upon the educ:Ltion of 

the masses of the community; and . . Whereas the preservation of the N ation:\1 Government, republican m form, lS as much dependent upon the education of the people as is that of the States; and 

Whereas if ignorance is an evil the means for its removal should be most stron aly directed where that evil is most extensive, especially since illiter~ and ~vertoy e::rlst together while wealth and intelligence also go hand in hand: ".Lhere· 

fo~~ it resolved That it is the du~ of the General Government in self-defense and 

for self-preservation to provide the means necessary whenever the people of the 

States as such are unable or would be disproportionately burdened by the taxa- tion r~quisite, ~r for any reason fail to give every child a good common-school 

education. . Be it further resolved, That the Committee on Education and Labor be mstruc.ted to report at an early day a bill, with suitable safeguards to secure its econom1cal 

and proper application, making appropriation !'f such sums of mo~ey as shall be 

deemed, when combined with the revenues denved from local taxation and the in- come from local funds sufficient to give to all the children of whatever race or color 

in all the States and Territories of the United States the opportunity to secure a good common-school education. 

Mr. KELLOGG. I move that the resolution be printed and lie on 

the table for the present. 

The motion was agreed to. 

REPORT ON AFRICAN TRADE. 

. Mr. ANTHONY. I offer the following resolution·, and ask for its 

present consideration : 

Resolved That the Secretary of theN avy be directed to communicate to the Sen· ate the reports, or such parts of them as may be compatibl~ with the public inter· esta of Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, United States Navy, of his cruise around the 

world in the United States steanler Ticonderoga.. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempore. Is there objection to the present 

consideration of the :resolution f 

Mr. PLU:UB. Let it be read again. 

The resolution was again read. 

Mr. ANTHONY. It is sug~ested to me that as the words "as may 

be compatible with the public interests" are inserted, the resolution 

had better be addressed to the President ; or perhapFI it would be as well to strike out the words " as may be compatible with the public 

interests." 

The PRESIDENT pro. ternpore. Which does the Senator suggest Y 

Mr. ANTHONY. Let the words be stricken out. 

Mr. PLUMB. I suggest to the Senator from Rhode Island that the 

resolution be further amended by providing that if any portion of 

this report is necessary for the public interest, it be communicated, so as not to presume that any pleasure tour which the commodore 

may have taken would not be compatible with the public interests. 

It might be something which the public might have very little interest in. 

Mr. ANTHONY. Let it be addressed to the President. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The resolution as modified by the 

Senator from Rhode Island, will be read. 

The resolution, as modified, was read, as follows : 

Resolved, That the Presideht be requested to communicate to the Senate the 

reports or such parts of them as may be compatible with the public interests, of 

Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, United States Navy, of his cruise around the world 

in the United States steamer Ticonderoga.. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. I presume t.hat these reports will be examined 

before they are ordered to be printed, because we ought certainly to 

know that they are of some public value before they are printed. I 

suppose the Committee on Printing, or some other committee of this 

body, will be expected to examine them in order to see whether they are of such a character as ought to be printed for public information. 

Mr . .ALLISON. They are not to be printed by this resolution. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will inform the Senator 

from Delaware that this is simply a request to the President to com- municate the reports to the Senate, and then the Senate can dispose 

of the matter as it pleases after they come here. 

Mr. PLUMB. I should like to have from the Senator from Rhode 

Island some statement as to the character of this report, so as to indicate its public necessity. · Mr. ANTHONY. Two or three years ago Commodore Shufeldtwas 

sent to the coast of .Africa on au expeditiOn with a view of opening 

trade and commerce, and his report, I am a.asured by the Secretary 

of the Navy, whose communication I hold in my hand, is of very great 

value and importance. I thought it would not be amiss to have it 

presented to the Senate, and then the Committee on Printing can decide whether it is best to make it public or not. It seems a useless 

expense to send an expedition to a barbarous country for the purpose 

of opening trade and commerce, and then keep the report upon the 

files of the Department without givin~ the pu"Qlic any light upon it. 

Mr. PLUMB. I would not care to tollow one useless expense by 

another. It may be true, as the Senator from Rho!le Island states, 

that this is a very interesting report. I do not doubt that ; and I 

did not rise for the purpose of suggesting a don bt of it; but I rose to 

make an inquiry. There are (,)lasses of unofficial people in this world 

who are obliged to print their own l>ook,B; and I want the class of 

official people who have the (}overnment in their ~mploy for that 

purpose-to be limited as much as po sible. I not only want the class 

limited as much as possible, but I want the character of the printing 

limited as much as possible, and limited, ii' poasi ble, also to that w hi eli. 

isofpublicutility, so as not to publish thegeneralobservationsofth~ 

class in Government employ in competition with private people who 

have to pay for their own type-setting and their own paper. 

Mr. ANTHONY. If the Senator will introduce a resolution providing that officials shall be at the expense of printing their own reports, 

it would certainly save a great deal of public printing; but whether 

it would conduce to the public interest I doubt very much. When 

these reports come in they will be referred to some committee which 

will decide upon the propriety of publishing them. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o entpore. The question is on agreeing to the 

resolution. 

The resolution was agreed to. 

CHINESE IMMIGRATION REPORT. 

Mr. HOAR submitted thefollowiilgorder; which was considered by 

unanimous consent, and agreed to : OraMed, That the views of Senator Morton on the Chinese question, heretofore 

printed, be reprinted for the use of the Senate. 

PICTURE . OF GENERAL SCOTI. 

11-Ir. VOORHEES offered the following resolution; which was con- sidered by unanimous consent, and agreed to: 

Resolved, That the Committee on the Library be instructed to inquire mto the 

propriety of purchasing Noyes's equestrian picture of General Winfield Scott. 

WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I ask that it be ordered that the manuscript copy 

of the remarks of Miss Susan B. .Anthony, made before the J udioiary 

Committee in a. former year, now on its files, be transferred to the 

files of the Committee on Woman Suffrage, which desires the manu- script. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. That order will be made, ther& 

being no objection. JOSEPH R. SHANNON. 

Mr. COCKRELL. .At the present session a bill (S. No. 74) to provide for the payment ofth.e claim of Joseph R. Shannon, of Louisiana., was introduced and referred to the Committee on Claims. The bill 

was reported favorably by that committ-ee, allowing him compen a.- tion for the value of the steamer A. W. Quarrier. Similar action had 

also been taken by the Committee on Claims in the Forty-sixth Congress, and I believe also in the Forty-fifth Congress. Each time th& 

bill had been reported favorably. The bill was recently recommitted 

to the Committee on Claims. Some time ago I had certain information which led me to doubt whether the repprt made by the committee in the Forty-sixth Congress, at which time I was chairman of the 

committee, and also at the present Congress, was correct. I thereupon 

addressed a. letter to the Secretary of War asking that the rebel 

archives might be thoroughly examined and that all data and information obtainable from them be reported to me with the opinion 

of the Department upon the merits of the case, sending the Secretary 

of War a copy of the bill and the report as made at the pre ent Congress. I now hold in my hand a ~etter from the Secretary addres ed 

to me and his accompanying report. I move that the letter and 

report of the Secretary of War, with the accompanying report of the 

Second Comptroller, be printed and referred to the Committee on Claims. 

The motion was agreed to. 

PERUVIAN, CHILIAN, AND BOLIVIAN COMPLIOATIONS. 

Mr. WINDOM. I ask the Senate toconsidertheresolutionsw}J.ich 

I reported yesterday and which went over. The Senate proceeded to consider the following resolutions, reported 

yesterday by Mr. WL."'IDOM from the Committee on Foreign Relations: 

Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations be, and it hereby is, instructed to inquire into all the circumstances concerning the alleged loss or abstraction 

from the office of the Secretary of State of certain papers and documents mentioned 

in the message of the Presil.lent sent to the Senate on the 26th day of January, A . D. 1882, and report thereon, with snob recommendations as may appear to it pro:per- in the premises; and that it inquire into all the circumstances of the alleged action 

of the diplomatic representatives of the United States at the Republics of France 

and Peru in being personally concerned in any contracts or arran~e~ents of a pub· lie or private natllre with the governments of either of said countrie , Qr with cor- porations or a~sociations having relations with or asserting claims a.;;ainst or grau ts derived from either of the same; and also whether any member of l)ongress or any other officer of the United States has had any personal interest or concern in auy of the matters before mentioned, and report thereon, with such recommendations as may appear to it proper in the premises. 

Resolved, That for the purposes named in the foregoing resolution any three· members of said committee shall constitute a. quorum. 

Resolved, That said committee have power to send for persons ana papers m regard to the before-mentioned inquiries, and that it have leave to sit during tht) 

sittings of the Senate. 

Resolved, That the exP-enses incurred in the execution of the foregoing resolutions be paid on the certificate of th~ l}hairma.n of said committee out of me appro- priation for the contingent expenses of the Senate. 

:Mr. B.A.Y.A.RD. I desire to move an amendment to the resolutions 

to embrace more specifically the object that I had in view in offering 

the resolution which was sent to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

upon the motion of the honorable Senator from Vermont, (11-.4'. 

ED:\lUNDS.] ). will send to the desk the language which I propose to-
1882. OONGRESSION.AL RECORD- SENATE. 1507 

incorporate in the :first resolution of the committee, to be inserted 

after the word" mentioned," on the second line .from the end of their 

first resolution. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The words proposed to be inserted 

by the Senator from Delaware will be read. · The ACTING SECRETARY. After the word "mentioned," in next 

to the last line of the first resolution, it is proposed to insert : 

.And whether any one officially .connecte~ with the Government of th~ Uni~d 

States is interested directly or indirectly wxth any such alleged cont:nwts, m which 

the mediation as aforesaid of the United States is recited to be a condition. .And 

that the said committee have power to send for persons and papers, and make 

report of their proceedings in the premises to the Senate at the earliest possible 

da:y. 

Mr. 'VINDOM. :Mr. President, the committee believe that the 

:first resolution a-s proposed covers all of the power proposed by the 

Senator from Delaware; but, as it does not materially change it in 

the estimation of members of the committee with whom I have consulted, I shall not oppose the addition. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I think the Senator from Delaware has got more in that amendment than he wants himself, about sending for persons 

and papers 1 ~...! that is in a subsequent resolution of the committee. 

Mr. BAYA.tUJ. I will state to the Senate that the Secretary has 

entirely misapprehended the amendment which I offered. I do not 

propose to repeat an inquiry a-s to the question of personal interest. 

That is amply and fully covered by the language _of the co_mmittee. 

The point to which myamendmentrelatesand whichiconstderafter 

all the most important of these questions involved, is whether or not, 

with or without interest on the part of agents of the United States, 

intervention by the United States in the affairs of neutral governments has beenimpliedlyorex:presslypledged. There is the danger. 

The war-making power, tho power of peace ·and war rests in the 

Congress of the United States; and to us it is a matter of the gravest 

moment that there should be no such implication or no such pledge 

ofthe great powers of this country byway ofintermediation by any one exce-pt it be in accordance with the grave execution of powers 

under the Constitution. 

I ask the Secretary, if my friend from Vermont will permit me, to 

read my langna(J"e as I wish to have it. 

Mr. WINDoM. The Senator from Delaware having pointed out 

his amendment, I understood that read to be the amendment-which 

he had shown tome; andhenceimisunde:rstood the Secrctary'sreading. s Wh . 't to . 0 1\Ir. ED~IUND . ere I.S 1 come m 1 

Mr. BAYARD. If the Secretary will read the language now as I 

have submitted it to him, the Senator will hear. 

The ACTING SECRETARY. Aftertheword "mentioned," in the sec- ond line from the close of the :first resolution, it is proposed to insert : 

That the Committee on Forei~ Rela,tions be, and hereby is, instructed to inquire whether any promise or stipulation, by which the intervention by the UnitedStates 

in the controversies existing between Chili and Peru or Chili and Bolivia. bas been 

expressly or impliedly ~ven by any person or persons officially connected with the 

Government of the Umte<l States; or whether the infiuence of the Government of 

the United States has been in any way: exerted, promised, or intimated in connec- tion with or in relation to, the said alleged contracts, by any one officially con· neeted with the Government of the UnitedSt.ates, andreportthereon with such recommendations as may appear to it proper in the premises. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Where is that to come in 'I 

Mr. WINDOM. After the word "mentioned," I understand, on the line next to the last of the first resolution. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Then this is to come in after the word "mentioned" in the second line from the bottom of t4e :first resolution, as I understand, and it will then read : 

.And also it is instructed to inquire, &e.-

Mr. WINDOM. ''Inquirewhetheranypromiseorstipulation,"&c. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. "And whetheranypromiseorstipulation," down 

to the word " condition." The instruction about sending for per- sons and papers is already in. 

I only wish to say that the cotrmittee thought the explicit and 

sweeping lan~nage of the first resolution as reported, directing t,he 

committee to mqnire into all the circumstances of these transactions 

in every aspect, embraced all that the Senator from Delaware had 

named in his resolution, and did not conftne it to such a specific inquiry. The object of the committee was to n;take the inquiry so sweeping that no pos ible circumstance affecting the public interests 

of the United States could escape; but if the Senator desires to have 

that adde~ certainly I for one have not the least objection to it. 

Mr. BArARD. I so prefer it. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempore. The question is on the amendment 

of the Senator from Delaware. 

The amendment was agreed to. 

Mr. ALLISON. I see in the third resolution the committee is 

authorized to send for persons and papers, but I see no provision for 

taking the testimony of the persons who may be sent for. I do not 

know but that that may be implied, but it seems to me in a matter 

of so much importance there ought to be some provision for taking 

the statements of these people. 

:Mr. EDMUNDS. That rests upon the general principle of parliamentary law. A committee that is empowered to send for persons and papers is empowered by consequence with the right to exaniine 

those persons under oath and to read the papers. 

Mr. ALLISON. So I understand; but suppose this committee of 

three (because I see three are to act) do that, how will the Senate, 

unless a report i made of this examination, know what is done f 

Mr. EDMUNDS. But we are instructed to report on every one of 

these topics. 

Mr. ALLISON. 'Vill you report the testimony f 

Mr. EDMUNDS. That is just as it is in all cases of committees. 

'l'he committee reports the testimony usually. If it does not, the Senate directs the committee to report the testimony; but as a matter of 

duty ordinarily every committee reports the testimony upon which its 

action is founded. The resolution is the usual form in that respect. 

certainly. 

Mr. HOAR. Should there not be an express authority to administer oaths Y 

:Mr. EDMUNDS. The power to send for persons and papers Mvers 

every thing. 

The PRESIDENT pro ten~pore. Does tb,e Senator from Iowa propose an amendment t 

l\Ir. ALLISON. No, sir; I do not propose any amendment. I do 

not s~ very well how the testimony can be taken in short-hand Qnd 

reported to the Senate under the resolution as it is. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. The committee have a short-hand clerk. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempol'e. The question is on the resolutions as amended. 

The resolutions as amended were agreed to. 

HERMAN BIGGS. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempcrre. Proceedings under the Anthony rule 

will now commence. :Mr. SEWELL. I ask to take up Senate billNo.173, which waslai<l over without prejudice some days ago in my absence. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempo're. The bill (S. No. 173) for the relief 

of Herman Biggs will be taken up at the request of the Sena.tor from 

New Jersey, having been passed over without prejudice on account 

of his absence. 

'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded to consider 

the bill, which proposes to authorize the President to nominate and, 

by and with the advice and con ent of the Senate, to place on the list 

of retired officers of the Army the name of Herman Biggs, with the 

rank of captain of ~taff, this being the actual rank in the regular 

Army held by him when, in action, he received the wound from which 

he suffers permanent disability. No pay or allowance is to accrn.e or be paid Biggs prior to his confirmation. 

Mr. ED~HJNDS. Let us hear the report. 

The Acting Secretary read the report submitted by Mr. SEWELL 

December 13, 1881, from the Committee on Military Affairs, which 

appears in the RECORD, page 1006. . Mr. EDMUNDS. I should be glad to havetheSenatorwho·reported 

this bill state to us what the general principle of the corn..n1ittee is in cases of this-kind. Here is a gentleman, no doubt worthy, whoresigned his office in the Army at the close of the war, as the report 

says, and having been wounded undoubtedly receives a pension, like 

thousands of other soldiers, officers, and privates, who left the military service of their country at the close of the war. Now it is proposed in this case, after fifteen years, to put this particular gentleman, 

who was wounded and had been a good soldier and who terminated his 

connection with the Army at the close of the war, upon the retired 

list of the Army of the United States. 

That lis.t has now been increased up, I believe, to fbur hundred ; and 

it is, as was stated the other day by the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. SHERMAN, 1 full, and to ita great many officers of the Army of the United 

States who have served ever since the war, sick and diseased and 

waiting for rest, desire to go; but they cannot resign without going 

into poverty; t.hey cannot render the service that they wish to, be- cause they are sick and diseased and wounded and disabled; anrl 

they cannot go on the retired list because it is full. And yet here is a case of a worthy gentleman who resigned fifteen years ago, who is 

to add one more to this retired list, and thus delay by; that much the 

regular retirement of the officers who have served all the time since. ~..,or one I should be glad to understand the principle upon which 

this goes. Undoubtedly there are hundreds of other officers ,just as worthy-and that is saying a great deal-as this gentleman who left 

either the regular or volunteer service at the close of the war, who 

have been suffering ever since from wonndshonorablyreceivedinit, 

and who are in need of the support that bein~ placed on the retired 

list at three-fourths of the regular pay, I think it is, gives, just as much a-s this gentleman. 

Is this then favoritiBm, pity and sympathy for a particular case that is brought to our notice, or is it intended to be a test and leader 

in a public system of treating everybody alike on the principles of 

fair play and providing retired pay for all the disabled .officers and 

soldiers as well-but I will leave out the soldiers, because the retired 

list has not been made for them-all the disabled officers who have 

ever gallantly served their country and who now need it f If that is 

it, that is one thing; but ifitis to make a special exception in favor 

of a particular gentleman who happens to have strong friends, then 

I do not believe in it. I believe in fair play and equality, and I do 

not believe in putting into the retired list of the Anny gentlemen 

who have long since departed from the Army, to t.he exclusion-for 

that is what It amounts to unless yon increase y:onr retired list 

enormously-of worthy officers who have served ever since the war 
1508 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARcH 1, 

on the plains and elsewhere, and whose condition is such that the I know the absorbing occupation of a Senator's time, but a few minutes may I 

public service really requires that they should be retired, but that ho.£e, be given to a goOd soldier and faithful servant of the country. ' 

C""'"Ot 1-e because we are continually fillinocr up the ret; ... ed list wi'th hat he has not been an expense to the QQvernment for thirteen years should not c.w.A.U u ....._ in equity prejndice his claim now. somebody else. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Mr. MAXEY. Mr. President, as a member of the Committee on M. C. MEIGS, Military Affair , I was unable to concur with the report of the ma- Quartermaster·Gtmeral, Brevet Major.(kneral, U. S. A. 

J

'ority. My mind led me to the same conclusion stated this morning Ron. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, _ United States Senate. 

by the Senator from Vermont. I believe that the retired list was designed and intended for c~ses of old worthy officers of the United Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. President, this probably is one of a dozen 

States Army who had become worn out in the service, had passed cases on the Calendar. We have already met two or three in the 

the age when they could take up any pursuit in civil life and make short time we have been operating under the Anthony rule. I think a living; and the Government having got the benefit of the best years the Senate ought to determine the question involved by one definite 

of their life, it would be unjust to turn them out to die when they vote. I can scarcely conceive a case where an officer who resigned 

got to be old. That was my view of it. That was what I believed at the close of the war and received his one year's extra pay under 

the list was provided for. While I felt great sympathy for this gen- the operation of the laws as they then stood should come back after 

tleman-for the case is undoubtedly that of a most valuable officer- a period of :fifteen or sixteen years--

yet when his billha.s been before the committee, a.s it has been several Mr. SEWELL. Let me interrupt the Senator. The one year's pay 

times, I have been constrained to vote against it, and for the reason did not apply to this case. which I have stated. . Mr. SHERMAN. He was entitled upon re ignation, after the close 

When the case came up which was discussed here a few days ago, of the war, to one year's extra pay, and no doubt drew it. 

(although I had known the gentleman whose case was presented for Mr. BUTLER. I think that was only where officers were mustered 

fortyyearsintimately, andmyfeelingstowardhimwereofthekindest out.on the reduction of the Army, not in a case of voluntary resigc~aracter, and he certainly deserved the gratitude of the American nation. 

people,) believing that it was a departure from the principle, from Mr. SHERJ\.IAN. I cannot be mistaken about the law authorizing 

the idea, from the intent of the law, I was compelled to vote against in the reorganization of the Army all officers of the regular Army 

that bill, and as a matter of course I voted in committee against this then composed of about :fifty thousand men, upon resigning volun: 

and shall do so here. tarily, one year's extra pay, whether this gentleman got it or not. 

I only desired to make this statement that the Senator from Ver- This gentleman served, it seems, as a quartermaster, no doubt effimont and others might see that in this view the committee does not ciently and well; but he resigned from the service. If he is now agree. I have expressed my individual views, and I desire to state entitled to a pension he can get it under the law; if he is entitled to 

that I am not influenced in the slightest degree by personal consider- back pensio~ he can get his arrears of pe~ion ~der existing law; 

ations, for had I been I should probably have voted for the bill the but to come m now and be placed on the retired list after the expiraother day. I do it as a matter of justice. I think the retired list tion of :fifteen or sixteen years, and prevent some officer who has was designed and intended for worn out, disabled, and aged officers during all those years performed the severe labor of an officer in the 

of the United States Army; and if that be the intent, then if you r?gular Army on the western frontier, would be an act of gross injnstake one citizen up because he is meritorious and put him on that tice. 

list, you can take any number of citizens who have performed valu- I will not in any case-though I know there are persons of that 

able services in the late war and put them there, and the end of it kind from my State whose interests I should be bound to protect and 

will be that we shall have really a pension list at a high rate of represent-vote to restore an officer who voluntarily resigned at the 

pension that will break down the taxpayers of this country. c~ose of the war back to the Army, to take the place on the retired 

Mr. SEWELL. Mr. President, at the invitation of the Senator from list of a man who has during all that long period of time served faithVermont I will state that the action of the committee was based fully a.s an officer of the Army. The exceptional case mentioned by on this fact: this officer was entitled to be retired in 1865; but sup- the Senator from Texa-s [Mr. MAxEY] was that of General Grant I 

posing that he could get along without help from the Government he suppose. I would not have voted for the bill placing General Gra'nt 

resigned the service. Since then his disability has increased to such on the retired list but for the fact that the Senator from Illinois an extent that to-day b.e is unable to support himself. Byreasonof [Mr. LOGAN] accepted an amendment which made that an exception, 

the injuries received from wounds, he was entitled to be placed on the as it was, to all others and made it an addition to the reuular num- ordinary pade of pension, and he ha-s been advanced from time to ber of three hundred on the retired list. General Grant ouO'ht not 

time, as his disability increased, to $30 a month, which is not near himself to have received a retiring pension so as to stand in the way 

enough to pay half his doctor's bills, but it is all that the pension laws of any other honorable soldier who had served during all this long 

will allow. period of time. 

This bill was before the Forty-sixth Congress and was passed in Mr. MAXEY. The Senator will pardon me a moment. 

the Senate, after a very full debate on the floor of this body, by the Mr. SHER!IAN. I have but five minutes, and I want to get 

very large vote of 45 to 5. There was a favorable report asreed on through. by the House committee, but the bill was not reached. It IS an ex- Mr. MAXEY. The point I made was that whenever yon break ~eptional case in this particular, that the officer to-day, after seven- down the principle and let any citizen come in, thero is no barrier. 

teen years, only a.sks what he was entitled to then, under the rules Mr. SHERMAN. I think General Grant's case ought to have stood 

governing the retirement of officers of the Army. The report con- by itself. He was taken from the military service and promoted one tains a farr statement of the case, and in it will be found a letter from de~ee b.Y being.m~de ~resident of the U~ited States. He did not 

Quarterma.ster-Geneml Meigs to Senator EDMUNDS, which I ask the res1gn his COID.InlSSion m the sense that this gentleman did. He was .Secretary to read. made Commander-in-Chief of the Army as President of the United 

The Acting Secretary read as follows : States, and I believe the people of the United States ought, by a wAR DEPARTMENT, voluntary movement on the part of their Congress at the end of his 

QUARTBRMASTER·GENERAL's OFFicE, te~ as ~resident,~ have :estored him to his old place and have 

Washington, D. 0., February 11, 1879. retued him from active service, so that he would not have stood in 

MY DEAR Sm: Herman ~ggs graduated at W~st Point in 1856. He was chief tb? way of those who had been promoted in the regular way. I -<;ua~rma.ster of the expedition to North Carolina under command of General think that would have been justified by the &eneral sentiment of 

Bnrns1de, and afterward of the forces at Fort Monroe, on the York and on :he the people but that case wa" peculi H t t d · th James, commanded by General Butler. ' . "' ar. e oes no s an In e He e~ended faithfully, prudently, discreetly, and honestly $16,000,000 of the way of any other officer. 

funds .of Qnartermaster's~epartment: and received and distributed much milita.5! , I know of many cases of this kind, and if it is once settled that a material purchased and shipped to him by other officers of the Quartermasters former Army officer who is disea.sed 9 r is disabled shall have the right 

De:£::::~ all this service entire satisfaction to his commanders and rendered t? app?al to Congress to go on the retired list1. not only will the re- most laborious, efficient, and useful service to the country. ' tired list ~adnally be swelled far beyond the <limensions it has now In October, 1865, the war bein~ over, somewhat weakened in health, believing but gross rnjustice will be done to officers. .Ai3 I said the other day' that he could ~ake a livingouts1de of the Army, and desiring to be entirely inde- I know myself of men who have suffered by wounds and di ea e wh~ pendent, he resigned. t ti d .c_ t' · · · He was then advised ~Y his surgeon to go on the retired list, as he might ulti· are now s a one . at .1.ron 1~r posts, havmg recently served m Indian 

mately suffer from a splinter wound received during the bombardment of Fort wars, and they, disabled, SICk, weak, feeble, unable to return borne 

Johnston: atNe~B_erne. . . . . . are unable to go to the retired list simply because there is no room: Prefernng en~ mdependence, and not then conBldermg the liiJnry rmportant, there are no vacancies there and they have to suffer and bear and 

he preferred to resign absolutely. h · ' · · For thirteen years be has supported himself and family and the expenses of a ave to re~am far away from the comforts of home, siCk and diB-

.constantly growing in.iury without cost to the United States. a bled. I will not by my vote crowd off any such soldier who has 

He now !llds that he has an open wo~d, and injured articulation; that a surgi· served in war after war in the military service in the civil war and -cal operation, probably more than one, will be necessary. He has not the right to · th Ind · · th t tim fr his 'h · the skillful service of tbe Anny surgeons, and the expenses caused by his wound ill ~ . Ian wars s~nce a e, om onorable retrrement 

and the disability resnltin"' from it are grievous burdens. on thiB liSt by restormg any one who fifteen or twenty years ago H~ desiTt:s sC?me relief fr"'om Congress and ~e is anxious that you who will vote resigned voluntarily his office. on hi~ appl~cation may kpow the grotmds of 1t. :Ur. SAULSBURY. I entirely auree with the Senator from VerI gtve bun, an old officer of the Quartermaster's Department, reliance upon t d th S to fr T 0

b h · · · w~om in those stirrin~ times was a comfort to me, this letter, hoping that in the mon fl'lil e ena. r om exas, ecause ~ eu remarks mdicate to 

mtdst of your occupations you may be able t.o give him a f~w minutes' hearing in my IDind that the Judgment of the Senate 18 that there should be a trder that he may be able to present his case fully to yon. ' l1alt on taking persons from civil life and putting them on the retired 
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1509 

list. We did the other day take a civilian who was not in indigent 

circumstances or in feeble health, and not only put him on the retired 

list but made a place to put him there the equal of the highest officer'in the Army. I have no doubt the casenowbeforethe Senate is a more meritorious case than that of General Grant. I wa-s opposed 

to putting General Grant on the retired list, notwithstanding he had 

been one .,f the most distinguished generals of this age or of any 

other age, and I am equally opposed to takin~ men who have been 

out of the service for any particular length ot time, and simply be- cause they are becoming old or decrepit, restoring 'them to the Army 

and placing them on the r~tired list. . . . Why, sir, if we keep on m the way we are gomg, pens10nmg everybody who wants a pension, putting everybody who wants to be 

placed there on the retired list, we shall before long have a very large 

percentage of the American people supported by the residue of the 

citizens of this ceuntry by taxation. 

I am opposed to the multiplication of pensions and retired lists, 

and I hope this bill will not pass, and I hope, if I may be allowed to 

express that hope, that the bill which we unfortunately passed the 

other day will be killed at the other end of the Capitol. I think the 

judgment of the American people is, th3;>t we acted unadvisedly.. I 

hope those in the other end of the Cap1tol who have to deal w1th 

that question will rectify the mistake we have made. 

Mr. HAWLEY. I admit there is some force in what the Senator 

from Ohio has said, but I should be very glad if the Senate would 

give some advice to the Military Committee, or-would indicate in some way what is to be done in a certain class of cases. I stated the other day that this case of Captain Biggs was in my 

opinion a fair exception to a general rule. There are cases in which 

officers may very properly be restored to the service, as gentlemen 

call it, and put on the retired list. They are not really restored to 

the service. The disability in Captain Biggs's case was incurred 

during the war. It was a very serious disability. He was unfit for 

service, and he might have sought the retired list. I do not know 

what the pay would then have beent but he fancied that he would 

be able to take care of himself. He has done so forthirteen or fourteen· years, but he is now utterly broken down. He would liko the 

advantage of that which he might have taken, but from which he 

has saved the Government during all this period. 

The Senator from Ohio says there are officers waiting to go upon 

th e retired list, officers now in the Army who have been serving their country since the war, in Indian campaigns perhaps, and have be- come disabled there. I know it; I see the difficulty. I myself wish 

th e retired list was enlarged. I do not know how that will strike 

Congress, but I myself wish that it might be enlarged. The Senator says these gentlemen have been serving the country since the war, 

while Biggs and others have been out. I say that Captain Biggs has 

been serving the country for seventeen years suffering under a severe wotmd, and there are very few officers who have been serving the 

country with so much suffering and pain to themselves as he has for 

these dozen years and more, and especially for five or six years during 

which this wound had become extremely painful. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. May I ask a question Y 

1\Ir. HAWLEY. In a moment. Another point: something was said when this case was up before about the special favors given to 

officers, and a sort of contrast was made between the private soldier 

and the officer. Let-me make one. The pensions for the soldier are very generous. I do not now go into the question of whether it 

might have been done better or not. I think it might have been in 

the case of the arrears bill. I think more mi~ht have been done by 

way of grunting a good sum annually for relief, and less by way of 

giving a large sum in gross for past sufferings. But here is the difference between them, in which the private soldier has an advantage, and I do not complain of it: when a private soldier becomes 

disabled, as Captain Biggs is, he may go to any one of some half a dozen homes that are grand hotels, that are palaces of themselves, 

where the soldier lives with every natural want fully satisfied, pleasant rooms, pleasant quarters, clothing, and food. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. How many people can be accommodated at those 

homesf 

Mr. HAWLEY. Substantially all who apply, and if they cannot, 

the Government will enlarge them. The Government has undertaken to provide a home for each absolutely disabled soldier, and it 

will be obliged to carry it out, and those hospitals will perhaps be 

enlarged. I do not know whether the present ones are large enough or not. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. How many people will they a-ccommodate 7 

1\Ir. HAWLEY. I call attention to that distinction between the 

private soldier and the officer, that you take the private soldier who 

is in the situation of Captain Biggs and provide for his every want. 

Now Biggs receives not enough to pay his doctor's bills, absolut-ely 

bankrupt and broken down with his wound. He might have been 

:placed on the retired list. when he resigned; he ought to have sought 

that relief; but he thought he could save you the money, and now 

in his a~ony and poverty he finds he cannot longer do it, and he 

would li.l!e to go on the retired list. 

That is the whole case. I admit the difficulties of it, but there has 

got to be some better provision made. Give the officer at least as good a chance a,s you_ give the private soldier. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Mr. Presidell't-- . 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. . The Senator from Vermont is in 

order by unanimous consent. He has spoken once already on this 

subject. 

1\Ir. EDMUNDS. I am perfectly willing to be in order by unani- mous consent. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempm·e. If there is no objection the Senator from Vermont will proceed. ["Consent."] The Chair hears n<t 

objection. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I wish to a-sk the Senator from Connecticut how 

many persons the present soldiers' homes of the United States will 

accommodate. 

1\Ir. HAWLEY. I refer the Senator to the annual reports. 

1\Ir. EDMUNDS. If my friend from Connecticut is not really able 

to give any better answer, then I must take that. I supposed that 

I had a constitutional right to t.he annual reports without applying 

to my friend from Connecticut; still I am glad to go to them with 

his inclorsement. Then I will venture to ask any other member of 

the Committee on Military Affairs who either is in better humor or is better informed than my friend from Connecticut, about how many 

people the present soldiers' homes can accommodate. I dare say my 

friend from Texas [Mr. MAXEY] can give me a little light on that 

subject. 

Mr. MAXEY. I have not had occa-sion to make the investigation 

to enable me to give a correct answer. There is a sub-committee of 

the Committee on Military Affairs intrusted with the investigation 

of the soldiers' homes business. I believe the Senator from Indiana 

[Mr. HARiusoN] is a member of that sub-committee. Some one of 

that sub-committee might tell. 

Mr. HARRISON. I heard some appeal to me, but I wa-s not able 

to gather the direction of it. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempore. The Senator from Indiana did not 

hear what the Senator from Texas said. 

Mr. MAXEY. I stated that there was a sub-committee of the Committee on Military Affairs specially intrusted with looking into the 

business of the soldiers' homes, which can answer much more intelli-· gently than I can, and I thought the Senator from Indiana was a, 

member of that sub-committee. 

Mr. HARRISON. Iamamemberofthatsub-committee, butithas 

in its charge simply the Soldiers' Home in Washington for soldiers of 

theregularArmy. Volunteerhomesarenotembracedinthatinqniry. Mr. EDMUNDS. Before thia is ended I will take time to refer to 

the reports. I think there is a soldiers' home at Dayton, in the State 

of Ohio, I think there is one in the State of Wisconsin; there is one at Augusta, in the State of Maine, if I am not mistaken; I think there 

is one down at Norfolk or in that vicinity. 

Mr. BUTLER. .At Hampton. . 

Mr. EDMUNDS. And there is one in Washington for the regular 

Army, ashasbeenstated, andnotforthevolunteers. Now, then, when 

you take the pension-roll of private soldiers of the United States 

amounting, as the chairman of the Committee on Pensions might tell me if he were here, to more than one htmdred thousand, I presume, 

you would :find probably that these :five or six places that are now full 

and running over, a-s I believe, would hardly put the common soldiers on any better footing than the officers of the Army are. So I do 

not think the argument of the Senator from Connecticut is very well 

grounded upon the idea that the private soldier has a better chance 

than the officer, the private soldier getting for his pension eight dollars a month or fifteen dollars or twenty dollars according to the 

nature of his case, and the officer getting a much higher one for the same grade of disability. 

There is another thing about this, besides the principle of it that we have already discu sed, that it is worth while to know about. I 

have the impression that this gentleman, Mr. Biggs, is receiving a pension. I see by his military history that he was made brevet-colonel on the 13th of March, 186S, for faithful and meritorious service, and 

that he resigned on the 9th of October, 1865. If he had a pension, 

I take it he gets a pension therefore on the grade that he held when 

he resigned. How much that pension is we do not know. 

1\Ir. SEWELL. The highest pension of any officer up to the grade 

of colonel is 30 a month. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Perhaps the Senator from New Jersey can tell us at what time Colonel Biggs received his pension, when he :first wa-s put on the pension-roll. 

Mr. SEWELL. That I cannot say; but he gets a pension now. Mr. EDMUNDS. I :find a letter from the then Secretary of War, 

Mr. McCrary, dated the 21st of Jan nary, 1879, in which he says that 

he thinks the case of General Biggs is such-he calls him general ; 

that is higher stillIt is my opinion that Con peas should pass an act either permitting his name to be placed upon the retired list or upon the pension-rolL 

That was in 1879. If the Secretary wa-s sufficiently informed to 

write any thing upon the subject, it would seem that General Biggs 

was npt then on the pension-roll. Ifnot, why not 7 If he resigned 

in 1865 on account of a then existing disability or wound or illness, 

there was the pension-law then. I should be glad to be informed 

how it is that the obtaining of this pension was so much delayed. 

Mr. SEWELL. My impression is that he had a pension for a period 

of years, commencing with the low grade of $8 a month and increa-sing every few years in proportion to ~he disability nntil he got up 

to the full limit of $:30 a month. 
151.0 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD- SENATE. MARCH· 1, 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The hour of half past one has 

arrived. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I hope by the time this bill comes up to-morrow 

the Senator from New Jersey will be able to ascertain exactly how 

tke fact is. HOUSE BILLS REFERRED. 

The bill (H. R. No. 4222) making appropriations for the support of 

the Military Academy for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, and 

for other purposes, was read twice by its title, and referred to the 

Committee on Appropriations. 

The bill (H. R. No. 4454) to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River at or near Keithsburgh, in the State of 

Illinois, and to establish it as a post-road, was read twice by its title, 

and referred to the Committee on Commerce. 

The bill (H. R. No. 4680) to repeal discriminating duties on tea and 

coffee, the products of the possessions of the Nether lands, was read 

twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Finance. 

CONGRESSIO:NAL LIBRARY BUILDING. 

The PRESIDENT pro tentpore. The unfinished business is the bill 

(S. No. 71) to enforce treaty stipulations relating to Chinese; but by an linderstanding of yesterday the Senator from Indiana [Mr. VooRHEES] has a right to address the Sen..'l.te on the bill proposed by him: 

By unanimous consent, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, 

proceeded to consider the bill (S. No. 842) authorizing the constructionofabuildingfortheaccommodationoftheCongressionalLibrary. 

Mr. VOORHEES. Mr. President, in once more calling the attention of the Senate to the pressing and constantly increasing neces- sity for additional accommodations for the Library of Congress, I 

desire to state fully and distinctly every step taken by -the committees on that subject up to the present time. This is due to the Senate as well as to the committees; it is also due to the intelligent people 

outside of Congress who are taking a deep interest in this work, and 

at the same time it will serve, I hope, to correct certain erroneous impressions which have led, in a few instances, to harsh and un- founded criticisms. It will be remembered that during the long ses- sion of the Forty-sixth Congress strenuous and persistent efforts were made on this :floor to secure the favorable action of Congres in 

behalf of the Library in its overcrowded and dangerous condition. 

The result of our labors at that time was the enactment of the law 

of June 8, lBHO, which I will read, in order that everybody's fnemory 

may be refreshed as to its precise terms and meaning : 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 

America in (Jongress assem-bled, That a joint sefect committee, consisting of three 

Senators and three members of the House of Representatives, shall have power to employ, as soon as may b at the expense of the United States, three persons of 

suitable skill and attainments, who, or a majority of whom, shall, with the approYal of said committee, carefully examine and consider what practicable and 

beneficial changes can be made in and of the Capit{)l building, in the District of 

Columbia, for the better accommodation of the Houses of c-ongress and of the 

Congressional Library, having in view especially the need of better ventilation, 

light, and exposure to the open air of the legislative halls, and the convenience of 

communication between them, and between them and the Library, and the need 

of greater space and better arrangement thereof for the Library. They shall, if 

they find any mode or modes of accomplishing the ends aforesaid practicable lllld 

beneficial, cause proper plans, de igna, and estimates of cost to be made thereof, 

and submit the same to said committee, which shall report the same to Congress at the earliest practicable time. And said committee shall in any ca e make a full report on the subject. and e pecially whether such mode of providing for th~ 

Library is preferable to the erection of a se:parate buildin~ for that purpose. S.&c. 2. That said joint select committee 18 also authoriZed and directed at the same time to examine the question of a. site outside the Capitol for the Library of 

Congress, and report to Congress what rocations would be most suitable for the 

Library- and afford the highest advantages for its future growth and permanent ac- commodation, and also in the case of each site th~ probable cost of the sam!) and 

of the building. SEC. 3. The sum of $5 000, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, is hl.'reby appropriated, out of any money in the Treaaury not otherwise appropriated, for 

the purposes named in this act, which shall be paid on vouchers approve.d by said 

committee. 

Approved .Tune 8, 1880. 

By this act of Congress the committee foT which I speak to-day was created, and all its powers and duties defined, The first power 

granted was "to employ, as soon as may be, at the expense of the 

United States, three persons of suitable skill all(l atta.inments" in 

architecture for the accomplishment of certain objects specified in 

the act. I wish to emphasize this fact. The Congress of the United 

States authorized ·the committee to employ three persons and no more, and to receive plans, designs, and estimates from them, and 

from nobody else, and to report such plans, designs, and estimates, 

and none other, back to Congress. I am satisfied now, after nearly two 

years' active experience on this subject, that the law is wise and right on this point. While there are many excellent architects in the 

United States, yet it was not difficult to select three who fairly represented the enlightened progress of the present age in that great 

art ; whose long eXJ>erience and meritorious works guaranteed their 

right to be considered among others at the head of their· profession. 

To have authorized the employment of a greater number, or to have 

thrown the duties which devolved upon them open to everybody, 

would have defeated the end which Congress had in view; it would 

have stifled the committee in an accumulation of architectural imagery, some good, much indifferent, and vast quantities appalling 

to everyelementoftaste or utility. Even with the law asitisin our hands, and calling special attention to the express limitation on our power to employ experts and to receive plans, the committee has 

been raided by volunteers from the architectural profession, and its 

room, at times, made an unwilling depository for strange desigm 

which we had neither the power to receive, consider, pay for, no-r report upon. 

The committee having been authorized and appointed, however, 

proceeded at once to perform its specified dutie under the law. It was called together on the 17th day of June, 1880, for the first timo, 

consisting of Mr. GEDDES, Mr. CooK, and Mr. Claflin, oftqe Ho1!.8e, 

and of Mr. MORRILL, Mr. Kernan, and myself, of the Senate. Upon 

full consultation and careful inquiry the following gentlemen were unanimously selected by the committee for employment as person of 

suitable skill and attainments, a provided for in the act: Edward 

Clark, the superintending Architect of the Capitol; Alexander R. 

Esty, of Boston, and John L. Smithmeyer, of this city. It i not 

necessary for me to say to gentlemen of character and standing in 

their profession that the selection of these three architect was no more a reflection upon others than the appointment of one man to office 

under the Government is a reflection upon the millions who receive no official favor. We simply performed a duty imposed upon us by 

law according to our best jud[ment, and the committee has had no reason to regret its choice. The gentlemen elected, whom I will 

designate as experts, were at once notified,. and each one received a letter of instructions. I will submit the letter addres ed to Mr. Clark. 

The others were similar, except, as will be seen, :Mr. Clark was desianated as chairman of the board of architectural experts when in co~­ sultation. RoOMS OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITI'R.E ON 

ADDITIO!'<AL ACCOMMODATIONS FOR THE LmRARY OF CO "GRESS, 

Washington, D. 0., June 17, 1880. 

SIR: The Joint Select Committee contemplated by the act of Congre sapproved .rune 8, 1880, <a. col?Y of which you will find inclosed ) being duly organized, have 

directed me to notily you that you have been selected as one of the 11 three persons 

tl::~~~~ and att:illunent , " provided for in said act to consider the questions 

In making this communication to you the committee desire to call your atten- tion to the provisions of the first section~ relating to the examination of the Capitol 

building. This examination will be mane in connection with your as ociates, Mr. 

Alexander R. Esty, of Boston and Mr. John L. Smithmeyer1 of this city. 

It is not deemed necessary further to point out your duty m connection with the 

fu:st section of said act, except to call your attention to the last sentence of the same. You will ob erve that provision is there made for a comparative examination and 

estimate of the advantages between librar:y a{lcommod.ations connected with the 

Capitol and the erection of a separate building for that pur~se. 

The object of the act is to empower "three persons of swtable skill and attainments" on the subject of architecture t{) determine whether it is "pmticable and 

beneficial" to provide additional accommodations for the Library in connection 

with the Cav.itol building, or whether it is preferable to go elsewhere and erect a separate buildin~ . lf you and yow· a sociates find adversely to the iqea. of building on the pre ent Capitol, then the committee desire you and each of you to submit 

plans, specifications, and estimates for a building at some eligible point in the city disconnected from the Capitol. In doing this, the committee would advi~e that 

what is known as .r udiciary Square and !ilso the ground ea t of th"' present Capitol grounds be taken into considerati<tn; but in designating these points the commit- tee do not intend to be understood as excluding from your consideration other 

eligible sites that may occur to you. 

If a new building should be decided on it is the jud~ent of the committee that 

it should be not less than four hundred and fifty feet m length and three hundred 

feet in width; that it should be constructed of material as durable as the two wings of the Capitol, and that the interior should be brick, iron, or other material as nearly fire-proof a possible. As to the interior arran~ement and the practicability of its future extension and improvement, it is the de 1re of the colDIDlttee that you consult with the Librarian of Congress. • It is proper in this connection to call your attention especially to that part of 

section 1 which looks to the improvement of the "l~:ps!ative halls," "the conven- ience of communication between them," '

1 their better ventilation, light, and ex- posure to the open air." That object you will consider in connection, however, 

with the p1imary purpose of this legislation, which is to provide a structure for 

the better accommodation of the Library of Congress and for its futnre wants. The committee earnestly hope that you and your associates will be able to meet at an early day and proceOO with the duties pointed out in this act. They hope to receive a preliminary report from you if po sible as early as the 1st of October next, 

and it is their expectation that they will have such reports from you as will enable 

them to report to Congress upon its meeting in December next. The committee designate you as chairman of the board of architectural experts when in consultation. 

Very respectfully, J"Ours, &c., 

Enw ARD CLARK, Esq., Architect of the Oapitol. 

D. W. VOORHEES, 

Ohainnan. 

It will be seen from these instructions to the experts that the com- mittee interpreted the object of the act of June 8, 1880, to be twofold, 

but that its primary purpose was to provide for the present and future 

wants of the Library of Congress. It is true that in connection with 

that purpose the act provides that the experts shall carefully examine 

and consider what practicable and beneficial changes can be made in 

the Capitol building, for the better accommodation of the Houses of 

Congress; and this duty they have well performed and elaborately 

reported upon, but they are more especially directed by the term of 

the act and by the tenor of the discussion at the time of its passa:~e 

to point out a secure and commodious place for the great and rapidly 

swelling Library; in the Capitol building, if they thought it could be 

done, but outside of and away from the Capitol if they in their kill 

thought a separate structure neces ary. 

With this view of their duties impressed upon their minds by the 

instructions of the committee, and by the terms ofthe law itself, the 

experts proceeded in their labors during the vacation of Congress and it affords me great pleasure to say that when Congress convened 

again in December following they laid before the committee an amount of solid and instructive information and a wealth of architectural designs which did them great honor as able, industrious; and 

conscientious employes of the Government. I do not think that I 
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 

can commend their work, ortbe spirit in which it was done, too highly:.. 

I would be glad if. each Senator would send ro the _ document-room 

and get Senate Report No. 59, thereport.ofthe.comm.ittee on this subject, containing also all the reports of experts to the committee. They are worthy the most serious and careful examination and study. On 

the question of what practicable and beneficial changes can be made 

in the Capitol with the view of .providing better accommodations 

for the Library, they jointly and unanimously adopted the following 

resolution, and reported it to the committee: 

Resolved, That in the opinion of this commission it is... inexpedient, if not im• 

practicable, to extend the Capitol building so as to provide additional space for 

the rapid growth of the Library withont seriously interfering with the architectural proportions thereof, and also its conveniences for legislative purposes, but 

that practical and beneficial changes, such as mentioned in the act creating this 

board, can and should be made at no distant day in and of the Capitol fOr the 

better accommodation of the two Houses of Congress. We therefore recommend 

the erection of a separate edifice for the Library. 

This unanimous and joint report of the experts was accompanied 

by their separate and individual I:eports, submitting their different 

plans and ~iving overwhelming and unanswerable reasons why the 

Capitol building cannot be made to accommodate the Library. Permit me to dwell briefly on some of these reasons. I have heard much 

bright and showy talk on this point. I have heard brilliant speeches 

made in this body in favor of readjusting this Capitol building; 

repudiating, as it were, its present grand simplicity, and so rearranging, remodeling, and torturing out of shape its original design as to 

make it a receptacle for all our books as well as our courts and Congress. I have listened to the subtle delineations of a Greek cross; 

and, with feelintfs something_akin to the spell of a nightmare, have seen in my minds eye this noble structure deformed by a new building running out from its east center about twelve hundred feet across the public grounds as the upright or stem of such a cross. And, then, again I have listened to airy eloquence in support of an airy dream that the great Dome might be induced to rise high 

enough toward the heavens to make room for a Library underneath 

its capacious canopy. Sir, these projects sound to the ear as distant scenes appear to the eye. There is a mist about them which is rapidly 

dispelled when you approach them and discover. the facts. 

On page 6 of the report to which I have alluded M.r. Clark, in 

assigning reasons for a separate building for the Library, says: 

First. That to extend the Capitol so as to provide for the growing wants of the 

Library, even for a few years to come, would not only llillr its architectural appear- ance, lmt would render it more inconvenient for legislative purposes. Secondly. The inadequacy of the Capitol to contain the vast collection of books 

and other matter deposited :l.n the Library under the present copyright law, if the 

collection should increase in the future as it has in the past. In order to obtain a knowledg~;~ of the ~at spaee reiJ.uired for the increase of the 

Library, it should be borne in mind that by its records It is shown that the number 

of books in it bas quadrupled in the last sixteen years, their number now being 

about 375,000. 

Should this rate of increase continue for the next sixteen years-and it is not improbable that such will be the case-the collection will amount to 1,500,000 vol- umes, requiring, to afford them shelf-room, all the space contained within both 

Halls of legislation, the old Hall of Representatives, and the Rotunda. 

If the same rate of accession should continue for another sixteen years, that is, 

thirtv-two years from the present-time, the entire available space of the Capitol 

woulu be required for the use of the Library. It is true that during the past sixteen years there have been some extramdinary 

accessions, such as the "Force collection," and the transfer to the Library of the 

exchanges of the Smithsonian Institution, yet it is not improbable that such addi· 

tiona may continue to be made either by purchase or donation. 

Amazing as the foregoing statements are relating to the probable growth of the 

Library, they are made only after careful calculation and measurement. 

Such a statement as this, coming from one of the most accurate and 

reliable of our public officials, is sufficient to blight all the fancies 

which have been entertained in re~ard to a library in the Capitol. 

Upon our present system of gathenng together the productions of 

the human mind for ourselves and for future generations, the idea of 

st-oring the Congressional Library in this building is a naked, ma.nifest absurdity. 1\lr. Esty in his report., speaking of the action of the 

board of experts on this subject, uses the following language: 

They would further say that a critical examination of the Library as at present 

having in view the accommodations reasonably likely to be required therefor in th~ future, bas led your commission to consider as of the greatest importance the past 

growth of the number of volumes, acquired from all sources, wh1ch is so clearly 

illustrated in the reports of the Librarian, and b\- which it appears this number 

has been more than quadrupled in the past sixteen years. By a careful pernsal of 

these reports, no othe:r conclusion can be reached but that the accumulation or addition, by purchase, copyright, Smitb;;onianlnstitution, donations, (including State 

and municipal,) exchanges, &o., will in U1e next equal period of years be at a greaterf:ercentage. There seems, therefore, to be no satisractory method in the 

minds o your commission, of estimating the space required for the Library in the future~ except by apJ?roximation based upon a known increase, so that, taking for 

example the acquisitions of the last sixteen years, the conclusiou is reached that 

in thirty-two years from this pl'esent the Toom needed for the contents of the Li· 

brarv woul(l be equal in extent to the entire space now embraced in the Capitol buildin~. Again, tb~ extension of the building to acconunodate a library of such 

dimen 1ons even, as well as the HalLs of Cong-~>ess, with all the contingent space needed, would so interfere with the present structure as to most seriously mar its 

architectUI"e externally, increase distances within, and make ventilation more dif- ficult, heatmg more expensive, and leave a greater proportion of the buildina than at pre ent unexposed to the light of day and the external atmosphere. Yo~ com- mission can but believe that serious and careful investigation of the subject will 

lead to the conclusion that any extension of the Capitol requisit.e for the needs of 

the Library would be of the most questionable and inconvenient character and at t.ho best only applicable to the wants thereof for a few years at the most,' and, 

furthermore, would render the building more inconvenient for the purposes of legis- lation, &o., open to the just condemnation of an appreciative community and the 

cou-ntry generally. 

But, in addition to the fact that sufficient space for the Library 

cannot be made in connection with the Capitol without destroying 

the original design of the building, it is conclusively shown that all, 

and indeed more than all, its capacity is already required for the 

transaction of public business by the two Houses of Congress. We are too apt on questions of this kind to overlook the tremendous 

growth and expansion of the American Government, .and to shut out 

from our view the mighty certainties of the immediate and of the 

remote future. The_founders of the Republic, though the wisest men in history, could not foresee the. heights on which we stand to-day, 

for there was nothing in the past career of the human race to guide 

them to such a conclusion. But with our own history of the past 

century to instruct us as to the capacity of our people and our country 

for development, progress, and wealth, you and I, Mr. President, and 

Senators, have no excuse if. we fail to anticipate and provide in our works for a future so full of national strength, resources, and glory 

that the whole earth will at no distant day look with wonder and awe at our marvelous condition. We are being borne swiftly forward to 

such a future as the eye of man hath not seen, nor his mind but imperfectly imagined. Happy is he who will live even one generation 

hence to behold the consequences of irresistible influences now at 

work! Ninety-one years ago, when Washington laid the corner-stone 

of the Capitol, there were thirty Senators, and one hundred and five 

members of-the House, with the small basis of 33,000 inhabitants for 

each Representative. Now seventy-six Senators are here, and soon three hundred and twenty-five Represntatives will assemble in the 

House, each with a . constituency four times as numerous as a mem- ber was entitled to in the early days of the Government. Congress 

performed its duties four-score years ago with less than thirty com- mittees; now it accomplishes, from year to year, but little more than 

one-half the business which comes legitimately before it by the aid 

of one hundred and ten permanent committees and a number of 

special committees lasting for temporary periods. It will not do to 

say that our forefathers workedllarder than we do. They did not. 

The most overworked men in the United States are those in Congress 

who keep up with the business before them and make it a matter of 

conscience to discharge every duty. 

It is the vast increase of the public business which crowds every 

moment of our time, day and night, and for the same reason the 

walls of this Capitol are so crowded this very hour that every inch 

of space now occupied by the Congressional Library is urgently 

needed for the le~islative department of the Government. There are about eighty-five committee-rooms in the Capitol, in which the 

labors of about one hundred and twenty' committees are to be performed. Insufficient, overcrowded, dinily-lighted document-rooms are found in different parts of the Capitol, always exciting wonder 

whether it is possible for them to contain any thing more. Every 

place looks full, packed, and uncomfortable; and it is only a question of a few years, at most, when every particle of space within 

these stately walls will have to be devoted to the uses of Congress 

in t1:ansacting the legiSlation of the country. All this is so fully and 

clearly set forth in the able and comprehensive reports of the ex- ·perts, and especially in that of Mr. Smithmeyer, to the committee, 

that I earnestly recommend the perusal of that document to every 

Senator and member of Con~ess. 

The committee, therefore, m considering and determinin~ the question pi:esented by the resolution of the board of experts m ·favor of a separate building for the Libmry, had but little difficulty and were all of one mind. The resolution was unanimously adopted by the 

committee. This conclusion being reached, it will be observed by 

reference to the second section of the act of June, 1880, that it. then 

becall').e the duty of the committee to examine and report upon the 

question ofasiteoutsideofthe Capit.olforthe Library of Congress. In 

the discharge of this duty much time was consumed and many labors 

undergone. The committee met often, and gave fu1l and frequent 

opportunities for the advocates of different localities to be, heard by 

counsel, by briefs, and by themselves in person. I can most truthfully assure the Senate that the e opportunities were all promptly 

and exhaustively embraced. The committee was enriched with instruction on the geography, the topography, and I might say the 

geolog_y of thi~ cit¥· I doubt if the District engineers ever had so much information rmparted to them. We were also greatly enlightened on the subject of values and titles. A real estate abstract office 

could hardly be more so. · 

.After listening patiently to all that could be said, and after reading all that could be written, in behalf of the various localities urged 

upon us, a majority of the committee decided in favor of Judiciary ~quare, an_open reservation owned by the Government, and containmg a fraction less than twenty acres, as a site for the proposed new 

Library building. Aminorityofthecommittee, very able, if not very n~ero~s, composed of the Senator from.Vermont, [Mr. MORRILL,] 

decided m favo:~; of th~ w~ll-known locality on Capitol Hill, directly 

east of the Capitol building. The two reports were laid before this 

body durin~ the closing session of the last Congress, and the Senate 

b~ a vote ot perhaps five to one overruled the majority-of the comnnttee and declared in favor of the site on Capitol Hill. 

The bill presented by the committee, being thus amended on mo- tion of the Senator from Vermont, passed the Senate, full and com- plete in all its details, providing for the erection of an appropriate 

building for the accommodation of the Library of Congress. It 

passed this body February, 1881, but failed to be reached in the House 
1512 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARcH 1~ 

before the :final adjournment of the Forty-sixth Congress on that dismal and foreboding Friday, March 4, followin~. Thus for the time 

being it appeared that our labors were lost, but m fact they were not. 

Upon the convening of the Senate in the Forty-seventh Congress the 

committee on this unportant and interesting subject was again at once revived, and the labors of the former committee and the skill 

and industry efthe experts were preserved for another effort in behalf 

of a civilized and decent home for our books. 

The House also responded as soon as it was organized in December 

last by the appointment of an able and experienced committee to act 

jointly with the committee of the Senate. The Joint Select Committee on additional accommodations for the Library of Congress being 

thus again complete, there was no delay in beginning work. I wish 

to bear testimony to the prompt, energetic, and appreciative manner in which every member of the present committee took up the subject 

in all its parts at the present session of Congress. The result of their 

labors is before the Senate. I had the honor to present Senate bill 

No. 842, unanimously agreed upon and recommended by the committee, and I desire now to point out its provisions somewhat in detail, 

in order to show to the Senate and to the country how carefully every 

public interest has been scrutinized and guarded. 

Whenever fault-finding stupidity or disappointed parties in interest can say nothing else against a measure pending before Congress 

they can always wag their heads and say there is a Job in it . .A.jobl 

How portentous this word often sounds in connection with legislation which has received the most rigid, scrupulous, and conscientious care l It is nearly always croaked forth when private property is 

about to be purchased for public use and when money is expended on public improvements. For this reason, and also in order to secure careful and prudent legisbtion, I choose to can the attention of the 

Senate to the bill under consideration in detail. 

It will be seen that the :first section provides that a fire-proof building for the Library shall be erected according to the plan adopted by 

the committee, and of the plan I shall speak further on. This section 

also fixes the site of the proposed building on six designated parcels 

of ground lying east of the Capitol and between certain streets 

named; puts the construction of the building in charge of a com- mission composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the .Architect of 

the Capitol Extension, and the Librarian of ConS!ess; appropriates 

1,500,000with which to begin the work, and provides that all moneys 

appropriated for the building shall be disbursed by the Secretary of 

the Interior. 

The second section simply declares that the grounds required shall 

be purchased or taken for public use by the Secretary of the Interior, 

and the third section appropriates a sum of money sufficient to pay 

for them, not to exceed, however, $1,100,000. By the fourth section 

the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to purchase said grounds 

by a~eement with their owners for their actual cash value, and to 

obtam a valid title to them a-ccording to the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral; and by the fifth section it is provided that if, within thirty 

days after the passage of this act, the Secretary of the Interior is 

unable to purch:tse such grounds by agreement, he shall resort to the· 

supreme court of the District of Columbia, and secure the appointment of five properly qualified commissioners, who shall make a just 

and equitable appraisement of the grounds in question. This appraisemeut is made subject to ratification or rejection by the court. 

Section 6 provides the manner in which the title to the grounds 

taken for public use by appraisement shall become vested in the 

United States, and then, after some minor details in sections 7 and 

8, the ninth section declares "that before payment shall be ma~e 

for any part of the grounds herein described the terms of all con- tracts therefor and the amount of all appraisals thereof shall be submitted to the President for his approval; and if in his judgme.p.t 

the sum to be paid for any parcel, either under contract or judicial 

proceedings, shall be unreasonable, he shall, in respect to the same, 

suspend all further proceedings under this act till further action by 

Congress." And, in addition to all this, the tenth and last section of 

the act makes it the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to report a detailed statement of all the proceedings under its provisions at 

the commencement of each session of Congress. - Sir, this bill is as well guarded a any legislation in the history of 

this Government by which private property has ever been obtained 

for public use. Every proceeding under it must be as open as day. 

The premises to be acquired are so well known that there can be but- little, if any, mistake as to their real value. If the Secretary of the 

Interior is able to purchase them by agreement, he does so in the face 

of an intelligent public opinion which will be made curious and active 

by a vigilant newspaper press. Every price agreed upon will be 

known and scrutinized. If the owners of the property and the Secretary, however, cannot agree, then five well-known and reputable 

citizens of the District, in no way interested in the subject, will be 

appointed by the court to ascertain the true value of the property by a sworn appraisement. But this appraisement is even then not final. 

It is to be reported to the six distinguished gentlemen who are on the Federal bench of the District, and they, with nothin~. to bias 

their judgment and with no possible motive except the public interest, are called upon to examine and ratify or reject the decision of 

the appraisers. And then, as if all this was not enough to insure an honest transaction, before a dollar of money can be paid out all the 

appraisals of the grounds and their improvements and the terms of 

• 

t 

all the contracts for their purchase shall be inspected and pa~sed 

upon by the President of the United States. 

Sir, if there is a job provided for in this bill in the purchase of the 

private property contemplated, as I have seen stated, it is not worth 

while to commit public trusts to the highest and most honored officials in the Government. If such proposed legislation as this can- not be enacted with safety then we know not where to turn or who 

to trust, and all that is left for us is to stand still and do nothing. 

I am satisfied that this poor and impotent conclusion will not be 

reached by the present Congress. 

As to the mere question of locality, with a view to convenience and 

beauty of display, much has been said and written. Of course it is 

not doubted that other locations might be selected aff()rding reason- able facilities for the library. The committee was of that opinion 

when it determined upon Judiciary Square in the last Cengress. 

Time and reflection, however, have convinced me, as it has the present committee, that there is no other-site which combines so fully all 

the advantages desired as the one provided for in the bill now under 

consideration. Its proximity to Congress and its commanding elevation seem to designate it as a proper place for a structure dedicated 

to instruction in literature, the arts, and the sciences. 

A glance at the topography of this city and at the locations of 

Government buildings already erected discloses to the eye a curious 

spectacle. There are four important official edifices, besides the 

Washington Monument, lec&ted on what may be termed without 

impropriety a river marsh, a larger portion of which was wholly inundated within the last year by an overflow from the .Potomac. 

When looking from the windowsofthis Capitol I sawboats paddled 

to and fro over the grounds of the Smithsonian, the Museum, the 

Botanical Gardens, and also along portions of Pennsylvania avenue, 

and reflected upon the beautiful elevations beyond the reach of 

swelling :floods and away from pestilential quagmires, I was brought 

seriously to wonder at the extent, the variety, and the mystery of 

human tastes. - On the first slight elevation sloping up from these low and some- times submerged bottom lands, we fuid the Treasury and the State 

Departments, located in deep trenches or side-hill excavations, much 

after the manner in which we se often see a Pennsylvania barn con- structed. The barn, however, is a work of wisdom compared to these 

buildings, for its basement story always presents a south-side shed 

for the comfort of stock in the winter time. Between the Treasury 

and the State Department stands the Executive Mansion, fronting 

to the ill-odored and malarial Potomac :flats1 and through whose front 

door no human being ever passes, while as it in satire on office-seeking 

thousands of people from day to day and from year to year go in at 

the back door and climb the back stairs to :find the face of official 

favor. Whether this circumstance has had an evil effect on Ameri- can politics I leave to the casuists to determine. The Department 

of the Interior and the Post-Office are well located, but in the whole 

range of building sites I think the unbiased and intelligent traveler 

visiting this city for the first time would without hesitation indicate 

the spacious resources of Capitol Hill as the best in every respect. 

At this point, however,.arises a question which was fully considered by the committee1 and which I must briefly notice here. It has 

been, and may be agam, seriously urged that but one Government 

edifice is entitled to stand on this high and beautiful plateau whose 

western brow is crowned by the Capitol; that the capacity of all this 

broad and noble space is already exhausted, and that the sta-tely 

structure in whose walls we are now deliberating is of such poor 

proportions and uncertain merit, that it is in danger of being put to 

shame by a building of le s than one-half its dimensions. It has 

been insisted that the Capitol could bear no rival anywhere on Capitol Hill; that any other public building in its neighborhood would 

detract from its own commanding consequence. 

I can see no reason for this objection to the proposed site for the 

Library. It is a matter of sentiment and fancy rather than of judgment which can be expressed plainly in words. Why two buildings 

of architectural excellence standing in close proximity should detract 

from each other in the eyes of the beholder is a problem which others 

may explain; I cannot. There is but a narrow street between those 

two imposing structures, the Interior and the Post-Office, and but a square between the State Department and the Treasury, and yet I 

have never heard that one made the other less attractive, or that 

their frowning rivalry shocked the taste of critical Senators and mem- bers in Congress. Nor will the supremacy and grandeur of this Capitol be anymore disturbed by the erection oftheLibrary in its vicinity 

than the glory of Jupiter was tarnished by the discovery of one of 

his satellites near by. Nor is there any inexorable law of ta-ste or common sense which requires a dead, monotonous uniformity of style 

in all the public buildings of this city for fear they shall reflect on 

each other. 

Is there to be no variety, no progress, no improvement in our na- tional architecture while there is improvement in every other branch 

of know ledge Y And this brings me to speak of the plan adopted by 

the committee as a question intimately connected with the location 

agreed upon. I need hardly assure the Senate that the plan of the 

propo ed Library has been the subject of earnest, protracted study and . investiaation on the part of the committee. Each of the experts em- ployed ?or that purpose submitted carefully executed designs both for 

the exterior elevations and the interior arrangements for the accom-
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD- SENATE. 1513 

modation of a great collection of books. These designs were minutely 

examined and compared in connection with the plans and drawings 

of all the great libraries of this country and of Europe. They also 

fell under the observation of many persons very intelligent on this 

subject outside of the committee. During the past year the National 

Association of Librarians held its annual meeting in Washington City, 

and the librarians of Yale, Harvard, and all the great college libra.-

ries of the United States made a close scrutiny of all the works submitted by the experts, and we had the benefit of their experience and 

observation and warm approval. 

But above all others the committee is indebted to Mr. Spofford, the 

accomplished Librarian of Congress, for his great and enlightened 

assistance in arrivingatwhatwedeemasafeconclusion. It gives me the greatest possible pleasure to speak of this gentleman's wonderful 

knowledge of libraries, their needs, their uses, their proper arrangement and management, and the architectural designs which ..,vill best 

accommodate them; also to bear testimony to his constant and untiring 

labors with the committee and with the experts to promote the great 

object we all had in view. It is very safe to assume that a plan of 

building which has his approval after so much vigilant industry will 

not fall short of its purposes. It is proper also to say that the plan 

adopted was selected with great unanimity by the committee. It can be seen and it speaks for itself. It is a Gothic renaissance, and 

will delight the eye, while the interior will constitute a marvelous 

receptacle for all the products of the human mind. 

But, sir, there is a history of legislation and attempted legislation 

in reference to additional accommodations for the Library which 

throws a strong light on the proposed plan and location, as well as upon the dilatory and indifferent manner in which Congress has 

treatecl a great question of immediate and pressing necessity. The 

wants of the Library, and its wretched condition for lack of .room, 

increasing from year to year, and constantly urged upon the attention of Congress by the Librarian, became at last so conspicuous that 

in March, 1873, now nearly nine years ago, the first step was taken, 

looking in a slow and cautious way to a remedy for the crying com- plaints of the books. At that time the following enactment was 

made: 

For a plan of a new building for a Library of Congress, $5,000, and the selection 

of a plan, together with the location and supervision of such building, shall be in 

charge of a commission, to consist of the chairman of the Joint Committee on the 

Library, the chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the 

Senate, and the Librarian of Congress. 

The commission c:e.eated by this provision addressed themselves to 

the subject with remarkable circumspection and care. It was com- posed of' the latQ Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Howe, now Postmaster-General; the Senator from Vermont, Mr. MORRILL, and the 

present able Librarian. They advertised for a plan of architecture 

to accommodate the Library and meet its future growth, and in doing so they invited public and unrestricted competition among archi- tects of this and other countries. Specifications were issued by the 

commission for the uuidance of those who might wish to submit 

designs, and among tb.~m the following were made prominent: 

That the general plar. of the contemplated building should embrace a circular 

reading-room, in the center of the structure, of one hundred feet in diameter, with 

alcoves radiating from the circumference of the inner circle concentrically outside. 

* * * That all parts of the building were to be of fire-proof materials. * * * 

That besides the mterior circular reading-room, provision was to be made for ei~ht 

rooms not less than forty by sixty feet each, and from twenty to twenty-five feet 

high, for maps, newspapers, copyright records, works of art, cataJo~e-room, 

and packing-room, * * * and that the building should have a capac1ty of not less than two millions of books. 

And I may observe that these specifications have been substantially 

adhered to in all subsequent work, and that they are contained in 

the plan now reported to Congress. The commission, however, in 

1873, in order to insure the attention of architects of skill and standing, offered a prize of $1,500 for the best design. The competition w a.s quite general, twenty-eight different plans being submitted to the 

commission, one or more of them being from architects in Europe. 

Fromthewell-knownandhighcharacterofthecommission, the Senate 

does not need to be assured that all these plans underwent the most 

vigilant and intelligent ex.amination. They were patiently considered in all their parts; and it is not improper to state that the fifteenhundred-dollar prize was then awarded to the same gentleman whose 

plan has been adopted in the bill now under consideration. 

It seems that nearly two years were consumed by the commission 

in securing and agreeing upon a satisfactory design, for it is not until 

February, 18751 that we find any further action proposed in Congress. 

At that time, and during the second session of the Forty-third Congress, Senat.or Howe reported Senate bill No. 1250, providing for the 

erection of a Library building on Judiciary Square. It did not meet 

with favor, and it pe1·ished by the wayside. 

Again, after about the usual interval, the subject of the Library 

received another evidence that it was at least still remembered. In 

June, 1876, the Joint Committee on the Library reported Senate bill 

No. 910 and recommended its passage. It provided for the erection 

of a suitable structure, and located it this time on the low grounds 

west of the Capitol, now occupied by the gardens. Of course this 

tneasure came to grief. A call was made upon the Chief of Engineers 

of the Army, which was at once fatal to the bill. He was aslred to 

examine the nature and quality of the grounds in that locality, with a view to the foundation of the proposed building. His official re- port was to the effect that such an edifice could not with safety be 

. · erected there; that the grounds were mainly composed of a rotten, 

soft soil, and were full of treacherous bogs. 

I believe the bill was never called up for consideratio'n after the 

Engineer's reportwasmade. Sineethat time the conclusions of that 

officer have been most amply verified. In the erection of that pile 

of tombstone statuary now standing at the foot of Capitol Hill, and 

which ought to be in a cemetery, an excavation nearly forty feet in 

depth had to be made in search of a foundation to sustain its weight. 

Laborers dug from week to week, through mud and mire, through 

spouting quicksands and the alluvial deposits of former floods, with 

pumps all the time going to prevent the men from being drowned at 

their work. All this we saw with our own eyes within the last five or six years. The fact is that there is not a low wet prairie in the 

West where the waters ~ather more rapidly at three or four feet below 

the surface than they <10 in nearly all the grounds from Capitol Hill 

west and southwest to the Potomac River. 

The sli~ht elevations presented may afford foundations for such 

comparatively light structures as the Museum, the Smithsonian, the 

Agricultural Bureau, and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving; 

but it is well known that the foundation of the Washington Monument has given more concern to engineers and has cost more labor 

and more money, perhaps, to revise, reconstruct, and render it secure th:l>n the entire work besides. And even now whether it is permanently safe for all the future is a question which spongy earth close 

to the bank of a great river may at any time decide in the negative 

in spite of the best engineering talent in the world. Sir, it is obvi- ous to my mind that the Potomac, which is rather an estuary than a river from here to the ocean, at no very distant period of the past 

covered with the flow of the tide all or nearly all that part of Washington City sometimes spoken of as the Island. Large portions of it 

have all the characteristics of a swamp reclaimed by the processes of 

time and made serviceable for some purposes by the skill and industry of man. As a location for such a building as our Library 

requires it is more unfit in every respect than any other spot in the 

District of Columbia. Therefore, I repeat that the bill to locate the 

Library there fell still-born, and has never shown any sign of life 

since. 

The next movement on this subject was the introduction of a bill 

in February, 1877, by the Senator from Vermont, authorizing the 

Secretary of the Interior to purchase certain lands east of the Capitol on which to construct the new Library building. This locality is 

that Senator's first love, and hehasbeenconstanttoit. In January, 

1878, he was re-enforced by the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. 

DAWES,] who introduced a bill of similar import. All this time, however, nothing was done, and the books were crying for room. · It 

seems to me that at times I can hear their voices, like captives in an overcrowded and ill-ventilated prison, appealing for more room, a better light, and fresh air. Perhaps the late Senator from Wisconsin 

[Mr. Howe] thought he heard them. At any rate, apparently in despair ·of getting: a separate building authorized, in February, 1878, he 

introduced a bill for the appointment of a commission to consider and 

report upon the necessary measures for the enlargement of the present q narters of the Library, so as to meet its pre ent and future wants. 

This commission was appointed, and was composed of the chairmen 

of the Senate and House Committees on the Library, the chairmen 

of the Senate and House Committees on Public Buildings and 

Grounds, and the Librarian of Congress. Investigation began at 

once, architects of the highest reputation were consulted. The great 

wish of the commission was that the Library could be retained in 

these walls; and yet they were compelled to report, and did report, 

thatNotwithstanding their earnest desire to keep the Library within the Capitoi build.ing, and in the face of several plans which had been submitted to them foraccomplishing this object, the commission had concluded that no such plan was practicable, and that the Library, if enlar~ed, could not be made a part of the Cap- Itol without serious detriment to its architectural effect and other grave disadvantages. 

The commission theu recommended the erection of a separate edifice, and in June, 1878, Mr. Howe, returning to his first love as to a. location, introduced the following resolution, which I believe was never voted upon : 

Resolved, That the commission recommend an appropriation of $150,000 to lay the foundation for a new Library buil~g on or neal' the center of Judiciary Square, to be erected according to a pla:n to be submitted to and approved by Congress. 

I wish to add in this connection that during all these years of investigation, research, and labor, extending from 1873 to the present 

time, Mr. Smithmeyer, the architect whose plan has now been 

adopted, was engaged a large portion of his time under the auspices 

and at the request of the various committees in making the different 

plans which were from time to time under considerationl and in making observations in this country and in Europe upon the architectural arrangements of leading libraries. His skill, his ac~uirements,_ 

and his manner of work are all, therefore, well known to all who 

have had this matter so long in charge. 

.And now, Mr. President, after all these tri0ulations and disappointments of the past we are once more face to face with this pressing question. The bill on your Calendar and now under discussion 

is really the result of nine years' care and investigation on the part of repeated commissions and eommittees. No measure ever came before Congress with more careful consideration or with as much skilled 

labor bestowed upon it. It is plain that some concessions have 
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD~ENATE. M.ABOH 1, 

•1' .......... ~ 

~lways to be ma.de on a subject like this. Men's minds will differ on the locality and the style of architecture, and it iB easy to refuse to 

do anything if ea.ch one oa.nnot ha'Ve things exactly to suit him.' I 

beg Senators, however, to consider what will become of the Library 

if we a.re to wait until every question of taste is settled. 

Ten years ago there were less than 250,000 volumes, with shelving · room wholly insufficient to accommodate them; now there are over 400,000 volumes nearly one-half of them, together with the maps; 

charts, and worb of art, almost wholly inaccessible; corded up, as it were and pa.cked away in piles, without value to anybody. Is this state -of things to last 7 Can we legislate on every thing else, and yet be 

incapable of building a becoming house for our books f I know of ·nothing more humiliating at this tjme to the character of Congress, ·or indeed to our national character, than the present deplorable con- ·dition of our great and invaluable Library. Its commandinO' merits 

.and its shameful state evoked from the President of the United: States, 

in his last annual message, a special recommendation to Congress 

in its behalf. There is but one description in the history of librarie 

which will be appropriate to our own if it is left to its fate a few 

years longer by the inaction of Congress. 

When Charles the Second of England appointed William Prynne, 

whom he styled "the Cato of the age," keeper of the records at the 

Tower, a post with the duties of a librarian, the grizzly old hookman, who had been in the pillories, and the prisons, and had his ears cut off by English courts for speaking and writing with a free 

mind, made the following report to the king of the condition of the 

royal library: 

No sooner received I your royal patent for the cust~dy of your ancient reeords 

in the Tower of London, even m the midst of my parliamentary and disbanding services, but I designed and endeavored the rescue of the greatest part of them 

from that desolation, cor+uption, confusion in which they had for manY. _y~ars bypast lain buried toO"ether in one con:fu.Sed chaOs, under corroding, putrifying cobwebs, dust, and fi:it.h, in the darkest corner of Cresar's chapel in the white tower, as mere useless reliques not worthy to be calendared or brought down thence into 

the office amongst other records of use. In order thereunto,~ employed some soldiers and women to remove and cleanse them from their filthiness, who soon growrug weary ot tms nolSome work left· them alinost aa foul as they found them. 

Whereupon, immediately after the Parliament's adjournment, I and my clerks 

spent many whole days m cleansing and sorting them into distinct but confused 

heapa, in order to therr future reducement into method, the old clerks of the office 

being unwilling to touch them for fear of endangering their eyesights and healths 

by the cankerons dust and evil scent. In raking up this dung-heapContinues tlie plain-spoken old manaccordingto my expectation I found many rare, an~ient, precious pearls and golden records; with many original bulls of popes, (some of them under seal,) letters to and from popes, cardinals, and the court of Rome; besides sundry rare antiquities, specially relatingt~ the Parliaments of Encland, and no less than ninety-seven par- cels of original writs of summons, (from ltd ward I to Henry VI,) coDfnsedly intenni.xed with many thousands of other writs and records. 

Such is the gra.phic description of a neglected collection of books 

and papers which two hundred years ago became the nucleus of the 

present ~eat library of the British Museum, and while there is no danger that the Library of Congress will quite sink into a similar 

condition of squalor and wretchedness, yet the example is full of 

force and meaning. It shows that books of richest merit. are of no value unless their habitation is made pleasa.nt and accessible to their 

votaries; that precious pearls, golden records, and rare antiquities 

may be buried out of sight and reach by heaps piled on heaps for the 

want of space in which to unpack and display the treasures of the 

intellectual world. It shows also that the progress of a people from 

darkness into light, from barbarism and semi-barbarism toward 

civilization iB marked and mea.sured by their care for the recorded 

products of the human mind in all its staO"es of development. 

We boast of our advancement, and justly so in many respects, but 

there iB not a readin~ nation on the globe to-day whose assemblage 

-of books iB in a cond1tion so disgraceful as ours. We stand alone as .a Government which seems powerless to act on' such a subject, which 

confesses itself, by its conduct, an imbecile, in the face of duties so plain that every eye sees and every t?~~ue admits them. . But we sometimes hear strange shitts and devices proposed by 

which to relieve the present enormous plethora of the Library, and 

.at the same time to avoid the necessity of furnishing it with a re- ·spectable domicile of its own. Among others a sort of warehouse 

:system has been suggested, various buildings, plain and cheap, in 

different parts ofthe city, not with a view to the use of books after ·the manner of libraries, but for the purpose of storing them for safekeeping. This plan proceeds upon the idea that the great mass of 

literature of the present enlightened age is not worth reading, and 

,yet a trifle, perhaps, too valuable to throw away. 

The separation of the content-s of libraries into different localities 

when they belong to the same general collection has excited the 

1·ighteous wrath of students from the earliest period of written thought 

to the present hour. Edwards, in his valuable modern work on 

1ibraries, in pointing out the difficulties in the way of obtaining 

historical knowledge in England, says: 

Only a few years have elapsed since the records kept within the metropolis alone 

~~~to~ee ~~~~\!:\h~mlb~~~~~~~h~d:~L~~~e~~:~tL~b::.~ 

The writings of ancient authors are also full of anathema-s against 

the vagabond and dissipated lives which libraries were sometimes 

made to lead by the ignorance and caprice of their owners. Indeed, 

the character and the utility of a library are destroyed when it is 

~-~ 

broken up into parcels and scattered about in different places. Such 

is the testimony ·of history on this pQint. 

There is~ another plan, however, for the better accommodation of 

the Library of Congress, which I have often heard advanced, and 

which fills me with even greater aversion and dismay than the one I have just noticed.' U iB held by a certain class of minds that we have too many books; that the present contents of the Library ought 

to be depleted by hauling them out and applying the torch, and that 

for the future a ~im warder should be placed at its doors to prevent an over stock of mtelligence on its liniited and barren shelves. This 

proposition has at the least the meritofbeing·easilyunderstood. If 

adopted it would be a quick, long· stride backwards, carrying us to 

the very rear, and ~mon&' the s~ragglers o~ that glorious column of 

human progress which_ we are so well qualified to lead. 

When the Vandals sa.ckedRo.rhe and wreaked their brutal hate on her works of ar£ and civilization, they made their name a synonym 

for acts of destructive ignorance in all the ages since. The American name would stand but little better in coming times if we should pollute it by such an act of vandalism as that to which I allude. The 

destruction of books is associated jn my mind with the destruction 

of life; it is a crime which I think of in connection with murder. 

The breat~AjJ~oughts which animate their pages make them seem as living, · · g, speaking beings, entitled to our love and yeneration. 

But if some books are to be destroyed, and more herea.fter rejected, 

who or what manner of man iB to be the mi~hty censor for such a great and perilous work; who is to draw the line and say what shall 

be kept and what shall be given over to dust and ashes; 'who has 

the hardihood now to declare what materials may be useful to the 

historian of the future, and what can with safety and propriety be 

cast aside; who will undertake to winnow and sift the mental product of this age of .marvelous discoveries, amazing activity, and 

daring speculation f He who would assume such a task might safely 

be assigned to that class of persons who are said to rush in where 

angels fear to tread. 

The writings of all the historians and philosophers who have lived 

admonish us that every achievement of the human intellect, from 

grave to gay, from ponderous tomes to frivolous pamphlets, from the 

massive and blazing offsprmg of Homer's genius to burlesque pasquinades and comic verses, from the Principia of Newton to the latest 

patent on a lead-pencil, all have their uses in makin~ an estimate of 

the different conditions of mankind at different perwds, of the advancement which has been made in the past and which is likely to 

be made in the future. For our own sakes, and for the sake of our posterity, we dare not despoil our Library and make it less than a complete record of the workings' of the human m.4J.d in all the ages. 

Sir, if I am reminded of the expense of ,a noble and commodious 

edifice forth~ great National Library of the Uni.ted States, I am at 

the same time also reminded that we are builaing for all time, and 

that distant centuries will look upon our work. We are proud now of a census showing a population of fifty millions. The structure we propose will contain the library of a government with 200,000,000 

inhabitants by the time the American. Republic is as old as many of 

the youngest nations of Europe of the present day. It will shelter 

the most stupendous collection of educated thought and labor known 

to the annals of mankind, and those who aid in rearing it need not 

fear the criticism of future genera tiona as they resort to its treasures 

for instruction, strength, and light. The revenue of this Government for one week will build and finish it, then to stand as long as American civilization is upheld. by the power of knowledge. 

Among the Greeks the first libraries were deposited in the temples 

of the gods as the only places of sufficient honor for the sacred trust, 

and from the days of Aristotle, the first known collector of a lib1·ary, 

to the present hour the intelligence and the virtue of every people 

have been measured by their preservation · of books and archives. 

Sir, let us, too, erect our temple without further delay, not for mythological deities, but for the indwelling of the accumulated learning of 

all countries and all ages; over whose alcoves, corridors, and galleries 

will preside the genius of history, science; art, and literature in aU 

their various and beautiful branches, and from whose hallowed precincts a light as enduring a-s the constellations in the sky will shine on all the multiplying centuries of the future. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER,. (Mr. CAMERON, ofWisconsin, in the 

chair.) The Senate will resume the consideration of its unfinished 

business. 

1\lr. BAYARD. I do not know whether any other members of the 

Committee on the Library desire to discus this important measure, 

after the elaborate and interesting speech of the Senator from Indiana ; 

but would there be any objection to putting the bill uponits passage now ' As the Senator from Indiana has said, it is the fruit of the labors 

of many years of the past, conducted very largely under the immediate supervision of the honorable Senatorfrom Vermont, [Mr.l\ioRRILL.] The bill is, as I understand, the accumulation of years of 

experience, and the urgency for action by Congress in this respect Gan scarcely be overstated. 

If, therefore, there is no further disposition to debate the bill, I ask · my friend from Indiana why he may not now call for a vote upon it, 

and see if we cannot pass it. 

Mr. HOAR. I desire to addre s the Senate upon the bill which 
1882 . CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1515 

.. (}Omesoverfrom yesterday as the unfinished business; but I of course wou.ld cheerfully yield to the suggestion of the Senator from Dela- ware if the Senator from Indiana desires to put the bill on its passage 

without debate. 

Mr. VOORHEES. I am situated just in this way, I will say to the 

.Senator from Delaware: I spoke to-day by the kindness and cour- tesy of the Senators from California primarily and the Senate generally. I asked that the pending order, which is the anti-Chinese bill, 

be laid aside that I might present my views upon the Library bill to 

the Senate. Consequently I am not in a position to press this question unless it can be done by their consent. 

Mr. BAYARD. It was entirely my own suggestion that I stated, 

not that of the Senator from Indiana at all. • Mr. VOORHEES. I wish to thank the Senator from Delaware very 

much. I appreciate his kindness and would be glad to avail myself 

of his suggestion. If it would not lead to debate, I should be very 

glad to have a vote on the bill; but that I can hardly hope. 

Mr. HOAR. Suppose the Chair ask for unanimous consent that a vote be now taken on the bill of the Senator from Indiana t 

Mr. MORRILL. I should be very glad to have the bill voted upon now. I have discussed it often heretofore, and I do not desire to 

discuss it now, unless it should be necessary. I think that the opinions of the Senate have been sufficiently concentrated upon the bill, 

it being the same bill, or nearly the same bill, that was passed last 

year. 

Mr. HARRIS. I simply desire to say that while I have no disposition myself to participa.te in the discussion of the Library bill, I am satisfied there are other Senators who do; and I belong to that 

dass of Senators who are by no means satisfied to vote t-o-day upon 

the views so eloquently and ably expressed by the Senator from Indiana. I shall, therefore, object to proceeding to a vote without 

further debate. . Mr. INGALLS. I am opposed unalterably to the construction of .an independent building for the purposes of a library. I also believe 

if a site is to be selected for that purpose, the one that has been designated in the bill called up and discussed by the Sena.tor from Indi- ana is the worst that could possibly ha.ve been selected. I believe 

that the proper plan for additional accommodations for the Library 

is by an enlargement of the Capitol building. 

l rose at this time for the purpose of saying that in the room of the 

Committee on the District of Columbia will be found plans, drawings, and specifications looking toward this object. When the bill -comes up for debate, after a proper presentation of the subject to 

which I have called attention, I shall move that it be recommitted 

to the committee, with a view to reyorting a bill for the purpose of 

furni bing additional accommodations by the enlargement of the" . Capitol upon theplanstowhich I have referred. With this explanation, of course it is understood that I shall object to the present con- sideration of the bill. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection being made to the further consideration of the Library bill, the Senate will resume the 

-consideration of its unfinished business. 

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE. 

A me sage from the House of Representatives, by Mr. McPHERSON, 

its Clerk, announced. that the House had passed the following bil 

and joint res0lution; in which. it requested the concurrence of the 

Senate: 

A bill (H. R. No. 2192) to esta.blish a port of delivery at Denver, 

in the State of Colorado ; and 

A joint resolution (H. R. No. 112) authorizing the appointment of 

Humphrey H. Lemon upon the Capitol police fore~. 

ENROLLED BILLS SIGNED. 

The message also announced that the Speaker of the House had 

signed the following enrolled bills ; and they were thereupon signed 

by the President P'I'O tempo·re: A bill (S. No. 1046) for the relief of the Ea£tern Shawnee Indians, 

at the Quapaw agency, Indian Territory; and 

A bill (S. No. 1211) making an appropriation for continuing the 

improvements of Galveston Harbor, State of Texas. 

CHINESE 11\IMIGRATION. 

The Senate, a£ in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the bill (S. No. 71).to enforce treaty stipulations relating to 

Chinese, the pending question being on the s.ubstitute reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations. 

Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, ahundredyearsagotheAmericanpeople 

founded a nation upon the moral law. They overthrew by force the 

authority of their sovereign, and separated themselves from the 

count~ · which. had pla~~d the~, alleging as their justification to 

mankind certam propositiOns w.hich they held to be self-evident. 

They declared-and that declaration is the one foremost action of 

human history-that all men equally derive from their Creator the right ~o ~he pursuit of happiness; that equality in the right to that 

P.ursmt IS th~ fundame~tal rul~ of _the divine justice in its application to mankind; that Its security IS the end for which governments are formed, and its destruction good cause why governments should 

lJe overthrown. For a hundred years this principle has been held in 

honor. U!lder its beneficent operation we have grown almost twentyfold. Thirteen States have become thirty-eight; three million have 

become fi!tr million; wealth and comfort and_ education and art have 

flourished m still larger proportion. Every twenty years there ia 

added to the valuation of this country a wealth enough to buy th{l 

whole German Empire, withits buildings anditsshipsanditsinvested 

property. This ha been the magnet that has drawn immigration 

hithet·. The human stream, hemmed in by banks invisible but impassable, does not turn toward Mexico, which can feed and clothe a world, or South America, which can feed and clothe a hundred worlds, 

but seeks only that belt of States where it finds this law in operation. 

The marvels of comfort and happiness it has wrought for us scarcely 

surpass what it has done for· other countries. The immigrant sends 

back the message to those he has left behind. There is scarcely a nation in Europe westof Russia which has not felt the force of our example and whose institutions are not more or less slowly approximating to our own. · Every new State as it takes its place in the great fannly binds 

this declaration as afrontlet upon its forehead. Twenty-four of the 

States, including California herself, declare it in the very opening 

sentence of their constitutions. The insertion of the phrase "the 

pursuit of ha.ppiness," in the enumeration of the natural ri~hts for 

securing which government is orda.ined, and the denial ot which 

constitutes just cause for its overthrow, was intended as an explicit 

affirmation that the 1·ight of every human being who obeys the equal 

laws to go everywhere on the surface of the earth that his welfare 

may require is beyond the rightful control of government. It is a. birthright derived immediately from him who " made of one blood 

:tll nations of men for to dwell on all the face of.the earth, and hath 

determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." He made, so our fathers held, of one blood all the nations of men. He gave them the whole face of the earth whereon to dwell. 

He reserved for himself by his agents heat and cold, and climate, and 

soil, and water, and land to determine the bounds of their habitation . It has long been the fashion in some quarters, when honor, justice, 

good faith, human rights are appealed to, and especially when the 

truths declared in the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence are invoked as ~uides in legislation to stigmatize those who 

make the appeal as sentimentalists, incapable of dealing with practical affairs. It would be easy to demonstrate the falsehood of this 

notion. The men who erected the structure of this Government were good, practical builders, and knew well the quality of the corner- stone when they laid it. When they put forth for the consideration 

of their contemporaries and of posterity the declaration which they 

thought a. decent respect for the opinions of mankind required of 

them, they weighed carefully the fundamental proposition on which 

their immortal argument rested. Lord Chatham's famous sentence 

will bear repeating again : 

When yonr lordshipis look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdomiyou cannot but respect their cause and msh to make it your own. For myself must decL.'\1'6 and avow that in all my readin"' and observation-and it has been my f.avoriteatudy, I have 

read Thucydides, and' have studied and admired the master states of the worldthat for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under 

such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand 

in preference to the general Congress assembled at Philadelphia. 

The doctrine that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right 

with which men are endowed by their Creator, asserted by as religious a people as ever lived at the most religious period of their history, 

propounded by as wise, practical, and far-sighted statesmen as ever lived aa the vindication for the most momentous public act of their 

generation, was intended to commit the American people in the most 

solemn manner to the assertion that the right to change their homes 

at their pleasure is a natural right of all men. The doctrine tha.t free 

institutions are a monopoly of the favored races, the doctrine that 

oppressed people may sever their old allegiance at will, but have no right to find a new one, that the bird may fly but may never light, is 

of quite recent origin. · California herself, owing her place in our Union to the first victory 

of fi.·eedom in the great contest with African slavery, is pledged to 

repudiate this modern heresy, not only by her baptismal vows, but 

by her share in the enactment of the statute of 1868. Her constituti{)n read thus until she took Dennis Kearney for her law giver: 

We, the people of California., grateful to Almighty God for ourfreedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish this constitution. 

DECLARATIOS OF RIGH'l'S. 

SECTION 1. All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain in- alienable rights, among whicn are those of enjoyin$ and defending life and liberty, acquiring1 possessing, and defending property, anu. pursuing and obta ining safety and happmess. 

* * * * * * * 

SEC. 17. Foreigners who are or who may hereafter become bona fide r e idents of 

this State, shall enjoy the same rights in respect to the pos ession, enjoyment, and 

inheritance of property, as native":born citizens. 

In the Revised Statutes, section 1999, Congre in the most solemn manner declare that the right of expatriation ia b eyond the lawful 

control of government : 

SEC. 1999. Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of 

all people, indispensable t o the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the 

pursuit of happmess ; and 

Whereas in the recognition of this principle this Government has freely recei V"ed 

emigrants from all nations. and invested them with the rights of citizenship. 

This is a re-enactment, in part, of the statute of 1868, of which 

Mr. Conneas, then a California Senator, of Irish birth, wa , if not the 

author, the chief a<! vocate. 
1516 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MA.RoH 1, 

The California Senator called up the bill day after day. The bill 

originally provided that the Pre~ident m?-ght order the ~est and 

detention in custody of" any subJect or CitiZen of such foreign government" as should arrest and detain any naturalized citizen of the 

United States under the claim that he still remained subject to his 

allegiance to his native sovereign. This gave rise to debate. 

But there was noco~troversyaboutthepartofthe bill which I have 

read. The preamble IS as follows: 

Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to tbe enjo~ent of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the protection of which the GOvernment of the United States was established; and whereas in the reco~tion of this principlet~s Gove~menthas .fi;eely receive<.l emigrants from all nations and vested them With the nghts of Citizenship, &c. 

Mr. Howard declares thatThe absolute right of expatriation is the great leading .American principle. 

Mr. :Morton says: 

That a man's right to withdraw from his native conntcy and make his home in 

another and thns cnt himself off from all connection with his native countryiis a part of his natural libex:tJr, and with?ut that his lib~rty i~ defective .. ~e c ~ that the riaht to liberty: 18 a natural, inherent, God·gtven nght, and his liberty IS 

imperfect .:ID!ess it carries with it the right of expatria.tion. 

The bill containing the preamble above recited passed the Senate 

by a vote of 39 to 5. 

Thi& doctrine, planted forever in the fundamental law of the 

Republic by the very act which gave it birth, imbedded. in the con- stitution of nearly every State, was solemnly reaffirmed m the most 

important act of our diplomacy since America assumed her place as the principal power of the Pacific. The treaty of 1868, known as the 

Burlingame treaty, is the first occasion when she appears in the diploma~y of the oriental world in the character which belongs to 

her. Before that time the American had been known in the East 

only as a feeble and inferior Englishman. "American No.2 Englishman," was the Chinese proverb. It was fitting that in that treaty we should affirm our traditional faith and incorporate in the first 

great act which was to give law to the nations of the Pacific this 

great unchanging truth. The flag bore the same legend, whether seen from the East or from the West. The Burlingame treaty was wholly our act. The commissioners who negotiated it were Ameri- cans on both sides. We have lately made one which seems to have 

had Chinese on both sides. The fifth articl() of the Burlingame treaty 

is as follows: 

The United States of .America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the 

inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance1 and also 

the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and 

subjects respectively from the one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, 

of trade, or as permanent residents. 

An influential English newspaper has lately, with a taunt, put 

the question what the United States have ever done for mankind, 

and has intimated tha.t we ought to interfere by diplomacy and, if 

need be., by force, to protect the menaced independence of weak 

states in the eastern hemisphere. This criticism of the policy impressed upon us by the farewell counsel of Washington is not new. We have been accustomed to answer it by the claim that our example 

of adherence to the great doctrine of human equality affirmed in our Declaration of Independence has been of more value to mankind a thousandfold than any service we could render by entangling our- selves with the diplomacy or engaging in the armed conflicts of the 

Old ·world. We have pointed to the fact that we have established our Government upon the principle of equality of human rights, that we have been governed by that principle in all our public conduct. 

Human rights-not policies, to be altered or modified by existing 

governments at their discretion according to their own conceptions 

of their interest or safety-but human rights having their origin in 

the moral law, beyond the reach of any government or any alliance, 

holy or unholy, of governments. We have been wont to affirm that 

there were some things that Government had no right whatever to 

do, and that the undertaking of them by any government was of 

itself good cause for its overthrow. We have especially claimed that th~ assertion of this doctrine in behalf of that largest proportion of 

mankind whose destiny compels them to labor for their support was our conspicuous distinction and crowning glory. 

Mr. Webster, in his oration of June 17, 1843, at the completion of 

Bunker Hill monument, after stating as one of the four distinguishing elements of the American system of government "equality of 

rights," proceeds : 

Few topics are more invit::f,~r more fit for philosophical discussion than the 

effect ou the happiness ofm · d of institutions founded on these principles, or, in other words, the influence of the New World upon the Old. 

After mentioning some of the natural productions which America 

has given to mankind in partial repayment of her debt to Europe for 

science and art, laws, literature, and manners, he proceeds: 

But America exercises influences of a much higher, because they are of a moral 

and political, chara~ter. 

America has furnished to Europe proof of the fa~t that popular institutions, 

founded on equality and capable of maintaining governments, are able to secure the 

rights of person, property, and reputation. .America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind-that 

portion which in Europe is called the laboring or lower class-to raise them to selfre5pect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and great duty of 

self.government. She holds out an example a thonsand times more encouraging than over was presented before to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank. 

Nothing is more in conflict with the ~enius of American institutions 

than legal distinctions between indiVIduals based upon race or upon 

occupation. The framers of our Constitution believed ill the safety 

and wisdom of adherence to abstract principles. They meant that 

their laws should make no distinction between men except such as were required by personal conduct and character. The prejudices of 

race, the last of human delusions to be overcome, has been found 

until lately in our constitutions and statutes, and has left its hideous 

and ineradicable stains on our history in crimes committed by every 

generation: The negro, the Irishman, and the Indian have in turn 

been its victims here, as the Jew and the Greek and the Hindoo in 

Europe aml Asia. But it is reserved for us at the present day, for 

the first time, to put into the public law of the world and into the 

nationalles-islation of the foremost of republican nations a distinction inflicting upon a large class of men a degradation by reason of 

their race and by reason of their occupation. 

The bill which passed Congress two years ago and was vetoed by 

President Hayes, thetreatyof 1881, and the bill now before the Senate, 

have the same origin and are parts of the same measure. Two years 

ago it was proposed to exclude Chinese laborers from our border-s, in 

express disregard of our solemn treaty obligations. This measure was arrested by President Hayes. The treaty of 1881 extorted from 

unwilling China her consent that we might regulate, limit, or sus- pend the coming of Chinese laborers into this country- a consent of 

which it is proposed by this bill to take advantage. This is entitled 

"A bill to enforce treaty stipulations with China." 

It seems necessary in discussing the statute briefly to review the 

history of the treaty. First let me say that the title of this bill is 

deceptive. There is no stipulation of the treaty which the bill en- forces. The bill where it is not inconsistent with the compact only 

avails itself of a privilege which that concedes. China only relaxed 

the Burlingame treaty so far aa to permit us to "regulate, limit, or suspend the coming or residence" of Chinese laborers, "but not absolutely to prohibit It." The treaty expressly declares "such limitation or suspension shall be reasonable." But here is proposed a statute 

which for twenty years, under the severest penalties, absolutely inhibits the coming of Chinese laborers to this country. The treaty 

pledges us not absolutely to prohibit it. The bill is intended absolutely to prohibit it. 

The second article of the treaty is this: 

Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as traders students, or merchantsJ or from curiosity, together with their body and honsehold servant-s, 

and Chinese laborers, who are now in the- United States, shall be allowed t() go and come of their" own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, inlmunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and 

subjects of the most fa.vored nations. 

Yet it is difficult to believe that the complex and cumbrous passport system provided in tbe last twelve sections of the bill was not 

intended as an evasion of this a~reement. Upon what other nation, 

favored or not, is such a burden lDlpo ed This is the execution of a promise that they may come and go " of their own free will." 

In the beginnin~ of the negotiations the Chine e plenipotentiaries 

informed tho e of the United States that "last year the foreign 

office consented to enter upon negotiations with Mr. Seward to prohibit the four classes of cooly laborer , criminals, prostitutes, and 

diseased persons from going thither," and that" they were now ready 

to discuss further the propo ition of lli. Seward, with the hope that an equitable solution may be reached." Our commissioners replied : 

We feel it best to inform your excelleucy that these propositions in no wise rep- resent the wish or :purpose of the United States Government, and that the appoint- ment of a new minister and our pre ence here with fall powers to negotiate ought to be to you sufficient evidence of what value you should attach to such representations. We are entirely unaware of any authority or approval given by the Gov- ernment of the United States to the proposal submitted on his own responsibility 

by Mr. Seward to the Chinese Government. 

At the conference of Wednesday, October 13, the commissioners on both sides in substance agree that the Burlingametreatypermits 

unrestricted immigration ·of Chinese to the United State , and that 

the purpose of the present treaty is to authorize the U~ted States to 

limit that immigration. Our representatives said: 

The :Burlingame treaty gives to the subjects of China the ri~ht of unrestricted 

immigration into the United States; at least the Government of the United States 

have hitherto acquiesced in that construction of the treaty. 

The Chinese commissioners replied : . The propositions gf Mr. Seward amounted to a modification of the Burlingame 

treaty ; for under that treaty all Chinese, good or baa, could at their own will go to the United States, and the government of neither country could interfere. 

Here is an emphatic affirmance on one side and a substantial con- ces ion by the other that the Burlingame treaty prohibits the United 

States from protecting itself against the entrance of these four classes. 

Yet the new treaty makes no provision for such exclusion in future 

except as to labo:rer . It is clear from this brief narrative that there is not even n, decent 

covering drawn over the tTansaction. Our commiss'oners declare 

that the United States has hitherto acquiesced in an interpTetation 

of the Burlingame treaty which deprives this Government of the 

right to protect itself against the introduction of the four enumerated 

dangerous clas e , and ~xpJicitly di'3avow the purpose of obtaining 
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1517 

that right for the future. The commissioners say in the clearest manner: 

We do not stand on an assertion of the right of self-protection against danger- ous characters. We are here to obtain an assertion of the right to distinguish 

between Chinese and other races, and the right to distinguish between laborers 

and other classes, and we will be content with nothing else. 

The treaty of 1881 not only does. not excl~d~ or reserve t?the United 

States the right to exclude prostitutes, ~rllillll~ls, and diSease~ persons, but it expressly declares that theu c~mmg shall be without 

limit or restraint, unless they are included rn the class of laborers. 

The instrument d?es threet~~s only. F?r the firs~ time, as f~r as 

I know it places m the public law of nations a demal of the nght 

declared by the treaty of 1~8 to be "the inali~nable ri.g~t of.man to 

chanrre his home and allegiance." It establishes a distinctiOn betwee~ races in respect to the right to pursue their happiness in lawful ways anywhere O?- the face of the earth, a~~n~ a difference 

derrrad.ing to the Chinese. It affirms, also, a distmctiOn between 

laborers and all other persons degrading to labor. This it has done 

at the persistent demand of the American Republic, overcoming the 

reluctance of the Asiatic despot. 

The purpose of the framers of t~ tre~ty to strike. th~ir blow !l't 

labor without re<rard to character, mtelligence, or skill, IS fully disclosed in an int~rview with Mr. Swift, one of the commissioners, 

1·eported by a San Francisco paper, and never, so far as I hav~ heard, 

disavowed. This is from the account of the interview as published at 

the time: 

Mr . .John F. Swift, one of the commissioners to negotiate the Chinese ¥'eaties, was recently interviewed by a San Francisco Chronicfe reporter. Mr. Swift says, in answer toone of the questions of the reporter: 

WHAT ABE "LABORERS1" 

• • The objection bas been raised," said the reporter, '' ihat the word 'laborer' in 

the treaty will admit of danp:erouslatitnde." "There is no such possibility," replied Mr. Swift "~nd for th!~e reasons: first, 

the construction viaced by Congress upo!l the word. will be declSlVe; ,second, ~~ Chinese commisSioners conceded the pomt by leavmg out the word mechamc, 

upon which they ha<llaidmuch stressi third, thereareonlytwo kinds oflaborers, 

skilled and unskilled and the word laoorer covers both. To call a. hod-carrier a laborer and not to call a weaver one is to use the wor<l in its narrowest sense. The 

likelihood is that Congress will stretch it to include even physicians and those who 

labor with their brains. Why, the Chinese commissioners raised the issue, and 

suggested that the term would include even consuls." 

THE TREATY WILL BE CONFIRXRD. 

"Theuyou think, Mr. Swift," sai(l the reporter, finally, "that the treaty will be 

confirmed by the Senate 7" • • I have no doubt of it," he anawered; ''and that not by any party vot.,, for I am of the opinion that both Republican and Democratic Senators will be of accord as t.o the treaty. What they will do afterward as to enacting laws to enforce it I have no idea." 

Mr. FARLEY. Will the Senator allow me to ask him from what 

paper that is an extract f 

Mr. HOAR. I am not able to answer the question at this moment. 

It was a very full interview with Mr. Swift, given evidently ver- batim, not in substance by the reporter, but the actual language, and 

copied all over the United States and never disavowed. The Senator 

himself, I think, moved an amendment to the bill to carry out Mr. 

Swift's prophecy, by proposing to ac:ld a section that the word "laborers" should be held to include all laborers, whether skilled or un- skilled. 

Mr. FARLEY. I beg the Senator's pardon. Thatamendmentwas 

offered by the honorable Senator from Oregon, [Mr. GROVER.] 

Mr. HOAR. I beg the Senator's pardon myself. I was thinking 

at the moment that the Senator from California offered it. Here is a declaration made by a compact between the two greatest nations 

of the Pacific, and now to be re-enforced by a solemn act of legisla- tion, which places in the public law of the world and in the jurisprudence of America the principle that it is fit that there should 

hereafter be a distinction in the treatment of men by governments and in the reco(J'nition of their rights to the pursuit of happiness by a peaceful cha~ge of their homes, based not on conduct, not on character, but upon race and upon occupation. You may justly deny to 

the Chinese what you may not justly deny to the Irishman. You may deny to the laborer what you may not deny to the scholar or to the 

idler. And this declaration is extorted from unwilling China by 

the demand of America. With paupers, lazzaroni, harlots, persons 

afilicted with pestilential diseases, laborers are henceforth to be 

classed in the enumerations of American public law. 

Certainly, Mr. President, this is an interesting and important transaction. It is impossible to overstate or to calculate the consequences which are likely to spring from a declaration made by the United 

States limiting human rights, especially a declaration in a treaty 

which is to become the international law governing these two great 

nations. As my friencl from California [Mr. MILLER] well said, 

it is of the earth earthy. The United States within twenty years has _taken its place as the chief power on the Pacific. Whatever 

I'ivalry or whatever superiority we may be compelled to submit to 

elsewhere, our advantage of position, unless the inferiority be in our- selves, must give tts superiority there. Are we to holdout two faces 

to the world, one to Europe and another to Asia T Or are we to admit 

that the doctrine we have proclaimed so constantly for the first cen- tury of our history is a mere empty phrase or a lie 'I 

For myself and for the State of Massachusetts, MO far a-s it is my privilege to represent her, I refuse consent to this legislation. I will 

not consent to a denial by the United States of t!le right of every man who desires to improve his condition by honest labor-his labor 

being no man's property but his own-to go anywhere on the face 

of the earth that he plea-ses. 

I have said that this bill seems to me to violate the provisions of 

the treaty it professes to execute. It does more. It confers on every 

collector of customs the authority to seize and forcibly remove from 

the country, without trial or legal process, every person of Chinese 

race whom he shall determine to be in the United States in violation 

of its provisions. The alien laws of June 25 and July 7, 1798, passed 

when war was deemed imminent, at a time of great and dangerous 

excitement, conferred upon the President of the United State for a 

period limited to two years the power to order out of the country 

aliens whose presence he might judge dangerous to its peace, and 

gave him the further authority in case of actual war to cause the 

removal of resident aliens, natives or citizens of the hostile nation. 

These acts, passed against the protest of Hamilton, went far to 

cause the downfall of an administration. The alien law was over- thrown because it intrusted the highest officer of the Government, the 

great constitutional lawyer and lover of liberty, John Adams, with 

the power for two years to order the removal of a single person whose 

presence for good cause he deemed dangerous to the public peace. 

But here a local officer of the smallest customs district may, yes, must, 

forcibly seize and expel, without trial or judicial hearing, the Chinese 

whom he finds within his precinct, however excellent his character, 

however advanta~eous his presence. We have experienced evils 

which required legislation to regulate immigrationfrom other coun- tries. But we have hitherto directed our remedy to the complaint. 

There may be much that is wron<r connected with the coming of 

these people from China, especially the importation of coolies. But 

let us in our statute use language which fitly describes the evil and 

would prevent, not language which strikes at the prerogative with 

which Government has no right to interfere. It is not importation, . but immigration ; it is not importation, but the free coming; it is 

not the slave, or the apprentice, or the prostitute, or the leper, or the 

the thief, but the laborer at whom this legislation strikes its blow. 

What has happened within thirteen years that the great Republic 

should strike its flag T What change has come over us that we should 

eat the bravest and the truest words we ever spoke f From 1858 to 

1880 there wa,c: added to the population of the country 42,000 Chinese. 

I give a table from the census of 1880 showing the Chinese population of each State : 

Stat~ment sho-1oing the Chin-ese popu-lation in each State and Territory, ac- cording to the United States cenSUBes of 1870 and of 1880. 

States and Territories. 1870. 1880. 

Alabama .. _---- __ -·------------------····-----------·-----·---·-- -------- 4 Alaska -------------------------- . -------------------------.. ---- ----- --- ---.---- Arizona. _______ .. -------·---·---- ________ .... --····-·····--·--___ 20 I, 636 

Ark:anaas.- ------ ---· ------- -·-- --------- ---·-- -·-···------ ------ 98 134 California _ ------- ____ ------ ____________ -·-- __ ---·--··-- ---- ----- 49,310 75,025 

Colorado. __ ------- ____ ··-----------_------- .• _----·····-_-------- 7 610 Connecticut _______ -·--_--- _________ ·-- _______ ---··--------------. 2 124 Dakota __ ___ . _______________ . _____________ . ___ ••••. _____ .. ------. -.------ 238 

Delaware __ ---- ____ ··--- ___ ...... ---·---···-_-·-···-·····_.--· .. _ -- ·----. 1 District of Columbia.._------------·------ __ .•..•. _--------------- 3 13 

Florida ___ ---- ___ -----------·---·-·-···------··------------------ --·----. 18 

~e:~r~ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 4, 27! 3, 3i~ Dlinois. __________ ·--··- ---- __ ------ -----·····-· ---- -· --···· -·--·- 1 210 

Indiana ____ ---- __ ---··· ..•••• ----·--------··----·--------.------. -.... --- 33 Iowa . ______ ·------------·····-----·-··--------·---------------___ 3 47 

Kansas ___ _ ·------------·····-------·-·-----·---·----------.-·--- -··-- --· 19 

~!;rl~~~-: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 7i 4~~ Maine ..... --------------·····-----·-···-·--····------------------ 1 9 

~!!h~~ti~:::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 9~ 23~ 

=Nt~~!s~ta-: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ------~- ~ 

~=~~~i_::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I: ~ Montana.----·----------- __ --·-·----··-------·-·----··-_--------- 1,949 1, 7G4 Nebraska _____________________________ ..• ___ . ___ . __ .. ____ .------- -.-----. 18 

Nevada _____ ---- __ ----------- ____ .. _------------------ ______ . . __ . 3, I52 5,426 i:: ii:f~~;: ~ ~= = = = =::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::: :_:_:::::: ::::: : ~ ~ :: ~~: I!i . New York------------- ---···-··-----··-------------------------- 29 !l24 North Carolina .. _-------·--·--.---------- .. ------------------.- -. -------- -------- Ohio ___ ---- _____ -----·-- __ .. ___ ---- ___ ---· __________ ---- ___ ------ 1 Il4 

~~!;if=:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: --~~-~~~- 9, r* 

South Carolina .. ·--- ____ --- __ .. _------------ _____ ---------------- I 9 

Tennessee ____ ------------------·--------------·--------·---- ... . . -- . . --. 26 Texas------------·····-----------------··----------------·------ 25 14I Utah. ___ ---- __ -----··-·--____ ----·---·_----·----_---------- .. ---- 445 501 

Vermont .. -----·-------------------------·--------·-------------. ---·· --- --------

~!~;~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~ :::: ~: a. 1r! 

Wyoming ______ ·------·----------·----- __ ------_-·-------- __ .---- 143 914 

~otal ___________ _______________ ________ ______ --.. ------. --. ------ 63, 254 105, 463 
1518 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARCHi,. 

-+---------------------------------------------------------.-------------------------------------------------------------

By the census of 1880 the number of Chinese in this country was 105,000-one fi.ve-h· mdredth part ofihe whole population. The Chi- nese are the most easily governed race in the world. Yet every 

Chinaman in AmeJ ica has four hundred and ninety-nine Americ.ans 

to control him. 

I desire to read a letter written me by Edward Cunningham, esq., 

of Milton, Massachusetts, a high authority, which is full of information on this as on other points connected with our Chinese policies: EAST MILTOY, 

Jo;nuary 25, 18!:11. 

MY DEAR :Mu. HoAR: Mr. Forbes thinks you would take the trouble to read the 

letter if I wrote one about Mr. Angell's treaty and even that I might communicate 

something useful. I doubt it, but will write the letter, as you probably have an 

open fire-place and sit near it. . I cannot myself see why the United States had need to ask anything of China, ~upposing restrictions on immigration were necessary; but as that seems to be 

taken for gra.nted.1 it is only open to object to the way in which it was asked. 

.Any one 3.e9nainted with the course of the long-continued negotiations with 

China. by foreign ministers and envoys, now covering nearly forty yearsl would 

say, I am sure, that what we wanted could have been got from China. as a ta.vor to her, without any talk of concessions on our part. Take, for instance, one lever, which the commissioners would have hea.rd of at once if they had talked with any resident or well-informed person on Chinese af- fairs-the government dread of secret societies. China is tilled with secret societies 

and they are always bein~ pursued by the government and are always a source of 

anxiety. If our commis 1oners had approached their business in a diplomatic way, feeling their way, all the e matters would have come to the surface. If they had said that the habit of the Chinese in banding together for purposes of immigration, and especially the existence of secret societies among them, made it necessary for 

their own protection against violent men in the U nitcd States that we should have e P.ecial regulations, they would have accorded the ri?ht without an objection, Without asking whether the regulations were to cause ' restrictions," or prohibition even. But, granting that they knew too much for thi , did commissioners e'er gi>e themsel,es so entirely away for a comparatively empty equivalent J The Chinese 

Government were a ked for something about which they notoriously did not care two cents. They have never encoura.~ed or liked emigration, and they do not now. They bate it when it is to countries from which the emi){rants rotirrn with 

(to them) revolutionary ideas. For this unsubstantial ijling the commis ioners 

in their generous zeal lor China hasten to give away our privilege in the favol'C(lnation clause, and leave Americans out in the cold m every branch of local trade. 

For that is the meaninu of the opium clause. Opium, from itB high value and the 

very slender margin of profit on which it is conducted, is almost more a medium 

of exchange than an article of commerce to the nations outside of England ltlld 

China. If used at all as a branch of trade it is n ed as a remittance from one port to another; and were new·and small ports opened, too small for the establishment 

of branch banks, the prohibition to buy and sell opium would, I have no doubt, 

prevent .Americans from participating in the trade of such places. The effect of 

such disability is certainly trifiin~ as China's trade is now conduct~d, but the 

point remains the same that our own negotiators have willfully and with open eyes 

placed us at disadvantage. In the matter of the carrying trade the inJury is po itive and sensible, since 

American vessels can no longer compete with English, German, or Chine e in a car- rying trade which was opened to us after being opened to the English, and has 

been bragged of by American diplomates as a ~eat achievement and concession, 

though due solely to the English. Apparently 1t is now thought too good for us, and is taken away. The article about the law of the defendant, if it have any effect, will be one injurious to Americans. The treaties-were intended to be so interpreted, but also 

intentionally were made slightly obscur~y rather, the point was slurred over, for they are not obscure, because while the negotiators could not demand that a Chinese defenclant on his own ground should be subjected to English law they saw that an English creditor would never get anything from a Chinese debtor in a Chinese court. So t.hey slurred it over, trusting to after arrangement.~a wise trust. What 

they soon did and established by convention was to institute a mixed court, where an English consul and a Chinese judge sat together. As was foreseen, the Chinese, 

having no legal laws and fonns of inviolable rule, and the English having them, 

1he.se mixed courts became in point of fact foreign courts where justice and not injustic.e was administered, and wh~re bribery was reduced to the lowest point possible where Chinese officials are present. 

I suppose that is now upset by this formal enactment. Taking the whole thing, it looks as if pomposity was at the bottom of the miserable failure. 

Political considerations demanded that something should be done about Chinese 

immigration, and Mr. Evarts wanted to make a. treaty, and Mr. Angell, Mr. Trescot, Mr. Swift wanted to show how raw American stuff would work into first-class 

negotiators. So every thing is as pompons as possible. Pomp without tbe cir- cumstance. 

.As for opi~1 when one knows that China raises double the opium she imports, 

unchecked by tne authorities i that India produces two and a half times as much as she sends to China, the res1dne being consumed in India, the straits, and adja- cent countries, (quite as much, if not more, per capita, than in China,) that no one has the ghost of a. grain for all those consumers, simP.lY because there is no chance 

there for a slap at thellritisher, he be~ins to set at 1ts proper value the sympathy thrown away on China for her sad trirus under the tyranny of the English poppy 

grower. 

But the whole thing is to me so mean and disgustin~, that I half wish that all our relations with Ch1na, trade and all, should go to rum. That Chinamen should never come here would be no matter. But that they should not come because our Republic of workingmen is af:Faid of their industry, frugality, and thrift, is too shameful for consideration. 

It is that, of course, for there is no difficulty in controlling and governing them. 

In the foreign settlement at Shanghai we had (and they now lia.ve) a Chine e population of about seventy t.h.onsand livin~ under one municipal government administered by a council comx>osed of resiaentB and backed up by the consular 

body, the police force being, if I recollect rightly, under one hundred men. They a.re kept in :perfect order and the structure of houses and the drainage are made 

part of murucipal affairs. In Hona-Kong a similar population, only much more tur~ulent owing to the presence of a considerable prratical populatwn, is equally easily governed: . Yours, very truly, 

EDWARD O'ill\-:NINGH.A.M. 

P. S.-I wrote a. letter published in the Nation of January 20, which perhaps gives other points, and is at all events more concise than this. 

The immigration also was constantly decreasing for the last half 

of the decade. The Bureau of Statistics gives then umbers as follows, 

(far the first eight years the figures are those of the entire Asiatic 

immigration.) 

The number of immigrants from Asia, as reported by the United 

States Bureau of Statistics is as follows, namely: 

For the year ended J nne 30-

lm:: ::::: · :::::::::::::: :·: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ~: ~~: 1873.-... -.... -.. -.... -...... -- .. --. ·--- .. --····- -·--- ··--·--· .• -.. --. ------ 20, 33(), 

1874 ............... --· ·-----· ---· --------- -----·-----··-······ ________ .,_ --- 13,857 

1875.--·---. ---- ·- ------ ·----- --·----- ... ---····-- ...... -------------------. 16,498 

1876.--·- --.-----.--- ---- --·- --.---.- .. -. ·-----.- -· ----- ....... --- ·--- .. ----- 22, 943 

1877.---·-- ·--- .. : . ... -- -· ------ ·-- .. -.-- .. -----------.----- ·----- ------ .. -. 10, 64~ 

1878.--.. -.. --- .. ----.-.---- -·-------.------ ----·-- ----- ----·-- ----- -·- ·----. 9, 014 

Total ..... -- ............................................... _ .. --·--- 108, 339' 

And from China. for the year ended J nne 30-

1879 .••. -- ·------ -- .. -- .. --.---------------- ·-.... --------- ........ - 9, 604 

1880 .... -- .. --.-. -·- -----.-------. ·- ----.--------- .. ------ ---· -----. 5, 802 

Total .. -- .. -----.-- .. --------- •. ------ ..•. ------------ ....... __ •• __ . 15,4()6. 

Grand total.------.--·.-·----- ...... ·---...... ·--- .. --- ... ·--- __ .. _. 123,745-

Very respectfully, 

C. S. MIXTER, Ohiej of Dit>iaion. 

See also, Mr. President, how this cla s of immigrants, diminishing in itself, diminishe still more in its proportion to the rapidly 

increasing numbers who come from other lands. Against 22 943 

Asiatic immigrants in 1876, there are but 5,802 in 1880. In 1878 there were 9,014 from Asia, in a total of 153,207, or one in seventeen of theentire immi~ration; and this include all persons who entered theport of San J<'ranci co to got~ any South American country. In 1 79" 

there were 9,604 from China m a total of 250,565, o1· one in twentysh. In 1880 there were 5,802 from Cbina in a total immigration of 

593,359, or one in one hundred and two. The whole Chine e population, then, when the census of1880 was taken, was but one in five 

hundred of our people. The whole Chine e immigration was but one in one hundred and two of the total immigration i while the total 

annual immigration quadrupled from 1878 to lASO, the Chine e was. in 1880 little more than one-half what it wa in 1!:l78, and one-fourth 

what it was in 1876. 

The number of immigrants of all nations was 7'20,045 in 1881. Of 

these 20,711 were Chinese. There is no record in the Bureau of Statistics of the number who departed within the year. But a very high 

anti-Chine e authority :places it above 10,000. Perhaps the expectation that the hostile legislation under the treaty would not affect 

per ons who entered before it took effect stimulated somewhat their 

coming. But the addition to the C~ e :population was less than one- eventy-second of the whole immigra.ti{)n. All the Chinese in thecountry do not exceed the population of its sixteenth city. All the 

Chinese in California hardly surpass the number which is ea ily 

governed in Shanghai by a :police of one hundred men. There are as many pure blooded Gypsies wandering about the country as there are Chinese in California. What an insult to American intelligence to 

ask leave of China to keep out her people, because this little handful 

of almond-eyed Asiatics threaten to deatroy our boa ted civilization. 

We go boasting of our democracy and our superiority, and our strength. The tl.ag bears the stars of hope to all nations. A hundred 

thousand Chine e IandinCaliforniaandeverything is changed. God 

ha not made of one blood all the nations any longer. The self-evident 

truth becomes a self-evident lie. The golden rule does not apply to 

the natives of the continent where it was first uttered. The United 

States surrender to China, the Republic to the despot, America to 

Asia, J esua to J os . · The advocates of this legislation appeal to a twofoM. motive for 

its support. 

First. They invoke the old race prejudice w hioh has so often played 

its hateful and bloody part in history. 

Second. They say that the Chinese laborer works cheap and lives 

cheap, and so injures the American laborer with whom he competes. 

The old race prejudice, ever fruitful of crime and of folly, has. 

not been confined to monarchies or to the dark ages. Our own Republic and our own generation have yielded to this delusion, and 

ha':e paid the terrible .penalty. I do not ~ean to go over the ground 

which Mr. Sumner, With his accustomed mdu try and learmng, so thoroughly traversed in his lecture upon ca te. But I wish to plant myself upon the greatest authority in modern science, himself perhaps the most perfect example of the greatness of the capacity of 

the human .intellect under the most favorable conditions. Listen to 

Alexander von Humboldt, as quoted by Mr. Sumner: 

Whiie we maintain the nnity of the human species, we at the same time repel 

the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There arena- tions more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation, than others, but none in themselves nobler than others.-.A.lexander von Hu:ml>oldt, quoted. in Swmmer's Works, volume 13, page 157. 

What argument can be urged against the Chinese which was not 

heard against the negro within living memory Y The visionary of 

the East, as he was called, was taunted with meddling with social 

arrangements of which he had no experience, and standing at a. distance to watch ev.ils from which he was safe. The negroes were savages, heathens, wild beasts. The master and the owner could 

judge much better how to deal with them than these sickly philanthropists. I do not need to go to the holders of slaves for examples ofthls 

prejudice. The Attorney-General of Jtlassachusetts, in Faneuil Hall, 

compared the negroes to caged wild beasts. He charged Dr. Chan- nin~ and his associates with the purpo e of letting them loose to cut 

therr masters' throats, when they demanded free speech for the aboli-
' 1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1519-

tionist. The great political parties vied with each other in pandering to this prejudice. How completely has the experience of a singlegenerationvmdicated the justice of the Creator and the truth 

of the immortal declaration. An eminent citizen of my own State 

has recently published an account of an interview with the grand- sons of John C. Calhoun: 

In the course of a conversation upon the events preceding the war, with two grandsons of John C. Calhoun, the writer was somewhat etartled by a remark substantially to this effect: 

''If my grandfather and his associates had known as much about the negro as I 

know, and could have had the same faith in his capacity for progress whicli I have 

attained from my own experience, there would have been neither slavery nor war." " Do you mean to tell me, " I asked, " that your grandfather feared liberty for the 

black, however com pas sed 1" ''Of course I mean that," said he; "what other justi- fication could there-have been i He and his associates believen that the two races could not exist together upon the same soil except in the relation of ma-sters and 

slaves."-EdwaTd Atkinson, in Scribner's, for February, 1882. 

Who now so bold as to deny to the colored race fitness for citizenship. Twenty years have not passed by since the children of tho 

African savage were emancipated from slavery. In that brief space 

they have vindicated their title to the highest privileges and their 

fitness for the highest duties of citizenship. These despised savages 

have sat in the House and in the Senate. I have served with them 

for twelve years in both branches. Can yon find an equal number, 

chosen on anyprinciple of selection, whose conducthas beenmarked 

by more uniform good sense and propriety f I have seen most ac- complished debaters unhorsed with as much de~erity as courtesy 

by one of this despised race. Coming to his place in the community, 

he has shown no memory of his centuries of wron~. Revenge and 

hate, those fires of hell, can find no fuel in the negro s breast. When 

Massachusetts desired to provide for a fitting eulogy to her great 

Senator she summoned to her service two of the most famous orators 

in the country. It is no injustice to those accomplished gentlemen 

to declare that their masterpieces did not surpass the address delivered in Faueuil Hall on the same theme by Robert B. Elliott, of 

South Carolina, a full-blooded African. One of this people has but 

lately left the Senate. We have all of us seen him here. I have seen him sitting in the chair where you now preside. In courtesy, :~podestv, dignity, wisdom, tact, in what other needed quality did he 

fall below the character of an American Senator t 

There have been few scenes to me more impressive than when, in a single sentence, he uttered the protest of his own people again~t 

this legislation. Mr. Bruce said: 

::M:r. President, I desire to submit a. single remark. Representing as I do a peoJ?le, who but a. few years ago were considered essentially disquali:fied from enjoymg the privileges and immunities of American citironship, and who have since been so successfully introduced into tb e body-politic, and having large con:fidence in 

the strength and assimilative power of our institutions, I shall vote against the 

pending bill. 

It is scarcely forty years since the Irishman, who has been such a source of wealth and strength to America, began his exodus aero s 

the sea. There are men in this body, whose hea~s ll!e not yet ~ay, 

who can remember how the arguments now used agamst the Chinese 

filled the American mind with alarm when used against the Irish- man. He comes, said the honest bigotry of that day, only to get the means of living, and then to return; he will drive the American to 

starvation by the competition of his cheap labor; he lives in squalor 

and filth; he wants only a few potatoes for food; he is blindly 

attached to the Popish reli~on; he owes allegiance to a foreign potentate; he is incapable of rntelligent citizenship. 

Let me read a passage from Carlyle's Chartism, first published in 

1839: 

Crowds of miserable Irish darken all our towns. The wild Milesian features, looking false ingenuity, restle sness, unreason, misery, and mockery salute you on all Jiighwa.ys and byways. The English coachman, as he whirls past, lashes 

the .Milesian with his whip, curses him with his tongue. 

I do not know whether that' happens in CaliforniaThe Milesian is holding out his hat to beg. He is the serest evil this country has to strive with. In his rags and laughing savagery, he is there to undertake a.fi 

work that can be done by mere strength of hand and back, for wages that will Jlurcbase him potatoes. He needs only salt for condiment; he lodges to his mind in 

any pig·hutcll or dog· hutch, roosts in outhouses; and wears a. auit of tatters the 

getting off and on of which is said to be a difficult operation, transacted onl_yon festiY3J.s and t,be high tides of the calendar. The time has come when the Irish 

population must either be improved a. little or else exterminate<t 

De Quincy points outThe hideous extent to which Irish intruders upon Scotland had taken the bread out of her own children's mouths. 

Even the humane and liberal John Stuart Mill says: 

If there were no other escape from that &tal immigration of the Irish-which has 

done and is doing so much to degrade the condition of our agricultural and some classes of our town population-! should see no injustice and the greatest posa1"ble expe'lliency in checking that destructive inroad by prohibitive laws. 

In the early edition of his Political Economy, Mr. Bowen, the 

learned and able professor at Harvard, expresses the same fear for 

America. He says the annual addition to our population of 400,000 

foreigners, ofwhom one-fourth are Irish, is likely to effect a general 

and g:r:eat depreciation in the price of labor. 

Throw down the little that is left of our protective systemHe proceedsand let the emigration from Great Britain and Ireland to our shores increase to half a. million annually, and within the lifetime of the present generation the laborer's 

hire in our Atlantic States will be as low as it l.S in England. This we should 

regard as the greatest calamity which the folly of men or the wrath of Heaven 

'!.Ould bring upon the land. 

.These are but temperate expressions of opinions which drove less. intelligent persons to frenzy and. crime. The streets of Baltimore· a.nd of New Orleans rap. withlri h blood. A great party was founded, 

and swept some States, on a platform of opposition to foreigners. 

I suppose no person now wouldliketorepea.t the arguments which_ were addressed to the Know-nothing party in 1855. The Irishman 

has contributed by his labor to cover our land withrailroads, which 

in their turn create cities, giv~ value to land, and open new opportunities for labor. His sons and daughters are found in large num- bers in our factories. He is acq~ gland. He is a large depositor in our savings banks. He rendered indispensable service in war. More· and more every year he ceases to be the dupe of demagogues, and is. learningthehigherduties of citizenship. Meantime, the wage ofthe 

American workman is higher and not lower for his presence. While 

he has bettered his own condition he has raised to a higher grade or social life and wealth the American laborer whose place he has taken. 

We have another race problem still unsettled in this country. The 

history of Indian wars, of broken treaties, of a thousand million of' 

dollars lavished in ninety years on a people of a fourth of a million 

in number illustrates the folly of dealing with savages by the methods. of savages. Let me cite asingle witness to the result ofthemethod 

prescrib¢ by the author of Christianity. 

Hear the last thanksgiving proclamation of D. W. Bushyhead, the· pr~sent principal chief of the Cherokee Nation: 

Last year the census of the J?Opulation and possessions of the Cherokee Nation., was :first taken within their history. We have now counted our treasures and 

know for what and for how much we should feel grateful as a. family of people' 

having and occupying one home in common. From this authentic source we :find. our people blessed with one hundred and two primary schools for a rapidly-increas-. ing population of 20,300 citizens; two high schools1.male and female; an orphan asylum, an asylum for the unfortunate-insane, blind, and helpless ; forty-five· churches and as many native ministers of the gospel; one hundred and fifty native· teachers by profession; a. written constitution and code of laws ; a government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches, well understood and. administered; a people peaceful and progressive, and in all material rewrrds more than self.supporting; and baYing but five fishermen and :fifteen hunters by occu- pation left among them as the last vestige of a savage state from which we have· been rescued witliin the memory of men yet living by the goodness of an overrul. 

ing Providence. 

" Such is the situation of the Cherokee Nation to-day, in a fair and ample coun- try seemed to them by treaty and by patent, and of whl.ch the honor and honesty of their great earthly protector, the United States Government, is pledged to gua.ril.. their possession. 

"Such are the blessings for which our thanks are continually due, among which 

blessings the first and best of allis saving knowledge whence they come and a sense- of obligation wbich restrains pride. 

"Therefore I, D. W. Bushyhead, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, do. 

hereby, in pursuance of an ancient Christian custom and the recommendation of 

the President of the Uitited States, appoint Thursday, November 24, .A.. D. 1881, as a. 

day of public thanksgiving throughout this nation, and call upon the Cherokee peo- ple to devote the time designated to the givin~ of expressions and evidences of their 

thankfulness to the Supreme Being for hls kindness and love, in such ways and by such observances as shall become a Christian, orderly, and conscientious people. 

Let us thank Him for all His dispensations as gifts of his goodness for our good, never forgetting that blessings are such indeed only when used in the cause of the 

Great Giver, which is the-happiness of all alike ; and that the results of our shortcomings are but benevolent cautions against evil-no less blessings, if we so regard them, than the happy consequences of virtuous life." 

There is another most remarkable example of this preju<J.jce of race which has happily almost died out here, which has come down from 

the dark ages and which survives with unabated ferocity in Eastern 

Europe. I mean the hatred oftheJew. ThepersecutionoftheHebrew has never, so far as I know, taken the form of an affront to labor. 

In every other particular the reproaches which for ten centuries have-. been leveled at him are reproduced to do service a~inst the Chinese~ 

The Hebrew, so it was said, was not a Christian. .tie did not affiliate. or assimilate into the nations where he dwelt. He was au unclean 

thing, a dog, to whom the crime of the crucifixion of his Saviour· was never to be forgiven. The Chinese quarter of San Francisco. 

had its type in every city of Europe. If the Jew ventru·ed from his. 

hidin~ place he was stoned. His wealth made him the prey of the 

rapamty of the noble, and his poverty and weakness the victim of 

the rabble. Yet how has this oriental conquered Christendom by 

the sublimity of his patience f The great poet of New England, who 

sits by every American fireside a beloved a.nd perpetual guest, in 

that masterpiece of his art, the Jewish Cemetery a.t Newport, has 

described the degradation and the triumph of these· persecuted children of God: 

How came they here 9 What burst of Christian hate, 

What persecution, merciless and blind, 

Drove o'er the sea-that desert desolateThese Ishmaels and Ha.gars of mankind t They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure, 

Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire; 

Taught in the school of patience to endure 

The life of anguish and the death of :fire. 

Anathema marana.tha! was the cry That rang from town to town, from street to street; 

At every gate the accursed Mordecai 

Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet. 

Pride and humiliation hand in hand 

Walked with them through the world where'er they went; 

Trampled and beaten were they aa the sand, 

And yet unshaken as the continent. 

Forty years agosays Lord Beaconsfield, that great Jew who held England in the hol ... low of his h~nd, and who played on her aristocracy as on an organ, ~ 
' 

1520 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARCH 1, 

who made himself the master of an alien nation, its rnler, its oracle, 

.and through it, and despite of it, for a time the master of EuropeForty years a~o-not a longer period than the children of Israel were wandering 

in the descrt-tne two most dishonored races in Europe were the Attic and the 

Hebrew. The world has probably by this discovered that it is impossible to de· 

.stroy the Jews. The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the mest favorable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man -oould command have been pertinaciously applied to this objootforthelongest period 

of recorded time. Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Roman emperors Scandinavian crusaders, Gothic princes, and holy inquisitors have alike devo'&;d their 

energies to the fulfillment of this common purpose. Expatriation, exile, captivity, confiScation, torture on the most ingenious and ma.ssacre on the most extensive 

scale, a curious system of degrading customs and de basin~ laws which would have 

broken the heart of any other people, have been tried, ana. in vain. 

Lord Beaconsfield admits that the Jews contribute more than their 

proportion to the aggregate of the vile; that the lowest class of Jews are obdurate, malignant, odious, and revolting. And yet this race of dogs, as it has been often termed in scorn, furnishes Europe today its masters in finance and oratory and statesmanship and art and 

music. Rachel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Disraeli, Rothschild, Benjamin, Heine, are but samples of the intellectual power of a race which 

to-day controls the finance and the press of Europe. 

I do not controvert the evidence which is relied upon to show that 

there are great abuses, great dangers, great offenses, which have 

grown out of the coming of this people. Much of the evil I believe 

might be cured by State and municipal authority. Congress may 

rightfully be called upon to go to the limit of the just exercise of the 

powers of government in rendering its aid. 

We should have capable and vigilant consular officers in the Asiatic 

ports from which these immigrants come, without whose certificate 

they shauld not be received on board ship, and who should see to it 

that no person except those of good character and no person whose 

labor is not his own property be allowed to come over. Especially -should the trade in human labor under all disguises be suppressed. 

Filthy habits of living must surely be within the control of municipal regulation. Every State may by legislation or by municipal 

ordinance in its towns and cities prescribe the dimension of dwellings and limit the number who may occupy the same tenement. 

An argument is based on the character of the Chinese. You should 

take a race at its best, and not at its worst, in looking for its possibilities under the influence of freedom. The Chinese are in many 

particulars far superior to our own ancestors as they were when they 

fil'l:Jt came forth into the light of history. Our British forefathers, 

at a time far within the historic period, remained in a degradation 

of superstition and a degradation of barbarism to which China never descended. Centuries after the Chinese philosopher had uttered the golden rule, and had said, " I like life and I like righteous- ness ; if I cannot keep the two together I will let life go ; and 

choose righteousness," the Druids of Britain were offering human 

sacrifices to pagan deities. We must take a race at its best in determining its capacity for freedom. This race can furnish able mer- -chants, skillful diplomatists, profound philosophers,faithful servants, 

industrious and docile laborers. An eminent member of the other 

Honse told me that he had dealt with Chinese merchants to the 

.amount of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, and that they 

had never deceived him. 

Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Pacific coast, writes a letter giving 

the result of his observation as a magistrate for four years, every 

word of which is worth reading: 

To the Editor of The Pribu?U : 

SIR: Fearful that the President of the United States may be induced to sign the 

Chinese anti·emigration bill, I beg to submit t-o his consideration the following brief 

8t-'\tements: In tlie first place it is claimed that this is a bill which the Pa.ei:ftc people 

have deeply at heart. I venture to assert that not half of the solid wealth and 

worth of the far West, outside of the politicians, favor this bill. I have many letters 

Jlrotesting a.Fst it as a coarse and cruel measure. My paren~-s .. all my people, 

my heart ana. my home are there. I know the hardy, honest-heanoo settlers there, 

and I know that they protest against this measure which politicians are trying to compel through Congress in their name. And why is this being done f .A.s early S\S 1854 this cry against the Chinese beaan to be heard along the wliarves and about 

the hotels of San Francisco. It came &om Irish laborers and porters, but the cry was equally loud against the ne!!To and the Mexican. In a few years it became more loud, and centered on the ~hinaman, for the Mexican had melted away before us and the negro had gravitated back home. But the cry now came also 

from the Irish "help," who, by extortionate wages, had brought the Chinamen in 

competition. These chambermaids, &c., had brothers, lovers. These brothers 

and lovers were voters-makers of Congressmen. The Chinamen did not vote, 

and so had no champion. This is the key to the whole question. This outcry 

against the Chinamen has from that day been a polititical shibboleth. No man yet, so far as I have known, has gone to Congress and had the manhood to rise in 

his place and bravely tell the truth and speak a fearless word for this silent and 

friendless stranger. About 1856 the Chinaman began to take hold of the placer mines alongside of 

the miners of the SieiTas. Up to that time he had confined himself, as'!. rule, to the pan and rocker and kept in the wake of the white miner; but now he took to the long tom, alvice, and :flume, and bought and worked mines on a large scale. He never ventured to " take up " a claim, but timidly held his ~ound by bill of sale 

from some speculator, who had sold it t-o him at a fabulous pnce. The honest men of the Sierras welcomed them, and aide by side they worked together for many 

years ; and I am certain that every miner of those days who has no selfish ends to serve will gladly testify to the honesty, industry, and neighborly good-nature of 

~:'~ b~ ~~e ~~t;X:~o!iu~; ~~:~J;eoaf~~;; c~e~;r!:~iy~:~d ~~~:it ~word of complaint paid what wa-s demanded of them. At Calion City, Grant 

County, Oregon, this monthly tax was $5 a head for every Chinaman. The;r, had to constantly endure wrongs from every drunken ruffian or reckless "hoodlum 'who saw fit to impose upon them; yet they were the most peaceful people we had amonJZ us. I sat. on the bench as judge of this county for four years, and I will stat-e on the honor of a magistrate that the calendar, bath criminal and civil, showed th~ 

names of at least ten white men to one Chinaman, although the Chinese popula· tion, during the most of this time, outnumbered the whites. Let me here say that 

I never, during all my years of intercourse with this people as miner or magis· 

trate, saw a single drunken Chinaman. I never saw a. Chinese oeg~M; I never saw a lazy Chinaman. They ure perhaps the most industrious people m the world. 

It is a part of the Chinaman's religion that in the sweat of his face he shall eat his 

bread . Can the United States afford to fear these patient and simple people 1 They will not harm us. They are not strikers, rioters, and burners of cities. But there is something more in this than the selfish question ef our own security. The China- man who returns home carries omething more than our gold to his "land; he takes 

with him and disseminates there all the art, civilization, freedom, o-r truth which 

he found here. The e are the real missionaries to China. This bill must not become a law. This bold attempt to make it so ought to condemn to everlasting 

infamy every one of the great names that advocated it. The little men who stand as ciphers to dignify and add to these great figures in Congre.ss are not, perhaps, eo much to blame. But it is pitiful to see these great minfis prostituted to such 

selfish aims. They pay a poor compliment to the intelligence of the people of the 

Paci:ftc coast if they think they are not perfectly understood. No; the Creator of us all opened tho Golden Gate to the whole wide world. Let no man attempt to shut it m the face of his fellow·man. 

NRW YORK, February 23, 1870. JOAQUIN :MILLER. 

One of the ablest of the writers against the Chinese, Mr. James A. 

Whitney, sums up his opinion thus: 

The Chinese intellect, the Chinese character, is strong, vigorous, patient., and 

far-sighted. .A.s diplomates, the statesmen of China have held their own with those 

of every nation in the world. 

Indeed, a large part of the argument of the Senator from California 

is based, not on Chinese inferiority, but on his dread of Chinese 

superiority in most of the occupations of life. Their civilization, 

he says, will be too strong for ours, if the two come in confiict in a fair field. 

Let me read from the statement of Mr. Pixley, counsel for the 

municipality of San Francisco, before the Congressional cemmittoe 

in 1876: 

What kind of l.'lobor do they perform 1-

This was one of the questions put by the committee to this gentle- man representing the anti-Chinese side. I think 1\Ir. Pixley now is, or hn,s been~ attorney-general of the State of CaliforniaI will only say that they perform all kinds of li~t labor, and that particnlArly which reqmres no capital; and they are expert m that which requires dextrous 

manipulation of the fuigers-as the assorting of wool, working in silks, the rolling of cigars, and such matters as that. They are imitative ann quick to learn, ana they nave monopolized many of the branches of our industry. Laundry·work, 

cigar·making, slippers, sewin~-machine labor, they have very nearly monopolized. They are largely employed as domestic servants and as office-boys. 

These filthy people! 

In assorting and repacking teas, in Ailk and woolen manufactories, in fruit. pickin~, in gaidoning, m harVesting, in bnilding levees for the restoration of tule 

lands, m railroad building, in placer mining, in basket peddling of vegetables and 

fruits, in fishln~ and peddlin~ fish, are amon~ the meat noted of their industries, ~~{!1~~~se mdustries tha I have named t ey have nearly driven out the en tiro 

* 

What is their character as laborers! Many of them are most excellent and 

good laborers. It would be unwise for us to assume what is not recognized as a truth in relation to this fact. Many of the Chinese are very good laborers indeed. 

They do not, l\8 a rule, work as rapidly, nor do they perform their work as well as white laborers-and this is especiaily true of those pursuits requiring skill . They are imitative, industrious, and patient. 

* * * * * * * * 

They are good farm laborers; they are good railroad bnilders ; they are good levee constructors, and many of them are excellent domestic servants. They illl 

the menial positions of the country well, and I remember once, in the earlier times, to have heard Senator Casserly in a speech say-it was when John Parrott was building, or shortly after he had bnilt, his grand block at the corner of Californi& 

and Sixth streets, out of blocks chiseled in China, marlred, numbered, and sent here, and put up as the bnilding now stands-that the danger of Chinese immigration was because they were good laborers. I thought it was a heresy at t!le time, · but I have become convinced that Mr. Casserly was wiser than L and that one of 

the dangers to our laboring population is because the Chinese do labor so well. 

* * * * * * * 

In response to question 9-'' What rate of wages do they receive~ "-the China- man begms to work for what wages he can get. .A. domestic servant will go into 

your family upon his immediate arrival in San !rancisco for $3 a week. 

I can remember when the best Yankee girl that ever lived was glad 

to get one dollar a. week for her wages. 

If the mistress of the house will teach him English, or if the benevolent maiden 

lady of his neighborhood will invite him to her crass in Sunday·sohool until he can speak a little English, he will increase his wages ; and as he learns to cook and 

learns to talk, he l.earns to demand a higher and better compensation for his labor, 

until he finally reaches the highest pomt that his labor will demand, from $3 at first to $8 a week. 

Mr. FARLEY. Will the Senator from Massachusetts allow me to 

ask what he reads from! 

Mr. HOAR. I read from the report of the Congressional committee of which Senator Morton was chairman, from the argument of 

Hr. Pixley, attorney-general of California, in stating the case which, 

having the charge of putting in the entire evidence against the 

Chinese, he proposed to establish. 

Mr. FARLEY. Will the honorable Senator do me the favor to read 

from the same report what Mr. Pixley says further in his testimony before that committee f 

Mr. HOAR. No, sir; I think I should prefer to go on in my own way. 

1\Ir. FARLEY. It is a. very short paragraph. 

Mr. HOAR. I am putting in an admission of the person charged 

with the presentation of the case which has led to this legislation. 

I do not think it is quite fair to ask me to read something else. 
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 1521 

Mr. FARLEY. I Will take occasion, then, to show what Mr. Pixley 

did say. 

Mr. HOAR. Verywell, but the Senator will not question the entire 

accuracyofwhat is said here. I admitthat heisstill blind, notwithstanding this admission. Now I wish to read a sentence or two from 

the report of Senator Morton, the last dying legacy of this great Senat-or and lover of human liberty, published since his death and left 

by him unfinished as his last public work. He says: 

If the Chinese in California were white people, being in all other respect-R what 

they are I do not believe that the complaints and warfare made against them 

would h;.,ve existed to any considerable extent. Their difference in color, dress, manners and religion has, in my judgment, more to do with this ho tility than their all~ged vices or any aetna) injury to the white people of California.. 

• * * * * * * 

As a rule, they are industrious, temperate, and honest in their dealings. Some 

thousands of them are employed as household servants in the cities and in the country. In this capacity the testimony generally concurs in giving them a high 

character. They very readily learn to perform all kinds of housel:iold duty, are devoted to their employment, and soon become exceedingly skillful. The testi· 

mony proved that they went to all parts of the State to serve in that capacity, 

when other servants or help of that kind could not be obtained from the cities, and that if they were bamshed it would be very hard, in fact, as m:~.ny of the 

witnesses said, impossible to supply their places. As laborers upon the farms and 

in the gardens and vineyards nearly all of the witnesses speak of them in the 

highe~t terms. • • • 

In the construction of railroads and other public works of California the Chinese have been of the greatest service and have performed thelargestp'\rtofthelabor. 

* * * * * * * 

That they have injuriously interfered with the white people of California or have done them a senous injury may well be doubted. 

That I will speak of a little later. I have here extracts from the 

committee's report, which I find in a petition before me; I will read a few, but they are all in the Congressional report: and are from men of high character: 

Charles Crocker, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, testified, "that • witbont Chinese labor we would ue thrown back in all the branches of industry, 

farming, minin~, reclaiming lands, and everything else." (Report, page 67.) 

George D. Rooerts, main offioer of the Tide-land Reclamation Company : "I do not thiilk we coul<l get the white men to do the work of reclaiming these 1.<\nds. It 

is a class of work t.hat white men do not like. In my opinion the aggregate pro- duct of the wealth produced by Chinamen in the State is equal to our mines, in· 

eluding the mines of Nevada and Dakot.a; probably they produce sixty, eighty, or ninety millions a. year in wea.lth. (Report, pages 437-38.) 

Ali'red Wheeler, attorney at law, resident of California for twenty-seven years, Raid: " I think that the immigration of Chlnese has been vastly beneficial to the 

growth ofCalifornia, and think it vastly oonefici'lltoevery white man, woman, and child in the State. Take the making of boots andsho ; beforewehaclmuch labor 

here, or any manufactures of them, or any other manufactures in the State, we im· 

ported mostly from Massachnsetts. The money went out of the Stato to contribute to the manufacturers of Massachusetts, and every man paid a. hundred per cent. more for boots that he wore in this State :md the blankets he used than he pays to-day. (Report, page 515.) 

W. W. Hollister, resident of California since 1852, a large landllolder and em- ployer of Chinese: "The Chinaman is good in everything, r do not care where you 

put him, and owin_s to the demora.li.zed condition of .American labor he is the best man in California tor work." (Re:vort. page 770.) 

John H. Hill, re ident of California since 1850, a farmer, and employer of Chine e: "I find them (the Chinese) from experienoe, t.o be temperate, industrious, honest, 

and good laborers, creating no disturbance whatever.' (Report, pa.ge 790.) 

Rev. Otis Gibson Methodist minister, formerly a minister to China for ten yea-rs: II Tbe Standard Of chhi:ese mOralS is higher and better than that Of any Other heathen 

nation in the world." (Report, page401.) 

Solomon Heydenfeldt, ex-justice of the supreme court, for twenty-seven years 

resident of California: 11 I think they (the Chine e) are the best laboring class we ha.veamongus.'' (Report, page 504.) "Asfarasconcernstheirindustry, and their 

fruga.lity, and fidelity, ana. general intelligence, and their cleanliness, I think those 

who havtl boon in the habit of employing them, and know something about them, 

plaee them above the correspondin,r classes of other people." (Report, page 505.) Herman Heyneman, importer and manufacturer of woolen goods forfifl.een years, whose operators are about one-half Chinese: "I think that so-ca.lled white people, 

if we could have them thoroughly examined, and one thing and another, might be 

preferable, but I would a good deaJ. sooner have the Chinese than a good many of 

them." (Report, page 541.) 

W. F. Babcock, resident of Ca.lifornia since 1852, connected with the commer. cial house of Parrott & Co.: "Mr. PalTott did all their (the Chinese) banking busi- ness here for years, and he told me that he had never lost one dollar of principal or interest from any Chinaman while he was in the business.'' (Report, page 712.) 

F. W. MacondJ:ay, merchant, resident of Californiaovertwenty.four yea.rs: "Q. To what extent in roundnumbers do you dea.l with theChineseinamonetary point 

annually t Perhaps $500,000 or $600,000 a year-we have never lost a dollar by them to my -knowledge m twenty-four years." (Report, page 853.) 

Here are a great many of the good qualities of Chinese laborers 

admitted by anti-Chinese testimony. 

Maurice C. Blake, (anti-Chinese,) ex-judge of the municipal court, now mayor 

of San Francisco: "My impression is that they (the Chinese) are very good, as far as mere work is concerned. I think they are very industrious.''-(Rep. page 273.) 

H. H. Haight, (anti-Chinese,) ex-governor of California, replied to the following 

que tiona: ~- "Are the Chinese generaUy industrious V-A. Genera.lly industrious. Q. Are they not generally law·abiding 1-A. I think they are. "-(Report, page290.) 

But they wHl not assimiL1.te with us, says the Senator from California. 

Mr. HARRIS. If the Senator from Massachusetts will allow me to inquir , I should be glad to know if it would be agreeable t o him 

to yield to me to move that the Senate proceed to the consideration 

of executive business, so that he may conclude to-morrow. 

Mr. HOAR. I think I shall want to occupy about twenty minutes 

more, and I suppose it would be more agreeable to the Senate to have rue conclude to-day. 

1\ir. HARRIS. Would the Senator prefer to conclude at the present time, or will he allow me to move that t}).e Se:qate :proceed to the 

consideration of executive business T 

4111-~Q 

:Mr. HOAR. It would be more agreeable to me to proceed this 

evening, unless disagreeable to other gentlemen. If any gentleman 

prefers an adjournmont, I of course would not ask him to stay here 

to listen to me. I think I can finish by a quarter before five o'clock. 

Mr. HARRIS. Of course I desire to consult the wishes of the Senator. 

Mr. HOAR. I wish to make my statement as compact as I can. But the Chinese, it is said, will not assimilate with us. It is said 

the two race have been side by side for thirty years and no step 

taken toward assimilation. It i admitted that they have learned our industries rapidly and intelligently. That they do not incline 

to become Chri tians or republicans may perhaps be accounted for 

by the treatment they have received. They are excluded by statute 

from the public schools. They have no honest trial by jury. Judge 

Blake, of the San Francisco criminal court, testifies : 

It is true that a a rule when a Chinaman's case goes to a jury there is no help 

about it, the jury must convict him. 

They are said to be "without sense of the obli~ation to tell the 

truth." They have failed to profit by the example of their white 

instructors and models, testified to by Judge Blake of the San Francisco criminal cow:t, who says: 

It is true that as a. rule when a Chinaman's c. e goes to a jury there is no help about it, the jury must convict him. And further, they are the poorest wit- ne es I have ever seen. 

What he means by a poor witness comes next: 

Is not perjury committed daily by whites ?-Undoubtedly, white or black. 

White witnesses will do that to almost any extent. li you will turn to page 404 

of the report you will find it quoted as a statement of one of California's em.ment jnd~es, Stanley, that "Rerjury in our conrts by white witnesses is as common as smoking in our streets. 

That is not my statement ; yet the Chinese do not assimilate with 

these excellent Christians! 

But, 1\lr. President, what special inducements have the Chinese to 

become republicans in a State which has established a. constitution 

which in article 2, section 1, says: 

Every native male citizen of the United States, every male person who shall h~ve acquired the rights of citizenship under or by virtue of the treaty of Quere- taro. and every male naturalized citizen thereof, who shall have become such ninety 

days prior to any election, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of the State one year next preceding the eJection, and of the county in 

which be claims his vote ninety days, and in the election precinct thirty days. 

shall be entitled to vote at a.ll elections which are now or may hereafter be author. 

ized by law: Provided, No native of China, no idiot, in ane person, or person con- victed of any infamous crime, and no person hereafter conVIcted of the embezzle· 

::~: ~ri:~EJS~~~ation of public money, shall ever exercise the privileges of an 

And in article 19, section 2: 

No corporation now existin~ or hereafter formed under the laws of this State 

shall, after the adoption of this constitution, employ, directly or indirectly, in :my 

capacity, any Chinese or Mongolian. The Legislature shall pass such laws as may 

be nece sary to enforce this provision. 

And in section 3, of the same article: 

No Chinese. shall ~e employed o~ ~ny State, county, municipal, or other pnblio work, except m pumshment for cnme. 

Then in section 4, same article : 

The Legislature shall delegate all necessary power to the incorporated cities 

and towns of this State for the removal of Chinese without the limits of such cities 

and towns, or for their location within prescribed portions of those limits ; and it 

shall al~o provide the necessary legislation to prohibit the introduction into this State of Chinese after the adoption of this constitution. 

An eminent and learned judge of the Supreme Court of the United 

States gave a judgment on an ordinance of the city of San Francisco 

directing that the head of every person convicted of crime should 

be shaved, should be " cut or clipped to a uniform length of one inch 

from the scalp thereof"-an ordinance directed against the Chinese 

only, intended to impose upon them cruel and degrading punishment . Judge Field says, after pointing out the iniquity of this 

ordinance: 

It is not creditable to the humanity and civilization of our people, much less to their Christia.nity, that an OI'(linance of this character was possible. 

I take from a pamphlet by Samuel E. W. Baker, secretary to th~ Bishop of Wilmington, Delaware, late professor in the University of 

Virginia, this statement, which is based on proof before the committee: 

The "cubic-air law, under a penalty of $50 to $500 or imprisonment or both, for· 

bids any one sleeping in a room where there is less thsw 500 cubic feet of air for 

each occupant, carefully exempting from the operation thereof all prisons, hospita.ls, 

&c., so that the spectacle is often presented of men (Chlnese) dragged by the hundred from their apartments, (which ma.yormaynot have had the requisite amount of air,) taken perspiring along the street and thrown into cells under the city hall, 

where they did not average confessedly the one-twentieth amount of air that the 

ordinance called ior. One policeman tells rather boastingly of having himself 

'nailed' over 1,100 Chinese.' 

There is a mass of evidence on this point. I might present many 

extracts from the report of the Congres ional committee of 1876, but 

I will not, in order to save the time of the Senate. I wish, however, 

to read one statement of Mr. Pixley, who represented the anti-Chi- nese side. After summing up the qualities of the men such as he has 

describedJ he says: 

In other words, I believe * * * that the Chinese have no souls to save, and 

if they have they are not worth the saving. 

But it is urged, and thi , in my judgment, is the greatest argument io:r the bill, tl!at tl!e illtroduction of the labor of the Chinese reduces 
1522 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARCH 1, 

the wages of the American laborer. "'Ve are ruined by Chinese 

cheap labor" is a cry not limited to the class to whose representative 

the brilliant humorist of California :first ascribed it. I :1m not in 

favor of lowering anywhere the wages of any American labor, skilled or unskilled. On the contrary, I believe the m:tintenance and 

the increase of the purchasing power of the wages of the .American 

workingman should be the one principal object of our legislation. 

The share in the product of agriculture or manufacture which goes 

to labor should, and I believe will, steadily increase. For that, and 

for that only, exists our protective system. The acquisition of wealth, 

national or individual, is to be desired only for that. The statement 

of the accomplished Senator from California on this point meets my 

heartiest concurrence. I have no sympathy with any men, if such 

there be, who favor high protection and cheap labor. 

But I believe that the Chines , to whom the terms of the California Senator attribute skill enough to displace the American in every 

field requiring intellectual vigor, will learn very soon to in i t on his full share of the product of his work. But whether that be true or not, the wealth he creates will make hetter and not worse the con- dition of everyhigherclassof labor. There maybe trouble or failure 

in adjusting new relations. But sooner or later every new cia s of 

industrious and productive laborers elevates the class it displ:tces. 

The dread of an injury to our labor from the Chinese rests on the same fallacy that opposed the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and which oppo ed the coming of the Irishman and the German 

and the Swede. Within my memory in New Engl..<tnd all the lower 

places in factories, all places of domestic service, were filled by the sons and daughters of .American fru-mers. The Irishmen ca.me over to tn.ke their places; but the American farmer's son a.nd daughter 

did not suffer; they were only elevated to a higher plane. In the 

increased wealth of the community their share is much greater. The 

Iri hma.n rose from the bog or the hovel of his native land to the com- fort of a New England home and pln.ced his children in a New Eng-

' land school. The Ya.nkeerisesfrom t.be loom and the spinning-jenny 

to be the teacher, the skilled laborer in the machi1le shop, tho inventor, the merchant, or the opulent hmdholder and farmer of the 

'Vest. 

I wish also to read in this connection wha.t Mr. l\Iorton says u.s hi.s 

conclusion : 

That they have injuriously interfered with the white people of California. or have done them a serious injury, may well be cloubted. The grPat fact. is t-hat there 

is to-day and always bas been a scarcity of labor on the Pacific coa t. ThPre is 

work for all who are there, both whlte and Mongolian, ancl the State would un- doubtedly develop much more rapidly were there more and cheaper labor. There was much intelligent testimony to the fact that t-he Chinese by their Jabot· opened up large avenues and demand for wWt-e labor. The Chine e performed the lowest 

kincl, while the whites monopolized t.hat of a. superior character. This was well 

tated by Mr. Crocker, a ver:y intelligent witness, largely interested in the Centml Pacifi<: and Southern California Railroads. In answer to a question as to what was the effect of Chinese upon whlte labor, and whether it was to deprive whit.e men of employment, or bad tha.t e1fect at any time, be said: "I think that they 

afford whlt&men labol'. I think that their presence here affonls to whit.e men a more elevated class of labor. As I said l>efore, if you should drive these 75.000 

Chinamen oft' yon would take 75,000 white men from an elevated cia. s of work and 

put them down to doing this low class of labor that the Chinamen are now doing, 

lUlu instead of elevating you would degrade t-he white labor to that extent." 

Then again: 

For any man to ricle through California, from one end of this State to t11e other, and see the miles upon miles of nnculti.vated lan<l, and in the mountains millions 

of acres of timber, and the foothills waiting for orne one to go ancl cultivate them, 

and then talk about there being too mt1ch labor here in the country, i sin1ply non· sense, in my estimation. There is labor for all, and the fact that the Chinamen are here gi>es an opportunity to whltemen to go in and cultivate tl1island where 

they coufd uot cultivate it otherwise. Other evidence showed that by Chinese 

labor over 1,000,000 acres of tule lands have been reclaimed. This was work of the 

barde t and most unhealthy character, requiring them to work for q, large part of 

tbe time in mud and water; but the lands, when reclaimed, were occupied and 

culti>ated by white men, furnishlng a great many homes, and were in fact the 

richest and mo t producti>e in California. They a1so chiefly performed the work 

in constructing irrigating canals for farmin~ purposes, and dams and canal for supply~ng the mines _wit.h wa~erl by which a Yery large extent of country was made 

exceeclmgly productive, furn1shmg homeR and employment for thousand of white men, and by which, also, the mines were made profitable, and created a lar ... e demand for white labor. The evidence further t!howed that tl1e railroads, c'hiefty constructed by these people, were t-he pioneers in settlement and agriculture; that 

the settlements followed tbe railroads; that wherever a rAilroad was com~tructed 

the lands were taken up and con>ertAd into farms and homesteads. WIJile there was complaint that tbe Chinese, by their cheal' labor, took it from white people, 

inquiry 1ailed to show that there was any cons1derable nnmber of whito people in 

California out of employment., except those who were will fnlly idle; that t.lJere was work, and remunerative work, for all who chose to perform ~t. 

California hn a population of 700,000. She can support seventeen 

million. 'Viii it be claimed t.hat these seventeen million will not be 

better off by finding there the wealth and the improvements which 

Chinese labor will prepare for tb~ir pos ession; by finclin~ the railroad built, the swamp drained, the highway smoothed, tne harbor 

dreclaed T will it be mnintainecl that if California could have for nothlng what 

she gets cheaply from Chinese labor, she would 11ot be better offf If 

the swamp lands had been m:ule prairie lands by nntnre; if the ra- vines had been filled and mountains tunneled by nature, so that the 

road-bed was ready for the raH; if every man, instead of buying shoes 

from Massacbnsett.s, bad a pa.ir left gratis at his door, tha,ttbe State 

would not he better off. Is barren land or productive land best for a Statef Then surely the laborer who does these things at least 

cost does most for the community, and gives the people who occupy 

the State opportunity for better profit in other fields of industry. 

But the tatements as to the cheapne s of living and cheapness of 

wages of the Chine e are greatly exaggerated. 

I have here a statement giving the prices of wages in California 

in l 78: CARP~"TERS' WAGES. 

The price paid to carpenters in California ranges from $3 to $3.50 per day. This 

is the general rule throughout the city. But there are many cases where unem- ployed men will work for le s, ranging from $2 up to $3 per day. In Providence, 

Rhode Island, during the past year the wages of carpenters have averaged fron:. 

$1.50 to $1.75 per day. BRICKLAYERS. 

In this city brickla;-ers get from $4 t{) $5per day, only the ordinary workmen re- ceiting the former pnce. The ruling price is probably not far from $5. The exact price paid to tbi labor in the East is not known, butit is undoubtedly much lower 

than the rate paid here. PAINTERS. 

Paintersreceivehere$3 per day, plasterers$3.50, mortar-mixers and bod-carriers 

$3, but there are undoubtedly many men who would willingly work for less, 

although probably not for a less sum than is paid East. The wages of this class 

of labor have been greatly reduced in the Eastern States during the past two or three years. STONE·CU~G. 

The regular price paid stone-cutters in this city is $4 per day, but the price of 

the same 'kind of labor in the East is lower. There workinlnJlen are working for 

what they can get. In this city at pre ent there is little work, and there are niany stone-cutters out of employment. But when the work in the cemeteries again starts up nearly all willtind employment. 

MACHINISTS A 'D BRASS·FOlTh'DERS. 

The prices paitl machinists in this city range from $3 to $4 per day. The l!'r6at 

majority of tl1i cl:tss of workmen receiie $3.50 per day. Many recei>e the highest 

price, $4. The Wlt!fes of this cla s of labor is more than 50 per cent. hl~ber here 

than in the Eru t. l.D the Ea,<>tern States machinists get from $1.75 to $2.5uper day. Bra s-founders East recei;e $3 per day; here $4.50. 

COMMON LABORERS. 

Common labor i mncb l1i~ber here than in the East. The niling pric here is $2 pe1· day, and it was .Proposed by Supervisor Foley to fix the price paid by the 

city at that figure. It 1s true that there are many L1.borers at this time working ~mpomr~y for $1 per day, but $2 per day bas been the almost universal price, and ,.., 1s now prud by a great many large employers of labor. In the East, however, 

the price of this kind of labor is far less, averaging probably not ruucb over $1. Iu many in. t:mces men are working for ninety cents, and even less. On some of 

the great r:Ulroads only ninety cents is paid. In the great manufactories of New Engl~cl the avera~e price of ?rdin:try labor is not many cents oyer $1 p r day. 

~~~tcl~~=~ ~::£s. o m many mstances, by the hour, the rate pa~d will average 

WOOLEN-MILL ILU.'DS. 

In our woolen mills common labor is paid $2 per day. Skilled labor 1\>eragos 

from $2.50 to $3.50 per da:v, depending upon the kind or work preferred. In the 

Ea.'3t, mn.le-spinner receive as Wgh pay as any of the operatives, and their wagea do not a''era~e much over $1.50 per day, but here the remuneration is greater. The 

weavers-girls and women-rq.nge from ninety cents to $1.50 per day, the avera ~;e 

being about $1. On ordinary work in eastern cotton mills women will not average mncn over $22 per month. Boys and girls are paid from three to six cents per hour, 

laborers and watchmen ten to eleven cents. 

THE CIGAR BUSINESS. 

In the cigar manufacturin~ business the wages are higher here than East. Chinamen receive from $6 to $6.50 per 1,000, while for the same work Ea t $4 are paid. Cigar manufacturing does not require many adult workmen, many boys 

being employed. Going into a ciuar manUfactory here one will see many climinutive Chinamen, apparently from ~even to fifteen years old. The wages of such a manufactory will average about $6.50 per week . . 

BOOT ..um SHOE MAKERS. 

In the boot and shoe manufacturing business California is paying for whlte labor 

from 50 to 60 per cent. more than is being paid East. For some kindS of work our manufacturers are paying 65 cents where 30 cent.s are paid Ea.'lt, and $1 

against 62! cents. Wage here average from $12 to $20 per week, dependinJZ upon the kinu of work. In the East complaints are made that workmen will aTerage 

from $5 to $10 only. In Toronto, workmen say that they receive from $4 to $8 per week, and t.hey have struck for higher wages. Leather will average less in pric9 

here th!Ul Ea t , :yet much of the material used by eastern boot and Rboe manufac- turers i shipped from thls coast, manufa(}tured, and sent back to us to be sold at as great, if not greater, profit than can be made on the same articles manufactured 

here. DOMESTICS. 

In the mattPr of seiTants, wagPs are from $25 to $30 per month, and even then 

the girl are not willing t.o ~o to places where there are more than two or thrt>oe 

child):en, and a.re very particular as to the work to be done. They are not willing to go into the colmtrv, and seem to be determined to accept no place except that in which t.he work is1igbt. A few <lays ago a gentleman in Sacramento sent an order for a cook, at $20 per month. The manager of an employment agenov h-ied to uet one of o>er forty girls to take the place, but none would go. Th·e 

Ladies' Protection and Relief Society could not get a Protestant cook for $30 from among the Rame lot of girls waiting for a situation. No one would go to San l,ujs Obi~po to <lo general bouse-work at $25. No one would go to Emerton aR cook at $20, and everal refused to work at $25 in a family not far from the new City Hall. A girl wlto had been out at bouse-work for only four months, and could not cook, 

wonld not accept anything less than $20. 

There are a great many families who wonld willingly give $15 pel' month, a ltigh rate of wages East, but it is almost impossible to fiDel a gu-1 who will work for that sum. Many fa.milies willing to give $20, not being able to find girls willing to ac- cept that amount, prefer to ao their own work, sending their waRhing to laundries. 

If domestics were willin~ to take from $15 to $20 per month, the demand would 

far outrun the supply. The wages paid Chinamen as house-servants are about the same as those pa1d to white llelp in the East, where the average wages is about $3 per week. 

Mr. MILLER, of California. What is the Senator reading from T 

Mr. HOAR. I am reading from the San Francisco Bulletin of the 

9th of February, 1878, giving the prices of different labor at that 

time. It is a synopsis of the report. 

I wish to reatl to the Senat.e one most remarkable example from a Cnlifornia paper of the 23d of February, 1882, in regard to the claim 

that the Chinese live on rice, cheap and filthy food, and thereupon 

reduce the standard of the necessaries of lif~ for .American 1abm·. It 

seems that a Chinaman left a will, by which he .re'luired his executor 
1882. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1523 

to run a restaurant for a year of which he was the proprietor, and 

the account and execution of that will has just been rendered in the 

court: 

[Daily Alta Californian, February 23, 1882.] 

A. CHINESE EXECUTORSHIP. 

Yesterday Maurice C. Blake, who was appointed referee la-st November to exam· ine the annUal account of Ohong Que, execut.or of the will of Choy Poi, submitted 

his report, which was approved. The order approvingtheaccountsshowsthatthe amount of money in the hands of the executor November 1, 1881, was $500. The amount received by him as such executor in twelve months was $31,953.60, making the total receipts $32,453.60. The full amount expended was $31.105.70, leaving a 

balance in his hands of $1,347.90. The estate consista of a Chinese restaurant con- ducted on Asiatic principles, and is insured for $10,000. The classification of ex- penditures shows, among other items, for the twelve months from November 1, 1!!80, to0ctober31, 1881: rent, $4,832, or$236amonth; gas, $1,241.50; water, $192.45; 

wood, $1,436; wine, $3,571.85. 

Who says they are not civilized 7 

Coffee, $58.85; tea, $498.20: sugar, $1,125.50; rock-su~ar, $1,193.60; riufl, $1,875 ; :flour, $516.80; meat, $3,759.15; poultry, $5,848. 15 ; sundries, $1,785.40; wages, $3,828. The wages amount to $319 a month throughout the year, showing that the fifteen employes receive each about $21 a month. A letter from F. A. Bee, Chinese con- sul, approving the management of the estate, accompanied the report of the referee. 

Mr. President, I will not detain the Senate by reading the abundant testimony, of which this is but the sample, of the possession by 

the people of this race of the possibility of a development of every 

quality of intellect, art, character, which fits them for citizenship, 

for republicanism, for Christianity. 

Humanity, capable of infinite depths of degradation, is capable 

also of infinite hei~hts of excellence. The Chinese, like all other 

races, has given us Its examples of both. To rescue- humanity from 

this degradation is, we are taught to believe, the great object of God's moral government on earth. It is not by injustiCe, exclusion, caste, 

but by reverence for the individual sonl t.hat we can aid in this con- summation. It is not by Chinese policies that China is to be civilized. I believe that the immortal truths of the Declaration of Inde- pendence came from the same source with the Golden Rule and the ~ermon on the Mount. We can trust Him who promulgated these 

laws to keep the country safe that obeys them. The laws of the uni- verse have their own sanction. They will not fail. The power that causes the compa-ss to point to the north, that dislnisses the star on its pathway through the skies, promising that in a thousand years it 

shall return a~ain true to its hour, and keeps His word, will vindicate 

His own moral law. As surely aa the path on which our fathers en- tered a hundred years ago led to safety, to strength, to glory, so surely 

will the path on which we now propose to enter bring us to shame, 

to weakness, and _to peril. 

HOUSE BILLS REFERRED. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will take this occasion 

to lay before the Senate some House bills for reference. 

The joint resolution (H. R. No. 112) authorizing the appointment 

of Humphrey H. Lemon upon the Capitol police force was read twice 

by its title, and referred to the Committee to Audit and Control the 

Contingent Expenses of the Senate. 

The bill (H. R. No. 2192) to establish a port of delivery at Denver, 

in the State of Colora.do, was read twice by its title. 

Mr. TELLER. I ask that the bill be laid on the table instead of 

referring it to the Committee on Commerce, inasmuch aa the Senate 

committee has reported a bill identical with it. . The PRESIDENT p1·o tempore. The bill will be laid on the table. 

EXECUTIVE C0Ml\1UNICATIONS. 

Th~ PRESIDENT pro tempore laid before the Senate the following 

message from the President of the United States; which was referred 

to the Committee on Indian Affairs, and ordered to be printed: 

To ~he Senate and HOU8e of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Interior with 

accompanying papers, in relation to the request of the Cherokee Indians in Indian 

Territory for payment for lands belonging to them in said Territory ceded to the 

United States by the sixteenth article of their treaty of July 19, 1866, for the set- tlement of friendly Indians. 

CHESTER A. .ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 1, 1882. 

He also laid before the Senate the following message from the 

President of the United States; which was referred to the Committee on Commerce, and ordered to be printed: 

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of May 19, 1881, a. communication, with accompanying papers, from the Secretary of State, respecting the collection by consular officers of certa.in official fees in connection with the 

authentication of invoices, and the compensation of such officers. 

CHESTER A . .AB.THUR. 

W A.SHIXGTON, March 1, 1882. 

AMENDMENT TO APPROPRIATION BILL. 

Mr. MAXEY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 

Lim to the bill (H. R. No. 3548) making appropriations for the service 

of the Post-0 ffice Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, 

and for other purposes; which was referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and ordered to be printed. 

PROPOSED AMERICA...~ CONGRESS. 

Mr. CALL. I wish to give notice that on Monday next I shall ask 

to take np the resolution submitted by me on the subject of Chili and 

Peru, for the purpose of submitting some remarks upon it. 

JOSEPH R. SH.AJ.~ON. 

On metion ofl\.fr. TELLER, it was 

Ordered, That the bill (S. No. 74) to-provide for the payment of the claim of 

Joseph R. Shannon, of Louisiana, be recommitted to the Committee on Claims. 

Mr. JONES, of Florida. I move that the Senate a-djourn. 

The motion waa agreed to; and (at four o'clock and fifty minute:, 

p. ru.) the Senate adjourned. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

WEDNESDAY, March 1, 1882. 

The House met at twelve o'clock m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. 

F. D. POWER. 

The Journal of yesterday was read and approved. 

PUBLIC BUILDL."'\GS AT .ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA. 

l\Ir. MUTCHLER, by unanimous consent, introduced a bill (H. R: 

No. 4690) to authorize the purchase of a site and erection of a suitable 

building for a post-office and other Government offices at the city of 

.Allentown, Pennsylvania; which was read a first and second time, 

referred to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and 

ordered to be printed. 

DEPARTME.!I."'T OF AGRICULTURE. 

:Mr. ANDERSON. I ask unanimous consent that the bill (H. R. 

No. 4429) to enlarge the powers and duties of the Department of 

Agriculture be made the special order for Saturday, March 25, immediately after the morning hour, and from day to day until the same is disposed of1 not to interfere with the general appropriation bills. 

This request 1s concurred in, I believe, byeverymember ofthe Committee on Agriculture. The bill affects the whole farming interest, 

and I hope there will be no objection to the request. 

l\lr. SPRINGER. If the gentleman will include the pleuro-pneumonia bill I shall not object. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Kansas asks unanimous con ent that Saturday. March 25, be fixed for the consideration of 

House bill No. 4429, to enlarge the powers and duties of the Depart- ment of Agriculture. 

Mr. MANNING. Not to interfere with general appropriation bills. 

:Mr • .ANDERSON. Not to interfere with appropriation bills, but to 

be a continuou order. 

The SPEAKER. To continue from day to day. What hour of the 

day does the gentleman propose to fix t 

Mr . .ANDERSON. After the morning hour. 

Mr. SPRINGER. I understand this order is to include the bill in 

reference to pleuro-pneumonia. 

Mr. ANDERSON. There is in this bill a provision in respect to 

animal industry, which will naturally bring up the subject of the bill 

referred to; but I am perfectlywillingtoincludethatbillinthe order. 

The SPEAKER. Is there objection T 

Mr. KASSON. I ask that this order be made subject to the priority 

of revenue and appropriation bills. 

The SPEAKER. As the Chair understands, that is included in the 

req nest. Is there objection 7 The Chair hears none. 

OXFORD, MARYLAND, A PORT OF ENTRY. 

Mr. COVINGTON, by unanimous consent, i.Rtroduced a bill (H. R. 

No. 4691) making Oxford, in the State of Maryland, a port of entry; 

which was read a firstand second time, referred to the Committee on Commerce, and ordered to be printed. 

CHARLES H. CONARD. 

l\.Ir. COVINGTON also, by unanimous consent, (by request,) introduceda bill (H. R. No. 4692) granting a pension to Charles H. Conard; 

which was read a first and second time, referred to the Committee on Invalid Pensions, and ordered to be printed. 

DENVER, COLORADO, A PORT OF DELIVERY. 

Mr. BELFORD. I ask unanimous consenttotakefrom the Public 

Calendar, and to Fut upon its pa-ssage now, House bill No. 2192, to 

establish a port o delivery at Denver, in the State of Colorado. I 

would like to make one statement in reference to this uill before any 

gentleman makes objection. 

The Clerk read the title of the bill. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Colorado asks 1manimous 

consent to take from the Calendar for present consideration the bill 

the title of which has just been read. 

Mr. COX, of New York. I object. 

ORDER OF BUSINESS. 

Mr. BRIGGS. I demand the regular order. 

The SPE.AKER. The Chair desires to submit a report from the 

Committee on Enrolled Bills, and also some executive communications and reso]utions of the Senate in referenee to printing at this 

time. 

ENROLLED BILL SIGNED. 

l\.Ir. ALDRICH, from the Committee on Enrolled Bills1 reported 

that they had examined and found truly enrolled the bill (S. No.