New-York daily tribune., 1856-03-26
BOOKS FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

BOOKS FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Editorial Correspondence Of The n. Y Tribune
WAsIIISGTOS, Monday, March -, 1856.
Let no one misunderstood me as resolved on
making a persistent, determined warfare on all
pr,digai and unwarraDtabe appropriations OF the
nubEc money. shall do nothing Of the sort,
having learned by sore experience that to do 30 Is
70 provoke bitter and damaging enmitless, yet ac-
complish little or no good. When was IN the
House, it seemed incumbent on me to Try to save
the public money whenever that could fairly be
done; being nGw here as a reporter, not member
feel no such obligation. If those whom the people
pay SO per week for looking after their interests
won't do il. do not feel that those who are neither
commissioned nor paid for the service should vol
uptser To incur its thankless responsibilities and
implacsble enmities. Let it not be understood
then. that am here embarked in crusade against
peculation in general, because am about to scru-
tnze the action of the House to-day on the subject
of Books.
Need say again, perhaps for the hundredth
time. that do not object n toto TO the purchase OF
Books, any more than to the printing OF Docu-
that there are y0luminous Public Records which
ought to be accessible in every part of the country
vet which will never be made so by private publ
cation and sale. II, then, Congress should see ht
to buy at fair prices, one hundred thousand dollars
worth per annum of American State Papers, u. B.
Revised Statutes Registers OfDebates &c, and ap-
portion set to each new Member as trustee egsto
foxb !, I n IN
liz commend such action. / never did and never
W i'll make parsimony the chief end Of Government
nor the test of its merit. Only let the public have
value received and j will justify high taxes and
liberal expenditures.
1t has been the custom Of Congress for good
many years to vote each of its new Members
generous supply Of Books of public or official
character. The allowance to each Member used
TO cOs about $500 ten OF fifteen years ago; but it
has heen enlarged BY successive additions to the
list until, | understand, the cost is now about
$1,000. The number of new Members in the
present Congress must exceed one hundred aud
fifty, so that the Books will cost the Treasury at
least $50, ,O00-probably more. And what guar
anty ID there that the public will derive any benefit
therefroml The grant is justified on the ground
Of urgent public necessity; but no security is
exacted that the Books shall be so retained and
dfused as to minister to that necessity. Congress
says truly that certain National Archives ought to
be accessible in Arkansas, for examples and it
gives them to the Members from Arkansas to meet
that public necessity; but il leaves those Members
perfectly free to sell those very books in Washing
- m thpi
or receipts for them and never take the Books at
all. Is this right
Do you say that honorable men will not act so
basely as this would be that they will feel bound
TO execute the trust in the spirit which prompted
its creationl / only answer that this assumption
is, as regards some Members of Congress, refuted
by inexorable facts. Thus Col. ORR stated, in de-
bate to-day, that there is at least one work-the
American Archives, if mistake nOt-Of which
but $50 copies were ever printed, yet Congress
has already distributed 1900 copies Of that work,
and the supply is still abundant. Can this need
explanation
The frat motion on the Book question to-day
was one to suspend the rules so as TO permit the
introduction of the usual resolution. This pre-
vailed BY the heavy vote of 120 to 80 SO the res
olution was admitted Then Mr.. Geo. w. Jones
of Tenn. moved that each Member entitled TO them
be at liberty to take the cost OF the Books In money
instead Of them-an amendment which would have
received more votes if the Press were as fcstered
here as in France or Austria. Oh course, 1t was
voted down. Then Mr. Sherman of Ohio moved
substitute, allowing each Member to take, instead
of the books contemplated in the resove-or rather
instead Of such of them as may be out oil Prlht or
ont Of datc--other works of equal vslue-"of
public character" / heard him cay, but am
very sure that clause is not embodied IN his propo-
sition "a submitted 10 writing and adopted
I au confident that if any Member chooses to
make up his sl,2OO worth of Wayerley Novels,
Mother Goose, and an assortment Of Law, Physic
orDiypity, according 10 bis vocation or his taste,
there is nothing in the terms of the resol' ton to
forbid it. Yet this went through Ca the Yeas and
Nsys-Yeas, 90; Nays 67.
] make no contents but this: am very conf
dent that this resolve might have beep so drawn as
to secura all the public advantage. contemplated
without being exposed to tie objections l have
hastily Indicated, b.