The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-01-28
SUPPLIES FOR THE UTAH EXPEDITION

SUPPLIES FOR The UTAH EXPEDITION -
In the debate which occurred in the Senate on
Tuesday upon the bill for increasing the line of the
army among many other things very wide of the fact
which were said by opponents of the measure, we
were struck by the following observations of Mr..
Hale, which we condense from his reported re
marks: ~ trFTfEr 81 f,fTtf-,rF-g 400 a
1.-THE deficiency which the administration asks for the
War Department, for the military service h under
stand Sc 700 600 We actually spent $40 426 000 and
they want about seven millions more, making SIT, 000,
900 for military service last year have little book
here, and find that during the most expensive year of
the with Great Britain military expenditures
got up to s2l 900 and in the highest of
the Mexican war, when had, / think nearly fifty
thousand men In the field, they reached $4,000
900 but now In time Of profound peace they amount
to about twenty six millions Of dollars. !"
1t is surprising that member Of the august SEN
ate of the United States should consent to commit
himself to statements like these statements dis
closing either nexcusablc ignorance of the subject
in hand or else most callous indifference to fact
and truth We believe Mr.. Calhoun used to say of
the facetious senator from New Hampshire that it
was useless TO argue with crazy man and ii is one
of the evidences of the extreme amability ofthat
Unable statesman that he could ascribe the extrava
gances Of his contemporary to charitable account
as mental alienation.
Although the figures which Mr.. Hale has ven
tured to commit himself to, in the expressions we
have quoted, do not indicate such thing, yet less
charitable critics than Mr. Calhoun believe that there
is method in the senator's Madness and that his in
difference to fact and exravagances of statement
suit from the ardor of an ambition which him
play the role of the Mr. Merryman of the Senate of
the United Sates--a character to whom the world
allows the largest license of ohand remark every
other stage, whether it be willing to accord it to
protested senatorial wag not
If the entire public accorded to the senator from
New Hampshire the license of professional jester it
would then be needless to correct his of state
ment. But there are great many honest people in
the country whose minds impervious to humor,
and into whose crowns joke could not be inserted
with surgical instruments. Nay there are egions of
yeoman citizens in the land whose ideas of senatorial
dignity are associated with such names Macon and
Tazewell, Calhoun and McDuffie, Davis and Webster,
Clay and Crittcnden, and who never thought of the
cap and bells in connection with the north chamber
of the Capitol. There vast numbers of men, too
belonging to the senator's own political persuasion,
who solemnly swear by him as an oracle who accept
his wanton fun as sacred gospel, to whom the idea
of coutjester never occurred and who are ready at
all times to protest that their Paul is not mad but
speaks forth the words of truth and sobcrness. This
class of dcuded people, and that large class of worthy
citizens who are unsusceptble to the joke of sena-
toria Mcrryman, deserve to be cared for 1t is for
their benefit that present the paragraphs which
follow.
The total appropriations for the Army, including
the expenses of the War Department, its salaries
and all Incidental expenses, and for the Military
Academy, made for the fiscal year 1878 by the
last Congress, were Sl4l9ll54 %. This is the sum
with which the senator should have started, and not
his sum of 900, which includes an tier, of
some 81 100000 appropriated by the last Congress
for the construction of seaboard Notifications, for
which the army is not responsible chargeable, but
Congress alone AS well as an item of 81 ,30T 900,
which was appropriated by the same Congress to
cover deficiency for the preceding year, and cannot
be logged into the expenses for the current year
of swelling It's aggregate above the figure of
truth and fact.
Starting, then with GA l9l ,l54 as the appropra-
ton made for the army by the last Congress, upon
the annual estimates of the War Department fourteen
months ago, and not with nineteen millions and q
half as the senator has it, we to add the items
which the senator chooses to call deficiency. These
items are as follows:
Estimate of actual deficiencies for the year ending June
80, 1S5T--- 81, 22S, 619
Estimate of prospective deficiency for the year
ending June 80, 1853, to meet expenditures
not anticipated when the annual estimate
WAS made including those incurred in fit
ting out the Utah expedition, and placing
and keeping the troops in that Territory in
serviceable condition 2,49O,O 900
Estimate of the amount that viii have neecs-
sarily to be expended under the recent
der of General Scott for increasing the force
in Utah 800, 1882
Aggregate of estimates -------------- 6,725,9lI
large number Of the items that compose this est-
mate are for necessary outfits, which will have to be
provided this year for in the next, the cost of
which distributed into the expenses of future years
would diminish those properly chargeable to the cur
rent year million or two of dollars. But charging
the whole Of this six millions and threc-quarters of
estimated prospective expenditure, account not Of
ordinary charges for the army establishment but on
account of the extraordinary expedition to Utah,
and we would have the expenditure of the army
for the current year
Appropriated Sl4, l9l 1874
Asked for ------------- 6,725,91l