The Portland daily press., 1885-09-16
ALABAMA CLAIMS COURT.
official Statement Of the Court in
Answer to Comptroller Durham.
The Latter Writes a Letter Explaining
His Course.

uItSseu W tHt secretary Oh Sbate, Win TeBdIu
to the expenditures of the court, was today
referred to the Department of Justice for
report The preSentment is signed by Judge
Harlan, presiding justice, but is concurred in
by his associates. Judge Harlan expresses
satisfaction that Secretary Bayard makes no
criticism of the expenditures of the court as
extravagant or unnecessary, stating that they
have been most jealOusly watched and will
bear the most careful scrutiny No person
has been employed whose services were not
indispensable, and not a dollar of the fund
mas been unnecessarily expended. The
court has been repeatedly urged by claimants
ana their counsel to increase the number of
their assistants, but they had refrained from
doing SO, desiring to curtail expenses, and
because of the absolute mpossibility of try
ing, more cases in the time, even if they
could have been prepared. He refers to the
emlnently able services of Mr.. Creswel
counsel for the United States before this as
before the former court and says that as in
the opinion of the court he had more than
earned the limit placed on his salary by Con-
gress, the court had not felt it obligatory to
apportlOn his compensation in each case, in
aSmuch as the result would have been identi-
cal The question raised as to the power of
the court to employ the necessary assistants,
he says, causes him no little surprise. Early
in 1874 this question arose, and the court
unanimously concluded that the language of
the law giving them authority, to incur all
necessary incidental expenses conferred
ample power to employ such assistants, and
that as the act under which the court was
organized was special and temporal in it's
terms and highly remedial in its purpose, it
was not subject to the restrictions of Section
1852 of the Revised Statutes, prohibiting ap-
preparations for incidental expenses being
used for clerical salaries.
Seven thousand eight hundred and nine
teen claims, representing an aggregate sum
of $40, 100000, had been filed for disposition
by the court at the two sessions Could it be
supposed that Congress intended one clerk
should do the work of ten men or that one
counsel whose presence was constantly re-
quired before the court should supervise the
simultaneous taking of testimony in almost
every State and Territory in the Union, in
England, France, Germany, Japan, China,
India, Peru, the Western and Hawaiian ISL
ands, and in nearly every important seaport
on the inhabitable globe? Congress could
not have entertained any such purpose. 1t
must have been intended when direction
was given that docket should be kept and
that the wagon loads of accommodating papers
should be arranged and preserved and that
the court should pass upon the testimony in
accordance with the principles of law, that
the court should have the power to assign
the clerk the necessary aid and that the
counsel should have such assistance as was
reasonably required to protectisthe interests
OF the government and save the court from
the pitiful condition of trying cases involv-
ing $42,000,000 on eX parte testimony alone.
The question of power to employ and pay
assistant counsel under the act organizing
the first court was submitted to the Attor-
ney General by Secretary of State Fish in
1874, and the Solicitor General, Mr. Phillips,
with the approval of Attorney General Taft,
delivered an opinion that the act Establish
ing the court authorized its necessary ex-
penseS, of which the compensation of the
assistant counsel was certainly one. The
assistant counsel were accordingly employed
and an additional clerical force engaged, and
the action of the court in thus incurring the
necessary incidental expenses was reported
to Congress on the 2Sth of June, 1876, by
letter addressed to the Judiciary committee
OF the Senate by Mr.. CreSwell, and by Mr..
Davis clerk of the court. Having this lin
formation before him in all its details, Mr..
Edmunds, in speech delivered in the SEN
ate on the 10th of July. 1876, opposed the ex-
tension of the life of the court because with
its head counsel at salary of $4,000, its as
sistant counsel, and clerks, and agents. and
stenographerS, and rooms, and porters, and
messengers, and so on, 1t was very eXpen-
sive institution. 81 don't mean, he went
ly expensive, but in the nature of things
these take money" Thereafter, with the
knowledge, as full and precise as words and
figures could give it, Congress passed an act
extending the life and powers of the court
without word in debate or law intimat
ing doubt as to the right and duty of the
court to continue to make expenditures for
clerks and assistants just as it had been
doing for the two years preceding
full report of the proceedings of the first
court including the reference to employment
of assistant counsel and clerical help, was
made by the clerks to the Secretary of State,
who January Goth, 1877, transmitted it to the.
President who in turn laid it before Con-
gress.
More authoritative still, in March, 1877,
final adjustment was made by the treasury
department of the accounts of the court and
all the judgments awarded, and ALL the ex-
penses incurred including those for assist
ant counsel and clerical help were charged
against the Geneva award which was then
credited with the interest that had accumu-
lated and the balance was covered into the
treasury to await the further action of Con-
gress. This adjustment stood without OBJ
lection or complaint for more than five wears
and then Congress established the present
court for the distribution of the unappropri-
ated balance, re-enacting in the precise
words the provision of the former law with
regard to the necessary incidental expenses.
under which the expenditures of former
courts were incurred.
Judge Harlan closed by quoting very
recent decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States Brown VS.. u. S. in which it
is laid down that in case of ambiguity in a
statute, the contemporaneous and uniform
executive construction for period of years
is decisive and conclusive,
WASHINGTON, Sept 15.-First Comptroller
Durham has written a letter to Messrs. Shell
labarger & Wilson and Frank W. Hackett,
explaining his position in regard to the
Court of Alabama Claims in reply to a re-
cent letter from them. After giving the his
tory of the organization of the court, he
quotes from the act of Congress creating the
tribunal to show that the officers of the
court were limited. He finds ON investiga-
tion that some twenty-five persons were in
the employ of the court, all seeming to re-
ceive stated salaries and for the employ
ment of whom no authorization was made
by Congress. He construes the term sim
cidental expenses" in the act to mean re-
pairs, gas, towels, postage stamps, etc, and
it cannot be justly construed, he says, to
mean the employment of large and un-
necessary clerical force.
The comptroller concludes as follows:
Much of your argument is based upon the neees-
sity Of these officers employed and not enumerat-
edin the statute. This plea l cannot consider.
Congress must provide for necessities. l must
conStrue the law as find It. / therefore CON
clude upon the face of the act creating said court
and the act re-establishing the same that the
court had no right or authority to appoint or en-
ploy assistant counsel, experts, assistant clerks
messengers or any other officer or emplOye out
side of those enumerated in the above acts. Con-
STRUNG the law as 1 do, am constrained to dis
allow the pay claimed by all persons heretofore
employed by the said court except those specially