The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1885-12-24

the house that he had used the power which
existed in him chairman of the committee on
appropriations No fairer honest man
was on the floor of the house. If he would use
that power other chairmen would do the same.
There was danger in distributing this power among
eight OF nine committees. 1t very good
thing to fill the reform bucket but to FIJI it so
full that it would slop over.
! Mr. McMillen, OF Tennessee did not believe that
the question presented of confidence, or
want of confidence in the integrity OF members of
| the house. The question was whether the house
! should have committee for supervising the ex-
penditures of the g )YerDment, and he would Op
pose the distribution of the appropriation bills for
! the same reason that he would oppose PROPOSE
| ton to divide the duty of the committee ways
and means, to give the subject of the tariff to
committee, and Oflnterna revenue to another If the
report of the committee on rules were adopted in
stead of a saving of time, was claimed for it, it
sumed in the consideration of appropriation bills
! He regarded the proposed change as one which
would permit amendments increasing expenditures
and rule ont those tending to reduce them.
Mr.. McAdOe of New Jersey, defended the apprO-
| priatiOn committee asserting that to that commit
tee which has stood before the doors of the treas
ury aud resisted raids upon it was to be attributed
! the fact that the democratic party now in
power. Was it to be the first act of that party
when it had attained power to disgrace the old
! Gu I'd at the treasury?
The democratic house was asked under the
leadership of the gentle nan from Maine (Reed), to
| break down the appropriation committee. He
feared the Greeks wheE bearing gifts and he
was supremely suspicious when he gentlemen
who had sat mute when they were in power con-
verted to an assault upon the appropriation COM
mittee when the democrats were in power.
Mr.. Kelley Pennsylvanial said that patience and
| long experience had taught them that no rule the
majority could adopt could be worse an those it
was proposed to amend. Legislation ought to be
the result of deliberation. The legislation of the
house was not the result of deliberation. The
business was transacted by a very few men. The
mass of the members of the house could only learn
what had been done, and why it had been done
after it had been done This i'll had been borne I'M
| til it had become insuppOrtable, and the house
owed it to the country to emancipate itself. 1t
might be that the wisdom and honesty of the house
was concentrated in single committee thereof, but
he did not believe it. If it true that but f.
teen men were needed to determine what appropri-
atoms ought to be made, what offices ought to be
| abolished under the plea OF economy, what laws
| ought to be enacted or respected, why not change
the laws and save the pay of the other 80 gentle
men: He earnestly denounced the habit of adopt
ing riders the source of more legislative mean
ness than any other cause; He cliti-
cluded with the declaration that the wisdom
and just sense of economy, and above all, purity
and honor in legislation invited the adoption of
| the committee. {Applause)
Mr.. Caswell, of Wisconsin, disapproved of that
part of the proposed revision making distribution
of appropriation bills, but believed that the appro-
priation committee should ne deprived of the power
to engraft legislation upon appropriation bills.
Mr.. Phelps, of New jersey, opposed the distri6u-
ton, and said that it now the responsibility
rested upon the shoulders of fifteen men, who WEI e
able and willing to bear it. These men were liable
to make error but he commended that these errors
were far less harmless to the country than those
that would grow out of the change proposed: while
the tendency of the amendment was to increase
expenditures to scatter responsibility and start the
country upon the high road to bankruptcy.
Mr.. Randall, n closing the debate in opposition
to the majority report said: He knew, and mem
bers who had served upon the appropriation COM
mitiee knew that in the effort to resist undue ap-
preparation they had been engaged in a thankless
task, but he had never known that there would be
those in public station who would rise up and con-
denim man. or set of men, who were engaged in
the laudable purpose of saving the expenditure of
the public money. He quite aware that the
pet measures of many members had been inter
fered by the rigid necessity of passing appropria
ton bills before an adjournment could take place.
He had been criticised for asking the house. at the
last session, to pass the sundry appropriation bill
under suspension of the rules, but the issue at that
time was whether the bill should be passed
or whether there should be an extra session of
congress- The gentleman from New York
(Hiscock9 had stated, as he (RandalD thought to
his dscredit that on one occasion in order to exc
cute certain policy he had found it incumbent on
him to delay appropriation bills. He (RandalD
submitted that as to the tariff, river and harbOr
appropriations never had interposed except when
it essential that congress should pass the APP
preparation bills. During the last session the river
and harbor appropriation bill had taken one-third
as much time in the house as did the other
4 twelve bits Of Misrepresentation committa True,
the appropriation bills had the right of way, but it
had not the right of way to the Disadvantage of
enue measures. The policy which the committee
on appropriations had adopted, when under con
troll of the democratic party, had been of econ
o1ny and he failed to find anywhere declarations of
party in convention, where that principle was not
announced as the which would would be fol-
lowed if the people entrusted it with power He
(RandalD had come here during the war He
was not goiLg to refer to what his
course Of conduct had been
during that immediate period, but when that war
was over he had wanted the country to 60 straight
back to strict construction of the constitution,
reservng and permitting only that federal exercise
of power which distinctly given to the federal
government and reserving in every particular
everything that belonged to the states One of
the propositions which he had stated then, and
often stated
he wanted the federal government to do nothing in
the way of legislation that could be well done by
body OF his fellSW citizens, he would
deliberately say that he, wanted neither
federal nor state authorities to do anything that
could be as well or better done by the people in
their immediate localities. So he came to this
sertion that the war had produced but one or two
had forever dismissed the thought of secession, land
there it had stopped These results attained he
wanted to rehabilate the states in all their proper
authority. The gentleman from Texas (Wellborn)
had read from the founder of the democracy and
found (what he had n always been able to follow
the teachings of Thomas Jefferson to say that
there should be no money appropriated for any
purpose, unless there was direct authority in the
constitution of the United States to that end and
that so far as his membership on the appropria-
tions committee had been concerned, this
teaching had been his guide If mem
bers would but continu that cause, there
river and harbor bills. Who would not vote for a
river and harbor bill, if brought within the permits
OF the constitution as declared by the supreme
court? 1t was not the river and harbor bill itself to
which anybody objected. 1t was objected to when
it went outside of the constitution and congress
had no right to collect taxes in order to make such
a distribution of them.
The gentleman from Texas CWellborn), with
great ability, had given the real issue involved in
the controversy, because he (RandalD could not
bring his mind to think that there was any indi-
vidua bias or hostility to the membership of the
committee on appropriations The gentleman from
Texas had told the house that it must find out how
much money it was necessary to eXpend; in other
words, how much it would be able to secure the
concurrence of the two houses in and then to make
the revenue accordingly. This altogether
a strange notion to his mind, and,
he thought, most dangerous one.
He agreed that in large degree it involved in
the proposition now before this house, but he did
not expect that this house, either SIDE pre-
pared to give motion to such declaration that.
He begged, therefore that members would stop and
consider what they were entering upon
Mr.. Morrison, of Illinois, said that the assump-
ton of the gentleman from Pennsylvania that any
body found fault with the appropriation commit
tee, any member of IT, because it had helped to
reduce expenditures was in large part gratuitous,
and the assumption of the inference intended to be
drawn from these rules that anybody who had
participated in making this report, had for
his purpose, an increase of expenditures, that
the adoption of this report would increase expend-