Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-26

l6. Eight to fifteen letters each; eight to ten
hours per day.
II. An average of three letters each; One-half
of my time.
Is. About two letters each: about one hour
each day.
10. About dozen letters, on the average, to
each; half of my time.
20. One prolonged and continuous correspon-
dence; the constant and entire time of both my
self and secretary would not suffice.
81. l think that during the last twelve months
the lives of most of the Repu blican members of
congress have been made miserable by the post
Office controversies in their congressional dis
tricts.
u. Each place filed on my recommendation
has required probably twelve letters written.
%. Do not know what amount of time, but
good part of it.
1t is not an extravigant estimate from
the above answers to say that more than
one third of the entire time of these con-
gressmen (time which should properly be
devoted to their legislative duties) is
consumed IN the distribution of offices.
The condition of affairs in this respect
does not seem to have changed very
greatly from the time when Gen. Gar
field, in his speech at Williams College,
said: "One-third of the working hours
of senators and representatives is hardly
sufficient to meet the demands made
upon them in reference to appointments
for office. The number of places with
drawn from congressional patronage by
the civil service law has been about
% 900, but this has been counter bal
anced by the growth of the service.
Your committee then proceeded to in
quire more particularly into the extent
to which this patronage interfered with
the proper performance of the legislative
duties which the constitution imposes
upon members of congress. Your COM
mittee examined the records of congress
for the purpose of determining the rela-
tive number of measures which remain
unconsidered at the end of each session
from lack of time to give them proper
consideration. Taking the last congress
as an illustration your committee found
that the number of bills"and joint reso-
lurions introduced was II ,078, to-wit:
House bills, - 1854; resolutions, 269;
senate bills, 1000; resolutions, 145. Out
of this total number OF IL .07S, your COM
mittee ascertained that the bills and res
olutions passed were only 1924, or a lit
tie more than ten per cent, leaving
balance of 1884 measures introduced
but not adopted. This, however, does
not furnish just criterion of the meas
ures which congress was unable to con-
slider, since some Of these measures were
passed upon adversely. Your committee
therefore examined the indexes of the
last Congressional Record of both ses-
sions, and found that out of the II ,078
measures introduced more than IL 900
were referred to committees and never
reported by the committees to which
they were referred; that about 400 were
introduced and reported by these COM
mittees but never reached final consider
alton in the respective houses in which
they were originally introduced; that
something more than 1000 passed the
house in which they were introduced but
never reached final consideration in the
other branch of congress, while less than
$500 were finally acted upon. Your
committee included IN the measures
finally disposed of all bills and resolu-
lions approved by the president; all
which became laws without his approval;
all which passed both houses and were
examined and approved, even though
they finally failed TO become laws
through lack of proper submission to the
executive; all measures which were
vetoed by the president, whether after
wards considered by congress or not;
and all measures which were withdrawn,
laid on the table, or indefinitely post
poned in either house. It is evident,
however, that many of these measures,
including bills which were laid on the
table (from which they might be taken
at any time), were not intended to be
definitely rejected.
Why Is 1t that the committees TO which
this proposed legislation Is referred have
no time to sort ont the good from the
bad; no time to consider more than a
small fraction of the measures submitted
to them2 Why is it that so many bills