The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-05

He should be able to answer these Ques-
tons at a minutes notice.
Need of More Foreign Trade.
'Did you ever figure out how little
has really been done by the great ma
lions in foreign trade compared with
what might be done? Why, the world
contains 1900, 900, 900 people and only
about 400, 900, coo of them can really
manufacture for themselves. Now, all
these uncivilized or not entirely civiliz-
ed people who are using only So or So
worth each yearly of manufactures ought
to use 30 times as much. To civilize
them is merely to stimulate their de-
sires and develop their capacity to pay.
Look at the vast tropical regions of
Spanish America, where they produce
almost nothing to compete with us and
need almost everything that we can
manufacture cheaply. Why, we ought
to sell those people 5000, 900 or 3d.
900, 600 worth of stuff in little while,
even if we supplied them with nothing
but household convenienoes and farm
implements-in which we beat the
world, and do it easily. Now what has
all this, you will say, got to do with my
committee? Why, would select the very
best men who could be got for the
places, put them in all important CEN
ters there and have them make it their
life business to serve this country in
commercial lines, and to get the right
kind of men we must pay them. This
country doesn't want cheap men to do its
work. We want the best, and, by the
blessing of God, we can afford to pay
for them.
81 sometimes smile when I think of
the protests against increased cost and
the pledges of retrenchment and then of
the way circumstances have forced us
into wider field. Take the history of
my committee, and it illustrates it beau
tifully. The constitution, you know, re-
quires that all bills for raising money
must originate in the house, and, while
it does not say that bills for spending
money must, yet the reason Of the thing
carried it, and so for the first 76 years
the ways and means committee made the
appropriation bills. Early in 1865. how
ever, Thad Stevens carried measure for
a separate committee on appropriations,
and as he had been chairman of the ways
and means he elected to follow the ap-
preparations and was the first chairman
in the Thirty ninth congress. The COM
mittee had all the IS bills till Randall
had his great fight with Speaker Carlisle
anu Jul O444 14SOAis L40n
Of the ways and means. OF course it
was taken for granted they wanted to
curtail Randall's power, as he was
protectionist. At any rate. they took
from the committee seven bills and gave
control of them to the special commit
tees having the special subjects in
charge, ana now we have exclusive con-
troll of but six bills
Paying and Getting.
ga great reform. was it? Well, we
have more work to do than the commit
tee once had with all the bills, and as
we necessarily have a sort of supervision
over the seven bills brought in by the
other committees, on account of def
ciencies coming in, We can measure the
advance with precision from year to
year. It is destiny that is forcing Us
along the path toward higher functions
and greatly enlarged national activities.
And why not, il the money is properly
expended? Contrast our old neighbor-
hood in 1850 and now. Taxes then were
perhaps so cents on 500, but what
did we get for it? Courts and jails
Now the taxes are three times as high
and on five or ten times as much prop
erty, but look what the citizen gets for
his money-the finest system of gravel
roads in the world, with splendid
bridges over the river and all the creeks
at every important place; the finest
school system in the country, a system
that has been taken as a model by many
new states and even by the District of
Columbia, and hundred other things.''
Here Mr.. Cannon told several anecdotes
about the mud roads of his early days
and laughed most heartily at the reco1-
lection. 'Why, the citizen gets twice or
three times as much for each dollar paid
in taxes as in 1850. Now it is perfectly
practicable that the United States should
do the same. for, though it is govern
ment of limited powers, within its
sphere it is supreme. That gives US all
the power we want as to navy aud coast
defenses-South Africa and the islands
near to us, the Nicaragua canal and all
the rest-and am very decidedly for a
bold and vigorous policy, believing that
to be far more economical in the end. -
Mr.. Cannon directed me to many Gu
rious and interesting points in the rec
ords of the committee on appropriations,
and by the courtesy Of the chief clerk,
Mr.. James g. Courts, was enabled to
pass a very pleasant afternoon in the
survey. 1t is an odd fact, by the way,
that this committee has had but two
chief clerks in the 81 years of its exist
ence. The first was Robert J. Stevens
of California. who held continuously for
10 years, and was succeeded by Mr..
Courts of Tennessee, who has held for
10 years as chief and had previously
been Mr. Stevens assistant for years.
The latter was a Republican, and Mr..
Courts is Democrat, civil service rules
having held from the start in this COM
mittee. Thad Stevens, as aforesaid, was
the first chairman, and was followed in
turn by Washburn of Illinois, Dawes of
Massachusetts and Garfield of Ohio.