The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-16
Griggs of Georgia Chides cOngreSsmen. Says After Dire Threats They Voted to Have the Postofice Depart ment Investigate rnem In-
 -- stead of the Reverse.


 ment with Mir. Cooper of Wisconsin as to the authorship of the document and in- sisted over the protest of MT. Cooper that 1t was prepared under the direction of General Bristow. He defended the com mittee of which he Is member in giving | publicity to the report, saying that the | Unittd States is too important and too | great to convict any man by the suppress sion of the facts. He said that the members of the House after threats to tear the roof off the department had turned tail and voted that the depart ment should investigate the Congressmen The claim of the letter carriers for in- creased pay was espoused by Mir. Cromer Qnd) He spoke of the insufficiency of the pay of the rural mail carriers and said they should not be denied the privi- lege of acting as agents for newspapers. At whose suggestion was it," inquired MT. Mann, that this privilege has been denied?"
 A Bristow Suggestion. Mir. Cromer said 1t came from Fourth Assistant Postmasetr General Bristow first and then from the Postofice Com mittee. He had. he said, no criticism to offer against General Bristow. T think" he said. he has been honest in the administration of postal affairs" and he received Republican appaluse when he aded, ''I am so we'll satisfied with the investigation he has made in the Postoffice Department that I believe no fraud or corruption yet remains there to be exposed to the people,"
 Mir. Gaines (Tenn.) was in favor of the proposition if the rural mail carriers were. given the right to solicit subscrip- tions for all newspapers and not for any one publication and to transact for pay any other business for the patrons of the route.
 Discussing the prohibition in the bill l against rural carriers after July 1, 1904, l soliciting business or receiving orders of | any kind from any person, firm or cor | poration. Mr. Griggs (Ga.) a member | of the committee, said that if these car riers were permitted to act as agents, | he wanted the law so framed that the carrier would not become dictator as to l what newspapers he shall carry or the trades people he shall represent. The | law, he said, should require thtm to &C., 1 cept orders equally and fnpartially from l everybody.
 He also assailed the letter carriers organization for the manner of making It's demands on Congress, and said the carriers had made an effort to intimidate 1 Congress into acceding to their demands.
 Intimidating Congress. He was interrupted by Mir. Burleson | (Texas) who asked If the executive order prohibiting government employees from lobbying before Congress was s'iest. " I T have always thought so,'S MT. Griggs replied and he said further that if he was representing the present head | of the White House as his attorney he would enter a plea of guilty and stop further investigation.
 During his remarks MT. Griggs re- ferred to the recent report of the post office as "The Bristow report" and this cpencd up a fresh discussion of that doc ument, which had brought forth such storm of indignation from members of the House. He said that as a member of the Committee he did not see how the Committee could have done other wise than to make the report public. Was there anything in 1t which au- thorized the Committee to print that data , under the heading Charles concerning , members of CongreSs?' 2 " inquired Mir. ) Cooper (Wis)
 MT. Griggs said he of course did not endorse that, and it was unfortunate, whereupon Mir Overstreet, Chairman of the Committee. explained that as soon ] as he saw the heading he notified the Government printing office that it was not justified by the manuscript.
 MT. Cooper sarcastically remarked that he had never known the Government printing office to print anything that was not in the copy.
 T understand the heading was writ ten in the Postoffice Department" MT Griggs said in reply.
 Grosvenor's Wise Suggestion.
 General Grosvenor suggested that Il would be wise to wait until the House knew more about the matter, but MT Cooperg insisted that the report should not be credited to General Bristow. MT Griggs however, maintained that 1t was BrisLow's report. Continuing, he said il had leaked out prior to the report tha the Committee were in possession of in formation that would condemn members of Congress. In the Committee he saIt he had contended that if there were tC be leaks, 1t was the Committees duty to make 1t public, which 1t very prop erly had done. The United States, h' said, 'is too powerful and too great tt convict anybody by suppression of tht facts"
 But" he said, If the publication O all those things would convict not onl! men under indictment, but men highel up or lower down, the report should b, taken for what it is worth.''
 If there are men in the inspection ser vice, he declared, who were afraid t, have their reports see daylight. sucl men ought to be gotten rid of, and mel put in who were not afraid. Ther was yet more of the report, he said the reports of inspectors who ought t, go before the public. He called atten ton to what he termed the "ridiculou position in which the House had placet itself" Evn5 fla -S34dGould etaoin shrdl drwdlu,
 We sought to investigate the Post office Department" he said, and yo' gentlemen turned out here like hornet and insisted that the whole Departmen from top to bottom must be investigated.
 Both the Republicans and the Demo crats, he said, had declared they woui' tear the roof off the old thing" ant he inquired. What did you do? Tn House got tired and turned tall" he said
 Ridicules the House.
 Amid laughter and applause, he chide' members of the House with having start
 ed out to investigate the Department an'
 having wound up by having the Depart
 ment investigate them. That was
 great coup on the part of the Depart
 ment, he said, with sarcasm.
 He poked fun at the Republicans haVih
 so readily yielded to the persuasions
 the party leaders, and voting against
 Department investigation, adopting m
 stead miserable resolution investigatlh
 yourselves" The Republican organl.S
 ton. he said. was the finest in the WotIc
 There's nothing like It." he continuoo
 from Julius Caesar down to GehsIe
 Roosevelt" which latter remark proVo,,Ass s.