The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-12

reach These are the rooms or the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and of the House. Elsewhere in that big building the warfare goes on necessarily between the majority and the minority. Both in the House and the Senate party lines are tautly drawn Tn other committees there is nearly always a truceless warfare. While politics governs the selection of the members of these committees, and they are drawn up ready for any sort of a fray that might come. framed up about two to one in favor or the majority, once they get inside their rooms, the Democratic lamb may lie down safely beside the Republican lion, and ali Is peace.
 The making of appropriations for the maintenance of the Government is one of the things regarded as of too much importance to justify the en- trance of politics. With the excep- tion of few rare instances, partisan politics is unknown. and when these committees bring out bill 1t does not represent creation born Of po- liticai exigencies. but tho best labors of strong men who have dealt with the questions involved purely on their merits.
 one may get a good idea of how free from politics Is the House Com mirree on Appropriations from. the fact that its clerk. Mir. James c. Courts, is a staunch Tennessee Demo- crat. He is perhaps the best author ity on the question of governmental expenditures. He knows how to pro- vide for the billion-dollar Government machine as we'll as schoolboy knows how to play. In the committee of which he is clerk originate ali the big appreciation bills. He and his assistants get things well in shape long before the committee meets at the beginning of sessions of Congress. And when the committee does meet, 1t has comparatively little to do beyond ratifying what they have done. It IS an unwritten law with the House com mittee on Appropriations that political considerations shall not enter into the selection of its clerks. and when they once begin their service. it Is almost A iife-tffna job. Committees may come and committees may go. chair men may succeed others and be sue" ceeded themselves. but the clerks stay on The result is that they get to know more about spending GoVern. ment money than anyone else, and Congress needs them worst than they need Congress.
 In the Senate the same sort of sltu- alton prevails. The clerk of It's Com mittee on Appropriations, MT. Thomas Cleaves, has been there almost since the memory of man. He stayed there through the days when the Democrats controlled the Senate, and none of the vicissitudes of politics has ever feazed him. Some time ago there was va- cancy in the clerical force of his committee, and 1t was given. to Ken nedy F. Req, a Democrat of the strong est type Req had been with the House Committee and had won his spurs there These two committees are ahout the only ones In Congress where the clerkships are not regarded as among the personal prerogatives of
 The House Appropriations Commit | tee had It's birth at the close of the ! Civil War Prior to that time tn c I Ways and Means Committee not only raised the funds for the maintenance of the Government. but spent them as now discharged by the Committee on Banking and Currency, Thaddeus | Stevens, the head of the Ways and | Means Committee during the Civil | War period, concluded that there was too much work for one committee, and he proposed to make three out of 1t. Ways and Means was to look after matters of revenue; Appropriations af- ter matters of expenditure, and Bank ing and Currency after currency and banking Legislation.
 Stevens was never Speaker of the Rouse. but during and immediately af- ter the Civil War period he controlled the House as no other Speaker. until Reed, ever controlled it. His proposi- tion for the division of Ways and Means was easily passed. and he chose the chairmanship7 of the new Appro- priation Committee, stating that he re- garded it as the most important com mitteei of the House. He seems to have correctly appraised the situation. During tariff legislation years, Ways and Means eclipses the Appropria tions Committee, as the moon sometimes ecIipses the sun, but during about three years out of four, Appropriations out shines Ways and Means. For the past eleven years Ways and Means has been a do-nothing committee. Yet it is very jealous of what 1t supposes to be it's rank.
 Last year there was a quarrels be- tween Ways and Means and Appropri- ations as to which should move out of the Capitol and into the new office building. Ways and Means did not want to move. It pleaded its age, its superior importance, the dignity of Its chairman. who serves as the majority floor leader, and a hundred and one other things that should en-
  propriations. It was a free light in which party lines were not drawn, and in which all the leading men of the House took an oratorical part. It narrowed down to a decision of the House as to which 1t considered the more important committee, and the vote was a decesive one in favor of appropriations. It. was in the debate l on this question that MT. Courts re- eeived as high tributes as any man l ever received from the floor of the | House. Republicans vied with Demo- crats In commenting his ability in ] looking after the expenditures of the | Government.
 There have been comparatively few chairman of the House Committee on | Appropriations. The first was Stevens | He was succeeded as chairman by | Dawes of Massachusetts, who in turn | was succeeded by Garfield. Garfield
 was succeeded by Randall. who, though | elected Speaker between times. served | as chairman of the committee longer 1 than any other chairman down to [ the present time. No man ever had more opportunities to make a. .compe- l tence out of his political position than
 Randall, and he sOrved at a time when l such things were not frowned dowr
 upon so much as they are now. Yet
 he approached the eventide of life a l poor man. At last he was not able
 even to leave Washington during the l summer. on account of the expense 1 1t entaiied. even though he knew that
 to stay In the city's heat might be | fatal At thls juneture George w l Child's A. K. McClude. leased a summer | home for him. He was willing to ac.
 eept 1t only under condition that ht