The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-08-22
PEOPLE PAY DEAR
FOR TARIFF LAWS
Last Bill Cost Country Over
S4,O0O,OOO
LONG EXTRA SESSION
Mammoth Item for Printing Alone.
Tariff Measures Do Not Come on
Bargain Counters, Though
Schedules Are Down.
LONG EXTRA SESSION

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Tariff bills do not come on bar
gain counters. They may mark down the
schedules, but you'll not find them in
marked-down sales. This is the conclu-
sion that Uncle Sam will reach after he
pays the expenses of the extraordinary
session of Congress that came to close
last week, for If he gets out of it inside
of 100000 he may consider himself
lucky. AS the treasury is deep In the
hole now. it would seem that al extra
session of Congress at this time was a
pretty extraVagant luxury for the gov
eminent to acquire
This is one of the arguments used by
the administration opponents, but as
1t has been met by the assertion that the
bill WILL If it works right, change the
deficit to a surplus, 1t may not be well to
condemn the expense until time tries out
the law and the country finds out just
where it stands. In the meantime how
ever the modest little bills run up by the
extra session will have TO be paid in some
way, and the financial officials of the
treasury must find the wherewithal By
a rapid manipulation of the various
funds accounts and deposits In
the treasury the required money will
probaly be found. and the poor old deficit
will get another jolt.
The ealilnity howlers will get a little
more satisfaction in displaying the fig
ures as horrible examples of republic
can extraVagan but the people at
large will not know that they paid for
the session. The business of the govern
ment will proceed just as 1t did before,
and. outside of a few more warrants
drawn by a few more officials on a
few other officials. the extra meeting of
the Sixty-first Congress will not cause
ripple.
While Congress was meeting in Wash
ington, however there was very per-
ceptfbe ripple on the surface of things,
and the evidence of money spent was
found on every street and in every block
in town. The hotels, which are usually
tombs of brick and stone in the heated
term, were filled to overlooking by the
senators. congressman, attaches of Con-
gress, and last, but by no means among
the least, the lobbyists. Not since the
halcyon wartime days, when the lobby
lists pulled off big graft army contracts,
have the lobbyists been thicker on Penn
sylvania avenue and about the corridors
of the capitol. There was the lumber
lobby, the boot and shoe lobby, the wool
lobby, the cotton lobby, and two score of
other Hobbies, each with a bundle OF
money to spend for the cause" and
each spending it right generously.
terests' and the money they spent for
dinners, literature and testimony did not
come out of the United States treasury.
The devoted eXchequer of our long-suf-
fering government had plenty of bills of
its own to pay without footing the ex-
penses of the crowd that came here to
work Congress. OF course, the govern
ment which Is the people, and the peo-
pie, which is the government, will prob
ably pay the bills in the end; but 1t looks
better to ignore such a disagreeable
thought at the outset, especially when
attempting to figure up the real open
and-above- board cost of the tariff bill.
The biggest single item charged to the
score of the extra session, far as the
government is concerned, is that of print
Ing In round numbers Public Printer
Donnelly estimates the cost in his depart
ment at $3.50, 600. This includes the cost
of printing The Congressional Record,
the nine separate impressions of the tariff
bill, the printing of the mass of testimony
taken during the tariff hearings of the
WAYS and means committee, and the i'm
mense volume of speeches, reports, pam
phlets, booklets and leaves that the work
of Congress creates. This $4600oO Item
does not include the pay of the printers
engaged on any routine departmental
matter outside of the work entaied by
the extra session
There is a large force carried by the
government printing office year In and
year out, for there is always work to be
DONE no matter how dali the season.
Neither does the item include the cost
of the several copies of The Record that
will be issued during the next two or
three weeks. The mere ending of the
congressional session does not end the
speechmaking in The Record. Usually
there are several dozen speeches left
over on adjournment day-speeches which,
1t is true, were never really delivered,
but which, under the easy rules of the
House of Representatives, may be print
ed in The Record and given to the gaping
constituents of Congressman Wayback
as the real thing.
About the only thing that the editor of
The Record will not stand for m these
canned and undelivered speeches is the
insertion of the braclleted (applause)
which the members were formerly in the
habit of sticking In at the bottom of
every telling paragraph. Under the rules
of the Senate the statesmen in that body
have not the privilege of speaking their
speeches to The Congressional Record
unless they speak them first on the floor
of the chamber Now that this rule is
enforced the senators are in the habit