The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-03-28
Finly Gray Always Favors
Free Distribution of Seeds
When Bill Is Reported
in.
DEBATE IS AMUSING
Naval Increase Bill Annually
Causes Members to Indulge
in Long and Tiresome Dis
cussiOns.

WASHINGTON, March 2S.-Three
verbal battles, always over the same
topics, take place annually in the
house of representatives. They con-
Germ mileage, the freed distribution
of garden seed, and battleships.
The garden seed scrimmage for the
year 1914 has taken place, and as
usual. the members of congress re-
tanned in the agricultural appropriation
bill the provision authorizing them to
continue to distribute free to their
constituents packages of seed furnish
ed by the department of agriculture.
Year after year hundreds of thous-
ands of seed packets go through the
mails bearing the frank of members
Of congress. Year after year an effort
is made to strike this item from the
agricultural budget, but the legislators
from the rural districts bowl over all
such amendments. Finly Gray, of the
Sixth Indiana district, believes in seed
distribution as vote getter.
The debate over the seed distribu-
ton always is heated and frequently
amusing. The opponents of the au-
thorization assert that it is petty graft
and that seed are distributed for vote
catching purposes. Rural members
hotly refute such suggestions. and
paint glowing pictures of the JOY that
comes to the farmer, his wife and his
daughter when the packages of gov
eminent seed arrive.
Mileage Problem.
Second in intensity to the fight over
garden seed is that centering in the
annual proposal to abolish the mile
oil Of
sentatives. The mileage bill for I'm
Gle Sans legislators now amounts to
more than sl50,000 each year
In the early days of the republic
members Of congress received 20 cents
a mile each way to pay the expenses
Of the journey to and from the ma
tons capital In those days the
statesmen came by stage coach and
on horseback, and the amount was not
unreasonable. In these days of swift
trains. with their parlor coaches and
Pullmans, the mileage allowance re-
mains the same. and all efforts to cut
It down 10 the actual expense incurred
by the travelling members have been
unavailing. Some members. living at
2reaJ distances, receive as much as
81 LOCO to sl.200 fOr mileage.
Fight Naval Increase.
The battleship fight in The house
likewise is an annual affair. There is
mo battleship" group, which will
strike from the naval bill! any author
ization for a navy increase. There are
other f:ctiCuS 3-rCWn aS "Nuc battle
ship" two hatticehip' and three bat
tlcship' groups. Representative Hob
son Of A2E%m1. stands practically
alone in j~ demand fer anywhere from
four to six new dreadnaughts.
A sample OF the debate ON the gar
den 4ecd distribution privilege was
furnished recently with the passage
Of the agricultural approximation bill
Mr.. Sumner. q T"XaS Democrat, want
ed to strike from the bill the clause
permitting members Of congress to
send on. seeds under their franks lie
proposed that the department Of agri-
culture might continue it's work of
testing, pronagating and distributing
valuable seeds and plants. bUt he as
serted that the timC-hOnoTed practice
of distributing Garden and flower seed
under the congressional frank ought
to be abolished.
Representative Paige. Of North Car
DINA. declared that for five cam
paigns in my district | have consist
emily voted against congressional dis
tributiOn and made ii an issue in the
district | represent. | never vet men
toned it to an audience Of agricultur
alsts that they did not agree with me
There is not a newspaper in my dis
trict thar is not opposed to this con
gressional graft, because it is that
and nothing else