The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-03-21
USELESS COM M|TTEES
CREATED BY CONGRESS
PROVIDE POLITICAL JOBS IN THE
FORM OF CLERkShIPS
WITHOUT WORK.

| The house of representatives, or
rather the members of the house, ser
iously object to being known as bar
nacles attached to the ship of state"
That charge, substantially, was made
against them by Representative Full
| er, an Independent from Massachu-
sets, now serving his first term. He
made this charge incident to resignins
from the committee on expenditures
in the interior department.
| For his criticism of the membership
of the house, Mr.. Fuller was lambast-
Dies of Texas and every "barnacle"
in the house was present to wildly
cheer and applaud each time the Texas
spellbinder poked ridicule at the new
member from Massachusetts.
Many Useless Committees.
Although the house had a Roman
holiday over the supposed corpse OF
Mr.. Fuller, the fact remains that Mr..
Fuller did sensible thing in resign
ing and did a patriotic thing in calling
the attention of the country to the
fact that the house of representatives
is squandering considerable money in
maintaining useless committees and
in hiring clerks and messengers for
these committees Mr.. Fuller charged
that half of the committees of the
house are useless. There are in the
house 60 committees; Is of them are
absolutely useless and IA are nearly
useless.
Useless committees are those which
never meet; committees to which bills
are never referred; committees which
Rave no function to perform, but
which were created in the dim and dis
tant past for the sole purpose of pro-
viding chairmanships for favored
members of the party in power and
giving these members clerks and mes
government expense were they not the
chairmen of house committees.
Government Pays Bill
The IA nearly useless committees
once in 10 years, others, perhaps, once
year, all of them committees whose |
business might easily be performed
by other standing committees created
in good faith.
For instance, Representative SABBATH
of Illinois has an extra clerk and a
messenger at government expense be-
cause he is chairman of the commit
tee on alcoholic liquor traffic. This
committee has not had a meeting in
the recollection of any man now
around the capital There are 10
committees on expenditures" in the
various government departments.
These committees never meet. But
10 democrats hold there 10 chairman
ships, and the government pays.
Representative Brumbaugh of Ohio
is chairman of the committee on rail-
ways and canals. 1t is one of the
deadest committees in the house. No
bills are ever referred to tit never
meets. The committee on reform in
civil service is another joke commit
tee, but Representative Goodwin of
and the clerk
Near Useless Committee.
But the next-to- useless committees
are also worthy of attention. Take
the committees on library. All that
committee does is to consider bills
once every year or two, providing for
the erection or sanctioning the cree
ton Of statues somewhere or other.
The committee on patents revises the
patent laws once in a decade and then
lhibernates. The committee on indus
| trial expositions goes into action
whenever some city is going to have
an exposition and wants government
exhibit. The committee on mileage,
of which Representative Dill of Wash
iEgton is chairman, has to arrange,
once a year, for the payment of mile
age to members of the house and then
its duties are over Only few years
ago. a committee on roads was created
to draft and report the good roads bill.
That committee performed a useful
service, the good roads bill became
law and the committee Immediately
became dead letter. The same thing
is true of the committee on woman
suffrage created this session. 1t re-
ported the suffrage amendment which
soon passed the house, and that COM
mittee is dead for all practical pur-
poses for all time to come if the suf-
frage amendment passes the senate
during this congress
Burden on Taxpayers.
These are only some of the useless
committees Of the house, but there
are so democrats holding chairman
ships because these useless committees
are maintained. Thirty-two demo-
Gratis have additional clerks at govern
ment expense. The go chairmen have
committee rooms which are never oil
seldom used for committee purposes
and altogether a heavy expense Is
shouldeerd onto the taxpayers.
outside of the chairmen, no mem.
Der of these committees gains any.
thing at all by membership.
|