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Timestamp: 2019-04-22 19:57:19+00:00

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Congressional Record (18 pages) from February 8, 1904, on the Lewis and Clark Exposition held in Portland, Oregon in 1905.
Mr. TAWNEY. Just one word, as the gentleman's time has been extended. Two prominent gentlemen in Minneapolis about a year or so ago took with them a mechanical engineer to Germany, and they spent some six or eight months over in Germany investigating this very thing. The gentleman said to me that he thought they could make briquettes successfully if they could get the German machinery, but that the duty on the machinery was so high it would he impossible to do it, and so they are going to undertake, and have undertaken, to make plans and specifications for the machinery here in the United States. They are now being prepared for the building, first, of the machines to manufacture the briquettes from lignite, and then for making them without any binder at all.
I do not see any necessity, as this is being done by private parties, for this appropriation. I think all the investigation the Government could make is being now made by those to whom I have alluded and by others who I know are very largely interested in the development of this country.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, the Geological Survey does not agree with the gentleman in- the last utterance. The machinery will be at St. Louis, the lignite will be there, the various binding materials proposed will be there, and they wish to illustrate as an object lesson to the entire people, if they can, how to manufacture these briquettes, a substitute for the more expensive fuel. Now, Mr. Chairman, I move that the House concur in the Senate amendment 47.
Mr. HEMENWAY. Mr. Chairman, of course the motion of the gentleman from Mississippi has precedence over a motion to nonconcur, but after this matter has been discussed we would like to have the House pass upon the merits of the case, because we shall feel that the conferees of the House are bound by the action of the House. As to our informal nonconcurrence here in other amendments, where there has been no discussion, naturally the conferees will not feel bound; but where the matter has been discussed and the House has passed upon it the conferees will feel bound to carry out their instructions. Therefore I hope the committee, in voting for this, will understand that they are passing upon the merits of it.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I did not intend to discuss this amendment, but since the gentleman from Indiana has made the announcement that the conferees will feel bound by it I feel it my duty to say a few words in favor of the adoption of the amendment. We are engaged in the United States in mining domestic coal, and we have to some extent developed a foreign coal trade. We are supplying ships from foreign ports with coal. The coal trade of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Alabama is attempting to get into the South American market in competition with European coal fields. We have a great many different varieties of coal in this country, from anthracite down to soft bituminous coal and lignite. Our coals are not known like the European coals. Outside of a very few coals in this country, one or two in Pennsylvania and a few in West Virginia, we have no coal that is so well known in the world to-day that you might denominate as a standard coal in the markets of the world. Now, when yon are dealing with a foreign country and foreign ships yon must have some standard, so that you can know what they are. how much fixed carbon there is in the coal, how much volatile matter there is, so that the captains of the ships may, in order to safely land that coal aboard their ships, determine whether there is any danger of explosion or setting their ships on fire by reason of the volatile matter contained in the coal. Therefore I think it is wise for the best interests of the country that this amendment should be adopted.
The foreign coals in all the great countries have had numerous tests. The foreign competitors in the coal trade have had their coal tested, and they are standard coals known to the shippers and known to the consumers, and when we go into the market with a new coal we have got to have something that can stand behind it. It will be of great benefit to ns in the foreign markets to have the United States Government apply a test to the various coals of this country on which we can rely and which we can give to the foregn purchaser and the foreign shipper, showing exactly what he is buying from an official test by the United States Government. For that reason I think it is wise that we should adopt this amendment. I think that the expenditure is the least that we can make to have the test properly made, and as the chairman of the committee has announced that the conferees will feel bound by this vote in conference, I hope the House will adopt the proposition.
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. Does not the gentleman know that we have standard tables containing all these things that are credited throughout the world as much as are the tables of life insurance companies?
that is satisfactory. The naval board has a test by which they are buying certain coal.
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. The business interests have tables, and so do the coal operators.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Only business concerns; and one tests coal by one method and one by another process, so that they are not standard.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. There are no standard tables on this question that are official.
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. They are not by the United States, I know.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Where are these tables, by whom are they made, and how do they become standard?
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana, Any man knows who is dealing in coal that there are tables giving the heating qualities, the amount of carbon, etc.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Of course there are standard tables showing what, ought to he in a standard coal, hut where are the officials of this Government that publish a standard statement showing what are standard coals?
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. Why, there are those tables, I say.
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. Oh, I am not an expert on the matter, but I have referred to those tables and experts have told me about them. I will give the gentleman the statements about it.
Bureau County _. Mercer County ..
Mr. SHERLEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not desire to make any lengthy statement in regard to this matter after what has been said, but in so far as my State has a coal area greater than that of the State of Pennsylvania and much of it undeveloped, and that the trouble in developing some of that area has been due to the fact that the public at large has not had accurate information as to the value of those coals, I am very desirous of seeing the House concur in the Senate amendment. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Robinson] made his objection on the basis that the large coal-mine operators had ample money to have all the tests made that were necessary. He overlooked the fact that under this provision a man who has virgin coal lands and has not the capital sufficient to have a test made, nor the machinery, and the place where a test can be made, would have a place where he could have the test made, the accuracy of which will be accepted by the world at large.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. And without expense to him.
coal to any man whom yon desire to interest in the development of coal lands and tell him that what yon have is a coking coal, and he immediately wants to know what proof there is of that fact. He is not willing to accept a private analysis, and you. are brought up immediately with the statement that unless yon have some proof to show that this coal is of fine coking quality, equal to the Connellsville coal, which makes a standard coke, you have exceedingly great difficulty in getting him interested at all.
Now, the Connellsville coke is an old established coke, but there is ccal in my State superior to the Connellsville coal which today is undeveloped because there has been no method by which its value could be brought to the attention of people desiring to invest in and develop coal lands; and for the paltry sum that is carried in this appropriation to forego the opportunity that this presents to exploit the coal areas of America seems to me to be carrying economy to an absurd point. I hope the House will vote in favor of concurring in the Senate amendment.
Mr. STEPHENS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I hope the House will concur in this Senate amendment. In my own State, a few years ago, the State legislature, at considerable expense, sent its State geologists to Germany for the purpose of endeavoring to ascertain whether or not semibitnminous or lignite coal, found in abundance in Texas, could be manufactured advantageously into coal briquettes. In that State, and I suppose the same is true of many other States, there is quite a large territory underlain with lignite and semibituminous coals, which at present can not be used because it air-slacks and becomes coal dust. As I understand the proposition stated in this Senate amendment, the German manufacturers of briquette machinery propose to bring their machinery to St. Louis, so that any locality in the United States having this quality of coal—which coal is now valueless and useless—can ship a carload or more of it to St. Louis and have it tested in this German-made briquette machinery, and it can there be ascertained whether or not, by the purchase of such machinery, the locality shipping the coal can put in a plant of its own, so as to manufacture its coal into briquettes successfully at the mines. Therefore I hope that this amendment will he concurred in. No appropriation, in my judgment, would better subserve the interests of the entire people of the United States.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Mississippi. This is not an expenditure; this is an investment.
Mr. STEPHENS of Texas. Certainly, and an excellent investment, and, in my judgment, no better investment could be made by the people of the United States.
Mr. SPALDING. Mr. Chairman, in some of the States of the Northwest the surface is underlain by very large deposits of lignite. Now, this lignite is not of uniform quality, and it is sought to determine to what extent it'can be used profitably for household purposes, for manufacturing, and for the imrpose of raising water to irrigate arid lands. While some of it in certain localities can be profitably used, it still remains to he determined to what depth one must go to get the best quality, such as can be used most profitably in all these lines.
Now, these Northwestern States lie midway between the anthracite fields of the East, the bituminous fields of the Central West, and the coal fields of the further West, and coal there brings a higher price—the cost of all kinds is greater than in almost any other part of the country. And the bulk of this lignite is so great as it is found in its natural condition that the freightage on it is excessive—that is to say, it can not he carried beyond certain narrow lines to be sold at a price which will enable the people to use it to advantage. So that while the anthracite coal may have certain standards, and while the bituminous coal may have certain standards, as has been suggested here, there is great necessity for experimental efforts with the lignite obtained in these fields to determine to what extent and within what radius it can be profitably used.
And, further, there is a great necessity for experiment on this lignite to determine whether or not it can be profitably put in the form of briquettes so as to make its use more diversified and more extensive. It is of great importance to the people of the Middle West, so to speak, that these experiments should be made, and the experiments will be beneficial to the whole country. I trust that my amendment may he adopted.
Mr. HEMENWAY. I ask for a vote.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the motion of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Williams] that the committee recommend concurrence in amendment No. 47.
Mr. HEMENWAY. Mr. Chairman, for fear that we may have overlooked some one amendment in this bill I ask unanimous consent that any amendment which has been overlooked be nonconcurred in. I exclude, of course, from this request the amendment in regard to the St. Louis fair.
Mr. OLMSTED. What amendment does the gentleman suspect may have been overlooked?
Mr. HEMENWAY. In running over this bill we may have passed some total which needed correction, or something of that kind.
Tho CHAIRMAN. The Chair will inform the gentleman from Indiana that he is assured by the Clerk that no amendment has been overlooked.
Mr. HEMENWAY. If the Clerk is very sure of that—if all the totals are correct—of course it is ail right.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair, when he makes his report to the House, will so report.
Mr. HEMENWAY. Then, Mr. Chairman, there is only one amendment now pending, I believe—amendment No. 10. I ask that that amendment be reported.
Louisiana Purchase Exposition: For the purpose of further aiding in the payment of the cost of the construction, completion, and opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, at the city of St. Louis, on or before April 30, 1904, $4,600,000; said sum to paid to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company on the request of the president of said company, and in amounts as follows: One million dollars upon the passage of this act, $1,000,000 during the month of February, $1,000,000 during the month of March, $1,000,000 during the month of April, and $600,000 during the month of May, 1904: Provided, That of said sums, $100,000 shall be paid by said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company to, or on the order of, the board of lady managers of said exposition for such purposes as said boardof lady managers shall approve and at such times as said board of lady managers shall request the same.
That to insure the application of all said moneys to the purposes for which the same is appropriated, the Secretary of the Treasury shall appoint a suitable person or persons whose duty it shall be to supervise the disbursement of the same when paid, as herein provided, and to make a full and complete report thereof to him as he may require: Provided further, That the amount hereby appropriated when paid to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, a's herein provided, shall constitute an indebtedness of the said company to the Government of the United States and shall he repaid by said company to the Treasury of the United States. That for the purpose of protecting the Government and insuring the repayment of said sum of $4,600,000, the Government shall have a first lien upon the gross receipts of said exposition company from all paid admissions to the grounds of said exposition and from all moneys received from concessions. That before any part of this appropriation is paid, as hereinbefore provided, the said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company shall execute, to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Treasury, an instrument in writing giving and securing to the Government a first lien upon its said gross receipts, and said exposition company shall at the same time guarantee to the Government, under suitable penalties, that the said gross receipts are then entirely free from liens, mortgages, or other incumbrances, and that it will not pledge or in any way incumber or dispose of said receipts so as to injure or affect the right of the Government to first receive therefrom the amount to be returned to the Treasury, as herein provided.
The said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company shall repay into the Treasury of the United States the said sum of $4,600,000, as follows: On the 15th day of June, 1904, said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company shall report to the Secretary of the Treasury in detail the total amount of all said gross receipts received by said company from June 1 to June 15, both inclusive, and 40 per cent of such receipts shall then be paid by said company to the Secretary of the Treasury as a part payment for the loan to said company herein provided for, and after that and during the continuance of said exposition a like report in detail shall be made on the 1st day of each month and upon the 15th day of each month, and in the same manner 40 per cent of the gross receipts of said company shall be paid to the Secretary of the Treasury, as before provided, until the entire amount of $4,600,000 shall have been paid to the Secretary of the Treasury in satisfaction of said loan: Provided further, That if at any time after said exposition company has received the amount hereby appropriated it makes default in the application or in the repayment of said sum, or any part thereof, as herein required, then, and in that case, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to supervise the collection and take possession of all said gros3 receipts and continue such supervision and possession until the full sum of said $4,600,000 has been collected and repaid into the Treasury of the United States, as herein provided.
Tn accepting the amount hereby appropriated the said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company shall be taken and held to agree to all the terms and conditions upon which the same is made and upon which the same is to be repaid into the Treasury of the United States: Provided, That range cattle and halter-broke cattle from all sections of the United States, whether above or below the quarantine line established by the Secretary of Agriculture, may be exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition under such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture.
Mr. TAWNEY. I desire to offer an amendment to the Senate amendment; and I will state that I am directed to do so by the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions.
the said sum of $4,600,000 shall have been fully paid, the said payments on the 15th and 1st day of each and every month of 40 per cent of said gross receipts shall not be less than $500,000."
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on agreeing on this amendment to the Senate amendment.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I ask the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] what is the difference between his amendment and the present text of the bill as it comes from the Senate? From the reading I could not catch precisely the difference.
merit and the Senate amendment relates entirely to the repayment of the amount which it is proposed to loan to the exposition company. Under the Senate amendment the exposition company would be required to pay to the Government 40 per cent of their gross receipts, and if at the closing of the exposition the 40 per cent should be found insufficient to pay the entire indebtedness of $4,600,000, then the Government would have to come in with other creditors and participate in the distribution of whatever remaining assets there might he.
The proposition I have submitted requires the company to pay not less than $500,000 on the 15th of July, a like sum on the 1st of August, and so on until the $4,600,000 has been repaid. Now, the Government is to receive 40 per cent of the gross receipts during the month of May and the month of June. It is reasonable to suppose that 40 per cent will at least take care of the $600,000 if the subsequent months will enable them to pay $1,000,-000, so that $4,000,000 will have been paid by the 1st of November, thirty days before the closing of the exposition—that is, if the amendment which I propose is adopted.
Mr. BARTLETT. The amendment of the gentleman, I think, applies to the wrong line in the bill. Probably the gentleman prepared it as an amendment to this print, and the amendment is being made to the House bill. I merely wanted to call the attention of the gentleman to that so that he could get it technically correct as to the line to which it applies.
Mr. TAWNEY. Mr. Chairman, I prepared the amendment to the House print of the urgent deficiency bill, as the Senate amendments are numbered. It is on page 12 where I propose the amendment, after the word " shall," in line 6.
Mr. BARTLETT. I think your amendment read to line 16.
Mr. TAWNEY. Line 6, down to and including the word "loan," in line 16, striking out all of that and substituting what I have sent to the Clerk's desk. It simply makes definite and certain the amount that is to be paid, beginning July 15, every two weeks.
Mr. PAYNE. When is the first payment to be made?
Mr. TAWNEY. The first payment is to be made on the loth of June, and the second payment on the 1st of July.
Mr. MADDOX. Mr. Chairman, I should like to hear from my friend from Minnesota seriously on the proposition of the Government ever being paid back a cent if we make this loan.
Mr. TAWNEY. When the amendment is agreed to, I shall move to concur in this amendment, and will endeavor to address myself to the merits of the proposition. I understood from gentlemen around me that they had no objection to this amendment, inasmuch as it was adding a further security, or making definite and certain the fact that the Government would receive this money out of the receipts of the exposition.
Mr. SULZER. Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the gentleman from Minnesota a question.
Mr. SULZER. I desire to know if the commissioners of the exposition favor his amendment? Mr. TAWNEY. They are in favor of it.
Mr. SULZER. Then I shall favor it and vote for it. I want to do all I can to make this great exposition a success.
Mr. GILLETT of Massachusetts. May I ask the gentleman a question?
Mr. TAWNEY. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. GILLETT of Massachusetts. Am I mistaken in supposing that the House committee provided that all of the gross gate receipts should be devoted to the repayment of this loan, instead of 40 per cent? I understood that was the House proposition. Am I mistaken in that?
Mr. TAWNEY. The House committee prepared and submitted, at the request of one member of the subcommittee on Appropriations of the Senate, the amendment which is printed here at the beginning of page 1 of the hearings before the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions.
Mr. GILLETT of Massachusetts. Did you offer that as an amendment?
Mr. TAWNEY. No, but it amounts to that. The Senate amendment requires the repayment of this fund at the rate of 40 per cent of the gross receipts from paid admissions and from concessions semimonthly. The amendment which the House committee prepared provided for a lien upon the gross receipts from all paid admissions, and then required the payment of not less than $500,000 semimonthly, beginning on the 1st of July.
the loan at the rate of 40 per cent of the gross receipts semimonthly, and the making of a detailed statement of the total receipts from all sources.
Mr. GILLETT of Massachusetts. Then, as I understand, the amendment that you drew was less favorable to the exposition than this Senate amendment?
Mr. TAWNEY. I think so.
Mr. GILLETT of Massachusetts. You do not offer that now?
Mr. TAWNEY. The amendment which I have offered amounts to practically the same thing, because in the amendment originally proposed by the House committee they were required to pay not less than $500,000, beginning on the 1st of July; but this makes the first payment on the loth of June, so that the payment on the 15th of June and the payment on the 1st of July will equal what under the House amendment would have been the 1st of July payment.
In the amendment the House committee now proposes that after July 1 the payments shall not be less than $500,000; so that if 40 per cent does not equal $500,000, then in that case they will be obliged to pay the balance of the $500,000 out of the 60 per cent. Now, I will say that that must be done every two weeks, and, under the amendment I have offered, by the the 1st of November the entire amount will be paid, and if there is default in the making of any of these payments the Secretary of the Treas-j ury is authorized and directed tinder this provision to take pos-l session of the gate receipts, to collect the receipts, and to apply] them to the payment of this indebtedness.
In order that there may be no question as to whether the exposition has agreed to this proposition and is thereby bound by it, there is an additional provision that in accepting this loan the exposition company shall be taken and held to agree to the conditions upon which the appropriation is made, and upon the terms and conditions npon which this indebtedness is to be repaid to the United States.
Mr. BURLESON. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. TAWNEY. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BURLESON. As I understand the gentleman, the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, of which the distinguished gentleman is chairman, has passed on the Senate amendment and given its approval to every part of the Senate amendment with the exception of the amendment the gentleman offers, including that portion of the Senate amendment which provides for the exhibition of range and halter-broke cattle above and below the fever line.
Mr. TAWNEY. Every other part of the Senate amendment, including that part referred to by the gentleman, is agreed to by the committee. The amendment I have just offered relates only to the repayment of the money.
Mr. CRUMPACKER. Is it the honest opinion of the gentleman that if this loan shall be made the money will be returned to the Treasury of the United States?
Mr. TAWNEY. It is the honest opinion of the chairman of the committee, and I think of even those few members of the committee who are opposed to the proposition, that it will bo repaid.
Mr. CRUMPACKER. I am very glad to hear that.
Mr. TAWNEY (continuing). And that judgment is based upon the experience of Chicago. It will be conceded by everybody who knows anything of what has been done at St. Louis in the matter of buildings and grounds that it far surpasses the exposition at Chicago, and it is believed that because we are in a more prosperous period than we were in 1893, when the Chicago exposition was held, the attendance will be very much greater than at Chicago and the receipts necessarily larger.
At Chicago the number of paid admissions was over 21,000,000. The receipts from paid admissions were almost $11,000,000, and in addition to that there were other receipts received by the Chicago Exposition that made the receipts between $16,000,000 and $17,000,000.
Mr. HEPBURN. I- would like to ask the gentleman what became of the nearly $17,000,000 of gross receipts of the Chicago Exposition?
information of the committee I will read the condition upon which that appropriation was made. The gentleman from Iowa and others will recollect that in the first session of the Fifty-sixth Congress, Congress enacted a law stating that when St. Louis or the exposition management had raised to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Treasury the sum of $10,000,000, that then the Government would appropriate $5,000,000 to aid in building and carrying on the exposition.
Sec. 19. That whereas the Secretary of the Treasury has certified, under date of February 6,1901, that the Lousiana Purchase Exposition Company has presented to him proof to his satisfaction that it has raised §10,000,000 for and on account of inaugurating and carrying forward an exposition at the city of St. Louis, Mo., in the year 1903, to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the purchase of the Louisiana territory; therefore, there is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated the sum of $5,000,000 to aid in carrying forward such exposition, to pay the salaries of the members and secretary of the national Commission herein authorized, and such other necessary expenses as may be incurred by said commission in the discharge of its duties m connection with said exposition; and to discharge all other obligations incurred by the Government on account of said exposition, except for the erection of its own buildings and the making and care of its own exhibits at said exposition.
That the money hereby appropriated shall be disbursed \mder the direction of the said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company under rules and regulations to be prescribed by tho Secretary of the Treasury and upon vouchers to be approved by him: Provided, That, except for the payment of the salaries and expenses of the National Commission, no part of said appropriation shall become available until the sum of $10,000,000 shall have been expended by said company on account of said exposition to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Treasury: Provided f urther, That all sums expended by the Government on account of said exposition, including the salaries and expenses of said National Commission, except for the erection of its own buildings and the making and care of its own exhibits at said exposition, shall be limited to and paid out of the appropriation of $5,000,000 herein provided for such purpose.
Now, under that provision the expense of the National Commission was paid. The salaries of nine National Commissioners were paid out of this appropriation of $5,000,000, as well as the salary of the secretary of the Commission. Then there is a provision allowing $10,000 annually for contingent expenses, for office rent, and for other incidental expenses connected with the business of the National Commission. All of that has come out. The life of the Commission extends, I think, from March, 1901, to the 1st of July, 1905. The nine commissioners are paid each at the rate of $5,000 a year, and the gentleman can estimate about how much will be necessary to expend for that item out of the $5,000,-000, none of which goes to the construction of the exposition or to its opening or to its operation.
If my memory serves me right, these amounts aggregate in the neighborhood of $249,000 or $250,000. That comes out of that $5,000,000 appropriation. In addition to that the governor-general of the Philippines, now Mr. Secretary of "War Taft, when he was here in 1901, proposed to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company that if they would pay out of their treasury $100,000 the Philippine government would appropriate $500,000 to defray the expense of that magnificent Philippine exhibit, which will excel, perhaps, any other exhibit in the exposition. Subsequent to that came the rinderpest and the plague. Governor Taft then notified the exposition company that they could not raise the $500,000 and asked the company for a further contribution from its treasury of $100,000, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company appropriated that additional sum, making in all $200,000, which goes to help make the Philippine exhibit. Of that there has been taken out now, I think, $164,000, and that which remains must come out of the $5,000,000 appropriation.
tract with those that did purchase at $3 each that they would sell for no less, they are not disposing of them for any less, and can ont do so. That $.236,000 is available as collateral, hut that is all they are worth at the present time, unless they want to pay them ont for labor or on contracts.
As a matter of fact, it will he seen that for the purpose of constructing the exposition and opening the same the exposition company has received about $4,250,000. Now, the Government expressly excepted, in the act making the original appropriation, the expense of building its own building and of making its own exhibit, and in the Fifty-seventh Congress we appropriated money for the erection of the building and for the purpose of defraying the expense of the Government exhibit. In addition to that we also appropriated $40,000 for an Indian exhibit. We appropriated $50,000 to aid the Territory of Alaska in making its exhibit. We appropriated $25,000 to aid the people of the Indian Territory in making their exhibit. So that the total amount or total cost of the Government building and the Government exhibit, including these appropriations for Territories, amounts, if my memory serves meright,toasumhetween$l,400,000and$l,500,000. That will answer the question of the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Hepburn] .
Mr. PAYNE. That is in addition to the $5,000,000? Mr. TAWNEY. Certainly.
Mr. HEPBURN. I ask the gentleman. He was here at the time and is absolutely familiar with the circumstances.
Mr. TAWNEY. This is the condition, to be exact, upon which the appropriation was made, and the gentleman can call it a loan or he can call it an absolute appropriation. This is the condition upon which the appropriation was made—viz, that if there was one dollar of net receipts, the Government of the United States would get 33J- per cent of that dollar, the city of St. Louis would get 33J per cent, and the contributors to the $5,000,000 fund would get the other 33£ per cent. Section 20 provides that there shall he repaid into the Treasury of the United States the same proportionate amount of the dollar given by the United States as shall be repaid to either the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company or the city of St. Louis, provided that this section shall not be taken or construed to give the United States a right to share in the proceeds of said exposition beyond the actual amount appropriated to aid in carrying forward said exposition.
Mr. DALZELL. Let me ask the gentleman a question. Was it not also expressly understood at that time that that $5,000,000 gift of the Government to the exposition was all that the government was to he called upon to give? Was not that expressly stated on this floor?
Mr. TAWNEY. It was—not in that language.
Mr. DALZELL. In substance, was not the pledge made on the floor of the House that if that sum of $5,000,000 was given to the exposition the Government would never he called upon to contribute another dollar: and was there not a provision put in the law excluding the idea that the United States should ever be called upon to contribute anything more?
Mr. TAWNEY. I do not know of any such provision in the act.
direct or indirect, for any debt or obligation incurred, nor for any claim for aid or pecuniary assistance from Congress or the Treasury of the United States, m settlement or liquidation of any debts or obligations created by said Commission.
Mr. DALZELL. I will ask the gentleman now, just for the purpose of getting his views on the subject, whether or not he does not consider this application now made to Congress for this additional aid to be a violation of the pledge made on the floor of the House and in the act itself?
Sec. 19. That whereas the Secretary of the Treasury has certified, under date of February 6,1901, that the Lousiana Purchase Exposition Company has presented to him proof to his satisfaction that it has raised §10,000,000 for and on account of inaugurating and carrying forward an exposition at the city of St. Louis, Mo., in the year 1903, to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the purchase of the Louisiana territory; therefore, there is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated the sum of §5,000,000 to aid in carrying forward such exposition, to pay the salaries of the members and secretary of the national Commission herein authorized, and such other necessary expenses as may be incurred by said commission in the discharge of its duties in connection with said exposition; and to discharge all other obligations incurred by the Government on account of said exposition, except for the erection of its own buildings and the making and care of its own exhibits at said exposition.
That the money hereby appropriated shall be disbursed under the direction of the said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company under rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury and upon vouchers to be approved by him: Provided, That, except for the payment of the salaries and expenses of the National Commission, no part of said appropriation shall become available until the sum of $10,000,000 shall have been expended by said company on account of said exposition to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Treasury: Provided further, That all sums expended by the Government on account of said exposition, including the salaries and expenses of said National Commission, except for the erection of its own buildings and the making and care of its own exhibits at said exposition, shall be limited to and paid out of the appropriation of $5,000,000 herein provided for such purpose.
If my memory serves me right, these amounts aggregate in the neighborhood of $249,000 or $250,000. That comes out of that $5,000,000 appropriation. In addition to that the governor-general of the Philippines, now Mr. Secretary of "War Taft, when he was here in 1901, proposed to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company that if they would pay out of their treasury $100,000 the Philippine government would appropriate $500,000 to defray the expense of that magnificent Philippine exhibit, which will excel, perhaps, any other exhibit in the exposition. .Subsequent to that came the rinderpest and the plague. Governor Taft then notified the exposition company that they could not raise the $500,000 and asked the company for a further contribution from its treasury of $100,000, and tbe Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company appropriated that additional sum, making in all $200,000, which goes to help make the Philippine exhibit. Of that there has been taken out now, I think, $164,000, and that which remains must come out of the $5,000,000 appropriation.
tract with those that did purchase at $3 each that they would sell for no less, they are not disposing of them for any less, and can ont do so. That $236,000 is available as collateral, but that is all they are worth at the present time, unless they want to pay them out" for labor or on contracts.
As a matter of fact, it will be seen that for the purpose of constructing the exposition and opening the same the exposition company has received about $4,250,000. Now, the Government expressly excepted, in the act making the original appropriation, the expense of building its own building and of making its own exhibit, and in the Fifty-seventh Congress we appropriated money for the erection of the building and for the purpose of defraying the expense of the Government exhibit. In addition to that we also appropriated $40,000 for an Indian exhibit. We appropriated $50,000 to aid the Territory of Alaska in making its exhibit. We appropriated $25,000 to aid the people of the Indian Territory in making their exhibit. So that the total amount or total cost of the Government building and the Government exhibit, including these appropriations lor Territories, amounts, if my memory serves me right, to a sum between $1,400,090 and $1,500,000. That will answer the question of the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Hepburn] .
Mr. HEPBURN. I understand the gentleman to say that there was no pledge, no obligation for the return of this $5,000,000 or any part of it. Was it not always discussed here as a loan, and did not every advocate of that appropriation speak of it in that way?
Mr. TAWNEY. This is the condition, to be exact, upon which the appropriation was made, and the gentleman can call it a loan or he can call it an absolute appropriation. This is the condition upon which the appropriation was made—viz, that if there was one dollar of net receipts, the Government of the United States would get 33J per cent of that dollar, the city of St. Louis would get 33J per cent, and the contributors to the $5,000,000 fund would get the other 33^- per cent. Section 20 provides that there shall be repaid into the Treasury of the United States the same proportionate amount of the dollar given by the United States as shall be repaid to either the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company or the city of St. Louis, provided that this section shall not be taken or construed to give the United States a right to share in the proceeds of said exposition beyond the actual amount appropriated to aid in carrying forward said exposition.
Mr. DALZELL. Let me ask the gentleman a question. Was it not also expressly understood at that time that that $5,000,000 gift of the Government to the exposition was all that the Government was to be called upon to give? Was not that expressly stated on this floor?
Mr. DALZELL. In substance, was not the pledge made on the floor of the House that if that sum of $5,000,000 was given to the exposition the Government would never be called upon to contribute another dollar; and was there not a provision put in the law excluding the idea that the United States should ever be called upon to contribute anything more?
Mr. TAWNEY. I will say to the gentleman that I do not; and I do not think the gentleman himself, good lawyer as he is, would make any claim of that kind. Efe knows this is not an application for an additional appropriation, hut merely for the use of a certain amount of money on condition that it be repaid and upon security that will insure its return.
Mr. TAWNEY. Over eight million.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. While this loan amounts to only four and one-half million.
Mr. TAWNEY. I will say in answer to my colleague that the estimate given to the committee—and I think the reasonableness of it will appeal to any man who reads the hearings before our committee—was that 40 per cent will amount to not less than $8,000,000. Calculated on the basis of the gross receipts at the city of Chicago it would be over six million.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. And your judgment is that the attendance at St. Louis, by reason of its climatic conditions, will be more uniform and steady, and therefore larger throughout the period of the exposition?
Mr. TAWNEY. That is the judgment of the committee, and there is another reason, too, for that judgment in addition to the reason stated by my colleague—the fact that there will be no cold spring or cold fall at St. Louis and that the exposition will continue until December 1. If you draw a circle around the city of St. Louis, 500 miles in diameter, you will find that you have a much larger population, almost three times, certainly twice as large a population as if you should draw a similar circle around the city of Chicago, because to the north of Chicago you have nothing but water or waste. The city of St. Louis has in the territory* surrounding it a much larger population than the city of Chicago in a corresponding expanse-of territory. In addition to that there is the enormous increase in population in the Southwestern States and Territories since 1893.
More than that, in 1893 the Southern States did not participate to any great extent in the Chicago Exposition, and their people did not attend to any great extent because of the hard times then prevailing. To-day that section of our country—happily for all of us and for them—is in a more prosperous condition than it has been for a great many years, if not ever before. So that there is every reason to believe that the attendance at St. Louis will be much greater than it was at Chicago.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. So that it would not require 40 per cent? The thing that the committee and the House are concerned in is the certainty of the return of this money. Now, referring to the experience in Chicago, I understand my colleague to assert—and of course since he asserts it it must be so—that Chicago was able not only to pay $5,000,000 of a loan—a larger amount than this loan—but to return to the contributors 19 per cent of their contributions. Now, the query is, If Chicago with her attendance was able to pay $5,000,000 of a loan and 19 per cent of the contributions, why will not this company be able to pay four and one-half million dollars, since there is no further obligation to be paid by the stockholders?
Mr. TAWNEY. I think, Mr. Chairman, that anyone who will take the trouble to go through the hearings and study the proposition as to the population and attendance will agree that the Government is secure, and I am sure there is not a man on the committee who has studied this subject who is not satisfied that the security is ample to insure the repayment of this money. The objections made to the proposition are objections on constitutional, not other, grounds.
Mr. FINLEY. Will the gentleman state what the present indebtedness of the exposition company is, and how it is secured?
Mr. TAWNEY. I can not state the amount of the present indebtedness of the company. Of course they have outstanding contracts on the buildings that are not quite completed, and buildings that have been completed but have not been accepted. It is estimated, however, by Governor Francis, who is at the head of the exposition, and by Mr. Thompson, who is the treasurer and chairman of the executive committee, that this $4,600,000 will pay all of the cost of completing the exposition and the expense incident to the opening of the same and operating it until the gate receipts are ample for that purpose. . Mr. FINLEY. How is the indebtedness secured?
use of the beautiful Forest Park of that city the exposition company must pay for the removal or must remove the buildings.
Mr. FINLEY. I understand that the gate receipts are not mortgaged or liened at all.
Mr. TAWNEY. Not at all. Not only that, if the gentleman will pardon me, hut this amendment provides that before a dollar j of the money is paid to the exposition company that company 1 must enter into a written contract with the Government of the United States not only securing this loan by an express lien which : s can he filed there and which will meet the requirements of the I local law, but they must also stipulate in that contract, under suitable penalties, that they will not appropriate or use or divert the receipts or encumber them in any way, by mortgage or otherwise, so as to interfere in any way with the right of the Government to receive the same in payment of its loan.
Mr. TAWNEY. As I said before, I think the security is ample. There are only two conditions that might happen that would in- 1 terfere. One would he the destruction of the exposition so that i there will he no receipts or a failure on the part of the Secretary . of the Treasury to enforce the law.
Mr. FINLEY. I think the gentleman said something a moment ago in reference to the'gate receipts at Chicago. Now, no loan was ever made by Congress to the Chicago Exposition on the basis of gate receipts, I believe.
Mr. TAWNEY. No; there was a direct appropriation in aid of that exposition.
Mr. FINLEY. I understand the gentleman estimates that the gate receipts will approximate something like $20,000,000. Am I correct?
Mr. FINLEY. Now, would not the security he ample, so that \ the exposition company could go to a trust company or bank and \ make the loan of them?
Mr. TAWNEY. I think, if the gentleman will take the trouble I to look through these hearings, he will readily see why it is far j better, on account of financial conditions in certain quarters, for j the Government to use $4,600,000 of the $158,000,000 now in the banks, yielding the Government no income whatever, for the purpose of completing and opening this exposition which it has authorized—that it is better to take that $4,600,000 out of the surplus and apply it to this purpose and use it for three months and put it hack into the Treasury than it would he to jeopardize the business interests of any of the commercial or great business centers of the country from which this money must otherwise be drawn.
Mr. FINLEY. Even on that proposition can not the Secretary of the Treasury designate the banks in St. Louis, and deposit money there to the amount of $4,600,000 without Congress making this loan?
Mr. TAWNEY. I presume he could, hut it might subject him I to criticism on the ground that he was discriminating in favor of those hanks as against others. The gentleman is aware, I suppose, that the Secretary of the Treasury has made a call on all the banks for this proposed loan and the amount to meet the Panama Canal payments.
Mr. FINLEY. I am aware of that.
Mr. TAWNEY. And among others he has made a call on the 1 hanks of St. Louis to the extent of three million.
Mr. FINLEY. Has he not funds with which he can continue to make these deposits?
Mr. TAWNEY. I do not know whether there is sufficient surplus to enable the loaning of public money to national banks -without interest, which method of loaning the public money is approved by some people who seem very much opposed to loaning the amount necessary to insure the success of the greatest exposition the world will ever see—one, too, it has authorized and invited the world to participate in making a grand success.
Mr. FINLEY. In all cases where loans are made on national . bonds and ample security. United States bonds?
Mr. FINLEY. I merely wanted to get the gentleman's opinion on this point.
Mr. PAYNE. Has the gentleman any better reason for not j requiring the company to borrow the money from people who are 1 in the business of loaning money?
Mr. TAWNEY. I would like to discuss the matter in full. I was simply answering the gentleman's question. I do not think that any statement that I could make would be satisfactory to the gentleman from New York in relation to this particular subject. Nor do I think the gentleman would think it reasonable or a businesslike arrangement.
Mr. PAYNE. It would he satisfactory if a businesslike reason.
Mr. TAWNEY. I started out to discuss the proposition, and my time has all been taken up by answering questions in regard to the details of the Senate amendment..
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. For some information. Of course, there will he some debts against this concern. Is not that true?
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. Can the gentleman tell me to what extent?
Mr. TAWNEY. No, sir. I answered^ that a moment ago. I •can not say to what extent there are obligations. I do not know hat there are any due and payable. I can not answer the gentleman.
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. Please tell me what legal process or resort can be had by which those debts already existing can he postponed and the rights of the Government substituted or preferred by reason of this act of Congress. Are the receipts of this concern pledged for the debts at this time?
Mr. TAWNEY. In answer to the gentleman, I will say that the object of this loan is to pay those obligations, and under the terms of this amendment it is the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to see that the money is applied to the purpose for which it is appropriated. That will wipe out any indebtedness for construction or for labor and material.
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. Has it got as much as $4,600,-000 indebtedness at this time?
Mr. TAWNEY. No, sir; it has not.
Mr. TAWNEY. The exposition is not completed, and there is yet ninety days in which the necessary remaining construction must he completed.
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. Do you mean to say that at that time it will he $4,600,000?
Mr. TAWNEY. The gentlemen in charge of the exposition lave told the chairman of the Senate committee and have told he House committee that $4,500,000 would be sufficient to complete the exposition and would meet the obligations. So that the Jongress of the United States might be satisfied that there was ample security of getting the money hack, and in order to insure the application of the money to the purposes for which it is appropriated, the Secretary of the Treasury is given jurisdiction over the disbursements of this money, so that there is no possible ground for fear of the Government losing by reason of any existing contract at this time or any contract that may exist in the future, because before the money is paid a lien is filed upon the gross receipts of the exposition company.
Mr.LAWRENCE. 1 wouldlike to ask the gentleman a question, r Mr. TAWNEY. I yield to the gentleman. ' Mr. LAWRENCE. Has any effort been made to secure this money from hanking institutions, and have they not been able to get it on account of the lack of security?
Mr. TAWNEY. I am not able to answer the question. . Mr. LAWRENCE. The hearings before your committee do not disclose that?
Mr. BARTLETT. I have here the hearings on that question.
Mr. TAWNEY. The gentleman asked if that application had been made for the loan elsewhere.
Mr. BARTLETT. Well, I have the answer to that. Mr. Thompson, the secretary, says that they never contemplated any other way of raising the money except by pledging their receipts; and Mr. Francis said that they had not considered any other way than applying to the Government.
repaid at the Treasury of the United States, beginning on the 15th day of June, by filing a detailed statement of the gross receipts and make a payment of 40 per cent of those gross receipts to apply on this loan. On the 1st of July the same is to he done, and on the 15th of July not less than $500,000 must he paid, whether 40 per cent of the gate receipts aggregate that amount or not, and thereafter on the 1st and 15th of every month until the 1st of November not less than $500,000, when the full amount of the loan will be paid.
Now, if the exposition company makes default in the application of any of this money, or applies it to any purpose for which it is not appropriated, that would constitute a default, declared so by this act, and it would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to take possession of the gates and collect the total receipts and apply them to the payment of this indebtedness. On the other hand, if they make default at any time in the repayment of this money, the Secretary is authorized, and it is made his duty, to do the same thing. Then, in addition and as a double security, so that there can be no legal question about the exposition company having agreed to this, we make it a condition precedent that they shall agree to it, and in accepting this money they are to he held and construed to have agreed to all the conditions upon which the appropriation is made, and all the conditions upon which it is to be returned to the Treasury of the United States.
Now, this proposition to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the purchase of the territory of Louisiana did not originate in the city of St. Louis. At a convention held in that city in 1899, attended by representative men appointed by the governors of the several States carved ont of the Louisiana territory, it was decided to commemorate that event, the first and greatest international event in the history of the United States, by holding an exposition, and the city of St. Louis, being the metropolis of that great territory, was designated as the place. The people of St. Louis and the people inhabiting the territory of the Louisiana purchase have not started out on this proposition with any idea of commercial advantage or commercial profit—none whatever.
They were actuated by a sense of duty, of patriotic duty, to the forefathers of this country, through whose sagacity and wisdom it became possible for the Government of the United States to acquire and possess this territory, thus making it also possible for the Government of the United States to become in less than one hundred years from the date of that purchase the greatest people and one of the greatest governments on the face of the globe. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the committee should not consider this matter from the commercial standpoint in any sense.
We owe to ourselves the duty of making this exposition a splendid success. We owe it because under the authority of Congress, and by its express direction, the President of the United States-President McKinley—has invited the nations of the world to participate in commemorating the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana. They have accepted that invitation, and as an evidence of the commanding respect of our nation among the nations of the world let me say that every foreign government exhibiting at St. Louis has demanded more space both for its buildings and its exhibits than was demanded at Chicago.
The foreign governments occupy 40 per cent more space at St. Louis to-day than they occupied at Chicago. There are ten more foreign governments exhibiting there than exhibited at Chicago. There are ten more States exhibiting there than exhibited at Chicago. Every State in the Union except two is participating in this exhibition, and almost all of them have erected magnificent State buildings. This increased foreign participation aud increased State participation in this exposition has carried the cost of the exposition far beyond the amount originally estimated as being necessary to complete and open the exposition.
The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman may have five or ten minutes to complete his remarks.
Mr. TAWNEY. The gentlemen of the committee will understand that I have been interrupted all the time.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New York asks that unanimous consent be given to the gentleman from Minnesota to have ten minutes more time. Is there objection? [After a pause.] The Chair hears none.
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania. We didn't think it would he so expensive when we invited them.
Mr. TAWNEY. That was a matter that Congress should have considered before extending the invitation. When you extend an invitation to a man to dine with you, you do not stop to measure the expense after he has accepted the invitation, do yon?
As a result of this increased demand for space the exposition company was obliged to build three additional exhibition palaces beyond the number originally contemplated. They started out with the idea that if they could equal Chicago they would he doing well, and estimated the cost of reproducing an exhibition like that of Chicago, and estimated that it would exceed $15,000,000. To-day they have 120 acres under roof for exhibition purposes. At Chicago they had 86 acres. To-day, at St. Louis, they have inclosed in the exhibition grounds 1,260 acres. At Chicago they had 680 acres.
This space was demanded, and it was necessary to provide for it in order to supply the governments from different parts of the world we had invited to participate in this exposition with the amount of exhibit space which they required.
Now, they also had to sewer these extended grounds. Why, gentlemen, I have a statement here showing that almost $3,000,000 have been expended on these grounds, and you can not see where a dollar of it has gone. It is all underground, placed there for sewerage, water pipes to insure to the people attending this exposition the necessary sanitary and fire protection. An insurance agent said to me only last week that they had provided the best fire protection any exposition has ever had in the history of the world.
Now, as a result of this increased cost they are here not asking for an appropriation, hut simply asking for the use of $4,600,000 for a period of about ninety days. The average length of time would he about ninety days. They ask for it on security that, in the judgment of the Senate and in the judgment of the House committee that considered it, is ample to insure the repayment of every dollar of the money we are asked to advance, and it is proposed to give it to them under conditions that will compel the return of every dollar of it, if there are any gate receipts at all or if the gate receipts equal $4,600,000.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. Mr. Chairman, a parliamentary inquiry.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. What is the parliamentary situation at this time?
The CHAIRMAN. A motion was made by the gentleman from Minnesota to amend the Senate amendment, and that will he followed by a motion to concur.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. The motion to concur is pending?
The CHAIRMAN. The motion to amend is pending, and that will he followed by a motion to concur in the Senate amendment with that amendment.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. No time limit has been fixed for debate?
The CHAIRMAN. No time limit has been fixed for debate.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, as far as the amendment to this paragraph of the hill offered by the gentleman from Minnesota is concerned, I believe it improves the text of the hill and shall vote for his amendment. But after the paragraph is amended I intend to vote against the whole proposition. I am unable to find any sufficient reason why the Government of the United States should go into the business of loaning its money to a private corporation. I have heard many distinguished gentlemen on the floor of this House, and, if I am not mistaken, the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] himself, abuse the Populist party for their idea of going into partnership with the United States Government.
Mr. COCHRAN. Will the gentleman yield to me for a question?
Mr. COCHRAN. I would like to ask the gentleman if he thinks this is a private corporation?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I consider it a private corporation, although it is indulging in an enterprise that is of interest to all the people in the United States.
Mr. COCHRAN. It is not in any sense a private enterprise.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. No more than a hank or a railroad company is a jprivate enterprise if engaged in the business of the country.
Mr. COCHRAN. Did the gentleman ever hear of a railroad or a bank that was doing business in which all the people are interested?
interest to every man, woman, and child in the United States to some extent. Mr. COCHRAN. To what extent?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. To the extent that it carries the mail of these people and delivers their letters; hut I do not care to go into that subject.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Well, I do not know about that. I under- \ stand there is a private corporation organized and that there has ', been stock subscribed. I do not understand that the company \ was organized for the purpose of making profits, hut if there are 1 any profits made after debts are paid I take it that the stockholders ' who subscribe their money will reap those profits.
Mr. COCHRAN. One further question. Is it not customary in many States for the public to provide and pay the necessary expenses, including sometimes deficits, to keep up State fair associations?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Well, possibly the public does, hut it does it out of the public property.
Mr. COCHRAN. Does not the public do that out of funds raised by taxation?
Mr. COCHRAN. I will ask the gentleman if the State of Alabama has not made such appropriations?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I was going to state to the gentleman that I do not recall any instance where the State of Alabama has done so. It may have done so in times past that I know not of, but of my own knowledge I know of no such thing.
Mr. COCHRAN. Does the gentleman think there is very much difference in the aspect of this as a national enterprise and a State fair association as a State enterprise?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I can not say that I do.
Mr. COCHRAN. Is a State fair association a private enterprise?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. When it is organized by private corporations for private gain it is.
Mr. COCHRAN. And the gentleman says he does not think the St. Louis Exposition was organized for private gains.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I do not imagine it was; but it is organized on that basis.
Mr. COCHRAN. Then the only thing the gentleman says about this is that the incorporators of the World's Fair Association incorporated nnder the laws as a private corporation?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Unquestionably, and if they make a profit the profits will go into their private pockets.
Mr. COCHRAN. Can the gentleman suggest any other way in which these great public enterprises could be carried on?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I have no desire to do that. I will leave that to my friend from Missouri.
Mr. COCHRAN. Well, I think the gentleman ought to leave it to somebody.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I have not contended that this corporation was organized as a private corporation to serve a private purpose; hut it is a private corporation. I say that when the Government of the United States attempts to go into partnership with or to lend its money to a private corporation I draw no distinction between that proposition and the proposition that was made by the farmers of this country some ten or twelve years ago, in which they advocated that the Government of the United States should lend its money to them on their wheat and their corn and their hales of cotton as collateral security.
I have heard distinguished gentlemen on that side of the floor \ and on this inveigh against that proposition, and challenge its constitutionality, challenge the governmental power to do such a thing; hut here, when we come to a corporation in which a vast number of the people of the United States are interested, from the point of public interest or in a pecuniary way, they seem to lose sight and thought of that proposition entirely.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to inquire if the gentleman regards this as an unconstitutional measure?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; I will say candidly that from my point of view I do not think the Government of the United States has the power to use money collected by taxation for the purpose of making a loan to anybody.
Mr. COCHRAN. Has the Government of the United Stater-power to become a stockholder in a corporation?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. No; I do not think it has. That is my personal opinion.
Mr. COCHRAN. Does the gentleman regard the United States as interested to the extent of the $5,000,000 in this property of the exposition as it now stands?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I understand that the United S tates Government has given to this exposition $5,000,000.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. No; I do not understand that the Government of the United States shall ever participate in the profits to any extent in the world. The gentleman may he better informed on that proposition than I am, but I understand that out of the profits the Government may get hack its money, but it will never participate in any profits of the concern. I can not see the distinction between these two cases—that is, between the case of lending the people of my district money on the pig iron that is stacked in the yards, lending to a railroad company governmental money to complete the building of a railroad, and lending this exposition money of the Government to carry on this exposition.
Therefore I think it improper—for myself, at least—to vote for this paragraph. But aside from that, on the question whether the Government of the United States is secure or not, I take issue with the gentleman from Minnesota. I notice that in the Senate hearings the president of this company was distinctly asked how many people lived within a hundred miles of the city of Chicago. He was asked to estimate whether the gate receipts at St. Louis would equal those at Chicago. But he did not answer the question, although he was asked it more than once. He said, however, in response, after waiving a direct reply, that if you would draw a circle around Chicago having a radius of 500 miles and a similar circle with a radius of 500 miles around St. Louis, you would find a great many more people in the circle which inclosed St. Louis than in that which inclosed Chicago.
In the same way you might take some little interior town and draw a circle around it with a radius of 1,000 miles, and you would find more people within the radius of that circle than you would in a similar circle around the city of New York, because in one case your thousand-mile circle would extend into the Atlantic Ocean.
We know as a matter of fact that these expositions are kept up and paid for to a great extent by the people who live in the towns or cities within which the exposition is held or who live within a radius of 100 miles of such town; that from the people living beyond such a radius the gate receipts are comparatively small.
Now, sir, we find that the total gate receipts at the Chicago Exposition were only about $11,000,000—the entire gate receipts. What have we pledged here as security for the loan it is proposed "the Government shall make? The gate receipts of this exposition.
Mr. TAWNEY. And the concession receipts.
Mr. ROBERTSON of Louisiana. No; by the Senate amendment.
Mr. TAWNEY. The Government is to have a lien on the gross gate receipts, from all paid admissions, and also on all concession receipts; and the concession receipts on the basis of Chicago and Buffalo would he from 40 to 44 per cent of the gate receipts.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. As I understand the gentleman, then, the Government of the United States is pledged 40 per cent of the gate receipts to x'ay hack this money. Now, the total gate receipts from the beginning of the Chicago Exposition down to its close amounted to only $11,000,000. You propose to allow this exposition to ran for over two months—from April until June— before you take one dollar of these gate receipts.
Mr. TAWNEY. Oh, the gentleman must he fair. The exposition is not to be opened until the last day of April or the 1st of May, so that the period which the gentleman speaks of as two months would only he four weeks.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Well, I understood the exposition was to he opened in April; I did not get the exact date.
Mr. COWHERD. The gentleman will also remember that the St. Louis fair is to ran longer than the Chicago Exposition did. It is to continue a month longer.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. What I understand is that not the entire gate receipts, but 40 per cent of the gate receipts, are to he paid, beginning on the 1 st of June, and yon begin to take out this proportion on the loth of June. You throw out the month of May en-J irely; you say that on this basis the Government will be repaid OT its loan. Now, you assume that the St. Louis Exposition is to ;et the entire amount of gate receipts that Chicago did, with all hat immense city to draw from; and the total loan that you propose to make is $4,600,000.
Mr. TAWNEY. I hope the gentleman intends to he fair in his discussion of this question.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I am trying to he so.
that. The total receipts at Chicago were between $16,000,000 and $17,000,000.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I have not had an opportunity to study the gentleman's amendment as carefully as I could wish. It provides, as I understand, that the Government shall take charge of the receipts and take out a certain portion and repay its loan. Now, is there anything in this proposition that will allow the Government to take all these concession receipts; and if not, what security is there that the Government will be repaid?
Mr. TAWNEY. The language of the amendment is clear and explicit. The Government, in the first place, has a lien by this act and by this contract on the gross gate receipts and on the gross concession receipts.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I recognize that.
Mr. TAWNEY. Now, then, on the basis of the receipts at Chicago—assuming that the receipts at St. Louis are to be no greater than they were at Chicago—the gross receipts from these two sources would aggregate almost 817,000,000.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. You mean 40 per cent.
Mr. TAWNEY. No. I mean that the gross receipts at Chicago aggregated between $16,000,000 and $17,000,000. Now, if the St. Louis Exposition receives no more than was received at Chicago, the Government has as security for the repayment of its loan 40 per cent of about $17,000,000.
Mr. TAWNEY. Let me call the attention of the gentleman ta another fact in connection with this proposition. In the event\ that default; is made in the payment of this money at any one of \ the times specified in the act, then the Secretary of the Treas- I ury shall assume control of the gates and take possession of all / the receipts upon which the Government has a lien.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. If the gentleman will permit me, I have the paragraph here.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I have already discovered it, I will say-to the gentleman.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. The gentleman spoke of gate receipts..
Mr. TAWNEY. The gentleman from Alabama has admitted that he is mistaken.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. It says the gross receipts. The Secretary of the Treasury shall take possession of the gross receipts from all sources in case of default in the payment.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I am coming to what the gentleman has just referred to—that the Government of the United States, provided there is default in the payment of $500,000, at any time, until the amount pledged to the Government has been paid, may take charge of the gate receipts. Well, now, what does that mean? He takes charge of all the receipts of this exposition provided there is default. Now, if this theory about the fair working out and paying so much money is a mistake, and the Secretary of the Treasury is compelled to take charge of these receipts, what has he to do to get his money back? He has got to run that exposition company, because if he does not pay the employees, buy the material that is necessary to run it, pay the bands, pay for tho balloon ascensions, he will not get anybody there and there will not be any money. In other words, by this amendment, under a possible contingency, the Government of the United States is invited to go into partnership with a side show.
Mr. COCHRAN. Will the gentleman point out the part of it that he refers to?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I said that there is a provision in this bill-That if at any time after said exposition company has received the amonnt hereby appropriated it makes default in the application or in the repayment of said sum, or any part thereof, as herein required, then, and in that case, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to superviso the collection and take possession of all said gross receipts and continue such supervision and possession until the full sum of said §4,000,000 has been collected and repaid into the Treasury of the United States, as herein provided.
Mr. COCHRAN. Does that make the Government in any sense a part of the management of the exposition, except to take possession of its gross receipts?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I just stated that if he takes possession of all its gross receipts, and does nothing else, it will stop the exposition, because there will be nobody to pay the doorkeepers, to pay the ticket sellers, to pay the dime-museum men.
Mr. COCHRAN. I understood you to say that we would go into partnership with a side show. But did you say that the exposition would stop?
Mr, UNDERWOOD. Begging the gentleman's pardon, I said that some time ago. I said that this provision would force the Government, in case of a default, to take charge of the exposition and run it in order to get its money back.
Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana. And then what would happen to it when the public knew that it had been levied on?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. That is all I desire to say now about this matter, and I desire to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Bartlett] .
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Bartlett] is recognized for fortv minutes.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I do not know that I caught exactly the statement made by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] , the chairman of the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, as to the position of members on that committee. I do not think he intended to say, if he did say so, that the members of that committee were all in favor of this Senate amendment. That is what I understood him to say.
Mr. TAWNEY. On, no; the gentleman misunderstood me. I did not say so.
Mr. BARTLETT. I was informed the gentleman said that. Mr. TAWNEY. I did not say that.
Mr. BARTLETT. I tried to interrupt the gentleman, hut found it was not his desire to he interrupted.
Mr. TAWNEY. What I did say was that it was the judgment of every member of the committee that the security would he ample, and those who did object to it objected upon other grounds than that the security would be amply sufficient. That is what I intended to say.
Mr. BARTLETT. I knew the gentleman did not intend to say that all the members of the committee favored this proposition.
Mr. TAWNEY. I knew the attitude of the gentleman from Georgia and recognized it.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I am not in favor of this proposition and can not vote for it, no matter how ample I may think the security given is to protect the Government, nor can I even accept the statement of the gentleman from Minnesota that it was agreed that the security was ample. I do not think that the proposed lien will be any greater security than the simple contract of this exposition company to pay. I say I entertain views different from my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] , Mr. Chairman, with reference to this proposition. I was one of seventy-five Members when the roll was called in J une, 1900, who in this House went upon record as against the proposition in its inception for the Government to aid this exposition by giving it $5,000,000. I have not changed my views on this subject. I am still opposed to the policy of this Government expending the money of the people in aiding these expositions or shows of this character.
When the Government makes its own exhibit and erects the buildings for such exhibit, that is as much as should he asked. I shall not vote for anything more. I remember very well, being then a member, as I am now, of the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, from whom the bill providing for the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition originally came, when all the gentlemen, one of whom is now president of this exposition and one is the treasurer, and a number of most elegant gentlemen, came before us from all parts of the country, including the present Secretary of the Treasury and governors of various States embraced in territory comprising what is known as "the Louisiana purchase," and urged us to report the hill which finally was passed March 3, 1901. It may have been well.that the Congress enacted that law.
I am not going to gainsay it now. But I know full well that it was passed at the urgent solicitation of these gentlemen who now are here asking for this loan; and when we were considering the proposition to grant this, the largest sum that had "been given to an exposition of this character, we were told that Missouri would pay $10,000,000 before a dollar would he expended from the Government Treasury, and that they would not follow the example of other exposition companies, which had in the past appealed to Congress for more money; that with the $10,000,000 which would he subscribed and paid in by St. Louis and her people and the $5,000,000 which the United States Government was asked to contribute, they would be amply able to inaugurate and carry to a successful end the great enterprise that was then being undertaken.
That nothing in this act contained shall he so construed as to create any liability of the United States, direct or indirect, for any debt or obligation incurred nor for any claim for aid or pecuniary assistance from Congress or the Treasury of the United States in support or liquidation of any debts or obligations created by said Commission.
the friends of the measure to aid in its passage. Surely this should estop the same gentlemen, who are now urging this Congress to extend " pecuniary assistance " to this exposition company. In good faith and conscience they should not now he heard to urge its violation.
This company who are here asking for this loan of the people's money for the purpose of carrying on the enterprise of a private corporation have made no effort to borrow money from the banks or any other source. They came to Congress in the first instance, relying doubtless on the fact that the United States Treasury is full, and upon the belief that this Congress in this age of alleged progress and extravagant expenditure of the public money will be more liberal and extravagant than any of the preceding Congresses.
In confirmation of this I read from page 25 of the hearing he-fore the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, on February 1, 1904.
Suppose this does not meet with Congress's approval, what are yon going to do then? You are going to borrow that money from private parties, I suppose?
We have not considered that. I suppose that a few of us, comparatively few, would have to raise this money by mortgaging our residences, or giving personal collateral of some kind, and getting the money as fast as we can.
Mr. Gardner. The gates won't shut?
If it takes all our fortunes, the gates will not close.
The Chairman. Including the Government?
Mr. Thompson. Yes; including the Government and tho city. Everybody who has estimated carefully says that we will get back 50 per cent of our outlay, and I think if you take the figures Governor Francis has given you this morning and analyze thorn you will see why that is reasonable. I am satisfied it is reasonable to estimate that we will have §7,500,000 over and above the running expenses of the exposition.
So that if this proposed contract with the Government is ample security and the prospects are so flattering that this exposition will be so great a financial success these gentlemen should he able to easily borrow this money from the banks, who are legitimately in the business of lending money. They should not he permitted to borrow it from the Government of the United States, for it ought not to engage in the banking business.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. Will the gentleman permit a question? Mr. BARTLETT. Yes.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. Does my friend intend to convey the idea that St. Louis has not made good her word in raising $1*0,000,000?
Mr. BARTLETT. No; and nobody who understands the English language could understand that I intended to convey any such idea. I did not state it, nor insinuate it, becatise Governor Francis, in the hearings before the committee on last Friday and Saturday, made a statement showing that it had been done, and it could not otherwise than have been done unless the Secretary of the Treasury had violated the solemn provisions of the act under which this exposition is being held, because that act required them to be satisfied from evidence that every dollar of the $10,000,000 had been subscribed by the people of St. Louis and expended before the Secretary of the Treasury should pay out any of the $5,000,000 appropriated to this exposition; and I am sure the Secretary of the Treasury will comply with the law and that he has complied with the law.
Company. It has all the powers and all the attributes and all the liabilities of a private corporation. It can sne and be sued; it can incur and collect debts. It is a private undertaking aided by the Government at the request and solicitation of the corporation.
It will not do to say that because the Government in 1900 authorized the grant of and did give $5,000,000 to aid it in carrying on its business that the Government became liable as a partner and has now to contribute additional money that it might he inaugurated and successfully carried on. The act referred to distinctly negatives any liability of the United States for the acts of the corporation. These gentlemen came to Congress in 1900 and urged the passage of the measure nnder which they proceeded, as the hearings "before our committee will show, and they came from various States and from Missouri, urging us to grant them this money upon ftie condition contained in this bill of March 3, 1901, urging us to aid them; and now, after we have given them the money and they want more, they come back and say you must grant us relief because you authorized this whole exposition; he-cause you invited the nations of the world at our request you must pay more money.
I can not say that the Government has been responsible for the cost being increased over our estimates, except to the extent that it has aided us to interest foreign countries.
Mr. Bartlett. But. as I understand it, this invitation of tho General Government to foreign countries to participate in this exposition was about the same as has been extended heretofore. In other words, the language of the act is about the usual language; it is about the language used in the case of Chicago.
Mr. Francis. That is so.
But I repeat, Mr. Chairman, that I am not in favor of this character of legislation upon appropriation bills. I remember in recent years the Senate has time and time again added to appropriation hills, in violation of its own rules and in violation of the rules of this House, legislation of this character as " riders " on such hills. "Why, we know the whole Philippine government bill was passed as a rider on the army bill in 1901; and this very identical proposition to inaugurate and start this exposition, giving $5,000,000 to it, originated in the Senate, by an amendment or. a rider to the sundry civil bill, in June, 1900.
If important legislation is thus to he enacted the power and influence of the popular branch of the legislative branch of the Government is seriously curtailed and virtually destroyed, and the Senate will become the supreme legislative power. If, as is contended by some Senators, the Senate can, without reference to the House, affect the revenues of the Government by treaties, and can also pass any sort of legislation by tacking it as a rider to necessary appropriation bills, and the House submits, the power and influence of the House is destroyed. For one I do not and shall not approve such vicious practice in legislation.
Mr. BARTLETT. I did not say the Appropriations Committee. If I said so I did not intend to do so.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. One other question.
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not believe my colleague would refuse the appropiation of this money at any time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. We had no hearing and did not pass upon it. I simply desire to correct the gentleman.
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not desire to put my friend and colleague in any position that he ought not to occupy. I meant to say, and I repeat, that these gentlemen came before a committee to whom this bill, the act of March 3, 1903, had been referred by this House, the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, over which the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] presides and of which I happen to have been an humble member since its organization.
tion bill, and that is how this legislation originated for the Government to place its credit and its faith and promise to pay them the $5,000,000 in the first instance.
Mr. BURLESON. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is recognized as a lawyer of ability, and I would like to submit to him this query: Aside from the question of policy of the General Government going into the exhibition business, does the gentleman believe that there is warrant under the Constitution of the United States for the General Government to make this loan to a private corporation?
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not know any express restraint placed upon the power of the Congress to donate, to give away, or throw away the money of the people if they can find enough men in Congress to vote it away. There are certain powers given to Congress providing what they shall appropriate for—armies and navies and post-offices and post-roads and the maintenance of the General Government.
There is not in the Constitution of the United States any restraining power that says that the Congress can not appropriate money to these expositions, or for such like purposes. I wish there were. I do not believe it would even then restrain a good many people from voting to squander the public money, if they desired to do so. 1 do not think the Constitution of the United States stands in the way of this Government lending this money to this association, if Congress sees fit to do so.
Mr. BURLESON. Right on that point, what power has Congress to make any appropriation except for governmental purposes?
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not think it ought to have the power.
Mr. BURLESON. Has it any such power?
Mr. BARTLETT. It ought not to have it. The gentleman has asked me what the provisions of the Constitution are in this respect. I do not know of any that prohibit it. It would only be arguing an inference to be drawn from the expressed commands of the Constitution. There is no expressed inhibition upon Congress from making any such appropriation as there are in the constitution of my State, which prohibits them from making appropriation except for certain specific purposes.
Mr. BURLESON. The gentleman says he knows of no provision prohibiting it. Can he put his finger upon the provision of the Constitution authorizing it?
Mr. BARTLETT. I can not; nobody can; but there are a great many things for which money is expended not authorized expressly by the Constitution. I take it for granted that this Government was authorized to collect revenues by taxation of the people and to pay it out for governmental purposes and not for expositions or for shows. I take it for granted, so far as I am concerned, and that is my political faith, that the Government of the United States, when it has more money in its coffers than it ought to have or taxes are too high and unjust, ought to reduce the rate of taxation or return the surplus back to the pockets of the people whence it came.
Mr. BURLESON. I am in thorough accord with the gentleman.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman yield to the gentleman from Missouri? Mr. BARTLETT. Just for a question.
Mr. BxlRTHOLDT. Can my friend point his finger to the provision in the Constitution of the United States or in the laws of the country which would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to go into the open markets for the purpose of purchasing Government bonds at a higher premium merely for the purpose of relieving the money stringencv?
Jtfr. BARTLETT. "Well, Mr. Chairman, I am not going to undertake to say whether some Secretaries of the Treasury have gone into the markets and bought Government bonds or not. I apprehend the Government has a right to create a debt and to borrow money and issue bonds; and the Government has the same right that every other creditor has to go into the market and pay the bonds before they become due, like I have, if my creditor agrees to it, and the question is not at all pertinent, nor does it suggest anything to a lawyer's mind, in regard to the subject-matter of discussion.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. But it is done for the purpose of relieving the money stringency, and here is an opportunity to do the same thing to the extent of four million dollars and a half.
their surplus reserve, showing that they have more money on deposit, more money in their vaults, than they ever had before in many years.
I have here an account where the Pennsylvania Railroad on Friday last made arrangements to borrow $50,000,000 to carry on improvements for the railroad, and I have not heard of a jar or ripple in Wall street so far as money is concerned, unless it happened this morning. The rate of interest has not gone up; there has been no demand on the Secretary of the Treasury to supply a contemplated deficiency of $50,000,000. Why, Mr. Chairman, have we arrived at this stage in this great era of prosperity that the national banks, with their hundreds of millions of dollars in their vaults—on Saturday the surplus reserve in the New York national hanks was over $21,000,000—are to he shaken to their centers, and that business is to he disrupted and a panic coming in the money market because the paltry sum of $4,600,000 is to he borrowed in that market? What becomes of your vaunted prosperity, what becomes of the talk about more money than you can use and of the assertion that the vaults of the banks are full to overflowing, if we can not borrow that small amount of money?
Mr. BAKER. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. BARTLETT. I would rather not he interrupted just now, but I will yield to the gentleman for a question.
Mr. BAKER. If the money is loaned by the Government, will it not be simply transferred from some hank into another bank?
Mr. BARTLETT. That is an A B C of finance which does not necessarily require an answer.
Now, Mr. Chairman, before I leave this proposition I want to state that this amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota is far better, in my judgment, than the original proposition that came from the Senate. The Senate amendment is either carefully or carelessly drawn, it is immaterial which. If the gate receipts do not equal 40 per cent, then the Government could get only 40 per cent of the gate receipts, and they might not at any time he sufficient to pay this loan. Under the amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota it provides that the Government shall get the 40 per cent, but, at any rate, $500,000 semiweekly. The amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota was drawn at the request of the committee, and it is carefully drawn, more so than the Senate amendment, for the exposition company is required to repay the amount loaned r whether 40 per cent of its receipts suffice to do so or not.
Bnt I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, when you come down to ' the question of security, that this is any security or any lien by the Government on the gross receipts. I mean by that, and every lawyer will understand it, that as between any contesting creditors of this Exposition and the Government the lien hereby provided for will not avail as against the creditors so as to give the Government in a contest in the courts a superior lien upon its receipts. I say that for the reason that when you mortgage something—and that is what this is, a mortgage—when yon mortgage something there must he something in existence. There must he something in prEesenti. "A man can not give that which he has not" is the language of the law.
It will not do to say that it has been held that a railroad might mortgage its income and after-acquired property and after-acquired receipts; that because the courts have held that mortgages on after-acquired property and after-acquired receipts of the railroad are subject to the mortgage that therefore this is so. There is this distinction: The railroad first mortgages the property out of which the income grows, as if you mortgaged the sheep and its next year's clip of wool; as if yon mortgaged your own sheep and not some one's else; as if you mortgaged the orchard and income of next year's crop of apples. But you can not mortgage the clip of another's sheep or a flock of sheep you are to purchase or the apples in another's orchard. It is because you own the land out of which the apples grow and because you own the sheep upon the hacks of which the wool grows.
One may make a valid mortgage on a thing in which he has a potential interest at the time. Thus, to use illustrations familiar since the time of Chief Justice Hobart, "Land is the mother and root of all fruits; therefore, he who hath it may grant all the fruit that may arise upon it after, and the property shall pass as soon as the fruits are extant. A person may grant all the tithe wool that he shall have in such a year, yet perhaps he shall have none, but a man can not grant what wool that he shall grow upon his sheep that he shall buy hereafter, for there he hath it neither actually nor potentially."
If he owns land he may mortgage tho crops that grow upon it, or if he owns sheep ho may-mortgage the wool to grow upon them, for the mortgagor having the present ownership of the land and sheep has a present vested right to the product, growth, or increase of the property whenever it comes into existence. He may, therefore, sell or mortgage the natural or expected growth or increase of his own property, but he can not sell or mortgage the crops to be grown upon the land of another, or the wool to be grown upon another's sheep, or upon sheep ho may buy hereafter; but the mere possibility or expectancy of acquiring property, without any present interest in it, is not the object of a mortgage or sale.
The fisherman may expect to catch fish; but while they are in the sea un-caught he can not make a valid sale or mortgage of them. The fact that he owns a fishing ship and is about to proceed upon a fishing voyage gives him no potential interest in the fish he may possibly catch.
It is only when no rule of law is infringed and the rights of third persons are not prejudiced that courts of equity will in certain cases give effect to mortgages on subsequently acquired property.
The same proposition is sustained by Story's Equity Jurisprudence (9th ed., sec. 1040) and by the cases of Dunham v. Railway Co. (1 Wallace, p. 254) and United States v. New Orleans Railroad (12 Wallace, 362).
This rule is founded on the maxim that "A person can not grant a thing which he has not: Ille non habet non dat," and many authorities are referred to at law to prove the proposition, and many more might have been added from cases in equity, for equity, no more than the law, can deny it; the thing itself is an impossibility. It may at once, therefore, be admitted that whenever a party undertakes, by'deed or mortgage, to grant property, real or personal, in praesenti, which does not belong to him or has no existence, the deed or mortgage, as the case may be, is inoperative and void, and this either in a court of law or equity.
I refer also to three cases in 99 U. S. Reports, to wit: Fosdick v. Schall, page 235; Fosdick v. Car Company, page 256; and Hale v. Frost, page 389, In these cases the court discusses the question as to what a court of equity will do in a contest between creditors and mortgagees who have a lien on after-acquired property and income arising therefrom. These decisions, in my judgment, would authorize the courts of the United States to hold in a contest between the United States and the creditors of this exposition company—in case such a contest should arise—that the United States did not get any priority or precedence over the gate receipts by reason of this act or any lien given in pursuance of this act.
Whatever may he the decisions of the State courts on this subject, though they may hold differently, the questions of law which might arise under this act will he determined in the United States courts, and in that case the rule as laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States will control. Therefore I must dissent from my distinguished friend when he says that all of us are agreed that this lien would be sufficient. I do not agree to that. I dissented at the time it was proposed.
It may at once, tberef ore, be admitted, whenever a party undertakes by deed or mortgage to grant property, real or personal in praesenti. which does not belong to him or has no existence, the deed or mortgage, as the case may he, is inoperative and void, and this either in a court of law or equity.
It is only where no rule of law is infringed and the rights of third pei'sons are not prejudiced that courts of equity will, in certain cases, give effect to mortgages of subsequently acquired property.
I have here a half dozen or more cases upon that subject and \ also some opinions from the law writers upon the subject, and I; make hold to say here that if ever a contest comes between the United States Government and other creditors as to the validity of this lien, if it shall be made in pursuance of this act, that the lien will he declared to he a nullity, because the exposition company has not got the receipts and can not tell what they will be. It does not own the property upon which the lien is given. What the receipts will he are mere possibilities of the future, dependent upon every sort of circumstance. Whether these receipts shall he five million or six million or ten million or twenty million dollars, or more, no man can tell now.
right in the courts of the country than these gentlemen had in these decisions I have quoted who had mortgages on the after-I acquired income of the debtor.
Whenever the United States Government abandons its function of government to engage in the business of lending money and to become a competitor with private individuals in the money market, in the banking business, it steps down at the same time npon the same plane with the other money lenders and creditors of the country. We have seen that illustrated in this country no longer ago than last year, when vessels which were being built for the Government were taken charge of by the courts, and the question in the contest was as to whether the Government had a right superior to that of other creditors. So that this lien, in my judgment, is worth no more than the lien on a simple contract undertaking of this exposition to pay the money of the Government back in the event they are called npon to do so. | Now, I have offered these suggestions and presented my view to this committee as to the validity of this lien. In my judgment it is not worth the paper upon which the amendment is written, so far as other creditors are concerned, and if such a contest arises it will he as between the Government and the other creditors a simple contract debt.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman yield?
Mr. ROBB. I desire to ask this question: In this case the law itself creating the lien is to he distinguished as between that and a contract between ordinary individuals, is it not?
Mr. ROBB. Because the law itself authorizes the lien. The law makes it a lien if we pass this amendment.
Mr. BARTLETT. That is the only reason that it could he a lien, and that is the only opposition to the view that I have suggested.
Mr. ROBB. I have reference to the case from which the gentleman cited. Those were cases of undertaking to create a lien under a general law existing at the time, but here we have a law making a specific transaction a lien.
Mr. BARTLETT. Under the common law and, so far as I know, under the laws of all the different States, unless where specified exceptions have been made authorizing a man, for instance, to give a lien upon crops, planted or to be grown, or something of that kind, you can not make a lien upon property that is not in existence.
Mr. ROBB. But in a case where the law expressly provides for a lien of this kind, would not the court sustain it? My point is that in this case, by adopting this provision, we would authorize just this kind of a lien—would create a lien by the passage of this law.
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not think that is the fact. And I am frank to say to my friend that the suggestion he has made presented itself to my mind when I was determining whether this lien would he valid. The language of this proposed law does not create a lien; it simply says that the exposition company shall execute a lien upon the gross receipts. But the Supreme Court of the United States has said frequently that the Congress of the United States has no authority or power to pass special legislation upon any given subject; in other words, you can not adopt a provision of this kind in the form of special legislation applying in only one case.
In the case of Ellis v. The Railway Company (165 U. S.), as I now recall, a recovery against a railroad company was had for killing stock, and the statute of Texas provided fees amounting to $10 might be recovered in addition to the value of the stock destroyed in suits against railroad companies. The Supreme Court said that such a law wtis unconstitutional and void, because it undertook to specify that the railroad companies and they alone in the whole country would be subject to a recovery for attorneys' fees. It was special legislation; it was in derogation of common right and of the common law, and was therefore void.
I therefore dispute the gentleman's position, because I undertake to say that any attempted legislation in derogation of the ■ommon law and of common right, any proposed law which vould undertake to prevent a creditor from having the money of is debtor applied to the payment of his debt can not stand in a court of equity or a court of law. You can not establish a pref-rence in this way in favor of some creditors against others. In this way I undertake to dispose of the objection of my friend from Missouri; and I think the conrt must sustain me in my position.
Aid or loans to expositions and expenses of Government exhibits.
Mr. BARTLETT. I have that here, and it is added in the statement I made. In reply to the gentleman's suggestion I will say that Georgia did not get a dollar out of the Government. And if I had been a Member of the House at the time that appropriation was made I should have voted against any proposition to give or loan money to that exposition in 1895. So long as my people give me the right to represent them on this floor I will continue to maintain the position that the Government has nothing to do with this kind of business.
Mr. HERMANN. Does not the gentleman from Georgia believe that that one exposition at Atlanta, Ga., conferred ten thousand times more benefit upon the people than the amount of money expended?
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes; I do.
Atlanta was the only city of its size in the world which had ever before undertaken so vast an enterprise. With less than 100,000 inhabitants at the time, 40 per cent of whom were negroes, it set on foot and carried to completion, in dull business times, one year after the World's Columbian Exposition, an exposition which outdid the California Mid-Winter Pair of 1893 and 1894, the New Orleans Exposition of 1884. and even the Centennial, being among the American expositions second only to the World's Columbian at Chicago.
Never once did they call upon the Government, but the managers of that exposition, with a public spirit and enterprise which should commend itself to the citizens of much larger cities, of more wealth, who undertake such enterprises, repeatedly supplied out of their own pockets deficiencies in the revenues, and no one ever heard of their applying to the Government for a loan.
Mr. HERMANN. Then it was a good investment.
Mr. BARTLETT. It was a good investment for the people of Georgia, and if the Government had not placed its exhibits there we would have had the exposition all the same and with the same successful results.
Now, as to the appropriation for Charleston, S. C, I voted against that.
Mr. BARTLETT. I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
I repeat, Mr. Chairman, as the suggestion is made by my colleague, that Georgia did not receive a dollar from the Government, nor ask a dollar as a loan or gratuity, either before or after the exposition.
What did yon do at Omaha? You gave Omaha $200,000 for an exhibit, nothing more.
What did you do at Philadelphia? When this country desired to celebrate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of this Republic at the place where clustered so many historic memories, yon only loaned that exposition $1.500,000, and Philadelphia paid back every dollar of it. You contributed $578,500 to a Government building exhibit at that great exposition, and that is all you gave to the place where you celebrated the birth of the independence of this our people. Yon contributed $578,000, and you advanced $1,500,000 afterwards to aid her, and she paid back every dollar of it, for which Philadelphia and her people are entitled to great credit.
Mr. WM. ALDEN SMITH. If the gentleman was sure we should get this money back he would favor the Government loaning it to them, would he not?
Mr. BARTLETT. I would not.
Mr. WM. ALDEN SMITH. I thought the gentleman approved what had been done.
Mr. BARTLETT. The gentleman misunderstood me, or I did not make myself understood.
Mr. WM. ALDEN SMITH. I thought the gentleman approved what had been done at Philadelphia.
Mr. BARTLETT. I do not approve of lending money for that. I said that the Congress in its utmost liberality, in the desire to celebrate the greatest event that ever occurred on this continent and probably the greatest event that ever occurred in the history of the world, at the place where was born and where grew up the life of the greatest people on the face of the earth, that gave to the world its last, best hope for liberty and the preservation of constitutional republican government—Congress, in its liberality, expended $578,000.
Now, when you propose to celebrate another event—great, it is true, in the history of this country—yon have already given them $5,900,000, and in addition to that you propose to go into the business of making the Government a lender of money npon a security which, in my judgment, is not valid as between this Government and other creditors of this exposition. Where are you to stop?
Some years ago there arose in this country what was known as the " Farmers' Alliance " movement. Times were hard in 1890. I believe that was under a Republican Administration, although I do not desire to say anything in reference to hard times just now at any time under any Administration. In 1890, when all the products of the farm were low in price, the farmers in my country and the farmers in all the great West formed what was known as the " Farmers' Alliance," and my good friend and colleague from Georgia [Mr. Livingston] was one of the leaders of them.
Mr. BARTLETT. I ask about ten minutes more.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman asks unanimous consent for ten minutes more.
Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Chairman, of course I do not like to object to the time of the gentleman being extended, but I have heard it rumored that an effort to cut off this debate would be made in a few minutes.
Mr. BARTLETT. Not by me.
Mr. PAYNE. If there is to be such an effort I should like to have some one on this side of the House heard in opposition to this proposition.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair has not heard of any such thing.
Mr. BARTLETT. I want to state to the gentleman that I am upon this committee, of which my friend from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] is the chairman.
Mr. TAWNEY. I ask, Mr. Chairman, that the time of the gentleman from Georgia be extended ten minutes.
The CHAIRMAN. Unanimous consent is asked that the time of the gentleman from G eorgia be extended ten minutes. Is there objection?
Mr. BARTLETT. Now, Mr. Chairman, I jokingly referred to my good friend and colleague [Mr. Livingston] . I want to say that we are glad he was a member of that alliance. He did the people of Georgia and the Democratic party of Georgia a great service, both as a member of the Farmers' Alliance and as a member of the Democratic party, and we are proud of him to-day that while he was a Farmers' Alliance man he continued to be, as he now is, a strong, faithful Democrat.
They formed an association and they were anxious to have the Government loan money to them upon their cotton, which is a staple, advancing them one-half of its market value as a loan at a reasonable rate of interest. They proposed to have warehouses all over the country in which to put the cotton to secure the Government. It would have been as secure as any loan could have been made. Cotton is always a staple. There never has been a time when it would not have brought one-half of the market price.
Mr. WM. ALDEN SMITH. It is a little higher to-day.
Mr. BARTLETT. If such a scheme was on. foot to-day the Government could afford to loan $50 a bale upon every bale of cotton raised in the South, but those of ns who were opposed to that sort of governmental policy went before our people and attacked the scheme as being one of paternalism and socialism and as destructive of the true functions and province of government.
And while the farmers of Georgia were hard pressed for money, while they had to toil day in and day out, and many of them saw their property go to the auction block to pay their debts, yet when the proposition came up before them at the ballot box—true to their convictions, true to the great doctrines of government taught them by their fathers, true to the teachings of the founders of this Republic and of the party to which they belonged—the " subtreasnry " plan and the politicans who upheld it, this unhealthy growth, from wrong policies of government, fell beneath the ballots of the sturdy yeomanry of Georgia and the South.
To-day we have not the farmer with his horny hand, his skin sunburned and brown, asking the Government to loan him money. Thank God in his Providence, He has prospered the farmer, and his surplus profits swells the Treasury to-day with the excess of exports over imports, until to-day yon are more prosperous than you ever were in your life, because the farmer has made the greatest production of crops and is more prosperous than at any time in our history. Upon his sturdy shoulders he has carried us to prosperity unbounded.
But we have the farmers (?) of St. Louis, gentlemen, who are engaged in this exposition, asking ns to make a loan of the people's money, without interest, to carry on the exposition they have undertaken.
For one, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe the Government was organized or intended to become a loaner of money to the people to carry on their private business. I do not believe that we are here to keep a pawnshop, in which to loan money upon any kind of security. If so, I suggest that we should take down the emblem of this Government that adorns yon mace of the sergeant-at-arms and supplant it with the " three balls pendant," the sign of a pawnbroker and money lender.
. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, I shall vote against this proposition as I voted against the proposition in its inception to contribute $5,000,000 to it.
Mr. Chairman, "before referring to the provisions of the bill which I bring before the House, I want to call attention to the condition of the Treasury of the United States. It is well in the affairs of Government as well as private affairs to take occasionally an account of stock and see " where we are at."
In view of different statements made by Members of this Congress in which legislation is suggested upon the ground that we have a large surplus in the Treasury, I think it my duty to call the attention of the House and of the country to a real problem that we are called upon to solve. It is this: How can we reduce the estimated expenses of the Government for the en-Buing fiscal year $43,000,000?
There should be no legislation passed reducing revenues, and this Congress must exercise economy, not refusing any necessary item to meet the growing expenses of this great country, but to strike from the estimates and from the appropriation bills reported to this House every superfluous item. We must keep within the revenues.
Then later on he told you what should be done in coming to the assistance of the Treasury, that it might not show a deficit of $42,000,000. Yet, regardless of this, yon are here to take ont of the vaults of the Treasury—poured in there from the taxation of its people—$4,600,000 to aid in an exposition to which yon have already contributed nearly $6,000,000.
I take it for granted when the gentleman made this statement with reference to the Treasury when he reported this bill, that the statement was correct, and when he made it it was not to alarm you and alarm the country, but he told yon you had neared the danger line.
If you vote this appropriation, when the time comes yon will be called upon to give it instead of their paying it back. Such has been the history of such expositions; but whether it succeeds, as I hope it will do—I hope it will be the greatest exposition that the world ever saw—whether it succeeds or is a failure, they will ask you for this money, will insist it should not be repaid.
For one I call upon those who believe as I do, tbat the people's money should be spent for governmental purposes, to vote against this appropriation, and following the suggestion of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of this House, I call upon yon from that side not to walk beyond the danger line, down over the precipice and into the abyss of a deficit, and leave the Treasury where it must be replenished by the issuance of bonds in times of peace.
Mr. TAWNEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether or not it is possible to conclude the general debate on the amendment to-day; but I ask that general debate be closed at 5 o'clock.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota asks unanimous consent that all general debate on the amendment be closed at 5 o'clock. Is there objection?
Mr. BURKETT. I object. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Objection is made. The Chair will recognize a member of the Committee on Appropriations favoring the bill at this time, if there is any such gentleman who desires recognition.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I ask that I may be permitted to add some data in addition to the statement that I have made in connection with my remarks.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Georgia asks unanimous consent to extend his remarks in the Record. Is there objection? [After a pause.] The Chair hears none. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska.
S. 3118. An act to amend the act approved February 18,1895, entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to amend the laws relative to shipping commissioners,' approved August 19, 1890, and for other purposes;"
S. 1607. An act granting to the State of Oregon certain lands to be used by it for the purpose of maintaining and operating thereon a fish hatchery.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 958) granting an increase of pension to Alfred H. Rogers, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 892) granting an increase of pension to Abram H. Hunt, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 468) granting an increase of pension to Henry Christy, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendments to the hill (H. R. 6022) granting an increase of pension to George W. Travis, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 5176) granting an increase of pension to Alonzo Dutch, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House of Representatives on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 3903) granting an increase of pension to George C. Sherman, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the diagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that the Senate had insisted upon its amendment to the bill (H. R. 3776) granting an increase of pension to Alfred J. Judy, disagreed to by the House of Representatives, had agreed to the conference asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and had appointed Mr. McCumber, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Taliaferro as the conferees on the part of the Senate.
amendments of the senate to urgent deficiency appropriation bill.
The committee resumed its session.
Mr. BURKETT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa such time as he may desire.
Mr. HEPBURN. Mr. Chairman, this proposition is a very simple one. It is a bold, bald, naked proposition for the Government of the United States to loan to a corporation, without interest, npon questionable security, $4,600,000. That is the proposition. It comes to ns from the other end of the Capitol. It comes to us on an appropriation hill, in violation of the rules of that body, and in violation of the rules of this House.
It comes to us in the same questionable form that the original proposition did that the gentleman now states was a gift—a proposition that we did not understand four years ago—a gift of six and one-quarter million dollars to this institution. It comes in the same objectionable way—in violation of the rules of that body, in violation of the rules of this.
been made that $5-000,000 was a gift. I certainly made no statement of that kind. I said an appropriation was made on the terms of this section, which says the Government of the United States is to receive one-third of the receipts, and I would now. if the gentleman will pardon me, correct another statement. The original hill authorizing the exposition passed the House of Representatives making a $5,000,000 appropriation for the purpose of aiding and completing that exposition. It passed the House in the form of a hill as a separate proposition, and then went to the Senate, where it was amended by putting on the Charleston proposition, and it was passed, too, by a two-thirds vote of this House, not on an appropriation bill.
Mr. TAWNEY. I beg the gentleman's pardon; the amendment did not appropriate $5,000,000; it pledged $5,000,000.
Mr. DALZELL. Pledged it in the event of their raising $10,-000,000.
Mr. PAYNE. That is what the gentleman from Iowa stated.
Mr. HEPBURN. Mr. Chairman, I am substantially correct in the statement I have made, and I will stand by it. Mr. Chairman, it is not my purpose to throw any obstacle in the way of this magnificent spectacle we are to have in the city of St. Louis during this year. With the general purpose had in view by the gentlemen who have the matter in charge I have the fullest sympathy.
I believe that every ten or fifteen years this Government could well afford to expend a few million dollars in the educational processes that come through these great international expositions. I also think that there is no criticism to be made npon the superb management that the gentlemen who have this matter in charge have exhibited. I approve of all that they have done. I even approve of the nine somewhat belated, rheumatic statesmen who constitute the Commission whose existence is complained of by the gentleman who made the opening address in favor of this proposition. He seems to feel that a grievance is had on the part of himself and others that these gentlemen are permitted to draw $50,000 a year in compensation for the ornamental features they furnish to the great enterprise. [Laughter.] I want this to succeed. I want this exposition to be the greatest that the world has ever known; but I want the gentlemen who are to be largely the beneficiaries to furnish this money. I want them to do as that once rival of theirs, the empire city at the foot of Lake Michigan, that raised the $5,000,000 that was needed after all other resources had been expended, and so I want the city of St. Louis to emulate them in that respect. It is pleading the baby act for gentlemen to come here and talk about the conditions of the money market as it affects the wealth of St. Louis. The raising of this SI,600,000 is a mere bagatelle to those men of stupendous wealth who live in that city, and I want them, while they are having so many of the great advantages of this enterprise, to pay their full share of the expenditures. St. Louis ought to do this. St. Louis is a beneficiary far beyond the city of Chicago. There is no question between the two. Here, in the first place, are $5,000,000 of permanent improvements put upon the lands largely of St. Louis. Five million dollars! You will remember what the gentleman from Minnesota told ns a little while ago—that $3,000,000 had been put on the grounds in sewerage and other permanent works of that character.
Mr. TAWNEY. I will ask the gentleman from Iowa if ho did not deliberately interrupt me when he thought I had misstated the facts? I think the gentleman onghtto yield.
Mr. HEPBURN. I will yield. Did not the gentleman from Minnesota say that $3,000,000 had been permanently put there underground?
Mr. TAWNEY. No; I did not. I said that almost $3,000,000 had been expended and that nobody could see anything of it, because it was for sewerage and in water pipes and fire protection and in the preparation of the ground. That is what I said.
Mr. TAWNEY. Does the gentleman from Iowa think that the exposition could be held on the grounds without sanitary arrangements, sewerage, water piping, etc.? That amount has been expended for that purpose.
The Chairman. I see from the statement allowing the cost of the fair to date that there have been almost §3,000,900 expended there which has gone underground?
Mr. Francis. Yes; that is true.
There are three millions of dollars permanently planted on these grounds. Now, there is a million and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that has been put in the permanent structure known as the "Art Building;" a million and one-quarter of dollars, making four and one-quarter millions. Shall I give the gentleman from Minnesota the page for that statement, or does he concede it?
Mr. TAWNEY. I concede that a part of the Art Building is a permanent structure.
Mr. HEPBURN. A million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Then there is $750,000 for permanent structure put upon the college grounds of Washington University. Is not that correct?
Mr. TAWNEY. The exposition company pays $750,000 for the use of the Washington University building for a period of three years, and the Washington University is obligated under then-contract to use that money in grading and in ornamenting the grounds which are within the exposition grounds.
These building-s are all permanent, fireproof structures. Therefore, of the money at our command §150,000 will go into permanent structures for educational purposes.
That is upon the grounds of the Washington University. There are 85,000,000 of permanent improvements put upon the grounds of St. Louis and of this educational institution, money of the exposition, either the $5,000,000 raised by the city or the $5,000,000 raised by the corporation or the $5,000,000 given by the General Government.
Mr. SHERMAN. Will the gent'eman from Iowa yield for a question? Mr. HEPBURN. Yes.
Mr. SHERMAN. Does the gentleman consider that a less wise expenditure than to place the same amount of money in buildings which will remain there for only a few months and then be removed and be of no benefit to anyone?
Mr. HEPBURN. Surely not. I am making no criticism of the board: no criticism. I have been unfortunate if the gentleman has not understood me. I am approving of what these gentlemen have done. Here is $5,000,000 saved, not wasted; $5,000,000 saved to St. Louis, not wasted; and therefore I say.'' Gentlemen of St. Louis, yon who are largely beneficiaries from the five millions the Government lias already given to you. put your hands in your pocket and take the bonds of this association for $4,600,000."
Mr. BARTHOLDT. Will the gentleman from Iowa yield?
Mr. HEPBURN. Oh, Mr. Chairman, I decline to yield, because that is entirely impertinent to the argument I am trying to make. I am not sayingthat St. Louis did not raise her $5,005,000; I am not saying that the corporation did not raise its $5,000,000. They were compelled to before they could get $5,000,000 from the United States. That is conceded. They did it. Now they are getting it back. Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to call attention to the fact—and I do not criticise it at all: I am glad that it is true—I want to call attention to the fact that $40,000,000 will have been expended upon these works when the exposition opens. Am I not correct in that statement, gentlemen? Forty million dollars! Mr. Francis says, "There will have been expended when our gates open, gentlemen, $40,000,000. That will he the aggregate cost of the exposition."
Oh, it will be magnificent; no doubt of tha,t. I am glad that they were such financiers that they might raise this stupendous sum, and I am glad that they have it in their minds and hearts to expend it in the education of the American people. It is a grand enterprise. This gentleman informs ns further that of that $40,000,000, $20,000,000 has been expended in labor. Fifty per cent of all the cost of that great structure, or series of structures-seven hundred and odd buildings—is labor. Twenty millions of dollars!
Is there any dispute about that, gentlemen? If there is. I will turn to the page where the statement has been authoritatively made.
Mr. HEPBURN. Oh, Mr. Chairman, I think it is hardly fair for the gentleman to take up my time.
Mr. TAWNEY. But the gentleman has asked if that is correct.
Mr. HEPBURN. I am stating the facts. I do not care who expended it. It has been expended under directions in that locality for labor. That is what I am trying to get at.
Mr. TAWNEY. And for the buildings of the exposition.
Mr. HEPBURN. I am trying to show that the people of St. Louis—the laboring classes of St. Louis—have had $20,000,000 given to them through this great enterprise. That is what I am trying to do.
Mr. BARTHOLDT. Of the United States.
Mr. HEPBURN. No; not by the United States; bnt the United States has done her full share, I say. I am trying to show that the people of St. Louis have been largely the beneficiaries because of this largess of the nations and the people, and that now something ought to be done on their part in acknowledgment of it, viz, the loaning—a little, petty, trivial thing on their part—of four and a half millions of their wealth on what is called " undoubted security '' for six or eight months. Mr. Chairman, notonly this,the laboring classes of St. Louis have not only had this vast amount of labor, but they have had it under circumstances that make more than five millions of it a gift to them. The city of St. Louis, instead of strengthening the hands of these gentlemen who had charge of this great work and relieving them from the oppressions and extortions of labor, have simply refused or neglected to do anything and compelled these gentlemen to pay an excess of 25 per cent of | the prices of labor that they were paying when they began the f enterprise.
It has gone on to a limit of extortion almost incredible. Carpenters have been paid §4.40 for eight hours of work; plasterers, from §5 to §7 for eight hours of work; electrical workers, §5; iron workers. $4.40; common laborers, $2—all for eight hours' work each. Those are the prices that they have paid; an excess of 25 per cent, the president of the institution says, over the prices that tliey paid when the enterprise was begun. Now, then, St. Louis has had these five millions permanently placed in those grounds. The people of St. Louis have had the labor coming from twenty millions of expenditure. They have had this five millions of excess extorted from the Commission. The people of St. Louis have had it. Outsiders have had no participation in these extra and extraordinary prices that seem willingly to have been paid. Is it not true that under such circumstances St. Louis should do something?
But this is not all. It is estimated that the attendance will be vastly in excess of the attendance at the fair in the city of Chicago. Think of the millions who were there! It is not at all improbable that five, six, possibly seven millions of people will take their way to the city of St. Louis between the 1st day of May and the 1st day of December. All of these millions leave their dollars there. Suppose there are hut five millions, and suppose that they are there long enough to expend §10 each. We would then have the enormous sum of $50,000,000 which will go into the coffers of the business men of that city, resultant from this fair. Under those circumstances ought they to ask the people of the United States, who the gentleman tells us have already given them $5,000,000, to loan five millions more? Gentlemen talk about this being returned. I do not believe it. It will be contrary to the experience of the United States, save in one instance. Is it fair for the patriotic people of St. Louis to ask that Democrats especially should violate the Constitution of the United States and make of the United States Government a money loaner?
Oh, I know that this is the age of progressive Democracy. They progress from the good old days of Jackson and of that time. A little while ago I saw the gentleman from Georgia, from the Atlanta district [Mr. Livingston], a progressive Democrat, who wrote the Ocala platform, which authorized the loan of greenbacks to the farmer upon a security of farm products. A progressive Democrat! Ah, he has progressed from Jackson's time, and he is progressing still. In that platform he did not propose to loan money to any bnt the farmers. Now they are taking in the corporations; the day of good feeling has come. They have no longer their knives and tomahawks out for the corporations. Oh, no.
the House who refuse to stifle their convictions with regard to the! Constitution in order to accommodate their friends. "What is the Constitution between friends?'' That comes from New Yorkl It does not affect the gentleman from Georgia. I take it, as I list tened to him and to what he had to say in reprobation of this pros] titution of our powers.
I remember not a great many years ago when good Democrats would not vote for a grant of land for a corporation to aid in the construction of a railway, although the alternate sections that they did not grant were to reimburse the General Government through the double minimum price that was charged for them.
They thought then that the proceeds of the sale of the public lands were a part of the common treasure, bel; nging to all the people, to be used for governmental purposes, and only for such purposes. Now, the money of the people, the money that belongs to all the people—each man entitled to his full own rshtp of each individual dollar—that money can be taken from the Treasury of the United States, not for governmental uses, not to promote the general welfare, but in order to be loaned to a corporation in order to carry ont this enterprise.
Mr. BARTLETT. Without interest, too.
Mr. HEPBURN. And the gentlemen say now—and I think it is 1' the unkindest cut of all''—'' Oh. you are bound to do this: jt n have invited the crowned heads of Europe and all their subjects to come here." And the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] grows lachrymose in his fears that we are going to do discredit to ourselves as hosts and fail in respect to onr guests. Do the gentlemen remember that the President of the United States extended these invitations at the instance of these gentlemen who are now using as a threat that very thing that they induced the Government to do? I do not think there is kindliness in that. That invitation came at the instance of these gentlemen. They were right. I do not criticise them for it: but I criticise the wisdom and propriety of using that as an argument to extort further millions from the Treasury of the United States.
Mr. TA WNEY. Will the gentleman pardon me a moment?
Mr. HEPBURN. Certainly it did; but at whose instance was that put there?
Mr. TAWNEY. It was put there by the Congress of the United States.
Mr. HEPBURN. But at whose instance? At the instance of the same gentlemen who inspired the whole act.
Mr. TAWNEY. The moment that you authorize and provide for an international exposition that necessarily implies invitations to foreign nations.
Mr. HEPBURN. Well, according to the purpose for which the gentleman uses this suggestion, it was in hostility to the purposes of these gentlemen. They did not want these invitations to be made. Oh.no! They did not want any obligations of hospitality to be created. Oh, no! Is that what you mean to say? Everybody knows that every sentence in that law that is beneficial to this institution was placed there at the instance of these gentlemen—not at the instance of the Government. Whatever requirement there is, is made in the interest of that institution. And I am not quarreling with that—not at all. I am quarreling with the specious character of the argument that the gentleman from Minnesota sought to present to the House.
Mr. PAYNE. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] proposed to close debate about this time. I am willing to take a vote now, if he so desires.
Mr. TAWNEY. I asked unanimous consent to close debate, and objection was made. I think that, having the affirmative of the proposition, we have the right to close; and I do not think that it can be done this evening. A number of gentlemen wish to speak in favor of the proposition; and I do not think I should be justified in shutting them off.
Mr. BURKETT.- Then I reserve the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bur-kett] has twenty-six minutes remaining.
Mr. HEMENWAY. In view of the statement made by the gentleman from Minnesota, I move that the committee now rise. The motion was agreed to.
The committee accordingly rose; and the Speaker having resumed the chair, Mr. Currier, Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, reported that the Committee of the Whole Honse on the state of the Union had had nnder consideration the amendments of The Senate to the urgent deficiency bill and had come to no resolution thereon.
S. 2345. An act to amend the provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States, and for other purposes—to the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization.
S. 1278. An act to provide for the erection of buildings for an immigrant station at the port of San Francisco, Cal.—to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds.
S. 1537. An act to provide for the payment to the heirs of Darius B. Randall, deceased, for certain improvements relinquished to the United States for the use of the Nez Perce Indians—to the Committee on Claims.
S. 1607. An act granting to the State of Oregon certain lands to be used by it for the purpose of maintaining and operating thereon a fish hatchery—to the Committee on the Public Lands.
S. 2698. An act to establish a life-saving station at or near the entrance to Tillamook Bay, Oregon—to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.
S. 2815. An act authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to fix the salaries of the deputy collectors of customs at the snbports of Tacoma and Seattle, in the State of Washington, and repealing all laws inconsistent therewith—to the Committee on Ways and Means.
S. 3117. An act to expedite business in the district court of the United States for the district of Oregon—to the Committee on the Judiciary.
S. 3738. An act granting an increase of pension to Linus S. Ludington—to the Committee on Invalid Pensions.
columbia institution for the deaf and dumb.
The SPEAKER announced the appointment as directors of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb Mr. Fowler of New Jersey and Mr. Sims.
And then, on motion of Mr. Hemenway (at 4 o'clock and 55 minutes p. m.), the Honse adjourned.
A letter from the Secretary of War, transmitting, with a copy of a communication from the Chief of Ordnance, a report of tests of iron and steel and other metals—to the Committee on Manufactures, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the assistant clerk of the Court of Claims, transmitting a copy of the contusions of fact and law in the French spoliation cases relating to the schooner Active, Samuel Pote, master—to the Committee on Claims, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the assistant clerk of the Court of Claims, transmitting a copy of the conclusions of fact and law in the French spoliation cases relating to the brig Apollo, John Ring, master—to the Committee on Claims, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the assistant clerk of the Court of Claims, transmitting a copy of the findings filed by the court in the case of John A. Chandler, administrator of estate of Garrett S. Chandler, against The United States—to the Committee on WTar Claims, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the assistant clerk of the Court of Claims, transmitting a copy of the findings filed by the court in the case of Anne C. Livingston against The United States—to the Committee on War Claims, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the assistant clerk of the Court of Claims, transmitting a copy of the findings filed by the court in the case of Joseph T. Blanton, administrator of estate of Benjamin Blanton, against The United States—to the Committee on War Claims, and ordered to be printed.
A letter from the Secretary of War, transmitting, with a letter from the Chief of Engineers, report of examination and survey of Puyallup and other waterways of the harbor of Tacoma—to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors, and ordered to be printed with illustrations.
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES ON PRIVATE BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS.
Mr. GRAFF, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 2009) for the relief of the estate of Sven J. Johnson, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 736); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. THOMAS of Iowa, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 1058) for the relief of Kirby Thomas, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 737); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. TRIMBLE, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 7535) for the relief of Jacob Swigert, late deputy collector, seventh Kentucky district, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 738); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. FOSTER of Vermont, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 7718) for the relief of the estate of Artemus E. Gibson, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 739); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. BEALL of Texas, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 3256) directing the issue of a check in lieu of a lost check drawn by Thomas J. Hobbs, disbursing clerk, in favor of Crane & Co., of Dalton, Mass., reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 740); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. McNARY, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 6937) for the relief of the heirs of Elizabeth Cnshing, reported the same with amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 741); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. FOSTER of Vermont, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 10511) for the relief of the estate of Mary Keating, reported the same with amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 742); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
He also, from the same committee, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 8505) for the relief of the heirs of Cyrus R. Hottenstein, deceased, reported the same with amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 743); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. BUTLER of Pennsylvania, from the Committee on Claims, to which was referred the bill of the Senate (S. 255) for the relief of the Farmers and Mechanics' National Bank, Philadelphia, Pa., reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 744); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. SPIGHT, from the Committee on War Claims, to which was referred the bill of the House (H. R. 10585) for the relief of the vestry of Christ Episcopal Church, of Holly Springs, Miss., reported the same with amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 745); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. SULLOWAY, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to which was referred the bill of the Senate (S. 2517) granting an increase of pension to Elijah Farr, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 748); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
He also, from the same committee, to which was referred the bill of the Senate (S. 167) granting an increase of pension to J. Hudson Kibbe, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 749); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
He also, from the same committee, to which was referred the bill of the Senate (S. 2543) granting an increase of pension to Ella B. Green, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 750); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
He also, from the same committee, to which was referred the bill of the Senate (S. 2527) granting an increase of pension to Joseph Roberts, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 751); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.
Mr. MIEES of Indiana, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to which was referred the hill of the Senate (S. 3166) granting an increase of pension to Levi B. Lewis, reported the same without amendment, accompanied by a report (No. 752); which said bill and report were referred to the Private Calendar.

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