Year: 1876

Congress were for that amount, and an item
ized statement from the Office of the Fourth
Auditor Of the Treasury was also submitted to
the Committees of Appropriations, showing
that the whole amount was actually needed.
In the face of these facts the House Of Repre-
sentatives reduced the appropriation nearly
two millions of dollars below the estimates,
and appropriated only the sum OF IS, ,750, 900
for the "pay of the navy" during the current
year, placing this reduction upon the express
ground that the sum was sufficient, since the
Secretary of the Navy had it in his power to
reduce the expenditures to that amount by
putting all unemployed officers con furlough."
When the bill went to the Senate, that body,
on the representation of the Secretary, raised
the appropriation to the amount agreed to last
year; but In this amendment the House refused
to concur, and when the bill went to the con-
ference committee, the representatives on the
part of the House insisted on the reduction,
still putting their resolution upon the avowed
ground that the Secretary of the Navy should
be constrained to reduce the expenses OF this
branch of the service by exercising his power
of furlough. To this demand Of the House
the Senate was forced to yield in order to save
the bill, and the reduced appropriation was
thus made by the one House and concurred in
by the other upon the principle thus insisted
upon. Under this condition of things the
Secretary OF the Navy was forced either to ac-
cept this action In the spirit in which 1t was
taken, placing the responsibility Of any wrong
where It really belonged, or himself to assume
the responsibility of disregarding the inten-
tions Of Congress, as expressed BY their pub
action. He was obliged either to put the off,
GERS sson furlough," as contemplated by Con-
gress, and keep as nearly as possible within
the amount appropriated, or, by allowing
them to remain on "other duty" or "waiting
ORDERS" to expend the amount appropriated
for the whole year in the first eight or nine
months, leaving the Department for the bal
ance of the year entirely without any means
to carry on the naval service, or to pay the
officers and men on foreign stations the
money necessary for their daily support, with
no resource but that of appealing to an ad-
verse House of Representatives for large de-
fcieBcy, produced by an acknowledged disre-
gard of their expressed views.


We have the best authority for saying that
the matter was submitted to the President and
Cabinet, who unanimously concurred In the
opinion that the Secretary of the Navy had no
alternative except to limit the expenses as far
as possible by reducing the pay OF unemployed
officers through the means pointed out by
Congress, and, on their reassembling, to ay
the matter before them and ask for an addi-
tional appropriation sufficient to remedy any
wrong done by their action. In pursuance OF
this opinion the Secretary issued his order,
which recited the facts, placed all the unem-
ployed officers of the navy on furlough, with
out discriminating for or against any individual,
and promised to lay the matter before Congress
at its next session. These facts are, as we
have said, very simple, and will be easily un-
derstood by the people. Hardship may come
to many deserving officers through the effect
of the Secretary's order, but the responsibility
must rest with the Democratic House of Rep
resentatives, where it really belongs, and not
with the Secretary of the Navy. However
the ignorant may complain and the malicious
misrepresent his action, it is the House of Rep
resentatives which has put the officers "on
furlough pay" by refusing to appropriate the
money necessary to pay them at any higher
rate.