Speeches by A.O. Bacon [in the] United States Senate : 57th-59th Congresses / A.O. Bacon.

THE PHILIPPINE TARIFF BILL.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Tuesday, January 21, 1902.
" No man, be he official or private citizen, is above the law."
W A. SHINGTON. I 902.
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SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. B. 5833) temporarily to provide revenue for the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: I do not rise for the purpose of debating this

bill, but I wish to add a few words to what I said in a colloquy

with the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] when he was

upon the floor. I refrained from doing so at that time because I

did not wish to unduly interrupt him.

The Senate will remember that the Senator from Massachusetts

gave as one reason why there was urgency in the present situation

requiring immediate action upon this bill, that there were no ships

engaged in the trade between the Philippine Islands and the

United States which were authorized under the law to engage in

that trade since the decision of the Supreme Court had determined

that the Philippine Islands constituted a part of our domestic ter

ritory, and that therefore it was important that this bill should be

passed immediately, or at a very early date, because it contained a

provision which authorized ships not under American registry to

continue in that trade.

I asked the distinguished and learned Senator under what

authority the ships now engaged in that trade not under Ameri

can registry were so engaged, and he replied that he was not in

formed. I then asked him if he did not know, if he had not seen

in the public prints, the statement that from the War Depart

ment there had been an order issued authorizing vessels not

under American registry to continue in that trade, and theSena

tor then recalled the fact that he did so remember, and immedi

ately proceeded to defend the act of the War Department for

having issued such an order. He urged that, if it had not been

done, there could have been no trade continued by vessels to and

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from the Philippines, from the fact tliat there were no vessels there authorized under the law to engage in such trade, and con sequently there would have been an immediate cessation of the
trade. My distinguished friend from Oregon [Mr. MITCHELL] sug
gested that at the time of the rendition of this decision there were a large number of vessels upon the Pacific coast loaded and ready to proceed to those islands which had to stop, and which only proceeded by virtue of the fact, as I understood him, that they were permitted by the authorities to do so in violation of
law. Mr. President, the reply of the Senator from Massachusetts is
no reason why the War Department has any power or authority or privilege to violate the law. I will read the law. I can not read it all, but I will read enough of it to show what it is. It is section 4311 of the Revised Statutes, which is in these words:
SEC. 4311. Vessels of 20 tons and upward, enrolled in pursuance of this title, and having a license in force, or vessels of less than 20 tons, which, although not enrolled, have a license in force, as required hy this title, and no others, shall be deemed vessels of the United States entitled to the privileges of ves sels employed in the coasting trade or fisheries.
There is the law of the United States in as simple, as plain, as unambiguous, and as peremptory language as words could enable it to be framed, and yet the position of the learned and distin guished and honorable Senator from Massachusetts is that if an emergency arises by which trade will be stopped an officer of this Government can take the responsibility to annul the law by an order and to declare that it may be violated with impunity.
Mr. President, one of the great evils of this miserable business upon which we have entered is that it brings us face to face fre quently with situations where it is very important I will not say " very important," but where there is an urgent need for the vio lation of law in order that there may not be greater evils, perhaps. And yet it was not the contemplation of the framers of this Gov ernment that when a law was upon the statute book, if it would work evil any department of this Government should have the right to violate it because it would work evil.
Mr. MITCHELL. May I ask the Senator a question? The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Oregon?
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Mr. BACON. Yes, sir. Mr. MITCHELL. Would the Senator from Georgia, in the case to which he has just referred, arraign the Secretary of the Treas ury for it was the Secretary of the Treasury, I believe, in pur suance of an order of the Secretary of War, who did it for per mitting certain foreign vessels to clear to our outlying possessions under the peculiar circumstances surrounding the case and sur rounding our commerce at that time, in view of the recent deci sion of the Supreme Court? Does the Senator see no distinction in the act of the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of War in a case of that kind from an act had he permitted a for eign vessel to clear from the port of Portland, Oreg., to the port of San Francisco, Cal., or from any other port on the mainland of the United States to any other port on the mainland? Does the Senator not draw a distinction? Can not he see, under the cir cumstances, a difference, especially in view of the fact that the Philippine Archipelago is admittedly under military rule? Mr. BACON. Before I get through I will answer the Senator. I am speaking now of an order of the War Department authoriz ing vessels not under American registry to engage in a trade that the statute of the United States says they shall not engage in, and, as I shall endeavor to show before I get through, it was an unnec essary order. Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator would not make any allowance, then; he would not take into consideration any emergency an emergency then upon the country by the peculiar situation of affairs nor would he consider the fact that the islands are under military control? Mr. BACON. I say no emergency can authorize an officer of a department of this Government to violate the statute law. Mr. STEWABT. Will the Senator allow me to cite a case from the Supreme Court? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will permit me, I am not going to occupy the floor long, and Senators can follow on just as much as they please; but I prefer to make my statement before I engage in a running debate. I shall be through in a few moments, and I want to get through first with the statement I propose to make. I was proceeding to say that it was not the contemplation of the framers of this Government that Congress, which was vested
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exclusively with all legislative power, should share that power with either of the other departments. The very first sentence in the Constitution of the United States is that which confers all legislative power on Congress, and it was never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution that that power could ever be shared with it by any other department of the Government. On the contrary, not only is there no such grant to any other depart ment, but there is an absolute prohibition to each of the other departments.
Mr. President, it has come to pass that all the departments of this Government are engaged in legislation not only the legisla tive department, but the executive department and the judicial department. I do not aay that in any offensive sense. I say it has come to be recognized and to be "talked about in the news papers as a correct thing for the judiciary department to engage in legislation not simply statute legislation, but in amending the Constitution of the United States.
I saw printed in the Washington Post I wish I had it here to read it an editorial article from one of the prominent Republican newspapers and I have seen similaT articles in the New York and other newspapers in which the country was congratulated on the fact that we have an elastic Constitution, and that that elasticity could be taken advantage of by the judiciary of the country to so amend it by judicial exposition as to adapt it to the changing needs of the country.
Mr. MITCHELL. May I interrupt the Senator again? The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield? Mr. BACON. If it is for an inquiry I will yield, but not for an argument. Mr. MITCHELL. For a question. Mr. BACON. I yield for a question. Mr. MITCHELL. Do I understand from the Senator from Georgia that if he had been Secretary of the Treasury or Secre tary of War at the date of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States I am assuming for the sate of argument that there were no American vessels, or none flying the American flag or bearing an American registry, on the ocean between the United States and our outlying possessions, and as a matter of fact there
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were but very few he would hare stopped the commerce of that whole country? That he would have refused to allow a foreign vessel to clear, and held up the commerce of the Pacific Ocean?
Mr. BACON. I do not understand, in the first place, that there was any such order by the Secretary of the Treasury, and I am not addressing myself to any supposititious case. I am address ing myself to the actual fact, as stated in the public press, that the Secretary of War issued an order .permitting and authorizing certain vessels to engage in trade, which, under our navigation laws, those vessels are directly and positively prohibited from engaging in.
Mr. MITCHELL. It would have been all the same in the case of the Secretary of War?
Mr. BACON". The Senator asked me that question before. Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator would have allowed commerce to be brought to a standstill? Mr. BACON. Yes; if that answer will suit the Senator. Mr. MITCHELL. That is what I want to know. Mr. BACON. I am coming to that, and will make it a little more elaborate than I have done by the simple word "yes;" but I use the word " yes " in order that the Senator may be satisfied for the present. The law does not say that an officer shall execute the law ex cept in cases of emergency, and that then he may violate it. The law does not give him the right to judge when he shall violate it. The law says that he shall not violate it under any circumstances, and he swears that he will not. No man, be he official or private citizen, is above the law. But, Mr. President, the Senator interrupted me on a different line, and I will, with his permission, resume what I was sayingat that time. I repeat that I do not speak of judicial legislation in an offensive sense, but I venture to say that it has gotten to be recognized by many that the-judiciary of the country shall be the judge of what ought to be the law, and that it is their right, whenever existing law does not meet their approval, by judicial exposition to amend it in order to adapt a decision to such re quirements as they may deem necessary and to prevent what they may conceive to be evils-which would result, if they, with out addition or subtraction, determined the law as it exists.
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I find in the decisions of the courts grave arguments why constitutional questions should be decided in a certain way or should not be decided in a certain way; that if they were decided in a certain way it would be an injury to the commerce and the business of the country. Of course, where a law is open to two fair constructions, it is legitimate to show that that one construc tion should not be adopted because it will lead to evil. But there are limits to this rule of construction, and that is different from originating a power never heard of before and declaring itto ex ist, because unless thus created by judicial edict evil will result. And I repeat, Mr. President, that it has got to be so that in some of the great newspapers of the country there is an absolute asser tion and congratulation of the country upon the fact that such is the elasticity of tie Constittition and such the power of the courts that, shown by their practice, they can use that elasticity to amend the Constitution. They speak in terms of judicial amend ment " of the Constitution, and applaud it. If there should be oc casion hereafter to again refer to this subject, I shall bring some of these extracts in here and read them to the Senate.
But, Mr. President, as I stated, this unauthorized legislation is not limited to the judiciary. We are having the Executive De partments undertaking to determine when an exigency arises which will authorize a departmental officer to legislate, and Sen ators like the Senator from Oregon [Mr. MITCHELL] stand in the Senate of the United States to defend it. The Senator asked me, as if it were a monstrous proposition to deny the power, whether in case obedience to law would stop a ship, the Secretary of the Treasury has a right to violate the law in order that the ship may proceed? Who gave to any citizen of the United States when clothed with a little brief authority the right to violate the law? What gives him the right to make law any more than a private citizen has that right? One who annuls a law is as much of a lawmaker as is the one who enacts law; and one who suspends a statute and says it shall not operate for two months is as much of a lawmaker as one who finally repeals that statute.
Mr. President, I did not expect to say this much, and would not have done so if the honorable Senator had not asked questions which indicate that, in his opinion, I was presenting a very out rageous proposition here in contending that this thing ought not
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to have been done. In my opinion, it ought not to have been done, but -unfortunately we have gotten accustomed to the viola tion of law.
In the last Congress we called attention to the fact that the law was being violated down in Cuba. Sections of these statutes were read, saying peremptorily and without qualification that an officer of the United States Army should only receive a certain amount of money that is prescribed in the statute and that he should have no other from any other source. But the fact was disclosed here that down in Cuba, and with the knowledge and consent and approval of those in power, that law was being vio lated, and some officers on duty there were receiving double pay.
Mr. President, if I should stop here to enumerate all the cases in which I think law has been violated, and if other Senators here should endeavor to narrate the instances in which they think the law has been violated, we would find use for very much more time than I expect to consume to-day.
There has been no necessity for any stoppage of the commerce of the United States on account of the decision of the Supreme Court, certainly for any material length of time. If there had been such necessity that would have been no excuse for the viola tion of law. If it was a matter of sufficient importance to require that the law should be changed, even if Congress were not in session, the President of the United States had the power to call it in session. But it so happened in this case that this de cision was pronounced immediately preceding the convening of Congress, and there has never been a day from the first day that Congress met until this good hour, when in that single day a joint resolution could not have been gotten through both Senate and House giving the very authority which it is now sought to confer by this provision of this bill.
Mr. MITCHELL. May I suggest another question to the Senator?
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Geor gia yield to the Senator from Oregon?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. MITCHELL. In making the point that he does, that there has been a violation of law here, has the Senator taken into con sideration the fact that the Philippine Archipelago is under a

10
military government, under the control and direction of the Sec retary of "War, and that, after all, perhaps the Secretary of War has a right tinder existing law to do precisely what he did do?
Mr. BACON. Well, I do not recognize any such law.
Mr. MITCHELL. I think he has the right. Mr. BACON. The Supreme Court does not recognize any such law. The Supreme Court says that the Secretary of War had not a right to make any tariff; that that was a matter already covered by law; that Congress alone could make a tariff, and that the Secretary of War in prescribing a tariff was subject to the laws of Congress. When the court stated that the Philippine Archi pelago was a part of the domestic territory of the United States, and that therefore there could be no tariff between that country and this, it was because Congress had provided a law which regu lated the tariff in all domestic territory; and if the statute of the United States was of binding force in the case of a tariff, it was also of binding force in the case of a navigation law. Of course I shall not pursue that kind of argument, because no Senator is going to contend that the suggestion of the Senator from Oregon is correct, and the majority of the committee itself recog nize the contrary to be true and urge it as a reason why this bill should be put through in hot haste, without giving Senators an opportunity to see those things which they ought to see and to examine carefully before they enter upon this important and seri ous legislation. The reason they give is that there could be no such authority in the War Department, such as that suggested by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. MITCHELL] , and that consequently there must be legislation by Congress. I repeat that there has never been a day from the first meeting of the present session of Congress until to-day when on that par ticular day there could not have been a joint resolution passed through both the Senate and House which would have given the authority in this particular that is sought to be conferred by this bill; and, sir, I will state and I think with no impropriety that the suggestion was communicated to Senators upon the other side of the Chamber, after consultation by Senators on this side of the Chamber, that if such an emergency existed, if it were true that there were no vessels which could enter into this coastwise trade
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by reason of the statute -which I have read, we were ready to waive all else and have that joint resolution enacted immediately.
So I submit to the judgment of the Senate that the reply of the distinguished Senator, that an emergency existed, in the first place, can not be accepted as an excuse for the violation of any law, espe cially by a civil officer. I do not know that I shall even make any " especially " about it I shall say by anybody. And in the second place, that if the law as it stood was such as to work hard ship to the commerce of the country, it was perfectly competent, even if Congress were not in session, to bring it in session, while in this particular case the fact is Congress was in session so im mediately thereafter that the intervening time was inconsiderable.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator to make that statement with a little more amplitude? What was the precise thing which the Senator notified gentlemen on this side of the Chamber that all the Senators on the other side of the Chamber were willing to do?
Mr. BACON. The Senator makes the statement a little more broadly than I did.
Mr. HOAR. Perhaps the Senator will make it exact. Mr. BACON. I will make it again with pleasure. I said I presumed I could state, without impropriety, that the communi cation had been made by Senators on this side of the Chamber to Senators on the other side, that after consultation not with all the Senators, as the Senator from Massachusetts suggests, but with a number of Senators on this side there had been a general agreement that if the Senators in charge of legislation desired to have a joint resolution put through promptly and without debate, conferring upon vessels not under the American registry the power and right and privilege of trading with the Philippine Islands, it could be done. Now, Mr. President, I did not expect to go into this matter at the present time, because really I feel reluctance in taking part so early in anything connected with this debate, but the single suggestion on the part of the distinguished junior Senator from Massachusetts looking to the necessity for any immediate urgent action in the consideration and passage of this bill is this par ticular feature of it. And unless there is some such reason there-
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ought not to be all this hot haste, this whip-and-spur business, in

the consideration and passage of the pending bill.

There never was a situation where Senators were confronted

with propositions which required more careful examination and

study on their part than those contained in this bill. There never

was a situation which, by reason of the vast distance intervening

between that country and this and the difficulty of ascertaining

what conditions are there, so called for prudent and careful and

painstaking investigation to ascertain those conditions as the

present situation does.

Yet, Mr. President, with a resolution pending, introduced toy

the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] , looking to an

investigation which shall disclose the actual conditions there,

with an appeal on the part of the minority of the Philippine Com

mittee that the civil governor of the islands, who is now in this

country or about to arrive, and who is presumed to be charged

with a great deal of information which ought to be communicated

to us, might be given the opportunity to tell us what he knows,

these Senators say "No; you shall know nothing from him or from

anybody else, so far as it is necessary to delay action upon this

bill before you can be informed of it."

Mr. President, this bill incorporates a detailed tariff bill en

acted by the Commissioners of the Philippine Islands. It enacts

it as a law. and yet to-day for the first time there is laid upon our

desks that law, a complicated tariff law, relating both to imports

and to exports, and Senators say we shall be rushed into the con

sideration of this measure without having the opportunity to

examine it. It was laid on our tables, printed, this morning.

Mr. TELLEE. Where is it?

Mr. BACON. There it is. Even the distinguished and dili

gent Senator from Colorado [Mr. TELLER], who generally sees

everything, has not even had the opportunity to see it and did

not know it was here.

*

Mr. TELLER. If the Senator will allow me to interrupthim,

I will state that no copy of it was laid on my table.

Mr. BACON. I am prepared to believe that, because, as I said,

the Senator is diligent in looking after all such things. It is

simply an illustration of the enormity of the proposition that we

should be rushed into the consideration of this bill.

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Mr. HANSBROUGH. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. HANSBROUGH. I desire to say to the Senator from Georgia that I obtained from the document room over a week ago a copy of the document to which he refers. Mr. BACON. Well, the Senator from North Dakota, being one of the elect, on the inside, probably had information that those of us not so fortunate were denied. I was on the point this morn ing of going to the distinguished junior Senator from Massa chusetts and asking him where we could get it. If it was here before, I did not know it. Mr. LODGE. It has been here a good while. I will say to the Senator, He had but to ask for it. That is what I did. Mr. BACON. Is that the way legislation is done here? Is not each table here every day covered with reports that relate to legis lation? Are they not distributed around? Are we to imagine and conjecture and divine that such papers exist? But, Mr. President, here is a remarkable proposition. Here is the Philippine tariff bill, which enacts bodily, simply by refer ence, another tariff bill, and says it shall be the law. It is a de tailed tariff bill as to imports and exports into and from the Phil ippine Islands. It is not set out in the pending bill, and I repeat that not only myself, but such a diligent Senator as the Senator from Colorado did not know there was such a thing in existence, and it was printed and this morning for the first time has been laid upon our desks. Mr. TELLER. The report was printed only yesterday. Mr. BACON. I suppose there must be still further advantages which the Senator from North Dakota enjoys, and that there is a special edition printed for the elect, which is denied to the bal ance of us. Mr. TELLER. May I say a word? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. TELLER. I have on my desk this morning the annual reports of the War Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901; report of the Philippine Commission, in two parts; part 1. What I was talking about is the report which accom panies Calendar No. 200, which was published yesterday. To-day is the 21st. It contains the Philippine tariff. Now, I say that
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has not been laid on my table, and I was not aware that there was such a document.
Mr. LODGE. The Philippine tariff was published in full in the House report last December, and anybody could have it for the asking. I imagine it was laid on every desk. The House published it in full over a month ago.
Mr. TELLER. I will say to the Senator from Massachusetts that it was not laid on my desk, and it was not laid on the desks of those who sit near me.
Mr. LODGE. A matter that is a House document certainly can not be said to be concealed.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, there is another remarkable fact which happens to be within my personal knowledge. I have alluded to the fact that the appeal which has been made by Sena tors, that before we go into this legislation we should have such information as Governor Taft could give us, has been denied to us, and that Senators insist that we shall proceed in the absence of that information which, we are entitled to have from the gov ernor. But there is a more remarkable fact, and one within my personal knowledge.
How many Senators here have tried to get the full report of the Taft Commission? Prom whom has it been obtained? Through the courtesy of the junior Senator from Massachusetts, after hav
ing inquired through all the document rooms and elsewhere, I found that I could get a part of it from the War Department, and last week I sent there and got the first part. Then the distin guished Senator from Massachusetts, after I had reported to him that I could get only the first part, said I could get the secend part in his room; and, I should add at the same time, when I got the first part from the War Department, he also kindly sent me another copy of the first part.
But the remarkable fact to which I wish to call attention is this: Of all things that both Senate and House were entitled to before we should be called upon to consider anything in the way of legislation relative to the Philippine Islands was the report of the Taft Commission. Now. the fact I know is this, and.I ask the attention of the Senator from Massachusetts to it: I know it as a fact that the report of the Taft Commission came over in
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November, because I came across the Pacific on the ship with the man who had it and who brought it as a special messenger.
It has been here two months. It could have been printed any day, and yet it has been withheld from us. and we are called upon to enter upon this important legislation not only denied the oppor tunity to examine Governor Taft and others whom I could name, who I know know a good deal about the Philippine Islands offi cers who are now in this country but the typewritten report of the Commission was in this country for two months and was never printed and generally distributed to Congress.
Now, I do protest, Mr. President, that this hot haste, this whip and spur, this utter denial of the opportunity of Senators to in form themselves through the legitimate avenues of information, is not according to the usages of the Senate.
Mr. President, I did not rise for the purpose of such extended remarks. I have been led into them largely by the questions which Senators have propounded to me. I rose simply to protest that no department officer has the right to violate law upon the ground that he may think that the emergency exists, and that in this case the emergency did not exist, because Congress met im mediately after the decision of the Supreme Court, and there never was a day when a joint resolution could not have been passed which would have relieved the necessity for any such violation of law, or any need for it, for there never was any necessity.
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PROPOSED TRANSFER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.
SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1902.
1902.

SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The question before the Senate being the transfer of the Department of Labor to the Department of Commerce-

Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: I listened quite carefully to the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Minnesota [Mr. NELSON], and he presents his case very clearly. At the same time I think there are reasons why it would be better that this Department should be permitted to remain as it is. If it were an original proposition for the creation of the Department of Labor, and the question were whether it should be allowed to be an independent depart ment or whether it should be created as a bureau in the de partment of commerce, the suggestions of the Senator from Minnesota would certainly be quite cogent. But we have an ex isting Department of Labor, the work of which is criticised by no one. On the contrary, it is commended in the highest de gree, and nobody takes exception to the commendation bestowed upon it. Now, let me read, Mr. President, what was said yesterday in the Senate by the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINGER] , the present occupant of the Chair, in response to an inquiry made by me as to the character of the work now done by the Depart ment in its present situation, a situation independent of any con nection with any of the great Executive Departments, as we gen erally term them. I read from yesterdays BECORD, and in order that the reply made by the Senator from New Hampshire may be correctly understood, I will read the inquiry propounded by myself which elicited that reply. The inquiry I addressed to the Senator from New Hampshire while he was upon the floor and by his courtesy was this:
Mr. BACON. My inquiry is, whether, in the practical operation of tho present Department of Labor, there has developed any such inefficiency as requires that its status shall be changed and that it shall be put under one of the great Executive Departments.

To which the Senator from New Hampshire replied as follows:

Mr. G-ALLISGER. Well, Mr. President, I think -we will all agree that no

man has been rash enough to assert here or elsewhere that the Department

of Labor as at present constituted has not done magnificent work or that it

is subject to any criticism whatever; and yet it is an independent Depart

ment under the law to-day. The committee thought it was wise to include it

in this new department. That is all. Jt may not be wise to do so, but the

committee thinks it is. The Senate may think otherwise, and, of coursfe, the

committee will yield to the judgment of the Senate.

I could not, Mr. President, if I tried, utter words of too great praise for the

distinguished statistician who is at the head of the present Department of

Labor. His work is beyond praise; it has commended itself to all classes of

our people; and I have never heard a word uttered by any man in public life

in criticism of the administration of that Department.



Mr. NELSON. "Will the Senator allow me a brief interruption? Mr. BACON. Certainly.

2

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Mr. NELSON. I shall take up Iris time but for a moment. Mr. BACON. I yield with much pleasure. Mr. NELSON. I expressly stated a moment ago that neither the committee nor I intended this as the least bit of criticism or reflection upon the Department. That was not our purpose at all. In the next place I called attention to the fact, and I ask the Sen ator to bear it in mind, that we do not attempt by this bill to dis turb the functions and the work of the Bureau of Labor. It is neither a reflection upon the management nor a purpose to revo lutionize the work. Mr. BACON. I am sure nobody misunderstood the honorable Senator from Minnesota. I did not. and I did not intend by any thing I said to indicate in the least that there was any purpose or expression by him otherwise than that which he has now stated to the Senate. The statement of the Senator is in effect a corroboration of that which was stated by the Senator from New Hampshire, and which I have just read, audit adds to the force of it. I do not intend in the slightest degree to indicate that the Senator from Minnesota intends by this to cast any reflection upon the Department of Labor as now constituted or upon its work. On the contrary, I take what he says as evidence to the contrary and as a reason why the present status should be allowed to remain undisturbed. If a change is to be made, there should be some reason indicated which would suggest that there would be an improvement in the service, that some good end would be accomplished. If no good is to be accomplished, if no improvement is to be secured, then the possibility that the contrary may result should be carefully considered by the Senate. The creation of a new and independent department other than the great Executive Departments is not a new proposition, Mr. President. The Department of Agriculture was an independent department. It was created in the year 1863 and remained for more than twenty years, before it became one of the Executive Departments, an independent department of the Government un der the control of the Commissioner of Agriculture, who was re quired to report directly to Congress. It is amistake, as suggested by the Senator from Minnesota, that these departments are left without control and without the duty to report to any superior. The Agricultural Department, for twenty-odd years an independ ent department, presided over by a Commissioner, reported di rectly to Congress and not to any of the Executive Departments, and as to the Bureau of Labor, the original act, I think, was passed seventeen years ago, although the present one was passed thirteen years ago. The original act, if I recollect correctly, of which the act I now hold in my hand was amendatory, was three or four years before that. Mr. ALLISON. The original act was passed in 1884. Mr. BACON. The Senator from Iowa states it according to my recollection, and I am obliged to him for the definite information. It was passed in 1884, and under the act of 1888 the work of the Department was very much enlarged and its present status was created Mr. ALLISON. It was established in 1884 as a part of the In terior Department and made independent in 1888. Mr. BACON. I am glad the Senator has called attention to that fact, because it, too, emphasizes the fact that this is not an
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exceptional matter and is not an accidental matter. Here was a department which was originally a part of the Interior Depart ment, and which Congress in its wisdom thought best to establish as an independent department in 1888. Therefore the act of 1888 was enacted, and since that time it has been an independent de partment, reporting directly to the President and to Congress, and doing not simply good work, but doing what the Senator from New Hampshire terms here perfect work, beyond all criticism, entitled to all praise. The Senator from Minnesota himself cor roborates it and stands by it.
There is the old Latin maxim quieta non movere. Wlie.n a thing established is moving satisfactorily do not change it, if I may use so liberal a translation or construction of it. It is one of many of a similar kind that may be given to it. Why experi ment with that which is now in a satisfactory condition?
This is not an ornamental department by any means. It is one doing a great work. It is one doing a work which concerns a vast multitude of the people of this country a multitude of peo ple who are not in a position always to represent their interests in the most effective manner. It represents a vast multitude of people-interested in a business which touches all the great indus tries of this country, a vast multitude of people engaged in that which concerns the great capital of the country, a vast multitude of people whose relations with the capital and the industries of the country are most important relations the importance of which can not be overestimated; relations the importance of which is to-day challenging the consideration of the best minds in this land and of those most largely interested in these great en terprises, some of whom are members of the Senate and who have indicated their interest in the matter by the work which they have been doing and are now doing.
Mr. President, if there were no other reason than the fact that after this department has once been a subordinate bureau of a great executive department, the United States Government thought it of sufficient importance to take it out and make it an independent department, and that it has remained so for thirteen years, and stands to-day beyond the criticism of anyone in this Chamber, and that nobody challenges the high eulogium pro nounced upon it I say that if there were no other reason it ought to be sufficient to control us that after such an experience and with such a condition to make a change would to a certain degree be little it, and that we ought not to belittle it, whether there is anything practical in it or not. If it is a mere sentiment, that sentiment ought to be regarded, concerning as it does so large a constituency.
I said this was not an ornamental bureau. I want to read to the Senate the law prescribing the duties of this department. I do so in connection with the repetition of the statement already several times made that it has been an independent department after having been so created out of what was before a dependent department. The first section creates the department and pro vides for the appointment of its Commissioner. Section 3 provides for the staff the number of employees. Section 7 is one of the sections in which there are enumerated the duties of the Commis sioner and the work which shall be done by the department.
That, the Commissioner of Labor, in accordance with the general design and duties referred to in section 1 of this act, is specially charged to ascer-
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tain, at as early a date as possible and whenever Industrial changes shall make it essential, the cost or producing articles at the time dutiable in the United States, in leading countries where such articles are produced, by lolly specified units of production and under a classification showing the different elements of cost, or approximate cost, of such articles of produc tion, including the wages paid in such industries per day, week, month, or year, or by the piece; the hours employed per day; and the profits of the manufacturers and producers of such articles; and tlte comparative cost of living and the kind of living.
It shall be the duty of the Commissioner also to ascertain and report as to the effect of the customs laws, and the effect thereon of the state of the currency, in the United States, on the agricultural industry, especially as to its effect on mortgage indebtedness of farmers." and what articles are con trolled by trusts or other combinations of capital, lousiness operations, or labor, and "what effect said trusts or other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor have on production and prices. He shall also establish a system of reports by which at intervals of not less than two years he can re port the general condition, so far as production is concerned, of the leading in-1 dustries of the country. The Commissioner of Labor is also specially charged to investigate the causesof and facts relating to all controversies and disputes between employers and employees as they may occur, and which may tend to interfere with the welfare of the people of the different States, and report thereon to Congress. The Commissioner o_f Labor shall also obtain such in formation upon the various subjects committed to him as he may deem de sirable from different foreign nations, and what, if any, convict-made goods are imported into this country, and if so, from whence.
SEC. 8. That the Commissioner of Labor shall annually make a report in writing to the President and Congress of the information collected and col lated by him, and containing such recommendations as he may deem calcu lated to promote the efficiency of the department. He is also authorized to make special reports on particular subjects whenever required to do so by the President or either House of Congress, or when he shall think the subject in his charge requires it. He shall, on or before the 15fch day of December in each year, make a report in detail to Congress of all moneys expended under his direction during the preceding fiscal year.
SEC. 9. That all laws and parts of laws relating to the Bureau of Labor created under the act of Congress approved June 27,1884

The act to which the Senator from Iowa called my attention

so far as the same are applicable and not in. conflict with this act, arid only so far, are continued in full force and effect, and the Commissioner of Labor appointed under said act.

The rest of it is directory as to some of the work, etc.

Now, Mr. President, suppose it be possible that the change may

work to disadvantage. la not even the fact of the possibility

enough to give us pause in the matter, because we stand in the

face of what is conceded by all to be a perfect machine, a perfect

"working machine, one doing most important work, and, as men

tioned %_ the Senator from New Hampshire, work beyond all

praise in its efficiency?

Now, the Senator from Minnesota made one suggestion to which

I think it is proper to allude, not for the purpose of criticizing it,

but for the purpose of seeing whether or not a conclusion may

not be legitimately drawn. The Senator says he thinks the oppo

sition to the transfer of the Department of Labor comes from the

inside of the Department of Labor. If so, there must be some

reason for it. Here is a department which has all praise. Here

is an officer who has accomplished a great work, an officer now

in charge of it, an officer intended to be continued in charge of

it. He must have some" good reason if he thinks it will work ill

to have the department put into the department of commerce or

,any other has

department.

He must, from the experience which he

Mr. LODGE. May I ask the Senator from Georgia a question? Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr. LODGE. Do I understand him to say, that the Commis-

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the commercial bureaus from the Treasury Department, it would suit me exactly as well. What I want to get is improved admin istration, and that I think we are going to reach.
Mr. McCOMAS. Could we not call it the "department of com merce and labor?"
Mr. LODGE. You can call it anything you please so we get the result, which I believe will be the better administration of many important bureaus which ought to be grouped under one department instead of being in a department, as some of them are now. which is overloaded with other work.
Jlr. BACON. Mr. President, not to detain the Senate, I wish to call attention to what I consider to be the true, practical con siderations in this matter. One I have already stated, and I will repeat it in brief. It is that we now have a perfect working de partment, and it is altogether within the range of probability that if we subordinate the Commissioner of Labor to the head of a de partment there may be such interference and such embarrassment as to impair that which all now say is a perfect work and needs no improvement.
That is one consideration. The other, to which I have already alluded, is that the great mass of the constituency of this country who are directly presumed to be interested in this matter will be the better satisfied if it does not appear that this Department, which was once a subordinate bureau, and out of that subordinate bureau elevated into the dignity of an independent department, has been again reduced to the status of a dependent, subordinate bureau in another department. I think even if the latter is noth ing but a sentiment, those who are interested in that sentiment are sufficient in their importance and in the interest which they represent to command our respect for that sentiment.
Now, Mr. President, I will simply read one sentence from a let ter which was read yesterday in the Senate. It was laid before the Senate by the President pro tempere of the Senate, to whom it had been addressed by the president of the American Federa tion of Labor, Samuel G-ompers, protesting against the inclusion of the Department of Labor, now an independent department, in the department of commerce as a subordinate bureau. The let ter was addressed to the President pro tempore, as I said, and by him laid before the Senate and read at length. The concluding sentence of it alone I now read, because it appears in full in the RECORD of yesterdays proceedings.

It is therefore urgently requested that in the event that the honorable Senate should deem it wise to enact Senate bill 689, that the Department of Labor as now constituted may be eliminated from its provisions.

I understand that the Federation of Labor really represents the leading labor organizations of the United States, and unless there is some good, controlling reason why it should be so included, having now a department working well, that simple request, I think, ought to be regarded by us.
For that reason, Mr. President, I trust that the amendment offered by the Senator from Alabama may prevail.

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N,

Participation of the Southern States In the War of the American Revolution.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OP GEOKGUA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITKD STATES,
Wednesday, January Sit, 1003.
The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. B. r>833) temporarily to provide revenue for the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes-
Mr. BACON said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: As the Senator from Nevada [Mr. STEWART] has gone back to the time of William the Conqueror. I suppose I may be permitted to say a word about some things that occurred some seven hundred years after that; and as, in a different part of his speech, he had something to say about our free institutions and the manner in which they were secured, it is possible that it may not be out of place for me to say something as to those who were concerned in the establishment of those free institutions.
A matter was brought to the attention of the Senate this morn ing by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. MONEY] which was a resumption of the same subject which had been before the Senate one day la_st week, and in which I had at that time a very small participation. At that time the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] made a statement that in the Revolutionary war Massa chusetts had furnished more soldiers to the patriot army than all the States " south of Mason and Dixonsline" combined, a state ment which I then challenged and which I now dispute the cor rectness of. If this discussion revives ancient history, the Senator from Massachusetts is alone responsible for it, as he made the statement without any provocation from any Southern Senator.
Mr. President, the matter to which I allude I would not pur sue it further, except that I wish to complete the record, a part of which has been already so well presented is a matter of import ance, and, as suggested by the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] and by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. TILLMAN] , discussing, as we are here, questions which relate to the proposed independence or the continued domination of another people, it is not inappropriate that we should refer to the time when we ourselves won our independence; and it is a question. Mr. President, of no light moment to any of those representing a people who were engaged in that struggle, as to whether or not they bore their full share in those sacrifices and toils and suffer ings which ended in the securing of that independence.
Mr. President, I desire to acquit the senior Senator from Massa chusetts of any design to speak invidiously of the Southern States. I accept most fully his assurance to the contrary; and I will say. Mr. President, that even if he did in a moment of inadvertence say what was unjust to those whom he then denominated as being "south of Mason and Dixons line," the generous tribute which
48S9

he paid to-day to the patriotism of the South would be ample and more than ample compensation for it. Therefore, Mr, President, what I now say is not for the purpose of reflecting upon the senior Senator from Massachusetts in any way, or of criticising him, but simply for the purpose, I repeat, of completing the record, in order that to-days CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, which has so much upon the subject, may have the advantage of whatever I now may offer in the way of a completion of that which interests the particular section which I in part represent. It is important that it be not in doubt that the South performed its full part in the war of the Revolution.
The senior Senator from Massachusetts has read from the rec ords of the War Department, or rather the records of Congress furnished by the War Department, as to the number of soldiers furnished by the different States in the Revolutionary struggle; I will not repeat what the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. MONEY]has said relative to the omission the necessary omission of certain soldiers who were furnished by the South at that time, but I will call attention to one fact, and that is, that those records give the statement of all the soldiers who were upon the pay roll. If those soldiers had been enlisted for the war, of course that record would be an accurate comparative statement as to the number furnished by each State; but it is a notorious fact that during the Revolutionary war men were enlisted for very short periods and for very irregular periods. The consequence is that in taking the pay rolls necessarily there were duplications. As stated by the Senator from Mississippi this morning, he had knowledge of a particular instance in which one man had enlisted in New England eight times.
I did not expect this debate to come up this morning, and con sequently I have not some documents which I should otherwise be provided with; but I recollect in Washingtons correspondence, in a letter, I think, written to one of his secretaries, and if I mis take not the name of the secretary was Reade I may be in error about that, however, but I am not about the substantial facts I am going to state Washington complained of the great hardship and difficulty of mustering out one army and enlisting another, in the suburbs of Boston, in the face of the enemy. That was in the winter of 1775-76; in other words, the entire term of enlist ment of the Army expired in the winter of 1775-76, and one army was nmstered out and another army enlisted or reenlisted, and doubtless many of them, if not the majority of them, were reenlistments, and if so, they were counted twice, probably not all of them twice, of course, but there were without doubt many duplications.
If that had been all to which I wished to call attention, Mr. President, I should not have trespassed upon the time of the Sen ate; but there is a most remarkable fact, which I think ought to be put in to-days RECORD in connection with what has been said here by other Senators to-day upon this subject. That fact is that the number of Revolutionary soldiers is not confined to those who were engaged actively in fighting the British and the Hes sians, but that it extends to those who were protecting the fron tiers of the country from the Indians, whom the British them selves were enlisting and endeavoring to incite to participation in the war, they in that way becoming most valued allies to the British cause.
The Senator from Mississippi has read as an authority here the
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3
testimony of a Southerner, the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, a native of my State. I propose now to read the testimony of a Northern man, the present President of the United States. In a book written by him, called " Winning of the West" I have not the volume here; I sent to the Library for it, but, unfortunately, the particular volume that has the extracts in it I desired to present has not been sent to me, and, therefore, I read it as an extract from the book, reprinted in the same volume that the Senator from Mississippi read from. This extract shows that there was a most important part played by the soldiers of the Southern States, to the exclusion of the troops from the Northern States, in defending the territory of the colonies against the red allies of the British, and in winning, as he terms it, this great Western territory. Mr. Roosevelt gives the entire credit to the soldiers from the South, not only as to the territory lying immediately west of the South, but of the great Northwestern territory, out of which are now carved most of the great States that we desig nate as the Middle West. In addition, it is an important fact that in the important battles of the Revolution fought in the Southern States the soldiers were almost entirely from the South. They fought their own battles, not only with the British, but with the Indians, who were allies of the British.
I will read what Mr. Roosevelt in his book, Winning of the West, says on that subject, and I repeat that it constitutes a most important feature in the history of the Revolutionary strag gle. If the Western border had been left unguarded, subject to the incursions of Indians who were armed and supplied by the British, the result, if not different, would have followed a strug gle which certainly would have been very much more arduous and attended with" very much more sacrifice. Mr. Roosevelt in this book says:
Indeed, the Southwesterners not only won their soil for themselves, tut they were the chief instruments in the original acquisition of the Northwest also. Had it not been for the conquest of the Illinois towns in 1779 we should probably never have had any Northwest to settle, and the huge tract be tween the Upper Mississippi and the Columbia, then called Upper Louisiana, fell into our hands only because the Kentuckiaiis and Tennesseeans were res olutely bent on taking possession of New Orleans, either by bargain or by battle. All of our territory lying beyond the Alleghenies, north and south, was first won for us by the Southwesterners fighting for their own land. The northern part was afterwards filled up by the thrifty, vigorous men of the Northeast, whose sons became the real rulers as well as the preservers of the Union; but these settlements of Northerners were rendered possible only by the deeds of the nation as a whole. They entered on land that the South erners had won. and they were kept there by the strong arm of the Federal Government, whereas the Southerners owed most of their victories only to themselves.
The first comers around Marietta, did, it is true, share to a certain extent in the dangers of the existing Indian wars; but their trials are not to be men tioned beside those endured by the early settlers of Tennessee and Kentucky; and whereas these latter themselves subdued and drove out their foes, the tanner took but an insignificant part in the contest by which the possession of their land was secured. Besides, the strongest and most numerous Indian tribes were in the Southwest.
Mr. President, the Southern soldiers who did this great work were not on the rolls of the Army and were never counted. Who can say how many there were? They were on the frontier and were soldiers all the time, with their rifles ever in hand.
Then the author of this book goes onto say I am speaking now of what Dr. Curry says, for what I have read is the end of the quo tation from Mr. Roosevelts Winning of the West:
Beginning in 1774, these border men crossed the Alleghenies, defeated French, Spaniards, and the British with their Indian allies, made homes for
4889

their families in the primeval forests, enlarged the area of freedom, and opened the way for the establishment of organized liberty on this virgin con tinent. Romance contains nothing more thrilling than the exploits of these pioneer men and women; and we do injustice, while honoring the achieve ments of those engaged in more regular warfare against the British and the Tories, not to feeep in grateful remembrance the deeds of those who, amid severer hardships and dangers, were subduing more active and dangerous foes. These backwoodsmen were ardent patriots, and deserve to be classed with their fathers and brothers on the Atlantic coast.
In 1774 was fought the battle of the Great Kanawha, bloody and stubborn, closely contested between the Indians and the backwoodsmen.
What I am about to read is a quotation, but whether it is a quo tation from Winning of the West or not, I do not know, for I have not had time to compare it with the original:
This war kept the Northwestern tribes quiet for the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle and rendered possible the settlement of Ken tucky,
and therefore the winning of the West. I presume that is a quotation from Mr. Roosevelt:
Lewiss army consisted of men from Botetourt and Fincastle, but those counties then embraced all southwestern Virginia even extended to "the waters of the Mississippi." andThHeemsseiannosf. thIie? W^*~e"st toJ ~ok~li~ttle^s^haAIr-e-i-n--ca-m^paig-ning*-~a~g- a-in_sTt thJe.J. JB._ri^t_iis_h care of themselve; iiessthat stretche _. . . . . _ .. _._ , ..__. _ ... .._._ ._ foundations of many future commonwealths. Only trained woodsmen could have occupied successfully the regions out of which so many States have been carved. Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Wythe encouraged Ciark, to whose tact, energy, courage, and executive ability, in his momentous expedi tion of 177S-79, we owe the acquisition of the West and the defeat of the British and the Indians.
The British commander records his mortification at having to yield Fort Vincennes. in 1779, "to a set of uncivilized Virginia woodsmen armed with rifles," and Roosevelt says had Clark, " in this most memorable of all the deeds done west of the Alleghenies in the Revolutionary war." been defeated, "we would not only have lost the Illinois, but, in all probability, Kentucky also." The British were never able subsequently to shake the hold of the Americans upon this section; and the Indians became quiet until their hos tilities were far less formidable. In the war of the Kevolutioii. Great Britain sought to "stop the westward growth of the English race in America, and to keep the region beyond the Alleghenies as the region where only savages should dwell." The arms used by savages against both organized foes and helpless nonconibatants were supplied from British arsenals. Clark, in his campaign in the Illinois and the STorthweat. and Boone, in Kentucky, encoun tered Indians officered and armed by the British.
Mr. President, I have thought it necessary to read that in order to complete the record which has been made to-day by Senators who have preceded me.
The senior Senator from Massachusetts, in the speech made by him on the 15th of January, which gave rise to the several speeches which have been made and I recognize fully that it was not the intention of the Senator to say anything which would be invidious or unpleasant to the people of the South, and he has to-day spoken of them in such high terms as to be gratifying to us all made another statement which was challenged at the time, and which I shall read. The Senator then used this language:
Mr. President, in talking about the training in civil life of sailors, there is another fact which has not been generally known, even here. Our independ ence in the Revolutionary war was won at sea. Lord Korth and the mon arch, George III, and their successors, could have continued for a hundred years, if it had been necessary, the land war of the Revolution, and England was rich enough to pay the cost then. The English people would have sub mitted. What compelled Lord K"orth and the unwitting monarch to make peace was the rate of insurance on English commerce. It was not the French alliance. It was not the French troops under Kochambeau. It was the New England sailors and the other sailors of the maritime States who won our independence.

The senior Senator from Massachusetts again alluded to that this morning. At the time it was first uttered by him I took the liberty of challenging the statement and expressing my want of belief that such was the cause to which our independence was due.
I shall not undertake to go into the question at length, but I have here another witness from the North, a letter written by a Massachusetts gentleman, Hon. John E. Russell.published in the Springfield Republican, directly responsive to the statement made by thesenior Senator from Massachusetts in the Senate which I have just read, and I will ask that the Secretary be permitted to read it as a part of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Secretary will read as re quested.
The Secretary read as follows:
IfEW ENGLAND PBIVATEEBINO ANI> ITS RELATION TO THK INDEPENDENCE Or THE COLONIES JOHN E. RUSSELL TAKRS ISSUE WITH SENATOR HOAR.
To the Editor of The Republican; Our senior Senator said in the de * ate last Wednesday that the independ
ence of the colonies was won at sea that it was not the French alliance nor the other wars in which England was engaged, but New England privateer ing which raised maritime insurance to 28 per cent and compelled peace.
This_ is an old statement revived, but it will not bear examination. Pri vateering was useful in the earlv months of the conflict by intercepting ves sels conveying munitions and stores to the army. After the evacuating of Boston several transports were taken with large numbers of Scotch recruits for Gage, who had sailed away to the north.
After the Declaration of Independence the business took a wide range and became enormously profitable for a time; prizes were sold by connivance of the French, and at the end of 3776 some 250 East Indiamen had been captured and insurance rose to 28 per cent, the figure which Mr. HOAB says compelled a peace six years afterwards. But there was no talk of peace in England or Scotland. The great commercial towns heartily supported the war. Bristol, though represented by Edmund Burke, who was on the side of the colonies and led the opposition in the House of Commons, was not against the war.
The effect of successful privateering was demoralizing. The privateersman was not a patriot soldier; he was not fighting in a cause; he was en gaged in legalized piracy upon noncombatants for his own benefit. "Wash ington did not approve of it because it prevented recruiting, and the story of its successes discouraged men who bore the privations of the army. He complained that he could not get recruits enough to balance desertions, and when his fortunes were at their lowest and his men ragged and marching without shoes, g_reat fortunes were beingmade by speculators and privateers.
Robert Morris complained that the Eastern States were so intent upon privateering that they minded little else, and the loyalists of the Middle States said that the popularity of the war in New England was due to the profits made in it, though the largest gains were in Philadelphia. Colonial /affairs were at a low ebb, Washington had been defeated at Brandywine and G-ermantown, Philadelphia was in possession of the British, and Congress was wandering about, when the tarn came in the capture of Burgoynes army at Saratoga. The New England States were stirred to vigorous action by the invasion of the British, with a large contingent of Canadian Indians, on their frontier, and by a sweeping draft through the whole region, they sent not less than 10,000 men to the as_sistance of the force under command of Gates, though Arnold, Morgan, andLincolnaidthe fighting. A well-equipped army of nearly 6.000 British and German troops, under excellent officers, wns compelled to surrender.
American historians consider this the turning point of the war. Creasy puts Burgoynes defeat among the fifteen decisive battles of the world. Lord Mahon, in his history of England, from 1T13 to 1783. rates it as the cause of American independence, because it brought on war between Great Britain and France ana Spain. Mr. Lecky, in his England in the Eighteenth Cen tury, says: "It made the triumph of the Revolution a certainty." Lord Shelburne, who, as minister, made peace with us, says, in his memoirs, that from it came the loss of the colonies. John Fiake agrees with the others I have cited.
When war was on between England ami France privateering was at a dis advantage. There were no more unarmed nnwary merchantmen afloat. England in arms was in fact mistress of the seas. She had not only ships, but seamanship. English vessels sailed in fleets, with strong convoys, the French ports were closely watched, and swarms of English privateers were
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6
out. There were two sides to the game. In a few months the fisheries and the West India trade, hitherto the main reliance of New England, were ruined; the coasting trade waa destroyed, and 900 sail had fallen into British hands. (Hildreth, vol. Ill, p. 241.) Kates of marine insurance did not ad vance, even when Spain and Holland joined France and the war was extended to the East Indies. It remained at about 28 per cent to the peace of Versailles.
It is the fact that the conclusion of the war in America waa brought about, as Captain Mahan states, by the failure of the British to prevent the French fleet from going north from the West Indies to Chesapeake Bay. That junc tion of the fleet with the French land forces and Washingtons troops com pelled the surrender of Cornwallis, the triumph of the u anti-imperialists" in Parliament, and the formation of a cabinet pledged to make peace with the colonies.
Notwithstanding the success at Yorktown, which, as a French victory, is blazoned on the walls of Versailles, Prance was ruined. Spain, then still a great power, recovered the island of Minorca. Florida, and control of the Gulf of Mexico, but she failed to wrest Gibraltar from the defense of Elliot. In the final treaty she gave England those rights on the Mosquito coast which have so bothered our diplomacy for the past fifty years. The Dutch had nothing to show but scars and increased debt. At the close of the war the Baltic fleet of merchantmen, with a cargo not only of immense value, but of great importance, since it contained the materials of future navies, by good fortune and sMllful seamanship escaped capture from 12 Dutch sail of the line. What was New England privateering in the turmoil of such events?
England could have carried 9n the war, no doubt, if her people had been in favor of it, but they were tired of it. The public debt had been nearly doubled and there was a sum of 30,000,000 sterling unfunded. Neither the Government nor Parliament were aware of the straits to which the colonies were reduced. Speculation was at an end. Privateering brought in no prizes. The previous winter Washington had informed Congress and sev eral of the governors that he could not "rub through another campaign." Not an eighth of the quota of troops decreed were in the field; powder, small arms, clothes, and money had to be supplied by France.
In this extremity, but a few months before the end, a special messenger was sent to Paris to demand a large loan; so desperate was the condition that Hamilton proposed to threaten France that if cash was not forthcoming at once the colonies would make terms with England, "not as a menace, but as a candid declaration of circumstances." "What the messenger (Laurens) did say we do not know, but Vergennes is on record as saying that the Ameri cans were ungrateful and insolent; but the money was raised, exacted rather than borrowed, and it served the purpose. I am not unmindful of differ ences of opinion, nor of Walpole saying that history can not be true. I am also aware that the story of the Eevolution is yet to be written, but whoever reads Washingtonsletters will get more of the truth concerning it than from all other American sources.
JOHN E. KUSSELL, LEICESTER, January 18,1902.
Mr. BACON. In saying anything upon this subject, I have not the slightest desire to depreciate in any manner anything which was done by Massachusetts in the Revolutionary war. Whether Faneuil Hall was entitled to the appellation, certainly Massachusetts was "the cradle in which young Liberty was rocked," and I would not, in anything I say, detract in any man ner from all the credit and all the glory that she is entitled to in that struggle, which has so affected the destiny not only of this continent but of the whole world.
Mr. President, I will say one other word in this connection. The senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] , in a manvner most delightful to me, exemplifies his loyalty to the free in stitutions which were won in that struggle, and I only wish that the temporary departure of a number of people in Massachusetts from harmony with him in that regard may be short lived, and that within a short time, as to that, all others in Massachusetts may be like him.
Mr. HOAR. I should like to say one word about Mr. Russells letter. I do not want to prolong this debate. But the letter which has been read will not bear any analysis at all. I have seen it before, and it is in opposition to what is now the best accepted historic judgment, as I understand. But the letter itself gives

away half the case. He says that I am quite right in saying that England could have carried on the war indefinitely if she had chosen, and that it was stopped because the English people were tired of it. And that is true. That is about half what I said, but I add that the English people were tired of it, not because they were tired of the mere expense of sending soldiers over here (for England has always been lavish with her money in military matters), but their commerce was almost destroyed; it was im periled.
I saw myself in the cellar underneath the Supreme Court the papers of a court made up of a committee of Congress, but which sat as an admiralty court, and there was an enormous number of prizes which they adjudged and brought in, showing how extensive were our captures. Everybody knows that one privateer or manof-war capturing ten ships will make the lives of 500 shipowners unhappy. Just think of the Alabama! With all we suffered on land by the brilliant military operations of the great Southern commanders and the brave and wonderfully efficient troops they commanded, just think what terror the Alabama alone struck into the Northern seacoast! That vessel, with the Florida and one or two less known, alorie drove Northern commerce from the sea; and Paul Jones and Abram Whipple were quite as terrible in their day as Captain Semmes and his Alabama were to us.
Now, Mr. Ensseir quotes the fact that some eminent authority has said that the success of the Revolution was clue to the victory at Saratoga. There never is a great chain of historic events, all of which affect the final result, in regard to. which somebody does not say of each one of them that it produced it. There was a battle at Concord Bridge where there were eight or nine hundred British soldiers on an expedition, and one company of them had an encounter across the river with Continental troops, and the British regiment was driven back to Charlestown under a fire from every stone wall and every thicket on the way, and Edmund Burke, who had as sure an historic instinct as any man who ever lived and who studied the events of that war with all the power of his transcendent genius, said of the battle of Concord, " That day made independence certain."
Mr. Russell might as well say it was not Paul Jones and the driving of British commerce from the sea, but it was that little company of two or three hundred men at Concord Bridge that won our independence, and cite Mr. Burke for his authority, as to cite Creasy as to the effect of Saratoga.
Mr. President, it was after Saratoga, was it not, that we saw the darkest time of the war, the capture of Charleston, the ravag ing of the fields of the South by Tarleton and the other British generals, the brilliant defense of Marion and Sumter, a defense which led one of them, I think it was Marion, to be called the Swamp Fox. It was after Saratoga that the terrors of Valley Forge were encountered by Washington and his army with bare and bleeding feet through the snows of that terrible winter. I do not think you can say that because Saratoga was essential to our success, even the Vermont and New Hampshire farmers and their neighbors from Massachusetts who captured Burgoyne at Saratoga accomplished the result; and I adhere to my original opinion that although, without the great courage and constancy or Washington and the army on land under his command, ana without Saratoga, and without Yorktown our liberties would not have been won; on the other hand, they would not have been won

by them but from the fact that the merchants of the great sea ports of Great Britain clamored for peace, and the obstinacy of King George and Lord North even were unable to resist their demands.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Massa chusetts underestimates the effect of the surrender of Burgoyne as well as that of Cornwallis, and in so saying I am certainly pay ing a very high tribute to his State, because, whatever Massachu setts did not have anywhere else, she had. I think, about 10,000 troops which were sent there for that particular purpose. If I recollect aright the surrender of Burgoyne was in October, 1777. The great effect of the surrender of Burgoyne was the recognition by France of the independence of the United States and the French alliance, which not only followed immediately thereafter, but which was the direct consequence of it and which would not have occurred but for that.
Mr. President, I do not doubt that the privateers, if you please, or naval forces, contributed largely to securing our independence, and I have no desire to depreciate the value of the services of privateers, but that with which I take issue and with which I took issue a week ago was the statement by, the Senator from Massachusetts which he practically repeats to-day:
Our independence in the Revolutionary war was won at sea. Lord North and the monarch, George III, and their successors, could have continued for a hundred years, if it had been necessary, the land war of the Revolution, and England was rich enough to pay me cost then. The English people would have submitted. What compelled Lord North and the unwilling mon arch to make peace was the rate of insurance on English commerce.
In the first place, Lord North had gone out of power at that time, but that is utterly immaterial. I suppose he was driven out of power by the necessity of making peace.
Mr. LODGE. When peace was made. Mr. BACON. That is immaterial, from the fact he doubtless lost power by the necessity which was ahead of him of surrender ing his war policy. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] omits to give esti mate to the fact that at that time England was at war not simply with the United States, but with France, with Spain, and with Holland, and at the time when she made peace with the United States she had achieved great naval victories over her European enemies. It was just at that time, if I recollect correctly, that the siege of Gibraltar, after having lasted several years, was raised by the British fleet, and it was just at that time, if I recollect cor rectly, that the British won a great victory in the Indies against the French. I do not recall for a moment the names of the re spective commanders. England had won a great naval victory over both of her principal antagonists Spain and France and if it be true that the question of maritime insurance was the one most influential at that time, that was the time, after she had defeated her enemies at sea and had swept them from the sea. when that difficulty would have been relieved. I repeat I have no desire to depreciate that which was done by the sailors of the maritime States, but I do challenge and take issue with and repudiate the statement that our liberties were not won by the soldiers on land in the battles which they fought and by the blood which they shed.
1889
o

Retention of the Philippine Islands.
SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
February %, 1902.
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (H. E. 5838) temporarily to provide revenue for the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes-
Mr. BACON saidMr. PRESIDENT: I have presented to the Senate and have given notice that I would offer certain sections as an amendment to the pending bin. I will read the proposed amendment. It is as fol lows: SBC. . That when armed resistance to the authority of the United States shall have ceased within said islands, and peace and order shall have been re stored therein, it is the purpose and intention of the United States, so soon thereafter as the same can pe practically and safely accomplished, to provide the opportunity and prescribe the method for the formation of a government by and of the people of the Philippine Islands, to he thereafter independently exercised and controlled by themselves, it Toeing the design of the United States to accord to the people of said islands the same measure of liberty and Independence which have been pledged by the Congress of the United States to he people of Cuba. SEO. . That when a stable government shall, by the method aforesaid, have been duly formed and erected in said islands, competent and worthy, in the judgment of the United States, to exercise the powers of an independ ent government and to preserve peace and maintain order within its juris diction, it is the purpose and intention of the United States, reserving to themselves only such narbors and tracts of land as may be needed for coal ing stations or other governmental purposes, to transfer to said govern ment, upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all rights and territory secured in said islands under the treaty with Spain, and to thereupon leave the dominion and control of the islands to their people. SEC. . That when said government has been thus formed and set up in the Philippine Islands and approved by the United States it is the design and intention of the United States, through such means and measures as may be deemed most efficient and appropriate, to secure the guaranty of the con tinued independence of tb.e same. Mr. President, it had been my intention on Saturday last to address the Senate in support of that amendment. Unforeseen circumstances prevented me from having the opportunity so to do, and in the limited time allowed me it is impracticable for me now so to do. I therefore will not offer, as I had intended, this amendment to this bill, but I shall offer it when the bill for the organization of a civil government in the Phil%>pine Islands shall come before the Senate, which is really the more appropriate place for it. I desire to say, however, Mr. President, as I can not now offer this amendment or discuss it in detail, that it is not new. I be lieve it to express the intention and wish of the Democratic party relative to the Philippine Islands. The amendment certainly ex-

presses my individual view. It is the view which I have enter tained from the beginning of this unfortunate complication. The amendment is in substance the same as the resolution which I introduced in the Senate in January, 1899, before the ratification of the treaty of peace. The amendment is in substance the same as the amendment which I offered to the McEnery resolution in February, 1889, and it is a verbatim copy of the resolution which I introduced in the Senate in January, 1900.
Before passing from this amendment I desire further to say, and I challenge contradiction, not now, because it is impractica ble, but hereafter, that there is not a single assertion or a single proposition of this amendment which is not approved and justified in the utterances of Senators on the other side of the Chamber who now condemn it. Time does not permit that I should refer to all the utterances of Senators on the other side of tho Cham ber, but I will, in brief, call attention to some of them sufficient to indicate where they can be found and I will, with the per mission of the Senate, insert them somewhat more at length in the RECORD than I shall read now.
Of all the Senators who have given utterances which approve and justify this amendment, the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] has made them oftener and more emphatically than any other Senator in this Chamber.
I desire to call attention to some things which the Senator from Wisconsin, as well as other Senators, has said upon this subject. In a speech made by the Senator from Wisconsin on the 2d day of February, 1898, he used the following language:

This Philippine proposition is one of tho fruits of the war. To me it is one of the bitter fruits of the war. I -wish with all my heart we were honorably quit of it.

On page 31 of the same speech he said:

But, Mr. President, I shrink from the notion that the interests of this

country will be subserved by making permanently a part of our land territory

thousands of miles away, inhabited by peoples alien to us, not of our blood,

not of our way of thinking, foreign to all our associations, living in a tropical

climate, where the white man can not work, under labor conditions of neces

sity which we would not permit to exist in the United States.

Every argument which has been made in support of this doctrine of terri

torial expansion and by "territorial expansion" I mean permanent territo

rial expansion seems to me to be superficial, some of them sentimental, and

gome of them fantastic.

The jingle of words which we read every day about "hauling down the

flag " does not in the least either thrill me or impre.ss mo. Our flag has been

hauled down before, Mr. President. It will be hauled dow^i again. Where

we raise it we will permit no other power on earth to haul it down, but with

us it may be as honorable to haul it down as it was to raise it. It was hauled

down in Mexico when hostilities ended there. If we had sent our fleet across

the sea to the peninsula of Spain and captured Barcelona, raising pur flag

above it, it would To-day it floats

not have in Cuba;

been there to stay; we the Spanish flag has

would have hauled it gone forever, but our

down. flag ia

not there to stay. It floats there in sight of the poor, wrecked Maine at Ha-

bana, but there will come a day, Mr. President and I hope it will not be

long when we will take down our flag, raided there in the cause of liberty,

and leave behind it liberty and an independent government, won and estab

lished under its folds. I hope that, too, about the Philippines, and that is not

at all inconsistent in my view with the ratification of the pending treaty.

It is insisted that w must have permanent territorial expansion in order

to extend our trade. Mr. President, I do not think so. I have been strongly

inclined to think that in the long run, with all the embarrassments and com

plications and dangers it will bring upon our people, it will retard rather

than develop the foreign trade of the United States. Wo have been growing

rapidly in our trade without territorial expansion. To acquire distant, non-

assimilable peoples in order, through permanent dominion, to force our trade

upon them seems to me to be the poorest imaginable national policy. How

far will that be carried! We want the trade of the world, and we intend to

4982

3
have OUT share of it. Are we, therefore, to obtain it by carrying this <loo trine of expansion to the uttermost parts of the earth? If territorial expan sion means national trade, if it be necessary to national trade, where are we to stop?
I think, Mr. President, the trade of the world will go where its interest leads it in the long run, and the best avant-oourier of civilization is a mer chant ship carrying the products of civilization and teaching the wants of civilization.
Permanent dominion over the Philippines by the United States as a part of this country means to me an endless and vast bnrdon upon the industries of our people. We would be as sacredly bound to protect that distant peo-
le living under our nag in a part of our territory as we would the people ving on the coast of Maine or the people living around Boston Harbor. In the event of war the most distant outpost where our flag could be found would be the point of first attack, and we would ba obliged, in my judgment, to maintain a navy adequate to protect the millions of people in the Philip pines, 7,000 miles away, Hawaii, and our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. If our Navy were not adequate to all that, our ships being sent far away, our home coasts would be unprotected. This would involve an awful increase of taxa tion.
]\Ir. BATE. When was that speech delivered? Mr. BACON. February 2, 1899. In the same speech, on page 33 i am using the pamphlet which the Senator himself issued he used this language:
I can not say, in view of the history of the country, that timet may not change my views, but I must say that, as I now feel, if the ratification of this treaty involved permanent dominion by the United States over the archi pelago and its people as a Territory of the United States, irrevocably com mitted us to the policy of territorial expansion, I could not give it my vote.
On page 38 the Senator used this language:
If I may be permitted to repeat, if we take this title wo are there as a sov ereign. We have the will and the power to enforce law. We will enforce order there. We will establish government there. We will not violate the Declaration of Independence. This treaty will be an emancipation procla mation to the Filipinos, securing in that island all of the great rights which we so prize, and which have been here so much discussed. That we will give them every possible opportunity for self-government I do not allow myself to doubt. I hope the day may soon come when they may have a government of .their own.
. On page 39 he said:
There is another thing about it, Mr. President. Under this treaty we can give them, when the time comes, the sovereignty and title of Spain. They will have then the possessory right and the title, because, this treaty being ratified, we will possess it; we will have it to cede. We may cede it upon conditions such as at the time shall seem to us best for them and best for us. We may cede it upon C9ndition that their constitution shall contain irrevo cable guaranties essential to froodom, to popular education, to religious lib erty, to the right of habeas corpus, the protection of life and property; in deed, all the guaranties which American communities under the Declaration of Independence demand.
We can cede it upon condition of the grant to us of adequate naval stations, supply stations, and commercial advantages. And if we have doubt as to the permanent stability and power of their government to stand alone, if we then feel we can not safely sail away and leave them to their destiny, we can, in their interest as well as in ours, maintain a protectorate over them with comparative safety, because we can make it a condition of cession of this title and sovereignty to such government as they shall establish that they shall enter into no treaty obligation with other governments without our consent. Without this power we can with safety maintain no protectorate of a government 7,000 miles away, over whose treaty-making power and over whose international transactions we have no control.
Again, Mr. President, the whole matter will be within our own hands. If wennd we can not get on with the Filipinos; if, after studying the conditions OVOT there, our people find we can not without strife and intolerable burdens do them any good, we can then cede the sovereignty to them and sail away. We will not he then running away from a responsibility at first sight. We will not subject ourselves to possibly the just charge of cowardice by other nations. We will have left them, then, after haying made every honest effort in our power, upon the solid foundation of Spains sovereignty and title, to help them to benefits which they would not have. We will have attempted to shower upon them blessings which long-continued tyranny has deprived them of the power to appreciate.

Again, on May 23,1900, the Senator used this language, which shows the view he entertained concerning the annexation of the Philippine Islands, which largely influenced the expressions by him which I have already quoted:
I suppose, Mr. President, it will be admitted that had there been no war with Spain and she had tendered to us " without money and without price " a cession of the Philippine Archipelago, and a treaty accepting that cession had been transmitted to the Senate for its action, it would have received hardly a vote in this body, and would have proved entirely unattractive to the great body of our people. The suggestion in advocacy of it, that we are " trustee " to lead the nations of the earth in the work of civilization, would not have been at all persuasive.
The quick and sufficient answer to that would have been that, while this is a missionary people, this is not and can not become a missionary Govern ment, and that it is not our function, philanthropic as we may. be and as this people is, that their Government shall police the world, seeking for people oppressed, living in the darkness of ignorance and half civilization, in order to uplift them.
It would have been said that we have problems of our own to solve, some of them complicated, all of them important, and that the first duty of this Government, trustee of our people, is to subserve the interests of our people,
isfands are fulfof mineral wealth, of untold richness in soil, and of unspeak able beauty, that would have produced no effect in this Chamber.
Our people would not have harbored the thought of going into distant seas and taking archipelagoes of alien people because of the richness of the islands. I can conceive of no argument in favor of the acceptance of such a proposition which would have found much, if any, favor here or in the country.
There would have been found no lust of empire among us; nor is there now, in my opinion in the sense in which that term is now used in this body and in the country by certain distinguished gentlemen.
Mr. President, I can not pursue this line, but I wish to state that.on the 1st day of March, 1900, my colleague [Mr. CLAY] made a speech to the Senate in which he collated and read to the Senate the extracts from speeches of Senators on the other side of the Chamber, in which they all asserted that they did not desire the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands and that they intended to give the Pilipinos an opportunity to become an independent people, governing themselves, free from the domina tion of any other people. Those extracts which I read from his speech are some of them as follows:
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKER] said:
I do not understand anybody to be proposing to take the Philippine Islands with the idea and view of permanently holding them and denying to the peo ple there the right to have a government of their own, if they are capable of it and want to establish it. 1 do not understand that anybody wants to do that. I have not hoard of anybody who wants to do that. The President of the United States does not, I know, and no Senator in this Chamber has made any such statement.
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] said: Suppose we ratify the treaty. The islands pass from the possession of Spain into our possession without committing us to any policy. I believe we snail have the wisdom not to attempt to incorporate those islands with our body politic or make their inhabitants a part of our citizenship. I believe we shall have the wisdom, the self-restraint, and the ability to restore peace and order in those islands and give their people the opportunity for selfgovernment and for freedom under the protecting shield of the United States until the time shall come when they shall ^tand alone.
He also said in tne same speech:
I want no subject races and no vassal States. That we had by the fortunes of war assumed a great responsibility in the Philippines; that we ought to give to those people an opportunity for freedom, for peace, and for self-gov ernment.
I want to get this country out of war and bask to peace, I want to get the disposition and control of the Philippines out of the hands of the war power
4-.BS2

and place them where they belong in the hands of Congress and the Presi dent. I want to enter into a policy that shall enable us to give peace and self-government to the natives of those islands. The rejection of the treaty makes all of these things impossible.
The senior Senator from Colorado [Mr. TELLER], while not of the Republican party, voted for the treaty. He said:
There ore few people in the world incapable of self-government. I believe the people of Luzon are capable of self-government now. I believe the people of some of the islands are. I do not know but all are. Mr. President, I keep in view this truth which I have stated, which I believe to be a truth, that the people are entitled to a government or their own making, and that we have no right to say, " Your standard is so low yon will create a government which we can not affirm; therefore you can not have a government of your own." They are entitled to only sucn a government as they themselves can main tain; it must be one producing order and protection to persons and property, for otherwise it is not government at all.
He continued:
We shall make mistake if we make up our minds that we are going .to govern these people from here, that we are going to govern them with AngloSaxons whom we send out there from here to administer the affairs of that country. You will need 50,000 soldiers; in a little while you will need more, for they are a great people. They are a people who are willing to contend for their liberty, and I believe it also to be an axiom that a people who will fight for their libarty and who are willing to die for it are capable of main taining it.
The senior Senator from Vermont [Mr. PROCTOR] said: I am not in favor of annexation, not because I would apprehend any par ticular trouble from it, but because it is not a wise policy to take in any peo ple of foreign tongue and training and without strong guiding American elements.
The late Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Thurston] also said: I am unalterably opposed to any departure from the declared policy of the . fathers, which would start this Republic, for the first time, upon a career of conquest and dominion utterly at variance with the avowed purpose and manifest destiny of our republican Government.
The junior Senator from South Carolina [Mr. McLiuRiN] said: It is idle to speak of Americanizing a tropical country 8,000 miles away. Our_people will never consent for the people of that far-off land to ever have a voice in the affairs of our country. Therefore, to govern them we must inaugurate a military or colonial system utterly at variance with the prin ciples of our Republic. But even if by a strained construction of the Consti tution the power is vested in the United States to inaugurate a colonial sys tem, I am utterly opposed, as a matter of policy, to the acquisition of any territory that can not be Americanized and brought into harmony with our institutions. I believe the time is not far off, and I gladly welcome its ap proach, when our flag will float over every foot of North American soil, but it must come naturally and peacefully by the consent of the governed, not by the rude hand of war. But when it comes to thrusting our rule upon 10,000,000 people on another continent by force of arms, I hold that such a policy is unwise as well as at variance with the principles upon which our Government is founded. Taxa tion without representation is as much tyranny as when King Georges tea was dumped into Boston Harbor. To govern the people of the Philippines Without their consent is as much government without the consent of the governed as it was when we were under the rule of Great Britain. In a commercial point of view, I believe the importance of the Philippines per se is greatly exaggerated. They are chiefly valuable as the key to the Orient, but we need not colonize to obtain that advantage. The exports of the Philippines, according to the statistical abstract, in 1896 amounted to $30,806,250. If this entire trade was monopolized by us it would be insignifi cant. We will have to teach them to wear shirts and breeches before we can trade with them much.
The late Senator from Delaware [Mr. Gray], a Democrat who voted for the treaty, said: -
ifow we have them, it does not follow that we are committed to a colonial policy or to a violation of those great principles of liberty and self-govern ment which must always remain American ideals if our own free institutions are to endure. No country, and this country least of all, can afford to tram ple on its ideals. I have no fear that it will do so.
4982

He went further:
I assure yon, with some knowledge of whereof I speak, that the President Is committed to no policy calculated to discourage, much less strike down, the aspirations of liberty-loving people all over the world.
Most of the above extracts have been heretofore read in the Sen ate by different Senators. The object I have in repeating them is this: It is of course impracticable now to discuss in full the questions involved here, and my purpose is not to show that Sen ators have been inconsistent, but to show that they themselves have in their repeated utterances in the Senate given warrant and approval to the proposition which we now present to the Senate that when the proper time comes, even if that time should be the present, it is the purpose of the United Statete to give to those peo ple a free and independent government.
Mr. SPOONER. This is not now the proper time. Mr. BACON. The Senator I hope will take some other time to interrupt me. He knows very well I always yield to him, but I can not do so now. Mr. SPOONER. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, it is not necessary for me to tell to the Senate the manner in which I regard tlie Senator from Wis consin, because I believe it is known to all the Senate, and the Senator himself knows it better than anybody else; that while we differ upon a great many propositions, the regard which I have for him personally is not inferior to that which I have for any other Senator in this Chamber. And yet, Mr. President, I am constrained to say that what he uttered here on Friday last was not merely a surprise to me, but a pain, possibly the more, coming from him, than from any other Senator on that side of the Chamber. Mr. President, when I sat here with incredulous ears hearing what the Senator said, in his earnestness leaving his seat and walking to the center of the aisle, it called tp my memory an in cident in our early history. Silas Deane, the first diplomatic agent ever sent by the united colonies to Europe, when he came back to America, feeling that his services had not had proper recognition by the colonies, went to England and abjured the cause of the colonies, and from there issued an address to the paople of the colonies in which he advised them to submit to the domination of England. After the treaty of peace, Jay in England received from him a letter asking that he might have a personal interview in which he could have an opportunity to explain his conduct. Jay replied to him that he had been sincerely attached to him; that he had a sincere esteem for him, but said he in his letter, " I understand that you had intimate relations with Arnold, and that you have been frequently in his company, and," he added " the American who gives to that man his hand, in my opinion, pollutes it." Mr. President, when the Senators language recalled that inci dent, the thought came into my mind that if there are any on this side who were worthy of what he said on that day they are not worthy hereafter to be taken by his hand. And I will say to the Senator that his utterances on that occasion were not in har mony with the fairness, the liberality, the generosity, and the consideration which have heretofore characterized Ms utterances in this Chamber. Mr. President, heretofore it has been said by those on our side
1982

that the position occupied by Senators on the other side was one which would prolong the war, and that the effect of it, therefore, would be to cause additional bloodshed. The opposing thing has been said by the other side as to the position occupied by us on this side. But so far as I know and now recall, it was left for the Senator from Wisconsin to say, as he said, that it was the purpose of those who occupy the position which I occupy, as well as those with whom I am affiliated, to obstruct the operations of the Government in the Philippine Islands, and that they were . therefore responsible for the blood which was shed in those islands.
A cause must be weak when recourse must be had to such charge_s, and it is strange that Senators who are so sensitive to reflections upon them should be so free to make much graver re flections upon others.
Mr. President, it is an unjustified thing to charge that those who differ from the Senator from Wisconsin are purposely en deavoring to assist in the overthrow of the American Army. As I have heretofore said in this Chamber there are in our Army in the Philippines those of my own blood. There are there many who are my personal friends, and the sons of those who stand nearest to me. What is true in this regard is equally true of other Sen ators on this side of the Chamber. We do not yield to the Sena tor from Wisconsin in our devotion to the welfare of the soldiers in that Army. We have there our full complement of soldiers, and their welfare is dear to us, and I resent and repudiate the charge made by the Senator from Wisconsin.
One can be in favor of giving freedom to the Filipinoa and still be true to the United States and to the American Army. In 1899 I made a speech in this Chamber giving my reasons for support ing the bill providing the Army .to be sent to the Philippines, ill which I said:
thought to favor anything growing out of this annexation or ot anything made necessary by such annexation. I can not be considered as in any man ner responsible for anything which has led to the annexation of the Philip pine Islands. I can not be understood for a moment as favoring the retention of the Philippine Islands.
If I had my way, before we adjourned this night I would pass a resolution Baying to those people, be free! And I would do it immediately; not only because they are entitled to be free, but also mainly because of the influence which that would have upon our own people and upon the most cherished institutions and principles of our own country.
Mr. President, no one is more extreme, I admit it, on that question than I am, and therefore it is from the standpoint of one occupying that extreme position that I propose to give the reasons why I .conceive it to be my duty to rote for this bill.
There could be no stronger expression of a desire to give free dom to the Filipinos than I thus expressed, and yet in the same speech I took the position that it was my duty to support the Gov ernment so long as it was by legal authority prosecuting the war. And that speech, Mr. President, hat been more than once ap plauded on this floor by the Senator from Wisconsin. Nor is that all. While I believe it to the interest of this country to withdraw from the Philippines and give freedom to the people, I have never failed to urge that under existing conditions that result could be accomplished only through the success of the American Army and the full recognition of American authority. I had the oppor tunity in September last to say that in a public speech in the Philippine Islands, a speech which was translated to the audience
1082

8

sentence by sentence as delivered, and which was reported at the time and published in the Philippines, and which, I ask, may now be read by the Secretary.
The Secretary read as follows:

[Excerpt from the Manila Times, Philippine Islands, September, 1901.]

SENATOR BACONS SPEECH, NUEVA CACEBES, DISTRICT OB THE CAMA-

BIKBS, P. I.

*

*

#

*

#-

#

#

Senator BACON expressed for himself and the representatives who were present a most cordial appreciation of the warm welcome and generous hos-
Stality which had been extended to them by the people of Nueva Cacerea. e said he trusted that he was not mistaken in the hope that in the near fu ture there would be the most friendly relations between the American peo ple and the Filipinos. What he had seen of the Filipinos had largely increased his interest in them and had intensified his desire to do all in his power to aid them in the effort to become a peaceful, a prosperous, and a happy and a contented people. After continuing for a little time upon this line of thought, he said:
"I regret that I can not speak Spanish and that I have been unable to /understand what haa been said here to-day by the distinguished Filipinoa who have addressed us. In consequence, I can not make what I now say directly responsive to what they have said. There is. however, one thought that I wish to impress upon the Filipinos, not only here but to all of them throughout these islands. It is not only a thought, but a fact, that the happi ness and the prosperity of this people can not be restored until there is per fect peace in these islands. So long as there is resistance to the authority of the United States it is impossible for the Americans most friendly to them to accomplish anything for them.
11 The American people as a whole are a liberty-loving people. It is not in their hearts to desire to oppress any people anywhere in the world. In their hearts they desire all men to be free and to enjoy personal and political liberty. There are different ideas in America as to what is best to be done for the Filipinos; but while Americans differ among themselves as to what is best to be done and how it should be done, they all, speaking generally, want to do good for the Filipinos, As long, however, as war lasts in these islands, it is difficult for the Americans to do what they wish for them. War natu rally and necessarily produces strong feeling not only here, but in America, and while the war lasts, ven though there be only a little of it, the American people are thinking more about the war than they are about what shall be done in the futnre with the Filipinos and for the Filipinos.
"When it is proposed in Congress to determine what shall be done for the people of these islands, the answer is that nothing can be done and nothing can be finally determined for them as long as war continues in the Philip pine Islands.
"Therefore,"continued Senator BACON, with emphasis, "it isthatlsay that the best interest of the Filipinoa requires that there should be perfect peace here, and that the authority of the United States should be undisputed in the Philippines. There is no more important thing that I can say to you and to the Philippine people, and I say it as one who has been and is their sincere friend and well-wisher.

Mr. BACON. I will simply say that I believe that to be the position of the Democratic party, and I not only said it in that speech but in every opportunity I had to speak to the Filipinos.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator will permit me to say that is the position of the Democratic party over in the Philippines, but not here.
Mr. BACON. Yes, it is here also. The Senator misrepresents the Democratic party an^d myself also.
The PRESIDENT pro tejapore. The Senators time has ex pired.

o

BILL FOR THE. PROTECTION OF THE PRESIDENT,
AH ENLARGEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL UMITATIOH OF THE LAW BE8BECTING TBEASON.
"Equality before the law is the founda,tiou stone on which rests our entire political fabric,"
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES,
MARCH 6 AND 7, 1902.
WASHINGTON.
1902.-

SPEECH
OP
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (S. 8653) for the protection of the.President of the United States, and for other purposes

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: If this bill is to pass in any shape, it seems to

me that it ought to be very materially amended. I have offered

some amendments which it seems to me are essential to the pur

pose really of those who favor the bill. Without those amend

ments, and possibly without some others, I shall be constrained

to vote against the measure and in consequence I think it is

proper to give the reasons why I should do so.

Mr. President, standing as we do right in the immediate pres

ence of the awful tragedy of the assassination of the late Presi

dent of the United States, it requires somewhat of resolution to

oppose a bill the avowed purpose of which is to prevent the recur

rence of so great a calamity. The universal desire that there

should not be a recurrence of so great an outrage, the universal

desire that there should be something done to prevent it, leads

the public generally, and even Senators, when a bill for the pur

pose is presented, to be controlled in the opinions formed by the

purpose which it has in view rather than by the means which it

is sought to inaugurate to accomplish the purpose.

The killing of President McKinley naturally inclines us all to

the adoption of most rigid and drastic methods, and I desire to

say for myself that, so far as that unhappy and calamitous occur

rence can "affect my view, it would certainly incline me in the di

rection which I have indicated. I entertained a most sincere per

sonal attachment for him. I am glad of the opportunity to say

here what I have said elsewhere, that he was without exception

the most amiable, the most courteous, the most pleasant man I

ever met in high station, and that, so far as I was personally con

cerned , while I did not belong to the same political party with him,

I ever received from him not only the utmost coiirtesy, but unvary

ingly the kindest personal consideration. I personally mourned

his death, and I regard his loss as a great national calamity.

So that I repeat, Mr. President, so far as the fact of the great

outrage which was perpetrated in his assassination could have

an influence upon me, the entire tendency is toward a reconcilia

tion of myself even to measures which might not entirely meet

my approval. While considering measures to prevent the re

currence of such, a calamity in the future, there must be in our

minds some reference to that which has brought the subject so

vividly to our attention at this time.

Mr. President, there are very grave questions involved. Natu

rally, when the question of the adoption of such a bill as this is

brought up the question is asked, Are you not in favor of pro

tecting the President of the United States and those who by law

are appointed to succeed him? Why, most assuredly, we all are.

But in response to that question I say two things: In the first

place, the proposed bill is not necessary for the purpose, and in

the second place, it in no wise, so far as I can see, improves the

means for the prevention of such a crime.

3

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If there had been the assassination of a President and if the perpetrator had escaped, there would be a crying necessity for some legislation which would prevent the escape of anyone in the future; but there has been no such experience, and there can be no such experience. There is not a State in this Union which has not laws by which the President, as well as any other person, is protected from assassination. There is not a State in this Union where it would be possible for one who had assassinated a President to escape the punishment which he deserved. The world is not large enough for one who commits such a crime to be out of the reach of the arm of the law, and there is not a place secret enough in which he could hide himself from avenging justice.
It was according to the designs of the framers of our Govern ment that the criminal law should be administered by the States, and whether there is power in the Federal Government to enact such a law as this or not, to enact it is impliedly to say that there is not, in the opinion of Congress, the reliance which there should be in the States to enforce their criminal laws.
Mr. DEPEW. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from New York? Mr. BACON. Yes. sir. Mr. DEPEW. The Senator from Georgia stated that the laws of the several States take ample care of a crime of this character. For about a week after President McKinley was assaulted it was supposed that he would recover. An investigation was made by the criminal authorities of Erie County, N. Y., where the crime was committed, in case the President recovered, as to what pun ishment the laws of the State of New York provided for that as sault and attempt to kill, and it was discovered that the laws were wholly inadequate, that the criminal could be pursued only the same as if the crime had been committed against any ordinary person in the same county. So that, so far as protection for the President in New York is concerned and I think in all the State_s of the Union where an attempt is made on the life of the Presi dent I do not think that there is any remedy provided by the State law, and I do not know that there could be. We can take care of attempts against the President of the United States in a Federal way, but I doubt if the States could provide legislation which would differentiate between the Presi dent of the United States and any other citizen of the State. Mr, BACON. Mr. President, the Senator has rather antici pated a branch of the argument to which I am coming. I shall endeavor to speak with reference to that later. I am very frank, however, to say to the Senator and to the Senate that that leads up to perhaps the only feature in this bill where there may be a claim although the correctness of that is by many not admitted that State law would, in the judgment of some, be insufficient; but I had not reached that part of the argument. When interrupted by the Senator from New York [Mr. DEPEW] I was speaking of the fact as tojthe killing. I was speaking of the case where the President had been killed, where he had been as sassinated. I had not reached the point of the question of an attempt to kill or of an assault. I had remarked, Mr. President, that the laws of every State, if enforced, and, so far as I know, the laws of each State, would deal out to the assassin the same penalty which this law proposes to
5017

inflict upon him. I was saying that for that reason thiB bill, so far as it related to that feature, where there was an assassination was unnecessary.
Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Mr. President The PBE8IDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Geor gia yield to the Senator from Connecticut? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I dislike to interrupt the Senator, but -several of the States have laws against capital punishment. They would not in those States deal out the same measure of pun ishment which this proposed law will inflict. Is not that so? Mr. BACON. That may be true. I do not know the fact that States have laws against capital punishment, but I am coming to that branch of the argument, if the Senator will permit, before I
fst through, as the question of the right and propriety of the ederal Government undertaking to have a criminal law to be enforced within a State which shall be different from the law of the State itself. So far as the infliction of the death penalty is concerned, there is no deterrent to the anarchist in the prospect of death, because he undertakes to commit the offense with the full knowledge and consciousness of the fact that he is to forfeit his life.
But, Mr. President, these are preliminary considerations, and are not addressed to the particular matters to which I ask the at tention of the Senate, and which are involved in the amendment I have offered.
I presume it will be admitted by all that, so far as the mere crime of assassination is concerned as it relates to the individual, the Federal Government has no jurisdiction or power to inflict a penalty upon one who assassinates the President, but that the whole power, the sole power, will be found in the office of the Government to protect against assassination if assassination be directed against one on account of his official position or on ac count of his official acts.
I can not state that more clearly than it is stated by Judge Aldrich, of the district court of New Hampshire, in an article which he published in the December number of the North Ameri can Review, and which I will read, in which the distinction is clearly drawn between the assassination of an individual, al though he may be the President, for another cause, and the as sassination of the President because he is President or because of some particular act performed by him while President. This is the first paragraph in the article in the December number of the North American Eeview:
_ -j because he represented tie idea of law and govern . .. waa directed against the official rather than against the private individual; against the office, not the man. All the surrounding circumstances, as well as the admission of the assassin, show that personal malice, ordinarily pres ent in crime, was altogether absent, and that malice against the idea of gov ernment was present. The motive tor the fatal ahot was not to destroy McKinley, except as a step in the direction of destroying the idoa of govern ment and law, which, for the time being, he represented as the head of the executive branch of the Government. Mr. McKinley was the representative of the people in respect to their idea of government, and the blow being di rected against the idea, it follows that the real crime was against the people and their g-overnment rather than against McKinley as an individual.
I am going to read that, in part, in another connection upon another branch of the subject. I read it now because it expresses more clearly than I can myself express the distinction between the killing of an official because he is an official, or by reason of the
5017

fact that he had performed official function, and the killing of him as an individual for some reason entirely outside of his official position.
I want to call attention to the bill in order that the purpose of my amendment may be clearly understood. The bill reads in this "Way:
That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, willfully kill or cause the death of the President or Vice-President of the United States
That is sufficient for the purpose I now have. The bill goes on to enumerate other persons, and then provides shall be punished with death.
The Senate will remark that there is no limitation whatever upon these words. There is an absence even of that which is found ordinarily in the law, I believe, and which is necessary to express, that it is done maliciously or in such a way that it will constitute murder. It is the unlimited condemnation of any one Who shall kill this official. I am limiting this consideration now to the President and Vice-President, because it is easier to do that than to enumerate all these various officers as we go along. The principle is the same in each case. The amendment which I offer is, after the words "United States" that is, after the words which I have already read to insert these words: mbeecnaut soer oimf hpiasiroifnfigcitahlepoexsieticounti,oonr offoirtsthceonpsutritpuotsioenoafldpeoswtreorys.ing the Govern
I am not wedded to that language. I will state that this lan guage was suggested to me by a distinguished Senator of great experience in this body, and that he has since suggested a possi ble change in the language from the words " constitutional pow ers " to " governmental powers." I think that was his sugges tion. I will state that that was the suggestion of the junior ! ator from Missouri [Mr. VEST] .
I hope Senators will give careful consideration to the sugges tion as to the propriety of the introduction of these words, and they will see that no case can possibly arise where a President of the United States would be assassinated by an anarchist, outside of any assassination which might occur from other causes en tirely personal to the President, but what would come within that restriction or that limitation " because of his official position."
That certainly would have included the crime of the assassina tion of Mr. McKinley. The assassin had no other motive; he avowed that that was his motive, and that is the motive of all anarchists, as stated by Judge Aldrich in the paragraph which have read.
Czolgosz killed Mr. McKinley, not because he was William McKinley, but because he was President of the United States; not because of his personal ity, but because he represented the idea of law and government. The vio lence was directed against the official, rather than against the private indi vidual; against the office, not the man.
Mr. HOAR. I should like to ask the Senator a question, if he 4oes not object.
Mr. BACON. I have no objection whatever. Mr. .HOAR. I should like to ask the Senator this question: How could that be proved beyond a reasonable doubt? Judge Aldrich is speaking of the historical probabilities in such a case; but in courts of justice we have to prove a motive, if motive be the essence of the crime, beyond a reasonable doubt. I should think a skiUful advocate might in all three of the cases, certainly in the last two, of the assassinations of the President have raised a very
5017

6
serious doubt as to whether there might not have been some per sonal motive other than that growing out of official character.
Mr. BACON. I will say that I think the Senator from Massa chusetts, if he were on the bench, would take this view of it: Suppose that this assassin had not avowed, as he did avow, that he had no other motive. He said that he killed the President be cause he was President, because he had power that no man ought to exercise. Of course that would have convicted him. But suppose
Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, if it will not disturb the Senator in the least I can in this way bring out better the point I wish to make than by an elaborate reply I will say what this bill means to punish is the crime of interruption of the Government of the United States and the destruction of its security by strik ing down the life of the person who is actually in the exercise of the executive power, or of such persons as have been constitu tionally and lawfully provided to succeed thereto in case of a va cancy. It is important to this country that the interruption shall not take place for an hoar, and it is important to the security of the country that there be an official provided who will make that certain. If the man willfully because, of course, otherwise he is not punishable mean to do that thing, he has committed one of the gravest and most dangerous and most injurious of public offenses. It is that we wish to prevent and punish. That is the theory on which this bill is drawn.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I think I understood that, al though I did not have the pleasure of hearing the statement from the Senator when he was on the floor before. It was made dur ing my temporary absence from the Chamber. I would have been very glad to have heard the statement this morning before I began my speech; but that does not change the fact.
The Senator made the suggestion in his prior interruption that it would be difficult to prove and that is his objection to my amendment what was the purpose and intent, and I was pro ceeding to answer that when the Senator suggested something else. I was about to say that I think that if the Senator were himself on the bench and a man was being tried before him who had assaulted the President; if that man stood mute, and it was shown that he was a stranger to the President; that so far as any one knew he had never seen him before, the Senator, sitting upon the bench, would instruct the jury that the presumption was that the man had done this thing because of the fact that the one he attacked was President, and that therefore he was guilty of an infraction of this law.
Mr. President, we have had three of these lamentable assassina tions, and there has been no case in which there would have been . any difficulty in convicting either one of the assassins under the law as proposed if it had in it the amendment which I have offered. In the case of the assassination of Mr. McKinley there was the avowal on the part of the assassin that that was his reason that he killed the President simply because he was President. And, as I have said, in the absence of any avowal, the circumstances under which the assassination occurred would have raised a pre sumption of the fact which would have been ruled by any court.
In the case of the assassination of Mr. Garfield there would have been no difficulty in making the proof, and it would have come under the words " for destroying the Government or im pairing the execution of its constitutional powers " or " govern mental powers."
5017

The same would have been true if Booth had been tried by a civil court. But the point I make, Mr. President, which it seems to me makes it essential that we should guard this bill by the amendments I propose, is that if the killing is for other than the reasons described in this amendment it is a matter within the jurisdiction of the States.
It is entirely possible for a President of the United States it is certainly entirely possible for one of these subordinate officers who are intended to be put in the same category as the President to be assassinated for some reason other than that connected with his official position.
"Why. Mr. President, a burglar might enter the room in which one of these heads of Departments was, without even knowing that he was the head of a Department, and in the effort to commit a burglary, and to avoid detection or arrest, he might commit a murder. Would anybody say that if one of those Secretaries was in a country house and there should be an occurrence of that kind there would be jurisdiction under the Constitution of the United States to take away from the State the right to try the man who committed-the offense? You may say the man was a burglar and committed murder, and it does not make much difference whether he be tried by the one or the other, but the point is, that laws are made so that if one innocent of crime is accused he may have the benefit of certain guarantees. Here is the case of a burglary committed, and a murder of the head of a Department, who is included in the terms of this bill, the man charged with the as sassination has the constitutional guaranty of a trial in his own county under the laws of his own State. Here is a murder charged to have been committed by one to whom this man was an entire stranger; he may be an entirely innocent man, and yet he must be carried before a Federal court, away from his home possibly more than 100 miles and tried under a law, and denied the right which the laws of the land give him, that for an offense committed in his State, or an offense charged against him to have been committed in his State, he shall have the right of trial in a certain way.
Why, Mr. President, it is altogether possible even for the Presi dent of the United States to be assaulted by a man who does not know that he is the President of the United States. There can be no motive there to interrupt the Government or to destroy its functions. We have had a rumor I do not know how true that there had been in a not very remote time in the past an occasion where the President of the United States came fn collision with a drunken man who did not know he was President. Of course if that occurred in the District of Columbia it would make no dif ference as to State or Federal law, because there would be no con flict of jurisdiction; but it is a serious question when you propose to take away the jurisdiction of a State over matters which from the foundation of the Government to the present time have been conceded to belong to the exclusive jurisdiction of the State. It is a serious matter when enacting a Federal criminal statute to fail to so guard the law as to get it within the only limits under which that law can be justified or maintained.
Mr. President, I do not want to pursue this matter at any great length; but there is one other very serious consideration in this case, to my mind, and that is as to the constitutionality of the bill. I will admit that there is very grave difficulty in the ques tion which I am now about to present; but it is a difficulty which rests on both sides.
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8
Practically, Mr. President and I ask the serious attention of lawyers to this suggestion this is an enlargement of the law of treason. It is practically an effort to make, not in name, but in fact, that treason which the Constitution of the United States de clares shall not be treason. What is treason? Of course we know what it is under our Constitution, but what, in the broad sense, is treason?
It is the effort to overthrow lawful authority to destroy lawful authority. That is one kind of treason to betray the Govern ment to its enemies and by force to stop the exercise of the proper governmental functions.
Now, the time was when it was left for the courts to say what was treason, and up to the time of Edward III the courts were very liberal in ruling what acts constituted treason, and in order to limit it within proper bounds, by the act of Edward III, trea son was denned, and acts outside of that were no longer treason.
Now, the point I am coming to is this: There were, if I recol lect aright, seven divisions of treason mentioned in the act of Edward III. I have them here enumerated in one of the volumes of Blackstones Commentaries. One act of treason was:
When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of OUT lady his queen, or of their eldest son and heir.
That was the first. The second and third I pass over as not material to be mentioned now. The fourth was this:
If a man be adherent to the kings enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere
He is also declared guilty_ of high treason. Passing over the fifth and sixth, the seventh is as follows:
If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the kings justices of the one bench or the other, justice in eyre, or justices of assize, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places doing their offices.
Now, the point to which I wish to ask the attention of law yers in the Senate is this: "When the constitutional convention came to consider the question of treason they had that act of Ed ward EH before them. I have here Elliots Debates. That clause in the Constitution which defines and limits treason was made in a discussion in which the act of Edward III was brought into direct mention and notice more than once, and the Senate will observe that the language of the Constitution in limiting treason to the levying of war against the United States and to adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort, is taken almost literally from the fourth section of the act of Edward III. The act of Edward III provided that the killing of the king should be treason. It provided that the killing of the officers of the Gov ernment should be treason, and the framers of the Constitution of the United States, with that act before them and discussing it, reject both of those and say_ they shall not constitute treason, and they take the single fourth division and, copying it almost literally, say that, and that only, shall be treason.
The p_oint to which I wish to ask the attention of the Senate is this: Did the framers of the Constitution, when they were defin ing treason and when they were saying that only they used the word "only " certain acts shall constitute treason, mean simply to limit the power of the Congress or of the Government to use the word " treason " when they came to enact a law prescribing the penalty of treason? Did they simply mean to deny to them the enactment of a statute prescribing a penalty for an offense which they would say should be called " treason? " Or did they mean to say that when Congress came to enact laws prescribing
5017

9
a punishment against any attempted overthrow of the Govern ment, or any attempted destruction of any part of the govern mental function, they should be confined to those particular acts and should not go beyond them?
. Mr. HOAR. Has not that point, which I agree is a very lawyerlike point, been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States in cases where they have held valid the legislation of Congress for the protection of Government officers against obstructions and assaults in the discharge of their duty and interrupting them in the discharge- of their duty? I understand the Senators propo sition is that it is not the word " treason," but the substance of the attack on the Government in its operation or working, to which Congress was limited. Now, if we may provide by law, as the courts I believe have held, that an attack on or an obstruc tion of an officer of the United States in the discharge of his duties, made within the limits of any State, shall be punishable, it can not make any difference, certainly in principle, that this is the head of the Government or that these other persons are offi cers who are in the line of succession to the Executive power. The question is whether that point has been debated and settled.
Mr. BACON. The Senators suggestion is one which had not escaped my attention, and it is one of the features which I had in view when I spoke of the fact that it is a question not without difficulty. But there must be some line of demarcation between the offenses which are in their nature treason, and which under the statute of Edward III were also made treason, and which the Constitution of the United States expressly excluded, and another class of minor offenses, such as those suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts.
This bill proceeds upon the theory that the attack on the Presi dent of the United States is destructive of the functions of Govern ment. As stated by Judge Aldrich, I believe it was. in this pa per, certainly by some writer whom I have been reading from recently, theGovernment as now constituted can not go on with out the Executive, and therefore the purpose of this proposed law is to provide a penalty for that which is in its nature destructive of Government, and therefore that which in its nature must be under the general, broad acceptation of the term treason.
And yet the framers of the Constitution, when they came to gether to consider the question, determined that they would not make an assault upon the Executive treason, but expressly said that it should not be treason, but that he should stand like every other citizen before the law, and that one who committed a crime against his person should not be guilty of treason, but should be guilty of murder. The fact is not to be overlooked that in the act of Edward III there are some offenses enumerated and made treasonable which are not in their nature treasonable, and their exclusion from the constitutional paragraph defining treason does not signify^ anything; but the exclusion of offenses which are in their nature treasonable signifies a great deal.
Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the able and interesting speech which is being made by the Sen ator from Georgia; and if it will not interfere with him, I should like to ask him a question. In order to do so I will be com pelled to make a statement of a sentence or two.
Mr. BACON. I shall be very happy to have the Senator do BO. Mr. CULBERSON. At common law, as the Senator has indi cated, there are several acts which, being done by a party, would be treason. Among them are the acts which have been named
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10

by the Senator from Georgia. Among others which -were treason at common law or by the British statutes was counterfeiting coin of the realm. Counterfeiting is not treason under the Con stitution of the United States, but it is punishable by the statutes of the United States as a felony. Crimes at common law were divided into treason, felonies, and misdemeanors.
The question with me, and the question with the Senator from Georgia, as I understand, is whether the framers of the Consti tution, having limited the acts which would constitute treason against the United States, thereby prohibited Congress from pun ishing as a felony or misdemeanor other acts which were treason at common law or under the English statutes.
It is an interesting question. I confess I disagree with the in timation of the Senator from Georgia on this branch of his argu ment, but I agree with him on the first branch.
Mr. President, I have made this statement simply to get my idea before the Senator from Georgia, that he may assist me, as one required to pass upon this intricate and delicate question, to come to a correct conclusion about it.

Friday, March 7,.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, when I yielded the floor on yes

terday, during the consideration of this bill, I was discussing the question whether this proposed legislation, if enacted into law,

would not in reality be an extension of the law of treason beyond

the limits set by the Constitution. In order that it may be seen

what was before the framers of the Constitution at the time that

this particular section or paragraph was adopted, I desire to read from Elliotts Debates of the Convention. From this debate we

ascertain the particular questions brought before the Convention

when it came to determine the limitation which should be put on

the definition of treason. I read from volume 5, page 447. After

the disposition of one matter, which is therein narrated, Elliotts

Debates proceeds as follows:

.

Article 7, section 2, concerning treason, was then taken up.

I ash the attention of Senators to the particular suggestions

which were then made.

Mr. Madison thought the definition too narrow. It did not appear to go as

far as the statute of Edward III. He did not see why more latitude might

not be left to the Legislature. It would be as safe as in the hands of State

legislatures; and it was inconvenient to bar a discretion which experience

might enlighten and which might be applied to good purposes, as well as be abused.

Mr. Mason was for pursuing the statute of Edward III.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

It was moved and seconded to amend the sentence to read:

"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war

against them or in adhering to their enemies."

Which was agreed to.

Colonel Mason moved to insert the words "giving them aid and comfort,11

as restrictive of "adhering to their enemies," etc. The latter, he thought,

would be otherwise too indefinite. This motion was agreed to Connecticut,

Delaware, and Georgia only being in the negative.

*

Mr. L. Martin moved to insert after conviction, etc., "or on confession in

open court;" and on the question (the negative States thinking the words

superfluous) it was agreed to.

Mr. President, from this debate I have read for our information

in this investigation enough to show that the discussion was had

especially with reference to the act of Edward III, and that there

was the distinct expression of opinion by Mr. Madison that the

entire statute of Edward III ought to be incorporated in the Con

stitution as the definition of treason; that the same opinion was

expressed by Mr. Mason, and that in the face of it, in the face of

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11
the discussion of which, of course, we have but a mere outline in Elliotts Debates, the Constitutional Convention determined in the negative, and rejected all seven of the particular classes of of fenses included in the act of Edward III as constituting treason, accepting only one. Of the seven distinct classes of offenses named in the act of Edward III as constituting treason under the English law only one was adopted, and the language of that was copied almost literally, the addition to it being in these words. I will read the act of Edward III or that clause of it
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator from Georgia a question? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. HOAR. I wish to ask the Senator if he has had his atten tion called to the case of the United States v. Bollman? Mr. BACON. Is that the habeas corpus case? Mr. HOAR. No; it is the case of the trial of Bollman and Swartwout. Mr. BACON. Is that a circuit court case? Mr. HOAR. No; a case in the Supreme Court of the United States (4 Cranch), where, I understand, Chief Justice Marshall considered and settled by a judgment of the court the particular point which the Senator is raising. Mr. BACON. I will say to the Senator that I have not exam ined that case, but in the very hurried examination which I have been compelled to give to this question I had reference to some elementary works with a view to having their notations of cases which had been decided, and in Bishop on Criminal Law I found a statement to the effect that the only case in which the Supreme Court of the United States had discussed and passed on the law of treason was in a case, the name of which I have forgotten, but a habeas corpus case. I have sent for it. If any Senator here has it Mr. HOAR. The Senator will pardon me. I am not surprised that the Senator from Georgia had overlooked this case, because I had overlooked it myself, and only have it called to my atten tion now by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] , who is better than a digest in the matter of knowledge of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. But perhaps the Senator will allow me to read two sentence_s. I do not want to interrupt him, but it might possibly make him like to either con sider this case or Mr. BACON. Most undoubtedly I should be glad to hear it. Mr. HOAR. It was claimed in the trial of the case that cer tain acts, not coming within what the court held to be a levying of war, were still punishable under the statute, and the question of this particular point came up. Now, in the argument Harper said: It is admitted that the Constitution has prevented many questions as to the doctrine of treason. The intention of having a constitutional definition of the crime was to put it out of the power of Congress to invent treason. That only goes to explain why that was put into the Constitu tion. But then, Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court, deals with the very matter to which the Senator re fers that is, as to whether, after this constitutional definition of treason, it is still in the power of Congress to provide punishment for other offenses which, according to the- old English common law, were treason, but are no longer treason because of the con stitutional definition. Mr. BACON. I have not a doubt as to that proposition, relat ing to offenses in their nature less than treason, and that may be true, and what I contend for may also be true.
soil

12

Mr. HOAR. Perhaps the Senator would like to have me read these two sentences.
Mr. BACON. I would. Mr. HOAR. I will not if he would prefer that I should not. Mr. BACON. I have already assured the honorable Senator that I should like to hear it. Mr. HOAR. The court says:

Crimes so atrocious as those which have for their object the subversion by

violence of those laws and those institutions which have been ordained in or

der to secure the peace and happiness of society are not to escape punishment

because they have not ripened into treason. The wisdom of the legislature is competent to provide for the case; and the framers of our Constitution, who not only denned and limited the crime, but with jealous circumspection attempted to protect their limitation by providing that no person should be convicted of ft, unless on the testimony of two witneses to the sam overt act, or on confession in open court, must have conceived it more safe that

i

punishment in such cases should be ordained by general laws formed upon

deliberation, under the influence of no resentments, and without knowing on

whom they were to operate, than that it should be inflicted under the influ

ence of those passions which the occasion seldom fails to excite, and which a

flexible definition of the crime, or a construction which would render it flexi

ble, might bring into operation. It is, therefore, more safe as well as more

consonant to the principles of our Constitution that the crime of treason

should not be e_xtended by construction to doubtful cases, and that crimes

not clearly within the constitutional definition shouldreceive such punishment

as the legislature in its wisdom may provide.

Mr. BACON. What was the crime there, I will ask the Sena tor from Massachusetts?
Mr. HOAR. It was a question whether the act which had been performed by Bollman and Swartwont amornted fully to a levying of war. That was the case which was under discussion.
Mr. BACON. There is nothing which the Senator hag read that is in conflict with the view I entertain and which I was about to express.
Mr. HOAR. I will not detain the Senator by further discuss ing this. I wanted merely to call his attention to it.
Mr. BACON. I am very sorry the Senator did not call my attention to it before in order that I might examine it. I can not do so now, manifestly. I will endeavor hereafter to examine it. I had intended to present some views dealing with the question as to how far that exclusion of offienses which were formerly trea son prevented legislation by Congress for the punishment of such offienses, and what were the classes which were necessarily ex cluded by the constitutional limitation from Congressional legis lation, and what were the classes of offenses not so excluded. It is for that reason and with that discrimination in my mind that I said to the Senator that there is nothing which had been read which conflicted with my views and in recognition of which I con sented to a proposition submitted by him.
Now, if I may be permitted, I wish to state as clearly as I can what my position is in regard to the matter, and I was about to do so when interrupted, very properly and very agreeably to me.
I had remarked the fact that the framers of the Constitution had before them for consideration the act of Edward III as it had been amended by various Parliaments from the original date of its enactment. If I recollect correctly, the act of Edward III, enacted in the fourteenth century, originally contained only five classifications of offenses which were denominated treason, and that by subsequent amendments up to the present time, so far as I know, or at least up to the time of the Commentaries by Blackstone, there had been two others, so that there were then seven.
Blackstones Commentaries, as we all know, were written just prior to our Revolutionary war. I have here, or I did have yes-
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13
terday, and I sent it back to the Library simply because it is a valuable book which they do not want to have out any morei than is necessary, the original act of Edward III, and I did that in or der that I might make no mistake as to the text, but I suppose the quotation of it in Blackstone will be considered reliable.
I called attention to the fact that with distinct classes of offenses enumerated in the act of Edward III, and with the act of Edward III directly before the framers of the Constitution and tinder discussion, and with the contention by Mr. Madison and Mr. Mason and others that the entire seven sections so far as they could be adapted to our different form of government, should be adopted as the definition of treason, and with that presentation and that contention the framers of the Constitution rejected six of the classifications and adopted only one, and that in the adoption of that one they had used almost the identical language which is found in the act of Edward III. Now, here is
Mr. SPOONER. Will my friend the Senator from Georgia permit me?
Mr. BACON. I will yield with pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. I did not have the advantage of hearing the Senator state his proposition yesterday, but at this point I desire to ask him, for I always listen to him with great interest, what his in ference is from that rejection by the constitutional convention. Mr. BACON. That is exactly what I was going to say, and if the Senator will pardon me, I will endeavor to do so. I was calling attention to the fact that they had rejected six and adopted only one (the fourth section), and that in the adoption of that one they had used the identical language, in part, which was used in the act of Edward III. The act of Edward III, in its fourth sec tion, is in these words, prescribing the various acts which consti tute treason:
" If a man be adherent to the kings enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere." he is also declared guilty of high treason.
The quotation from the statute ends with the word elsewhere, and Blackstone, in reciting it, says he is also declared guilty of high treason." The conclusion or the inference which I draw from it, I will say in response to the very pertinent inquiry of the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, is that the framers of the Constitution, having before them this act, evidently shaping their action with reference to the provisions of this act, when they limited it to the fourth section1 and expressed it in the Constitu tion in these words I am now quoting from the Constitution of the United States
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfortintended expressly that none of the acts enumerated in the other six sections should ever be treason under the Constitution of the United States.
Now, I will say to the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, as he says he was not present yesterday, that the proposition which I had laid down was this: That when the framers of the Constitution said that only such acts should be treason, hey did not mean that the Congress of the United States when iFcame to legislate should simply not use the word " treason " as to any act not specified in the constitutional definition, but they meant that no act therefrom excluded should by an act of Congress be treated as treason; because it would be childs play to say that in spite of the constitutional prohibition they could still make a felony
{far

14

of an act which in its nature is treason and make it punishable

in the same way as treason, provided they did not call it treason.

Now, I was met right at that point by the pertinent inquiry of

the very learned Senator from Texas [Mr. CXJLBERSON] , how was

it that if that was a proper conclusion there were certain acts or

classes of offenses enumerated in the act of Edward III which are

excluded by our Constitution from the class of treason, but which

are recognized still as legitimate subjects-matter of legislation in

the framing of penal statutes, and the Senator mentioned, as an

illustration, counterfeiting, counterfeiting being an pffense which,

under the act of Edward III, was treason, and which, under the

terms of our Constitution, can not be made treason, but yet

which, under the terms of our Constitution, is an offense made

so by statute law punishable as a felony.

My reply to that is this: I had to some extent intimated it in

what I had said, although I had not come explicitly to the point.

I said there must be some line of demarcation, and there must

have been in the minds of the framers of the Constitution a line

of distinction between the classes of offenses which were in their

nature treasonable, which of themselves under the general defi

nition of treason would be treason, and another and a minor

class which were not in their nature treasonable, but were in the

act of Edward III simply madetreason by the arbitrary enact

ment of the statute.

For instance, the killing of the king is, in itself in its very

nature treason, because it is an assault on that which constitutes

either in whole or in part the sovereignty of the country. It was

in its nature treason, and did not depend upon the fact that it

was specified in the act as treason. On the other hand, counter

feiting is not in its nature treason. No man can by force assault

the sovereignty of a nation, whether that sovereignty is repre

sented in whole or in part by the particular object assaulted, without treasonable intent, without intent to destroy that sover

eignty either in whole or in part, and without the intent thereby

either to turn the government over to its enemies or to destroy

the power of the government to exercise its proper governmental

functions.

On the other hand, a man may be a counterfeiter and be thor

oughly loyal in his devotion to his own country. In other words,

in the one case it is naturally an act of treason; in the other case

it is an artificially treasonable act, or, rather, it is made treason

by arbitrary rule and not by the fact that it is properly and nat

urally so classified.

Now, Mr. President, the point to which I wish to ask the atten

tion of the Senate in the consideration of the pending question is

this: What must have been the mental processes of the framers of

the Constitution when they said that treason against the" United

States shall consist only in levying war against them or in adher

ing to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort? "What must

have been the mental processes by which, with the statute of Ed

ward III before them, knowing every line and having every par

ticle of it before them for consideration what must have been

the motive, what must have been the conclusion reached by the

framers of the Constitution when they wrote what is now found

in the Constitution as to what and what only shall constitute

treason?

/

As I have read from Elliotts Debates, the distinct question was

presented by Mr. Madison whether or not treason should be made

so broad under the Constitution of the United States as to embrace

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all of the provisions found in the act of Edward HI, and the dis tinct conclusion reached was that it should not. What did they mean to accomplish when they said it should not? Can it toe for a moment assumed that they had no purpose? Did they intend that their action should be effective, or were they simply playing with words? It must be obvious that it could only be effective in case those things which they did not desire should be recognized as treasonable offenses could not be so made by evasion; by still prosecuting a man for the act and prescribing the same penalty, only omitting in the criminal statute to name the offense " trea son."
Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Will the Senator from Georgia permit me?
Mr. BACON. I shall be very glad to yield. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I do not know that I follow the Senator closely, and therefore I wish to ask a question. Does he contend that because the offense of killing the President was not made treason by the Constitution the Congress can not, therefore, pass a law to punish that lOffense at all? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I am on that exact point, and if he will let me proceed Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I direct his attention to that point, and I shall be very glad to hear from him on it. Mr. BACON. The learned and distinguished Senator does not need to direct my attention to it, because that is the only point I now have in view, and I am coining to it. Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator pardon me for a moment? Does not that follow from your premises? Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will let me at least present the proposition. I have not yet been able to do it because as fast as I get in the neighborhood of it and before I can present it the Senator, with a perfectly proper desire to know exactly what I will say, induced probably by my imperfect expression, does not permit me to get through with what I think will answer the question of each one of the Senators. It is not necessary now to consider five of these various proposi tions. We will say just for the purpose of simplifying the in quiry that the statute of Edward III has but two propositions in it. One of them was the one which is found in the fourth para graph and the other is the first. The first provision of the act of Edward III is as follows:
When a man dotli compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of our lady his qtioen, or of their eldest son and heir.
Now, that can only be analogized to any officer in this country, but naturally in the consideration of the question whether or not there should be an inclusion in that paragraph of the Constitution which I have read of something similar to this, it would relate to the President of the United States, because while he is not in any sense a ruler, although he is inaptly often so termed, he does rep resent a part of the sovereignty of the country. It might be said that the Congress and the President together possibly represent the sovereignty of the country. I do not say they are the sover eignty, but they represent it. One is the lawmaking power; the other is the law-executing power.
Now, I repeat, we will suppose there were only two provisions of the act in the act of Edward. Ill, that one relative to compass ing the death of the King, and the other, the fourth, which re lates to the levying of war and adhering to enemies. .When the framers of the Constitution came to consider what they should
8017

16 do with reference to the first, whether or not they should make an attack on the President of the United States treason, the sug gestion would naturally occur that in an attack on the President of the United States there were two offenses, one the pflense of a crime against the person, the offense against the President of the United States as an individual, the other the offense against him, or against the Government in him, as representing in part the sovereignty in the same way that in Great Britain the King rep resents the sovereignty of the country.
The framers of our Constitution are met now with the proposi tion, Shall we make an attack on the President of the United States or the assassination of the President of the United States an act of treason? And they say no. What, it was probably asked, shall an attack on the President of the United States be no offense?
The reply is, in a country with institutions such as ours, it is intended that each man shall be equal before the law, and, when an attack on the President of the United States is made, the rem edy shall be the same as in the case of an attack upon an individ ual. And when the question was askedj Shall there be no offense punishable by law, so far as the public is concerned, for an attack .upon the sovereignty of the United States in a personal assault -upon the Chief Executive, representing in part that sovereignty? the answer was necessarily "no," because such attack upon the sovereignty of the United States is in its nature a treasonable act it is in the first class of treasonable acts specified in the act of Edward III, which was then before them. If they had intended that such an attack on the Chief Executive and his assassination should be punishable as an act against the sovereignty of the United States, it would then have been included among the of fenses which should constitute treason.
If they had intended that an attack upon the sovereignty of the United States as represented in part in the official should be an act of treason they would have said so, and the fact that they did not say so, when they had before them the distinct question as raised in the act of Edward the Third, when it was not a casus omissus, when it was upon a distinct deliberation, when it was upon a dis tinct issue raised by Mr. Madison and Mr. Mason, there is no con clusion but that the framers of the Constitution did not intend that there should be in an assault upon the sovereignty of the United States through an attack upon the President of the United States the offense of treason.
Now, Mr. President, let me illustrate that for a moment. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Georgia permit me to ask him a question? The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PERKINS in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Suppose it be admitted that what the Senator says is entirely accurate and true, and that there is no power in Congress under the Constitution to create from the assassination of a President the offense of treason and punish it by attainder during the life of the offender, does it follow at all that Congress has no power to punish the offense? Mr. BACON. That is the very question I am going to try to come to, with the Senators permission. If I do not answer that qiiestion, or at least attempt to answer it, before I get through, I hope the Senator will remind me of it. Mr. SPOONER. I will agree not to interrupt my friend again,
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17
Mr. BACON. I do notobject to the interruption. The -Sena tor must not misunderstand me in that regard. It is only that the Senators mind works rapidly, and naturally more rapidly than I can talk or express it or come to it in the way of argument. I have not quite gotten to that point, but I will come to it.
I had stated the proposition that the failure of the framers of the Constitution to express this can be taken in no way except as a conclusion that they intended to exclude from the list of trea sonable acts, or acts which should be punished as treason, an at tack upon the official representing in part the sovereignty of the United States.
Then the further proposition which this is intended to illustrate is that if they intended to exclude it from the acts of treason, they did not intend that as a mere matter of form limited to the word "treason, but that they intended to deny to the Congress of the United States the jurisdiction to legislate with reference to an at tack on the sovereignty of the United States through the person of the official, and that the evasion can not possibly be admitted that while it can not be done in the name of treason, an offense against the sovereignty of the United States as expressed in an at tack upon one representing in part that sovereignty can be pun ished by a statute which shall have exactly the same effect as if it were called treason, and which is not an act of treason simply because it has not the word treason in it.
Now, to illustrate that I was about to present this view: Sup pose the Constitution of the United States in this paragraph, in stead of using the words herein used, had used the language of this proposed statute and had said:
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying waragainst them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort, or in willfully killing or causing the death of the President or Vice-President of the United States."
That latter part is the language of this bill. Suppose that had been the language of the Constitution and we were called on to legislate to enforce that provision of the Constitution, would the Senator from Wisconsin or any Senator frame a bill which should have a line or a letter in it different from the provisions of this bill now before us? There is the exact bill which would have been framed to carry out that provision if those had been the terms used in the Constitution of the United States; and yet if the proposition is true that, while we are prohibited by the Con stitution from passing an act and calling it "treason" when the offense which it seeks to condemn and to punish shall consist in an attack on the sovereignty of the United States through the .person of the Chief Executive, nevertheless we can enact a statute punishing that exact offense in the same way as treason is pun ished provided we do not call it "treason," then the Constitution in that regard is a piece of waste paper. It is nothing more if we can turn around and do that exact thing which is prohibited if we will only call it by another name.
Now, Mr. President, on the subject of this differentiation I read yesterday from Judge Aldrichs article, to which I had been very kindly referred by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEK] . I read this because he expresses more clearly than I can that there are two distinct offenses, when you come to consider the question of an assault on the President of the United States or the assassi nation of the President of the United States. One of them is the offense against the person, which is punished by State laws, and which can only be punished by State laws if the offense is com mitted in a State.
5017 2

18
The other is the offense against the sovereignty of the United States, and the proposition, which I am endeavoring to present in cludes the proposition that a law directed against one who uses violence against the sovereignty of the United States must neces sarily be a law of treason and can not be anything else, call it what you may. I do not say against any officer of the United States, bvit I say against any officer who represents the sovereignty of the United States; and I can.conceive of no reason why the framers of the Constitution should exclude from this classifica tion the particular element of treason, or the particular offense which would naturally constitute treason, unless they intended that an assault upon the sovereignty of the United States through the person of the official should not be one of the treasonable acts.
It was manifestly in recognition that in accordance with what was believed to be the genius and spirit of our institutions, as they were intended by the Constitution, there should be no man in this country who should standbefore the law in the protection of his person on any higher platform than any other man.
I started to read this extract from Judge Aldrichs article in the December number of the North American Review_ simply to state in clear language the difference between the killing of the indi vidual, the offense against the person, and the offense against the officer; the difference between the offense against the person, and the offense of the assault on the sovereignty of the United States as represented in the person of that officer:
The killing of William McKinley as a private citizen in Ohio, or as a transient inhabitant of any State, "would be an offense exclusively against the laws of that State; but the killing of the incumbent of the Presidential office, because of the office and what it represents, may well be declared a crime against the existence of the Federal Government, because the Govern ment can not exist without administration, and it can not be administered in its present form without a President.
And the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] in the debate on yesterday drew the same distinction in defining the character of the offense which it is the intention of this bill to condemn and punish. Said he:
I will say that what this bill means to punish is the crime of interruption of the Government of the United States and the destruction of Its security by striking down the life of the person who is actually in the exercise of the executive power, or of such persons as have been constitutionally and law fully provided to succeed thereto in case of a vacancy.
Now, Mr. President, I want to ask these learned lawyers this question: Can an offense, in the language of Judge Aldrich, such as the killing of the incumbent of the Presidential office because of the office and what it represents, which he says may well be declared "a crime against the existence_ of the Federal Govern ment, be anything else but treason? Is it possible to differentiate an offense so that you can recognize it as one directed at the exist ence of the Government and still not be treason? I mean treason in its essential nature. That is what Judge Aldrich says this offense is, and the Senator from Massachusetts says the same thing.
It is true that, so far as that offense is concerned, the assassi nation of a President of the United States because he is Presi dent is leveled at the existence of the Government and can not be anything else but treason in its nature, and you can not make it anything less than treason by calling it something else, and yet the framers of the Constitution did not include this as one of the things which can be punished as treason. They saw fit, for a rea son satisfactory to themselves, to exclude it.
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. Does it follow, because it does not constitute the offense of treason as defined by the Constitution, that it is not an offense against the Government which may be defined by the Congress and punished by the Congress? The Senator calls it treason; and while every lawyer perhaps will admit that the offense of treason is defined absolutely in the Constitution, the punish ment of it is left to Congress, of course. It may be by death; it may be by fine or by imprisonment. It can not be treason under the Constitution; it can not be treason of which one can only be convicted under the rule of evidence prescribed by the Constitutution; but does it follow from that that it can not be an offense against the Government of the United States which Congress has jurisdiction to punish? Mr. BACON. I think so. I think this authority Mr. SPOONER. Take counterfeiting. That is an assault. Mr. BACON. That is a different thing entirely. Mr. SPOONER. It is an assault upon the sovereignty of the country. Mr. BACON. No; that is where I differ from the Senator. Mr. SPOONER. Counterfeiting the kings coin? Mr. BACON. No. Mr. SPOONER. That is a sovereign function. Mr. BACON. Oh. yes. Mr. SPOONER. It is an insidious assault upon it. But where does the Senator get authority for saying that because the framers of the Constitution were not willing to import into that instrument all of the definitions of treason Mr. BACON. The Senator ought to let me answer the other question first. Mr. McLAURIN of Mississippi. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me? . Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will repeat the first question. I really desire to answer it. Mr. PETTUS. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Alabama? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. PETTUS. I rise to a point of order.
******* Mr. BACON. Mr. President, when interrupted I was discuss ing the question, somewhat in response to the inquiry of the Sena tor from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] , whether the exclusion of this particular offense from those enumerated in the Constitution as offenses on account of which treason could be charged deprives the Congress of the United States of the power to legislate with reference to an act thus excluded, if that act was in its nature treasonable. My conclusion is that it does. That sounds like a very remarkable proposition, yet I believe it to be one sound in law, though I am frank to say, as I said in the beginning of this argument on yesterday, it is not free from diffi culty. But I can not see in what way we can get around it. When the framers of the Constitution came to consider the question of treason they had in their minds not- only the act of Edward III, but they had in mind the long history of England, in which trials for treasons had played a very important and a very bloody part.
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I desire to ask the Senate to keep clearly in mind this proposi tion, that in reference to this matter I am dealing simply -with those acts which are an assault upon the sovereignty of the Gov ernment as Judge Aldrich expresses it, " upon the existence of the Government" and I have no reference to minor acts, because minor acts are not in themselves treasonable. I limit it to those acts which must necessarily be treasonable and can not be other wise than treasonable.
I say the class of act which we have under consideration here is in its nature treasonable because it is an assault on thesovereignty of the Government, upon the existence of the Gov ernment, and that anything which is an assault on the sov ereignty of the Government, and attacks its existence, must be treason in its nature.
It is a distinct class of offense. It is entirely different from of fenses against the person. It is entirely different from offenses. against property. It is absolutely a separate and distinct offense, being only against the sovereignty of the Government.
I am unable myself, Mr. President, to see how to escape from the proposition that either the framers of the Constitution in tended that there should be no law against any assault on the sovereignty of the Government, except for the offense of levying war or adhering to the enemies of the United States and giving them aid and comfort either that, or else they were simply writing upon a piece of paper that which could have no practical effect.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator think it was competent for Congress to pass section 5834 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, declaring it to be an offense and providing punishment for a " person who incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any re bellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States, or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto?" That is not the treason section. Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, the first section of that chapter is a repetition of the language of the Constitution of the United States:
SEC. 5831. Every person owing allegiance to the United States who levies war against them, or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason.
The balance, I presume, is an elaboration of the same. Is itor is it not?
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will allow me Mr. BACON. I see it is a different provision. Mr. SPOONER. Section 5338 is as to misprision of treason,, and section 5334 is in reference to engaging in rebellion or insur rection. Those are offenses against the Government. Would the Senator say it was within the jurisdiction of Congress to pass those sections? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, whether or not something which falls short of treason could be made a penal offense is a very dif ferent question. Something which falls short of treason can be an offense against the Government: but when it comes to that which assaults the sovereignty of the Government, strikes at the existence of the Government, it can not be anything else in ita.
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nature than treason and must be confined by the limitations of the Constitution. Of course I have not now the opportunity to read that chapter of the statutes through, but I think that general

response will possibly cover the inquiry of the Senator. I will take pleasure in looking at it a little more carefully hereafter; and

if the debate continues. I shall try to give my view in regard to it, because I have no object in this except to arrive at the truth

none whatever. I think it is a very grave question and one which

may be of the utmost importance in time.

"

What is the meaning of the limitation in the Constitution as to

what shall constitute treason, and is it competent when we come

to deal with that distinct class of offenses which relate to assault upon the sovereignty of the Government to punish for any as

sault on the sovereignty except those attacks on the sovereignty which the Constitution itself prescribes?

I want to make one other reply to the -inquiry of the Senator

from Texas [Mr. CULBEESON]. The Senator asked particularly with reference to the crime of counterfeiting. I want to call his

attention to a fact, aside from the suggestions which I have al

ready made, that there is necessarily a distinctive line between offenses which are treasonable in their nature and offenses which

are not treasonable in their nature and only made so by arbitrary istatutes. Aside from that fact, while the framers of the Consti

tution did not make counterfeiting an act of treason, they did in

another clause of the Constitution specifically make it a criminal .act which could be legislated about by the Congress of the United

States.

I want to call the attention of Senators to another thing, that the power to legislate criminally is restricted throughout the

Constitution. We have not unlimited power to legislate as to

crimes. It is a natural fact that the subject of treason should

have engaged most closely the attention of the framers of the

Constitution, because they had behind them the history of the English Government, in which charges and trials for treason

had represented a very large part of the political history of

England. They not only denned what should be treason, but et a limitation beyond which the penalty should not go.

It is the only offense in the whole of the Constitution in which

there is such a restriction, and the only offense.against the law in

which the framers of the Constitution thought it proper to set a limitation upon the punishment. Then, the only other two clauses

in the Constitution which specifically provide for the enactment

of criminal laws are these:

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

Then, in a subsequent part:

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

Mr. President, the only other clause in the Constitution under

which there can be found authority for the enactment of criminal

laws is the general clause which authorizes and requires Congress to make all laws which are necessary for carrying into effect the

powers of the government or of any department thereof.

I do not doubt the proposition, Mr. President, and if I did doubt it, it has been often decided by the Supreme Court of the

United States that it is clearly within the power of Congress to

pass laws making it a penal offense to interfere with any officer

in the discharge of his duty.

That rests upon a very different ground. None of those laws

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comes within the classification of offenses which I have in view which are directed against the sovereignty of the country; and if the Constitution of the United. States did not mean to limit legis lation by Congress as to offenses which were aimed at the sover eignty of the Government, then it meant nothing by the clause defining what should constitute treason. An attack on the Presi dent is in its nature one of that class of offenses, hut I respect fully submit that it is within that class of offenses and that it was the distinctive purpose of the Constitution that there should not he included in the crime of treason an attack upon the sovereignty of the Unite_d States through the person representing that sover eignty; and if that was the intention, then that intention can not be defeated by a statute directed against the same offense and prescribing the same penalty for it by simply calling it something else.
Now, sir, I submit, in brief, this proposition An assault upon the President may be of twofold character: 1. It may be an offense against the person, having no relation to his official character. 2. It may be an offense against the sovereignty of the Govern ment, of which he is in part the representative, with no reference to his personality. These two offenses are entirely distinct, the one from the other, as perfectly so as if perpetrated against two different people. The: first is one exclusively within the jurisdiction of the States. The second is, in its essential nature, treason. Astatute whichnotonly prescribes an offense thus in its nature essentially treason, but which also prescribes the same penalty as that prescribed for trea son, is none the less an act against treason, although the word "treason" does not appear in it. The framers of the Constitu tion, after full deliberation, determined that an assault on the sovereignty of the Government, through the person of the chief executive, should not be treason. It is only on the ground that the offense is not one against the person, but that it is an offense against the sovereignty of the United States_, one that threatens the existence of the Government, an offense in its essential nature treason, that there can be any defense of a statute whicliimposes a higher penalty for an assault in any State upon the President than the penalty imposed by the general law of the State for an as sault upon a private citizen. A statute of this nature and of this design falls under the prohibition of the Constitution, and is not to be justified through an evasion of that prohibition. Mr. President, not to trespass too far upon the time of the Sen ate, there is another branch of this qiiestion to which I want to ask the attention of the Senate. I shall have something to say as to the propriety of the policy of making this proposed law as ex tensive as it is and embracing other persons, but I will pretermit that, as I desire, before doing so, to call attention to another branch of this question, which is one of immense practical materiality, and that is to the sections to which attention was called yesterday by the junior Senator from Colorado [Mr. PATTEESON]. Without taking time to analyze, I want to read the first, second, third, and fifth sections of the bill: A bill (S. 8653) for the protection of the President of the United States, and
for other purposes. Be it enacted, etc., That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, willfully kill or cause the death of the President or Vice-President of the United States, orany officer, thereof upon whom the powers and duties of the President may devolve under the Constitution and laws, or who shall willfully cause the
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death of the sovereign or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death.
SEC. 2. That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, attempt to cmmit either of the offensea mentioned in the foregoing section shall be punished with death.
SEC. 3. That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, instigate, advise, or counsel the killing of the President or Vice-President of the United States, or any officer thereof upon whom the powers and duties of the President may devolve under the Constitution and laws, or shall conspire with any other person to accomplishthe same, or who shall instigate, advise, or counsel the killing of the sovereign or chief magistrate of any foreign country, or shall conspire with any other person to accomplish the same, shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twenty years.
SEC. 5 That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, by spoken words or by written or printed words, uttered or published, threaten to kill or advise or instigate another to kill the President or Vice-President of the United States, or any officer thereof upon whom the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States may devolve under the Constitution and laws, shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding ten years.
Mr. President, that is the most dangerous piece of legislation which has ever been proposed in this country in a hundred years since the days of the sedition law, of the nature of which this bill very largely partakes.
The "objection to this provision of the bill is not that it makes it easy, if we might say so, to punish one who is an anarchist, but the trouble is that it will make it easy to punish one who is not. None of us has any desire that it should be difficult to punish an anarchist; but we should all desire that it should not be easy to punish an innocent man. In the terms of this bill there is ample opportunity in times of passion and excitement for the grossest injustice to be done to those who are innocent of crime. It is not on account of the anarchists that we object to the bill.
For myself, I should be glad if they could all be destroyed, just as I should like to see a nest of rattlesnakes exterminated; but I am not willing, in the effort to accomplish that laudable purpose, that we should put upon the statute book a law which shall invade our institutions; which shall take from the States their rightful jurisdiction over crime; which shall upturn the recognized pro cedure of a hundred years; which shall put it in, the power of partisans, either on the bench or elsewhere, to oppress men on account of political opinions.
And yet, Mr. President, can it be for a moment doubted that this is a law which puts it into the power of one man to go to the grand jury and say, " This man advised me to go and kill the Sec retary of the Treasury," and for that man to be arraigned before a Federal court and be convicted upon the single testimony of that one man simply as to what another one said tohim in private? And that is competent under this bill, even though no attempt were made on the life of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Not only so, sir, but is it possible that we can approve a bill which, in. time of excitement, may be used to muzzle the press; to make any editor afraid to express his opinions as to one of these officials because the bill is not limited to the President of the United States, but extends to every head of a department to make him afraid to express his opinions, even though he may believe an officer has done wrong, or is corrupt in his office, for fear that if thereafter that officer should be killed by somebody he could be arrested and carried before a court and tried upon the charge of having instigated the murder?
Mr. President, I want to read to the Senate the old sedition law. Of course I do not pretend that this is the same law as the old sedition law; but I want to ask the attention of Senators to
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this proposition, that while the old sedition law goes on to enu merate what shall constitute the offense, under the terms of this bill now before the Senate there is not a single one of the acts enumerated in that law but what could be proven tinder the words of this bill as an instigation to do that which is prohibited. It is not so elaborate as the sedition law, but it uses general terms which will coyer all the acts named in the sedition law. I am going to try, if I can have the indulgence of the Senate, to show some things which could be done under the sedition law, and to ask whether we want to see a repetition of them in this country.
Before proceeding to read the sedition law I want to recall to the attention of Senators the fact, known to them all, the circum stances under which that law was passed. It was passed at the time of our threatened troubles with France in 1798, and the pur pose of it was, as shown, to punish those who should speak against the Government, who should write anything against the Government, because it was apprehended that in so doing they would be giving aid to the enemies of the Government.
The contemporaneous writers show that at that time there was a large number of foreigners in the country, and the avowed pur pose of the bill was to prevent those who were recognized as really the enemies of our people from having an opportunity by sedi tious speech or writing to give aid and comfort to those who were thus our enemies; and yet the sequel was that they were not the people against whom the law was really leveled after it had been put into operation, but it was leveled against the political oppo nents of the party in power, many of whom were tried and put in jail, including a Representative in Congress from the State of Vermont.
Now, I will read this act, Mr. President, It goes on to provide in section 1:
That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the Government of the United States which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office" in or under the Government or the United States from undertaking, performing, or executing his trust Qr duty; and if any person or persons; with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise, or at tempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty ot a high mis demeanor, and, on conviction before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $5.000 and by imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court, may be holden to find sureties for hia good behavior in such sum and for such time as the said court may direct.
SEC. 2. That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall know ingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the Govern ment of the United States or either House ofthe Congress of the United States or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said Govern ment or either House of the said Congress or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any un lawful combinations therein for opposing or resisting any law of the United States or any act of the President of the United States done in pursuance of any such law or of the powers in him vested by the Constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any sucn law or act, or to aid, encour age, or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or Government, then such person, being thereof con victed before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished bya fine not exceeding $2,000and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.
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The purpose I have in .reading that is twofold. I want to

show, in the flrst place, what are the general terms of the act

under which those who proceeded to its inforcement acted, and I

want to show what were the class of acts which were construed

"by the courts to fall within the condemnation of that act. I

want to show, further, that the language of this act, while it is

directed to a different purpose, is language of a general character

which will include any of these various specifications so far as it is

applicable to the particular offense or offenses which are aimed at

in this bill.

In McMasters History of the People of the United States we

have an account of some of the things which occurred under the

operations of that law and in the effort to enforce the same. It

created a tremendous turmoil in the United States. It was

claimed, Mr. President, that this law was in direct violation of

the first amendment to the Constitution my attention to which

has just been called by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. PETTUS]

and a very great amount of disorder and of excitement was cre

ated throughout the United States on account of it. The press

teemed with articles relative to it, and the author of this book

gives the various charges and comments and criticisms which

were made by the newspapers of that day upon the bill, citing in

ach instance the name of the paper from which he takes it. I

will read some of them.

And what, asked the Republican newspapers, is a libel? A libel is what ever a Federal President, marshal, judge, and grand jury choose to make it. The President orders the prosecution. The process goes out in his name. He appoints the marshal. The marshal summons the grand and petit jurors, and in a large city Federal tories for this duty may be had in plenty. Nor is ihis all. The Federal judges are likewise named by the President, who, if they behave well, may make them envoys extraordinary, as he did of John Jay. Does any man hope for an impartial trial before such a tribunal as this? The thing is an infamous mockery of justice.
The moment the law takes effect the Democrat who squints at the Presi dent through a pair of spectacles will be guilty of sedition. To look at him through an opera glass will subject the man to misjprision of treason. To ...... .__ ___ = ____ . ~ .."..~ .a UTBo!" to a goose will be treason in the last degree. To laugh at the cut of a Congressmans coat, to give a dinner to a Frenchman, to let him sleep in your bed, will be treason. When election time comes round it will no longer be safe to speak of a members doings in the House, lest it "bring him into contempt and disrepute."

And so on, a number of other comments by the newspapers of

that day comments which in the end caused the editors of some

of them to be thrown into jail and their newspapers to be sup

pressed.



There were a number of prosecutions under that act. This bill

now before us gives opportunity for the same class of prosecu

tions; it is one which gives opportunity to a party in power, in

times of excitement and passion, to oppress those who do not

agree with them in political opinions. The author of this book

goes on to speak of the editors of different papers who were ar

rested and put in prison, and then goes on to give an account of

the trial and punishment of the member of Congress from Ver

mont to whom I alluded a moment ago. He says:

But the flrst to be tried and convicted was he the Federalists named the Beast from Vermont. Matthew Lyon, while the sedition bill was on its passage through the House, wrote and dispatched a letter which, after Adams signed the bill, was read by the subscribers to the Vermont Gazette. The letter was no worse than those hundreds of honest gentlemen were con stantly exchanging through the mails or intrusting for delivery to the care of private hands; no worse than Jeffersons letter to Mazzei, than Adamss letter to Tench Coxe, than the yet more famous letter in which, two years later, while the sedition law was still in force, Hamilton maligned Adams. But Lyon had long been a marked man. His conduct in the House, his fracas with Qriswold, his hatred of idle show, had made him many enemies, and his enemies now took their revenge.

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I will remark in passing that the fracas of Lyon with Griswold in the House was the case of a rough-and-tumble fight in the House between two Representatives from New England, and they not only had one, but two, on two different days. In that particular New England is entitled to the championship.
Mr. GALLINGER. That was a good while ago? Mr. BACON. It has had time to cool.
He was no sooner at home than he was arrested for libel on three counts.. The letter to the Gazette was one. Beading some extracts at a political meeting from Joel Barlows letter to Baldwin was the second.
The passage
selected by the prosecutors of Lyon contained an expression of surprise that the answer of the House to the Presidents speech of April 3, 1797, had not been " an o-rder to s-end him to a ma-dhous. e."
.. perse__ _ _ __, .. . _________ _very consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice," and that, while good men were turned away for "independency of sentiment," "mean men" got places.
Those were the classes of things which were in his letter, and on account of which he was tried.
When the trial came he conducted his own case, and began by challenging: some members of the jury chosen by the marshal. But the juuge denied the right of challenge and berated him for not knowing the law of his own State.
Then, after some further account of the trial, speaking of the action of the presiding judge, it says the judge when the verdict of guilty was returned, scolded the prisoner, fined him $1,000, and committed him to the jail for four months.
The jail was at Vergennes, and was a fair Specimen of the horrible dens in which, all over the country, our ancestors confined criminals and debtors. Though the season was late and the weather cold, the authorities would give him no stove. With great reluctance they consented to put glass in the onewindow that lighted the cell. !N"6 one seems to have been kind to him but. the jailer, the parish parson, and a man named Byrd, the most acrimonious of all the Federalists at Vergennes.
I read that for this purpose. I have not read all of it, and I could read trials of other men, a man named Cooper, another named Callender, who was tried in Richmond, another named Holt, and others, but it is sufficient for the purpose of illustra tion that under such vague and general language as is contained in the third and fifth sections of this bill a man is liable to be dragged before a Federal court and tried upon the charge that he advised somebody to kill the head of a Department, with no cor roborating testimony required, upon the simple assertion of one man. It is perfectly possible, under the vague language of this bill, that such an outrage can be perpetrated upon a man, who has no defense whatever but to deny what the man charged he did say, and which at last must be determined by the court and jury.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator from Georgia a question? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. HOAR. Is there any difference in principle that the Sen ator can suggest between that and the ordinary case, either of a principal, an accomplice before the fact, or a conspirator in the matter of murder? If the jury, who are the safeguard always. everywhere, believe a single witness who should testify that I had sent a man to kill any other person, could I not be, as the Senator expresses it, dragged before the court and be convicted on that one mans statement of what I said? Whether this is right or wrong, is there any difference in this matter from all other cases of criminal liability, either as accomplices before the fact or as principals, or, indeed, as accomplices after the fact?
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Mr. BACON. There is a very remarkable difference, if the Senator will pardon me. When a man is being tried for murder there is one very essential fact which must be proved that some body has committed a murder. But in this case it is not neces sary that any crime should have been committed. A man may have been as innocent and as pure as the virgin snow, and there may never have been any suggestion by anybody that the life of the head of a department should be taken. He may have been as. safe as the senior Senator from Massachusetts is now in his seat, without anybody threatening him.
Mr. HOAR rose. Mr. BACON. Pardon me a moment, if you please. If some body will simply go to the grand jury and will say, " John Jones got me to try to kill the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secre tary of the Navy," it is sufficient. There is a great and vast dif ference between a case of that kind and the case where a man has been actually murdered. Mr. HOAR. Is it not true, however, if the Senator will pardon me, not only that that answer does not meet the cases of conspiracy or of attempts or instigations to commit all other offenses, but even in the case of murder, although the murder must have been committed, the insufficiency or the unreasonableness of the evi dence on which the Senator predicates his argument is equally the same. The fact that the murder has been committed does not make it any more likely, I hope, that I committed it than if it had not been committed, and I am liable on a single witnesss evidence to be hauled or dragged, as the Senator expresses it, into court as an accomplice before the fact or as the principal. Is not the distinction rather in favor of this matter? If the murder has been committed, it is quite likely that there will be an excited public sentiment that may make it easy to convict the person falsely charged. Mr. BACON. I still think there is a very material difference between this and a case where there has been a murder. In a case where there had been murder there would be the fact that somebody had committed it. There would be circumstances attending that murder which would tend to corroborate or dis prove the statement of the witness as to what the acciised had said. But in the case authorized by this, bill it is not necessary that there should have been any crime. It is not necessary that there should have been any intention in a human breast to commit a crime. The crime under this bill is made to consist in the fact that one has advised that the head of a department be killed, and the proof of that may .be the testimony of a single witness that this man did suggest such a thing to him. In such case the crime is complete, although no hand has been lifted to commit any crime whatever. In such case there are no attendant circum stances either to corroborate or to discredit the witness. If the Senator from Massachusetts will pardon me, there is an other very great difference, and that is that while the offenses against which the bill is directed are the most heinous crimes offenses which we all would like to see ferreted out and pun ished the scope of the bill is such that it can be directed against other classes of people, and that is the point I am making. The scope of the bill is such that it is not limited to those who may be anarchists. The scope of the bill is such that it may be extended to those who may be out of favor, who may have excited enmity, if you please, by reason of political antagonism; and when it comes to a.
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case o that kind, the difference between that case and the case suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts is that in the one case there is no political feeling, but in this case, this bill extend ing, as it does, to everybody -who shall instigate, everybody who shall advise, may, in its provisions, embrace what a man may idly say on the street, which may have no reference to a subse quent act in the killing of one of these departmental officers by somebody, but which may be taken and applied to him and secure the conviction of one who is innocent and carry him to the scaffold.
Take the case of newspapers engaged in heated political cam paigns, in which they are free to criticise their political opponents, more free than they ought to be probably, but still with no crim inal design, And yet we see what may be done in prosecuting their editors, as in the case of this man Lyon, who had gone no further than other people had gone, according to this historian, and whose expressions in the letter on account of which he was tried were not as offensive as those used by Hamilton in his arraignment of John Adams. All these expressions are matters which can be gathered up, and in the event of the assassination not alone of the President, but of a departmental officer, words uttered, words printed, having no possible design on the part of the man who spoke them or the man who wrote them, can be brought into court and he can be convicted of being accessory and of having instigated the crime.
Mr. President, I have but a few words to say on another branch, and that is as to whether this bill, if it shall be enacted into law, should fee made applicable to all of the heads of departments. I do not, in what I say, derogate in the least from the dignity and importance of the officers of these departments. While they are statutory and not constitutional officers, they are generally emi nent men, men of ability, men entitled to every respect, and I certainly would say no word which would indicate the contrary; but why should they be singled out and put upon a plane different from all other people in the United States? Is the the executive department of the Government any more essential to that Gov ernment than the legislative department?
When I say that the law ought not to be extended to them, I would say in the same way that it ought not to be extended to the members of the Senate, If it be true that it is proper to single out an officer and make him different from all other people in the United States before the law, then it is simply a question of grade; and if a greater punishment should be adjudged against a man for assaulting or for killing the head of a department than is adjiidged against a man for killing a private citizen, then there ought to be an intermediate punishment for the man who kills the assistant, and so on down.
If it be true that it is necessary to protect the executive de partment by passing a law which shall put the officers of that department upon a different plane from the other people of this country so far as the criminal law is concerned, then it ought to "be extended to the judiciary. There is no reason in the one why it should not be in the other; and if to the judiciary, then to the Senate and House of Representatives. Where will you draw the line and on what principle will you draw the line?
I think that very thought was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they expressly excluded from that para graph in the Constitution under the crime of treason anything which assaulted the sovereignty of the Government except the particular things specified there, because they recognized that
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under our institutions, according to the Government which they sought to set up, there should be no distinction of persons before the law, and that the highest officer of the Government was no more sacred to the law than the most lowly citizen; or rather I will put it in the other way in order that it may not appear to be any way disrespectful, that the most lowly citizen has the same right to the protection of the law as the highest official. < Mr. President, it has been aptly said by some author that the proudest boast of the -law is that no man is so high as to be above its power, and no man so lowly as to be beneath its care: and if those words were applied to our country, with our institutions, the word "equal" ought to be inserted no man so lowly but that he is entitled to the equal care of the law. Equality before the law is the foundation stone on which rests our entire political fabric. Under our system of equality before the law, there is no room to "differentiate between the President of the United States and any other citizen of the State " as suggested on yesterday by the Senator from New York no room for a differentiation which would make an assault on a private citizen in New York pun ishable by imprisonment, and the same assault in that Sjate on the President punishable with death.
Sir, are we to have in this country classes before the law? This bill makes them. The Secretary of the Navy walks down the street and a man assaults him. I care not what the provocation is, under this bill lie is adjudged to death. If I were the only man in the Senate or House of Representatives I would never vote for such a bill. The Chief Justice goes down the street; a man assaults him; and he is put in the penitentiary for a short term of years. The, Secretary of War walks down the street and a man assaults him under exactly similar circumstances, and he i& put upon the gibbet and handed until he is dead. The Secretary of the Interior assaults a private citizen and under the general law of the State he is liable to imprisonment for a term of years. But reverse the case the private citizen assaults the Secretary under exactly the same circumstances in the same State, and by the provisions of this bill the private citizen must die the death on the scaffold.
There is nothing, so far as I know, in the law of Great Britain to equal such a discrimination. They have classes there. They have classes before the law. A peer can demand that he be tried in the House of Lords and that he be not put to his trial before twelve jurymen. It may be now that I am incorrect, but I do not think there is a law there which makes it a greater penalty to kill a peer than to kill any other British subject; and yet, Mr, President, that is what this proposed law undertakes to do to set up a class of people before the law and to, say that while it is a misdemeanor to commit an assault against one man, it shall be a capital offense to commit the same assault against another man.
Mr. President, is there no other remedy for the evil which this bill seeks to correct? Is it true that in order to throw proper guards around the President of the United States and the VicePresident and tile heads of the departments and Congress, and, if you please, all other officials and all other prominent people in the United States, it is necessary to pass such a law as this? After a man is killed the execution of his murderer does not bring him back to life, and the remedy is not in a drastic law of this kind, which can be extended in its operation not simply to those you are seeking, bot which may be made and -will be made an engine of most terrible and outrageous oppression in this coun-
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try. The remedy, in my opinion, is in preventive measures, and I am willing to go as far as the farthest in the effort to rid this country of this detestable horde, and I shall not be in favor of stop ping at any halfway measures in order to rid the country of them.
But, Mr. President, in the doing of it I do not want to subvert the institutions of this country as recognized for a hundred years, and I do not want to put in the hands of any political power an engine of oppression against innocent men who are not within the contemplation of this bill, but who can be harried and crushed and ruined by the terrible and resistless machinery which it will put in motion.
There are now several measures pending in this Congress look ing to the prevention of this crime, not to punishment after the commission of the crime, because, as I have said before, that does not prevent the commission of the particular crime you are seek ing to reach. The anarchist who makes up his mind to strike a blow at the representative, in part, of the sovereignty of this country knows when he does it that he forfeits his life, and con sequently no law you may pass looking to the taking of his life as a penalty will deter him. I was saying there are several meas ures pending. Let us go forward and perfect them. Let us take measures which will rid this country of this detestable horde, these enemies not only to man, but to social order. Let us take the most extreme measures. Let us apply the preventive.
Mr. President, I have an article in the same magazine from which I read before, written by the honorable Senator from Mich igan [Mr. BURROWS] . It is the December number of the North American Review. In that article he writes very interestingly of the history of the efforts which have been made in Congress to pass laws which would rid this country of anarchists, and he quotes from the proceedings of Congress and what was said by various people, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] among others, with respect to a measure before Congress which was then deemed amply sufficient and of which the Senator from Michigan uses language which I will now read. The bill passed the Senate, and the distinguished Senator, the author of this arti cle, said it would have passed the House but for the objection of one man at a critical stage; and of that bill he writes this:
There was a measure introduced in the Fifty-third Congress, in 1894, which, had it been enacted into law, would have probably prevented the Buffalo murder. Had it been passed, Emma Goldman would have been deported to her birthplace, Russia, long before she had had an opportunity to convince the McKinley assassin that the murder of a President is a divine duty. Most would have been sent back to Germany, where the authorities are anxiously waiting to lay hands on him, and the whole horde of foul conspirators ana agitators who would tear down the social structure we have so carefully erected would have followed suit.
Mr. President, is the distinguished Senator correct in his opin ion that that law, if passed, would possibly have prevented the mur der of the President? If so, it has already received at a former session the approval of the Senate, and let us again pass it, and let the House also pass it, that it may become law. If that is not suf ficient, let us make it more efficient. Let us reach the evil and prevent the recurrence of the crime rather than indulge the vain hope that any bill that we can pass which inflicts a penalty will be sufficient to deter the anarchist. He expects the penalty, and he glories in what he considers his martyrdom.
The way to protect the President of the United States and the Vice-President and the heads of departments and all other offi cials is to prevent persons who may have that design from having the opportunity; and then, in addition, let us hedge them around
son

31
-with all the safeguards we can. But do not let us seek to appease our outraged feelings on account of the assassination of President McKinley by doing that which will be of infinite injury and harm, at least an infinite threat to men who are innocent, but who through this proposed law ca*n be made the victims of political persecution.
Mr. President, I have finished except that I wish to say simply one word in response to a suggestion made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I am extremely anxious that this bill. if it is to pass, shall be guarded in the way suggested by the amendments which have been offered by the Senator from Colorado [Mr. PATTERSON] and the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. McLATTRiN] and myself. I wish to meet one objection which the Senator from Massachusetts offered to .the amendment offered by myself, and also one objection which the Senator from Colorado offered to it. The amendment I have offered is one which limits the operation of this bill when enacted into law to those who shall commit the crime I think I can quote the language substantially because of the official position of the President or either one of these officers, or for the purpose of destroying the Government or impairing the exercise of governmental powers.
The Senator from Massachusetts suggested, and very perti nently, that it would be difficult to show that such was the pur pose. I suggested in reply that in the absence of proof of any other motive a court would rule that that was the presumption. But if I am incorrect in that, it is a matter easily cured by insertIng in this proposed law a provision that upon the trial of one ac cused of this crime the absence of other motive shall be construed into a presumption of the existence of this motive, which would be perfectly legitimate.
Mr. HOAR. How are you going to prove the absence of other motive?
Mr. BACON. I did not hear the Senator. Mr. HOAR. I should like to ask the Senator how he is going to prove the absence of other motive. Will not that be very difficult? Mr. BACON. When you prove the killing and there is no other motive shown, the presumption attaches, if the law says there shall be such a presumption, and the burden of proof is on the defendant to show that there was another motive. Undoubt edly that would be ruled by any court in the world. Mr. HOAR. If the Senator will allow me to make one observa tion right there, so that I will not have to come back to it, it seems to me that motive being of the essence of an offense it is a pretty serious thing to put the burden on a defendant in any mat ter which is the essence of the offense. Mr. BACON. I presume the Senator from Massachusetts has been so long engaged in civil practice and in matters of magnitude that he has failed to recollect the rule of practice in all criminal cases that whenever a man is on trial for the commission of a murder the proof of the killing and the perpetration of the act by the man completes the case for the prosecution, and throws the burden of proof to the contrary on the defendant. It is the universal rule. When you prove that a man kills another yon do not have to prove malice. You prove that he kills him, and the law presumes malice, and it is for him to show that he had no malice. Mr. HOAR, That is not the law, as I understand it, in any jurisdiction in which I have been familiar with the law. Mr. BACON. I think if the Senator will examine he will find that I am correct. I am quite sure of it. Mr. President, one other word, because I am speaking of this
5017

32

now in a practical way. I shall be greatly disappointed if the

Senator does not amend the bill.

The Senator from Colorado [Mr. PATTERSON] , who objects, with

me, to certain features of the bill, suggested that the amendment

offered by me might lead to results not desired, that if upon the

trial there was a failure to prore that this was the motive the party would be acquitted, and that having been once acquitted he

could not be tried again. I simply want to call the attention of the learned Senator, and

also of the Senator from Massachusetts, as being directly in charge

of the bill and having control in large manner ofthe question of

its amendment, to the conspiracy section of the Revised Statutes of the United States section 5508, the statute which makes con

spiracy "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in

the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured

to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States," and it

has as one of its penalties this, which is found in section 5509:

If in the act of violating any provision in either of the two preceding sec tions any other felony or misdemeanor be committed, the offender shall be punished for the same with snoh punishment as is attached to such felony or misdemeanor by the laws of the State in which the offense is committed.

Now, that is directly, so far as the practice is concerned, in the same category as this proposed law would be if it had that amend

ment. For instance, there is an alleged conspiracy, and in the

alleged conspiracy there is a murder.

Under the law. when that man is tried he is not simply pun ished by the penalty affixed to the conspiracy, but he is punished by the penalty affixed to the commission of the crime committed

in pursuance of the conspiracy. If, upon the trial of that case,

the conspiracy should fail to be made out, of course the same

result would occur as that which is now predicted and deprecated

by the Senator from Colorado. But that conspiracy law with

that feature never in practice fails on that account.

Mr. President, I apologize to the Senate for having so long oc cupied its time. I have only done so because I thought it was a matter of grave importance. I repeat, the Senator from Massa

chusetts has no greater desire to protect the President of the

United States and every other officer of this Government from

anarchists than I have. The Senatorhas no greater desire to

break up the horde of men not deserving the name of men who

threaten, as I said, not only our persons, but our social order.

The Senator will not go further than I will in the effort to rid the country of them, and by all lawful means to bring to punish ment those who are thus prostituting our free institutions or abusing our hospitality.

Mr. President, I agree with the Senator in the purpose; I join

him hand in hand in everything In the way of preventing the re

currence of this act and to prevent the possibility of it by exclud

ing from this country all those who are of the class by which this

great and outrageous crime is committed.

I will go hand in hand with him in that. But I object, Mr. President, to a bill which, while it may have that purpose, will

put it in the power of the Federal courts and juries to try men for words spoken, or alleged to have been spoken which were never spoken, to fill jails with men, private citizens, and editors of newspapers, upon the suborned testimony, it may be, of unworthy

men, whose only offense if any has been that they have talked possi

bly imprudently, or printed in newspapers things imprudently,,

when they have been innocent of crime or wrongful purpose.

5017

o

Bill for the Protection of the President.
" Equality before the law is the foundation stone on which rests our entire political fabric."
EXTRACTS FROM SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Thursday and Friday, March 6 and 7, 1902.
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (S. 353) for the protection of the President of the United States, and for other purposes-
Mr. BACOK said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: Standing as we do right in the immediate pres ence of the awful tragedy of the assassination of the late Presi dent of the United States, it requires somewhat of resolution to oppose a bill the avowed purpose of which is to prevent the recur rence of so great a calamity. The universal desire that there should not be a recurrence of so great an outrage, the universal desire that there should be something done to prevent it, leads the public generally, and even Senators, when a bill for the pur pose is presented, to be controlled in the opinions formed by the purpose which it has in view rather than by the means which it is sought to inaugurate to accomplish the purpose.
The killing of President McKinley naturally inclines us all to the adoption of most rigid and drastic methods, and I desire to say for myself that, so far as that unhappy and calamitous occur rence can affect my view, it would certainly incline me in the di rection which I have indicated. I entertained a most sincere per sonal attachment for him. I am glad of the opportunity to say here what I have said elsewhere, that he was without exception the most amiable, the most courteous, the most pleasant man I ever met in high station, and that, so far as I was personally con cerned , while I did not belong to the same political party with him, I ever received from him not only the utmost courtesy, but unvary ingly the kindest personal consideration. I personally mourned his death, and I regard his loss as a great national calamity.
#* **** Mr. President, there are very grave questions involved. Natu. rally, when the question of the adoption of such a bill as this is brought up the question is asked, Are you not in favor of pro tecting the President of the United States and those who by law are appointed to succeed him? Why, most assuredly, we all are. But in response to that question I say two things: In the first place, the proposed bill is not necessary for the purpose, and in the second place, it in no wise, so far as I can see, improves the means for the prevention of such a crime. If there had been the assassination of a President and if the perpetrator had escaped, there would be a crying necessity for some legislation which would prevent the escape of anyone in the future; but there has been no such experience, and there can be no such experience. There is not a State in this Union which has not laws by which the President, as well as any other person, is protected from assassination. There is not a State in this
6040

Union -where it would b possible for one who had assassinated

a President to escape the punishment which he deserved. The

world is not large enough for one who commits such a crime to

be out of the reach of the arm. of the law, and there is not a place

secret enough in which he could hide himself from avenging

justice.

It was according to the designs of the framers of our Govern

ment that the criminal law should be administered by the

States, and whether there is power in the Federal Government

to enact such a law as this or not, to enact it is impliedly to say

that there is not, in the opinion of Congress, the reliance which

there should be in the States to enforce their criminal laws,

*

*

*

*

*

*



Mr. President, not to trespass too far upon the time of the Sen ate, there is another branch of this question to which I want to ask the attention of the Senate. * * * Without taking time to analyze, I want to read the first, second, third, and fifth sections of the bill:

A bill (S. 3653) for the protection of tho President of the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted, etc., That any psrson who shall, within the limits of the United States or any placo subject to ths jurisdiction thereof, willfully kill or cause the death of the President or Tics-President of the United States, or any officer thereof upon whoixi the powers and duties of tlie President may devolve under the Constitution and laws, or who shall willfully cause tho death of the sovereign or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death.
SEC. 2. That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, attempt to commit eithsr of the offenses mentioned in the foregoing section shall be punished with death.
BEO.i}. That any person who snail, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to tho jurisdiction thereof, instigate, advise, or counsel tho killing of the President or Vice-President of tho United States, or any officer thereof upon whom the powers and duties of tho President may devolve under tiie Constitution and laws, or shall conspire with any other person to accomplish the same, or who shall instigate, advise, or counsel tho Killing of the sovereign or chief magistrate of any foreign country, or shall conspire with any other person to accomplish the same, shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twenty years.
SEC. 5 That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States

. _. .

-

-

ofHcor thereof upon whom the powers and duties of th> oifice of President of

the United States may devolve undfr the Constitution and laws, shall be

punished by imprisonment not exceeding ten years.

Mr. President, that is the most dangerous piece of legislation

which has ever "been proposed in this country in a hundred years

since the days of the sedition law, of the nature of which this

bill very largely partakes. The objection to this provision of the bill is not that it makes it
easy, if we might say so, to punish one who is an anarchist, but the trouble is that it will make it easy to punish one who is not. None of us has any desire that it should be difficult to punish an anarchist; but we should all desire that it should not be easy to

punish an innocent man. In the terms of this bill there is ample

opportunity in times of passion and excitement for the grossest injustice to be done to those who are innocent of crime. It is not

on account of the anarchists that we object to the bill.

For myself, I should be glad if they could all be destroyed, just

as I should like to see a nest of rattlesnakes exterminated; but I am not willing, in the effort to accomplish that laiidable purpose,

that we should put upon the statute book a law which shall invade our institutions; which shall take from the States their rightful

jurisdiction over crime; which shall upturn the recognized pro-

5040

cedure of a hundred years; which shall put it in the power of partisans, either on the bench or elsewhere, to oppress men on account of political opinions.
And yet, Mr. President, can it be for a moment doubted that tbis is a law which puts it into the power of one man to go to the grand jury and say, This man advised me to go and kill the Sec retary of the Treasury," and for that man to be arraigned before a Federal court and be convicted upon the single testimony of that one man simply as to what another one said to him in private? And that is competent under this bill, even though no attempt were made on the life of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Not only so, sir, but is it possible that we can approve a bill which, in time of excitement, may be used to muzzle the press; to make any editor afraid to express his opinions as to ona of these officials because the bill is not limited to the President of the United States, but extends to every head of a department to make him afraid to express his opinions, even though he may believe an officer has done wrong, or is corrupt in his office, for fear that if thereafter that officer should be killed by somebody he could be arrested and carried before a court and tried upon the charge of having instigated the murder?
Mr. President, I want to read to the Senate the old sedition law. Of course I do not pretend that this is the same law as the old sedition law; but I want to ask the attention of Senators to this proposition, that while the old sedition law goes on to enu merate what shall constitute the offense, under the terms of this bill now before the Senate there is not a single one of the acts enumerated in that law but what could be proven tinder the words of this bill as an instigation to do that which is prohibited. It is not so elaborate as the sedition law, but it uses general terms which will coyer all the acts named in the sedition law. I am going to try, if I can have the indulgence of the Senate, to show some things which could be done under the sedition law, and to ask whether we want to see a repetition of them in this country.
*******
The contemporaneous writers show that at that time there was a large number of foreigners in the country, and the avowed pur pose of the bill was to prevent those who were recognized as really the enemies of our people from having an opportunity by sedi tious speech or writing to give aid and comfort to those who were thus our enemies; and yet the sequel was that they were not the people against whom the law was really leveled after it had been put into operation, but it was leveled against the political oppo nents of the party in power, many of whom were tried and put in jail, including a Representative in Congress from the State of , Vermont.
Now_, I will read this act, Mr. President. It goes on to provide in section 1:
That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the Government of the United States which, are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or \mder the Government 01 the Uiiit&a States from undertaking, performing, or executing his trust or duty; and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise, or at tempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high mis demeanor, and, on conviction before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $5,CCO and by Imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court, may be holden to find
5040

sureties for his good behavior in such scan and for such time aa the said court

may direct.

SKC. a. That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall

cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall know

ingly and any false,

wscialnlidnaglloyuas,ssainsdt ormaaliidcioinuswwrirtiitningg, porrinwtirnigti,nugtstearginaign,sot rthpeuGbloisvheirnng

Slmomttahhrtweeeeatmmntnhfettues,,olo,oPfocrorrrotreehmeiesetitioitbhdthUiehenesrnenratriiHtttorieoooorudfnfupatsSsthnehttsyeaheeotmedUfoerisf,tnethiotiioihntreneneetdfsmoiwotahSr,iicdtetotoharhpCntieeHnptoseohon,mtsuaghwinstprerieegtteshoUdsoofirnrootnhirrfttdeeeettisdnhshCirsteeSoettinpstognaaguogdtirotedeeedasfs,P,naspormyooeerrofeslatpittodhtwolheeeeeenooUxxtfsf,ccnatitioihithtdtreeeeeGtdaoaUUnogSbynnvatriaieiiuttnlnreeennsdgdst

States or any act of the President of the United States done in pursuance of

any such law or of the powers in him vested bv the Constitution of the United

States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encour

age, or States,

abet any hostile designs of any foreign their people or Government, then such

nation against the United person, being thereof con

victed before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall

he punished bya fine notexceeding 2,000 and by imprisonment not exceeding

two years.

The purpose I have in reading that is twofold. I want to

show, in the first place, what are the general terms of the act

under which those who proceeded to its inforcement acted, and I

want to show what were the class of acts which were construed

by the courts to fall within the condemnation of that act. I

want to show, further, that the language of this act, while it is

directed to a different purpose, is language of a general character

which will include any of these various specifications so far as it is

applicable to the particular offense or offenses which are aimed at

in this bill.

In McMasters History of the People of the United States we

have an account of some of the things which occurred under the

operations of that law and in the effort to enforce the same. It

created a tremendous turmoil in the United States. It was

claimed, Mr. President, that this law was in direct violation of

the first amendment to the Constitution my attention to which

has just been called by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. PETTUS]

and a very great amount of disorder arid of excitement was cre

ated throughout the United States on account of it. The press

teemed with articles relative to it, and the author of this book

gives tho various charges and comments and criticisms which

were made by the newspapers of that day upon the bill, citing in

each instance the name of the paper from which he takes it. I

will read some of them.

And what, asked the Republican, newspapers, is a libel? A libel is what

ever a Federal President, marshal, judge, and grand jury choose to make it.

The President orders the prosecution. The process goes out in his name.

He appoints the marshal. The marshal summons the grand and petit jurors,

and in a large city Federal tories for this duty may be had in plenty. Nor is

this all. The Federal judges are likewise named by the President, who, if

they behave well, may make them envoys extraordinary, as he did of John

Jay. Does any man hopa for an impartial trial before such a tribunal as this?

The thing is an infamous mockery of justice. The moment the law takes effect the Democrat

who

squints

at

the

Presi

dent through a pair of spectacles will bo guilty of sedition. To look at him

_.

__ ~_

Frenchman, to fet him sleep in your Bed, will be treason". When election

time conies round it will no longer be safe to speak of a members doings in

the House, lost it "bring him into contempt and disrepute."

And so on, a number of other comments by the newspapers of that day comments which in the end caused the editors of some of them to be thrown into jail and their newspapers to be suppressed.
There were a number of prosecutions under that act. This bill now before us gives opportunity for the same class of prosecu tions; it is one which gives opportunity to a party in power, in

5040

times of excitement and passion, to oppress those who do not agree with them in political opinions. The author of this book goes on to speak of the editors of different papers who were ar rested and put in prison, and then goes on to give an account of the trial and punishment of the member of Congress from Ver mont to whom I alluded a moment ago. He says:
But the first to be tried and convicted was he the Federalists named the Beast from Vermont. Matthew Lyon, while the sedition bill was on its pas sage through the House, wrote and dispatched a letter which, after Adams signed the hill, wag read by the subscribers to the Vermont Gazette, The letter was no worse than those hundreds of honest gentlemen were con stantly exchanging through the mails or intrusting for delivery to the care of private hands; no worso than Jeffersons lettor to Mazzei, than Adamss letter to Tench Coxe, than the yet more famous letter in which, two years later, while tho sedition law was still in force, Hamilton maligned Adams. But Lyon had long boon a marked man. His con duct in the House, his fracas with Griswold, his hatred of id!e show, had made him many enemies, and his enemies now took their revenge.
I will remark iu passing that the fracas of Lyon with Griswold in the House was the case of a roitgh-and-tumble fight in the House between two Representatives from New England, and they not only had one. birt two, on two different days. In that particular New England is entitled to the championship.
Mr. GALLINGER. That was a good while ago? Mr. BACON. It has had time to cool.
He was no sooner iit home than he was arrested for libel on three counts. The letter to the Gazette was one. Beading some extracts at a political meeting from Joel Barlows letter to Baldwin was the second.
The passage
selected by tho prosecutors of Lyon contained an expression of surprise that tho answer of the House to the Presidents speech of April 3, 1797, had not been u an order to send him to a madhouse."
Lyon in his own letter denounced the fast-day proclamation, as using the "sacred name of religion as a State engine to make mankind hate and perse cute each oilier;" lamented that every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and saliish. avarice," and that, while good men were turned away for "independency of ssutiniont," "mean men" got places.
Those were the classes of things which were in his letter, and on account of which he was tried.
When tho trial came he conducted liis own case, and began by challenging gome members of the jury chosen by ths marshal. Jiut the judge denied the right of challenge and berated him for not knowing tho law of hia own State.
Then, after some further account of tho trial, speaking of the action of the presiding judge, it says the jttdge when the verdict of guilty was returned, scolded the prisoner, fined him $1,(XX), and committed him to the jail for four months.
The jail waa at Vergennes, and was a fair specimen of the horrible dens in which, all over the country, our ancestors connued criminals atid debtors. Though the asnson was late and the weather cold, the authorities would give him no ytovo. With groat reluctance th;vy coiirpcntecl to put glass in the one window tlmt lighted tho cell. Ho one seeing to have bean kind to him but the jailer, tho parish person, and a man named Byrd, the most acrimonious of all the Federalists at Vergennes.
I read that for this purpose. I have not read all of it, and I could read trials of other men, a man named Cooper, another named Callfnder, who was tried in Richmond, another named Holt, and others, hut it is sufficient for tho piirpose of illustra tion that tinder such vague and general language as is contained in the third and fifth sections of this bill a man is liable to be dragged before a Federal court and tried upon the charge that he advised somebody to kill the head of a. Department, with no cor roborating testimony required, upon the, simple assertion of one man. It is perfectly possible, under the vague language of this bill, that such an outrage can be perpetrated, upon a man, who
5040

6
has no defense whatever but to deny what the man charged he did say, and which at last must be determined by the court and jury.
******* The scope of the bill is such that it may be extended to those who may be out of favor, who may have excited enmity, if you please, by reason of political antagonism; and when it comes to a case oi that kind, the difference between that case and the case suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts is that in the one case there is no political feeling, but in this case, this bill extend ing, as it does, to everybody who shall instigate, everybody who shall advise, may, in its provisions, embrace what a man may idly say on the street, which may have no reference to a subse quent act in the killing of one of these departmental officers by somebody, but which may be taken and applied to him and secure the conviction of one who is innocent and carry him to the scaffold. Take the case of newspapers engaged in heated political cam paigns, in which they are free to criticise their political opponents, more free than they ought to be probably, but still with no crim inal design, and yet we see what may be done in prosecuting their editors, as in the case of this man Lyon, who had gone no further than other people had gone, according to this historian, and whose expressions in the letter on account of which he was tried were not as offensive as those used by Hamilton in his arraignment of John Adams. All these expressions are matters which can be gathered up, and in the event of the assassination not alone of the President, but of a departmental officer, words uttered, words printed, having no possible design on the part of the man who spoke them or the man who wrote them, can be brought into court and he can be convicted of being accessory and of having instigated the crime. Mr. President, I have but a few words to say on another branch, and that is as to whether this bill, if it shall be enacted into law, should be made applicable to all of the heads of departments. I do not, in what I say, derogate in the least from the dignity and importance of the officers of these departments. While they are statutory and not constitutional officers, they are generally emi nent men, men of ability, men entitled to every respect., and I certainly would say no word which would indicate the contrary; but why should they be singled out and put upon a plane different from all other people in the United States? Is the the executive department of the Government any more essential to that Gov ernment than the legislative department? When I s_ay that the law ought not to be extended to them, I would say in the same way that it ought not to be extended to the members of the Senate. If it be true that it is proper to single out an officer and make him different from all other people in the United States before the law, then it is simply a question of grade; and if a greater punishment should be adjudged against a man for assaulting or for killing the head of a department than is adjudged against a man for killing a private citizen, then there ought to be an intermediate punishment for the man who kills the assistant, and so on down. If it be true that it is necessary to protect the executive de partment by passing a law which shall .put the officers of that department upon a different plane from the other people of this country so far as the criminal law is concerned, then it ought to be extended to the judiciary. There is no reason in the one why it should not be in the other; and if to the judiciary, then to the
6040

Senate and House of Representatives. Where will you draw the Hue and on what principle will you draw the line?
I. think that very thought was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they expressly excluded from that para graph in the Constitution under the crime of treason anything which assaulted the sovereignty of the Government except the particular things specified there, because they recognized that under our institutions, according to the Government which they sought to set up, there should be no distinction of persons before the law, and that the highest officer of the Government was no more sacred to the law than the most lowly citizen; or rather I will put it in the other way in order that it may not appear to be any way disrespectful, that the most lowly citizen has the same right to the protection of the law as the highest official.
Mr. President, it has been aptly said by some author that the proudest boast of the law is that no man is so high as to be above its power, and no man so lowly as to be beneath its care; and if those words were applied to our country, with our institutions, the word " equal" ought to be inserted no man so lowly but that he is entitled to the equal care of the law. Equality before the law is the foundation stone on which rests our entire political fabric. Under our system of equality before the law. there is no room to differentiate between the President of the United States and any other citizen of the State " as suggested on yesterday by the Senator from Hew York no room for a differentiation which would make an assault on a private citizen in New York pun ishable by imprisonment, and the same assault in that State on the President punishable with death.
Sir, are we to have in this country classes before the law? This bill makes them. The Secretary of the Navy walks down the street and a man assaults him. I care not what the provocation is, under this bill he is adjudged to death. If I were the only man in the Senate or House of Representatives I would never yote for such a bill. The Chief Justice goes down the street; a man assaults him; and he is put in the penitentiary for a short term of years. The Secretary of War walks down the street and a man assaults him under exactly similar circumstances, and he is put upon the gibbet and hanged until he is dead. The Secretary of the Interior assaults a private citizen and under the general law of the State he is liable to imprisonment for a term of years. But reverse the case the private citizen assaults the Secretary under exactly tho same circumstances in the same State, and by the provisions of this bill the private citizen must die the death on the scaffold.
There is nothing, so far as I know, in the law of Great Britain to equal such a discrimination. They have classes there. They have classes before the law. A peer can demand that he be tried in the House of Lords and that he be not put to hia trial before twelve jurymen. It may be now that I am incorrect, but I do not think there is a law there which makes it a greater penalty to Mil a peer than to kill any other British subject; and yet, Mr. President, that is what this proposed law undertakes to do to set up a class of people before the law and to say that while it is a misdemeanor to commit an assault against one man, it shall be a capital offense to commit the same assault against another man.
Mr. President, is there no other remedy for the evil which this bill seeks to correct? Is it true that in order to throw proper guards around the President of the United States and the VicePresident and the heads of the departments and Congress, and,
6040

if you please, all other officials and all other prominent people in the United States, it is necessary to pass such a law as this? After a man is killed the execution of his murderer does not bring him back to life, and the remedy is not in a drastic law of this kind, which can be extended in its operation not simply to those yon are seeking, but which may be made and will be made an engine of most terrible and outrageous oppression in this coun try. The remedy, in my opinion, is in preventive measures, and I am willing to go as far as the farthest in the effort to rid this country of this detestable horde, and I shall not be in favor of stop ping at any halfway measures in order to rid the country of them.
But, Mr. President, in the doing of it I do not want to subvert the institutions of this country as recognized for a hundred years, and I do not want to put in the hands of any political power an engine of oppression against innocent men who are not within the contemplation of this bill, but who can be harried and crushed and ruined by the terrible and resistless machinery which it will put in motion.
There are now several measures pending in this Congress look ing to the prevention of this crime, not to punishment after the commission of the crime, because, as I have said before, that does not prevent the commission of the particular crime you are seek ing to reach. The anarchist who makes up his mind to strike a blow at the representative, in part, of the sovereignty of this country knows when he does it that he forfeits his life, and con sequently no law you may pass looking to the taking of his life as a penalty will deter him. I was saying there are several meas ures pending. Let us go forward and perfect them. Let us take measures which will rid this country of this detestable horde, these enemies not only to man, but to social order. Let us take the most extreme measures. Let us apply the preventive.
*******

Mr. President, I apologize to the Senate for having so long oc cupied its time. I have only done so bacause I thought it was a matter of grave importance. I repeat, the Senator from Massa chusetts has no greater desire to protect the President of the United States and every other officer of this Government from anarchists than I have. The Senator has no greater desire to break up the horde of men not deserving the name of men who threaten, as I said, not only our persons, but our social order. The Senator will not go further than I will in the effort to rid the country of them, and by all lawful means to bring to punish ment those who are thus prostituting our free institutions or abusing our hospitality.
Mr. President, I agree with the Senator in the purpose; I join him hand in hand in everything in the way of preventing the re currence of this act and to prevent the possibility of it by exclud ing from this country all those who are of the class by which this great and outrageous crime is committed.
I will go hand in hand with him in that. But I object, Mr. President, to a bill which, while it may have that purpose, will put it in the power of the Federal courts and juries to try men for words spoken, or alleged to have been spoken which were never spoken, to fill jails with men, private ci tizens, and editors of newspapers, upon the suborned testimony, it may be, of unworthy men, whose only offense if any has been that they have talked possi bly imprudently, or printed in newspapers things imprudently, when they have been innocent of crime or wrongful purpose.

KKO

o

SENATE BILL 3653.

" There should not be one law for one man, even though he be

*

President o the United States, and another law for another man,

even though he be the lowliest citizen of the United States."

SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS. 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THB
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
MARCH IS, 1902.

WASHINGTON.
1902.

SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (S. 3653) for the protection of the President of the United States, and for other purposes

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia offers an amendment, which will be stated.

The SECRETARY. After the words " United States," in the first

section, line 6, page 1 of the bill, it is proposed to insert:

Because of his official position, or for the purpose of destroying the Gov ernment or impairing the execution of its constitutional powers.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to

the amendment offered by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. BACON] . Mr. VEST. Mr. President, I should like to make a suggestion

to my friend from Georgia, inasmuch as he spoke to me about

this amendment before offering it, and I was favorable toward it.

Afterwards the junior Senator from Colorado [Mr. PATTERSON]

made a suggestion which has troubled me very much in regard

to the amendment, and it was this: Suppose that a would-be assassin should attempt the life of the President and should be

successful and accomplish his death, if the amendment is a part

of the criminal law of the United States upon this subject and

the assassin should be indicted in the Federal court and acquitted,

could he be indicted then and tried for murder in the State court,

or could he not plead that having been once put in jeopardy he

was entitled to an acquittal? Now, there is a very serious ques tion, because, if the amendment should be adopted, every lawyer

would see the great difficulty of proving motive in certain cases.

It would at best be circumstantial evidence, and every lawyer

knows-how that can be attacked and overthrown, no matter how

strong.

I make this suggestion to my friend from Georgia. I appreci

ate his argument in favor of the amendment; I appreciate what

he has said upon that subject. A man, in attempting to commit

a burglary, might kill the President or one of the Cabinet who

might succeed him; and yet, under the bill as it now stands, he could be convicted of a capital crime. I must confess there are

all sorts of difficulties about this legislation in my inind. I am .sorry that I am not competent to the task of trying to make the

bill better; but I can not vote for it as it stands, and I do not see"

how the trouble which I have suggested about the amendment of

the Senator from Georgia could be remedied, unless something

in a remedial way should be adopted as a constitutional amend ment; but how that is to be done I do not know.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I desire to say, in response to

the Suggestion of the honorable Senator from Missouri [Mr.

VEST] . that there are two considerations which should not be ig

nored in connection therewith. My amendment seeks to draw a

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.3

distinction between, first, one who assassinates or attempts to assassinate the President of the United States because of his offi cial position, or because of a desire on the part of the .assassin to destroy the Government of the United States, or to impair the due exercise of any governmental powers; and second, one who attempts such a crime from personal motives. I think the propo sition will be recognized by all lawyers, that no Federal statute which imposes a penalty for the assassination or attempted assas sination of the President of the United States can possibly be de fended as a constitutional enactment unless the assassination is because of the motive indicated. In other words, that an assassi nation which has been prompted by the spirit of revenge for a private injury would not fall within the constitutional powers of Congress to punish by an enactment; and that, therefore, if it should prove to be the case that it was an assassination prompted by such motive, a statute could not be constitutionally enacted which would reach that case, that being a matter altogether out side of the constitutional powers of Congress.
When I offered the amendment which I had. the honor to sub mit a few days ago on this subject, I called the attention of the Senate to the provision of the Constitution under which the Con-^ gress of the United States could enact criminal laws. There are three or four provisions of the Constitution in which that au thority is found. There is the authority specified for the enact ment of a criminal law in the case of treason, and there is a limitation upon what shall constitute the crime of treason, and also a limitation upon the penalty which shall be imposed upon one guilty of treason.
There is another statute which specifically confers upon Con gress the power to enact criminal law for the punishment of counterfeiting. There is another provision which empowers Con gress to enact criminal laws for the punishment of piracy upon the high seas and offenses against the law of nations.
Then, outside of that, there is one other provision found in the Constitution of the United States conferring upon Congress the power to enact criminal laws. That authority is of general char acter, authorizing the Congress to pa_ss all laws which may be needed for the purpose of carrying into execirtion the powers conferred in the Constitution generally upon the Government of the United States, or upon any department or any officer thereof. From that general power there is properly, I think, deduced the power to enact a criminal law which shall protect any officer in the discharge of his duties and to punish anyone who attempts to interfere with an officer in the discharge of his duty and to pun ish anyone who attempts to destroy the functions of the Govern ment as they may be represented or expressed through the action of that officer. . This proposed law finds its authority under that general clause. It can not find it either under the enactment with reference to treason .or the enactment with reference to counterfeiting or the enactment with reference to piracy on the high seas, and there is no other line or letter in the Constitution upon which the author ity can be based, except the general one which I have indicated, authorizing the Congress to pass all laws which may be needful and necessary in order to carry out the powers conferred upon the General Government by the Constitution, or any department or officer thereof. Therefore, it seems to me to follow as a logical conclusion, which c3n not possibly be successfully disputed, that
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when we come to speak of the enactment of a law for the punish ment of one who shall assassinate or who shall attempt to assas sinate the President of the United States it must be within the purview of that general provision of the Constitution, and it must be within the limitation of that general provision of the Consti tution.
Mr. HAWLEY. Will the Senator permit an interruption? Mr. BACON. With great pleasure. Mr. HAWLEY. I do not think it needs a solitary word in the Constitution to give the nation the right to save its own life any more than it would for you to shoot a man who attempted to stab you. Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I appreciate the suggestion of the honorable Senator from Connecticut; but, in the first place, the President of the United States is not the nation. In one sense he is a citizen; in another sense he is an official representing only a part of the sovereignty of the nation, and not the part of it which the Constitution recognizes as the highest representative of the sovereignty of the nation. The legislative department is the highest expression of the sov ereignty of the nation. The legislative department is recognized "by the Constitution of the United States as that which represents most perfectly and. so far as the affirmative power of the Govern ment is concerned, almost exclusively the sovereignty of the na tion. If the Senator will take the trouble to refer to the Consti tution of the United States, in which .there is an enumeration of the great powers which constitute the sovereignty of the nation, he will find that they are, with one single exception, confided either to Congress alone or to the President in connection with the Senate of the UnitedStates, and that there is but one single royal prerogative that the President of the United States can ex ercise alone, and that is the prerogative of pardon. There is not a prerogative known to sovereignty that the framers of the Con stitution did not carefully take away from the President of the United States, with that single exception, and confide either to Congress alone or to the President in connection with the Senate. .Mr. SPOONBE. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a ques tion? The PRESIDING- OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONEE. I think the Senator is right in contending and asserting that the President of the United States is not the sover eign. Mr. BACON. I simply stated that in response- to the sugges tion of the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. HAWLBT] . Mr. SPOONEE. I know, and it is a pertinent response, and I think an accurate statement. The President of the United States is not the sovereign. He is a private citizen temporarily in pub lic station. Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONEE. And charged with the execution of the laws. Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONEE. Then, his assassination would not be treason against the Government, would it? Mr. BACON. I am on another question now, but I shall be glad to take up that branch of the subject at another time. Mr. SPOONEE. This was so nice a place to put the question
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6
to the Senator that I trust he will pardon me for having yielded to the temptation.
Mr. BACON. I will state right here, without stopping to argue it, that I oan not be misunderstood upon the proposition that the Constitution of the United States expressly intended that no attempt upon the life of the Chief Executive of the nation should be treason. I think there is no question whatever about that.
Mr. SPOONER. I was simply calling the Senators attention to the fact that he had just demonstrated that.
Mr. BACON. I am very glad to know that I did so. I tried to do it very much more at length the other day.
But I do not wish to be understood in any manner as depreciat ing the office of President of the United States. It is a great of fice one entitled to the absolute respect of every man, whatever may be his political belief or his personal relations or his personal estimate. It is an office entitled to the absolute, unbounded respect and courtesy of every man who owes allegiance to the United States Government because of its high position.
I dp not wish to be misunderstood in anything I say in reference to this matter. I am not depreciating the office, nor do I under estimate the gravity of the question as to what should be done to protect the President of the United States from assassination. I do not differ with Senators in the desire to throw around one who holds that office every possible safeguard: and, as I said the other day, I will go as far as the farthest on that subject in the direction that I think to be proper. No man will go farther than I will in the effort to rid this country of those "who bring this trouble upon us and who bring our institutions somewhat into disrepute by the fact that it is alleged that those who are enabled by the peculiar character of our institutions to enjoy them take advantage of them to abuse them and to bring about this reproach on free government.
But, Mr. President. I have been diverted by the suggestion of the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. HAWLEY] from the informal and calm statement I was endeavoring to make on the legal propo sition, trying to rid the question of everything outside of the legal question as to what shape this bill ought to be in if it is to be passed. I think it ought to be framed with very careful refer ence to constitutional limitations; and, not only so, but with very careful reference to the preservation of the ideals upon which this Government is based, the most fundamental and important of which, in my opinion, is the ideal of the absolute equality of every man before the law, and that there should not be one law for one man, even though he be President of the United States, and another law for another man, even though he be the lowliest citizen of the United States. -therefore,- Mr. President, in recognition of that, I am trying to draw a distinction in this bill between an assassination or an attempted assassination of the President of the United States, moved against him, as it might be moved against a private indi vidual, for private cause, and an assassination such as isattempted and perpetrated by anarchists, not for personal reasons but be cause of the fact that the person attacked is President, and solely from that fact, because of a desire to destroy the Government or impair the proper exercise of governmental functions. As I en deavored to present the other day, when I was upon the floor ad-
585

dressing the Senate upon this question, there are two distinct crimes and there can be no distinction in the bill except upon the proposition that there are two distinct crimes, that one is a crime against the individual and it is just as great a crime when perpe trated against one individual as when perpetrated against an other. One is a crime falling within the classification, as all lawyers know, of a crime against the person; the other is a crime against the Government, because it is an attack upon the Presi dent, not as a person but as an official and because he is an offi cial; it is an attack upon the President not for the purpose of injuring the individual, but for the purpose of injuring the Gov ernment.
Therefore, I say there are two distinct crimes; and if there is nothing in the constitutional objection which I urged the other day and I now leave that out of the question altogether for the purposes of this discussion assuming that it would be constitu tional, I say that an attack upon the President may be one crime or it may be another crime. If it is a crime against the person, if it is for the purposes of private revenge, or any other -matter outside of his official character, it is a crime which differs not from the crime committed against any other person, be he an official or a private individual. On the contrary, if it is a crime in which there is no personal feature and in which the assassin is moved solely by the purpose to destroy governmental authority and to strike at one who represents, in part, the sovereignty of the coun try, and who more directly in his own person represents the de partment of the Government than any other department is repre sented by any other one person, if it is of that kind it is a distinct crime; and the purpose of my amendment is to differentiate the two crimes, to make this particular crime the one about which there shall be no mistake, which shall fall within the proper exercise of the powers of Congress leaving the constitutional question out, as I said based upon the general authority granted in the clause of the Constitution which I have cited, and in no manner con cerned with the other crime, which is confined solely to an attack upon the person, regardless of the fact that he is an official.
Mr. President, in endeavoring to draw the distinction between the two classes of crime. I said before that I presumed no lawyer would contend that an attack upon the President which had no reference to his official character, but which was influenced solely by personal motive and against him as an individual, would be a crime which could be reached by a Federal statute. I do not understand my honored and distinguished friend1 from Missouri [Mr. VEST] to controvert that proposition; but he, as well as the Senator from Colorado, is disturbed by the suggestion which is certainly a very serious and pertinent one that a man might be put upon his trial, and if there were a failure to demonstrate the fact in such a way as the law might require that this was a crime perpetrated because of official position or because of a desire to destroy governmental authority, an acquittal would result, and therefore the man could not be thereafter punished.
I have two suggestions to make in reply to that. In the first place, we have now laws upon our statute books which present exactly the same difficulty in theory, but which have not been found in practice to present that difficulty. I cited them the other day in the remarks which I made to the Senate. The par ticular sections of the Revised Statutes to which I refer are sec-
5085

tions 5508 and 5509, and if I may have the attention of my friend from Missouri, as I am answering particularly his suggestion, section 5508 provides:
an; toL_ -. ._- --- ._...._._ ._ _ having so exercised the same
That is part of the section. I have not read it clear through, as it is unnecessary. The succeeding section is in these words:
SBC . S509. If in the act of violating any provision in either of the two preced ing sections any other felony or misdemeanor be committed, the offender shall be punished for the game with such punishment as is attached to such felony or misdemeanor by the laws of the State in which the offense is committed.
Under those sections it is frequently the case and I have had one very noted case in my own practice at the bar where there has been a murder committed in a State, and the charge was that that murder had been committed in pursuance of a conspiracy which had been entered into by the parties for the purpose of avenging the perpetrator for an injury which he thought he had received from the effort of a party to establish his rights in a case in court. The Senate will see that that was a case where a man was indicted for conspiracy and really tried for murder. Now, it will be noted that in the trial of such a case, when all the evidence is in, if it should appear that while it was true that a murder had been committed, it was also equally true that it had not been committed in pursuance of a conspiracy, of course under the law the man would have to be acquitted, so far as relates to the charge of murder; but yet that does not deter the lawmaker from making a law which presents that difficulty. That difficulty is found to be one in theory only, and not one in practice.
The Senate will see that, if it be true that a murder was not committed in pursuance of that conspiracy, the man ought not to be convicted of that murder in the Federal court, because out side of the particular fact charged of conspiracy it would be a murder over which the Federal authorities would possibly have no jurisdiction. In the same way here, if it be true that the assassination of the President is not committed on account of the fact that he holds that office, and not on account of any desire on the part of the perpetrator to interfere with the functions of gov ernment in any way, but that he has been inspired solely by a per sonal motive, then it would not be within the jurisdiction of any act which could be passed by Congress.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator a question? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Massachusetts? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. HOAR. . If a man means to do the thing, means to kill the President of the United States, would the reason he had in his own mind for doing it make any difference in any court in the world in deciding upon his guilt? Mr. BACON. I think so, Mr. President. I may be in error, but I may cite one or two illustrations, which* possibly may sug gest that I am not. The President of the United States is human, and he is in a position where he may do wrong. I mean, of course, in his humanity he may do wrong. He may offend in a way that any other citizens might offend, and the act of the man who at tacked him might have been purely on account of that fact. The President of the United States might, before he ever became President, have done a great wrong to a man. and that man might,
5085

after that person became President, have sought to avenge him self of it. But if it were solely a personal matter, if the Senator goes to the point of saying that in case an official is killed the fact that he was an official gives the Congress of the United States the constitutional power to enact a criminal law punishing it, then, of course, the conclusion which the Senator reaches is a justifiable one according to his premises.
Mr. HO AS. If the Senator will pardon me, my question was based exactly on that belief, that if a man .willfully and of malice aforethought do an act. he knows what he is doing and means to do it, it is an offense against the law, no matter what was the reason in his own mind.
Now, if any man means to kill James A. Garfield, he, for in stance, being President of the United States, his death having the result to interrupt for the time being the action of the Govern ment, so that, until his successor is qualified, there is no pardon ing power, there is no power to sign laws, there is no power to give advice, no power to see that the laws be faithfully executed, no power to do any of those things until his successor has quali fied
Mr. BACON. I think the Senator is mistaken in those proposi tions.
Mr. HOAR. The Vice-President may be in California and have to come to Washington. Now, if we have a right to protect the Government against the doing of that thing by design and of purpose, does it make any difference whether the motive of the man who_ commits that crime is to hurt the Government or to avenge himself of a private wrong? That is my question. Now, I understand1 that that question is directly answered by the Su preme Court of the United States.
Mr. BACON. I rose not for the purpose Mr. HOAE. May I read this one sentence? Mr. BACON. Will the Senator let me make a statement be- fore he does it? Mr. HOAE. Certainly. Mr. BACON. I rose for the purpose not of entering on a dis cussion at length of this subject, for I have been heard pretty fully, but to answer a suggestion made by the Senator from Mis souri, and I was very much in hopes that the Senator from Massa chusetts would discuss this question at some length. I have no objection to his reading from the decision, but I do not wish to be drawn into a general discussion which must necessarily coyervery largely what I have already said and which would be an in justice to other Senators who desire to speak. Mr. HOAR. I will confine myself then to this quotation, if the Senator please. This was a case where the defendant obstructed an officer of the United States Government by unlawful acts. He did not intend to obstruct the officer, but he intended to do the unlawful acts, and they resulted in obstructing the officer just as much as this man intends to revenge himself by an unlawful act, but does not intend to strike down the head of government, but does it.
When the acts which create the obstruction
Says the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Field deliv ering the opinion are in themselves unlawful, the intention to obstruct will be imputed to their author, although the attainment of other ends may have been his primary object.
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10
Mr. BACON. Very well. Then it says that it would be im puted; in other \vords, it would be the presumption of the law..
Now, Mr. President, to follow the suggestion of the learned and distinguished Senator from Massachusetts to its legitimate con clusion, I make this suggestion, and I will return then more di rectly to the reply which I desire to make to the suggestion made by the honorable Senator from Missouri. There is nothing in the law or nothing in the office which limits that principle to the President of the United States. There is nothing in the nature of the office and nothing in any constitutional provision, which limits to an attack on the President of the United States the principle that an attack on an official is a crime against the Government. If it is true of an attack on the President of the United States, it is true of an attack on every other official of the United States, it being a question of degree only. In other words, if it is true that the President of the United States when in office is in the exercise of certain official functions, and that an attack upon the President of the United States and his assassination or at tempted assassination to that extent impalrs the "exercise of the functions of government which are reposed in him, it is true of every other official in varying degree, from the lowest up to the President.
There can be no possible escape, it seems to me. from that prop osition, and we are entering upon legislation which will extend and expand, and the danger which I suggested the other day will become more obvious when there has been established in this country the principle that those who hold office under the Federal Government are a distinct class, and that there must be distinct laws passed as to them, and that an offens_e which is a misdemeanor perpetrated against a private citizen is to be pun ished with death when perpetrated against an official. I say it is absolutely inconsistent with the theory and the institutions of our Government, and I repeat what I said on a former occasion, that the foundation stone upon which rests our entire political fabric is absolute equality before the law.
Mr. President, to return to what the Senator from Missouri suggested, I had called the attention of the Senate to the fact that we now have upon the statute books laws which might caxtse the exact trouble in theory that this law would. In other words, that where a man has been indicted for conspiracy and murder under these sections of the law, however it may be proven that the murder was committed, yet under this law, if it shall be developed that it was not a murder committed in pursuance of the conspiracy which is.prescribed in this law, he could not be convicted of mur der. And yet, as I say, I have known of no case where that has been the result. I have known of other cases. I am informed by the Senator from Florida [Mr. MALLORY] that there have been decisions of the Supreme Court to the effect that under such cir cumstances the trial of a man would not bar a trial in another jurisdiction for the specific offense. I have not myself had the opportunity to examine those cases.
I will not continue on this line, because, as I say, I have already been heard in full. I think this is a material amendment, or should be, to the pending bill. There are other features in the bill, though, which are of even more materiality, in my opinion, than this. One is that which I discussed on a former occasion, which includea not only the President and the Vice-President, but every head of
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11
a Department, except the Department of Agriculture, and puts them upon a different plane from all other people and all other officiate of the United States, and makes that which would be a . misdemeanor when perpetrated against the Chief Justice of the United States, or against the Speaker of the House of Representatives,or against any Senator or any Representative, or any judge or any other official in the land, or any private citizen out of the 80,000,000 people, a capital offense, an offense punished by death, if perpetrated against one of the heads of Departments of this Government, the Secretary of Agriculture alone excepted.
If the Secretary of the Navy in his own State is assaulted and it can be charged that the purpose was to commit murder upon him something, of course, which can not be demonstrated, but which rests within the bosom of the court and the jury the man who assaults him is tried and is hanged. On the same day an other man, under exactly the same circumstances, assaults the governor of Massachusetts, and under the laws_ of Massachusetts he can only be sent to the penitentiary. That is what this bill is, and not to elaborate that, I say it is an impossibility that I could ever give my consent to a bill which shows such discrimination, not only as to the governor of Massachusetts, but as to any citi zen of Massachusetts. In the one case the man who assaults the Secretary of the Navy in Massachusetts is tried in a Federal court and hanged, and in the other case the man who assaults the gov ernor of Massachusetts. or the Senator from Massachusetts, or any citizen of Massachusetts is tried in a State court and if found guilty is sent to the penitentiary, although the circumstances may be exactly the same in each case.
Mr. President, in this particular the pending bill goes farther than any law which ever existed in Great Britain on the subject of treason. The statute of Edward III, which is the great law of Great Britain on that subject, has never been repealed and, with some amendments, is the law to-day, although passed more than four hundred years ago. I am not speaking about whether it is treason or not, but I am analogizing it to a law of treason. When it comes to the passage of a law which shall punish the offense of assassination of the King or the attempted assassination of the King or those who are to succeed him, the statute of Edward III limits it to his oldest son, and if he h^d a dozen sons the law would not apply to any other one of them, but merely to the King and his oldest son.
Here we are not content with the passage of a law which shall be for the protection of the President of the United States and the Vice-President of the United States and provide for the pun ishment of one who shall assassinate either one of them or at tempt to assassinate either one of them, but we extend this law to every head of a department. We call them. Cabinet officers. There is no such officer known to our law, and he is a very differ ent officer from the cabinet officer known to English law; and in so saying I do not depreciate any one of them. We extend it to every one of them. There has been no such law known to Eng land, even. In attempting to protect the chief executive of the nation, it has never gone further than the King and his oldest son, and here we propose that it shall go not only to the Presi dent and Vice-President, but that it shall also extend to every member of the Cabinet, except the Secretary of Agriculture.
Mr. President, I do not wish to be misunderstood, and I repeat 5083

what I said on a former occasion, that I do not depreciate the dignity of these officers, although they are statutory officers and not constitutional officers. They are officers designed by the Con stitution of the United States to be and to remain statutory offi cers. I have not here Elliotts*Debates on the Constitution, but one who will examine it will see that it is not a matter of inad vertence that they were not made constitutional officers. Within a few pages of the particular part of Elliott fs Debates which I read here the other day there is set out the proposition to make the heads of departments constitutional officers, and they are enumerated there, and the Constitutional Convention distinctly, with the matter called to their attention and the proposition made, refused to make them constitutional officers, and purposely and inten tionally left them to remain statutory officers.
Mr. MITCHELL. May I ask the Senator from Georgia a question?
Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. MITCHELL. Does the Senator deny the power of Con gress to provide by law for any proper guard of protection forthe President of the United States? Mr. BACON. I do not. indeed; but I think if the Senator is going to ask me a question he ought to ask it on the particular point I am discussing. Mr. MITCHELL. I thought I did. Mr. BACON. Possibly I may have misunderstood the Senator. . Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator is discussing the point that in order to make a valid law in reference to the killing of the Presi dent it must he shaped in such a way as will authorize the judicial tribunal passing upon the question to enter into the question as to the motive of the man who did the killing. Mr. BACON. With the permission of the learned Senator, he is entirely mistaken as to what I was discussing. I had been dis cussing that, but had passed from it. Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator had passed from it? Mr. BACON. I was discussing the propriety of extending this law so as to embrace the heads of departments. That is what I was discussing when interrupted by the Senator. Mr. MITCHELL. If the Senator will pardon me for goingback to a matter he has discussed, I am very curious to know why it is, if the Senator from Georgia, distinguished lawyer as he is, admits the power of Congress to pass a law providing for a , guard of protection to the President of the United States, he de nies the power to affix the crime of murder to the act of a man who kills the President of the United States? Mr. BACON. I will endeavor, as the Senator insists upon it, to answer his question, but I decline to do so while I am discussing another branch of the matter. I am now discussing the question of the propriety of extending this proposed law to the heads of departments. That is certainly not the question upon which the Senator interrupted me. Mr. MITCHELL. All right. Mr. BACON. I was about to say that I do not wish to be mis understood about the heads of departments, either. I am not de preciating them. As I said before, the heads of departments are generally represented by men of the greatest ability and the greatest prominence and the greatest eminence in the country, and they are entitled to all our respects and all our courtesy.
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Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President . The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Texas?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. BAILEY. I hope the Senator from Georgia does not in tend to include the Secretary of the Interior in that description. Mr. BACON. I am not speaking of any present incumbents, but I am speaking generally of the offices and of those generally who fill them. Mr. MITCHELL. I should like to ask the Senator a question, if he will pardon me, bearing upon the point he is arguing now. Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. MITCHELL. The Senator admitted a moment ago the power of Congress to provide a law furnishing a guard for the President of the United States. Now, I take it, that is upon the ground that he is a Federal official. Mr. BACON. Yes, sir. I should doubt very much the policy of it. Mr. MITCHELL. A Cabinet officer is a Federal official. Mr. BACON. Yes. sir. Mr. MITCHELL. Does the Senator admit that Congress can provide a guard for a Cabinet officer? Mr. BACON. Certainly, or for the Senator from Oregon, either. Mr. MITCHELL. I deny that. Mr. BACON. Most certainly. Mr. MITCHELL. I deny the right of Congress to provide a guard for me or for any other private citizen. Mr. BACON. The Senator from Oregon is not a private citi zen. He lacks a good deal of it. Mr. MITCHELL. Where does the Senator draw the distinc tion, lam curious to know, between the power of Congress to pro vide a guard for a man because he is a Federal official and the power of Congress to attach the crime of murder to the act of a man who kills the Federal official? Mr. BACON. The Senator from Oregon has not done me the honor to pay close attention to what I have been saying. Mr. MITCHELL. I have tried. It may be due to my obtuseness. Mr. BACON. I am sure the Senator has not done so, as I have stated during the present hour as plainly as I could that waiving the question of constitutionality, if there was power in Congress to pass a law as to the President of the United States, it was an authority which would extend to every official in the United States down to the lowest. Did the Senator hear me when I said that? Mr. MITCHELL. I understand that. Mr. BACON. If the Senator heard me when I said that, he could not possibly have justification for the question, for I had stated that if there was power to pass a law with reference to the President of the United States, there would be power also with reference to the head of a department, and I had distinctly stated that outside of the constitutional question which I had waived for the purpose of this argument, it applied to every official of the United States, varying only in degree. Mr. MITCHELL. Thatstill makes me more curious to know why it is that Congress can not pass a law making it murder to kill the Federal official. What is the difference?

14
Mr. BACON. The Senator insists upon going back to the other question. I am on this point now, and I am going to stand by it for the present.
I was trying to say that while I did not approve of the law which is applied to the head of a department I was notmoyed in my disapproval of it by a want of appreciation of the dignity of the office or of the character of the men who usually have filled those offices, and I was about to say that I did not forget the fact, that while it is true that the constitutional convention had not made heads of departments constitutional officers, when the Gov ernment came to be organized these positions were held to be of such high importance and great dignity that two men, who pro bably of all others then were entitled to be considered most emi nent among Americans, were called to the Cabinet Thomas Jef ferson and Alexander Hamilton.
Mr. MAfjLORY. Will the Senator permit me with reference to the question asked by the Senator from Oregon?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. MALLORY. I should tiketo ask the Senatorfrorti Georgia if he does not hold that it is perfectly competent for Congress to make an assassination of the President for the purpose of interferring with the functions of Government murder? Mr. BACON. I do, undoubtedly. Mr, MALLORY. I inferred from the fact that the Senator did not respond to that part of the question of the Senator from Oregon that he thought differently. Mr. BACON. I do, outside of the constitutional question as to whether or not an attack upon the President as the Chief Execu tive can be made a crime which shall be in any respect different from the crime of treason. I am not going into that question, because it is not one which it is necessary for me to determine in reaching a conclusion as to what my position is with reference to the bill. If it is constitutional, the terms and provisions of the bill are such as seem to me to make it improper that it should be enacted into law. Now, with reference to the interrogatory of my Try learned and distinguished friend the Senator from Oregon, for whom I certainly entertain the highest esteem, both personally and offi cially, I will say_ that the question which he asked me I endeav ored to answer in a speech I made in the Senate some ten days ago, which it took me several hours to deliver. Mr. MITCHELL. I had not the pleasure of hearing it. Mr. BACON. I certainly would not impose upon the Senate by repeating what I then said, although it is directly in response to the inquiry now made of me by the learned Senator, and I trust he will not consider me discourteous at all Mr. MITCHELL. Not at all. Mr. BACON. If I refer him to what I then said, rather than undertake to consume the time of the Senate in a repetition of it. Mr. President, I rose without any expectation of being heard to day in response simply to the suggestion of my learned friend the Senator from Missouri [Mr. VEST] , and I will say to him that I do not regard as the most material amendment that to which he has referred, I think it is an important amendment. It may be less practical in this consideration that possibly in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases an attack upon the President would fall within
BOSS

is
the limitations sought to be set up by this amendment. In other words, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred an attack upon the President would be because he is President and because of a de sire by the assassin to destroy governmental authority and inter fere with the exercise of governmental powers and functions. Nevertheless, the amendment should be adopted and the distinctioh drawn in order that there may be preserved inviolate the vital principle that so far as offenses against the person are con cerned every man is the equal of every other man before the law.
But there are others which go further, from the fact that they will be of practical, ever-present importance. The one I speak of with reference to the extension of the provisions of this bill to the heads of Departments seems to me to be of vital importance, and it is the beginning of the establishment of an official class in this country which shall be put upon a plane different from the unofficial class, and we shall have laws in this country which do not exist in England or anywhere else, although they have classes" in England. They have no law in England by which the great nobility of England stand differently before the criminal law of the country from a private citizen of Great Britain, whether it be as to a crime committed by a peer of England or as to a crime committed against him, except so far as they have the distinction as to the mode of trial that a peer may demand that he be not tried by a jury, but by his peers in the House of Lords, just as one was tried a little while ago on a charge of the com mission of bigamy.
It does not do to say that we are going to stop where we are. It does not do to say that the purpose is not to enact criminal laws which shall be different as to simply the heads of Depart ments and shall not be extended to other officials, because in our own history and experience we have had similar criminal laws in this country which did extend not only to the President and heads of Departments, but included offenses against Congress or either House of Congress the old alien and sedition laws.
When we once embark upon this new road, when we once establish the proposition that it is a recognized policy of this country that a man who assaults a Secretary of the Navy or a Secretary of the Interior commits a greater crime before the law and is to be punished with a greater penalty than if the same man under the same circumstances assaults a private citizen, then there is no reason why it should not be extended to other officials; and with the constant evolution and change, which a man has to be blind if he does not see, coming over this country, it will be but another step to include another class of officials, and still Another, until in this country, where, as I have said, equality be fore the law is the foundation upon which must rest and has rested our political fabric, we shall have the most dangerous of all in equalities inequality in the matter of criminal law.
I will not stop to discuss it. The Senators have the bill before them. Let them read the sections which make it a crime to ad vise the killing of the head of a department or to instigate it, and then consider what may be proven under the general term "advise and instigate," and compare it with the terms in the alien and sedition law, and then try to form a conclusion as to what crimes were sought to be deduced as having been perpetrated under
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the general term of advising and instigating. Draw a parallel

between that and the prosecutions which were had under the

alien and sedition law, where under the general terms the law was made an engine of oppression against those who differed politi

cally from those who were in power, and was not limited to the

purposes for which it was professed originally to have been

enacted.

I shall not stop to enlarge upon that, because I had the kind

consideration of the Senate and discussed it at length on a former

occasion. For myself, I repeat that while the first amendment,

the one referred to by the Senator from Missouri, important, in

my opinion, may not be practically vital in its operation, there

are other features of this bill which are practical, and if it is en

acted in the terms in which it is now expressed the time will

certainly come when we will eat the bitter fruit of repentance on

account of it.

5085

o

CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR THE . PHILIPPINE ISLANDS:
SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Tuesday, May 20, and Wednesday, May 21,1902.
WASHING-TON. 1902.
5314

SPEECH
Off
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

Tuesday, May 20, 190g.

The Senate baying under consideration the bill (S. 2295) temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Phil ippine Islands, and for other purposes

Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: In a colloquy which occurred in the Senate a few days since, while this bill was tinder consideration, the hon orable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] , the chairman of the Committee on the Philippines, felicitated himself with the statement that he had made a most complete and exhaustive ex planation to the Senate of the provisions of the pending bill. The self-gratulation of the Senator went to the extent of broadly im plying that if there was anything not understood in the bill that fact was due to the fault, or deficiency rather, of the one who heard and not from lack of clear and exhaustive explanation on the part of the one who spoke. At the risk, Mr. President, of falling under this criticism of the honorable Senator, I desire to call attention to some few things connected with or involved in this bill relative to which I think one would search in vain in the speech of the Senator to find any explanation. I say that not only after having heard the speech of the Senator, but after having read it very carefully since its publication. The Senator in the course of his speech said:

The main object of the bill, Mr. President, is, in a word, to replace military Tby civil government to advance civil government.

The fact to which I wish to call attention in connection with that declaration on the part of the honorable Senator is that there is now civil government in part in the Philippine Islands, organ ized under the authority of the war power, which, with the ex ception of the right to grant permanent franchises and to dispose of lands and the timber thereon and the minerals therein, is. with one or two other exceptions of a trifling nature, full in all the powers which are conferred or sought to be conferred by this bill.
It is true that that is a civil government organized under the war power. In addition there is also upon the statute book to-day a law, which we commonly know as the Spooner law although it was adopted ultimately as an amendment, we speak of it as the Spooner law which in all of its particulars and in all of its pow ers, with the one or two trifling exceptions that I shall mention hereafter, is as full and complete as the bill now sought to be enacte_d into law, excepting only the provisions with reference to the disposition of lands, or timber thereon and the minerals therein, and the granting of.franchises in the islands.
The Senator from Massachusetts further said in the same con nection and on the same page of his speech that in the framing of

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3

this bill the utmost pains were taken " that there should be no

opportunity given for undue or selfish exploitation," speaking of

the islands. The particular point to which I desire to call the at

tention of the Senate in this connection is that the only difference

of a material character between the civil government now or

ganized in part in the islands under the war power and the powers

proposed to be given to the Government in this bill is that in the

present civil government there is not the power for the exploita

tion of the islands, and that in the proposed law there is the power

for the exploitation of the islands.

I desire to call attention further, Mr. President, because it is

still more important, that in the Spooner amendment, which is

now the law, are found all the powers sought to be conferred by

the proposed law, except that under the special law there can be

no exploitation of the islands, but that in the proposed law there

can be their unlimited exploitation.

The Senator said that there were two purposes in the framing

of this bill which it is proposed to make law, first, to authorize

civil government; second, to prevent undue exploitation. It is

beyond the possibility of dispute that it does not enlarge the

scope of civil government except in the one particular which the

Senator says it was intended to guard against, to wit, the furnish

ing of the opportunity for the exploitation of the properties of the

islands.

Itis in the lands of a country, in the timber of a country, in

the minerals of a country, and in the franchises of a thousand

kinds in a country that there are found the opportunities for

exploitation. Under the law as it now exists, under which civil

government has been organized under the war power, there is no

opportunity for exploitation of a permanent character. Under

the civil law as it exists upon the statute books to wit, the

Spooner law there is no opportunity for the exploitation of these

resources, but under the proposed law, I repeat, there is every

opportunity for its exploitation.

It occurs tome, sir, that the Senator from Massachusetts might

have employed some of his time, of which there has been a super

abundance, in explaining to the Senate and to the country why

it is that there should be such urgency for the passage of a bill,

such imperative demand for the passage of a bill, when the only

difference of a practical or material character between the law as

it will stand after the bill is passed and the law as it now stands

is that opportunities will be afforded for exploitation which do

not now exist.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Mr. CARMACK. I should like to ask the Senator from Georgia if there is anything to prevent the same persons from organizing themselves into as many different corporations with as many dif ferent names as they choose and holding land separately as differ ent corporations?
Mr. BEVERIDGE. There is. Mr. BACOK. There is none, I think. Mr. FORAKER. I understand there is an express provision prohibiting that. Mr. BEVERIDGE. There is. Mr. BACON. I will come to that. Mr. FORAKER. There is a provision that no corporation shall be interested in more than one tract.

53H

Mr. BACON. I hope.1 Mr. QUARLES. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KEAN in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. I hope I may be allowed to dis charge my duty to the Senator from Wisconsin first, and my ob ligation, which I am most delighted to recognize, before under taking to reply to anybody else. Mr. (QUARLES. I simply want to call attention to section 81, which, it seems to me, will require the Senator to modify the proposition he made a few moments ago regarding mining cor porations. Mr. BACON. So far as mining corporations are concerned, I only used that for an illustration; but the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOEAKER] is mistaken, as is the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. QUABLES], in the implied approval of that, and also in sup posing that those are the only classes of corporations in which par ties could hold land. Does the Senator forget the building and loan associations which hold real estate ad libitum? I do not know whether there are any building or loan associations in the Philippine Islands, but there mi^ht be such associations there for the purpose of buying and selling lands. Would not that be -within the purview? Mr. FORAKER. I call the Senators attention to the fact that that is expressly prohibited by the provisions of this bill. Mr. LODGE. It is expressly prohibited by section 77. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Certainly it is. Mr. BACON. Building and loan associations are not prohibited in that section; but that is simply an illustration. But, Mr. Presi dent, I mean to say that, except where expressly limited, there is no limitation upon the amount of land which may be owned; and those express limitations, instead of being comprehensive, are specific. Why is it thafc the committee do not say that no cor poration shall hold exceeding 5,000 acres? That is simple. That would leave no doubt. What motive can there be in omitting to say so plainly, in so many words, if the purpose is that no cor poration shall hold exceeding 5,000 acres of land? Mr. LODGE. I agree with the Senator that where it is Tinlimited it is unlimited, and where it is limited it is limited. I agree with the Senator that far. Mr. BACON. I have often heretofore been greatly illuminated by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGB] , and on this par ticular occasion most especially so. Mr. LODGE. I beg the Senators pardon. I thought he yielded, I had no desire to interrupt him or to protract his speech. Mr. BACON. When the Senator from Massachusetts made his speech he was very particular to ask Senators not to interrupt him, and I, on the contrary, invite Senators to interrupt me as much as they wish. Mr. BEVERIDGE. As the Senator askeda question and looked at me, I wondered whether he wanted an answer from me. Mr. BACON. I have no objection, of course, though I think it might be well for me to proceed with some degree of continuity; trat if it pleases the Senator to interrupt me, I will yield. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I do not want to interrupt the Senator. Mr. BACON. It is no interruption in the least. The Senator kntfws I will yield to him as quickly as to anyone else.
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6
Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator asked the question, Why war it that it was not provided that no corporation should hold more than 5,000 acres of land? " The reason, I think, is clear from the section itself, that in the case of manufacturing or other than ag ricultural corporations they can not hold more land than is nec essary for their factories and works; whereas if we merely said that no corporation, agricultural or otherwise, could own more than 5,000 acres of land, we could permit a manufacturing cor poration or any other corporation to own 5,000 acres of land, which would be against public policy. Is that satisfactory to the Senator?
Mr. BACON. If there were a simple line in this section to the effect that no corporation should hold exceeding 5,000 acres of land, it would be an end of the whole matter; but when the bill,, while it goes forward and makes specifications, fails to make such a prohibition, the question is, Why does it fail to do so?
Mr. BEVEBIDGE. Mr. President The PBESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. I desire to ask the Senator from Georgia whether, if such a provision was inserted in this bill, limiting the holdings of any corporation of any kind to 5,000 acres of land, it would not be true that a manufacturing corporation under that might own 5,000 acres of land? Mr. BACON. Not at all. There is an express prohibition against manufacturing corporations holding anything except what they actually need for the purposes of their business. If they actually need it, under the bill as it now stands they are authorized to hold it. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. The Senator suggested that there should . be a provision here that corporation holdings should be limited to. 5,000 acres. Mr. BACON. No; I beg your pardon. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. If the limitation was to be effective, per haps, he said. .Then, I will ask the Senator, as a lawyer, accord ing to the very well-known maxim, which he will readily recall, whether, if that limitation was put in the bill, a manufacturing corporation might not own 5.000 acres of land if it wanted to? Mr. BACON. I understand that under the bill, as it now stands^ if a manufacturing corporation needs land in its business it is au thorized to hold it. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. Certainly. Mr. BACON. I understand, under the bill as it now stands, if a corporation needs more than that amount, it is authorized to* hold it. There is no doubt about that, I understand that, with the exception of agricultural corporations, any corporation which needs in the proper and fixed performance of the functions of its corporate powers more than 5,000 acres, it is authorized to hold them. That is true, I think. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. But. Mr. President The PEESIDING OFFICES. Does the Senator from Georgia yield? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. If the limitation that the Senator suggests were put in here, then a manufacturing corporation might own
5314

:7
exceeding 5,000 acres of land, although it did not need It in its business. That is the point.
, Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I am delighted to see the interest which Senators on the Republican side of the Chamber are de veloping m this bill. They hare heretofore been strangely indif ferent to it. They have not only had nothing to say themselves, except when some one of them had a set speech to make, but they have, following the lead of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia [Mr. SCOTT] , considered that there was nothing that could be said on this side which could possibly change any opinion, and they have not listened to what has been said upon this side. I am delighted, although it has subjected me to some little dis arrangement of my argument, to have them suddenly awaken to the fact that there are questions as to which we on this side of the Chamber are entitled to have discussion and explanation from the other side of the Chamber.
I return now, however, to the original proposition which I made, and that is, whereas it was within the power of the framers of this bill to have put the limitation of 5,000 acres upon all corporations, which would have relieved any question as to whether any corporation had any right to hold over 5,000 acres, they have studiously refrained from putting that general limita tion upon it, and have endeavored to show by construction that it is not probable that a corporation will have more than 5,000 acres.
I do not wish to be understood as recognizing the propriety of the 5,000-acre limit, or the explanation of it on that point; that is entirely too much; but I think that the most objectionable part of this proposed legislation is that it affords an opportunity for the exploitation of those islands before the people themselves have the opportunity to say what they w,ish done with them; that the ma jority here are taking advantage of a time when the people huve no voice in the disposition of their properties or in the determination of matters which are to influence and control their future; that in hot haste those now in control of legislation are sacrificing I will not use that word subordinating everything to the passage of this bill, the only feature of which, in which, or by which the law will be changed from its present condition in any material point is that it gives an opportunity for the exploitation of the islands.
That is not all, Mr. President. It is giving a power to this Commission of an unlimited character with reference to the dis position of lands and with reference to the disposition of fran chises which ought not to be committed to anybody, and which ought not even to be exercised by Congress, in my opinion, at this time, before the status of those islands is definitely decided and before the people have been admitted to a participation in their government. It is not simply an^unlimited power which is given, but there is a most remarkable provision in this bill with reference to the rules and regulations which are to be made by this Commission in the disposition of this immense public domain.
It may be that there are some precedents for the peculiar fea ture of the bill to which I now wish to call "attention and which the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts did not think worthy, in his exhaustive explanation, of any comment whatever. That is this: The power of Congress over the public domain is generally considered to be primary. It is generally considered to
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8
be the highest power. This I simply call attention to in passing. These
Begulations shall not go into effect or have the force of law until they have received the approval of the President, by and through the Secretary of War
Why that is put in there it is beyond my imagination to con ceive " By and through the Secretary of War " and they shall also be submitted to Congress
The point to which I wish to call attention is the succeeding part of the paragraph
and unless disapproved or amended by Congress at the nezt ensuing ses sion after their submission they shall at the close of such session have the force and effect of law in the Philippine Islands, when they shall have re ceived the approval of the President, as hereinbefore provided.
In other words, it emancipates the Philippine government from the control of Congress in this most important function of the disposition of this immense territorial domain, for unless there is affirmative action by Congress within the first session these regu lations become law. In other words, if by some chance some of the Senators who do me the honor to give me their attention doubt less think it is a small chance, but still it is a possibility the House of Representatives should pass under the control of the pres ent minority party, the Senate of course remaining under the con trol of the dominant party, although the House of Representatives should disapprove of the regulations thus made, the Philippine Commission would be supreme, and the regulations they made for the disposition of the public lands would be law without the ap proval of Congress and in spite of the disapproval of the House of Representatives. In other words, instead of having the ap proval of Congress, they are simply subject to the negative of Congress, and that negative must be applied during the first ses stihonatof Congress thereafter. Now, if there is a p~r~e~ cedent for
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. I will yield with pleasure, although I should very much like to have the pleasure of hearing the Senator from Indiana in one of his entertaining speeches after I get through. Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator is very kind. He made a re mark a moment ago about Senators on this side, from which I now trust he will exclude me. I have listened with patience and in terest to the speeches on the other side. Mr. BACON. I most cheerfully accord that to the Senator. Mr. BEVERIDGE. And further, I have not made any set speech, but have confined myself to the debates which have oc curred on the spur of the moment. Mr. BACON. That is absolutely true. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I wish to know if the Senator by his last remark means that Congress could not, after the passage of this bill, pass any act with reference to the Philippine Islands? Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly not. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I am afraid the Senator did not weigh his last remark. Mr. BACON. I do weigh it. I say that upon so grave a mat ter as the disposition of all the public lands in the Philippine Islands, there oijght to be the approval of Congress of whatever is done by the commissioners, and I say this bill does not provide
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.9 for the approval of Congress, but, on the contrary, makes what is doae by the commissioners final unless at the first session of Congress there shall be a disapproval by Congress. Now, I have weighed those words, and I think they are correct words when weighed. I do not know whether or not the Senator from Indi ana heard me.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. I will say that my attention was tempo, rarily diverted by a remark made to me by our mutual good friendthe Senator from Massachusetts, and I will be very glad indeed to hear the Senator repeat his remark, because he never does it.
Mr. BACON. I will, for the benefit of the Senator from Indi ana. It may not be necessary to repeat it in the RECORD.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. No. Mr. BACON. I said {hat in the disposition of this immense public domain there ought to be either the direct action of Con gress, which should prescribe the manner in which it should be done, or there ought to be the approval by Congress of the acts of those, to whom this duty is delegated; that this provision of the pending bill does not require either. It takes the matter away from Congress, it delegates it to the Commission, and does not make it subject, so far as a requirement would go, to the ap proval of the Congress; but it provides that when they have made a rule, if it shall be approved by the President, in the ab sence of the approval or disapproval by Congress, the immense public domain shall be disposed of according to the individual judgment t>f the several commissioners. Mr. BEVERIDGE. You mean their collective judgment? Mr. BACON. Individual and collective. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Yes. Mr. BACON. That is the criticism which I make, and if there is a precedent for that in the administration of the disposition of the public domain, I am not informed of it. I may be in error in that regard, but I am not in doubt as to one proposition, and that is if there is a precedent for it it is open to the same criticism I make upon this, and that it is not a proper thing to do. Mr. President, there are a great many things in the bill which I could spend time in discussing. I will allude to two or three only, because I want to talk about some other matters, and I would have been at it a half hour ago if the suggestion I made had" not attracted the antagonism of Senators on the other side of the Chamber. I said there were one or two qualifications to the general state ment which I had made that this bill conferred no governmental powers which were not already found in existence under the civil government organized under the war power and under the civil government authorized by the Spooner bill, except as to these matters of the public lands, timber, minerals, and franchises. Now, there are these several changes in the proposed law. It makes the commissioners, hereajter appointed by the President, subject to confirmation by thelfcnate: but the important fact, so far as I am able to ascertain, is that there is jio limitation to the terms of the present commissioners and that this measure confirms them in their office without limitation. It appoints them for life. If I am incorrect in that respect, I shall be very glad to be corrected. It also provides that the highest court shall be composed of judges who shall be confirmed by the Senate. In the hasty ez-
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aminationrwhich I have been able to give, I may also be in error in that regard, but as I read it, there is no limitation upon the terms of those judges, and therefore this proposed act tends to the confirmation for all time of those judges now in office. But those are minor matters. As I have said, those are things which are not urgent.
The urgent feature of the bill is that which confers upon the civil government the power to dispose of the properties of which I speak, in the disposition of which there is the opportunity for the exploitation of the islands. I will call attention in this con nection to the Spooner bill.
The Spooner bill as originally introduced in Congress was on& which had no limitation upon the power of exploitation, and that bill was not only introduced in Congress but it was pressed under whip and spur. Everything was subordinated to it. We were threatened with extra sessions and everything else if it were not passed, and when it was passed, and the provision was put upon it which limited the power of exploitation, it was immediately dropped as a useless piece of furniture, and there has never been any action taken under it.
There has never been any government organized under it. When this provision was put upon it, offered by the senior Sena tor from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAE] , all interest in the bill ceased. As originally introduced it gave to the President the most unlim ited power to organize any government which, in his opinion, might seem to be fit and proper. There was no limitation upon his powers. Life, liberty, property, franchises everything which could be imagined within the range of governmental power was confided in the President. It was a most important and valuable bill as long as it stood in that shape, but this provision was put upon it.
That no sale or lease or other disposition of the public lands or the timber thereon or the mining rights therein shall be made: And provided further,. tipoTsmhufohecsmaththppteefoendronoiaUapenftnldcreeiahtunetgihsndcoeethvsirSileesstroethanhftas,meelhslaea,etnnleasldtrtnabmodwbefilhingitssiharchnatehmeonittosecelnnaaidennnt doywhsnfeiohasptair,cenjahurwdmfditiisgetanhmrnndooetieuhsntnptetatepgecncpsirsveltraeaioablabtvlrlgeelipysodfunvonbmberelyricenctenhtmhstemseeoainifsrPntycs;truheefacirosenheirfdas,ptteehbanorleetfl manent civil government.
When that amendment was put upon the bill it ceased to be of value, and it has rested in the archives of this Government from that day to this as a piece of worthless paper.
I remember, sir, that when the Spooner bill was pending in the first session of the Fifty-sixth Congress we had from those in civil office in Manila cablegrams to the effect that it was extremely important that the Spooner bill should be passed as quickly as possible. It rested during that session of Congress, and it was not passed. It was taken up in the short and last session of the Fifty-sixth Congress and put through, as I said, under whip and spur, and when in the last moment this amendment was put upon it all interest in it ceased, and there has never been anything done under it since that time.
Mr. President, I will not say that Senators have a purpose in this matter, because that would be offensive to them, and I will not say it outside of the fact that it would be offensive to them, but I do say that the effect of this proposed legislation is what I have described. The effect of this proposed legislation found in the pending bill, and its only material effect, is to put in the power of those who wish to exploit these islands the opportunity
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for this exploitation, which does not exist tinder the present law.
Now, sir, there are a great many reasons why this should not be done. I have suggested that it is not a proper thing to do while this embryonic condition lasts, while these people are not in a position to say what they want done with their own country, and the property and franchises of their own coun try; and. I wish to call the attention of Senators to the fact that so high an authority as General MacArthur himself says that a provision which promotes the opportunity for the exploitation of the islands will defeat the very purpose which they say they have in view in the passage of this bill, and that is to promote the pac ification of the islands.
I read from page 887 of the hearings before the Philippine Com mittee, it being a part of General MacArthurs testimony. The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. CAKMACK] is asking him a question:
I mean people selected by the Filipinos themselves and an assembly shar ing the government those men selected by the Filipinos themselves when it comes to the matter of granting franchises for railroads and things of that sort and for distributing the public lands.
General MAcAKTU uit. I should like to see that thing deferred as long as possible, except in one instance, and that is in regard to railroads. All other franchises I should like to see held in abeyance until the evolution has pro gressed a little further. Bailroads are essential for everybodys interests.
The part which I read now comes before that. It is on the pre ceding page, 876:
Senator CABMACK. General, in one of your reports I have forgotten which one now, whether it was your first or your later report you speak of the bad effect upon the people its effect as being a great obstacle to the paci fication of the islands of the effort toward too rapid exploitation or the country. I would be glad for you to tell the committee a little more about that what you meant by that statement.
General MACARTHUR. I stated pretty clearly in my report that one of the great apprehensions of the people there is that the effect of exploitation will be to deprive them of their resources and relegate them eventually to a posi tion of social inferiority, about which they are very sensitive.
Then comes the part which I have just read, in which he says that he thinks that exploitation of the islands will tend to prevent their proper pacification. - I repeat, I do not intend to charge any purpose upon Senators; I acquit them of purpose; but I want to say to them that the hungry vultures which expect to strike their talons into this prey have been wheeling and circling about this Capitol, and during this debate have perched in the galleries of this Chamber.
Mri President, I had no idea of occupying so much time upon these features of the bill. I was led to do so and I have not more than touched some of its important features by the fact that the statement had been made to the Senate that there had been an exhaustive explanation of the bill, whereas I do not think any has been made at all, except to call attention to the provisions of the bill, which anybody would find out who had the oppor tunity and the inclinat^n to read it.
But there is no. doubt about it that as to the general features of the bill, outside of the matter of exploitation, everything which was said with reference to the Spooner bill, which gave -unlimited power to a few men over these islands and of the people of the islands, is true as to this, and what is still more important, the limitations upon that bill preventing exploitation are removed, and now there is practically no limitation whatever. When this bill is passed the matter practically passes from the domain of Congress.
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Sir, it is a strange fact that so important a matter as the or ganization of a government for the Philippine Islands should attract so little attention from the Congress of the United States. It is a strange matter that Senators are willing to take a bill and pass it upon the simple recognition of the fact that it is pre sented by their party, and as I have every reason to believe, a great many of them have never even read the bill. I say I have reason to believe it, because numbers have stated to me that they have never even read the bill. They are -willing to take the judg ment of the committee.
The question, What kind of a bill should be passed, is one which should be very largely influenced by the question to which the Senator from Ohio [Mr, FOKAKEB] alluded in his opening remarks in his recent speech on this subject, and that is whether or not it is the purpose of the United States to retain permanent dominion over these islands; whether itis the purpose to maintain, them in a position* of colonial dependency, or whether it is the purpose to invest them with free government.
There has been in this regard a great deal of criticism about the debate on the pending b-11. Senators have said that the dis cussion which has been had on that subject really had noth ing to do with the question as to the kind of government we ought to provide for the people of those islands, whereas the truth is that it is the great central question about which all other questions with reference to the organization of a government for the islands must necessarily revolve. If it is our purpose perma nently to retain these islands, one kind of a government should be framed for them. On the other hand, if it is our purpose not permanently to retain them, if it is the purpose to do what so many Senators said three and four years ago was the intention of this Government, to erect a free government there, then another kind of a government should be framed by us for them at this time.
There is no doubt about the fact that if we are to retain perma nent dominion of the Philippine Islands-there is but one kind of government which we can have for them. If we are to perma nently retain the Philippine Islands it is an impossibility that they can ever occupy any other relation to the people of the United States than the relation of colonies, and their people can only be subjects. It is an impossibility that they can ever have the rela tion of equals with us in this Government. It is an impossibility that they should ever participate with us in the control of this Government. It is an impossibility that they can ever become States. That would involve, with the population they have, 40 or 50 or 60 Filipino Representatives in the other branch of Con gress, according to the apportionment which might be made, and at least two, if not more, Senators in this Chamber, and would in volve 50 or 60 electoral votes. The people of the United States would never consent to that. It is an impossibility.
And, sir, his is no new suggestion. It was the foundation upon which was rested the great opposition which was made to the acquisition of these islands, and that was that it presented to the people of the United States the alternative propositions, if we were to acquire and hold these islands, first, whether they would ever consent that they should be incorporated in our body politic as parts of our self-governing community; and sec ond, whether if that were not done the United States would go into the business of colonial government of people who were not
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and could not be citizens, but who in the nature of things could only be subjects.
Mr. President, I repeat that the proposition made in the begin ning is a vital proposition to-day, and if Senators can see any middle ground, I should be glad for them to point it out. The American people are not divided upon the question whether the Filipinos are to be admitted either now or hereafter into equal participa tion with us in the control of our governmental affairs. They do not propose that the Philippines shall ever be admitted as one or several States of this Union. The real division among us is not as to that determination by the American people.
The real division is as to what shall be done in view of that de termination. You say that the islands should not become a part of the United States and that their people should not be citi zens of the United States, and that therefore the islands should be held as colonies and their people as subjects. We say also that the islands should not become part of the United States and that their people should not be admitted to participation with us in the control of our Government, and that being so, we say we should not hold the islands as colonies but should have no polit ical connection with them. In other words, that we should in an Orderly and proper way, having due regard to all of our obliga tions, give the Filipinos a government of their own.
Unless snap judgment is taken upon the people, unless it is done by some act of Congress some time when the people do not know it and have not the power to arrest it, the time will never come when the people of the United States will consent that the ^Philippine Islands shall become incorporated as a part of our "body politic equal with us in the administration and control of this Government.
That being the case, we are remitted to the proposition that if they are not to be so admitted they must be controlled as colonists and as subjects. Mr. President, the term " subjects " is not a pleasant term in our ears. I have never yet seen any Senator who, in discussing our Philippine policy, meets and answers squarely the question whether a man residing in a subject territory who is denied the rights of citizenship in the sovereign country, denied the privilege of taking part in the Government, can be anything else than a subject.
I know that some of the learned Senators who are to follow me if not immediately, before the close of this debate can solve that question, if anybody can, and I would be delighted to hear from them a discussion of that proposition and to have them say whether or not it is correct, and whether any man who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, living in a part of the territory, if you please, of the United States not incorporated as a part of the United States, who is denied the rights of citizen ship. can be anything else but a subject, and if so, what is the relation which he
If it be true that it is our purpose to hold this people in colonial dependence under circumstances which make it impos sible that they can ever be admitted with us in equal partici pation in the control of this Government, then it is an important fact to be ascertained and to be considered in determining the question what kind of a government we shall give them. If uiat is our purpose, then our attention should be directed to the framing of a government which shall have that end in view.
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If we are going to be permanently committed to a colonial career, if we are going, to be permanently committed to- the proposition of holding people as subjects who shall never be citizens,-then let us in an intelligent way address onrselves to the proposition as to what kind of government it shall be which we shall give them, having that purpose in view.
But if, on the other hand, we have the high and the noble pur pose which was entertained and expressed by leading members of the Senate at the time of the acquisition of these islands to estab lish them in their own nationality and to give them free govern ment, then now is the time for us to act upon that purpose, and we should in acting upon that purpose do one of two things. If the time has not come when we can safely start in that direction, then we should have now no legislation.
I recollect when the Senator from Wisconsin in a speech in the Senate said that we would not be in a position to legislate for these islands until a committee of Congress had gone to the islands and had correctly informed themselves and were prepared to inform Congress of the conditions there. I thought the state ment of the Senator was eminently wise, and with a much better knowledge of conditions now I am convinced that there should be this investigation and report by a Congressional committee before we attempt to legislate for the islands. But I submit as sound another proposition.
Unless we have made up pur minds that we intend to hold these islands as permanent colonial dependencies of the Government, one of two things ought to be done. We either ought to let things stay as they are in the control of the civil government, of which we have heard so many very flattering accounts or we ought to begin with the formation of a government, out of which there shall be ultimately evolved the free government which we design for this people.
So I submit, Mr. President, that the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKBE], while he was not, as I thought, taltogether correct in his conclusions as to the particular influence which the decision of that question would have upon us, was entirely correct in the statement that the question as to what was our intention in refer ence to the ultimate disposition of these islands is a most impor tant question for us to consider in determining what shall be the frame of government which we shall make for those islands.
Now, sir, there is another consideration, one I confess that I do not approach with any degree of pleasure, but still one that I think we can not in any recognition of duty turn away from. The character of the war which is waged there is one necessarily to be considered in determining the question whether we shall Tetain those islands as colonial dependencies of the United States Government.
I will state my reason for that statement. Some of us would be opposed to a colonial government under any circumstances, because we think it is inconsistent with the genius of our institu tions; because we think that any advantages which may result from the colonial system will be far outweighed by the evils which must attend such a system; because we believe that a colonial system is not only inconsistent with our form of govern ment, but that it endangers our free institutions in the fact that those things which are necessary to maintain colonial government -are antagonistic to the fundamental free principles upon which
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our Government was formed, and upon which it has heretofore rested. So. under any circumstances there are those of us who would oppose the formation of any colonial government or the holding of colonies as dependencies.
But there are others, Mr. President, who might favor colonial government if it were not attended by any horrors or atrocities or cruelties, who would be opposed to it if colonial dominion can only be secured and maintained by such atrocities and such cruel ties as we can not-ppssibly approve.
Therefore, sir, it is most important when we come to the ques-. tion as to whether or not we will maintain colonial government in the Philippines to consider what has been the means necessary in order to set up the authority of the United States there to crush out opposition to that authority and what will be the means necessary in order to maintain hereafter the authority of the United States.
The experience which we have had there in that regard teaches a lesson which can not be misunderstood. That lesson ia that the subjection of inferior races is always accomplished only through the much shedding of blood, and that after it has been accom plished such dominion is only maintained through the continued repetitions of the shedding of blood. It is a dominion which is only maintained through the drawn sword. There is nothing new in this. The lesson now presented to us has long since been learned by other nations.
I do not desire, sir, to say anything to the disparagement of the English people, and what I now say has no such purpose. With her colonies England has girdled the globe, and the shed ding of their blood is with her a daily work. Most of these are of inferior races, and it is doubtless true that not in many dec ades has the sun arisen on its mission of life but before it has set it has witnessed the shedding by England of the blood of the people of foreign lands which it thus dominates; and within a time not long ago there was one day when the blood of over 13,000 of those people was shed in order to maintain this policy of the British Government.
It so happened that last year I was at Aden, in Arabia, a Brit ish fortress. The first news that we had on landing was that an expedition of British troops had been sent to attack some Arabs in an adjoining province who had defied the British authority, and while we were there the expedition returned, bringing its wounded swinging on the backs of camels, their dead left out on the sand, their blood mingled with that of the Arabs whom they had slain in their expedition.
As I said, I do not say this, Mr. President, in disparagement of the British people. They are among the most civilized and Chris tian people of the whole earth. But it is an absolute essential of the success of the colonial policy of their Government. There may be some excuse for them, because they are upon a little island and they have to go out to the world. Shut up in their own island, they would famish. But there is no excuse for us.
"We have had in the past four years an unfortunate amount of the same experience, and if we are to continue in it; if we are to continue in the policy of colonialism; if we are to endeavor to hold inferior races against their will, it will be necessary for the American people to hold up their hands every day and repeat the prayer of David to be delivered from blood-guiltiness.
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Mr. President, I do not desire to discuss at length the subject which we have heard discussed so much of late in this Chamber as to the cruelties and atrocities which have been perpetrated in the Philippine Islands by our troops, and I only allude to it for the purpose of drawing a lesson. I only allude to it for the nurpose of drawing the lesson which I have already stated that it is an invariable, if you please, a necessary, feature of colonial gov ernment, of the domination of inferior races by the superior race, of holding them in subjection against their will, that there shall be continued bloodshed and the opportunity and the exercise of the most shocking cruelties and barbarities.
We have all been shocked at these atrocities and cruelties. I thought at one time I would be able to say that there was no one who would justify and defend them, but I am compelled to say that in this Chamber some have come perilously near it. I want to ask Senators what is the difference between Senators on that side of the Chamber and this? No, I will not put it that way, Mr. President, because it ought not to be that side of the Chamber and this side. What is the difference between Senators who approve of the Philippine policy as it is now exercised and those who disapprove of it on the question of these atrocities?
Of course we know there are vast differences between us as to other matters, but I want to put my finger on the point. What is the difference between Senators who are in favor of the colonial policy and the domination of this people against their will and Senators who are opposed to that policy and who are opposed to the domination of the people against their will? What is the dif ference between those two classes of Senators on the question of these atrocities?
Do Senators approve of the atrocities there? I can answer for them that they do not. There is not a Senator who will rise in his place and say here that he approves of them. If Senators do not approve of them, by what right do they condemn those who utter their disapproval of them? Would Senators, if these atroci ties have been committed, prefer that they should not be disclosed? Would Senators, if those atrocities have been committed, prefer that there should be still opportunity and license for their con tinuance through their being undiscovered and unknown, or would Senators prefer, the atrocities being perpetrated, that they should be known? And being perpetrated and being known, would Sen ators prefer that they should be condemned, or would they prefer that they be justified and approved?
Is there an issue of fact between Senators on the other side of this question and ourselves? If there is, there is room for argu ment. If we charge the atrocities and they deny tljem, then there is room for question. But when there is no dispute as to the atrocities, when there is no question of fact, the only question is, What shall be our utterance in view of the admitted facts?
Shall we justify and applaud them? If we are to justify these acts, then we are to say that torture, cruel, physical torture, even unto the vergeof death, in order to extort information, is justifiable. If we are to justify them, then we are to say that in order to compel the coming in and the surrender of the insurrectos in the moun tains, who can not otherwise be reached, it is right to kill and destroy the noncombatant population, to burn all their cities and towns, to destroy all their food supplies, and to make the land a howling wilderness. If Senators do not justify these acts, what
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is the explanation of their vehement assault upon Senators who eondemn them? If they justify them, let them say so plainly and defend them as right and proper. If torture terrible and many times inflicted be not right, and if Senators are not ready to say so in plain, unmistakable language, then the attention of the Sen ate is not to be diverted and the ears of the American people are not to be stopped by the uproar and din of declamation concern ing the honor and glory of the Army.
Now, do Senators differ with us, in view of the fact of these ad mitted atrocities, as to whether or not they should be approved or condemned? If they are approved, what is the effect? If they are approved, then it is not the act of a part of the Army, but it is assumed as thaactof the whole Army and defended as a proper act. Are Senators ready to take that position? If, Mr. President, they are approved, is there any difference between the guilty and the innocent? If they are approved, is there any vindication of the innocent? Can there be any vindication of the innocent ex cept in the condemnation of the guilty?
Sir, who is the friend of the Army? I ask these Senators who assume to be the defenders of the Army the question, Who is the defender of the Army, the man who denounces these atrocities and say.s they are tinworthy of the Army, and the man who denies that they are acts of the Army, and who says that they are the acts of an unworthy part of the Army? Is he the friend of the Army, or is the Senator the friend of the Army who de fends the acts and makes no distinction between the guilty and the innocent?
What right have Senators to stand here and assume that they represent the Army? Those of us who represent the policy against colonialism belong to no section. We represent no section. We are here from North and from Soiith, from East and from West. I am glad to say that we are not even confined to one party, and I wish to God it were so that there were nothing to indicate party lines, because it is a question more important than party.
By what right do Senators assume that they represent the Army? Have they any greater interests in the Army than we? Their sons, their brothers are in the Army; so are ours. The sons of their neighbors, and their neighbors themselves, are in the Army; so are ours, and the honor of that Army and of those sons, and brothers, and neighbors is as dear to us as it is to them. The honor of that Army can not be held dearer by them than it is by us, and the honor of the flag it bears can not be dearer to them than it is to us.
They will not rush to its defense more promptly or more eagerly than will we. Their sacrifices in its defens_e will not be more freely made than will our own. To maintain, to keep it high advanced on every field, those of us representing, I repeat, not one section, but all sections, who are opposed to this policy and who denounce the atrocities which have grown out of it, are as ready as they when that flag is in trouble or in peril to pour out our blood and our treasure, not only in equal amount or pro portion with theirs, but without stint and without measurement. Senators on the other side of this question can say no more for themselves or for their people. Who dares take issue with the truth of this statement?
Mr. President, Senators who stand here and denounce these acts and denounce the perpetrators of them, and who claim that
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they are the acts of an unlicensed minority who have simply had the opportunity given them by this pernicious policy, and that they are not the acts of the great body of the American Army, are the friends and the champions of the Army, and not those who simply shelter themselves behind a general defense of the acts and draw no distinction between the innocent and the guilty.

.Now. sir, I know a great many of those soldiers; I know a great

many of those officers. I am not hazarding anything in saying

that there are just as many from my State in proportion to the

population as from any other State of the Union, and the honor of

those men and those officers, some of whom have in their veins my own blood, is as dear to me and to others who stand like I do as it is to those who are opposed to us.

We denounce these acts, Mr. President, not against the Army,

but in the name of the Army, and we denounce them in order that

the innocent men who are above any such thing should not be

confounded with the guilty. We denounce these acts in the name

of the Army in order that those whose authorization of and ac

quiescence in their perpetration, be they high or low, may be ar raigned before the great bar of public justice and adjudged in the high court of the American conscience.
Are these atrocities right? If they are, no defense is needed; all

that is necessary is to say that they are right. If they are right, there is no need why anybody should be court-martialed or why a

cablegram should go across the waters directing that they should

be court-martialed. If they are right, then simply say so, and

defend them and assume them as the acts of the Army. If they are wrong, condemn them, and condemn those who perpetrated

them and let the innocent be vindicated. Now, it will be said, if that is so, what application has the per

petration of these fiendish tortures to this question? What appli

cation has it to this question if they are simply the acts of an

unbridled and unlicensed minority? Well. I say that is exactly what I conceive them to be, and the application which I make of it is that we, a free, liberty-loving people, we, the great expo

nents of republican institutions and free institutions, by sending

an army across the ocean to another hemisphere to subjugate and

dominate a weak people of an inferior race, have given the oppor

tunity for these acts of atrocity and-outrage. And further, Mr.

President, the great fact for the consideration of the American

people and to be in the present moment applied by them is that

the continuance of this policy of colonial subjection and domina

I

tion gives license and opportunity in the future for the practice of these atrocities.
Mr. President, I submit to Senators that they have not been

entirely candid with the Senate and with the country in the dis

cussion of this question. Senators have discussed the question

whether or not torture was a legitimate retaliation, when torture

and outrage had been inflicted by others, against whom this tor ture is now directed. The greater part of the speech of the Sena tor from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] was taken up with a recita tion of the outrages which had been committed by the Filipinos.

Well, who defends them? Who does otherwise than execrate

them and condemn these atrocities?

It is possible that there may be such an outrage perpetrated

that the party suffering the outrage, or his friends, may be driven

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by madness to retaliate. He may be even driven to-torture, for which, while there can be no excuse, there may be palliation under such.circumstances. But unfortunately for Senators that was not the question. That was not the question, and Senators evaded the true question in the case. The evidence which is upon our tables, taken by the Philippine Committee and I am going to speak about no facts outside of what have been brought here by testi mony was not as to torture inflicted in retaliation, but as to torture inflicted for the purpose of extorting information and extorting confession.
Now, I ask Senators they have ample time for reply is there any justification or palliation for torture inflicted for the purpose not of retaliation, but of extorting information or extorting con fession?
That is the question. That is the evidence which is piled up here. Evidence is piled up here that the torture has been inflicted not for retaliation, not in the heat of blood to avenge an outrage, but for the purpose of extorting information and for the purpose of extorting confession. If that is right, Mr. President, let us have the manhood to say so. If it is wrong, let us have the equal manhood to sav so, and let us in the pursuit of this matter take such steps as will find out and condemn the guilty and thus vin dicate the innocent. If it is right, then we have gone back to the days of the thumbscrew and the rack. If it is wrong, the ears of the American people are not to be stopped by an uproar as to the honor of the Army.
Senators admit the atrocities, but set up the honor of the Army. The attitude of Senators on the other side would seem to be this: The American Army has achieved great glory and honor in the past. It has achieved great glory and honor in the Philippines. It is true that cruel physical tqrture to extort information is wrong. It is true that it has been largely practiced by some of the army in the Philippines. It is wrong to burn and to devas tate a whole country; it is wrong to kill and burn indiscrimi nately and to convert the land into a howling wilderness. It is true all this is wrong and that all this has been done in the Phil ippines; but nothing must be said about it; there must be no word of condemnation, because the Army has achieved honor and glory. When, in answer to the charge of atrocities, the cry of the honor of the Army is raised, this is what it means and nothing more.
I repeat, we stand for the real honor of the Army for the honor of the part of it that has been guilty of no dishonor and in endeavoring to saddle this upon the guilty and to vindicate the innocent we are doing more for the honor of the Army than Senators who simply propose to make no distinction between the innocent and the guilty and ascribe everything that is said on this subject to an attack upon the Army.
Mr. President, regardless of what we may think about the Philippine question, regardless as to whether we approve of the war in the Philippines or not, we all of us accord full meed of praise to the soldiers who are there doing their duty. It is not for them to ask questions as to the cause in which they fight. It is for them simply to obey orders. The American Army has achieved honor not only elsewhere, but in the Philippine Islands. I stand here, Mr. President, not claiming any special right to de fend the Army more than others, but I do stand here to avow my
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championship of men whom I know in that Army whom I believe incapable of the atrocities which have been charged against some of them.
Sir, there is a very much more serious question to my mind in this Philippine question than the water torture. When we are ar raigned before the bar of public opinion as we necessarily must be on the question of our responsibility for this torture, this going back three hundred and odd years to torture for the purpose of extorting information and extorting confessions when we are arraigned for that. I say! before the bar of public opinion the world over, our reply is going to be. and properly, that this was not an act authorized by those high in command: that it was done either by individuals or by small detachments under the charge of subordinate officers, and that we reptidiate it and condemn it.
That is going to be the reply. There is nothing else to save our own conscience. But the rejoinder will be that we ought not to have put ourselves in a position where this shame and dishonor could be brought upon us because it is a shame and a dishonor even though done without our authority. It is a shame and a dishonor that it is done, but it is a tenfold greater shame and dishonor if done and not condemned by us. In any event the stain is deep, but it is indelible if we do not disclaim it and con demn it. But, as I say, that is our reply. We need not think we are going to escape the judgment of history. We have got to meet this charge at the bar of history just as Spain has had to meet at the bar of history the charge of the atrocities committed by the Duke of Alva. That is to be our reply. Whether it is a good defense or not, it is the defense we will make.
I join in making it, and I join in making it with more confi dence because I condemn these acts and I condemn their perpe trators, and because I seek to vindicate those who are innocent of any participation in these crimes. I make the defense with the more confidence because I disclaim it for the Army, and I make it with a consciousness of fault in the fact that we nave given the opportunity for these crimes an opportunity always embraced in every similar condition the world around whenever people put themselves in a position of turning out to take possession of peo ple against their will and of dominating inferior races and con trolling them by the sword.
But, Mr. President, I say there is another feature of this case that is a very much more serious one, to my mind, than the tor ture feature, and the answer that we thus make, and will make, at the bar of public conscience, the answer which we will record in the annals of history for arraigned we will be, and plead as we must is that which I have indicated. But there is another feature in which I am afraid we can not make that plea or sus tain it if we do make it.
I think that the question of our responsibility for the recon centrado camps and all that goes with the reconcentrado camps is a very much more serious question than the question of water torture or any other torture inflicted by individuals or small de tachments, because there is no possible escape from the fact that the reconcentrado policy has had the direct acquiescence and ap proval of those in authority, and whatever goes with that neces sarily devolves as a responsibility upon those who have thus authorized it and justified it. The burning of houses, the dev astation of a country, the destruction of all food crops in a country, the driving of the people out of wide areas into re-
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stricted bounds, can not be done by individuals, it can not be done by small detachments, but it must be done under general authority.
Not only so. but we have here the orders of the generals in the field authorizing and directing the creation of reconcentrado camps and prescribing the details under which they shall be or ganized and maintained. We are apt to think about the reconcentrado camps simply in connection with sufferings which may be endured by those within the camps and, in the case of the Cuban reconcentrado camps, where there was not food, then, of course, all the added horrors of that tropical climate constituted one of the features of the reconcentrado camps; but the greatest horror and the greatest suffering which are occasioned by the re concentrado camps is not the horror and the suffering within the camp but the horror and the suffering without the camp.
When a general prescribes a certain limited area, within which he says all the people must congregate, there must be the cor responding direction which will enforce that order, and the cor responding direction is that everything outside of those prescribed limits shall be without protection, and both as to property and life be subject to destruction. Only in that way can people be carried within the limits of the reconcentrado camps.
It is because life is unsafe out of them; because life is almost certain to be sacrificed out of them; because all property left out side is to be destroyed; because all houses are to be burned; be cause the country is to be made a desert waste; because within a camp is a zone oi life and without the camp a widespread area of death and desolation. That is what a reconcentrado camp means. Do you suppose, if there is an invitation to people to come within a reconcentrado camp, that they are going to come there unless they are forced there? Is there any way to force them except to say that it is death to remain outside?
Why, Mr. President, when the limited area of a reconcentrado camp is prescribed, the people can not be collected and driven in there. The soldiers can not go out and find them and drive them in as you would a drove of horses. It is only by putting upon them this order, this pressure of life and death that they are made to flee within the limits of the reconcentrado camps to escape the torch and the sword that destroys all without. When a general prescribes a reconcentrado camp and I am going, before I get through, to read Bells order to show that that is what it means when a general prescribes a reconcentrado camp, he practically says that everybody outside must come inside or die; he practi cally says to his soldiers, those who do not get inside shall be slaughtered; and the practical operation is that those who do not get inside are slaughtered.
Mr. President, I want to read to you a description of a recon centrado camp. I will say that this letter is written by an officer whom I know personally, and for whom I vouch in my place in the Senate as a high-toned man and a courageous and chivalric officer, one who does his duty regardless of whether he approves of the cause in which he is told to fight or not, and one in every way worthy of confidence and esteem. This was a letter written by him with no injunction of secrecy in it, because he had no idea or thought that it would ever be made public. I make it public now simply for the information of the Senate, in order that they may have some idea of what a reconcentrado camp is.
I omit the name of the place from which the letter was written
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for the same reason that I omit the name of the officer. I will not say any more of him than that he is a graduate of West Point and a professional soldier. I will state further that there is some allusion in the letter to vampires. A vampire in those islands is a bird about the size of a crow, which wheels and circles above the head at night and which is plainly visible at night. As I have said, I know the officer personally and vouch for him in every way. Senators will see from the reading of this letter that it is simply the casual and ordinary narration of a friend writing to a friend. He says:
On our way over here we stopped at in peaceful to leave our sur plus stuff so as to get into
1 have left out these names
light shape, and as we landed at midnight there they werent satisfied with "boles and shotguns, but little "brown brother actually upon us with "brass cannon in that officially quiet "burg under efficient civil government. What a farce it all is.
That is his comment on that fact.
Well, consider, 10 miles and over down the coast, we found a great deposit of mud just off the mouth of the river, and after waiting eight hours man aged to get over the bar without being stuck but three times and the tug drew 3 feet.
Then S miles up a slimy, winding bayou of a riveruntilat 4a. m. we struck a piece of spongy ground about 311 feet above the sea level. Now you have us located. It rains continually in a way that would have made Noah mar vel. And trails, if you can find one, make the "Slough of Despond " Ee.:m like an asphalt pavement. Now. this little spot of black sogginess is a recon centrado pen, with a dead line outside, beyond which everything living is shot.
This corpse-carcass stench wafted in and combined with some lovely mu nicipal odors besides makes it slightly unpleasant here.
._Up_o,n_,.a.,r.r_iv_a..l..I,_f.o. u_n,d._3_0. cxa_s,e._s o._f__sm__allpo^x .a.nd.,.aveAratgneigfrhetsfhalol ncelosuodfs5oaf er the dead.
Mosquitoes work in relays and keep up their pestering day and night. There is a pleasing uncertainty as to your being holoed before morning or being cut down in the long grass or sniped at. It seems way out of the world without a sight of the sea in fact, more like some suburb of hell.
If that is a suburb of hell, Mr. President, what must hell be! That is a description that applies to more than one, and if you would order an investigation of what has occurred in the Philip pine Islands it would, I have no doubt, be found that that was a picture of many. Talk about the hardships of the American sol diers! We do not know anything about them unless we go there and see what they are going through with; and I say it is doubly an outrage if men who are subjected to lives of that kind have to be confused and contaminated with the wretches who have dis honored their uniform in the perpetration of these atrocities of which we hear everyday; and it is for those honorable men whom I know that I have raised my voice to-day in condemnation of the perpetrators of these outrages, in order that the innocent may be vindicated and justified and relieved from the imputation of par ticipation in acts that would disgrace not only barbarians, but the very devils in hell themselves.
I say I read that in order that we might have some idea of what a reconcentrado camp is, and the picture of one is in the main feature doubtless a picture of all, with, probably, the small pox in one case but not in another, with a healthy camp in one case and not in another, etc.; but it is a picture of all as to being a limited zone of life surrounded by a wide area of absolute death and desolation.
Am I right or am I wrong in saying that the question of the responsibility- for the reconcentrado camps is infinitely greater and more serious than the question of the responsibility for these
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outrages of the water torture or any other kind of torture? In one case it is the act of the unlicensed minority, for whom we disclaim all responsibility except that we have given them the opportunity to do these things, and for whom we can disclaim any further responsibility unless we continue by the pursuance of this policy to give to this element the opportunity for the per petration of these atrocities.
But when we come to the reconcentrado camps, when we come to plead at the bar of the great conscience of the civilized world, we can not put in any such plea. We can not plead that this was without authority; we can not plead that this was done by some straggler or some indiscreet young lieutenant and a detachment under his command. We are obliged to plead that we did it, and then put in a plea of justification, if we can find it.
It is not pleasant, Mr. President, to talk about these things. I said that when I began. God knows there is not a word that I utter that does not give me pain, and which does not bring a tinge of shame to my cheek. If there were no duty connected with it. I would rather cover it all up out of sight. I would rather, Mr. President, like the dutiful son told of in the Bible story, walk backward that I might not see the nakedness, and cover with my own mantle the shame and the dishonor. But, Mr. President, there is a duty in the matter, a high duty, a duty not to be ignored. What is the duty? The duty is not in the wholesale condemnation of the Army; the duty is not in the justification of those who perpetrate these wrongs; the duty is in the denial of them as the acts of the Army and the denuncia tion of them as the acts of the minority, so far as the water tor ture is concerned the exposure and condemnation of the guilty and the vindication of the innocent.
What is the duty as to the reconcentrado camps? I know of no duty that we can perform relative to them, except that of pre senting a lesson to the people of the United States in order that they may learn, not only now, but as to all time in the past and for all time in the future, that the domination of inferior races, the holding of weak and unwilling people in unwilling bondage by the terror of the sword has been invariably and will be invari ably the history of successive chapters, all of which are chapters of blood.
I have but one purpose, one desire, in saying a single word upon this painful subject, and that is the hope that some feeble word spoken by me may bring the American people to a realization of that fact, that it may be brought to their serious consideration whether or not they will halt on this path of blood or return to their legitimate sphere as a peaceful, a civilized, and a humani tarian people.
Mr. President, there is but one answer to be made to the fact that this reconcentrado business, with all its unutterable and un speakable horrors, the magnitude and extent and number of whi ch will never be known, for the mountain fastnesses i.nd the jungles will never give up their secrets there is but one answer to be made, and the American people should look that answer square in the face; and that answer is, it was necessary to accomplish the work which their Army was assigned to do. If it was not neces sary in order to accomplish the work, they were acts of unparalleled and unmitigated barbarity, the condemnation of which can not be uttered too loudly or pronounced too emphatically and severely.
But, Mr. President, that is the answer that will be made, that
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24 the task assigned them in that difficult country tinder difficult conditions, with people difficult of identification, and with men who are soldiers and amigos on the samejlay, with secret contri butions, with a people, as stated by the officers of the Army, united, practically unanimous, in their support of what we call insurrec tion there is no way to reach those men except by reconcentrado camps.
I say, "what we call insurrection." It is properly called insur rection, because whether we ever had title to that country or not at one time, we have, according to all the laws of nations now a title a title written by the sword in the blood of that people. There is no doubt about it. We have got now, by the subjugation of that people, a perfect and indefeasible title according to all the laws of war and of nations. So it is " insurrection." It is not always, Mr. President, that such titles are founded in right. I do not undertake to go into that question, but I admit, and not only ad mit, but assert, that the title of the United States to the Philip pine Islands by conquest, if in no other way. is absolute and per fect, and that, therefore, those who oppose the domination of the United States are in insurrection.
And thus so it is, Mr. President, the answer will be made that there is no other way of dealing with the insurrection except by this reconcentrado order. And from these conditions have come the remarkable and astounding evolution that events which had their origin in the utter abhorrence and detestation of the people of the United States with the reconcentrado camps in Cuba have resulted in reconcentrado camps in the Philippine Islands as a necessary policy of the United States; therefore it is that the question is presented directly to the American people, which they should look squarely in the face. Conceding that it is neces sary and there is no other position we can take in honor are the people of the United States ready and willing to continue a policy which commits them not only to the practice, but which demands of them the justification, of the reconcentrado policy with all its horrors?
If we are to continue in that which caused it, we can not es cape by saying that we did not expect this when we went into it. and now it is past; for if it has been necessary in the past it will be necessary again in the future. We may announce that the Philippine question is ended, and all parties in this country may acquiesce in it; we may try to make an end of it; but, Mr. Presi dent, 10,000,000 people, in whom there is an almost absolute una nimity if the soldiers and officers in that country, those who are most directly brought in contact with the people, are to be cred ited in their desires for nationality will bide their time, and there will be insurrections; and those insurrections will present again the same conditions as those that now exist, and there must again be barbarities, there must again be reconcentrado camps, a zone of life and a wide area of death and desolation.
And, sir, so long as there is continued the present effort to hold and dominate against their will 10,000,000 people of a different race strongly imbued, not only with the sentiment of nationality but with the passion for nationality, a sentiment so universal and so strong that they are ready to die for it, so long will there be with us the great issue agitating the American people, Shall we keep them in bondage -or shall we set them free? The cause for this agitation will not end with the crushing out of the pres-
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ent resistance to American authority. With the widespread and deep-seated passion for Filipino nationality evidenced by their struggle of centuries with the Spaniards and by their determined resistance to American rule, each crushing of rebellion, each pacification by the sword will be followed in time by renewed uprisings and in their turn by bloody repressions.
But, sir, I have hope that this condition will not always con tinue. For years, the ears of our people have been deafened by the roar of victorious cannon, and their eyes have been blinded by the glare of successful war. But at last their attention has been arrested. They are beginning now both to hear and to see. If to maintain American rule there must be these recurring scenes of bloodshed, if to enforce subjection there must be the slaughter of the people and the burning of their cities and towns and the destruction of all their food supplies, the hearts and consciences of at least a part of the American people will cry out against the policy of colonial dominion at ao fearful a cost.
Mr. President, I have no excuse or palliation to offer for Pilipinos who have been guilty of atrocities upon American soldiers or upon Pilipiiios who have adhered to the American cause. I have no doubt there have been atrocities and barbarities com mitted by the Filipinos, and for them I have only execration and condemnation. I make every allowance and give every considera tion for harsh measures adopted by American soldiers in retalia tion for such cruelties and outrages. But such allowance and such consideration do nnt furnish the excuse or the palliation set up by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] or the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKER] , for unfortunately for the argument of these -Senators the testimony does not show that the water tor ture has been inflicted to avenge those cruelties and outrages; but it does show its frequent infliction to extort information or to extort confession from the victim. It is a revival of the tortures of the barbaric and middle ages, the purpose of which was by physical torture, by the infliction of inhuman and unbearable physical pain, to wring from the agonized and frenzied victim the confession which was demanded a confession which the poor wretch finally gives regardless of whether it be true or false any thing to be rid of the excruciating agony, anything to stay the hand of the torturer.
Have our torturers in the Philippines equaled the torturers of the bygone age, when they racked the bones and tore the flesh and snapped the quivering nerves? Mr. President, I know not. I turn from it all in unspeakable horror. I sympathize with the soldier who had been in the Philippines and whose testimony was given before the Senate committee and is found printed in their report. He had not looked upon the torture when inflicted,but he could not shut his ears, and he had heard the agonized groans of the victims. Sir, one can understand how cruelty and outrage on the one hand can provoke and in some cases even justify swift vengeance on the part of the other. One can understand how in the fury of retaliation human life may be ferociously destroyed. But, sir, no outrage can justify deliberate and cruel physical tor ture. It is from human weakness, true, that cruelty and outrage inflicted by others may so arouse the mighty passions of hate and vengeance that they constitute a palliation for those who in the fury of their passions inflict physical torture upon the perpetra tors of these cruelties and outrages. If the tortures inflicted in
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the Philippines have been inflicted in the outburst of passion in retaliation for cruelties and outrages perpetrated upon Ameri can soldiers, then the argument of palliation presented by Senators would be good to the extent of palliation. But, I repeat, these tortures have not been inflicted in retaliation for such cruelties and outrages. The testimony in print and upon our desks is that these tortures were inflicted to extort information and confessions.
Sir, is not this a fearful price? Is it a pricfe the magnitude of which the people of the United States realize? Is it not possible to hope that when they see this river of blood and this country blackened and desolated, the-American people will say, " "We will not do that which disregards any obligation, but we will find an honorable and safe path out of this horrible situation?"
Mr. President, I am not going to discuss the question which has been raised as to whether or not the atrocities and the outrages and the enormities and the cruelties which have been perpetrated in the Philippine Islands find their justification in precedents created in our civil war. I am not going to discuss it further than to deny it, and I deny it not only for the Southern army, but for the Northern army also.
Sir, as an humble participant in that mighty struggle, a part of the time in the Army of Northern Virginia. I deny it for the Confederate army; and. sir, when I deny it for the Confederate army, is there any Union soldier here who will deny me the right to deny it for the Union Army? Does the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEB] , a gallant soldier in that Army, dispute the correctness of it when I say there was nothing of that kind within the Union Army? Does the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKEE] , who followed Sherman across my State in the historic march to the sea, take issue with me in making that denial for the Union Army? Or will the venerable Senator from Connecti cut [Mr. HAWLEY] , who bore a generals commission in that war, or the Senator from Vermont [Mr. PKOCTOK] , or the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. QUAY] . or the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. WARREN] . or any other of those who were gallant soldiers upon the Union side, deny me the right to dispute the proposition that any such atrocities were perpetrated by theUnion Army in that struggle?
Mr. President, I have a little excerpt which I will read, from the Washington Post of Sunday last, entitled "A question of national honor," and it is as follows:
Those Republicans in Congress who have seen fit to condone the alleged atrocities in the Philippines by comparing them with the work of Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan during the civil war can hardly be complimented upon their taste or their reg ard for the truths of history. Even if their prop osition had any warrant in fact, the argument would be beneath contempt. An act of barbarism commi tted forty years ago does not excuse inhuman cruelty to-day. As well set up th e bloody Duke of Alva as a screen for Hell Roaring Jako Smith to hide behind.
It is not true, however, that the Union armies in the South, or e yen Quantrells Confederate guerrillas on the Kansas border, ever practi ced such hideous savagery as is charged against certain of our officers in the Philip pines. The accusations in question may or may not be well founded we hope not hut such as they are, true or otherwise, they far exceed in horror anything ever dreamed of in the war of 1801-1805 between the North and South. Every survivor of that tremendous conflict knows that we speak the truth herein. It was a war a desperate and sanguinary war, a struggle of the Titans and death and desolation were its fruits. But it was not a ruth less and barbaric orgie, a carnival of ghouls and flends. To say it is to slan der the living and the dead of both sides the bravest men that ever fought.
War is a fierce and terrible game a game where life is staked against life, a game which arouses and sets ablaze all the passions of all the furies of hell. Where the battle rages its flame con
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Bumes everything in its path. There is no doubt about that. I have no doubt about the fact that after each army, both North and South, there were camp followers who were guilty of outrages, but as to there having been any suspicion of authority for the inflic tion of tortures for the purpose of eliciting information or extort ing confession or any po_ssibility of official acquiescence therein, or as to there ever having been anything like a reconcentrado camp, with its zone of life and its widespread area of death, noth ing of the kind ever occurred in the civil war, and! am prepared here to denounce the insinuation as untrue.
I wish to narrate two little occurrences in that war which in dicate the spirit of those who there contended in that high and fearful drama. One of them relates to our honored friend the Senator from Alabama [Mr. PKTTUS] , and I narrate it by his consent. In one of the battles before Vicksburg he was captured and carried as a prisoner before General Grant. He was then Colonel Pettus, and as he appeared before General Grant, the General said to him, " Colonel, what are those troops put in front of me? Colonel Pettus, with the courtesy which so distinguishes him here, said, General, I must decline to answer that question. General Grant looked him in the eye a moment, and then in a kindly tone said: "You are right, sir, and turning to an officer by his side he said. " Take this gentleman to the rear and treat Mm kindly." That was General Grant.
Mr. President, the other is an incident which I have seen nar rated about General Lee. It comes from Northern sources. I can not give its exact source, but I have no doubt there are many who are familiar with it, as it has been published a number of times. I first saw it in one of a series of war papers published a number of years ago, I think, in Scribners or the Century; I have forgotten which probably in the Century. It was at the close of the battle of Gettysburg, and as General Lee rode from that field, so fateful in the cause of which he was the great pillar and support, he came by a young Federal soldier, a mere boy, lying in the grass wounded. The boy, though wounded and un able to rise, still had in him the fire of battle, and, as he recognized that it was a Confederate general, raised himself upon his elbow and shrieked out a cry for the Union.
General Lee, in that moment of a torture of mind that I pre sume it is difficult for any of us to realize, got down from his horse and went up to the poor boy, laid his hand tenderly upon his head, and said: "My son, I hope you are not much hurt and that you will soon be.well."
There was the spirit with which the North and the South fought in that Titanic war and fought to the death. That there were instances of outrage is true of that war as of all other wars, but in the name of the whole country I deny that they de liberately and avowedly disregarded the laws of civilized warfare and set a precedent for the horrors that have been sworn to as the frequent occurrences in the Philippines. I repudiate the charge, and I hope the American people will repudiate it. I say not only that they have never set and precedent in the past, but they will not approve of or condone it in the present; that they hold the honor of their Army too high to defend the act and thereby assume that it is the act of the Army. But they will stamp upon it as the act of an unlicensed minority of the Army which should be driven from its ranks. That is where the judg ment of the whole American people should put it. There is no
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reason why the aisle in this Chamber should separate Senators in the decision of that question.
Mr. President, it is a difficult thing for me, I confess it may be that I am what may be considered erratic on the subject to understand how anybody can regard the Philippine question as a light matter. It is difficult for me to understand how Senators can regard it with levity, as some of them do. It is a difficult thing for me to understand how some Senators, when this great ques tion is in the balance, can consider it a matter not worthy of their time in order that they may be present in the Senate.
But I have passed over one matter about which I wish to say a word. I stated the fact the most painful and reluctant fact and which I wish most sincerely could be shown was not the fact, that the reconcentrado policy which had been adopted was neces sarily adopted by authority, and I stated that I regarded the reconcentrado policy, with all of its necessary horrible attendants, as on this account a very much more serious matter than the torture business. I stated that in the nature of things it was necessarily a matter within the cognizance of those in authority. But we have more than that. We have the direct authority, sent to the Senate by the Secretary of War, for the statement that they were organized by authority; and I am going to show what that is.
The Senator from Texas [Mr. CULBEKSON] introduced a resolu tion, which the Senate adopted, as a direction to the Secretary of War to send to the Senate certain orders which had been issued in the Philippine Islands relative to the reconcentrado business. I will read the direction. . It is embraced in a letter which the Secretary of War sent to the Senate in response thereto, addressed to the President of the Senate.

WAB DEPARTMENT,

Washington, May 7, 1903,

SIR: I have the dated May 1, 1902.

honor

to

reply

to

the

following

resolution of

the

Senate,

Now it quotes the order.

Resolved, That the Secretary of War be, to the Senate the following information:

and

he

is

hereby,

directed

to

send

Firsts

I beg Senators will mark the particular information called for by the resolution

witcapfiecioensqmFnroeuei,bscriewesioosstrmrhs.cu8eewmWendadeanhtirnnhdbeedeytb9aehy,pyra1eswpu9r,t0rthehoh1treh,avoeveoWerreidnetoacybtrberhedoiyeDevefnehrsesdtuiophm,bfaoebfj,rfieytcmmcaiBawtnaelrdolhijnygofotw.rr.mr-eGhegcceteeehontnihven.eyeecrJdra.ewlntbFehtcyrr.eoeaBtymthfieoohemllnra,wWav,dneaaaaddrrtidbdenDeedrgedeens,pBiswnaaaardphtttamhpentetorgehonaaePvsltrehl:,tdihaslDinteopaeydr ahsitivrmwrsnoeeanaesaavcmvdruSdMsneobeeeeeidiacadfcvff]beaiel"ow,erlsde.tnnysdoiae;Lesotd,nnerbg.n.awdekiy.aWnbvAnhp(deeiotce.npfnhc)winorTo.feworwnp.tsevhyohWAWreett,ieohodltyastaiwefhnorltwbtlheghrehy(Deree,eraecnr,ts)eoeehoWaUprwnaeirasdndntaohrtmiedbrtcotemraeeotarDpdhbodjeuopdeyerenrSrrrpatroto-w-,ttasgrmevaoadirheteftriaoeenmddarrsmtoe;nhtserrioM,deaandi(rsfylltgedats)swrrieucuvthiswreonhhbiadmnhehaisvocgaettbremhCavnynstoeoabthucBrsrrnecbeipeaddreehesieiindd,egttnrehon.psghorrerlGemrwierdrmiecdeaeneesvendeorrio.areftevokhotdJoefeareaidrMfdcbtu,ohoPoytaoortherbhnhddrtroiihHeeleolcriwaeryrip.ors,zsdhpSuleiewaweiwfnmdnrnttteeeteieherootrrsirheeeer;ftr

The Department says:

ha19ne0rdF2e,i9trfo,sr1,to9.wm01eT,wMaredoardje.orcerGedsiesevnere.dsdAtbobdyynaalBtlrhEisget.aW.CtiGohaanerfnfcD.eoeJem,.pcmFaor.amtBmnmdeelealnr,nstdd,oaicnntoegpdthiteheBseoa1ftd7awtinhvghisdaiicsaoh,ynaDoorfefecJtaeahnmnenubePaexnrreyild8,5314

29

tppines. At the same time the following order by General Bell, dated Decem ber 13, 1901, was received at the War Department.

Then there follows in the body of the letter the order of Decem

ber 13, 1901, but the orders of December 8 and 9, which were

specifically called for in the direction of the Senate, are not set

out and are not there printed in the RECORD. Now. whether that

was an inadvertence or not I do not know. I presume it was.

At any rate, the order of December 13 was set out. The orders of

December 8 and 9 were not set out, and thereupon a week there

after the Senator from Texas, noting the fact that the orders had

not been set out, procured them and, by request made of the

Senate, had them inserted in the RBCOBD and they are to be found

in the RECORD of May 18, 1902.

The order of December 13, 1901, is bad enough, but the orders

of December 8 and 9 are infinitely worse. I wish to call attention

to the fact that the order of December 8 is an order directly pro

viding for the creation of reconcentrado camps. It is directly in

the terms which we used to see published four years ago, issued

by Weyler in Cuba. I wish to call attention to the fact, in the

reading of this order, that the implication is plain and un

avoidable that the reconcentrado camps were to be formed,

and that all outside of them was practically doomed to death and

destruction. There is practically little difference between the

order of G-eneral Bell and the order of General Smith, except

that Smith went to the extent of prescribing ages, whereas Bell

did not make such specification.

Now, it will be seen from the reading that it is a clear order

for the creation of reconcentration camps and that the terms of it

plainly imply that outside of that it shall be as it is outside this

camp, the description of which I read to the Senate, an area in

which everything is to be shot, and not only so but an area in

which all property is to be destroyed.

To all Station Commanders:

BATANGAS, December s, 1901.

In order to put an end to enforced contributions now levied by insurgents upon the inhabitants of sparsely settled and outlying barrios and districts "by means of intimidation and assassination, commanding officers of all towns now existing in the provinces of Batangas and Laguna, including those at which no garrison is stationed at present, will immediately specify and es tablish plainly marked limits surrounding each town bounding a zone within which it may be practicable with an average-sized garrison to exercise effi cient supervision over and furnish protection to inhabitants (who desire to be peaceful) against the depredations of armed insurgents. These limits may include the barrios which exist sufficiently near the town to be given protection and supervision by the garrison, and should include some ground on which live stock could graze, but so situated that it can be patrolled and watched. All ungarrisoned towns will be garrisoned as soon as troops be come available.
Commanding officers will also see that orders are at once given and dis tributed to all the inhabitants within the jurisdiction of towns over which they exercise supervision, informing them of the danger of remaining out side of these limits, and that unless they move by December 25 from outly ing barrios and districts with all their movable .food supp ies, including rice. palay, chickens, live stock, etc., to within the limits of the zone established at their own or nearest town, their property (found outside of said zone at said date) will become liable to confiscation or destruction. The people will be permitted to move houses from outlying districts should they desire to do so, or to construct temporary shelter for themselves on any vacant land with out compensation to the owner, and no owner will be permitted to deprive them of the privilege of dotag so.
In the discretion of commanding officers the prices of necessities of exist ence may also be regulated in the interest of those thus seeking protection.
As soon as peaceful conditions have been reestablished in the brigade these persons will bo encouraged to return to their homes and such assistance be rendered them as may be found practicable.
. J. P. BELL, Brioadier-GeneraL ComT 58U

30

Replying to the direction of the Senate in the resolution of May 1, 1903, that he report, among other things, whether the fore going order of December 8 by General Bell and the succeeding order on the next day, December 9, "have been approved or ac quiesced in by the War Department," the Secretary of War in his communication to the Senate of May 7, 1902, says as follows:

The War Department has not disapproved or interfered in any way with the orders giving effect to this policy, but has aided in their enforcement by directing an increase of the food supply to the Philippines for the purpose of caring for the natives in the concentration camps.

There is one expression in that order by General Bell of De cember 8, 1901, which may tend to mislead. I say to mislead; I mean according to my view of its meaning. I refer to that por tion which says:

Furnish protection to inhabitants armed insurgents.

*

*

*

against the depredations of

As if that were to be done for the protection of the people. But that is strangely inconsistent with a subsequent paragraph, in which a limited time is set within which this must be done or else destruction shall follow without. That is on the 8th.
Then, on the 9th, General Bell follows it with an order which it is too long for me to read in full and which I may ask to put in my remarks at length. I will, however, read part of it, and that much of it will go in:
BATANOAS, December 9,1901. To all Station Commanders:

A general ist that the

icnosnuvrircetciotino,nwihnicthhitshebbrirgigadaedecoconmtinmuaens dbeercashuaseretsh,eapgpreeaartsertopeaxrt

of do

the not

people, especially want peace.

the

wealthy

ones,

pretend

to

desire

but

in

reality

He is not speaking there of soldiers, of course. He is speaking of the people those who pretend to want peace.

That when all really want peace we can have it circumstances it is clearly indicated that a policy will as soon as possible make the people want peace,

promptly. Under should be adopted and want it badly.

such that

He is not talking about soldiers. He is not talking about armed people. He is talking about people at home who are pretending to be peaceable and pretending to want peace, and he proposes that what is prescribed in this order shall be perpetrated, not against soldiers, but against the populace.
Then it goes on for a column and a half of fine print with every possible encouragement to license and violence, and enjoining upon the commanding officers not-to restrain the young officers, recognizing the fact that the purpose of the order is that the in nocent shall suffer with the guilty, and that there shall be a gen eral destruction of all within that zone, where it is intended to make them want peace, and want it badly, saying what I shall read.
Now, continuing this order, the first paragraph of which I have read

It is an inevitable consequence of war

This follows the paragraph in which it is said that the purpose is to make the people who pretend to want peace to really want it and to want it badly. Following immediately after the pro vision in the order of the day before requiring that there should be concentrado camps not one, but around every station it proceeds:

It is an inevitable consequence of war that the innocent must generally suffer with the guilty, for wjien inflicting merited punishment upon a guilty class it is unfortunately at times impossible to avoid the doing of damage to some who do not individually deserve it. Military necessity frequently

53H

31
precludes the possibility of making discriminations. This is regrettable, bui lt should be borne in mind that the greatest good to the greatest number can best be brought about by putting a prompt end to insurrection. A short and severe war creates in the aggregate less loss and suffering than benevolent war indefinitely prolonged. For reasons here indicated, which are well known to all, and chief of which is the delay and difficulty in ascertaining the exact truth, it will be impossible to wage war efficiently and at the same time do abstract justice in operations unquestionably essential to putting down an insurrection which has long continued in the territory of this brigade.
Natural and commendable sympathy for suffering and loss and for those with whom friendly relations may have been maintained should therefore take a place subordinate to the doingof whatever maybe necessary to bring a people who have not as yet felt the distressing effect of war to a realizing sense of the advantages of peace.
Another paragraph from this order indicates particularly the class of people to be, with their property, specially devoted to de struction:
Ap^t-er dangerous class of enemies are wealthy sympathizers and con tributors, who, though holding no official positions, use all their influence in support of the insurrection, and, while enjoying American protection for themselves, their families, and property, secretly aid, protect, and contribute to insurgents. Chief and most important among this class of disloyal personsare native priests. It may be considered as practically certain that every native priest in the provinces of Batangas and La Laguna is a secret enemy of the Government and in active sympathy with insurgents. These are abso lutely our most dangerous enemies more dangerous even than armed insur gents because of their unqualified influence. They should be given no exemptions whatever on account of their calling.
Mr. President, read between the lines and taken in connection with the reconcentrado order of the previous day (December 8), what does that mean? What can it mean but an order to every station commander to make a reconcentrado camp, and beyond the limits of that camp to devote to death and destruction all, re gardless whether they are innocent or guilty, or whether they are from kindly relations entitled to commiseration and sympathy. It means a destruction so general that it will involve the innocent as well as the guilty, and that the troops must not be deterred in accomplishing this wholesale destruction by the fact that it will involve and destroy the innocent.
It means the organization of a reconcentrado camp at every post within the territory of that brigade, and beyond it everything is to be destroyed in the way of life and property. There is war rant for the opinion that there is little difference between the order of Bell and the order of Smith. Of the order of Smith the Sen ator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] says in his speech, page 21:
We shudder, and naturally, at the order which is said to have been given, and quoted in the Waller trial, by General Smith.
I wish to read a few sentences from Governor Tafts testimony, which indicate the idea which obtains there as to the extent to which the destruction of property should go. Governor Taft in his testimony, on page 139 of the testimony taken before the com mittee, in speaking about loyalty required in Batangas, the very territory to which this order of General Bells particularly applies, said what I shall read:
Governor TAFT. It would seem to follow Senator CARM ACK. If that were so, then you might excuse such very harsh measures, but only upon that assumption. Governor TAFT. It would seem to follow, and I think it is more true in Batangas than anywhere etee a reasonable presumption that if a mans property exposed to the action, of the insurgents had not theretofore been destroyed by the insurgents, he had some relation to them which prevented it.
What does that necessarily mean? It means that every vestige of property in that district must be destroyed. If the insur gents destroyed it it was evidence that the man was not in sym-
5314

32 pathy with the insurgents, but nevertheless his property was destroyed. If it was not destroyed by insurgents it must be de stroyed by the Americans, because it was evidence that he was in sympathy with the insurgents. Consequently, according to that rule, the absolute destruction of all property must neces sarily follow.
The view stated by Governor Taft was doubtless the view enter tained and acted upon by General Bell and his subordinates in the enforcement of this order in the province of Batangas and elsewhere.
Bight in this connection I wish to say one word about Governor Taft. I know Governor Taft personally and esteem him very highly. Personally he is a most lovable man. I think him a man of very great ability. I believe him to be a man of absolute in tegrity. Of course, Governor Taft, charged as he is with a mis sion in which there is a very fierce contest and a very huge re sponsibility, must necessarily become a partisan, and I think he has become a partisan and that his views and opinions about mat ters in the Philippines are necessarily colored by that fact.
I differ from Governor Taft as to a great many of his views and as to a great many of his conclusions. It has been my fortune to have many long conversations with him, and for that reason I know of the difference there is between us. But as to his integ rity, as to his truthfulness, as to his loyalty of purpose I have not the slightest misgiving, and as to any statement of fact which he would make I would give him the most unlimited credence. As to his judgment, as to his conclusions, the chances are that we would not agree relative to the Philippines. As an illustration, I know that I differ from him greatly as to his views and opinions of conditions in the Philippines, not on account of what I may know personally, because that is necessarily limited, but because of what I have heard from others who have had the most favor able opportunities for correct observation and information in the islands.
I make this statement in justice to Governor Taft becaiise I believe I know him better than most of the Senators in this Chamber at least, on this side of it and from my reading of this that he has testified to, and from my criticism upon it it might be thought that I entertained a different opinion. Governor Taft differs most radically in his views of the situation in the Philip pine Islands from the vast majority of the officers of the Army in those islands. I have no doubt that he is honest in giving his conclusions, but the fact nevertheless exists that as to the situa tion there Governor Taft is an optimist and a very enthusiastic one, and that in that he is at variance with the large majority, almost amounting to unanimity, of the officers of the Army who are scattered through the various islands.
I wish to say also with regard to General Chaffee that I know him personally. General Chaffee is a very stern and rugged soldier, but I believe he is an absolutely honest man, and that he is honest in his purposes to attempt to do his duty as he sees it.
It must necessarily be true that both Governor Taft and Gen eral Chaffee knew of and indorsed this reconcentrado policy. Governor Taft practically says so in his testimony. Those are matters of opinion as to duty with which I most radically differ from them. I have no doubt in the world that Governor Taft and General Chaffee both take their position upon the ground of
63U
JPpi

33

necessity. They can only be justified upon the proposition that

in order to perform the task which was given them this was neces sary.

Personally I do not agree with them as to the necessity justify

ing those means, but in anything I say I do not wish to impugn

the motives or the integrity of either the one or the other. On

the contrary, I wish to bear my testimony to what I believe to be

the integrity and loftiness of purpose of each of these men. I

think they have been placed in a most unfortunate position. I

think that it is the fault of the United States Government that

these men have been brought face to face with a situation where, in their opinion, they either had to adopt the course they have

pursued or stand convicted before the world for the failure of the

task which they had undertaken.

Mr. BAWLINS. Will the Senator permit me?



Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr. BAWLINS. In connection with what he has said in rela

tion to General Chaffee, the Senator having met him personally

and known his character, I will state that I do not think any of us desire to do him any injustice, but I wish to invite the atten

tion of the Senate to the order or letter of instructions given to

General Hughes, and especially to this part of it:

It is to our interest to disarm these people and to keep them disarmed, and any means to that end is advisable.

Prior to this for some two years the torture known as the water

cure had been applied for the purpose of getting information as

to whereabouts of arms. When I read this order of General

Chaffee to General Hughes it seemed to me that it necessarily in cluded a direction to General Hughes to employ torture for the

purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of arms. Perhaps the

Senator can give us some information upon that subject.

Mr. BACON. I certainly could not. If I had it I would not

give it, I could not appear in the Senate as a witness. I will

state, however, that I do not know anything connecting General

Chaffee with torture of any kind. I hope and trust, and until I

have evidence to the contrary, I will believe that General Chaffee himself has not sanctioned the infliction of torture upon anybody for the purpose of eliciting information.

Mr. SPOONEB. That is where the Senator from Georgia dif

fers from the Senator from Utah. Mr. BACON. The Senator from Utah asked me a question, and

I am answering it. I will not believe it, Mr. President. Whether

or not there was such a general notoriety of the fact that this tor

ture was inflicted as to make all officers responsible in a degree

for the continuance of it, in that they did not suppress it, is another

question.

As the Senator asked me about General Chaffee, as I have said,

it is a very serious position to put him in that he had to resort to

measures which were not approved by the American people or to

stand confessed as a failure. I am very free to say that possibly

I would not have so much .pride in a question of success as he. I

would undoubtedly have said to the American people: " It is im

possible to subjugate these people without resorting to these measures, and I will not take the responsibility of doing it."

That is what I would have said, and I wish General Chaffee had

said it.

Mr. President, I will take opportunity to say one or two things

6314----3

34

about General Chaffee that I have heard. I do not know whether they are true or not, but in the hope that they are true I should like to put them into the RECORD. One of them I know is true at least, I have had it from his own lips but not the one I am now about to relate.
It is a known fact that we have upon our statute books a law which says that no officer of the Army shall receive any pay or emoluments I am not quoting the exact language except his pay and such other things as may be provided by law. It is an admitted fact that while in Cuba a number of our officers had been receiving pay in addition to the pay provided by law. I have been informed, and I hope it is true, that when such money was offered to General Chaffee he refused to receive it, and said that the law provided what he should receive and he would take no more. That I have simply heard. I do not know it to be a fact. If it is true, it should go on the record to his lasting honor.
But, Mr. President, I have no doubt about another fact, that in the campaign in China, when other armies and the officers of other armies disgraced civilization by the rioting and the looting and the massacring of the Chinese people, General Chaffee sternly set his influence and his power against it; and while the officers of other armies not only permitted looting, but had the loot collected together and sold at auction and the proceeds divided out, he con demned it without stint and refused to allow anything of that kind to be done by the American army under his command.
Now, Mr. President, I state that because it is due to him. I regret that he has been put into the position he has, and I re gret that he took the view of it which he possibly did take. I have no right to say he took it. I repeat, I would have preferred that he had said, "This work can not be done except by the insti tution of the reconcentrado policy, and I will not permit it."
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. For a question, certainly. Mr. BEVERIDGE. From the splendid reputation which the Senator has given General Chaffee as to his conduct in China, I judge that the Senator does not agree with the Senator from Utah [Mr. RAWLINS] that General Chaffee was schooled in savagery in China? Mr. BACON. I do not know that that is a legitimate question for the Senator to ask me right now. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Of course if the Senator does not want to answer, I will not insist. Mr. BACON. I will state that I have a high respect for General Chaffee, and I have very great confidence in his integrity. I think he has viewed matters differently from what I would view them, and I very much regret that he did not take the other

course.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Mr. President, I presume it is true that there have been pre cautions taken in the Philippine Islands which have not per mitted the famines which occurred in the reconcentrado camps

in Cuba. As I before stated, I can not be led into making any statement
upon my own responsibility, and will not, but I am very anxious that there shall be an examination of this matter and other mat ters connected with it by committees of Congress who shall go

5811

35
to the Philippine Islands. I am perfectly satisfied that a fall .and complete understanding of the situation there and all the oc currences there will never be had from any source until an inves tigation is made in that way.
The impression I have, and to which I directed the attention of the Senate, which horrified me at the idea of reconcentration or concentration if the Senator prefers that word being adopted as the policy of the American Army and justified as a proper method of warfare I say that that impression is not so much as to what occurs in the camp as to what occurs out of it. But I hope, in justice to ourselves, in order that the American people may know what they are doing, in order that they may guide them selves aright and they will guide themselves aright if they know that the Senate and the House of Representatives will see to it that the legislative branch of the Government, through its own members, shall visit the spot and learn the lull truth.
Why, Mr. President, there are a good many little things that are beginning to crop out that cast light on this question. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKEK] the other day read, I think, from Dr. Schunnan a statement of the humanity of the Ameri can Army. I am not prepared to state anything of my own knowl edge, but whenever there is an investigation made I have absolute confidence that it will be found that up to the time and after the time that Dr. Schurman wrote, and while he was there, the methods of warfare which were pursued were the methods of warfare practiced among civilized nations, confined to those meth ods, and that afterwards, for the reasons stated, the conditions were such, the impossibility of dealing with the situation was ;such, that this changed process was adopted.
Now, there is a little matter here which sheds great light on -that.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President, does not the Senator think "that Governor Taft is an equally credible man with Dr. Schunnan?
Mr. BACON. I certainly do. I know Governor Taft, while I do not know Dr. Schunnan.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Governor Taft has also made statements quite as strong as has Dr. Schunnan regarding the humanity of the American soldiers since the time that Dr. Schurman spoke of. So that if Governor Taft is equally credible with Dr. Schurman, and the Senator accepts Dr. Schurmans statement, he is bound like wise to accept Governor Tafts statement.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I am just stating what I believe. I have no doubt Governor Taft stated what he believed. Gov ernor Taft was in Manila; he was not out on the firing line or the burning lines either.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. He has been all over the islands. Mr. BACON. Yes, I know; but, Mr. President, as I say, there .are little matters which drop out which point pretty unerringly to what the conditions are and what the occurrences have been. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] in his speech the other day incorporated something that I had not seen before, which casts some light on this question, about reconcentration and about the zone of death outside of the zone of life, the burn ing of houses, the destruction of life and of property. It is an ex tract from the report of Brig. Gen. J. F. Bell, commanding First District, Department of Northern Luzon, Part 3, Report of Lieu tenant-General Commanding the Army, 1901, pages 84, 35. This I lead from the pamphlet copy of the speech of the Senator from
5314

36
Massachusetts, delivered on the 5th of May, and appearing on page 26. This is what General Bell says in his report:
I have been In Indian campaigns
That was in 1901. Possibly, if the report was in 1901, this was the preceding winter
I have been in Indian campaigns where it took over 100 soldiers to capture each Indian, but the problem here is more difficult on account of the inbred treachery or these people, their great number, and the impossibility of recog nizing the actively bad from the only passively so. If it was deemed advis able
This is the sentence to which I call attention
it it was deemed advisable to pursue the methods of European nations and armies in suppressing rebellions among Asiatics, the insurrection could have been easily put down months ago; even now, although the seeds of rebellion have permeated all classes, such methods would soon put an end to all active insurrection
Sir, what does that mean? It simply means that up to that time the American Army had been pursuing methods recognized as legitimate in warfare between civilized nations. We all know what is meant by the methods pursued by European nations and European armies in dealing with insurrections in Asia. We know the harshness, the cruelties, the wholesale slaughter, and the abso lute indifference to life in the wholesale with which European nations deal with insurrections among Asiatics; and here is the distinct proposition from Q-eneral Bell in his official report.
He practically says we are waging war along civilized lines and according to civilized rules and we can not put down this insur rection; but if you will throw aside these restraints, if you will turn us loose to burn and slaughter and to massacre and to perpe trate all species of cruelty and barbarity known to the history of wars in Asia, we will put down this rebellion and this insurrection. What else can it mean? If it was not intended that there should be a threat of throwing aside the rules of civilized warfare, why make the suggestion? What else can the suggestion mean but that we shall put aside the rules of civilized warfare which had been observed theretofore, and
Come hot from hell, Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.
Mr. President, I do not desire to turn to that branch of the question suggested by Senators, because my purpose in alluding to it was not through any desire to bring condemnation upon these officers. I should be only delighted in every vindication that can be made of them, consistently with what has actually oc curred. But I am not willing that the lesson, which I think should be drawn from this matter, should be lost by failing to mention whatever is necessary to bring it home to the American people.
In connection with this order of Q-eneral Bell, I simply wish to point the Senate to a statement as to the character of the people in Batangas Province, to which these orders were made to apply and to which they most directly applied.
Mr. BEVERIDGKE. By whom was that statement made? Mr. BACON. This statement is made by the friend of the Sen ator Senor Calderon. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I am very glad to have the Senator estab lish a relationship of which I was not aware until he stated it. Mr. BACON. I beg the Senators pardon. I understood from what the Senator said to me that there was a relation of friend ship between them.
6314

37
The book from which I read is the report of the first Philippine Commission. It is part of the testimony which that Commission took. SeEor Calderon, with whom I am not personally acquainted, but who is personally known to the Senator from Indiana, was examined under oath on the 27th of April, 1899. This is his tes timony. I am only going to read one or two questions and an swers.
Examined by Professor Worcester: Q. What is your profession? A. Lawyer and farmer. Q. Where do you live? A. I have always lived in Manila, but I have property In the provinces of Batangas and Oavite. Q. What proportion of the people of Batangas can read and write? A. Seventy-five or 80 per cent. The province is the most cultured in the archipelago. I have some 600 laborers on my plantation in Batangas, and of those there are certainly not more than 20 who can not read and write.
I am reading from page 67, volume 2, Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900 the first Schunnan Commission.
Wednesday, May 21,1902. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, when I yielded the floor on yes terday I was engaged in the discussion, and had about concluded it as I then intended, which grew out of the reconcentrado order and the reconcentrado camps in the Philippine Islands. I do not know that I should return to the subject but for some things which were said by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKEB] after I had yielded the floor. I may misunderstand him, but I do un derstand the Senator from Ohio in the view which he presents to practically maintain two propositions. One is that the order of General Bell is in harmony with the rules of civilized warfare, and the other is that as practiced the reconcentrado policy in the Philippine Islands is one of humanity and mercy and not oae of cruelty. In furtherance of this proposition the Senator from Ohio reads the order of General Bell of December 8, and draws from the words of that order a conclusion that the purpose of the order was not to inflict cruelty upon the people of Batangas Province and other provinces which were within the territory of his bri gade, but that really the purpose of the order was to protect the people against bandits, guerrillas, and brigands. I am sorry the Senator is not in his seat, because if I misstate him I would be glad to be corrected. That I think is the plain import of the lan guage used by the Senator, and the Senator reads the order of General Bell in substantiation of the construction which he put Tipon it. I will read again the part read by the distinguished Senator from Ohio:
BATAKOAS, December S, 1901. To all station commanders!
In order to put an end to enforced contributions now levied by insurgents upon the inhabitants of sparsely settled and outlying barrios and districts by means of intimidation and assassination, commanding officers of all towns now existing in the provinces of Batangas and Laguna, including those at which no garrison is stationed at present, will immediately specify and es tablish plainly marked limits surrounding each town bounding a zone within which it may be practicable with an average-sized garrison to ex ercise efficient supervision over and furnish protection to inhabitants (who desire to be peaceful) against the depredations of armed insurgents.
After going on a few lines prescribing the extent of the limits, the order resumes:
Commanding officers will also see that orders are at once given and dis tributed to all the inhabitants within the jurisdiction of towns over which they exercise supervision, informing them of the danger of remaining out-
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side of these limitSj and that unless they move by December 25 from outly ing barrios and districts, with all their movable food supplies, Including rice, palay, chickens, live stock, etc., to within the limits of the zone estab lished at their own or nearest town, their property (found outside of said zone at said date) will become liable to confiscation or destruction.
The -words " confiscation or destruction " evidently imply that all movable property which may be usefnl or desirable will beforcibly seized and carried away, and that all other property, immovable or movable, after that date found in the proscribed zone of death will be destroyed.
I have not read the entire order. It is not necessary, because it has already been read since I have been upon the floor and is in full in the RECORD. Those particular parts of the order are the parts from which the Senator from Ohio draws the conclusion, a stated by him yesterday with very great emphasis and earnest ness, that this was a humanitarian order, and that the purpose of it was to protect the peaceably disposed people of those prov inces from the barbarities and cruelties of bandits and brigands.
It is true that the order uses this very strange language, when we come to construe it in connection with the remaining portion of the order:
Bounding a zone within which it may be practicable with an averagesized garrison to exercise efficient supervision over and furnish protection to inhabitants (who desire to be peaceful) against the depredations of armed insurgents.
The suggestion of the Senator from Ohio would indicate that the expedition of General Bell into the provinces named was in the nature of a merciful expedition, a sort of a Sunday-school expedi tion, if I might so term it, in which it was designed to protect good and peaceful people against the outrages of those who were nothing but outlaws. Why that should have been put in there it is difficult to imagine, unless it was the intent of the8 author of the order to produce the impression which the Senator from Ohio says he has received from it.
But if that be the case, I wish to call attention to what is a, most remarkable fact. If the purpose of this order was to pro tect the inhabitants of these provinces from outlaws, ladrones, and brigands, how is it that the commanding general states a date beyond which it would be unsafe for the people to remain outside of these limits? If he is issuing an order for the purpose of pro tecting against outlaws, will it be pretended for a moment that the general had an agreement with the outlaws that they would permit these people to remain in safety until the 25th of Decem ber, and that if they did not get within certain limits by that time the outlaws would withdraw the agreement?
Is the limit of time against outlaws and the danger from out laws, or is the limit of time against what General Bell intended that his armed forces should inflict on the people who remained outside of the zone? What other construction can possibly be put upon it? It says people must come within a certain time. The purpose is to protect them against outlaws. " You can stay out in safety until the 25th, but if you do not come in by the 25th your property is liable to confiscation and destruction." From whom? From the outlaws? No; clearly from General Bell. Sev enteen days were given, and then on Christmas day, among a people to whom that day was sacred, all his forces of death and devastation were to be turned loose for the desolation and destruc tion by fire and sword of every person and thing found outside of the reconcentrado limits.

39
Mr, BEVEBIDGE. Mr. President---- The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Does the Senator say that everybody who did come within the lines marked out by General Bell suffered thereby? Mr. BACON. No; I do not. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Only the people who stayed out suffered? Mr. BACON. I did not say who suffered or who did not. I am talking about what the order said would occur. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I should *ike to ask the Senator this fur ther question, then. Does he understand these lines to exist now does he understand this concentration camp to now exist? Mr. BACON. I think I saw a statement to the effect that the order had been withdrawn, but that does not affect this question. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I was simply calling Mr. BACON. I am talking about the order which was passed, not about the present existing condition. Mr. BEVERIDGE. "Without intending to interrupt the course of the Senators very able argument, I wish to call his attention to the fact that the lines have been disestablished, that the insur gents have been .captured, that the insurrection has been sup pressed, and that no person who came within the lines drawn by the Government has suffered thereby. Mr. BACON. What has that got to do with the point I am making? Mr. BEVEBIDGE. I should like to know what the Senators point has to do with the question under discussion? Mr. SPOONER. What is his point? Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator from Wisconsin wants to know what is the Senators point. Mr. BACON. I -will state it again for the benefit of both Sen ators. The Senator from Ohio on yesterday presented the propo sition to the Senate that the purpose of this order was to protect peaceably disposed Filipinos from outlaws and brigands in that province. Mr. SPOONER. That was one purpose. Mr. BACON. The Senator from Ohio went on and made that the exclusive purpose. The Senator was antagonizing the propo sition which I had suggested that this order, read between the lines and taken in connection with the order which was issued on the very next day, meant but one thing, and that was that people within certain prescribed limits could be safe, and that outside of those limits life and property were to be destroyed. That was my proposition, and the Senator from Ohio was antagonizing that proposition. The Senator from Ohio said that, on the contrary, it was not intended for the purpose of reaching those who were hostile and who were antagonistic to the United States Govern ment outside of those lines, but it was for the purpose of protect ing those who were peaceably disposed and who might be outside, and who would be protected when they came inside of the lines. That was the proposition of the Senator from Ohio. He did not say it was the only purpose. The Senator asks what is the point. The point I am making is that while that language is used in the first paragraph, the plain, unmistakable purpose is to warn people that if by the 25th they
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40 did not come within this zone, death and destruction would follow in all the area outside that zone. From whom? Prom the bri-
ands or from the forces of General Bell? If from the brigands, y what right or what authority would General Bell assume to say that the brigands would allow them to be unmolested until the 25th, and that they must therefore stay beyond that date at their own peril? "What other construction is there but the one that he intended that he who fixed the date should be the one who would inflict the penalty? There is none other. The Senator may laugh about it, but he will bare to do something more than laugh to get rid of it.
Mr. SPOONER. To whom does the Senator refer? Mr. BACON. To the Senator from Wisconsin. Mr. SPOONEB. I did not laugh about it. Mr. BACON. "Well, the Senator smiled pleasantly, then. [Laughter.] Mr. SPOONEB. That is quite different. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. With very great pleasure. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Assuming the construction which the Sen ator from Georgia admits that he reads between the lines in Gen eral Bells order, I should like to know whether the Senator from Georgia does not consider that order, in case the people within those lines have their liberty and are well cared for, a proper mili tary order? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I stated yesterday and I repeat now that where the reconcentrado camp is properly provisioned and properly policed and parties are comfortable, the evil, the iniquity of a reconcentrado order is not so much what is within the zone of life, but is in the desolation in the wide area of death outside of it. It is the burning, the destruction of life, and the destruction of property outside of these prescribed limits which constitute the evil and make the principal horror. Mr. SPOONER. Will my friend allow me to ask him a ques tion? Mr. BACON. I never have failed, during my service in the Senate, to do so, and I am very glad to do so now. Mr. SPOONER. That is true. Why does my friend from Georgia persist in calling this a reconcentrado order? Mr. BACON. I do not know Mr. SPOONER. Is it not an attempt to fasten upon the American Army the odium of Weylerism in Cuba? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I have stated as plainly as I could, and I think the Senator has not misunderstood me, that the purpose in my reference to this matter is not to fasten odium upon the Army, but in the hope that the people of the United States may see what are the inevitable consequences of this policy in order that they may abandon it. I understand the Senators question to be directed to a certain point on which I am going to answer him very frankly. The Senators question would imply that my purpose is to use an odious term in order that the act may be more odious than it would be outside of the use of that term. I will say frankly to the Senator Mr. SPOONER. Pardon me; I do not say that.
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Mr. BACON. I know the Senator does not say that, but I say the Senators question implies it.
Mr. SPOONEB, No, I do not say, and I -will not say, that that is the Senators purpose, but I say the use of that phrase, which is utterly inapplicable to this case, has the effect (I will not say the Senator intends it; I will not say that there are some who do not intend it) to fasten upon the army in the Philippines all the odium which attaches, and justly attaches, to the reconcentrado policy of Weyler in Cuba.
Mr. BACON. The Senator asked me originally why I did so and so, and if it was not to accomplish a certain purpose. That wa8 his first inquiry of me, a*d it was for that reason that I put the construction upon his language which I then did.
Mr. BEVEBIDGE. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will pardon me until I answer the Senator from Wisconsin. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. I thought the Senator was through with that, and I wanted him to answer the question which I put. Mr. BACON. I will with great pleasure when I get through .with this point. I want to say to the Senator from Wisconsin that not being a Spanish scholar I have always understood the word "reconcentrado," as used in Cuba, to mean the concentra tion of people in camps, and if there was any difference in my understanding of the word reconcentrado and the word con centration " I had no consciousness of the fact. I want to say to the Senator that never until yesterday had I ever heard any other term used, when the Senator himself suggested " concentration." I have not been present at any of these examinations, and I did not know that the word "concentration" was being used as a softening of the word "reconcentrado." It does not make any difference to me whether it is reconcentrado or concentration, if they mean the same thing, and if they mean differently I should be glad to be informed. If "reconcentrado" does not mean "concentration," and I can be shown how this is "concentra tion " and not " reconcentrado," I shall be very happy to use the word " concentration." Mr. SPOONER. Mr. PresidentMr. BACON. If the Senator -will pardon me just a second, I shall be very happy to use the word "concentration," if I can always think to do so. It is a matter of habit simply with me. If the word " reconcentrado " is unpleasant to the ears of my friend, I will with great pleasure try to use the word " concentra tion. " Now I will hear the honorable Senator. Mr. SPOONER. The word " reconcentrado " is unpleasant to the ears of the Senators friends. Mr. BACON. Very well; I will use " concentration," unless I inadvertently say " reconcentrado." Mr. SPOONEB. The term " reconcentrado " stands for a pol icy of infamy. It stands for a policy of extermination. It stands for a policy in Cuba which shock the entire American people. Does the Senator contend that that was the spirit or purpose of the order of General Bell in the Philippines? Mr. BACON. Well Mr. SPOONEB. Or the effect of it? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I do not think the Senator ought to ask me that question, and I will state to him the reason why. Mr. SPOONEB. If the Senator does not think I ought to ask it I excuse the Senator from answering it.
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Mr. BACON". No; I will state my reason why before the Sen ator excuses me.
The Senator well knows that I could not answer some ques tions which would be asked me without appearing to assume to speak from personal knowledge, and I do not wish to be put in that position in this debate.
Mr. SPOONER. Oh, well, if the Senator has any personal knowledge, I hope he will not conceal it.
Mr. BACON. No; the Senator is not right about that. I do not claim to have personal knowledge to the extent that his re mark would justly impute, but the Senator, I am sure, will realize the fact that whatever I might say, whether I knew it or not from personal knowledge, might be and would be attributed by some to an effort on my part to appear as a witness, and that I am studiously avoiding, so far as concerns any act committed by any one in the Philippines.
Now, if the Senator will consider it not to be inconsistent, I hope, before I conclude, to give some impressions which I may have as to conditions in those islands.
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will pardon me, I hope if he personally knows of anything in the Philippines which the peo ple of the United States ought to know he will in his place testify to it.
Mr. BACON. Well, the Senator will not be accommodated in that regard.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator ought to be. Mr. BACON. No; I ought not, and I will not. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Now, Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KKAN in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator did not intend to evade Mr. BACON. No. Mr. BEVERIDGE. But, nevertheless, he did not answer the question which I put to him, and I should be pleased if he would answer it, since he is discussing the order of General Bell. I ask him if in case of the line drawn by General Bell the people brought within it were properly cared for, fed, and attended, does he re gard that as a proper war measure? Mr. BACON. Of course, bringing parties within the line, if they were properly attended to and taken care of, and if there is no destruction of property in consequence of it, where the cir cumstances required it, would not be an impropriety. I can con ceive of circumstances which might require it within a small area, and in some such circumstances it might not be improper. Mr. BEVERIDGB. It would not be an impropriety? Mr. BACON. No; not under the circumstances I have in mind. Mr. BEVERIDGB. Now, then, if the bringing of people within the lines and thus caring for them is a proper war measure, is not the reverse of that shield also true, that war may be carried on outside those lines, and therefore is not the whole order of Gen eral Bell, I ask the Senator, a proper war measure? Mr. BACON. I think most distinctly and decidedly not. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Why not? Mr. BACON. Will the Senator permit me to state the case with some degree of continuity? I say it is not a proper measure because, as I read the order and as I understand the testimony
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taken before the committee, it was not simply an order which gathered within certain limits certain people who were thereafter well taken care of, but, as I have said repeatedly, it was an order which depended for its efficiency and for the accomplishment of that very purpose upon the destruction of property and of life outside of those limits. The concentration policy was dependent upon that for its efficiency. I discussed that yesterday and

showed that the destruction of life and property outside of the reconcentrado limits was absolutely necessary in order to force people into toe reconcentrado limits, and that without that de struction of life and property, and without the fear of that destruc tion, the reconcentrado policy would be a farce.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President

Mr. BACON. I can not yield to the Senator while I am answer

ing his .question.

i

Mr. BEVERIDGE. But I did want to ask a question right on that point.

Mr. BACON. I am going to yield to the Senator in a moment. Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator will see why it is proper right here that I should ask him the question, if I am going to ask it at all.

Mr. BACON. Very well; I yield to the Senator.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. If the people are all gathered in, which the Senator says is a proper measure, and those living outside of the line would be opponents of the Government, would be insur gents, would be hostile that being the case, is it not a proper war measure to take against them?

Mr. BACON. But not to the extent of the burning of their houses and the killing of the people regardless of age, sex, or con dition. Not to convert the country into a howling wilderness.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Do you find any such thing as that in General Bells order?

Mr. BACON. I think that is what it means.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Oh!

Mr. BACON. I will read it, so as to show why I think so. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator is reading between the lines. Mr. BACON. No; I am not. I am reading the words and I will read the lines themselves, and I will show that they can mean nothing else but that, as I said on yesterday, the concentra tion order is one which can only be enforced by this rule which destroys everything outside of the lines; that it is impossible to go out and gather up all of the people and bring them in, as I said yesterday, as you would a drove of horses. You have got to ap ply to them some compulsion which will make them come in. When you prescribe limits, and say that these are the limits of the concentration camp, the method by which people are made to come in there is to say that outside of that they are not safe, and to say to them that "your houses will be burned and your property destroyed" is that reading between the lines, or are those the words of General Bell? We do not have to read between the lines to find that.

stthridiebCeyuooetmfexdtmehrteacosniseadelillnismtguhpieotesfir.fnvihciseairbosintw,ainilnltsfaowlrsmiothisniengethtthheeajmturooirsfddetihcrsteioadnreaonafgttehorenoctfoewregnmisvaeoinvneairnngwdhodiucisth

What danger?

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Does the Senator think

Mr. BACON. Let me conclude the reading. I have not fin ished reading the paragraph.

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Mr. BEVERIDGE. I wondered whether the Senator did not consider that that notice to the people was very humane.
Mr. BACON. Well, that may be, but not in my opinion. I will begin the reading over again.
pttsabhriatadielCbrteayrhuoyioeotem,feixsrctdmehhoaraiecnwctnsoidkesndeeailondnilsmsriglus,tptinnlortieesiefvrc,faeviiatrcnsineseshtsdirwoostactnbiwthkt,oih,atiwilanetlanntfuclato,ln.slr,tslmhtweothoseiisesintwerihtgerhiipntemtthrhhyoitoeanhmpvmteeaotrohbjvoturleyefedribe(tlsfhifrydomoseioDucaiddnttersiadecosnoeunoagmfputeopttbrfhosleiinoeetdrocfsez2ew,5oroienngnffmresicovslaoemaeuisvnidntdeoaiiarnnbuznggowltdilnsyrhoehidiicunceiaestghdt, said date) will become liable to confiscation or destruction.
From whom? Mr. BEVERIDGE. From us. Mr. BACON. Certainty; and by what influence is it sought to make these people come within this zone of life, as I have called it, in contradistinction to the zone of death? Is it not by saying that "within here is life and protection and out there is death and destruction; here is the hand that will inflict death and destruction?" This order is not limited to men with arms in their hands; it is not directed only to men with arms in their hands; but it is di rected to the entire population, and the order issued on the next day, on the 9th, which is practically a part of the same order, goes on to say to those to whom it is addressed, it may be a hard thing, but the innocent must suffer with the guilty; it may be a hard thing, but those who claim pleasant and friendly relations must not be considered; they must all fall within this order of destruction if they do not come in by the 25th day of December. Is not that so? Does any Senator say that while it might be a legitimate matter to get within certain limits people who are thereafter to be kindly cared for, it is also legitimate that those who will not opme within these limits shall be regardless of whether they are com batants or noncombatants, men, women, or children subjected to death because they will not come within those limits? Will it be said, because it maybe right to bring within certain limits people who can be gotten there, that those who stay without shall not only have to do so at the risk of life but shall be told, in so many words, that their property is to be destroyed, and we know how destroyed destroyed by fire? Mr. President, has it come to this, that for the purpose of main taining our sovereignty over that distant people, for the purpose of carrying out these ideas which have taken hold of us in the past four years, we are to go back to the age of barbarism, and, in order to defend our acts, to absolutely renounce the teachings of civilization and revert to the time when war was barbarity with out any of the ameliorations of civilization? If so, Mr. President, that of itself would be curse enough to follow upon what we have done in this matter without looking for any other. If so, that of itself is sufficient to cause the American people to shrink back in horror from this path of blood. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. For a question, yes. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Just a question. I understood the Sena tor to say that he regarded it as proper for the military authori ties to bring people within the lines as a war measure.
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Mr. BACON. Properly, and under proper circumstances, but I do not mean thereby that their houses should be burned and their lives taken as a penalty for refusal to obey the order.
Mr. BEyERIDGE. What I desire to ask the Senator is this: What would be the use of bringing people within the lines if the people without the lines are going to be treated precisely in the same way as those inside? What -would be the use of doing this proper thing, which the Senator says is proper, if people outside of the lines are to be treated precisely in the same way as those inside?
3Jr. BACQJT. I mean to say it is proper if it is done in a hu mane manner and under circumstances that require it; then it is all right, if there is no cruelty. I do not, however, mean to ad mit, but, on the contrary, I absolutely deny, the proposition that any inhumanity is justified to get them within the lines, for in stance, by saying, " If you stay out you will be shot, regardless of sex or age, and your houses will be burned, therefore come in." tNoosboadyy admits any such proposition as that. It is, as I was about
Mr. BEVERIDGE. I think the Senator again very uninten tionally, of course, evades the question. I understand the Senator again to say that it is a proper war measure to bring people within the lines if they are treated properly within the lines. The main thing, I ask the Senator, is, What would be the use of doing that proper thing if we were going to treat people outside precisely the same as the people inside?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, while it may be proper to get people within the lines in a proper way without inhumanity, I do not admit that that relieves a commanding officer in the field from all obligations to observe the rules of civilization and humanity as to those who do not come in.
Mr. HOAR. Mr. President The PRESIDING- OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Massachusetts? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. HOAR. I desire to ask the Senator a question, because I think his answer slightly susceptible of a double construction, which perhaps he did not perceive in the question I do not mean purposely, but an actual double meaning. Does the Senator mean to say that the assembling of a whole population of a country into a reconcentrado camp is a proper war measure as a means of war fare upon them? Mr. BACON. No; I do not. I mean that it may be a proper war measure as a means of protecting them, they being friendly, against the common enemy. Mr. HOAR. Very well. Then is not the whole point of this thing I expect to use the word "reconcentrado " when I discuss this question, if I have an opportunity to do so is not the whole point of this thing whether they have undertaken to carry on this war against this people, who are said to be lawfully subject to our authority, by assembling them, taking them in whole dis tricts away from their homes and dwellings, and crowding them into camps remote from where they live, on the penalty of hav ing their property destroyed, and perhaps themselves slain if they do not go? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I expressly said that, of course, such measures must be in a proper case and not be accompanied by any inhumanity.
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poMsr.e HOAR. But my proposition was in regard to the pur f Mr. BACON. I understand that.
Mr. HOAR. Let me put one other question to the Senator in order to bring out this thing. Is there any writer or authority on the law of nations or the law of war which justifies the getting of a whole population of a country into compact and close camps of this kind, taking them from their dwellings, as a means of war fare against them?
Mr. BACON. I do not think there is, and in order that the Senator may not misunderstand me I will make an illustration of one of the matters in my mind. I realize that there might be circumstances under which, not the whole population but the population of a particular neighborhood, might for a single purpose
Mr. HOAR. To get them out of the range of the guns if a battle were in progress.
Mr. BACON. If there were going to be a battle, if the country was going to be within range of the guns, and men, women, and children, noncombatants, were to be exposed to that danger, I could understand very readily how an Army officer might re quire them to get within certain limits where they would be safe; but I do not recognize, as is suggested by the question of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] , as I might have been understood to say, that it is a legitimate war measure to say to the people of a county or a province, You have got to come within certain limits and do so by a certain day, and if you fail to do so, then all you who so fail will be subject to the destruction of your property and the loss of your lives. That I absolutely repudiate and condemn.
Mr. SPOONBE rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me a moment, as he sees I am speaking with great difficulty from serious throat trouble Mr. SPOONER. I shall not interrupt the Senator at present. Mr. BACON. This question has come to a very important stage; and if this is the feeling and the opinion of Senators, it is well that the country should know it, in order that the issue may be joined, that it is considered legitimate warfare to say to a people " Come within certain limits;" and then, as implied by the inquiry of the Senator from Indiana [Mr. BEVERIDGB] , it is equally legitimate warfare thereafter to treat everybody as hos tile, and to destroy everybody and all the property outside of those limits. What else does concentration mean? In what other way can the order of our general be construed when he says, " Come within certain limits by the 25th day of De cember, and those of you who do not obey this order take your lives in your hands and subject your property to destruction?" Mr. President, I said that I understood the distinguished Sen ator from Ohio [Mr. FOEAKEE] , who was not in his seat at the time I said it, to maintain the proposition that the order of Gen eral Bell was in accordance with the laws of civilized warfare. I said that, and if I misquoted him, I should be glad to be cor rected in that regard. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio?
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&**>
47 Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. FOBAKEB. The Senator has substantially restated what I said heretofore. I was referring to what"had been the practice of this Government ever since its beginning with respect to our Indians,for instance, and the well-known practice of other gov ernments in conducting military operations under such circum stances. Mr. BACON. If I correctly stated the Senator, that is all I de sire to know at this time. The Senator from Ohio differs from 4iie Senator from Massachusetts in that regard. Mr. SPOOTTEB. In what? Mr. BACON. As to General Bells order. Mr. SPOONEB. Mr. President The PBESIDING OFFICEB. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator frqm Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONEB. Of course no one would claim, I think, that it was justifiable to force a concentration of people within certain limits in order to make war upon them. I am not aware that there is any element of that kind in this case, but would it not be legitimate Mr. BACON. The Senator will observe that I was simply about to call attention to the fact that the Senator from Massachusetts did not agree with the Senator from Ohio, and now the Senator from Wisconsin returns to the question which I left. Mr. SPOONEB. Yes; but suppose there is an outlying Mr. PETTUS. Mr. President The PBESIDING- OFFICEB. Does the Senator from Georgia yield? Mr. PETTUS. I make a question of order, Mr. President. The PBESIDING OFFICEB. The Chair sustains the point of order. Mr. SPOONEB. What is the point of order which the Chair sustains? The PBESIDING OFFICEB. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. SPOONEB. What is the point of order which the Chair .sustains? Mr. PETTUS. My point of order, Mr. President, is that the Senator from Wisconsin, without leave room the Chair, carries on a conversation with the Senator from Georgia, and it disturbs business, and it is very disagreeable at that. Mr. SPOONEB. Mr. President The PBESIDING OFFICEB. The Chair understood the Sen ator from Georgia [Mr. BACON] yielded to the Senator from Wis consin [Mr. SPOONEE] , and the Chair thought the Senator from Alabama [Mr. PETTUS] made the point of order that the Senator from Wisconsin did not address the Chair. Mr. SPOONEB. Mr, President, I am very sorry to " disturb business," but I am much more sorry to be " disagreeable" to the distinguished Senator from Alabama [Mr. PETTUS] . Mr. BACON. I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin. Mr. SPOONEB. In addition to that, I will apologize to my friend from Georgia. Mr. BACON. But I hope the Senator will ask the question which he desires. I made no objection. Mr. SPOONEB. I supposed, as the Senator made no objec-
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tion, that no one else would do so. I was about to ask the Sen ator whether it was not an entirely legitimate method of warfare, if there was an outlying inhabited district from which an enemy obtained food supplies and information, that an officer, after giv ing due notice, should order the concentration of the inhabitants within certain lines, and then destroy, after that date, all supplies and means of supplies from which the enemy had been from time to time supported?
Mr. BACON. I do not understand that it is legitimate war fare to destroy the private property of a country occupied by an army to the extent of making it useless to the people, nor do I admit that there is any rule of war by which can be done legiti mately that which the Senator asks me if it can be done, and I ask the Senator, in his own time, to point to the precedent upon which he bases any such question. As the Senator states it, as every army draws supplies from its country the enemy is justified in destroy ing all the supplies in the whole country.
Mr. SPOONEB. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PLATT of Connecticut). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wis consin? Mr. BACON. Oh, yes; I yield, of course. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, am I recognized? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Sen ator. Mr. SPOONER. I want to be quite certain that I am neither " disturbing business " nor making myself " disagreeable." The Senator from Georgia has asked me if there is any instance of the kind to which he has just referred. Mr. BACON. I did not ask the Senator to give it now, because I think I ought to be allowed to continue my speech; but if the Senator has a question to ask I will yield. Mr. SPOONER. No; I thought the Senator had asked me a question. Mr. BACON. I will with great pleasure yield to the Senator. Mr. SPOONER. I thought the Senator asked me a question? Mr. BACON. I knew the answer would take some time; and so I asked the Senator to give it in his own time. Mr. President, did anybody suppose when this Congress met that there would be any proposition advanced in either House of Congress that would sustain a mode of warfare such as is dis closed by the testimony which is now being taken by the Philip pine Committee of the Senate? Does not everybody know that it would have been regarded with horror that we should have assumed for one moment that such things were within the range of the possible approval of Senators and Representatives? Is it not a fact that since this debate began Senators have changed their positions with reference to this matter? Is it not a fact that when this debate began they, without exception, con demned these acts? Is there any Senator who had the hardihood to get up and approve them? Is it not because matters have gone to that point where the facts can not be disputed that they have either themselves got to join in the condemnation or to take a new position and to say that the acts are not to be condemned? Why, we remember that when the Philippine debate was on under the former bill Senators on the other side resented with the utmost heat as a slander upon the Army the suggestion that such things were occurring, well, if they were legitimate, why
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49 should they resent them as they did then, charging Senators on this side with slandering the Army and some of them almost with treason? Now, when the evidence has disclosed the fact as beyond dispute, they have advanced, where I never expected to see Amer icans advance, to a justification of such outrages and cruelties and barbarities as are shown by the testimony which is now being taken.
Senators go to the point of calling that civilized warfare which the perpetrators themselves of these acts condemn as not being civilized warfare. I say they condemn that word is not proper but they admit that that which they do is not civilized warfare, and they seek to justify their acts on the ground that they are fighting with those who are not themselves civilized.
I will read something to show that that is so. General Hughes was before the Committee on the Philippines, and he gave testimony on the subject which shows the way in which he re gards it; and doubtless the way in which the Army, or those of them who have authorized and required this thing, regard it. They do not say what the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONBB] intimates by his inquiries, that these were legitimate acts within the range of recognized rules of civilized warfare. They do not say so.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a ques tion?
Mr. BACON. With pleasure. , Mr. SPOONER. Is guerrilla warfare civilized warfare?
Mr. BACON. Yes; within certain limits. Mr. FORAKEE. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. FOEAKER. Are murder and assassination, as recited in these orders, civilized warfare? Mr. SPOONER. Within certain limits. Mr. BACON. No; I do not say so. I am not to be diverted by such inquiries from the point I am on. Mr. FOEAKER. But do not these orders recite that murders and assassinations have been committed? Are they not mentioned in the orders? Mr. BACON. Mr. President. I am not to be diverted by Sena tors. I will state again the proposition I was about to state. I say that the class of warfare which the Senators by their inquiries indicate as being civilized warfare in their opinion, is warfare that the officers in the Philippine Islands themselves say is not civilized warfare. We are talking about the fact that it is not civilized warfare, and when the fact is admitted that itisnotcivilized warfare the question is answered. Mr. SPOONER. Did they not say that it was because they were not carrying on a war Mr. BACON. I have not yet read what I want to read. Mr. SPOONER. Did they not say it was because the war against which they, were contending is not civilized warfare? Mr. BACON. They said it was not civilized warfare because the people were not civilized, or rather they abandoned civilized warfare because the people were not civilized, thereby implying that they were not entitled to have the rules of civilized warfare applied to them. Mr. President, yesterday I read this language, but now, in
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order that it may be in connection with what I am going to read from General Hughes, to show how it was that these officers came to the conclusion that these people were not to be dealt with as civilized people, and the rules of civilized warfare were not to be observed, I will read it again. I read yesterday from the speech of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] an exhibit, which is an extract from the report of General Bell, which is found in Part 3 of the Report of the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Army, 1901, pages 34 and 35, in which General Bell uses this language in his report:

I have been in Indian campaigns where it took over 100 soldiers to capture each Indian, but the problem here is more difficult on account of the inbred treachery of these people, their great number, and the impossibility of recog nizing the actively Dad from the only passively so. If it was deemed advis able to pursue the methods of European nations and armies in suppressing rebellions among the Asiatics, the insurrection could have been easily put down monthsago. Even now, although the seeds of rebellion have permeated all classes, such methods would soon put an end to all active insurrection.

That implies what I will show directly from the testimony of

General Hughes, that up to that time the rules of civilized war

fare had been observed, and that it was suggested that if they

could abandon the rules of civilized warfare and adopt the rules

European nations had adopted in dealing with Asiatic peoples

the perpetration of these horrible barbarities, these wholesale

slaughters and burnings of property if they could adopt such

methods, then the insurrection could be put down. If it did not

mean that it meant nothing; if it did not mean that there should

be an abandonment of the rules of civilized warfare and the

adoption of the harsh and cruel measures which were condemned

by civilized warfare, what did it mean?

Mr. President, what is General Hughess testimony on that line?

It is found on page 558 of the hearings before the Philippine

I

Committee. The Senator from Utah [Mr. BAWLINS] asked this question:

In this connection, in burning towns, what would you do? Would the en

tire town bo destroyed by nre or would only offending portions of the town

be burned?

General HUGHES. I do not know that we ever had a case of burning what

you would call a town in this country, but probably a barrio or a sitio; prob

ably a half a dozen houses, native shacks, where the instirrectos would go in

and be concealed, and if they caught a detachment passing they would kill

some of them.

Senator BAWLINS. What did I understand you to say would be the conse

quences of that?

General HUGHES. They usually burned the village.

Senator RAWLINS. All of the houses in the village?

General HUGHES. Yes; every one of them.

Senator RAWT.TNS. What would become of the inhabitants?

General HUGHES. That was their lookout.

Then continuing the examination:

Senator RAWLiirs. If these shacks were of no consequence, what was the utility of their destruction?
General HTTGHES. The destruction was as a punishment.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator give me the page? Mr. BACON. Page 558. I had already announced it. Mr. SPOONER. I did not hear it. Mr. BACON. It continues:

General HUGHES. The destruction was as a punishment. They permitted

these people to come in there and conceal themselves, and they gave no sign.

J ; " Ml!!!1

It is always Senator EAWLINS. The punishment in that case would fall not upon the
men, who could go elsewhere, but mainly upon the women and little children.

General HUGHES. The women and children are part of the family, and

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e you wish to inflict a punishment you can punish the man probably worse In that way than in any other.
Senator RAWLIHS. But is that within the ordinary rules of civilized war fare? Of course, you could exterminate the family, which would be still worse punishment.
General HUGHES. These people are not civilized. Senator RAWLIHS. Then I understand you to say it is not civilized war fare? General HTTGHES. No; I think it is not. Senator RAWLIHS. You think it is not? Senator DIBTBICH. In order to carry on civilized warfare both sides havtt to engage in such warfare. General HUGHES. Yes, sir; certainly That is the point. I think, if I am allowed to go on, I will come to a place where I shall have something to say that will bear directly on this subject.
' CONDUCT OF THE WAB BECOMES STEBNEB.
Senator HALE. Yon made a very interesting statement some time ago that from year to year, or from summer to summer, the conduct of the war was sterner, stiffer, as you called it. xYou are describing what took place the second summer, not the first?
General HUGHES. Yes. Mr. President, what -words are strong enough to condemn the utterance by an American general that women and children are burned out of house and home as a punishment on the husbands and fathers, because by the suffering inflicted on the women and children the worst punishment is inflicted on the husbands and fathers. I call the attention of the Senator from Ohio to what I am about to read, in connection with the statement I made yes terday as to tie change in the methods in the progress of the war. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator from Ohio will let me read this. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia de clines to yield at present. Mr. FORAKER. I think the Senator would not decline if he knew what I wished to say. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio? Mr. BACON. I think I ought to be allowed to finish reading this. Mr. FORAKER. I merely wish to call the attention of the Senator to the fact that I made that statement myself before he did. Last Monday I called attention to the fact that after the war had been prosecuted for two years in the most humane way, with the great success that had attended it in these four prov inces where was this bitter resistance, it became necessary to resort to the measures which the Senator was criticising. Mr. BACON. Very well; the Senator agrees to that. The Senator read the statement of Professor Schurman, and the state ment was not qualified, and it would leave the impression that it applied to the entire course of the Army during the war, and in response I made the statement that it was doubtless true of the first year of the war, but that it had changed very materially thereafter. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio? Mr. FORAKER. ^Immediately following Mr. BACON. I want to read this. I do not think I am un reasonable in the matter of submitting to interruptions, but Sen ators should-not make it utterly impossible forme to proceed with any continuous argument. It seems to me I am not unreason able in requesting that unless there is a necessity to ask questions I be allowed to proceed with some degree of continuity.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Chair understand the Senator from Georgia to decline to yield?
Mr. BACON. No, I do not decline to yield, but I was right in the midst of the reading.
Mr. FORAKER. The Senator yields, I understand. The Sena tor will agree that I have not unnecessarily interrupted him. In fact, I have interrupted him very little. I only interrupted him when he appealed to me and commented upon some remarks I had made.
I interrupted him a moment ago simply to call his attention to) the fact that I myself recognized that there had been a change, so far as the prosecution of the war in these particiilar provinces was concerned, and now the Senator calls attention to the fact that I read the report of Dr. Schurman, as though I left it there without any comment to indicate that there had been a change afterwards. The Senator will find, if he will consult my re marks as they appear in the RECORD, that I then called attention to the fact that following that was this change, the same about which he speaks in these particular provinces, and for the rea sons set forth in the order which I then read, and I read the orders and called attention to the reasons therein assigned to show why there had been a change in Batangas, Laguna, Samar, and Leyte.
Mr. BACON. I will now resume the reading. Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from "Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. I want to tell the Senator why I took the lib erty of interrupting him. Mr. BACON. The Senator need not make any explanation or apology. Mr. SPOONER. It is apologetic, in a way. It was because I do not know any man who is less disconcerted by an interruption than the Senator, nor anyone better able always to take care of an interruption than the Senator from Georgia. Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the Senator. Mr. SPOONER. If I had thought for a moment that it was distasteful, I would not have done so. Mr. BACON. It is not. But it is a fact that yesterday, while I was upon the floor a very long time, almost half of the time was occupied by other Senators, not the Senator from Wisconsin, be cause he did not interrupt me. It is true that I have been on the floor an hour to-day, and I have not been able to make five min utes consecutive talk in that time. There will be a long ways, when anybody comes to read the RECORD, between two lines of what I was reading. I will read over the question of the Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE] , because the answer to it was interrupted right in the middle.
Senator HALE. You made a very interesting statement some time ago that from year to year, or from summer to summer, the_ conduct of the war was sterner stiffer, as you called it. You are describing what took place the second summer, not the first?
General HUGHES. Yes. In the first campaign the rules of civilized warfare were rigidly enforced. The fact is there was a building burned the first two or three" days I was out, and I issued an order that any irrnn caught setting fire to a building should be promptly arrested, and if he ran and could not be stopped in any other way, shoot mim. I could not tell whether these fires were started by some
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of our own men or toy Chinamen with our command, -who were there for the purpose of transporting the wounded and the sick, etc., but anyway in nearly every encampment up to that time there was some little fire some where. . That stopped it
That is. the order to shoot the people who did the burning
and from that time on I do not think there were any fires or anything of that kind, and there was none, so far as I can recall, in that years operations. But the next year we found it necessary to adopt more stringent methods in order to reach these people.
What does that mean? It means that General Hughes says they observed the rules of legitimate warfare in the first year; that he does not think the burning of houses is within the rules of civilized warfare, and he departed from those rules thereafter, and that from that time on until the present they have been pur suing warfare which is not civilized warfare, in the burning of the cities and towns and the houses of people.
But the Senators by their questions would seem to indicate that they thought that that which is now being testified to as being done is within the rules of civilized warfare. There is no doubt about the fact of the particular acts being done, because the testimony shows it, and if they are not within the rules of civilized warfare and Senators approve and defend them, then the only thing to be said is that they approve this policy of pursuing warfare in a manner which is not civilized and which is in violation of the rules of civilized warfare.
If Senators are ready to take that position before the American people, we know where they stand. One of two things must nec essarily be true. If, as General Hughes says, and as the testi mony proves beyond possibility of successful contradiction, cities and towns and houses are burned in violation of the rules of civil ized warfare, either those actions are to be condemned or to be ap proved. If Senators who take issue with us who condemn them approve them, then there is no issue between us as to anything but the question of right and wrong in such burnings. There is no question of fact.
I wish to read a little more from what General Hughes says:
Senator BAwuss. Is it not true that operations in the islands became pro gressively more severe within the past year and a half in dealing with dis tricts which were disturbed?
General HUGHES. I think that is true. I would not say it is entirely so. The severities depend upon the man immediately in command of the force that he has with him. in the department I suppose I had at times as many as a hundred and twenty commands in the field. Each commander, under general restrictions, had authority to act for himself.
In other words, he had authority to burn or not to burn as he might see proper, in his own judgment, and, consequently, as some thought proper to burn a little more freely than others, the rule and practice, according to what he said, varied. He goes on to say:
Tliese commanders were changed from time to time. The new command ers coming hi would probably start in very much easier than the old ones.
In other words, they would not burn the cities and towns and houses quite as much as the old ones. They had not got to be so callous. They had not got to be so absolutely indifferent to all rules of civilized warfare, and consequently they were easier, as General Hughes says:
These commanders were changed from time to time. The new command ers coming in would probably start in very much easier than the old ones.
Senator HALE. Very much what? General HUGHES. Easier. They would come from this country with their ideas of civilized v/arfare, and they were allowed to get their lesson.
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54
Mr. HOAR. From whom does the Senator read?
Mr. BACON. From General Hughes. General Hughes says that these proceedings were not in accordance with civilized warfare. He says they abandoned the rules of civilized warfare after the first year. He says that with the vast number of com mands under him he gave to each man a discretion to do as he pleased; that while they were started easy as time progressed they became more callous, and they burned more freely. Then when new men came there they brought with them ideas of civ ilized warfare, and they were permitted to progress and get their lesson, although as time progressed they, too, would abandon all civilized warfare and burn and destroy, without regard to the rules of civilized warfare.
Now, let me read what one of the witnesses said about that. There was before the committee a witness by the name of Grover Flint, whose testimony is found on page 1765, and on page 1784 there is this testimony:
Q. In that connection I will ask you to state if you saw any Filipino towns burned by American soldiers.
A. Yes; I have seen hamlets, small towns of 50 or 60 houses, burned. Q. How many houses? A. Fifty or sixty houses; what they call barrios. Q. Were the people who lived in these houses engaged in peaceable pur suits? A. Apparently; yes. Q. And they were burned by the American troops? A. They were. Q. By whose orders? A. I dont know; I never happened to be in command of the column that went out to burn. Q. Did you know of the burning of your own knowledge? A. Absolutely. Q. You saw it? A. I saw it. Q. By American soldiers? A. Yes; I saw it. Senator PATTERSON. What became of the men, women, and children that were occupying those hamlets The WITNESS. I think the idea was at that time that the burning of these Tillages would drire the people to the woods or to the towns; a policy of con centration, I think.
This witness is from Massachusetts, a commissioned officer, a man of education, position, and character.
That is the Simday-school perft rmance, that is the act of hu manity, that is the process of kindliness and mercy that the Sen ator from Ohio spoke about yesterday, when it was not for the purpose of inflicting punishment or cruelty upon the people out side of the zone of life, but was for the purpose of kindly taking them in out from danger. It occurs to me that if it was a reli gious proceeding at all, it must have been for the purpose of having these peoplehave some little realization of what would come to them hereafter if they were not good in this life to see what fire was.
Mr. President, I said and I was diverted by the inquiry which has led me off on this line that the Senator from Ohio had stated substantially that he regarded the order of Bell as an order in harmony with the rules of civilized warfare, and I stated that the Senator from Massachusetts did not agree with him, and I was about to read the remark of the Senator from Massachusetts with regard to that matter. On the 29th of April the Senator from Texas [Mr. CULBEHSON] asked the Senator from Massachu setts [Mr. LODGE] this question:
I should like to ask the Senator if he indorses that order of General Bell, issued on the 8th day of December, UKJ1J It is a question, Mr. President, to
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which I desire an answer from the Senator from Massachusetts if he is dispof ed to give one.
Mr. LODGE. Does the Senator ask if I indorse the order of General Bell? .. Mr. CCLBERSON. Yes.
Mr. LODQB. No, sir; I do not indorse cruel methods of waging warfare. So the Senatorfrom Massachusetts and the Senator from Ohio do not agree, and I repeat that two weeks ago there was no Sen ator to be found in this Chamber who would defend the acts which they now defend boldly before the American people. It has gotten to a point where they either have to defend them as proper acts or condemn those who perpetrated them. Mr. President, I regret very much that I have consumed so much time on this particular part of the matter, because I in tended simply to allude to it and to pass to some other things which I wish to say; but before passing to them I desire to re peat that the great purpose which I had is that there may be a lesson pointed to the American people, that they may see what is the necessary, unavoidable result to flow from the effort which is being made to dominate an inferior race and to control them against their will, and that the history of all nations shows that that effort is always attended by cruelties and barbarities such as would not be recognized in warfare between people of equal rank in the civilized world. Mr. President, this matter was pointed out when this policy was first entered upon. When the question was up as to the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, predictions were made that there would be this lamentable consequence flow from the effort of the American people to dominate the Philippine Islands and to subject them to our sway. Speeches were made both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate in which that was predicted, and our people were warned that such would be the case. In a speech which I made in the Senate on the 18th day of January, 1899, before the ratification of the treaty of peace, I had something to say on that subject, which I will now read not for the purpose of showing that I said it, but because it is applicable now to the question whether the people of America will continue in this course or whether they will change. In that speech I read from a book which was written by Mr. John Bussell Young, entitled "Around the World with General Grant," and in it I said this: It is a brief account of the treatment of one regiment of Sepoys, not all of them; a regiment which had been disarmed; a regiment which had tried to make its escape; a regiment which, it is true, had murdered some of its offi cers. Now I am going to read the account of this as given by Mr. Young in the second volume of that work, on page 98: " The Twenty-sixth Native Infantry " Speaking of the Indian infantry "The Twenty-sixth Native Infantry had been disarmed in May and kept under guard. On July 30 some madman in the regiment killed the major. The author of this murder was a favorite named Prakash Pandy, who rushed out of his hut, called upon his comrades to i-ise, and, seeing the major, killed him. The sergeant-major was also slain. The Twenty-sixth had served with distinction in many campaigns, notably in the Afghan campaign of 1842. It was thought that the fugitives would run south to Delhi to join the king. " But they took a northern direction, away from the war, anxious to reach Cashmere, to bo out of India. They had no guns. There was a drenching rain, and the country was almost flooded. The troops came up with them, shoot ing ISO and driving them into the river, drowned inevitably, too weakened ana famished, as they must have been after their 4fi miles flight, to battle with the flood. The main body escaped, swimming and floating to an island, *where they might be descried crouching like a brood of wildfowl. Mr. Cooper started out to capture them." After stating the fact of the capture, it goes on: " The doomed men, with joined palms, the Hindoo attitude of entreaty,
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crowded into the boats and were brought on shore. In utter despair forty or fifty dashed into the stream and disappeared. No order was given to fire, and the fugitives, says Mr. Cooper in a spirit of playfulness, became possessed of a sudden and insane idea that they were going to be tried by a courtmartial after some luxurious refreshment."
So they were brought on shore, one by one, tightly bound, their decora tions and necklaces ignominionsly rut off. " Some begged that their women and children might be spared, and were informed that the British Govern ment did not condescend to war with women and children." They were marched to the town, " the gracious moon," Mr. Cooper informing us, coming out through the clouds, an<Treflecting herself in myriad pools and streams to "light the prisoners to their fate."
They arrived at midnight. Next morning at daybreak Mr. Cooper took his seat. He had 282 prisoners, besides numbers of camp followers. He sent his Mohammedan troops, fearing they might hesitate to shoot Mohammed ans, to a religious festival, and, alone with his "faithful Sikhs," proceeded to do justice. "Ten by ten," says Mr. Cooper, "the Sepoys were called forth. Their names having been taken down in succession, they were pin ioned, linked together, and marched to execution, a firing party being in readiness "
And so it goes on and describes how that entire regiment and I will not stop to read it now, because the hour is getting late and it is too long; were shot without trial, some of them blown from the mouths of cannon. That is only one of a great many in stances of the same kind which could be cited. In commenting on that I said this:
Mr. President, I do not read that for the purpose of casting any reflection upon the English people. On the contrary, I recognize them as the most Christian and the most humane nation of Europe. But only with the sword and gun can millions of the semicivilized bo kept in subjection. The veiy best that can be said, and what is proper to be said, is that it was necessary that the English should-perpetrate this cruelty, this butchery, if they would maintain their dominion in India, and that is the purpose for which I have read it.
And in commenting on this I added:
If we are to maintain dominion over this foreign, alien people, these Mo hammedans, these people accustomed to revolution and to blood and to dis order, if you please, we will be compelled to do it with iron hand, regardless of the shedding of blood.
I went on to speak Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President, The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. BEVEBIDGE. Does not the Senator from Georgia think that, on the whole, the British occupation of India has been a benefit to that country? Mr. BACON. I am not now going to discuss that question. I am not prepared to discuss it, and if I were I certainly would not take the time to discuss it now. There have been expressions in my hearing to the effect that it has not been, but I am not going to discuss it. It is certainly not in the line of the speech I am endeavoring to make. Mr. CARMACK. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Tennessee? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. CARMACK. I want to say very positively that that is my opinion, and I think it is an opinion that can be justified. Mr. BEVERIDGB. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I hope the discussion will not ran on. It cer tainly is not just to me that it should. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I merely wish to say that while I am al-
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ways delighted to have the opinion of the Senator from Tennes see, I asked for the opinion of the Senator from Georgia.
Mr. BACON. I am not going to give my opinion Mr. BEVERIDGE. All right. Mr. BACON. Because it is not pertinent to the point I am dis cussing; but I do say that the Senator may conceive it to be as beneficial to the Hindoos in their material interests as he pleases, or that it is as beneficial as the Senator may conceive it to be to the English people, but that nothing will compensate in that regard for the cruelties and the inhumanities that have in the past been heaped upon the people of India in order that British rule might be maintained. And so, sir, I say, with reference to the Philippine Islands, that our retention of sovereignty there, the keeping of those people in subjection against their will, has not only been attended by bru talities in the past, but it will be attended by brutalities in the future, ever recurring; and it is for the purpose of pointing that lesson, for the purpose, if possible, of attracting the attention of the American people to what is before us in that regard, that I dwell upon the question of these atrocities. Mr. President, is there anybody in the United States with a heart within his bosom and any regard for the good name of the United States who rejoices at the present situation? While Senators may defend what has been done, is there a Senator who would not rejoice if it had not been done? When we think of all that has occurred; when we think of the soldiers from this coun try who have died there, and of those who have been killed there, and the homes in this country which have been desolated on that account; when we think of the tens of thousands of Filipinos who have been slaughtered; when we think of the hundreds of thou sands of Filipinos who have died in consequence of the war; when we think of the numbers of soldiers who have or are to come back ruined in health: when we think of the strain that has been put upon our institutions the wrench, if you please, of our Constitution in order to adapt our situation to this new colonial policy, how many of the American people viewing not only that, but looking forward to the dreary future which is before us in this connection, the bhish that is to conie hereafter, the hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been spent, and the vast treasure which must be spent how many, what proportion of the American people, are glad we are in the Philippine Islands? How many Senators are there who in their hearts would not be glad if there were a way in which we could, in their opinion, be honorably quit of them? Mr. President, when you present to them the great sacrifices that we have made, when you talk to them about the great injury to the free institutions of this country, when you talk to them about the horrible task that is before us. how many are there who say they can not dispute that, and add, " We are there, and what are we to do about it? " As if a great evil, a great misfortune, is to be recognized and admitted, and yet we are tosit supinely, as if we had not the wit or the wisdom to move hand or foot in the effort to rescue ourselves from the evil. Mr. President, what is to be done about it? Whenever we ask the question what is to be done, or whenever we propose to do anything, we are met by two stereotyped answers. Senators will not discuss the question as to practical methods of procedure. They will not endeavor to agree with you upon any plan by which
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this unfortunate situation may be relieved. And there are but two replies. One is that it is an inglorious retreat which is pro posed. Whenever you speak about any solution of this matter which shall have for its ultimate purpose the design to rid this country of the incubus, if I may so call it, to rid us of this great burden, the reply is that we are there and that to leave there is to ingloriously retreat and leave the islands to anarchy.
Not only that, but Senators endeavor to use opprobrious terms, and the favorite one is scuttle. They say to those who advocate such a disposition as will in any way relieve the United States of this connection that we propose the game of scuttle, and that it is an inglorious abandonment of an enterprise undertaken.
The other answer is that it is proposed to ingloriously withdraw the army before it has established the authority of the United States and put down armed opposition to it. How. sir, I wish to say that there has been no proposition to do either of these things, and there is no such proposition now. Every proposition is based on the establishment of peace and order and of the authority of the United States as a prerequisite to our action.
I will ask Senators to state when they come to discuss this ques tion whether or not it is an inglorious retreat or whether it is scuttle to do that which was proposed to be done in the begin ning. I assert that the leading Senators on this floor in the be ginning proposed to do exactly the thing that we have proposed to do ever since, which was not to retain the islands, but to take them temporarily and thereafter to establish free government for that people and to leave them alone. If that is true, then for us now to do that is no ingloriovis retreat, it is no abandonment.
There have been certain things said by Senators here which have been read very frequently in the Senate, and I read them again, not for the purpose of calling attention to any inconsist ency on the part of Senators between their utterances of that day and their positions now, but to establish the proposition which I make, that Senators in the beginning announced the purpose to do what we now ask them to do, and that what they denominate now as " scuttle," as opprobrious, is exactly what they said in the beginning they intended should be done.
When I read speeches of that kind I am generally called on to read some from the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER], because he has been about as emphatic on that subject as any man could be. I hope the Senate will bear in mind the purpose for which I read these extracts, and the application which I ask shall be made of them. The purpose which I have is to show that the very thing which we ask to be done is the thing which they said in the beginning should be done, and if there has been any change it has been in them and not in otirselves.
In the speech by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] on tne 3d day of February, 1899, which was published by him in pam phlet form, on page 31, the Senator used the following language:
But, Mr. President, I shrink from the notion that the interests of this coun try will be subserved by making permanently a part of our land territory thousands of miles away, inhabited by peoples alien to us, not of our blood, not of our way of thinking, foreign to all our associations, living in a tropical climate, where the white man can not work, under labor conditions of neces sity which we would not permit to exist in the United States.
Every argument which has been made in support of this doctrine of terri torial expansion and by "territorial expansion" I mean permanent territo rial expansion seems to me to be superficial, some of them sentimental, and some of them fantastic.
SSLi

59
I have to skip along, because otherwise as it is all of it very much on the line, I would read the entire speech, but I have not time to do that and I only select certain parts. Speaking of the flag and the pulling down of the flag, the Senator said:
To-day it floats in Cuba: the Spanish flag has gone forever, but our flag is not there to stay. It floats there in sight of the poor, wrecked Maine at Habana, but there will come a day, Mr. President and I hope it will not be long when we will take down our flag, raised there in the cause of liberty, and leave behind it liberty and an independent government, won and estab lished under its folds.
I only read that for the connection of the next sentence: I hope that, too, about the Philippines, and that is not at all inconsistent In my view with the ratification of the pending treaty.
Again, in the same speech, the Senator said:
I can not say, in view of the history of the country, that time may not change my views, but I must say that, as I now feel, if the ratification of this treaty involved permanent dominion by the United States over the archi pelago and its people as a Territory of the United States, irrevocably com mitted us to the policy of territorial expansion, I could not give it my vote.
I hope the Senator -will, unless he recollects this very well, give me his attention, because I want to recall it to him.
Mr. SPOONER. I recollect it perfectly. Mr. BACON. Then I am reading it for the benefit of others. I am delighted to know that the Senator recollects it, because if he does he must admit the application I am going to make of it. Mr. SPOONER. I will wait until I hear your application. Mr, BACON". The Senator from Wisconsin further said:
Again, Mr. President, the whole matter will be within our own hands. If we find we can not get on with the Filipinos; if, after studying the conditions over there, our people find we can not without strife and intolerable burdens do them any good, We can then cede the sovereignty to them and sail away. We will not then be running away from a responsibility t first sight, we will not subject ourselves to possibly the just charge of cowardice by other
to shower upon them blessings which long-continued tyranny has deprived them of the power to appreciate.
Mr. President, I commend to all who may feel an interest in the subject the entire speech of the Senator, much of which is on that line.
Now, for the application which I make of it, and I am going to make the application not only as to the Senator from Wisconsin, but to a half a dozen others whose utterances to the same effect I am going to read. The charge is that to leave the Philippine Is lands is an abandonment of the purpose for which we_went there; that it is what is commonly and opprobriously denominated scut tle; in other words, backing ont.
That speech was made before the ratification of the treaty of peace, and it was made in advocacy of the ratification. I say that before the ratification in that speech the Senator from Wis consin committed himself to the proposition plainly that so far as he was concerned the purpose was not the permanent reten tion of the islands, and that so far as he was concerned if that were the purpose he would not vote for it, and he recognized that it would be a legitimate act after we had ratified it to establish a government there for the benefit of the people and leave them there. It does not lie in his mouth to say that it is "scuttle," that it is backing out, that it is an abandonment of the original purpose, when the minority now advocates the course which the majority then said would be pursued. That is the application
53U

60
which I make of it and which I think is an absolutely legitimate one.
But the Senator was not alone in that statement. As I said, the speech from which I have quoted abounds in repetition in one way or another of that same thought. It was only because of the fact that those statements were made by Senators that the ratification of that treaty was secured, and there are Senators now members of this body who have stated, and will continue to state, that in the absence of those assurances that it would be considered a proper thing to leave the Philippine Islands they would never have voted for the ratification of the treaty, and without their votes it could not have been ratified.
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKER] used language which I shall also read. I want to say that the Senator from Wiscon sin, if I do not err, has in this Congress, certainly if not in this in the last, affirmed that he still approved of everything he then stated. If so, upon what possible grounds can the Senator as sume that those who now propose to do what he then said he would favor and which he would approve are guilty of a base abandonment of a purpose to the contrary.
The Senator from Ohio used this language on that subject in the same debate;
I do not understand anybody to tie proposing to take the Philippine Islands with the idea and view of permanently holding them and denying to the peo ple there the right to have a government of their own, if they are capable of it and want to establish it. I do not understand that anybody wants to do that. I have not heard of anybody who wants to do that. The President of the United States does not, I know, and no Senator in this Chamber has made any such statement.
Now, Mr. President, there is a statement from the Senator from Ohio to the same effect.
Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. FORAKER. I submit that if the Senator gives a part of a statement of that character he ought to give all of it. What the Senator has quoted from a speech I made on the occasion re ferred to is only a part of what was said by me at that time. I was interrogated by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAK] and others, and in connection with that, as a part of the same colloquy, occurs what, if the Senator will allow me, I should like to insert here. I think it is only fair that it should be so inserted. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will insert it without reading, I have no objection. Mr. FORAKER. It will take but a minute. Mr. BACON. I think I ought to be allowed to proceed. Mr. FORAKER. I do not think it is unreasonable, inasmuch as the Senator did not quote all of it, that I should insist upon its being inserted here. Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. FORAKER. I then said:
I think when we come to consider the question of policy with respect to the Philippines, the conditions there existing, thoir feeling of friendship, or their feeling of consent or of objection will have much to <Jo with determining Congress in that respect. I say I do not know of anybody, from the Pres ident of the United States down to his humblest follower in this matter, who ia proposing by force and violence to take and hold those islands for all time to come. That is all I can say in answer to the Senator.
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61
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I do not think that changes the proposition. I will not reread it. It will be in juxtaposition, and people can judge for themselves.
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] used the follow ing language in that debate:
Suppose we ratify the treaty. The islands pass from the possession of Spain into our possession without committing us to any policy. I believe we snail have the wisdom not to attempt to incorporate those islands with our body politic or make their inhabitants a part of our citizenship. I believe we shall have the wisdom, the self-restraint, and the ability to restore peace and order in those islands and give their people the opportunity for sellgovernment and for freedom under the protecting shield or the United States until the time shall come when they shall stand alone.
Mr. President, that is all we are asking now. If Congress will simply announce that it is the purpose to let these people stand alone, and that it is the purpose to proceed in a safe and leisurely manner, if you please, toaccomplish that end, but that the ulti mate end is to cut off from us this excrescence of colonialism and to give freedom to that people, we will not quarrel with them as to the time within which it shall be done or the particular meth ods. What we object to is a policy which adheres to colonialism, which refuses to say that it is not the purpose to maintain it as the permanent policy of this Government, and which step by step, in the absence of a declared policy, has a tendency to fasten it upon the country with more and more indissoluble bonds.
Biit that is not the point I am now after. The point I am after is that these Senators at the time announced that they did not con sider that the permanent retention of the islands was the policy, and that therefore the proposition now not to hold them is not entitled to the condemnation of being scuttle or any other im proper abandonment.
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] also said:
I want no subject races and no vassal States. That we had by the fortunes of war assumed a great responsibility in the Philippines: that we ought to give to those people an opportunity for freedom, for peace, and for self-gov ernment.
I want to get this country out of war and back to peace. I want to get the disposition and control of the Philippines out of the bands of the war power and place them where they belong in the hands of Congress and the Presi dent. I want to enter into a policy that shall enable us to give peace and self-government to the natives of those islands.
Both by the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Massa chusetts, as well as by the Senator from Wisconsin, there is a distinct declaration that the ratification of that treaty and the acquisition of those islands were not, in their opinion, acts which committed us to the permanent retention of the islands. That being so, the proposition in a proper way to be rid of the islands is not an abandonment of the original purpose.
Now, Mr. President, there are similar extracts which I have here from the Senator from Colorado [Mr. TELLER] , who has been consistent from the beginning and who is consistent now:
There are few people in the world incapable of self-government. I believe the people of Luzon are capable of self-government now. I believe the people of some of the islands are? I do not know but all are. Mr. President, I keep in view this truth which I have stated, which I believe to be a truth, that the people are entitled to a government of their own making, and that we have no right tosay, "TJur standard is so low you will create a government which we can not affirm; therefore you can not nave a government of your own." They are entitled to only such a government as they themselves can main tain; it must be one producing order and protection to persons and property, for otherwise it is not a government at all.
5314

02

He continued:

We shall make a mistake if we make up govern these people from here, that we are

our minds that we going to govern them

are going to with Anglo-

Saxons whom we send out there from here to administer the affairs of that

country. You will need 50,000 soldiers; in a little while you will need more,

for they are a great people. They are a people who are willing to contend

for their liberty, and I believe it also to be an axiom that a people who will

flght for their liberty and who are willing to die for it are capable of main

taining it.

I also read one from the Senator from Vermont [Mr. PROCTOR] ,

as follows:

I am not in favor of annexation, not because I would apprehend any par ticular trouble from it, but because it is not a wise policy to take in any peo ple of foreign tongue and training and without strong guiding American elements.

Also one from Mr. Thurston, then a Senator from Nebraska, as

follows:

lam unalterably opposed to any departure from the declared policy of the

fathers, which would start this Republic, for the first conquest and dominion utterly at variance with the

time, upon a career of avowed purpose and

manifest destiny of our republican Government.

And one from the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Mo-

LAURIN], as follows:

It is idle to speak of Americanizing a tropical country 8,000 miles away.

Our people will never consent for the people of that far-off land to ever have

a voice in the affairs of our country. Therefore, to govern them we must

inaugurate a military or colonial system utterly at variance with the princi

ples tion

of our Republic. But even the power is vested in the

if by a strained United States

construction of the Constitu to inaugurate a colonial sys

tem, I am utterly opposed, as a matter of policy, to the acquisition of any

territory that can not be Americanized and brought into harmony with our

institutions. I believe the time is not far off, and I gladly welcome its

approach, when our flag will float over every foot of North American soil, but

it must come naturally and peacefully by the consent of the governed, not

by the rude hand of war.

But when it comes to thrusting our rule upon 10,000,000 people on another

continent by force of arms, I hold that such a policy is unwise as well as at

variance with the principles upon which our Government is founded. Taxa

tion without representation is as much tyranny as when King Ueorges tea

was dumped into Boston Harbor. To govern the people of the Philippines

without their consent is as much government without the consent of the

governed as it was when we were under the rule of Great Britain.

In a commercial point of view, I believe the importance of the Philippines

per se is greatly exaggerated. They are chiefly valuable as the key to the

Orient, but we need not colonize to obtain, that advantage. The exports of

the Philippines, according to $80.8(K),250. If this entire trade

the statistical abstract, was monopolized by us

in 1896 amounted to it would be insignifi

cant. We will have to teach them to wear shirts and breeches before we can

trade with them much.

And one from Mr. Gray, of Delaware, as follows: Now we have them, it does not follow that we are committed to a colonial policy or to a violation of those great principles of liberty and self-govern ment which must always remain American ideals if our own free institutions are to endure. No country, and this country least of all, can afford to tram ple on its ideals. I have no fear that it will do so. He went further:

I assure you, with some knowledge of whereof I speak, that the President is committed to no policy calculated to discourage, much less strike down, the aspirations of liberty-loving people all over the world.

Mr. President, in this connection the point to which I wish to call the attention of Senators is that there is no set of resolutions that has ever been introduced into the Senate by anyone who was opposed to the imperialistic policy which ever proposed that we should leave those islands without ceremony, without regard to the question whether there was a government there which could protect the people from any disorder. Every set of resolutions

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63
which has ever been presented, whether by a committee or by an individual Senator, has declared as the basis of the proposition that there should first be erected in those islands a stable government.
The purpose thus declared by Senators in the extracts from their speeches is the purpose which the opponents of the present hill now seek to accomplish. Not only so, but every effort which has been made by the minority in opposition to an enforced colo nial policy has been consistent with the purpose thus declared by those Senators and by others. There has never been any effort or purpose to make a dishonorable or inglorious retreat from the islands. There has never been any purpose that our Government should leave those islands until order was restored and a stable government was established in them. There has never been a purpose that"the flag of the United States should be taken down until it was taken down voluntarily and in honor, just as it has been taken down voluntarily and in honor in Cuba.
What is proposed by the minority is to aid the Filipinos in es tablishing a free government for themselves, just as we have done in Cuba, and one of the principal objections to the pending bill is that it takes no step in that direction.
We have sent two commissions to govern the islands. Both of these commissions have been composed of men of distinguished ability. Each of these commissions, after great labor in investi gating conditions, has recommended that the Filipinos be author ized to participate through representative bodies in the control of their own central government.
Admiral Dewey, in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, June 27,1898, said the Filipinos were far superior to the Cubans. This letter is found in the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1898, vol. 2, page 103! August 29 he wrote the Secretary of the Navy that further intercourse with them had confirmed him in , that opinion. I have made a similar inquiry of numbers of offi cers who have served both in the Philippines and in Cuba, and their testimony is uniformly to the same effect.
We have adjudged the Cubans as capable of self-government. We have spent four years in preparing them for their task, and finally we have established them as an independent republic. Why should we deny this to the Filipinos? We have a right to the greatest pride and self-gratulation upon our disinterested and noble work in Cuba. Through all the ages it must redound to our honor and glory. And still greater will be the honor and the glory if we shall give a free government to the Philippines.
63U

Character and Capacity of the Filiplnos.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OFGEOHGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Monday, June 2, 1902.
The Senate, as In Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill (S. 2295) temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: There has been a good deal said in this debate about the character of the Filipino people, and a good many things have been said which I think are contrary to the facts and unauthorized. I desire to put into the RECORD, in order that they may appear in this debate, some estimates which have been made of this people by those who have had the best opportunity to judge of their capacity. I will say in the beginning that criticism has been made upon those of us on this side of the Chamber who oppose this bill, that while we profess to deprecate military rule we do not support a bill to establish civil government when the opportunity is offered. It is not the fact that we are unwilling to support a bill to establish civil government, but that we object to a bill which is not proper in itself. And speaking of the details of the bill I wish to say that in ad dition to the fundamental objection that no promise of independ ent nationality is given to the Filipinos, my particular objections to it are two. One is that it fails to give to the Filipinos oppor tunity for participation in their government through their rep resentatives, and the other is that it affords an opportunity for exploitation, and as I said the other day, I think all inatterswith respect to the disposition of the property and franchises of those islands should be postponed until the people themselves can have an opportunity to determine what shall be done with reference to them. My purpose now is not to make anything like a speech, but simply to call attention to and to have put in the RKOOBD the testimonials which have been given by others as to the capacity of this people. The first person whose testimony I will give is that of Admiral Dewey. I will remark that many of the extracts, if not all of them, have already been mentioned in the Senate at various times, but I desire them to appear consecutively as a part of the debate. On the 27th of June, 1898, in response to a telegram sent to him by the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Dewey sent this re ply, which will be found in the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1898, volume 2, page 103:
In my opinion these people are far superior in their intelligence and moro capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races.
DEWEY. 5849

Then in Senate Document 62, which contains the documenta sent by the executive department to the Senate, there is another dispatch from Admiral Dewey, found on page 383, in which he

says this, referring to the former telegram:

In a telegram sent to the Department on June 331 expressed the opinion that "these people are far superior in their intelligence and more capable of selfgovernment than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races." Further intercourse with them has confirmed me in this opinion.

We have sent two commissions to the_ Philippine Islands which have made very careful examinations into the question as to the capacity of the Filipinos to participate in their own government. Each of these commissions has sent a recommendation, which is before the Senate, that the Filipinos be permitted to have par ticipation in their government to the extent of the election of a representative body by them which shall be clothed with legisla tive powers. The Schurman Commission and the Taft Commission

have both made that recommendation.

The Schurman Commission made a very elaborate examination

into the question of the capacity of the Filipino people and their

character, and the testimony takes up almost the entire second

volume of the report of the Schurman Commission, where is set

out the testimony of a great many witnesses, men of standing and

capacity, and who have had opportunity to judge. The tes

timony is abundant in that volume as to the belief that these peo

ple are of sufficient intelligence and character to participate

through representative bodies in the control of their own govern

ment. As a result of that examination and as a conclusion, the

Commission, on page 119 of the first volume of their report, use

this language in giving the reasons why in their opinion those

people are capacitated to participate in their own government.

For this confidence it has the following, among other grounds: First, the

study by educated Filipinos of the various examples of constitutional gov

ernment has resulted in their selection, as best adapted to the conditions and

character of the various peoples inhabiting the archipelago, of almost pre

cisely the political institutions and arrangements which have been worked

out in practice by the American people; and these are also, though less defi

nitely apprehended, the political ideas of the masses of the Philippine people

tssnehutxoierspTtmpu.ohrtssiiiiSesostlieenpvodcsoenosib,enn.ayndtnjltoyhdhay,e_ieistndhmbaabeudryemsdntAiotfhimnroreyrneqersutisuoceubanftsnfthiilscseyteaiinntalogddlusabstaphetytrteaawtthtrieeeoadefntontirohntmfhetesthchoedremiegcsAmohirumtiessrde,sseripboicronyiafvwntihtlahfeesoegbrcepmeosr,snetaoscFnfteadidgnliiotinplnvygi-

ernment to the Filipinos, the Filipinos themselves are of unusually promis

ing material. They possess admirable domestic and personal virtues, and

though they are uncontrollable when such elemental passions as jealousy,

revenge, or resentment are once aroused, most of them practically all of

the civilized inhabitants of Luzon and Visayas are naturally and normally

peaceful, On the

sduopciplree, sasniodndoeffethreenitniaslutroreccotinosntittuhteedgraeuatthmoraitjyo.rity

of

them

will

be

found to be good, law-abiding citizens. Thirdly, though the majority of the

inhabitants are uneducated, they evince a strong desire to be instructed, and

the example of Japan is with them a cherished ideal of the value of modern

education. A system of free schools for the people another American in

stitution, it will be noted has been an important element in every Philip

pine programme of reforms. Fourthly, the educated Filipinos, though

constituting a minority, are far more numerous than is generally supposed,

and are scattered all over the archipelago; and the Commission desires to

bear the strongest testimony to the high range of their intelligence, and not

only to their intellectual training, but also to their social refinement, as well

as to the grace and charm of the personal character. These educated Fili

pinos, in a word, are the equals of men one meets in similar vocations, law,

medicine, business, etc., in Europe or America.

That which I have just read is a part of the report of the Schur man Commission, of which Professor Schurman, Mr. Denby, Pro fessor Worcester, Admiral Dewey, and, I believe, General Otis, were members.

5349

In a book published by a member of the same Commission, written before the Sp^pish war.and ab a time when there was no inducement to partisanship, entitled "The Philippine Islands," by Dean 0. Worcester, on page 479, he draws this very attractive and interesting picture of the character and social conditions of the Filipinos.
The civilized Filipino certainly has many good qualities to offset his bad traits. The traveler can not fail to be impressed by his open-handed and cheerful hospitality. He will go to any amount of trouble, and often to no little expense, in order to accommodate some perfect stranger who has not the slightest claim on him; and he never turns one of his own race from his door.
If cleanliness be next to godliness, he certainly has much to recommend him. Every village has its bath, if there is any chance for one, and men, women, and children patronize it liberally. Should the situation of a town be unfortunate in this particular, its people will carry water from a great distance if necessary, and in any event will keep clean.
Hardly less noticeable than the almost universal hospitality are the wellregulated homes and the happy family life, which one soon finds to be the rule. Childre:iar3 orderly, respectful, and obedient to their parents. Wives are allowed an amount of liberty hardly equaled in any other Eastern coun try, and they seldom abuse it. More often than not they are the financiers of tlieir families, and I have frequently been referred bythe head of a house to "mi mujer" when I wished to make a bargain. Women have their shaie of the work to do, but it is a just share, and they perform it without question and without grumbling.
At vespers in the evening there is always a pretty scene. An instant hush comes over the busy village. In each house father, mother, and children fall on their knees before the image or picture of some saint and repeatjheir prayers. The devotions over, each child kisses the htnid of his father and his mother, at the same time wishing them good evening. He then makes an obeisance to each of his brother.? and sistors, as well as to each guest who happens to be present, repeating his pleasant salutation with each funny bow. Host and hostess also greet one in the same way, and in remote places, where white men are a rarity, the little tots often Ioie3l to kiss ones hand.
The civilized native is self-respecting and self-restrained to a remarkable degree. Ha is patient under misfortune and forbearing under provocation. While it is stretching the twlth to say that he never reveals anger, he cer tainly succeeds much better in controlling himself than does the average European. When he does give way to passion, however, he is as likely as not to bscome for the moment a maniac and to do someone a fatal injury.
He is a kind father and a dutiful son. His aged relatives are never left in want, but are brought to his home and are welcome to share the best that it affords to the end of their days.
Among his fellows he is genial and sociable. He loves to sing, dance, and make merry. He is a born musician, and, considering the aort of instruments at his disposal, and especially the limited advantages which he has for per fecting himself in their use, his peformances on them are often very re markable.
He is naturally fearless and admires nothing so much as bravery in others. Under good officers he makes an excellent soldier, and he is ready to fight to tile death for his honor or his home.
Mr. President, in connection with what I read from Admiral Dewey, making comparison between the capacity and the intelli gence of the Filipinos and the Cubans and awarding superiority to the Filipinos, I desire to say that I have asked a great many Army officers, who have served both in Cuba and in the Philip pines, what their estimate was, and without a single exception every Army officer has given me the same opinion that Admiral Dewey expressed in these two telegrams to the Secretary of the Navy, that the Filipinos are superior in point of capacity and in telligence to the Cubans. Of course, he is speaking of the average of the two peoples.
It is exceedingly gratifying to me that the testimony of Admiral Dewey and the statement of Professor Worcester in his book is corroborated by all of the official documents which have been, sent to us by the Executive Department in regard to that matter and also by the testimony which has been taken before the Senate Committee on the Philippines.
6349

I have in my hand a part of the testimony. I can not refer to a great many things that are in it. but I will refer to a few only. Governor Taft is very emphatic in his commendation of the Philip pine people as a people of character and good disposition and in telligence. On page 4J.Q of the testimony there is this question and answer, the chairman asking the question of Governor Taft:

The Filipinos are temperate? Governor TAFT. Yes, sir; the Filipinos are temporato, trot they drink. They drink a little vino, and vino shops have been very largely reduced since our occupancy and under the civil government.

Then Governor Taft, in response to another question on the same page, said what I shall read:

The CHAIBMAN. The sale of liquor has been regulated and reduced since you have been there?
Governor TAFT. Yes, sir; it has; and I venture to say that the moral con dition of the city of Manila is as good as that of any American city I know of.

On page 77 of the same volume of testimony there is a state ment by Governor Taft in the nature of a voluntary statement on his part, and I think it important to call attention to it in view of the very general and unqualified assertions which have been made as to the character of the Filipinos in their prosecution of the war. Governor Taft says:

I desire to say, with respect to the treatment of American prisoners by the insurgent officers high in command, that there was usually very little tocriticise. When you get toofficers lower in command you will find instances of the murder of American prisoners, not many, but enough to cause com ment as to the difference in treatment.

In this connection I read the cablegram, to which I have already called attention, from Admiral Dewey, of June 27. He says:

SECRETABT OP NAVY, Washington:

HONGKOKQ, June S7, 1S38.

Receipt of telegram of June 14 is acknowledged. Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, with 13 of his staff, arrived May 19, by permission, on Nanshan. Es tablished self Oavite, outside arsenal, under the protection of our guns, and organized his army. I have had several conferences with him, generally of a personal nature.
Consistently, I have refrained from assisting him in any way with the force tinder my command, and on several occasions I have declinocl requests that I should do so, tolling him the squadron could not act until the arrival of the United States troops. At the same time I have given him to understand that I consider insurgents as friends, being opposed to a common enemy. Ho has gone to attend a meeting of insurgent leaders for the purpose of forming a civil government. Aguinaldo has acted independently of the squadron, but has kept me advised of his progress, which has boon wonderful. I have al lowed to pass by water recruits, arms, and ammunition, and to take such Spanish arms and ammunition from the arsenal as he needed.

Here is the part to which. I wish to call attention: Have advised frequently to conduct the war humanely, which he has done invariably. My_ relations with him are cordial, but I am not in his confi dence. The United States has not been boundin any way to assist insurgents by any act or promises, and ho is not to my knowledge committed to assist us. I believe he expects to capture Manila without my assistance, but doubt .bility, they not yet having many guns. In my opinion these people are far siuUppeerriioor in their intelligence and more capable of seellff--ggi overnment than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races.
DEWEY.
General MacArthur, in his testimony before the Committee on the Philippines, said what I shall read. He was speaking as to the policy of granting to the Filipinos the opportunity to partici pate through representative government in the control of their own affairs. I can not go back entirely, but I will take up enough to make the connection.
Senator CARSIACK. Will not that depend very largely on granting them at least a considerable measure of political rights and share in the govern ment that is established over them?
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General MACAKTHTJB. Undoubtedly, and they are getting that. Senator CARHACK. In what way? General MAcAiiTHUrtT They have almost complete control of their mu nicipal governments. They have been given a very considerable control of the provincial government, and what they get in the general government depends upon future action. So far as I am concernod, I should ba glad to give them a very considerable voice. Senator BKVEKTDOK. Do I understand you by that to mean that as they demonstrate tlieir fitness and capability in these minor and smaller fields of political action their participation in larger affairs would be increased ac cordingly? General MACABTHTJE. Yes: I think of course that is Senator PATTKBSON. 1 do not think it is just or fair for the Senator to make such a statement Senator CAKMACK. I understand you to gay that you would be willing to give them a very considerable share in the general government? General MACARTHUR. Yes. Senator CAKMACK. Do you think they should have that now? General MAcAiiTHUH. I would be willing to give it to them, as I have said. I have become attached to those people and have a good deal of faith in them. Senator CAHMACK, You speak of them as quick, generous, and intelligent people. General MACAKTHUB. I so consider them. Of course the society is classi fied, as it is everywhere else. Senator CAB.MACK. But as a whole. General, I believe in your reports you speak of the Filipino people in an appreciative way as a people with consid erable native intelligence, quick and apt and generous, flexible and teachable. General MACABTHUR. I believe that is the general tenor. Senator OABMACK. That is the general tenor of your report? General MAOABTHTJK. Yes. Senator CAB.WA.CK. You do not regard the people of the Philippine Islands, as a whole, as a miserable, corrupt, cruel, and a degraded race, do you, Gen eral? General MACAETHUB. Oh, by no means.
And so on. Now, Mr. President, there is a very interesting and detailed statement made as to the character and social conditions of the Philippine people, to which the attention of the Senate has more than once been called, and parts of which have been inserted in the RECORD, bnt which I desire now to have read in this connec tion. It was alluded to on Saturday by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEE] , and the effect of these statements by two naval officers was endeavored to in some degree be depreciated by the suggestion that the officers did not have an opportunity to see anything except such things as the Pilipino people desired them to see. in order that they might not have a true appreciation of conditions as they existed; but the fact is that these two officers were for several weeks going through the islands, and the gen eral narration which they gave shows that they saw not a limited and circumscribed part of the conditions as they existed, but that they mingled generally with the people and had the best of op portunity for forming an estimate of their character. and their social condition and habits. It is a report made by two naval officers, Paymaster W. B. Wilcox and Naval Cadet L. R. Sargent, who made an extended tour through northern Liizon in the autumn of 1898. This is an ex tract from a book written on the Philippines by Albert G. Robin son, and it is found beginning on page 284. I will state that this visit was made by these two officers at a time when the American Army was in Manila, and when the en tire island of Luzon, to say nothing of any other part of the archi pelago, was tinder the control of the Pilipino government, and that whatever there was of order and of orderly government in that island at that time was entirely under the authority of the Filipino government, with which the American Government at
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that time had no connection, and over which the American Army attempted to exercise no control.
As it is a little long I will ask that the Secretary may read it for me, and in order that the connection may be maintained I will ask him to begin at the beginning of the chapter, on page 282, and read through to page 290, or so much as may be neces sary to preserve the continuity, the whole of it being afterwards reproduced in the RECORD.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Secre tary -will read as requested.
The Secretary read as follows: *******

Mr. Sargent, in opening his article, recalls the conditions in October and November, 1898, when the journey was made:

" It will be remembered that at that date the United States had not yet an

nounced its policy with regard to the Philippines. The terms of the treaty with Spain were being negotiated by our commissioners at Paris, and the fate of the islands hung in the balance. In the meantime the native popula

tion, taking matters into thoir own hands, had declared their independence

from all foreign jurisdiction, and had set up a provisional government with

Aguinaldo at its head. Although this government has never been recog nized, and in all probability will go out of existence without recognition, yet it can not be denied that, in a region occupied by many millions of inhabit

ants, for nearly six months it stood alone between anarchy and order.

"The military forces of the United States held control only in Manila, with its environs, and in Cavite, and had no authority to proceed farther; while in the vast remaining districts the representatives of the only other recog nized power on the field were prisoners in the hands of their despised sub

jects. It was the opinion at Manila during this anomalous period in our

Philippine relations, and possibly in the United States as well, that such a state of affaire must breed something akin to anarchy. I can state unreserv edly, however, that Mr. W^CO!? ^d I found the existing conditions to be much at variance with this opinion. During our absence from Manila we

traveled more than 600 miles in a very comprehensive circuit through the

northern part of the island of Luzon, traversing a characteristic and im portant district.
"In this way we visited seven provinces, of which some were under the im

mediate control of the central government at Malolos, while others wore re

motely situated, separated from each other and from the scat of government

by natural divisions of land, and accessible only by lengthy and arduous travel. As a tribute to the efficiency of Aguinaldos government and to the law-abiding character of his subjects, I offer the fact that Mr. Wilcox and I

pursued our journey throughout in perfect security and returned to Manila

with only the most pleasing recollections of the quiet and orderly life which

we found the natives to be loading under the new regime."

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In his descriptions of tho many towns they passed through Mr. Sargent

leaves on the mind only a picture of peace, order, and happiness among a

bright, intelligent, and ambitious people, although their knowledge of the

affairs of tho world was limited. Quotations from the article will illustrate

this effect upon the reader:

I I!

"From Nueva Viscaya for the next three weeks of travel -we passed from one hospitable town to another and enjoyed a round of novel entertainments.

I

Our route now carried us through the valley of the Eio Grande Cagayan, probably the largest area of level country in Luzon Island. With the excep

tion of the region in the immediate vicinity of Manila and of the narrow

strip of land along the western coast, this valley, previous to the revolution,

was the firmest and most ancient seat of Spanish authority on the island.

Its towns throughout give evidence o tho labor that has been expended on

them. There are comparatively few nipa huts and many substantial frame

buildings. Each town, moreover, has an elaborate church and convent, us

ually built of brick. " Many of these churches date back into the last century, one which I re
member particularly bearing the date of 1780 as that of its completion. Our entertainment in the different towns varied according to the facilities at

hand, but in all cases music was a leading feature. In the absence of all ac

cessories the village band would be called into the building in which we were received, and would play tune after tune well into the night while we cobversed at our ease with the village fathers. At the little village of Cordon, which has a population of only a few hundred, we passed one of the pleasantest evenings of our journey. In this instance four accomplished little

girls gave the entertainment its particular charm. Soon after our arrival the entire village trooped into the large room of the public building that had

been turned over to onr party. The floor was cleared for a dance, ana Hie band commenced with a waltz.
11 The towns of Ilagan and Aparri, with their wealthy and pleasure-loving population, provided the most elaborate entertainment. Ilagan is the capi tal city of the tobacco-raising province of Isabella and is situated near the head of navigation of the Bio Grands; Aparri is situated at its month in the
Erovince of Cagayan and is the only seaport of the valley. These towns are lid out in regular streets and have many squares of substantial frame buildings. They have each a population of between 10,000 and 15,000. We spent three daysat Ilagan, and I think that it was here that we were brought into closest touch with the Filipino character.
" The cultured class, which I have spoken of before, was strongly in evi dence, and I think that before leaving we had discussed views with nearly every member of it. They all realized that they were passing through a crucial period in the history of their people, and young and old were eager to acquire all possible knowledge that might assist them to think clearly at this crisis. Their realization of the gravity of their position did not, how ever, rob their character of its natural gaiety, nor make them forget their duty as hosts. On the evening following our arrival a ball was given in our honor, which was attended by all the elite of the town. .
1; There were present about 50 young women and twice that number of men. AIL were dressed in European fashion. The girls were pleasant and intelli gent. The men compoited themselves in all respects like gentlemen. . It was hard to realize that we were in the very heart of a country generally sup posed to be given up to semisavages. At inteivals between dances many songs were sung, usually by one or two of the guests, while all frequently joined in the chorus. The national hymn was repeated several times with great enthusiasm. The ball lasted until nearly 3 oclock in tho morning and broke up with good feeling at its height.
" On the second evening we were invited to attend the theater, where two one-act Spanish plays were presented by the yotmg society people of the town. The theater itself had been constructed by the villagers only a few .weeks before. It was a large bamboo structure, one end of which was used as the village market, while the stage occupied the other end. The stage arrangements were good; curtain, side scenes, and footlight all en regie. In the performance of the play we saw our friends the typical young Piliptnos in a light in which very few of our nation have had an opportunity to view them. They comported themselves with credit in a position where humor, intelligence, and artistic ability were the requisites of success.
" During our stay at Hagan we lived at the house of the mayor. This build ing was of great size and was built of magnificent hard wood from the neigh boring forest. One wing, containing a reception room and two bedrooms, was turned over to us. The reception room was very large, with a finely polished floor and with windows along two sides. It contained a piano and a set of excellent bamboo furniture, including the most comfortable chairs and divans imaginable. There were two tall mirrors on the wall and a number of old-fashioned pictures and framed paper flowers. " * * There was one form of hospitality which we met at Ilagan and Aparvi that wo would gladly have avoided. I still shudder to recall the stupendous dinners that were spread before us night after night. The Filipinos pride themselves on their cookery, and it is indeed excellent."
Mr. Sargent, in testifying as to the drinking habits of the natives, says he did not once see an intoxicated man on his journey. He continues:
"Our party proceeded on the Oslo from Aparri around the northwestern corner of the island and landed on *the coast near the northern end of the province of South Ilocos. From here we proceeded by land southward through the western provinces. During this part of our Imirney we were thrown into clos.er association than previously with the military element of the population, of which I hope to have an opportunity to speak further in a subsequent article.
"The towns on the western coast are even larger than those on the Eio Grande. Vigan, the capital of South Ilocos, has a population of abotit 28,000. and Candon, farther to the southward, is not far behind this figure. Thb mayor of Candon was of the hustler type, and was evidently on the outlook for an opportunity to boom his town. On our departure he presented us "with a written description of its exceptionally desirable location from a business standpoint. Every town gave evidence of the bitter fighting that had taken place between the natives and the Spaniards, many of the larger buildings which had been used for defense being riddled with bullet holes.
" We no longer passed from town to town through unsettled stretches of country. The fields on both sides of the road were under cultivation and were dotted with laborers, while on the road itself there were always many * travelers. The laborers in the fields worked in the shade of large screens of uipa leaves, which they carried with them from place to place."
In conclusion, Mr. Sargent says: "I can not see what better gauge we can obtain at present of the intelligence .and ambition, of the whole Philippine race than the progress that has

8

boon mado by its favored members with the limited opportunities at their

command. Throughout the islands a thirst for knowledge is manifested

and an extravagant respect for those who possess it.

"I have seen a private native citizen in a town in the interior exercise a

more powerful influence than all the native officials over the minds of the

inhabitants, simply because he was known to have been educated in the

best schools at Manila, and was regarded, for that reason, as a superior man.

The heroes of these people are not heroes of war, but of science and inven

tion. "Without rivali the American who is beet known by reputation in Lu

zon is Mr. Edison, and any native with the slightest pretension to education

w_hom you may question on the subject will take delight in reciting a list of

his achievements. The ruling Filipinos, during the existence of their pro

vincial government, appreciated the necessity of providing public schools to

be accessible to the poorer inhabitants.

"Had events so shaped themselves as to have provided an opportunity for

carrying into effect the plans formed on this point, it seems possible that the

, mental plane of the entire population might have been raised gradually to a

surprising height.

rOut of respect to the statements of other people, which the narrative of

my experience may seem to contradict, I wish to say that I have found the

nativo of the interior of Luzon an astonishingly different character from the

one ordinarily met in Manila. Previous to my journey I regarded those

whom I had encountered in that city with great dislike, and after my return

I was unable to overcome that feeling. They are not a fair sample of the

race, and I can not expect anyone who has formed his judgment on the sub

ject merely from observations of that type to express an opinion similar to

mine as recorded above."

The experience of those gentlemen does not point to any very fruitful soil

for widespread anarchy, such as sundry alarmists have pictured as the result

of Filipino self-government,

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Mr. BACON. I desire to submit some few remarks in refer ence to the amendment which proposes to give a representative body to the Filipinos, which is embraced, as I understand, in the substitute offered by the minority. Iii addition to what I shall say personally and what is really of more importance, I propose to submit some extracts.from an address recently delivered by Doctor Schurman, the president of the first Philippine Commis sion.
The question as to whether or not the Filipinos should be al lowed representation, of course is largely involved in and de pendent upon the question whether they are capacitated for it; and therefore the pursuit of the subject on which. I was en gaged when my limit of time was reached is not out of order, nor am I seeking here by any device to bring in a subject not germane, but, on the contrary, my discussion is strictly germane to that question.
The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOOLER] on Saturday last made a very broad statement that there were no schools in the Philippine Islands other than those which were furnished by the Americans. Of course he was speaking in a general sense, but even in that sense his statement was unwarranted by the facts. I have a little memorandum here, which I think is of interest, and which certainly is in conflict with that very broad statement made by the Senator.
In the city and suburbs of Cebu, prior to the occupation of the American forces, there was a very comprehensive and extensive public-school system. The city of Cebu is on the island of Cebu, one of the Visayan islands, and contains, with its suburbs, 37,000 inhabitants. In that city of 37,000 inhabitants, prior to Ameri can occupation and subsequent to American occupation, and prior to any institution of American schools, there were these native schools: In two seminaries and in the public schools of that city of 37,000 inhabitants there were 3,000 students. Eight hundred of them wore in the male seminary, 450 of them were in
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the female seminary, and the remainder of them in the ordinary public schools of the city. The public schools, educating outside of the seminaries some eighteen hundred children, were supported entirely bythe people of the community, almost all of whom were native Filipinos.
Mr. President, it is certainly a most remarkable fact in the con sideration of the intelligence of that people and of their effort to improve themselves and educate their children that in a city of 87,000 inhabitants there should be these seminaries and this pub lic-school system, with 3,000 students in attendance. That was the condition prior to the occupation of the Americans in Febru ary, 1899, and it continued thereafter. I do not think that even yet there has been a complete organization of American schools in that island. There had been a very partial one up to last sum mer, and those native schools were still in existence.
I will state to the Senate that that information is not mere hearsay, but was given to me on the ground by an officer of the Army who was On duty and I think occupied the position of as sistant adjutant-general of that department, not attached to the personal staff, but an official position which required of him to have this information, and it was given to me by him personally.
It is due that I should say that the male seminary and the fe male seminary, being institutions of higher learning, were not en tirely dependent for their scholars upon the local community, but they_came from other parts of that island and from the neighbor ing islands, just as in the same way in this country students come from different parts to institutions of higher learning than they can get in their immediate locality.
What is true of schools in Cebu is true in greater or less degree in all the important cities and towns of the Philippines. In a much greater degree it is true in Manila, where there is a university and colleges and schools of high rank. I have cited Cebu specially only because I happened to have the figures in that case.
I have already read, Mr. President, the statement of the SchurBaan Commission, made as the conclusion of their very elaborate examination, that the educated people of the Philippine Islands are the equals of men one meets in similar vocations law, medi cine, business, etc. in Europe or America. This language is strong, sir, because it is direct and without qualification. It is the conclusion of men than whom in opportunity and capacity to accurately judge there are none superior.
In the more limited opportunity for observation which was af forded to me I saw, not only in Manila, but in the smaller towns and even in the villages, homes which were the abodes of refinement and most cordial hospitality, where were found that surest index of civilization accomplished and gracious women. What I say in this regard will, I am sure, be indorsed by every officer who has seen service in the Philippines.
I have alluded to the fact that both the Bchurman Commission and the Taft Commission hate recommended in their reports that these people be allowed to have a representative government. Governor Taft, in his testimony before the committee, repeats it. His testimony is tobe found on page 333 of the evidence taken before the Philippine Committee. Governor Taft used this language:
I think that & popular assembly iswhat the people desire, and I think it Js the best possible means of educating their educated men in popular governmentIt -will give them an opportunity to meet, to express their views, to take part in legislation l to propose and enact laws which they deem useful in theconntty; it will give them a part in the government, and will by practice teach
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tham what self-government is. We recommend that in our report, and lam

sure that with that the people will have confidence that our statement to

them, that we desire to educate them in self-government and give thfem a

measure of self-government, increasing it gradually as they become more

fitted for it, is true.

Senator AIJJSON. It is a legislative body of all the provinces; that is, it is

a general body?

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Governor T AFT, Yes, sir. I would not include therein the Moro provinces,

for, as I have already stated, the Moros do not desire popular government.

In another place he recommends that they be allowed to elect such a popular representative body not later than January, 1904.
The Scburrnan Commission waa even more emphatic in its

recommendation in this regard. Its views are echoed in the re

cent address of President Schurman, extracts from which, with

the consent of the Senate, I shall include in my remarks. The extracts referred to are as follows:

The time approaches to set our Philippine compass by the fixed stars.

I take as my starting point the motives and objects with which we went

into the Philippines. They were impressively voiced by President McKinley,

and I hare already told you how he set them forth to me three years ago.

Our purpose was not aolflsh, it was humanitarian; it wag not the vanity of

self-aggrandizement, it was not the greed of power and dominion; no, no, not

these, hut altruism caring for the happiness of others, philantrophy relieving

the Filipinos of oppression and conferring on them the blessings of liberty.

This waa the supreme consideration with President MoKinley.

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The political emancipation of the Filipinos was the controlling object with the President and the people of the United States. I am of course aware that other and less worthy aima appealed to individual Americana and to groups of Americans. It would ho strange if it were otherwise, considering How diversified human motives are apt to be. The jingo saw in the annexa tion of the Philippines another avenue for spread-eagleism; to Americans in the Orient it meant an accession of American influence in Asia; to the Pro-

ctiiu Aiiitioci. wiaii^u niivw on imo VJI*K wv3tvi(,it <JL uiLinia *JL <JL -t.'J'J, tiu njc
sensational presa, still delirious from the fsver of war and surfeited with the staleness of piping peace, discerned in the Philippines material for new sen sations which promised to be as stirring as the excitant waa remote, un known, and dangerously explosive.
All these influences, and others, were undoubtedly at work. Yet, it was not these forces singly or in combination that carried tho day; it waa the humanitarian object of liberating the Filipinos from Spanish tyranny and bestowing upon them the boon of freedom that decided the President and people of the United States to compel Spain to cede to us her sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.
Fortunate, indeed, that no lower motive prevailed. Any other object than the humanitarian one of carrying the gift of freedom to the Filipinos would have ended in vast and bitter disappointment, or, perhaps, even in poignant remorse. Did we need the Philippines to make our power felt in Asia? No, for we can exert the most potent national influence in all quarters of the world without owning adjacent territory, as our recent experiences in Pekin and Panama have demonstrated to the satisfaction of the most incredulous.
And had we gone into the Philippines for commercial gain, when, think you, would our Traders profits haveamountod to the hundreds of millions of dollars which the archipelago has already cost us? And what shall I say of the thousands of brave and generous young Americans who have lost their lives in the Philippines? No prospect of profit however assured, no wealth or advantage however colossal, could ever atone for the precious American lifeblood swallowed up by the hungry soil of Luzon and the Visayas. For such a sacrifice there is only one justification. It is the discharge of duty, service in a righteous cause. If our presence in the Philippines be not justi fied in its purpose and intent, then our soldiers blood is on our hands; aye, and all the blood, in that case innocent, of the Filipinos we have fought, the misery we have caused their families, and the devastation we have wrought in their homes.
This awful responsibility we can not escape either before our own con sciences or at the bar of history-nnless we have done what we have done in the Philippines for the sake of redeeming the Filipinos from foreign oppres sion, saving them from domestic anarchy, and leading them into the ways of self-government and freedom a blessing at once unmeasured and immeasur able. But I assert that to confer this blessing was the final cause of our ac ceptance from Spain of sovereignty orer the Philippines. Nothing has barppaed since to alter our purpose. Indeed, all subsequent occurenees ha\a
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gone to confirm the wisdom and transcendent nobility of this end and to ex

hibit the folly and delusion of any other end. Self-seeking ends of every

sort are excluded by American policy and stultified by actual conditions in

the Philippines. We are in the Philippines for the sake of the Filipinos; but

while American sovereignty is to the Filipinos a great boon, to us this ex

tension of sovereignty is not advantageous, but burdensome.

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I wish tho Federal Constitution might be amended so as to provide for the

perpetual exclusion of Asiatic countries from partnership in our great

American Republic. But, whether the Constitution be amended or left in

tact, I am sure it is the policy of the American people to a&c&it no Asiatic

country to the status ana privileges of a State or Territory in this Republic

of the United States of America. Consequently that independence which is

iae final term of progressive liberty for the Filipinos, since it can not roalizo

itself by incorporation in our union of American States, must, perforce,

when the hour arrives, find embodiment in a separate and self-contained

national organization.

Thus, if you look beyoTidthepresent and the near future, you descry in the

distance an independent and sovereign Philippine republic. The watchword

of progress, the key to the future of the political development of the archi

pelago, is neither colonialism nor federalism but nationalism. The destiny

of the Philippine Islands is not to be a State or Territory in. the United States

of America but a daughter republic of ours a new birth of liberty on the

other side of the Pacific, which shall animate and energize those lovely

islands of the tropical seas, and, rearing its head aloft, stand as a monument

of progress and a beacon of hope to all the oppressed and benighted millions

of the Asiatic continent.

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Very well, what then? A colony, a dependency? For a time this status

may suffice: aa a permanent arrangement it is impossible. For you propose to

dower the Filipmos with an ever-increasing measure of liberty; but liberty

grows by what it feeds on and moves rapidly to its goal, which is independ

ence. Then, too, the Filipinos have condensed the experience of centuries

into these last half dozen years. They have dreamed of liberty; they have

fought for liberty; they have seen in the East the star of independence.

These are facts as potent as any other, and deeper than most, in the life of

nations,

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From the American point of view, then, ever-increasing liberty and selfgovernment is to be our policy toward the Filipinos; and it is the nature of such continuously expanding liberty to issue in independence, This, then, is our programme for the future, both near and remote. And I believe that while te groat heart of the American people rejoices at the privilege of granting progressive liberties to the Filipinos, it throbs with still keener de light at the prospect of ft day when the process shall be completed by the grant of a perfect independence. This, I say, is the necessary outcome of our policy toward tho Filipinos. From the American point of view, Philippine Independence is inevitable. And, from the American point of view, Philip pine independence is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Let us now see toward what goal the conditions and aspirations of the Filipinos themselves point.
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Those Americans, patriotic but unversed i n history, who desire to recreate tha Filipinos in thoir own similitude, will always be able to demonstrate that that oriental clay is still without shape and eeomliness in the American pot ters hand, and that for a perfect product, a vessel of honor and gloryj the American wheel must bo kept going for years, or perhaps for generations, or possibly even for centuries. Heaven save the Filipinos from such an im pertinent and meddlesome earthly providence! The Filipinos are to develop along their own racial lines, not along ours; and it is colossal conceit aua impudence to disparage them because they are different from ourselves.
Capacity for independent self-government does not necessarily mean ca pacity like ours to administer a commonwealth like ours, but merely capacity oi some sort to maintain peace and order, to uphold law, and to fulfill inter national obligations. It may be a matter of only a short time when the Christian Filipinos of Luzon and the Visayas will be as well qualified to dis charge these functions as Mexico, Peru, Argentina, or Venezuela, and when they are so qualified tho American Government has no further duty or busi ness in the archipelago. Any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than tho best possible government of Filipinoa by Ameri cans.
For that reason, as I have already said, I am anxious to see Congress grant the Filipinos representative institutions at once. It is no argument against this policy that even educated Filipinos do not possess our concep tion of civil liberty or of official responsibility. "With such powera, ideus.

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and sentiments s they have, get them in harness quickly and let them tug

and sweat under the burden of national affairs. This is the way men are

trained in government. Political aptitudes and political sentiments are the

gift of nature and the acquisition of personal experience; they can not be

donated by one person or nation to another. And if you do not at once take

the educated Filipinos into active partnership in the government of the

Philippine Islands, your monopoly of power, if it does not alienate and em

bitter them, may have the still worse effect of tending to discourage and

emasculate them.

If the Filipinos are to learn to govern themselves in the manner of the

really free nations, the sooner they get at it the better. Passive acquiescence,

without paiteership, in American Government of the Philippines will atrophy

their own native capacity for self-government. In that way their depend

ence would mean their servitude. The beginning" of all national, as of all

personal, freedom is this: " Son of man, stand upon thy feetl " America can

not endow the Filipinos with liberty, but by permitting them to govern

themselves} starting now with representative institutions and gradually en

larging their powers, it can at least put them under conditions favorable to

the development of liberty. To give them a good government from above

without evoking their own active cooperation as England has done for the

people of India is to sap and atrophy their own capacity for self-govern

ment.

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In view of subsequent facts and experiences, however, I think it may be

not only possible, but feasible, to shorten the period of preparation and

transition under American sovereignty. First ol all, remember that the

first Philippine Commission reported that ultimate independence (after a

period of American tutelage) was the goal and asniration of all intelligent

Filipinos. Then we have the testimony of tho Taf t Commission that the

native officials have proved reasonably capable in the administration of pub

lic affairs. The test we have made of the governing capacity of tho Filipinos

has resulted more favorably than coulS have been anticipated by deduction

from their previous political inexperience. Nor is this all, or even the prin

cipal item.

Far more important and pregnant of hope is the more or less distinct

emergency, under the storm and stress of the last two or threa years, of a

community of attitude, interest, sentiment, and aspiration, in matters po

litical, among all the Christian peoples of Luzon, the Visayas, and the littoral

of Mindanao. ITndiscoverablo, or at any rate undiscorned, if it existed, in

1899, this consciousness of nationality is to-day so manifest and powerful that

GeneralChaffee, looking at it with tho eyes of a military man, has declared,

or at least is reported to have declared, that thenativt sof those islands are all

traitors to American sovereignty all have their hearts set on independence.

We know that the strife and passion of war release pent-up mental as well

as physical energies and bring to the light of day as realities slumbering fan

cies, hopes, and sentiments which in times of peace merely flit about the

background of consciousness.

*

#

*****

It is quits conceivable, therefore, that the restricted aspiration after im

mediate independence, which the first Philippine Commission discerned in

the Philippines (and reported) in 1S9W, should, after three years of fighting

in all or almost all the provinces of Luzon and the Visayas, have become a

universal passion, animating and uniting all these diversified communities.

This is all the more probable, as from the beginning the racial aspect of tho

case has been prominent; and as against the white man of America, who suc

ceeded the white man of Europe, the multifarious peoples of Luzon and the

Visayas, at least, felt themselves Malayans and Filipinos. I am not surprised,

therefore, if to-day we have to reckon with a universal sentiment and idea

of nationality among all tha peoples of Luzon and the Visayas with a demand

or desire for immediate independence.

*

*

*

*

*

#

r

I shall not, however, indulge in guesses as to the date when the new fabric should be reared. On that point I desire to be informed by the Filipinos themselves. And I want to hear not the voice of individuals, however prom inent, but the voice of the people. There is, however, only one way of secur ing it. The people can speak only through the representatives they elect to a popular assembly or house of representatives. Here, then, is another reason why Congress should not delay granting representative institutions to the Filn>inos.
To secure representative institutions they took up arms against Spain; the half million educated and propertied Filipinos who would be more im mediately represented under the limited suffrage proposed will be conserva tive rather than radical; and what they, and the poor and ignorant millions of their fellow-citizens for whom they speak, desire, must, in the long run, prevail in the archipelago. The United States is the last people in the world to argue any other people into political subjection. And against a whole na-

5349

13
tlon aspiring and struggling to be Independent, it Is as impossible to-day to flraw up an indictment as it was when Burke repudiated tfie task in connec tion with the people of the 13 American colonies.
If the Fittpmos desire independence, they should have it when they are qualified to exercise it. The reports of General Chaffee and Governor Taft demonstrate (whatever their own personal views) that the difficulties in the Way of independence are gradually disappearing. Let a Philippine popular assembly or house of representatives say whether the Filipinos want inde pendence or not and, if so, at what date they think the grant should be con ferred, and we shall then have before us all the conditions necessary for the final solution of the Philippine problem.
If it appears probable, as recent experience seems to indicate, that the Christian Filipinos of Luzon and the Visayas might, at no distent day, gov ern themselves as well as the average Central or South American Republic, then, in the name of American liberty and democracy, in the name of the political aspirations and ideals of the Filipinos. and in the name of justice and hnmanity, let the Philippine republic be established. As President McKinley said to me three years ago, we went into the Philippines solely with the humanitarian object of conferring_ the blessings of liberty on the Filipinos. In its highest potency, liberty and independence are one and inseparable.
And to repeat what ought not to need repetition anywhere within the limits of pur free Republic, any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Ameri cans.
Mr. BACON. I want to say, Mr. President, if I may be par doned for speaking of anything included in my personal experi ence in the Philippines, that my observation of that people satisfied me that they were a very far superior people to what I supposed they were before I went there. They are in some re spects far superior to any other Asiatic people I have ever seen. They certainly have a very much higher regard for the outward observance of the decencies and modesties of life, as we under stand them and as we observe them, immeasurably more so, than any other Asiatic race which it has ever been my fortune to see. What is the cause of that I do not know, unless it is the ameliorating influences of Christianity upon them, for it is a fact, Mr. President, that they are, speaking of them generally, a Christian people and a people of great devotion to their religion.
Something has been said here about the Filipinos having organ ized the only republic ever organized in Asia, and there has been controversy as to whether or not they did in fact organize a true republic. I do not propose to go into that question, but there is one thing that I think is absolutely true, and that is that they are the only Christian people in the whole of Asia, either on the main land or on the islands of that continent. If there is any other Christian people in the whole of Asia, except the Filipinos, I do not know of them. In that vast continent, embracing nearly onehalf of the entire human race, among them all there is no Chris tian people except the Filipinos. Of course, I do not include in that statement the Russians who have gone to Siberia, because they are not an Asiatic people, but a European people.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Among those Christian people of whom the Senator speaks, does he include the Moros?
Mr. BACON. No. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Does the Senator include the Igorrotes?
Mr. BACON. With the permission of the Senator, I will state exactly what I do include. I include the Visayans, who consti tute some 2,600,000 people; I include the Tagalogs and others of the islands of Luzon and the neigboring islands, making in all, according to the report of the Schurman Commission, some 6,500,000 people. Those are the number whom I include.
Out of an estimated population of between 8,000,000 and 10,000,000 people, 6,500,000 of them are devoted Christians. there are more than twice as many Christians in the Philippines

14
than there were people of every class in the thirteen colonies when . they wrested their independence from England and founded this mighty nation. They do not belong to the denominations which are most popular when I say "popular" I mean most numer ous in the United States, but they are none the less most devoted Christians, and the number of them is stated by the Schurman Commission to be 6,500,000. In everything except language they are one people in religion, in blood, in dress, in habits, in domestic and social customs and observances, and in a strong feeling of common nationality. Whatever was formerly lacking in this last regard they have now been welded together in the white heat of four years war.
I wish to say further, Mr. President, that all I have said in ref erence to the Philippine people relates to this particular class and does not include the Moros nor the Negritos nor the Igorrotes. I am speaking of those who are recognized as the representative people of the islands. The Moros, the Senator from Indiana will recognize, are not called there Filipinos in the Moro country. When you go into Mindanao, where there are a great many Moros and also a great many of those we ordinarily call Filipinos, even there there is that distinction made among themselves. In speak ing of themselves they say " such a man is a Moro " and " such a man is a Filipino." I am glad of the opportunity to draw the distinction to which the Senator from Indiana has attracted my attention. I am very much obliged to him that he has done so, because I do not wish to be misunderstood in regard to that matter.
But, Mr. President, in speaking thus of the Filipinos, I do not say this with any disposition of criticism or controversy, but simply in connection with the contention which .1 am endeavor ing to make as to the propriety of our conferring upon those peo ple liberal free institutions. The fact that they are a Christian people, a people devoted in their observances of the requirements of the Christian religion, a people whose Christianity has devel oped into the observances of the outward decencies and modesties of life, a people whose Christianity has developed into the virtues of home and society which characterize Europeans and Amer icans who are also Christians all these things, I say, Mr. Presi dent, should appeal to us most strongly in dealing with this peo ple and influence us to confer upon them the freest institutions which it is possible for us to conceive them capable of appreciat ing and enjoying.
It does seem to me the very irony of fate one that can not fail to sadden any man who goes there and looks upon that people the very irony of fate that the people who alone in all Asia share with us our religion, and worship with us at the same altar; the people who alone in all Asia have, through the influence of our religion, grown into the love of the social and domestic virtues, which are our richest inheritance; the people who have come nearest to us in our civilization, so far as personal characteristics and observances go; the people among whom this is seen even in the matter of their dress, which closely approaches that of Europeans and Americans, the only people who in all Asia evenapproximate the outward dress of civilized nations I say it seems to me to be the very irony of fate that we, the great Christian Republic of all the world, should have been brought into a situation not criticising it now, but speaking of it simply as an unfortunate fact that we should have been brought into a situation where there should have been between us this bloodshed, this terrible
349

15 war, with its death and desolation and devastation. Mr. Presi.dent, they are too far away, they belong to a different race, they can never be with us and a part of us, but every good sentiment appeals for their right to be a people, a nation free from yoke or thraldom.
Mr. President, I have felt that it was proper I should say this much for this people. I am not speaking now, as I say, in a con troversial spirit or in a spirit of criticism for the purpose of at tacking anything that has been done or anybody by whom it has been done. It is a very difficult thing in the heat of war and in the presence of the narration of outrages committed by some of that people upon our own soldiers, of barbarities and atrocities that nobody can possibly defend and everybody must condemn, and which I know the good people of that country condemn, it is extremely difficult for us to recognize the humanities of the situation; and it is with the hope that some one word I say may reach the American people in the presentation to them of the fact that, in spite of the horrors of war, in spite of all the prejudices which grow out of thia conflict of life and death be tween man and man, and between people and people, in spite of all that, .that they are a people who should peculiarly com mend themselves to us; that they are the only people in the whole of Asia that have the same religion that we have; that they are the only people in Asia that have the same outward regard for the decencies of life and modesties that we have and as we understand, and that they are the only people who have and prize the same social and domestic virtues that we have.
I do not mean to say that other Asiatic nations have not the domestic virtues far from it, because that would not be true, and it would be unkind in me to state it if it were true but I say the peculiar social and domestic virtues, those that we most value and that peculiaiiy appeal to us, they are the virtues that strikingly distinguish the Filipino people from all other Asiatic people. And most deeply impressed, sir, as I am by this fact, I am impelled to the utterance that these are things which should appeal to us most strongly to deal with this people in the kindest, the most considerate, the most indulgent possible manner.
Not only so, but they should appeal to us most strongly to recognize the fact that a people of such religion, a people of such social and domestic virtues, a people with a love of country, which I believe is as strong in them as in any people in all the world, if they desire their liberty, if they desire an independent nationality, these are facts that should appeal to us most strongly, and we should not turn to them a deaf ear either through greed for wealth, the pride of conquest, or the lust of dominion.
Mr. President, I will take the opportunity to say that I have avoided, as Senators know, speaking of any fact connected with either the civil or military administration which came to iny knowledge in the Philippine Islands, because I am unwilling to be put into a position of testifying or of appearing to do so. I have carefully avoided it, but, at the same time, it is not improper that I should speak of these general conditions.
There is one thing which appealed to me most pathetically in my intercourse with a great many people there. I take occasion to say that I had no intercourse with any except those who had recognized the sovereignty of the United States and were pro fessedly loyal to it, who were not insurrectos certainly not ac tively engaged in insurrection. But a fact which came to my knowledge and I know it not only came to my knowledge, but
5319

16
to that of a great many others, because I have heard American officers speak of it was this: That one great apprehension of that people is that the occupation of those islands by the American people means the extermination of themselves as a people.
That is the grave apprehension of that people. It is with them an ever-present haunting fear. I myself do not think to the ex tent of their fear the apprehension well-founded. If the islands shall be exploited by Americans, I doubt not that the Filipinos will be pressed to the wall and that under such circumstances they will never be the governing class in their own country. But I do not think the apprehension of utter extermination is wellfounded, solely for the reason that, on account of climatic condi tions, the islands can never be inhabited by white people. If they could be inhabited by white people I believe our occupation would have the effect of the practical extermination in time of the native popiilation.
Mr. President, I venture to narrate to the Senate a little inci dent which came within my personal knowledge. I have nar rated it elsewhere, but it will not be out of place here, as illustrative of the feeling of the Filipino people and their desire for nation ality a desire which, I think, is as universal as it has ever been among a people.
In conversing with a man who was not a politician and had never been a soldier, who was a man of property, a man of busi ness, and who deprecated the war and wished it to cease, and was extremely anxious to that end that the authority of the United States shotijd be recognized and that there should be no resist ance to it, but who still thought that the Filipino people were en titled to their nationality, he said to me in a very dramatic man ner, speaking of the condition in which the sovereignty of the United States would leave the islands and the effect upon the political status of its people_: "I am not a Spaniard; I am not an American; I am not a Filipino. "What am I?" indicating the utter hopelessness in that mans mind of the status of himself and his people, that he was no longer a Spaniard, that he could never become an American, and that as nationality was denied to his race he was not even a Filipino.
In this connection, while it is a little put of order for me to say it, I think one great defect in the pending bill is that there is no provision in it at least there is not unless it hag been made by amendment under which any Filipino can ever become a citizen of the United States even if he comes to America.
Mr. President, I did not expect to make this statement relative to the Filipinoa when I rose. I rose principally for the purpose of putting these documents in the RECORD in order that they might be preserved in some degree of continuity as a part of this debate, and unconsciously I have drifted into this. But, sir, now that I have said I do not regret it, and I -would that I could say more, for my heart is heavy with the fate of that unhappy peo ple. I do feel that no man can go to the Philippine Islands, unless he is an extreme partisan, and fail to be interested in that people and to entertain a very great desire that there should be meted out to them much of kindness and much of indulgence and much of consideration, and that above all there should be remembered the extreme desire and anxiety of that people for an independent nationality. I would that to-day we might set their feet in the path that shall lead to it.
5318
o

Organization of the Militia.

"Every citizen of a State capable of "bearing arms and not in the active military service of the United States is, by every principle of our Govern ment, subject to the order of the governor when, required to enforce law and maintain authority.
11 It is a violation of this fundamental principle toenftcto a law by the Federal Government which shall set apart a certain class of the citizens of the State and say that they shall be subject only to the call pf the President aB-d to the military duty prescribed by Congress; that they shall not be subject to the call of the governor or to any military duty which may be laid upon them by the legislature of their State."

SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
December 16 and 17, 1902.

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: Of course, I think the amendment offered by

the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKBR] , which has now been ac

cepted, makes this section less objectionable. I might agree,

however, with what the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEB]

stated yesterday, that with this amendment the section is of not

very much practical operation. The common suggestion that

it can do little harm does not constitute a sufficient reason

why a bill which has evil in it should be passed, or why an amend

ment or any portion of a bill that has evil in it should be agreed

to. I wish very much that the committee would eliminate this

feature of the bill. I think I will be able to show that it has no

part properly in the bill. It is not properly a part of a militia

bill. It is the introduction into our regular military establish

ment of an altogether new feature, and, I repeat, a feature which

in no sense has any connection with the militia branch of tha

service.

This is a bill haying for its profeased purpose the reorganization

pf the general militia of the United States. As such it is a most,

important bill. As such it is one which must interest every Sen

ator, not only from a national standpoint, but from the standpoint

of the State which he represents. One of the fundamental ideas

in the formation of this Government was the reliance of the Gov

ernment upon the militia for its defense, and therefore we flntj

that in the formation of the Constitution it is provided for, and;

among the first enactments of the Congress of the United States,

after the formation of the Government, was the law organizing the militia.

Mr. President, I think that this portion of the pending bill,

found in section 24, is violative of the spirit and intent of the Con

stitution, and I hope I may have the attention of Senators who

favor this section, because I desiie that they may consider the

suggestion which I am now about to make. I repeat and I believe

it will be so recognized by Senators that section 24 is yiolative

of the spirit and intent of the Constitution, if not violative of its letter.

5529

1

Now, of course, if the position taken by the learned Senator from Alabama [Mr. PETTUS] yesterday is correct, that this is a part of the militia system, it would undoubtedly be in viola tion of its letter, because it prescribes duties which the Consti tution prohibits among those which can be imposed upon the militia. There is no possible question about the fact that it is not a part of the militia, so far as its letter goes. But I think it is violative of the spirit and intent of the Constitution in that it makes a part of the regular establishment that which the Consti tution intended should be the militia. You are calling it by a different name. In that way you are technically taking it without the prohibition of the Constitution, whereas it is in fact a part of that which the Constitution makers had in contemplation when they provided for the organization of the militia.
The Constitution of the United States recognizes two classes of soldiery and makes special provision for them, and one is the Reg ular Army and the other is the militia. It gives to the Congress, to use the language of the Constitution, power
To raise and to support armies.
"What armies does the Constitution contemplate when it gives that power to Congress? That is entirely apart from any military organization in the States. It is entirely apart from anything of which the States have any control. It is particularly and pecul iarly to be the military branch of the National Government, un der the distinct control of the National Government, to be organ ized by the National Government, to be equipped by the National Government, and paid by the National Government, and a re striction is put upon the power of the National Government in that particular to the extent of saying there shall be no appropri ation for that purpose exceeding two years.
Of course that limitation has no special significance relative to this bill except for the purpose of illustrating the fact that the contemplation of the Constitution was that the Regular Army should be a regular establishment in the regular service of the Government, as contradistinguished from the citizen soldiery, which was all recognized as belonging to the class known and de nominated as the militia.
The citizen soldiery, in the contemplation of the Constitution, was to constitute the militia, and the framers of the Constitution having in view distinctly these two classes of soldiery made two distinct provisions. One was that the Regular Army I am not quoting the language but the effect of the language should be raised and organized and supported by the National Government and should be under its exclusive control. The other was that the citizen soldiery of this country, which was to be called upon in cases of emergency, should be under the control of the States so far as concerned their organization and officering, with certain privileges allowed to Congress as to the provisions that should be made with reference to them. But the provision which is in the same article of the Constitution with reference to the militia is in these words:
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline pre scribed by Congress.
It is entirely proper for Congress under that clause to enact the provisions contemplated in this bill for the proper discipline of
5529

the militia, but when, Mr. President, yon take a part of the citi zen soldiery who are not in the regular service, as it has been heretofore recognized, who are not to be taken from their duties as civilians, from their ordinary vocations of life, who are to re main citizen soldiery, but who are nevertheless to be organized as a reserve for the Begular Army, officered by the United States Government, and subject to be called out by the President with out reference to the militia law. you invade the province which it was intended should, be without the distinct province of the Government of the United States in the organization of an army; you violate and defeat that which was the plain intent and pur pose of the Constitution.
Mr. President, why was it that the Constitution makers said that in the militia there should be reserved to the States, re spectively, the appointment of the officers? Did they desire to insure the separation of the citizen soldiery of the country from the Regular Army, or can it be imagined that they were splitting hairs and contemplated such a technicality as must be resorted to to sustain section 24 of this bill? Was it in contem plation that under a technicality the citizen soldiery could be divided into two classes one class to be known as militia, com posed of citizen soldiery, another class to be known as the vol unteer reserve, and also composed of citizen soldiery or was it the intent of the Constitution that all the citizen soldiery should be known as the militia? And whether the purpose is good or bad, wise or unwise, necessary or unnecessary, it is nevertheless the provision of the Constitution that they, the militia, shall stand distinct and apart and that the States shall have the right to officer them. When you divide them into two classes, all citizen sol diery, but one part to be known as the militia, to be officered by the States, and the other part, still citizen soldiery, to be known as volunteer reserve and officered by the United States, the pur pose of the Constitution 13 defeated.
Aside from that I respectfully submit, sir, that it is an unneces sary provision. Outside of the purpose to enlarge practically the standing army I can conceive of no reason why there should be a volunteer reserve, as it is called, which shall be apart from the volunteer soldiery, a different part altogether, unless it be the apprehension that in time of war, in time of emergency, there will be an insufficiency of response on the part of the volunteer soldiery to meet the demands which would arise to meet such an emergency. Has there ever been anything in the past which would indicate any such danger? Is there anything which could possibly suggest such a danger in the future? Why is it that we are to have two classes of citizen soldiery, unless, forsooth, there is danger that the one will be insufficient to answer the purpose. Everyone knows that in time of need there is practically no limit to the number of volunteer soldiers who would promptly be at the call of the Government.
For over a hundred years we have had this system. For over a hundred years we have had but one class of citizen soldiery, and that is known as the militia.. Sir, who shall define militia to be other than citizen soldiery? Who shall define militia to be other than that which has been known and accepted to be mi litia since 1793 the citizen soldiery of the country? If that is the meaning of it. if that was the intent of the framers of the Constitution, by what right do we at this late date seek to evade the plain provisions of the Constitution for that purpose? How
5629

is it that we are at this day to say in the passage of a law that there shall be a part of the citizen soldiery subject to be called into the service of the United States which shall not be a part of the militia?
Mr. President, the provision of this section of the bill is that the volunteer reserve, as it is called, shall be made tip of those who have served in the militia or who have served in the Regular Army of the United S tates. They are to be enrolled, and althoiigh under the amendment which was adopted there will be no drills or anything of the kind, they are to be enrolled, and, I suppose, necessarily organized. How they are to be organized if they are never to be gathered together for inspection or drill I do not know.
This twenty-fourth section erects within each State two differ ent classes of citizen soldiery, one of which will necessarily be the particular object of care on the part of the United States Govern ment. It is true that the bill provides that the militia shall have proper equipment, proper organization, proper drill, and proper discipline, and all of that I most heartily approve, but, neverthe less, if you have in each State one class of citizen soldiery which shall be distinct from the other, which shall be in no manner sub ject to State law, which shall be in no manner subject to the call of the executive of the State, which shall have its wants supplied by the National Government, which shall have its officers sup plied by the National Government, you necessarily have a class of men who will in time come to be recognized as higher in rank than the other class organized under State law. because of the vast resources of the National Government and the extremely re stricted resources of the State government.
Mr. President, I repeat, I trust that this part of the bill will not be insisted upon. I am ready to respond to anything which the Senators in charge of the measure may insist upon as important for the militia, but this is not a part of the organization of the militia. I venture to say that there was not one Senator in ten, nay, not one in fifty, outside of the Committee on Military Affairs who knew the fact that in that bill, which was denominated as a militia bill, there was included a provision for the organization of an army of 100,000 men, which should belong to the regular estab lishment and be a part of the Regular Army, although it is, if you please, a dormant part of that regular establishment. It is nevertheless a fact that under a bill to reorganize the militia we have here introduced a provision with reference to the Regular Army of the United States, and a most important and far-reaching part.
I appeal to Senators to let us proceed with the bill for the reor ganization of the militia. Strike out this twenty-fourth section, so that we may all give our support to the militia bill, because we are all interested in it. I desire to say. for myself, that with pos sibly one or two minor provisions, which I do not entirely approve, I most heartily approve of the bill, so far as it relates to the militia.
I think it is of extreme importance that we should have a new law with reference to the militia, because condition shave changed and it is highly important that the militia should be organized in accordance with the changed conditions. When the act of 1792, which organized the niilitiaof the United States, was passed, it contained some provisions that this bill contains in that it makes every man in the United States between 1 8 and 45 one of the militia, except only certain exempted parties; but when that
5529

act was passed conditions were very different. Then any man who knew how to use his sporting gun would know how to use the gun that he would have to use in time of war, and any man who had ordinary capacity could within a very few days be in structed in the simple evolutions which were necessary to make him an organized soldier.
But conditions have entirely changed. A man may now be an expert in the use of a sporting gun and be utterly ignorant of the use of the military arm. He may not only be so. but he is so in nine hundred and nine-nine cases out of one thousand, because in the development of military arms they are entirely different, and it takes specific instructions in order to fit a man to use a military arm.
Therefore, in the organization of the militia at the present day, in order that they may be made promptly effective in time of need, it is important that they should be organized and disci plined and drilled as the Army is drilled; that they should be in structed in the use of these arms, which are entirely different in construction, and the range of which is entirely different. It is important, in view of the changed methods growing out of the changed conditions in arms, that they should be organized into bodies of corresponding character and size, divisions, etc., so that the militia may, when ordered into active service, be ready for immediate and effective service.
Therefore, Mr. President, it is, as I said, without going into details, that I regard this bill as extremely important. I am ex tremely anxious that it shall be passed, so far as it relates to the militia, but I can see no reason why this tneasure should be en cumbered with another measure which has no relation whatever to the militia, which does not belong to the militia, and which would be utterly unconstitutional if it did pertain to the militia, and which can only be defended on the ground that it is intended as an appendix to the Regular Army.
Mr. President, if we are to have any legislation with reference to the Regular Army let us have it separate and apart. Why should it be brought in here under the guise or under the wing, if you please, of a bill for the reorganization of the militia? Cer tainly the organization of the Regular Army is a matter of-sufficient importance to be dealt with separately and apart. It is a matter of sufficient importance to stand on its own ground and by its own strength, and not be brought here and put through as a part of a militia bill-, because, forsooth, there is a necessity for the reorganization of the militia, and because by reason of that fact there is great influence in favor of the passage of a militia bill, and properly so. I want the Regular Army brought up to the highest state of efficiency, and I am ready to contribute all in my power to that end. But to accomplish this it is not neces sary to mix legislation of the Army with that of the militia.
The Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate are certainly capable of presenting to the Senate and the House committee to the House an independent .measure with reference to the Army without having to have it sup_ported and buttressed by the strength of a bill for the reorganization of the militia.
Mr. President, everything which relates to the standing Army is a most important matter. It is a matter that requires the greatest care on the part of Congress when we come to talk of legislating about a standing army. We have had a great change in the last two or three years in the standing Army.

While it may be, as the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEE] said on yesterday, that section 24 of this bill is to a great extent futile, with the amendment offered by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKEB], still, Mr. President, it is the foundation, it is the beginning, and what may now be lacking of the bill, or this part of it, as it has been amended, will be more easily supplied hereafter. It will be said, "Here we have an organization and it is ineffective, a part of the Regular Army;" and then it will be amended and added to, and this volunteer reserve will become the important part of the volunteer soldiery, and the militia and the volunteer soldiery of the States will gradually be depreciated and become insignificant.
I desire, Mr. President, that the learned Senators who support this bill will answer the suggestion which I have made as to whether or not it is violative of the spirit of the Constitution when they make a part of the citizen soldiery of the country a part of the standing Army of the country, and that is exactly what this section does.
It takes the citizen soldiery and simply by changing {he name from what the Constitution intended it should all be known by, to wit, the militia, makes a part of the citizen soldiery a part of the standing Army of the country, and what is now a hundred thousand men may be in the near future, without any greater change than that we have already seen, a million men, and it may be that within a very short time this feature of the bill, now so comparatively insignificant, may become the great dominating military feature in the legislation of this country.
Mr. President, it is too serious a matter for us to pass upon it as a part of the militia bill when it is not a part of it at all. I may be mistaken about it, I may be over apprehensive about such things, but I think it is an extremely grave proposition, an absolute departure from anything that has ever been seen in the Government of the United States heretofore, when you say that a part of the citizen soldiery of the country shall become a part of the Regular Army of the United States, subject to the call of the President of the United States, not subject in any manner to State law, not officered by the States, and in no particular subject to the control or call of the governor of the State.
It will not do to say there is no danger in this because it can only be done when Congress authorizes it. Congress will have already authorized it when you pass it. Whenever you pass this bill there is a law upon the statute books by which it is available at the call of the_ President of the United States.
Possibly I am incorrect in that construction. I "understand the bill has been amended, by striking out on page 16 from line 2 to line 20. Am I correct?
Mr. FORAKER. To line 14. Mr. BACON. It does not go beyond that? Mr. FORAKER. No. Mr. BACON. Now, I will call the attention of Senators to the language as it now reads:
Whenever a volunteer force shall be called for by authority of Congress., and the members of any companies, troops, battalions, etc.
They " shall be received as the first organizations of such vol unteer force." And in line 20:
Whenever a volunteer force shall be called for by authority of Congress, exceeding in number the companies, troops, batteries, battalions, and regi ments of the organized militia which shall enlist, etc.
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Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that whenever a volunteer force shall be called for by authority of Congress here after granted? Does it mean to limit the power of the President of the United States to the use of this particular body of soldiery to such purposes as shall hereafter be authorized by Congress, or does it mean to extend to all purposes which are authorized by Congress, whether that authority has been heretofore granted or shall be hereafter granted? Why, manifestly the latter.
Manifestly under this particiilar provision of the bill I say "this particular provision " because I am in favor of the bill as a whole, and very much so under the provisions of section 24, the President of the United States is authorized to call for this body of soldiery whenever an emergency arises under the law as then existing. Whether it is a law passed prior to the present time or subsequent to the present time, he is authorized to call out troops.

EFFICIENCY OF THE MILITIA.

December 17, 1902.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the con

sideration of the bill (H. R. 15345) to promote the efficiency of

the militia, and for other purposes.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, at the time the Senate left the

consideration of this subject on yesterday I was engaged in the

discussion of the bill, and was upon the immediate point whether

this volunteer reserve was one which could only be used in case

of some legislation hereafter made authorizing the President to

use it. I had called the attention of the Senate to the propo

sition that if this force was put at the service of the President,

any use of it. whether that use was authorized by statute hereto

fore made or one passed hereafter, would be a lawful use to which

the President could apply this force.

#

*

*

*

*

*

*

In the same section the language plainly indicates that no spe cific act of Congress will be necessary in order to authorize the use of this force.
Mr. SPOONER. I desire to ask the Senator a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONEB. Does the Senator understand that under sec tion 24 as amended there is any authority under this bill for the organization of this national volunteer reserve force? Mr. BACON. The language of the section remaining after the elimination under the amendment offered by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKER] is indefinite and not specific, from the fact that the language which applied to part of it is now omitted by reason of that elimination; but the Senator will perceive that the language of this section if enacted into a statute will be this:

SEC. 24, That for the purpose of providing a reserve force of trained men which shall be ready for immediate service whenever called for and organ ized under authority of Congress, the Secretary of War is authorized to ap portion among the several States and Territories and to enroll not exceeding 100,000 men, who shall have served in the Regular or Volunteer armies of the United States or in the organized militia. Such reserve force shall be designated as the national volunteer reserve, and when called forth by the President shall serve wherever ordered, within or without the territory of the United States. Such enrollment shall in each case continue for a period
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8
of five years, but in the event they shall be called into the service of the United States, other than for the purpose of drill, inspection, and instruc tion, they shall be entitled to be discharged at the close of the war or after nine months1 service.
Now, omitting the next paragraph, which relates to the volun teer force other than that which is immediately under considera tion, the same section has this language:
Whenever a volunteer force shall be called for by authority of Congress exceeding in number the companies, troops, batteries, battalions, and regi ments of the organized militia which shall enlist in bod-ies pursuant to the provisions of section 5 of the act entitled "An act to provide for temporarily increasing the military establishment of the United States in time of war, and for other purposes," approved April 22, 1898, the persons so enrolled as a reserve force of trained men, or so many thereof as shall be required, shall be organized in the manner provided for the organization of the volunteer force by section 12 of the act entitled "An act for increasing the efficiency of the Army of the United States, and for other purposes," approved March 2, 1899.
Another section in the bill provides how these troops shall be officered through appointments by. the President of the United States, and still another provision of the bill says that the men enrolled under section 24 shall not be eligible to belong to the militia organized in the State.
Mr. President, I have read that at length for the purpose of answering the inquiry of the learned Senator from Wisconsin, and by it it will be seen that provision is made for the organiza tion of this force without further legislation. In other words, the act under which the organization is to be made has already been enacted and is upon the statute book, and this act provides that the force shall be organized under that act. So I think that answers the inquiry made by the Senator, if I understood the inquiry correctly. In other words. Mr. President, it is not nec essary that there shall be an act passed providing the manner in which this force shall be organized. The act of 1899 is specified as furnishing the machinery under which such organization is to be made without further legislation for that purpose.
But, Mr. President, as I was saying yesterday, the imperfection of the twenty-fourth section of the bill ia not a stifficient answer to the objection to it. The fundamental objection which I make to it is this specifically: That it is creating two kinds of citizen soldiery, and that while it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution that the citizen soldiery should be the militia of the country, this divides the citizen soldiery into two distinct classes, one body of which shall be the militia of the country and the other body of which shall be in fact a reserve, force of the Regu lar Army. Thislast division, citizen soldiery, would be-orgawized and officered by the United States, would not be under State law, and would not be subject to the call of the governor of the State for any purpose.
Mr. President, that is a most serious proposition. The funda mental idea of the framers of the Constitution was that the citi zen soldiery should be the militia and that it should not be separated from the control of the States; the fundamental idea was that the great reserve military force of the country should be the militia and that their organization should be under the authority of the States. The fundamental requirement in that regard was that they should be officered by the States, and the reservation to the National Government in regard to the militia is as to their organization, arming, and discipline and management. All that will be necessary to make them perfect as a machine for war is
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that the discipline, the training, by the States shall be according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
In that way there was answered the great jealousy which ex isted at that time in the minds of all American people against great standing armies, and at the same time there was answered the necessity for a sufficient force for the protection of the coun try in time of need. In that way there was answered the addi tional requirement that there should be at the command of the States a sufficiency of force for their local requirements in time of need; and thus it was that there would be no soldiers in any State other than those who belonged to the regular establish ment, which would not be at command of the governor of the State for the preservation of order and for the maintenance of authority.
This bill proposes to erect in every State an organization, if you please if not a perfect one an imperfect one of men who_ shall be citizen soldiery and at the same time shall not be subject to the control of the State. In no manner are they to be subject to the law of the State or to the authority of the governor or made responsive to his call.
Mr. President. I said yesterday, and I repeat it to-day, that this is no legitimate part of this bill. If this force is a part of the militia, section 24 is unconstitutional and all Senators will neces sarily admit it, because under it not only is the force officered by the United States, but it prescribes duties which can not be laid upon the militia. It says that they shall be subject to be sent out of the country. If it is not a part of the militia, if it is designed eimply to be, which it undoubtedly is. ah appendix to the Regular Army, a reserve forte to the Regular Army, then it has no place in this bill.
Why is it, Mr. President, that legislation with reference to the Army can not be had without bringing it under a militia bill? We are all of us in favor of an efficient militia bill; we are all of us in favor of an efficient militia organization; we all of us want to cooperate in the laudable effort of the War Department to per fect the most efficient militia bill which can be devised; and I think that great credit is due to the War Department for this bill so far as it relates properly to the militia, and it would be with the greatest pleasure that I should give my vote for it, and I desire to do so. Why is it that a provision which relates to the Regular Army because it can not be said to be anything else can not be allowed to stand upon its own merits and pass by its own strength, and that those of us who favor the enactment of an efficient militia law may not be compelled to pass upon a question which does not in any manner relate to the militia, and vote possibly " no " upon a bill which we would otherwise desire to see enacted into law?
Mr. President, this is a most sei-ious departure from anything which has heretofore been attempted with reference to the mili tary establishment of the country. I discussed on yesterday what was the purpose of the framers of the Constitution in the organi zation of a militia. I discussed what was in their contemplation under the term " militia." I contended that the purpose was to include all citizen soldiery under the term " militia." We must not unnecessarily confuse terms. In the old days we used to recognize the distinction between the militia and the volunteer organizations which had been called in some States national guards and in other States volunteers, but, in fact, in the broader

10
sense, in the sense in which we are dealing with it here.when we use the term " militia " we mean all the citizen soldiery, all the soldiery outside of the regular establishment of the United States.
The term "militia." in its broader sense, is made to include the volunteer organizations which, in some States, are known as the National Guard; is made to include those known in other States as volunteer companies, and is made to include, also, any unorganized militia there may be. I repeat, it is a term used as a broad generic term to include all citizen soldiery, all soldiery other than the Regular Army of the United States and such other organizations as are regularly enlisted in the Army of the United States for active duty.
Mr. SPOOLER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. I suppose the Senator would be willing to admit that in the generic sense it includes all citizens of the States able to bear arms, whether enrolled and organized or not? Mr. BACON. It would include all between the ages the law designated as subject to military service. Of course, if you go to the strict letter of the term, you know what " militia " means. It means, in a still broader sense, soldiery; it comes from the Latin word "miles," which means a soldier: but we all know what, in the organization of this Government, was intended by the term " militia." It was intended to include all branches and all kinds of citizen soldiery as contradistinguished from the Reg ular Army, and therefore we find the term in the Constitution of the United States. Mr. SPOONER. I think the Senator is in error about that. Mr. BACON. Well, I should be very glad to be corrected by the honorable Senator. Mr. SPOONER. I do not mean that I can correct the Senator, but I only suggested that I thought Mr. BACON. The Senator will not understand me as criticis ing him in any way. Mr. SPOONER. Oh, no. I think the word "militia" is a generic word, and I think it includes all citizens of the States capable of bearing arms. The supreme court of Alabama at one time defined it, and there have been various decisions to the same effect. That court said:
Its true and exact import is that portion of the people who are capable of bearing arrus the arme-bearing population.
That is subdivided into the-organized milrMa."ft-may-be com pany organization throughout the State, as there was once in my State and in the Senators State, I suppose
Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER. Afterwards they organized into battalions, regiments, and brigades, out of which came the National Guard; but in the generic sense in which the term is used, I think this definition by the supreme court of Alabama the correct one. Mr. BACON. I will not take issue upon that. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator mean to be understood as saying that under the Constitution, in the exercise of the power to raise armies, the force must be either a standing army, a regu lar establishment, officered, of course, by the President, or the militia officered by the States? Does the Senator mean that? Mr. BACON. Will the Senator please repeat the question?
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Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator contemplate that when the Constitution confers upon the Congress the power to raise armies limited in this way, that it must be the regular establishment of men who serve in time of peace as well as in time of war under orders of the President and officered by the President, or the militia officered by the States? The Senator excludes the power of Congress to bring into the service a force which is neither in fact a part of the standing Army nor a part of the organized militia of the States, which are officered by the States, does he not?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the Senator asks a question and porro"cneeod.s"with such elaboration that it is difficult to answer " yes "
Mr. SPOONER. I did not ask for a categorical answer. Mr. BACON. I endeavored on yesterday to explain what my view was about the matter, and I shall endeavor again, in re sponse to the inquiry of the Senator, to make it a little clearer, if I am able to do so. I think that the contemplation of the Constitution was that the militia should include those who should be recognized as the citi zen soldiery of the country. That is what is meant by " militia." As to how many of the population that will include, of course it is not necessary for me to go into the distinction which the Sena tor has called to our attention. I care not how true it may be; I care not whether the term " militia " is to include all, as stated by the supreme court of Alabama, capable of bearing arms, or whether it includes only such as Congress in an enactment may say it shall include, for instance, in regard to the limitation o"f age. But there are recognized in the Constitution of the United States two classes of soldiery those who are in the employ of the National Government, and those who are the citizen soldiery capable of being called into service, but who are not in the serv ice until so called. That is the distinction. The Senators question, I presume, is meant to direct my atten tion to the class of organizations which were called out in the Spanish war under the acts of 1898 and 1899. They were not what we call the Regular Army, but, nevertheless, they were enlisted in the service of the United States Government, receiv ing its pay, and regularly subject to its orders. They were not men in civil life, still engaged in civil vocations. They had left civil life; they had laid down their civil vocations; they had sub mitted themselves to the authority and direct control of the United States Government and became part of its active Army. Mr. SPOONER. But. Mr. President, if the Senator will per mit me, when the organized militia are called into the service of the United States they are subject to the orders and discipline of the United States as made by the United States. Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly, and should be so enrolled. I think that one of the merits of this bill, so far as it relates to the militia, is that it enables the United States Government to receive efficient service from that class of men. But the point to which I am very glad to have the attention of the learned Senator directed is this: That under section 34 of this bill there are to be men who are not in the service as soldiers, but men who are in civil life, who are still pursuing their civil vocations, who are yet to be enrolled as soldiers of the United States in each State as part of the citizen soldiery, and yet in no way as contem plated by the Constitution, officered by the States, or subject to
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the laws of the States. They are to be citizen soldiery to be offi cered by those appointed by the Government of the United States; citizen soldiery not in any manner subject to the law of the State; citizen soldiery in no manner subject to the call of the governor of the State. That is the class of men; and I say it is a class of soldiery which has never heretofore been known to the law of the United States.
Mr. President, I take issue with the proposition which is im plied in this bill that the Congress of the United States by the use of words can defeat the evident purpose of the Constitution of the United States, which made the citizen soldiery of the coun try the militia of the country: which required that they should be officered by the States, and should be subject to the control of the governors of the States until they were called into the service of the. United States. If that proposition is correct, to what does it lead? If it be true that by simply calling it something else the citizen soldiery of the country can be taken from without, the control of the State, if by simply giving it another name we may have the larger part, or, in fact, nine-tenths of the citizen soldiery taken out of the State militia, the entire purpose of the Constitu tion can be defeated in that regard, because if by act of Con gress a small part of the citizen soldiery can be taken out of the class of the militia, by the same power the larger part of the citi zen soldiery can be thus taken out and set apart.
Mr. President, as a corollary of that contention, I deny the proposition that Congress has the power to divide the militia into two classes, and to say that one part of the militia is under the Constitution and the other part of the militia is not that to which the Constitution has reference. That is what this bill does, and I will call attention to the language of it to prove it.
Mr. President, the Senator from Alabama [Mr PETTUS] made objection to the bill upon the ground that it made an unconstitu tional use of the militia: that it required that a part of the militia be organized in such a way that it could be ordered put of the country, whereas the Constitution provides that the militia shall not be ordered out of the country. Reply was at once made that that particular part of the force upon which that criticism was made was not a part of the militia, and that therefore the con stitutional objection did not obtain; and yet I respectfully sub mit. Mr. President, that this bill does contemplate that it is a part of the militia, and that it intends that there shall be a part o_f the militia which shall be controlled in the way the Con stitution prescribes, and that there shall be another part of the militia which shall be free-from the limitations prescribed-by the" Constitution.
It is not simply that this bill in effect endeavors to make a part of the militia a part of the Regular Army of the United States, the reserve of the Regular Army of the United States, but the bill itself in terms endeavors to divide the militia into two classes of militia the militia by name one of which shall be subject to the limitations prescribed by the Constitution and another, which shall be free from it. Have we a right to do that? If I am correct in that statement, if the Constitution says the .militia shall be organized so and so, using the generic term " militia," have we the right to say that we will divide the people who are properly included under that generic term, and that one part of them shall be subject as prescribed and required by the Constitution and the other part shall not? Have we any such
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if.".

13

right? Is there any such power? If we attempt it, is it not an evasion of the Constitution, is it not a violation of it?
. Now. am I correct in saying that this bill does that? Let us see. The very first section provides for these two classes of militia in name and in terms and calls them each militia. I will read it:

That the militia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen of the re spective States. Territories, and the District of Columbia, and every ablebodied male of foreign birth who has declared his intention to "become a citizen, who is more than 18 and less than 45 years of age, and shall be divided into .three classes-

Three classes, now, of the militia. The militia contemplated by the Constitution shall be divided into three classes. That will be all right if each of the three classes is organized in compliance
with the plain requirements of the Constitution. I resume the reading:

The organized militia, to be known as the National Guard of the State, Ter ritory, or District of Columbia, or by such other designations as may be given them by the laws of the respective States or Territories, the national volunteer reserve as provided by this act, and the remainder to be known as the reserve militia.

Mr. President, I hope I may have the attention of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOKAKER] on that point, because the Senator himself drew the distinction that this was not a part of the mili tia, and I have just read the first section of the bill, which says that all of the male inhabitants of the United States between 18 and 45 years of .age shall constitute the militia, and that that militia shall be divided into three classes, and thus specifies them, all in one section and in one sentence. These are the three classes: First
The organized militia, to be known as the National Guard of the State, Territory, or District of Columbia, or by such other designations as may be given them by the laws of the respective States or Territories

I interpolate the word ;> second " the national volunteer reserve as provided by this act
And now I interpolate the word "third " and the remainder to be known as the reserve militia.

The second class, as here provided for as part of the militia, and which I have just read, is the class which is created in sec tion 24. It is here in the bill specifically classified as a part of the militia, and yet section 24, relating to the same class, is de fended against the charge of unconstitutionally by the conten tion that it does not relate to a part of the militia.
Now, the point Mr. FORAKER rose. Mr. BACON. I am not going to ask the Senator to answer now, unless he desires to do so, in which case I shall yield to him, but the question I want to ask the Senator is this Mr. FORAKER. I dp not rise to answer, but only to remind the Senator from Georgia that I said this was not a part of the militia, and that "it was not contemplated by the provisions of the bill that it should be, except only as everybody between the ages of 18 and 45 in this country who owes allegiance to thb Govern ment is a part of the militia. This is not designed to be a militia organization, but a volunteer reserve force of the Army of the United States, and it is perfectly germane and perfectly proper to be a part of this bill, because this bill relates to the national defense. Mr. BACON. Nevertheless it is an act which professes to pro vide for the organization of the militia. Mr. FORAKER. "And for other purposes."
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Mr. BACON. Yes, "and for other purposes." I grant you that. But I am showing what it specifically provides for this particular purpose, if the Senator will pardon me a moment.
Mr. FORAKER. The word " militia " is used, as the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONKB] suggested, in its generic sense, which covers everybody who is liable to militia duty.
Mr. BACON. Everybody knows Mr. FOBAKER. Where would he get a volunteer reserve force, if he set about organizing one, except only from the militia? Mr. SPOONER. Or the Regular Army either. Mr. FORAKER. Or the Regular Army either. Mr. BACON. I have no objection to their organizing a reserve force of militia if they comply with the requirements of the Con stitution in making it a part of the militia. Mr. FORAKER. Now Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me a moment, he asked me a question. Let me reply to it. Mr. FORAKER. I want to ask another. Mr. BACON. Yes; but let me get through with one. There is no objection to there being a reserve of militia. If they will recast the bill so as to make this a part of the militia, subject to the provisions of the Constitution relative to the mili tia, I have no objection to it, but my criticism upon it is that, while they call it militia, they take it outside of the militia in the fact that they do that which the Constitution says shall not be done in reference to the militia; and, therefore, while the honor able Senators say the militia includes everybody, we know that in the Constitution it does not mean the Regular Army of the United States. If it did, it would not provide that it should be officered by the States. The Constitution had a specific body of men in view when it used the term "militia" and when it said it should be officered by the States. While it is true that every male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 is a part of the militia, it did not mean that part of it which we call the Regular Army, because it would be an absurdity to say the officers of the Regular Army should be provided by the States. It meant by the term " militia " the citi zen soldiery who were to be called on by the Government in time of emergency, who were still in civil life, who were not enlisted by the United States Government, and who were not organized under its military control and receiving its pay. It meant that great body of citizens who could, when required, be utilized as sol diers and upon whom the. great defense oJLthe country .must de*pend the citizen soldiery. It said as to them, and put it in the fundamental law of the land, that they should be under the control of the States and that the States should officer them, the President of the United States still having the right to call them directly, without proceeding through the governors. It is not necessary that he should call on the governors. He can call directly for them; they are a part of the citizen soldiery of the country; but while he may call for them directly, the Constitution prescribes that they shall be State organizations, officered by the States, and trained by the States under the discipline prescribed by the United States. Mr. FORAKER. The further question I wanted to ask the Senator was this: Are not volunteers, when mustered into the service of the United States, a citizen soldiery?
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Mr. BACON. They are not then citizen soldiery Mr. FORAKER. Were not the volunteers whom we enlisted and sent to the Philippines a citizen soldiery? Mr. BACON. The Senator asked me a question, and I hope he will let me answer it. Mr. FORAKEB. I wanted to make it more specific. Mr. BACON. Very well; go ahead. Mr. FORAKER. I have made it sufficiently specific. Were not the soldiers whom we organized as volunteers and sent to the Philippines a citizen soldiery? Mr. BACON. That is the Senators question? Mr. FORAKEB. Yes, sir. Mr. BACON. He simply repeats itwithout making it more plain. Mr. FORAKEB. I repeat it now, but when I first propounded it to the Senator I did not use the word " Philippines." Mr. BACON. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. FORAKER. To make the illustration more direct I re peated it and inserted the word "Philippines." Mr. BACON. In the sense in which we use the term "citizen soldiery" they were not. The term "citizen soldiery" means those who are still in civil life and yet are subject to be called on for military duty. " Citizen soldiery" we generally understand to be citizens who are organized into military bodies, though in its broadest sense it would apply to all of those in this country who constitute the militia proper, which are all those within the militia ages. But in the sense of this discussion, whenever an organization is called into active service and comes under the control of the Gov ernment of the United States as a part of the Army of the United States they are no longer citizen soldiery. That is not what we mean by " citizen soldiery," and that is not what we have in con templation when we are discussing this bill; but we have in con templation, in discussing this bill, the men who are still in the civil walks of life, but who are so organized, if you please, or so embraced in a statute that when war comes they can be made to lay down the vocations of civil life and take up the weapons of war. That is what we mean by " citizen soldiery." A volunteer company, whether known as a volunteer or as a national guard, so long as it is composed of men who are not in active service, are, in the sense in which we are discussing this question, citizen soldiery. But whenever they are called into active service, whenever they are enlisted and put into organiza tions under the command and military authority of the Gk>vern"Btent of the United States, while in the sense which the Senator from Ohio had in view when he propounded the question they .might still be called citizen soldiery, they are not the citizen sol diery whom wo have in contemplation here, because that is not the kind of people we are talking about. What we are discussing are citizen soldiers who in time of peace will not be in active service, who will not be separate and apart from their fellowcitizens, who will mingle with them everyday in their daily civil vocations, but who, .when the need conies, can be pvit into the Army. Those are citizen soldiery; and it was that class of citi. zen soldiery which is included under the term "militia" which was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. Mr. President, the doctrine that there are any rights left to the States is by many no longer recognized, and the suggestion jthat
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there is still any right of a State which, under the Constitution, should not be violated by the General Government is, by some at least, only met with a smile. But, sir, there are still rights of the States under the Constitution, and Senators, the peculiar rep resentatives of States, should guard those rights most jealously. The particular right for which we are contending in opposing section 24 of this bill is by the Constitution expressly reserved to the States. A part of section 8, Article I, which I have already read in full, making it the duty of Congress to organize and arm the militia, concludes with the words:
Reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

This bill iii so far as it provides for the organization and arm

ing and discipline of the militia is substantially all right and

meets my approval. But section 24 violates this provision of the

Constitution, as well as others. It takes out a part of the citizen

soldiery of a State, provides for their being officered by the United

States, and takes them away from the authority and training of

the State in which they live, and nuts them, so far as military

duty is concerned, under the exclusive authority of the President

and of Congress. The President of the United States can call on

these citizens for military duty, but the governor of the State can

not, although riot and insurrection may be at their doors. These

men, thus enrolled and set apart, are to be still citizens and civil

ians in a State, but the governor can not call on them for any

militarv duty whatever, nor can the State, by any law, impose

any military duty upon them. They are to be subject to the or

ders of the President in military matters, but not to the orders of

the governor.

The governor of a State is the military head of the State in the

same way that the President is the military head of the United

States. The duty to preserve order, to put down insurrection, to

maintain law, devolves upon the governor in a State in the same

manner and even in greater degree than it devolves upon the

President in the United States. Every citizen of the State capa

ble of bearing arms and not in the^ctive military service of the

United States is, by every principle of our Government, subject

to the order of the governor when required to enforce law and

maintain authority. It is a violation of this fundamental prin

ciple to enact a law by the Federal Government which shall set

apart a certain class of the citizens of the State and say that they

shall be subject only to the call of the President and to the mili

tary duty prescribed by Congress; that they shall not be subject

to the call of the governor or to any military duty which may be

laid upon them by the legislature of their State.

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I did not expect to be so long upon the floor, but my distinguishe d friend the Senator from Vermont, in charge of the bill, will recognize the fact that inquiries which have been made of me and which I have been most happy to receive and attempt to an swer, at least, have necessarily made my remarks much longer than they otherwise would have been. I think it is an extremely important measure. I do not think there has been a more impor tant one before this body since I have been in the Senate, in so far as it opens a new policy for the Government a policy which in its extension and development mi*r utterly revolutionize the militia system as contemplated by the Constitution.

3529

Q

Memorial Addresses on Ihe Late Senator James McMlllan. KKMARKS

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,

OF GEOKGIA,
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

January 30, 1003.

Mr. BURROWS. Mr. President, in conformity with the notice

already given. I ask the Senate to consider at this time the fol lowing resolutions.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan suhmits resolutions which will be read to the Senate.
The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows:

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death of the Hon. JAMES MCHIT..LAN, late a Senator from the State ol Michigan.
Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased the business of the Senate be now suspended to enable his associates to pay proper tribute to his high character and distinguished public services.
Resolved, -That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the House of Representatives.
Resolved. That as a further mark of respect at the conclusion of theso ex ercises the Senate adjourn.

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Mr. BACON. Mr. President, a graphic picture of sympathetic grief is that portrayed in the Holy Book in the scene where, when utter desolation had overtaken him whose name is the synonym of affliction, the mourners, with mantles rentand with dust sprin kled on their heads, sat beside him in silence. Human emotion in all the ages has been the same, and now, as in that farther past, speech, if not altogether vain, is all insufficient in the presence of the great mystery.
And yet, sir, we can not put our dead away in silence. The bereaved heart must speak its pain, and friendship can not for bear to pay its tribute of love and sympathy.
Mr. President, I have but a word to say, and that word I would not neglect this opportunity to utter.
An eminent Republican statesman is reported to have said upon the occasion of the death of a Democratic colleague, that among the sweetest fruits gathered in political life are those which hang over the party wall. Beautiful is the simile in which the thought is expressed, and to its truth there will be found a ready assent by all political opponents who recall the sweet association they have enjoyed in this Chamber with Senator McMiLLAN.
In the Senate, as the years pass by, many come and go and some for a time remain. Among them, in the course of years, many types are found, and his type was of the best of them. It may be properly said that his was a rare type rare in its excellence and rare in its peculiarities. In his make-up there were some marked contrasts, and yet while thus marked they were pleasing contrasts. While he was essentially a conservative man, he was a political partisan in so far that he was devoted to the tenets of his party and unswerving iu the loyalty of his support to its
5539

measures; nevertheless no man was more broadly catholic than he in the toleration of differences in political opinion.
No one was than he more deferential to the opinions and con siderate of the feelings of those between whom and himself those differences existed. No one was more pronounced in opposition to the measures of the opponents of his party; but no Republican Senator than he has ever counted more personal friends upon this side of the Chamber.
The many cmyrtesies extended by majority Senators to those of the minority d_aily attest the kindliness and the cordiality of the personal relations which happily exist here, in spite of the heat soihetimes evolved in the shock of earn9st debate. In the front rank of Senators thus distinguished by these courtesies stood Senator McMtu^AN. And thus it was that in his daily inter course, official and personal, witii his political opponents in the Senate, there grew only ever-increasing cordiality and good will.
He was not a speechmaker; -but, charged as he was with duties and responsibilities relating to the gravest and weightiest mat ters of the Government, as to matters the responsibility for which peculiarly devolved upon him, there was no Senator whose views and opinions were better known or more influential in the Senate.
In his bearing and demeanor there was an unvarying dignity, but austerity there was none. On the contrary, his never-failing courtesy, his unaffected and ready smile, his cordial grasp of the hand, the manly tone of his unreserved frankness, all come back to us as an ever-pleasant and ever-abiding memory.
fie was no idler. His unflagging industry was in the work hours ever busy in gathering and storing up the information and in working out the great problems of the vast measures with which the Senate has to deal problems which are dealt with by the great Committees on the District of Columbia, on Naval Af fairs, on Commerce, on Appropriations, and on the Belations with Cuba; but when the labor was put aside, no devotee of fashion enjoyed more unfeignedly than he social pleasures and the de lights of the bounteous hospitality which he generously dispensed.
With large business interests which necessarily invited his per sonal attention, with a fondness for outdoor sports which daily tempted him to the woods and the fields, he was, nevertheless, ever attentive to his official duties, and rarely did it happen while the Senate was in session that he was not to be foiind either in this Chamber or in his committee room.
Mr. President, the story of his life is a grateful task properly . belonging to others. Upon this occasion mine is the simple office to say some tilings at this time of his personal relations with our selves, which I am sure will be cordially concurred in by all Senators on this side of the Chamber those not of his party faith and affiliation; and above that to testify by the fact of my par ticipation in these exercises to my esteem and admiration and the personal loj|9 I bore him.
Sir, those of^is who recall his manly form as he went in and out among us, dignified, quiet, composed, and with the kindled eye of steady purpose, can realize how he died as he had lived, and how, unwasted by disease, with physical vigor unchanged, with - mental faculties unimpaired, calmly and serenely he went to his final sleep like one who "lies down to pleasant dreams."
555U

Acceptance of Statues of Charles Carroll and John Hansom

REMARKS

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

January SI, 1903.

Mr. McCOMAS. Mr. President, I present the following con current resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The concurrent resolution will he read.
The Secretary read the concurrent resolution, as follows:
Resolved by the Senate (tlie House of Representatives conr;urriny), That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Maryland for providing tho bronze statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson, citizens of Maryland, illustrious for their historic renown and distinguished civic services.
Rexolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in tlie National Statuary Hall in tlie Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions duly authenticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Maryland.
*#****

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I am unwilling that the exercises

of this most interesting occasion shall close without any word

heing spoken from either of the four original States lying south

of the Potomac. In the arrangements made for these exercises it

was not designed that this should be so. Of these four States, if

not of the entire thirteen, in Revolutionary times, Virginia will be

recognized as easily the first.

And thus it was that it was deemed proper that a Senator from

Virginia should be heard upon this occasion. It seemed to be

peculiarly fitting that this should be ao on the presentation of

these two statues.

John Hanson was the first President of the United States in

Congress assembled, and a Virginian was the first President of

the United States under the Constitution.

Charles Carroll was a signer of the Declaration of Independ

ence, and the framer of the Declaration of Independence was a

Virginian, while the soldier who made that Declaration good was

also a Virginian.

Recognizing all this, the senior Senator from Virginia [Mr.

DANIEL] had been selected to speak as the representative, in a

sense, of these four original States. All will agree that no more

happy selection could have been made. Unhappily, since these

exercises have begun and within a few minutes just past, the

information has been brought to us that the illness of the Senator

from Virginia will prevent his being heard to-day, and, at this

last moment, the duty has been unexpectedly devolved upon me.

Km

3

Mr. President, I would not undertake at anytime to supplythe place of this eloquent Virginian, and in any event extemporane ous speech would not be fitting here to-day. But without at tempting more than a word, I will be pardoned, Mr. President, for saying that the failure of Virginia or of North Carolina or of South Carolina or of Georgia to be heard to-day would be mis construed, if from such failure it was understood that the fact that statues to John Hanson and Charles Carroll were to be pre sented here to-day had been passed over by them as a matter not worthy of attention or of speech from them; for it can be confi dently said that not only now but at all times since the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence the people of those four States have been loyal and true to every utterance of that great instrument. They are not only loyal to its great principles, but they revere the memory of its great authors.
Mr. President, not only in sentiment, but so far as might be expressed in acts, the devotion of the people of these States to the principles of that instrument has been manifested, and they have united in the effort to do honor to those who framed that immor tal instrument, and plighted their lives and fortunes to its main tenance.
Among other things it may be mentioned that in my own State of Georgia there are a number of counties which have been named for framers and signers of the Declaration of Independence. I can not enumerate all of them, but I will mention as pertivent to this occasion that not only are there in Georgia the counties of Jefferson and Hancock and Franklin and Gwinnett and Hall and Walton, and others bearing the names of these illustrious signers, and named in their honor, but there is also in the State the county of Carroll, named in honor of the renowned Marylander.
Mr. President, if I may be pardoned the suggestion, as I have sat here and listened to these eloquent speeches I have noticed in the niches of this Chamber the busts of all the Vice-Presidents of the United States, and the thought has occurred to me that it would be fitting if at some time the Government of the United States would erect a hall for the immortals the consecrated band who proclaimed the great Declaration which challenged the political dogmas of a thousand years, and defied the greatest military power of all the earth.
We have the Chamber of the old House of Representatives, in which each State is authorized to place the statues of two of its most illustrious citizens. But, sir, this work of thus commem orating these founders of the Republic should not be left to the States alone. The time may come when the old Senate Chamber jsill be vacated by the Supreme Court when a fitting building jlnay be erected for the judicial department of the Government.
When that time comes, Mr. President, it will be fitting that that historic chamber shall be chosen for the hall of these im mortals, and that therein shall be placed, to be forever preserved, the effigies in marble and bronze of the deathless framers and signers of the Declaration of Independence.
5,wO
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Liberty in its last analysis is equality before the law.
SPEECH
OF
II -IN . AT I I O _ti v^ \_/ j_i 9 OF GEORGIA,
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Tuesday, March 3, 1903.
PROTECTION OF THE PRESIDENT.
Mr. HOAR. I now call up the conference report on the bill (S. 3653) for the protection of the President of the United States, and for other purposes.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I can not agree with the state ment of facts as made by the distinguished Senator from Massa chusetts [Mr. HOAR] . I do not think that this conference report can be said to be before the Senate in the same light and under the same circumstances as those in which conference reports are usually found. This is not a case where the Senate has carefully considered a proposition or a bill and where the House has also con sidered the same bill, and where with minor differences between them there has been a conference committee, which after consid eration have agreed among themselves and each presented that agreement to either House, in which there has been a surrender of one minor difference on the part of one House, and a corre sponding surrender, if you please, of another minor difference on the part of the other House, in order that the legislative minds of the two bodies may be considered together.
This is not that case, and I assert, Mr. President, and am pre pared to prove by the record, that the bill which is brought in here as the result of a conference committees deliberation, which is sought to be passed as a conference report, is a bill which had never been read in the Senate until it was read as the report of the conference committee.
It is a bill most far-reaching in its character, one, in the opinion of many of us, absolutely subversive of the fundamental princi ples upon which this Government is founded. Yet I assert, and repeat the proposition, that the bill thus sought to be presented to the Senate and action demanded upon it as a conference report not only had never been considered in this Chamber, but it never had been read from that desk until it was read as the report of the conference committee.
Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President, I suppose the effect of the re port is to adopt the House bill, then? I suppose this bill
Mr. BACON. I am coming to that. I will state the facts as I understand them. If I am in error, of course here are the bills in print. I can not misrepresent them.
That is not all, Mr. President. Not only was the provision just
5630

now sought to be passed as the result of a conference report when it was never read in the Senate and never discussed in the Senate, but it is a bill which was never considered or discussed by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. And when I come to a more detailed statement of the facts I will show how that occurred
One bill Mr. President, was passed by the Senate after elabo rate discussion. Another bill, purporting to be on the saine subiect and, in fact, on the same subject, was passed m the House, but the two bills differed most radically and materially, not only as to details, but in great fundamental provisions^ ^^ a ^
upon this subject. That bill was sent to the other House. There was then pending in that House a bill npon the same subject, but one radically differing from the Senate bill. When the Senate bill came up for consideration the House acted upon it by strik ing out all after the enacting clause and substituting of the Senate bill not one word or letter except the title of the bill and the en acting clause. The other House then sent to the Senate what purported to be an amended Senate bill, but one which, as I have stated, in fact was an entirely new and independent bill, contain ing not a line or a letter of the Senate bill except the title and the enacting clause.
I will repeat, Mr. President, not only was that so. not only did it differ in language, but it differed upon the most fundamental propositions contained in the subject. It differed upon the very propositions which lie at the base of the whole question. The House took a position which had been laughed to scorn in this Senate, and sent their bill to us, embodying what the Senate had refused to enact or to even recognize.
On the contrary, the Senate in its bill had distinctly condemned the propositions contained in the House bill. There could not have been two bills more diametrically opposed in principle than were those two bills upon the vital point in each, although they related to the same subject and professed to seek to accomplish the same end. When the other House sent the Senate bill back, it was not the Senate bill except in title and the enacting clause, although it had the number of the Senate bill. It came in here and was referred to the Judiciary Committee without being read. I was under the impression, and my recollection is, that the bill was not even read in the Committee on the Judiciary, but I am informed by Senators, who are members of that committee with myself, that I ain in error as to that, and in deference to them I concede that my recollection is at fault in that regard.
I concede the fact, in deference to the recollection of other Sen ators, that the bill was read in the Committee on the Judiciary. I can not, however, be_ mistaken about this fact, that it was never considered in the Judiciary Committee. On the contrary, I my self sought to have it considered; I insisted that it was the duty of the committee to take up that bill, and to consider it section by section, and see whether or not we would agree to any part of it, or whether we would reject the whole of it, or whether we would amend any part of it.
I can not possibly be mistaken about that fact. NOT can I be mistaken about the fact that the committee refused to consider that bill; absolutely refused to discuss it or to consider it in com mittee, and said that it should go to a conference, and let the conference decide upon the bill.
5630

- enPr> under this reoitation of facts, in the statement that this professed report of a conference committee does not stand on the floor of the Senate in the same light and under the same circumstances in which our conference reports are usually

tound? Why is it that conference reports are given this great advantage when they come before the Senate? Why is it that they are privileged? Why is it that they are laid before the Sen ate at any time without a vote of the Senate being called for? It is_ based upon the fundamental idea that they contain matter

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I.Sg Senate, that therehas

ered by the House, and that this conference report is simply a machinery by which the legislative minds of the two Houses can he brought in accord to reconcile differences.

For this reason conference reports are given this great advan tage. Is it possible that it was ever contemplated that a confer ence report should present a substantially new proposition to the Senate which had never been considered by the Senate, and had never been considered by a committee of the Senate, and that a Senator would have a right to call it tip for action in the Senate even before the morning business has been called for?
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As 1 was saying at the time of the interruption, is it to be con ceived that what purports to be a conference report, or the re port of a conference committee, should be given such advantages in this-Senate that it can be summarily called up even before the morning business has been begun and be put upon its passage? Just consider it, Mr. President! A bill never read in the Senate, except when brought in here as a report of the committee, a bill never considered by the law committee of the Senate, although it involves one of the gravest propositions of constitutional law, and yet a bill which, without a vote of the Senate, can immedi ately after the morning prayer and before the morning business is called for be called up to be passed without a word of debate. Is it conceivable, Mr. President? And yet I am justified in say ing that that is the presentation to this Senate.
The learned Senator says that this bill which is sent here from the other House, or rather the bill which was brought here by the conference committee, is a Senate bill, and that it contains the propositions which the minority contended for when the bill was before the Senate. Well, Mr. President, I shall have to read the bill in order to point out in what it differs, and if I can have the attention of the learned Senator from Massachusetts, I want to point out a very remarkable feature, and I desire to have not only the attention of the Senator from Massachusetts, but that of other lawyers here.
Relative to a single feature in this conference report, or rather in the bill which is presented by the conference committee for that is what it is the Senate, and everyone who was here during the discussion, will remember this fact: The Senate proceeded upon the proposition and the Senate bill was based upon the proposition that the act of killing the President of the United States, or any one of the Cabinet, or any foreign ambassador, or any foreign minister, or the assaulting of either one of those officers, was a crime complete in itself without the purpose being to commit the crime by reason of the office of the particular offi
ces)

cer or for the purpose of interfering with the proper discharge of his duties. Senators will remember that that was the issue.
It was contended on the part of some that if the crime was committed against one of these officers without reference to the fact of his official position, perhaps without even knowing his official position if the crime was committed without reference to any purpose to interfere with the functions of governmentit was a crime against the person and not a crime against the Government of the United States. Senators will remember
the absence of any purpose relating to the official character of the officer and without any purpose to interfere with his official functions. On the contrary, the House of Representatives took diametrically the opposite position. The House in their bill care fully limited the act which was condemned to one which was against the person on account of his official position or for the purpose of interfering with his official duties. I can not now elaborate this difference, although I did do so at length when the bill was before the Senate.
Now, I want to call the attention of the Senate to a most remarkable fact. There was a compromise between the Sen ate and the House of Representatives in that regard, but in what way? By the Senate adopting the view of the other House? In part, yes. By the other House adopting the view of the Senate? Again, in part, yes. But not by the compromise and agreement in the adoption of a principle upon which they agreed aitd upon which they could both stand. One section of the bill reported by the conference committee is based upon the proposition that the crime is complete when committed against one official, although the act was not directed against him because of his official char acter, and not committed for the purpose of interfering with or hindering him in the discharge of his official duties.
That was to satisfy the demand of the Senate on this great question of fundamental principle. But as to other officials men tioned in other sections of the bill reported by the conference committee, the requirement is that the crime shall not be complete when committed against the officials mentioned unless the act was directed against the official because of his official character or committed for the purpose or with the intent to interfere with or hinder him in his official duties. That was to meet the demand of the House. In other words, they say in one section, as to cer tain officers the crime shall be complete in the killing of one officer or in an assault upon one officer, it makes no difference whether the person committing it had any reference to his official character or not; it makes no difference whether in the perpetra tion of the crime it was done because he was an official; it makes no difference whether in the perpetration of the crime he de signed to interfere in any manner with any official character that is provided in the bill in order to recognize the principle con tended for by the Senate or any official duty, whereas in the other sections of the act with reference to other officers, it is provided that the crime is only complete in case it is perpetrated on ac count of their official positions, and in case it is done for the pur pose of interfering with the official functions of the officers; and that is provided in the bill in order to recognize the principle contended for by the Senate.
The Senate and the House are divided and diametrically opposed
5830

5
cm a question of principle. The conference committee settles the dispute by affirming the opinion of the Senate in one sestion as to a matter of vital fundamental legal principle, and then in the next section affirming the opinion of the House, which is directly to the opposite.
Is there any lawyer who can possibly defend the propriety of mixing in the same statute such contradictory and antagonistic provisions? Was there ever such a settlement of a difference be tween the two Houses on a matter of legal principle? The distin guished Senator from Massachusetts says that if I would point out, as I understood Viim " ;,- ___:___i Mr. HUAK. If! may interruptthe Senator right there,: repeat his statement. He says very truly that the compromise report makes the act an offense without the purpose to strike at the official in one class of cases; that is, the President of the United States, but requires it to be committed on account of, the quasi official character in regard to an ambassador. That is true, but is it not also true that that concession, requiring the act to be aimed at the official character of an ambassador, is a conces sion to the Senators view and the view for which he and those with whom he acted contended in the Senate?
Mr. BACON. So far as it goes, yes. Mr. HOAE. Very well, then, of what is the Senator complain ing? What he considers very extraordinary in the compromise is just this; is it not? that there being two classes of officials, for both of which he contended a particular principle should apply, and a large majority of the Senate having been against it, the House have yielded to him in regard to one of them. Mr. BACON. The Senator is incorrect; that is not ray com plaint. My complaint is that while to this extent the bill is an improvement, that as long as the vice remains as to a single pro vision, there is an insuperable obstacle to my consent to the bill. Is it any excuse to say that the bill is proper in one part, but that it must be taken as a whole because of that, even though it may be vicious as to another part; Mr. HOAE. My point is not that the Senator should be ex pected to consent to the bill, but the bill has gone through all its stages, and the Senate has voted upon it. Mr. BACON. This bill never has. Mr. HOAE. Yes, in this particular. The question is whether the Senate now the Senate who are intrusted by the people of this country with the lawmaking power in part having acted, the Senator will consent to accept the bill if it be made, as he thinks, a good deal better. That is all there is of it. Mr. BACON. I did not understand the last statement of the Senator. Mr. HOAE. The point between me and my honorable friend is that we differ in our views as to the functions and effect of a conference committee report. Mr. BACON. We certainly do. Mr. HOAE. The question was put by the Presiding Officer last session: "Will you consent to this bill?" "No," replied Mr. BACON, of Georgia, " I will not because of this objection. I say no." Then after a conference it comes over, and the Presiding Officer says: "Mr. BACON, of Georgia, will you consent to make that bill a good deal better? " " No," says Mr. BACON. That is the whole story. Mr. BACON. Well, the Senator does not state the story cor-
5630

rectly. On the contrary, I have refused to accept that as a cor

rect statement of my position. It is directly the opposite. I do

consent to the bill being made better. This bill might be better

in one particular; but if it is vicious in another particular, shall

the objection to it be limited to that part which is improved? Shall there be no objection to that which is still vicious? Shall

there be no objection to that which is still fundamentally op

posed, as I conceive, to the most valuable and cherished princi

ples of this Government because, forsooth, in another section

that objection has been removed? Mr. Presirlp-nt. t.hp Senator nays that. the difficulty between him
ana myself is that we differ as to the function of a conference

report. I thoroughly agree with him in that proposition. The

idea of the honorable Senator as to the function of a conference

report is that one bill may be passed in the Senate, that it may

go to the House, that the House may strike out everything after

the enacting clause and substitute another and altogether dif ferent bill, and that it shall come back here and have all the

rights, the honors, and privileges and preferences of a conference

report. That is the idea of the honorable Senator as to the func

tion of a conference report. That is not my idea, and the Senator

is correct in saying that we differ in our ideas as to the function

of a conference report.

v

Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, will the Senator allow me to

ask him a question?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?

Mr. BACON. With pleasure.

Mr. SPOONER. Is not that practically the situation a great many times during every session?

Mr. BACON. It ought never to be the situation.

Mr. SPOONER. The House passes bills, and we strike out all after the enacting clause and insert by way of amendment, which

is a substitute technically, but it is still regarded in modern

practice as an amendment to the bill upon the subject which

suits us.

Mr. BACON. Oh, yes.

Mr. SPOONER. We send it back to the House and the House disagrees.

Mr. BACON. Yes.

Mr. SPOONER. That throws the whole subject into confer

ence.

Mr. BACON. There is nothing that illustrates the evils of

legislation by conference committees so strongly as the very case the Senator has put.

Mr. SPOONER. But it is the common practice, and has been for twenty-five years.

Mr. BACON. The common practice, but in the large majority

of instances the substitution of another bill is simply for con

venience where there are a number of amendments. It is but

recasting the bill, practically the same thing, but with some

differences. But, Mr. President, if I have the time I am going to show the radical differences in this bill,

-How does this bill differ from the bill which we passed in the

Senate? There is a great part of it as it comes back from the con

ference that has no possible relation or connection either with the

bill passed by the House or with the bill approved by the Senate.

It may be, and I believe is, that legislation by conference com-

5630

mittees is a necessary evil, but it is none the less an evil, and a great evil. It is one that I have given very much thought to as to how it can be corrected. I confess that I have been unable to arrive at any solution of the question. But if it is an evil, if it is a neces sary evil, its scope and operation ought to. be confined within necessary limits, and there ought to be no encuragement to the idea that the House may pass one bill and the Senate another bill, that a conference committee can get together and make an entirely new bill, and then put it through in a summary manner under the privileges accorded to a conference report.
The fUgHrigiiTahgrl SPTIg.fn-r -ia onfii-nly i-n ori.,-.r W>IPTI fip af.pjr.a_l|i_
HmltTOe^oEjections to this bill to the particular thing -whichhe says has been conceded in part by the House. If it had been con ceded as to all the sections of the bill on this particular branch of the subject by the House, of course, so far as that particular objection was concerned, my mouth would have been closed. If as to all the crimes specified in this bill it had been provided that the crime should only be complete when the act wa.- committed on account of the official position of the officer or because of that official position, or with a view and intent to interfere with the functions of the office and with the performance of the duties of the office by the officer, then that contention would have been fully met.
But, as I have stated to the Senate, here was this sharp division between the Senate and the House. The Senate contended that the crime should be complete regardless of whether the person committing the act had in view the official character of the per son assaulted and regardless of the question whether he intended in so assaulting him to interfere with him in his official duties. That is the position of the Senate. The House, on the contrary, took the position that the act, if not with reference to the official position of the party and if not with reference to his official duties, would be a crime against the person only and not a crime against the office or officer, and therefore, as this was a bill which sought to punish a crime against an officer, the gravamen of the crime must be that it was committed against him in his official character or for the purpose of interfering with his official functions.
There was that sharp distinction between the two. The House did not yield to the Senate on the subject, nor did the Senate yield to the House on the subject. On the contrary, a new bill was brought back here, which prescribes that as to some of these officers and some of these acts the crime shall be complete, re gardless of the question whether it had any relation to the officer, to his official position, or to his official acts, in that way and to that extent adopting the Senate bill, but, on the contrary, pro viding that as to other officers the crime should not be complete; that there should be no crime at all under this bill unless it was directed against a man in his official character or against the dis charge of his official duty.
Here we have this hybrid; and I challenge the distinguished Senator, or any other who defends this bill, in all the books of all the libraries of all the world to find another statute of the same kind a statute which shall recognize the principle of which I have spoken in one section as to one class of officers and in the same statiite in other sections deny the principle and take exactly the opposite position as to the other officers. If there is any other such example in all the books, I say let one be produced.
But, Mr. President, that is not all in this bill by a great deal.
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8 There are fundamental propositions in this bill which go even beyond that, hut that is bad enough. I will, of course, hare to take up this bill to show the correctness of the contention which I am making, because I do not propose to leave it simply upon my statement. I am going to read the bill and point out the par ticular features to which I have alluded.
Mr. President, if there is one proposition which I thought was recognized by all true Americans as a fundamental proposition upon which this Government rested and without the recognition of which thig would not be the same Government that we always hare regarded it. that proposition is equality before the law. I never expected to see the day when a man in this country could look me in the face and say to me that the law regarded him with more tender care than it did me. I never expected to see the _day when I could look any other man in the face and feel the humilia tion of having to admit that the law regarded an offense against his person as a greater offense than one against mine.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator a question? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. HOAR. Does he regard it as a violation of that principle to say in legislation that the United States shall care for the pro tection of United States officers and the States care for the protection of State officers? Is that inequality before the law? That is all this bill does. Mr. BACON. I am coming to that. I want to show where the logic of this bill points, and I am going to read the bill offered by the learned and distinguished Senator himself in this Con gress, extending the provisions of this bill to every officer of the United States Government, high and low, big and little; and there is no logic which stops short of that. I have here on my table, and I am going to read it before I get through, the bill introduced by the Senator from Massachusetts himself to that effect. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Connecticut? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. . Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Do I understand the Senator to say that he thinks there ought to be no discrimination in the punishment for killing a man who does not hold an office and that for killing a man who does hold an office? Mr. BACON. I certainly do. Possibly the Senator did not understand my reply. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I beg pardon, Mr. BACON. I say I certainly do mean to be so understood, if I understood the Senator from Connecticut correctly. The Senator will please give me his question again. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I never yet could see Mr. BACON. Will the Senator please propound his question again, in order that I may be right. I do not know that I exactly understood it. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I never yet could see how the killing of a man who held an office was not the killing of an offi cer, and if it was the killing of an officer. I thought intent would be presumed; that it was an intentional killing of an officer; and it seems to me the Government could very well protect its officers by putting a different punishment upon an assault on them of course, if it is murder you could only hang the man but in other

cases a different punishment than that which, would be put upon a man for killing an individual who was not an officer. I have always thought that.

Mr. BACON. While I did not hear him very distinctly, 1 sup pose from what the Senator from Connecticut has just said that his inquiry to me was whether I recognized or refused to recog nize the propriety of a statute which would make it a greater crime to kill an officer of the Government than to kill a private individual. I say I certainly do not recognize the propriety of any such law.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Does not the Senator recognize a distinction, from the national standpoint and national law, between,.the. oftense of killing Stephen J. Field, an individual, and that of kill ing Stephen J. Field, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the

United States, "while in the discharge of. his duty as such? Mr. BACON. Of course, I know what the Senator refers to.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the Nagle case.

Mr. SPOONEE. No; independent of that.

Mr. BACON. crime

Whether I recognize that there is any greater

Mr. SPOONER. I did not say that.

Mr. BACON. What, then? Mr. SPOONER. The question is whether, from the Federal standpoint, the standpoint of the United States and the laws of Congress for the protection of officers of the United States in the discharge of their duty, the Senator does not recognize a dis tinction between the punishment of a man for killing Stephen J. Field, an individual, and for the killing of Stephen J. Field, as sociate justice of the United States, while in the discharge of his duty?

Mr. BACON. I do not. Mr, President, I do not recognize that any mans life before the law is worth any more than any other mans life.

Mr. SPOONER. The Supreme Court does.

Mr. BACON. I do not think it does. Do you mean in the Nagle case? I do not believe any such doctrine was there an nounced.
****#**.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the questions propounded to me by the Senator from Wisconsin and the Senator from Connecti cut all go to this point: Should there be laws which would make it a greater crime to kill an officer of the G-overnment than to kill a private individual? When you boil it all down, that is the question: and the questions indicate that in the opinion of the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Wisconsin our statute books should be loaded with laws which should make it a greater crime to kill an officer of the Government than to kill a private citizen.

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Connecticut?

Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. While I recognize the right and the duty of the Government to protect the life of every citizen, I think there is an additional duty on the part of the Government

10
to protect its officers, for that is protection of the Government itself.
Mr. BACON. That does not change the proposition I have laid down: That the necessary position of the Senators is that the stat ute books should be loaded down for it would take a vast num ber of statutes if they were made applicable to each officer of the Government, unless there should be one general statute applicable to all with criminal laws making it a greater offense to commit a crime against the person of an officer than against a private citizen.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator whether this bill does pun ish the crime against an officer with any other or greater punish ment within its jurisdiction than it punishes the same crime against the private citizen?
My understanding, if I may say it, is that while the question which the Senator puts is an interesting one, it does not arise here. This bill does not punish more by a hairs breadth the crime against the official whom the Government protects than it does the crime against a citizen. It only says that when the crime is against a United States officer within its jurisdiction it shall be punished by the United States. That is all.
Mr. BACON. Nevertheless, that is the proposition, that as to private citizens the United States will enact no law, and of course can not do so, while as to officials all officials, because the prin ciple is the same as to the lowest as it is to the highest, differing only in degree that as to all officials of the United States Gov ernment it will enact penalties which, although the acts are com mitted in the same State, in the same place, are greater penalties than are enforced by the existing law for the same act against a private individual.
Nor, Mr. President, does this bill stop there. It makes dis tinctions between officers. It does not stop at distinctions be tween officers of the Government. It makes distinctions between officers of this Government and the representatives here of for eign governments. It makes distinctions between the representa tives of foreign governments and the citizens of this Government.
Mr. President, if the Chief Justice of the United States is as saulted in the District of Columbia, it is not so great a crime un der the proposed law as if the same man in the same way assaulted a representative of the smallest government on earth who is here a Central American government or a West Indian government. Mr. President, I take that as a radical and insuperable objection to this proposed law. Inequality before the law in any particu lar is otflhctionable. Inequality before the law in any particular is absolutely antagonistic to the fundamental principles of this Government. But inequality before the criminal law above all things should never be consented to. Never before have we had any such laws. Mr. President, as I was saying, the logic of,this law extends to every officer of the Government. In this particular instance it is limited to certain officers of the Government, but there is no possible reason which will sustain the law as to one officer which will not extend it as to another.
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] recognized that when this Congress first began, and he introduced a bill which I now wish to read to the Senate. This is one of the first bills in troduced in this Congress. It is Senate bill No. 3, and it was introduced by the Senator from Massachusetts. The Senate will note that at the time the Senator went to the full length which

11
the logic of its position necessarily carries him and proposed a law which would necessarily extend to every officer of the United States. It is Senate bill No. 3, introduced December 4, 1901. I believe that was the first day of the session. If not. certainly it was in the first week of the session. It is entitled: A trill for the protection of the President of the United States, and for other
-purposes. Se it enacted, etc., That any person who shall within the limits of the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, willfully kill or cause the death of the President of the United States or any officer thereof, or who shall willfully cause the death of the ruler or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death. The Senate will mark the words. It is not simply the Presi dent of the United States, but "or any officer thereof." That intended to set apart an entirely new class in the United States. Every man holding a commission under the United States Grovernment, however high or however low (and there are several hundred thousand of them), were to be set apart and a halo put around the head of each, and he is to be set loose in the com munity as a superior being, entitled to greater protection under the law than any other man who happens to be a private citizen, however more worthy that private citizen may happen to be in his person or in his character. That was in the bill introduced by the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I hope he will tell .us, when he comes to reply, whether he now says that that ought to be the law. Are we to have a separate class in this country? Is it to be the fact that under the criminal law there are .to be two classes-^-one class com posed of every man who happens to hold any position under the Government of the United States, the other class the vast mil lions of our people who are engaged in their own private affairs? In the one case it is a misdemeanor to assault the private citizen. In the other it is death to assault a man because he happens to hold a commission under the United States Government. Mr. President, am I wrong in saying that this bill, which goes to the fundamentals of our Government, justifies a man here in opposing it with all the powers God has given him? Mr. Presi dent, if it ever comes to the time when a man has to feel the hu miliation of which I spoke just now, when he must look in his neighbors face and recognize the fact that he has not the same protection under the law that his neighbor has, because, forsooth, his neighbor has a little commission or a big commission under the Government, it shall not be said that I gave my consent or that I yielded any opportunity there was to defeat so iniquitous a bill. A Senator sitting near me says to me it lays a foundation for an aristocracy. Where is there a government on the earth that has any such law? I presume that in some autocracies of olden times there may have been such laws. There may be still some. I do not know, but certainly not among the advanced nations. It is no more a crime to kill a peer of England than it is to Mil the humblest citizen of England. There is no law in France which draws a distinction between an assault upon an official and an assault upon a private individual: and shall we, in this boasted land, be the pioneers in such legislation? Mr. President. I do not know whether or not anything I may Bay in this life shall be thought worthy to survive me, but if so, I will be content if one utterance of mine in this debate on this
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question shall be that by which I shall be remembered; and that one utterance is that there should not be in this land one law for one man, even though he be the President of the United States, and another law for another man, even though he be the lowli est citizen of the Republic. Sir, liberty in its last analysis is equality before the law.
But I am going on now to read this bill, which was introduced by the senior Senator from Massachusetts at the beginning of this Congress, and I repeat that I hope when he comes to reply, if he should see fit to say anything in reply, or deem it worthy of reply, he will answer whether or not lie stands by this bill, whether the senior Senator from Massachusetts will still say, as he said in the introduction of this bill, that he thinks there ought to be one law for the private citizen and another law for a man who happens to hold a Federal commission.
Now, listen to this, Senators in this Chamber! I hare read you the section of the bill introduced by the learned and distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, in which he said that anyone who shall kill the President of the United States or any officer of the United States shall, be punished with death. That is bad enough. But listen to this. Section 2 of the same bill provides:
SEO. 2. That any person who shall within the limits of the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, mako an attempt on the life of the President of the United States or any officer thereof, or who shall make an attempt on the life of the ruler or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death.
And then section 3 is as follows:
SEC. 3. That any person who shall within the limits of the United States, _ r any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, advise or counsel the killing of the President of the United States or any officer thereof, or shall conspire to accomplish the same, or who shall advise or counsel the killing of the ruler or chief magistrate of any foreign country, or shall conspire to accom plish the eame, shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twenty years.
Does the Senator from Massachusetts stand by that? Mr. MORGAN. He is standing by it in his report. Mr. BACON. Does the Senator still say, as he said in the bill which he introduced on the 4th day of December, 1901, that any man who shall commit any assault upon any officer of the Gov ernment shall be punished with death? Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, if I correctly heard what the Sen ator read, he did not read my bill. Mr. BACON. I am reading it. I have it in print. Mr. HOAR. Let us see. Mr. BACON. I will read it again if the Senator desires. Mr. HOAR, I do not make the charge. I say as it struck my sars. Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. HOAR. If I correctly heard the Senator, he followed the precedent of the man who said the words "There is no God" were in the Scripture, leaving out the previous words, " The fool hath said in his heart." Mr. BACON. I am reading from the Senators bill. Mr. HOAR. Is not the Senator, let me ask him. under the im pression that the bill provided that any person who made an at tempt on the life of any officer of the Government should be punished by death? Mr. BACON. If that is not what it means I do not understand the English language. Mr. HOAR. Then let me take the bill.
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Mr. BACON. It is in the second section. Mr. HOAR. The Senator -will pardon me. Mr. BACON. That is exactly -what it says. Mr. HOAR. Here is the second section. Mr. BACON. Right at the bottom of the page. Mr. HOAR. I have it. Now, I should like any Senator who listened to what the Senator said this bill contained to just hear what it does contain:
SBO. 2. That any person who shall within the limits of the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, make an attempt on the life of the President, of the United States or any officer thereof
The Senator said " assault.. Mr. BACON. I read it verbatim as it is there.
Mr. HOAR. (Reading)
or who shall make an attempt on the life of the ruler or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death.
Mr. BACON. That is right. Mr. HOAR. The Senator said " assault," if I heard him cor rectly, but I presume I did not. Mr. BACON. When the Senator gets through I will respond to that.
Mr. HOAR. I am through. Mr. BACON. Very well. Now, Mr. President, I read Mr. HOAR. I stand by that bill word for word. Mr. BACON. Now I have the Senators position. Mr. BEVERIDQE. Will the Senator read that section again? Mr. BACON. I will in a second. Mr. McLAURIN of Mississippi. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I will yield in a moment. The Senator by direct charge, not by implication, attributes to me a desire to pervert these words. Mr. HOAR. Not in the least. I said if I heard the Senator cor rectly he said so and so. He did not change it then. I said again that I did not believe that I could have heard him correctly, and I do not. Mr. BACON. Now I want to repeat exactly what I said before. I read this section word for word. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Will the Senator read it again? Mr. HOAR. Read it again. Mr. BACON (reading):
SBC. 2. That any person who shall within the limits of the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, make an attempt on the life of the President of the United States or any officer thereof, or who shall make an attempt on the life of the ruler or chief magistrate of any foreign country, shall be punished with death.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Is that in the present bill? Mr. BACON. No; but I say that bill is a logical sequence of the present bill that it is a bill introduced into this Congress by the Senator from Massachusetts and there is not a single princi ple to justify the present bill that would not also justify the bill I am now reading. Now, I am replying to the suggestion of the Senator that I was endeavoring to mislead the Senate as to his words. I read that sentence verbatim, as I had just read it. In commenting on it f did use the word " assault." Mr. HOAR. Yes. Mr. BACON. But, in connection with that, everybody would know what assault I meant an assault with intent to kill be-

14
cause I had just read the sentence. What else could I mean, in speaking of an assault, except an assault provided for there? Necessarily no Senator could have been misled by me in that regard. If I had attempted
Mr. HOAR. I accept cheerfully the Senators statement of his purpose. The Senator will not for a moment think that I would wish to make any imputation on his fairness?
Mr. BACON. I trust not. Mr. HOAR. But I must say that when the Senator, reading a piece of print, goes on to say that the Senator from Massachu setts undertakes to make an assault on a United States officer punishable with death, I do not tliink he was very cautious in his language: and I think the persons who hoard that would" be very likely to understand that he meant literally what he stated. I accept his disclaimer, of course. Mr. BACON. The word "assault" in that connection could only refer to the particular kind of assault that was contained in the section which I had just read in the same breath. Mr. HOAR. But we do not always listen to the reading of print. What the Senator said was that I undertook to make an assault on a United States officer punishable with death, and he says everybody umst have understood what he meant because a little before he had read the language of the bill. Now, I think the Senator was very careless, very careless. Mr. BACON. I am sorry that I have to differ from the Sen ator in that regard, as I am to differ from him in any other. The Senator is a lawyer and has argued very many more cases, I pre sume, than I ever did. Most of those whom 1 address are law yers. Any lawyer would know that when I read the sentence in which the words occurred " make an attempt on the life of the President," and then, in commenting on that very section, spoke of it as an assault, that I meant only an assault with intent to kill. I could not have intended that anybody should understand anything else, and I do not think there is any carelessness in it. But, Mr. President, that is splitting hairs. I come back to the proposition, conceding it fully to be an assault with intent to kill, is it a correct proposition that in this country there should be a class of men from the highest to the lowest man against each one of whom there shall be the death penalty imposed in the case of an assault with intent to kill, whereas in all jurisdiction in this country such a crime is only punishable as a felony, subject to imprisonment? Now,there are some who contend, and with great force and logic, that assault with intent to kill is as great a crime as the actual killing; that the intent at last is the crime. But whether that is a correct view or not, it is not the view taken by the law, and never has been. It is true the time was when a good many things which are now felonies, punishable by imprisonment, were pun ished by death, in the same way that very much graver crimes were at the same time punished with death. But that was not because the law regarded the minor offense equal to the other, but because it regarded the minor offense as one entitled to death, and no greater penalty could be imposed for the greater offense. So it is that in this day, at least in all civilized countries, so far as I know, certainly in all the countries in which there are any systems of a jurisprudence corresponding with anything we have in this country, there is a distinction under the law between, the
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15
mail who attempts to commit a crime and the man who commits it. Whether right or wrong. the distinction exists in this country.
So when it is proposed, or has been proposed, or shall in the future be proposed, to enact a law which will say that as to all the officials of the Government, from a mail carrier up, an as sault with intent to kill shall be punished with death, aside from the fact that you have passed a law as to what does not exist un der the criminal jurisdiction as an offense against the individual or by a private citizen, you have a law, as I said, aside from that in which there is a distinction of class, class under the criminal law, not simply class before the civil law; class under the crimi nal law by which one man walks abroad, covered by a panoply, and another man walks abroad without any protection. And not __Qnly so, but there is to be a distinction under the criminal law in which the perpetrator of the crime who assaults one man is a greater criminal than if he assaults another man. I recognize no such distinction, Mr. President, and I will never give my consent to such a law.
Mr. SPOONER. Is there such a proposition before us? Mr. BACON". Certainly there is in this very bill, not to the same extent, but this very bill selects certain officers. Mr. SPOONER. But they are the officers who are to succeed to the Presidency in a contingency. Mr. BACON. Not at all. Mr. SPOONER. Yes, so far as national officers are concerned. Mr. BACON. Very well; that may be, but that is not the point I am on. The question the learned Senator asked me, while an jentirely pertinent one to the general subject, and he very sel dom asks any other question but one that goes directly to the point, is not the one I am discussing. I suppose his attention was diverted. That is not the particular point I am on now, which is as to the principle upon which this law rests and the proposition that the logical extension of that principle is not limited to these officers, but embraces every officer under the Government. Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will permit me, I think there is a distinction. Mr. BACON. Yes; in degree. Mr. SPOONER. It seems to be an obvious principle in politics in the proposition to safeguard the country against an inter regnum, so to speak, in the Presidential office and the punishment for assaults upon the great army of employees. Mr. BACON. Yes; in a degree the Senator is correct. Mr. SPOONER. I think this bill is, as the Senator from Mas sachusetts says, so far as the first and second sections go, a con cession upon the part of the House, and a very large one, to the Senate. Mr. BACON. But it is not so as to all the sections. The con cession of principle Mr. SPOONER. I am speaking now of the punishment pro vided for the murder of the President, Vice-President, or the officers who by law would succeed to the position. Mr. BACON. Does not the Senator recognize that he is taking me off my Jine of thought? Mr. SPOONER. No; I thought I was on the Senators line of thought. When this bill passed the Senate the Senator objected to it upon the ground that a man might be punished in an unusual
aaso

16

way for assaulting or for killing a Cabinet officer, one who, under the law, would succeed to the Presidency in a certain contin gency, when his grievance was a private one and when the offi cial was not involved in the discharge of official duty. I did not like that provision in the bill. I have not myself liked the Presi dential-succession law altogether. But the Senator from Massa chusetts in this conference bill has guarded against that objection absolutely. I think. Will the Senator allow me a moment further?
Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER (reading)
SEC. 2. That any person who shall, within the limits of the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, willfully and maliciously kill or cause the death of any officer of the United States entitled under the Con stitution and laws thereof to act as President in case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of both the President and Vice-President while he is engaged in the performance of his official dirties, or because of his official duties or character, or because of his official acts or omissions, or who by so killing such official shall cause such a vacancy in the office by him held at a . time when, by the Constitution and laws of the United States, it would be the duty of the person holding such office to act as President, shall suffer death.
If the President should be killed, and the Secretary of State be fore he could take the oath of office, he being then entitled to discharge the duties of that office under the Constitution and laws, should be assassinated, that would fall within, the last pro vision, it seems to me.
Mr. BACON. If we were at the bar trying a case, I do not know any more dangerous antagonist that I would recognize than the Senator from Wisconsin; andthe Senator brings to this forum the same equipment, the same adroitness he has there. I do not know of anything which is more calculated to throw some less ex perienced antagonist off hi guard than when he is on a particu lar line of thought to have an interruption directing his attention to an entirely different proposition, thereby diverting him from what he was then pursuing, and probably taking him at an unex pected and unprepared moment on another proposition.
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will permit me, I know of no rcan anywhere less liable to be diverted by an interruption than the Senator from Georgia is. If I diverted him I apologize for it.
Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the Senator, and I will endeavor to merit his compliment by proceeding on the par ticular line I was pursuing when he interrupted me. I will en deavor at a later stage to take up the particular points that he has suggested, and which are entirely pertinent to this discussion. The Senator will not misunderstand me as to that.
I was discussing this proposition. I was trying to show the dangerous character of this proposed legislation, that while in this instance it was limited in the proposed bill to the offense against the President and against the members of those who were called his Cabinet and against foreign ambassadors and foreign ministers, the logic of the bill, while it might differ in degree, carried the law to all officers of the Government, and that partic ular line of thought was in part suggested, though of course I had considered it before, by questions which have been asked me by the Senator from Wisconsin and the Senator from Connecticut.

[At this point in the debate the advocates of the bill announced that it

would no longer be pressed during the session, and Mr. BACON yielded the

floor without completing his speech.]



5680
o

Diplomatic Coi-respondence Relative to Panama, etc.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEOBGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Thursday, January 28, 1904.
The Senate having under consideration the resolution submitted by Mr. CULBERSON on the 35th instant, calling for any further correspondence that may be on file relative to Panama
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: 1 am not especially concerned about this reso lution or the particular action -which may be taken under it by the President, because I feel quite sure, from the statements which have been made by Senators, that a full response is going to be made by the President whatever may be the language of the resolution. But, Mr. President, the positions taken by honor able Senators here to-day upon the question which is involved make this a very important matter, and I am unwilling, under the statements which have been made by Senators as to their views of the rights of the President and the rights of the Senate, that the occasion should pass without my putting upon record, not _ simply what I may think upon it, but what has heretofore been uttered in this Chamber by learned and distinguished Senators, the weight of whose opinion I am sure will not be disregarded by those of us who now occupy places which they then so greatly honored and distinguished," I am the more induced not to permit this occasion to pass from the fact that on yesterday we had a reply from the executive de partment, in response to a resolution sent by the Senate directing one of the officers of one of the Departments to communicate cer tain information to this Senate, and in that reply, sent by the President of the United States, we were shortly informed that, in his opinion, it was not compatible with the public interest that the Senate of the United States should have the information which was sought. This debate has been precipitated unexpect edly, and I had no anticipation of participating to-day in the dis cussion of the vital question involved. It is, however, a question upon which I have heretofore given careful thought. The debate which has been had here to-day raises clearly this issue: Is it within theprovince of the President of the United States in his discretion, his sole judgment, to communicate to Congress what may be desired of information within any of the Departments, or equally within his discretion and at his will to withhold the same? That it is thus within the powers of the President is the bold avowal, as I understand it, of Senators on the other side of the Chamber. It has just been reiterated by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] and previously stated by the Senator from Illinois [Mr. C0LLOM] ana other Senators that while it was within the power of the Senate and the province of the Senate to call for any

information which it might desire it was equally within the power and the province of the President of the United States, in his jntlgmext, to say that it was HO* compatible with ho publicinter est that the Senate should have the information. That, the Sen ate willnote, brings clearly the point in issue, which is this: While it is the right of the Senate to make the request, in whose judg ment shall rest the determination of the question whether or not the information desired shall be communicated to the Senate? Shall it rest in the judgment of the President or shall it rest in the judgment of the Senate? That is the clear-cut question. The Senator from Wisconsin smiles, because I know his mind runs hack to what I am now about to cite to the Senate.
Mr. President, there was once a great debate in this Senate on that question, and I think that when we come to sift it there could be no more serious question propounded to the Senate of the United States than that, beca/use in its determination may rest. and would rest, questions of the gravest import: arid if deter mined in favor of the right of the President to withhold at his discretion, the consequences which would flow from such a de termination and from action thereunder it is difficult to overesti mate. The question is fundamental in its nature and scope.
I felicitate myself and the country that in that great debate for it was a_ great debate, a debate participated in by Senators whose superiors, considered collectively, never sat in this Cham ber since the foundation of the Government I felicitate myself and the country upon the fact that in that great debate the Re publican Senators took the position, and maintained it. that it was a matter for the determination of the Senate as to the information which it required, and that the President had no right to reply that he was the judge of that question.
Senators have read here to-day utterances of Democratic Pres idents. I pin my faith to the xrtterance of no man when it is4n derogation of the rights and the prerogatives of the Senate, be he of my party or against it. I am free to say two things that I utterly disapprove of the contention of the Democratic Presidents whose utterances have been read here, who assumed to themselves the right to determine whether certain information should be given to the Senate upon its demand; and the other thing, which I am more than glad to say, is that in that great debate, in which the Republicans were upon one side in this Chamber and the Dem ocrats upon the other side not only do I concede it now, but I have conceded it heretofore in reference to this debate the Repub licans were in my opinion right and the Democrats were wrong as to the question of constitutional power.
It was a very narrow line of division between Democratic and Republican Senators in that debate. Upon both sides it was con ceded that wherever the matter out of which the call proceeded rested confessedly within the jurisdiction of the Senate the Sen ate had the right to call for the papers and for themselves to de termine whether or not they should be called for. On the side of the Republicans it was contended that when the question was in dispute whether or not the subject-matter was within the juris diction of the Senate it was then a question for the determination of the Senate. The Democrats, on the other hand, contended that in that case it was for the Executive to say whether or not it was within the jurisdiction of the Senate or without their jurisdiction.
That was the narrow line of division, and I am frank to say and I have said so heretofore in the Senate that the Republicans

. were theft right in their contention. They went to the utmost limit, Mr. President, in the assertion of the power of the Senate not only to call for whatever was within the jurisdiction of the Senate, but to determine what was the jurisdiction of the Senate, and to deny to the President the right to assume that a certain demand was as to a matter outside the jurisdiction of the Senate.
Now. in passing I will call the attention of the learned Senator from Wisconsin to the fact, in view of his suggestion that ques tions of this kind should always originate in resolutions adopted or offered, if you please, in executive session, that the resolution out of which that great debate grew was one which related to executive business, and that it was offered in open session by the Judiciary Committee, then a Bepublican committee, headed by the Hon. George F. Edmunds. And that distinguished com mittee on the Republican side was composed of these Members: George F. Edmunds. John J. Ingalls, S. J. B. McMillan, GEORGE F. HOAR. James F. Wilson, and William M. Evarts.
Am I justified, after reading that list of names, in the state ment which I made that there were men then here whose supe riors collectively considered never sat in this Chamber?
Mr, ALDBICH. Who signed the minority report? Mr. BACON, I have not the minority report before me, but I can state it pretty well from memory Mr. Pagh, of Alabama; Mr. Vest, of Missouri, and two others whose names I do not now recall. Mr. SPOONEB. George, of Mississippi. Mr. BACON. Yes; George, of Mississippi, if yon please. I think he was undoubtedly one of them. Their names are not here. This document which I hold in my hand contains the repoit of the majority. There was a minority report filed. But I want to call the attention of Senators to the fact that even as to the minority there was no possible dispute or contention denying to the Senate the right tp call peremptorily for anything which re lated to a matter within the jurisdiction of the Senate, and, even. according to their contention, this report now called for would be a legitimate call, and one not vested in the discretion of the President to refuse to furnish, because it relates to a treaty, which is a matter distinctly within the jurisdiction of the Senate. In that particular case Senators, some of whom are now here and who were then here, will remember that the issue grew out of the fact that the President of the United States sent in a cer tain nomination for appointment to an office, and the question was raised as to whether or not there was legitimately a vacancy, in the fact that the President had removed the party who had theretofore held the office, and the Senate wanted to know the cause for which he had removed him. That was the contention upon which the debate rose. Mr, SPOONEB. That whole debate was predicated largely on the tenure-of-office act. Mr. BACON. I understand that: there is no doubt about that fact. But that fact in no manner affected the merits of the ques tion of constitutional power which was involved between the President and the Senate. Mr. ALDBICH. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me to call his attention to a fact? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. ALDBICH. The pending resolution has no reference what ever in terms to the pending treaty.
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Mr. BACON. Well. Mr. ALDRICH. The resolution does not ask for any corre spondence or notes relative to the treaty in any form. Mr. BACON. I will not stop to discuss that, because, as I stated in the beginning, my purpose in rising is not so much as to any particular interest in this particular resolution, but because of the position taken by Senators here, which I am unwilling shall pass unchallenged; and I wish to challenge it, not upon the strength of my convictions or my arguments, but upon the most elaborate and learned arguments that were made here by Republican Sena tors, then members of this body. Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me to ask him a question for information, not for debate? The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DEPEW in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Do I understand the Senator is contending that in no case the President is to be the judge of what informa tion he or the executive department of the Government will send to either House? Mr. BACON. If the learned Senator will allow me to preter mit an immediate answer to that question, I will endeavor, beforeI conclude, to answer the Senator in his own language which he has tittered in this Chamber. That will be the most satisfactory reply, I presume, that I can make to him. Mr. SPOONER. I would rather have your opinion than my own. Mr. BACON. I will endeavor to express it before I get through, if my physical condition permits. There was sent to the Senate on that occasion a most elaborate report, signed by all the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, whose names I have already read to the Senate, headed by the Hon. George F. Edmunds, as chairman. The report is too long to be read now, but I will ask, if I may be excused, because I am not in the most robust physical condition at present, the Secretary to read on pages 4 and 5 where it is marked in this report. I will say to the Senate that it is Senate Report 185, Forty-ninth Congress, first session. I would prefer to read it myself, but under the circumstances I will ask the Secre tary to read it. I hope it may have the attention of the Senate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Secretary will read as re quested. The Secretary read as follows:
The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional competence of either House of Congress to have access to the official papers and documents in the various pnhlic offices of the United States created by laws enacted by themselves. It may he fully admitted that except in respect of the Department of the Treasury there is no statute which commands the head of any Department to transmit to either House of Congress on its de mand any information whatever concerning the administration of his De partment, but the committee believes it to be clear that from the very nature of the powera intrusted by the Constitution to the two Houses of Congress it is a necessary incident that either House must have at all times the right to know all that officially exists or takes place in any of the Departments of the Government.
So perfectly was this proposition understood before and at the time of the formation of the Constitution that the Continental Congress, before the adop tion of the present Constitution, in establishing a department of foreign af fairs and providing for a principal officer thereof, thought it fit to enact that au books, records, and other papers in that office should be open to the inspec tion of any Member of Congress, provided that no copy should be taken of" matters of secret nature without special leave of Congress. It was not
5888

thought necessary to enact that the Congress itself should be entitled to the production and inspection of saah papers, for that right was supposed to erist in the very nature of things, and when, under the Constitution, the depart ment came to be created, although the provision that each individual Mem ber of Congress should have access to the papers was omitted (evidently for reasons that can now be quite well understood), it was not thought necessary that an affirmative provision should be inserted, giving to the Houses of Con gress the right to know the contents of the public papers and records in the public offices of the country whose laws and whose offices they were to assist m creating.
It is believed that there is no instance of civilized governments having bodies representative of the people or of States in which the right and the power of those representative bodies to obtain in one form or another com plete information as to every paper and transaction in any of the executive departments thereof does not exist, even though such papers might relate to what is ordinarily an executive function, if that function impinged upon any duty of function of the representative bodies.
A qualification of this general right ma.y under our Constitution exist in case of calls by the House of ^Representatives for papers relating to treaties, etc., under consideration and not yet disposed of by the President and Senate.
The committee feels authorized to state, after a somewhat careful research, that within the foregoing limits there is scarcely in the history of this G-overnment until now any instance of a refusal by a head of a Department, or even of the President himself, to communicate official facts and information, as distinguished from private and unofficial papers, motions, views, reasons, and opinions, to either House of Congress when unconditionally demanded. Indeed, the early journals of the Senate show great numbers of instances of directions to the heads of Departments, as of course, to furnish papers and reports upon all sorts of affairs, both legislative and executive.
The instances of requests to the President and commands to the heads of Departments by each House of Congress from those days until now for papers and information on every conceivable subject of public affairs are almost innumerable, for it appears to have been thought by all the Presi dents who have carried on the Government now for almost a century that, even in respeet of reqtiests to them, an independent and coordinate branch of the Government, they were under a constitutional duty and obligation to furnish to either House the papers called for, unless, as has happened in very rare instances, when the request was coupled with an appeal to the discre tion of the President in respect of the danger of publicity, to send the papers if, in his judgment, it should not be incompatible with the public welfare.
Even in times of the highest party excitement and stress, as in 1826 and 1844, it did not seem to occur to the Chief Executive of the United States that it was possible that any official facts or information existing, either in the Departments created by law or within its own possession, could, save as be fore stated, be withheld from either of the Houses of Congress, although such facts or information sometimes involved very intricate and delicate matters of foreign affairs as well as sometimes the history and conduct of officers connected with the administration of affairs.
Mr. BACON. That is as strong a statement, I think, as ecrald be made upon the question, and I desire to repeat in this connec tion, as Senators have asked who were the Senators who signed the minority report, evidently thereby intending to place in op position to the utterances in this report the opinions of such emi nent men as George, and Pugh, and Vest, and others whose names I do not now recall
Mr. MITCHELL. I will give the Senators the names. Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. MITCHELL. James L. Pugh, Richard Coke, George G. Vest, and Howell E. Jackson. Mr. BACON. Yes; Jackson, afterwards judge of the Supreme Court. Mr. MITCHELL. Afterwards judge of the Supreme Court. Mr. BACON. As their names are invoked, I repeat the state ment, amply verified by inspection of their report, that they most fully and completely recognize the right of the Senate to call for any paper or document, peremptorily and not within the discre tion of the President to refuse, which related to a matter within the jurisdiction of the Senate. The only question made between the minority report and the majority report was whether or not the discretion was in the President to say that it was not in the

6
jurisdiction of the Senate, or whether the Senate must determine for itself whether it was in the jurisdiction of the Senate.
Mr. BEVEHIDGE. Mr. President Mr. BACON". Will the Senator from Indiana pardon me for a moment? Mr. BBVERIDGE. Certainly. Mr. BACON". The Republicans contended that the question as to whether or not a matter was within the jurisdiction of the Senate was for the determination of the Senate. The Democrats contended, on the other hand, that the question whether the mat ter was within the jurisdiction of the Senate or without the juris diction of the Senate was a matter for the determination, of the President. That was the narrow line of division between them, and I will read, when I reply to whatever the Senator from In diana [Mr. BEVERIDGE] may desire to say,from the minority report to that effect. Mr. BEVERIDGE. The close of the extract which the Senator just had read I understood incorporated the provision concerning compatibility with the public interest. Do I understand the Senator to say that that committees report supported the propo sition that the Senate had the right, as of right, to ask for any papers, whether or no the sending of them was compatible with the public interest? Mr. BACON. Yes, sir; I do. I mean to say this: That in the report and the debate from which I am going to read and I am glad the Senator will be present to hear it read Mr. BEVERIDGE. I will, if I can be. Mr. BACON. The position is distinctly taken that the question as to whether or not it is a matter proper for Congress to ask for or for the Senate to ask for is a matter for the Senate to deter mine, and not a matter for the President. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Would it interrupt the course of the Sena tors argument if at this particular point I suggested a question or two? If so, I will defer them. Mr. BACON. I will endeavor to answer them now, unless I am going to answer them in the course of my argument. I will hear the question, however. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I will ask the Senator whether it is his opinion that the President ought in any case to send papers to the Senate the sending of which is not compatible with the public interest? Mr. BACON. The reply which I will make now, although I intended to advert to it later, is this; It is not to be assumed that the Senate of the United States, whenever its attention is called, with proper reasons given, in response to an inquiry, that there would be objection to the communication, would insist upon it. But to recognize the proposition that the President must deter mine it and simply end the matter by the reply that it is incom patible with the public interest to communicate the desired infor mation is to yield the whole question and give the whole power to the President. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President Mr. BACON. And, if the Senator will pe_rmit me. the debate from which I am going to read is one in which that was the dis tinct proposition negatived by George F. Edmunds, GEORGE F. HOAE. William M. Evarts, Mr. Logan. the distinguished Senate^ from Wisconsin now present, and others. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I shall not ask the Senator any further
5838

questions, because I want to listen to his argument, but I call his attention now. so that perhaps hemay elucidate the point, to this fact: The proposition lie has now arrived at and the dilemma into which it seems to me the Senator is drifting is that it is a ques tion for the Senate to judge and not for the President to judge whether or not papers asked for are compatible with the public .interest, and if that proposition be admitted it sends all papers of every kind to the Senate.
Mr. BACON, Yes, Mr. BE VERIDGE. And therefore destroys in advance the ques tion of their compatibility or incompatibility with the public in terest. Mr. BACON. Absolutely. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Then the question does not exist. Mr. BACON. In other words, the power is in the Senate to see any paper which it may determine it should see, if it relates to a matter which Mr. BEVERIDGE rose. Mr. BACON. The Senator will pardon me. Mr. BEVBRIDGE. Yes. Mr. BACON. If it relates to a matter of which the Senate has properly jurisdiction. The practical operation of it is not that there shall be any exposure of papers which the pviblic interest might not justify the exposure of. but that in a proper way the matter will be brought to its attention, and the assumption being tha.t when reasons are given to the Senate it will not insist upon it. But the President himself can not shut the door to any De partment and say that the Senate, or the House either, shall not have access to anv paper which relates to a governmental matter. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I stated in the be ginning that I was going to base the contention I made here not upon what I personally would say, but upon the elaborate argu ments in a previous debate. I can only read a part of them, and I commend to the Senator the careful reading of the entire debate, because it is a most able and instructive one by men among the ablest who ever sat in this Chamber. Therefore I proceed with the reading of what learned Senators on that occasion said in this Chamber. I will begin with what my learned and distinguished friend, the Senator from Wisconsin, said on that occasion, because he bore no insignificant part in that debate among the Titans, and there is no word uttered by the learned and distinguished Senator in that debate which he should wish to retract and no word uttered by him of which he should not now be proud; and, I will say further, no word uttered by him I am speaking now as to argu ments; I dp not mean as to any personal references which may have been indulged in of which I do not personally approve and to which approval I have not heretofore given utterance in this Chamber when a similar question was under debate. Mr. President, in the beginning I desire, in order that what the Senator has said to-day semifacetiously as to the ingenuousness and candor of Senators on this side of the Chamber, may be rec ognized as having been littered by him in the utmost seriousness, to ask that we may be accorded on this occasion the same credit for sincerity which he claimed for himself upon that occasion. That was a time when there was a Democrat in the White House and when there was a Republican majority in this Chamber, and

8
in the outset the learned and distinguished Senator from Wiscon sin used the language I -will quote from, the seventeenth volume of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, part 3, Forty-ninth Congress, first session, page 2487. The Senator from Wisconsin said
Mr, TILLMAN. The present Senator from Wisconsin the sit ting Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. The present very learned, able, and distinguished Senator whom we all so delight to honor; and as we admire and delight to honor both of the Senators from Wisconsin, I will say the senior Senator from Wisconsin. He began his speech in this way:
I make no attempt to disguise tihe fact, or to apologize for it, that the for tunes of the Republican party are very dear to me and that I wish that party, here and elsewhere, to reap every fair partisan advantage which may be taken from the blunders and from the shortcomings, if any such there are or shall be, of this Administration. But I trust I do not forget, and shall not for get, that I am a Senator of the United States as well as a Republican, and that as a Senator my first duty always is to the people, and that I have no right to take action here to subserve a party interest which would be harm ful to the interests of the people.
Therefore the very learned and able argument of the distin guished Senator upon that occasion is not in any manner to be imputed to him as one influenced by a desire for partisan advan tage, but as an argument delivered by him then, as now, recog nized as one of the foremost constitutional lawyers of the United States, and therefore, delivered under such circumstances, the more entitled to consideration and approval by those who now save occasion to advert to it. The particular thing I had in mind in reading that is to ask that we also in the present debate may be acquitted of partisan purposes.
The Senator from Wisconsin proceeded to say:
I deny for myself, and I have authority to deny for every Senator upon this side of the Chamber, the statement so often made on the other side that we desire, or are willing, to harass, hamper, or embarrass the President in the proper exercise of Bxecutive functions.
Will Senators accord to us at this time such equality of sincerity of purpose as that which was then claimed for himself by the honorable and distinguished Senator from Wisconsin?
Such a motive would be unworthy and should not be so lightly imputed.
I commend the language to the Senators on the other side, not to the Senator from Wisconsin, because he has not imputed, in so far as I have heard, but others have.
The principle involved in this controversy
And it is this principle and the gradual recognition of the gravity of it that cause me to address the Senate at this time
The principle involved in this controversy to my mind is far above the question as to who shall hold the offices in the country.
Mr. President, with that very high platform erected by the Senator and with himself thus voluntarily placed upon it, he ad dressed himself to the argument of this great constitutional ques tion, because while it may seem to be a comparatively slight mat ter, so far as the pendingresolution is concerned, it is a great constitutional question whether or not any officer of the Govern ment, be he President or a subordinate, has a right to shut the doors in the face of Congress as to any information desired by it in the discharge of its duties. In the practical workings of the departments of this Government and in the proper and efficient performance of duties by Congress and in the exercise of the legiti mate powers of Congress there can be no greater constitutional question than that; and once conceded as a power belonging to
5828

the Executive, there is no limitation to the extent to which that power can be carried and exercised.
Now, the Senator from Wisconsin knows I can not read the whole of his speech. I wish I could. I will say that it would not be necessary that I should myself say another word if I could, in support of my contention, read the whole of it. In the course of it he uses this language:
Look at the bald case as it stands before the Senate and before the people, unaided by the message which the President sent upon the same subject and which is in some sense an additional statement of fact. The Senate calls for certain papers, filed within a given period in a public department, touching the management of a public office. An executive officer of the United States, recognizing the fact that the papers are in his custody, not denying for a

pliance with said resolution and the transmission of the papers i Eients therein mentioned to the Senate in executive session."

Mr. President, I will suspend the reading parts of the Senators speech for a moment for the purpose of reading the resolution

which was reported by .the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and also reading the reply which was sent by the executive de partment to the Senate, in order that the Senate may have dis tinctly the issue before it which was made. On January 35,1886, the Judiciary Committee reported to the Senate the following resolution for its adoption. Now, here is the resolution:

Resolved, That the Attorney-General of the United States be, and he hereby

is, directed to transmit to tlie Senate copies of all documents and papers that

have been, filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January,

A.D.1885-



And not theretofore

in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States of the southern district .of Alabama.

That being called for because of the fact that the President had sent in the name as a nominee to fill an office and had removed the district attorney, and the Senate desired to know whether or

not he had removed him for good cause before they would pro ceed to the consideration of the nomination. Therefore they called for all the papers which had been there for a year before the occurrence, and on the following day that resolution was adopted, to wit, on the 26th day of January. On the 1st day of February thereafter the Senate received the following communi cation in response thereto:

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, January 88, 1886.

It seems that was the date of the communication, and the docu ment was received here on the 1st day of February.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, January , 1886,

The President, pro iempore of the Senate of the United States:

1 acknowledge the receipt of a resolution of the Senate adopted on the 25th instant in executive session, as follows:,
"Resolved, That the Attorney-General of the Unitart States be, and he hereby is, directed to transmit to the Senate copies of all documents and pa pers that have been filed In the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January, A. D. 1885. in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States of the southern district of Alabama."

It thus quotes the resolution and then proceeds:

In response to the said resolution the President of the United States

This is not the reply of the Attorney-General. He is speaking

for the President of the United States

In response to the said resolution the President of the United States directs me to say that the papers which were in this Department relating to the flt-

. 5838

10
ness of John D, Burnett, recently nominated to said office, having been al ready sent to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and the papers and docu ments which are mentioned in the said resolution, and still remaining in the custody of this Department, having exclusive reference to the suspension by the President of Cteorge M. Duskin, the late incumbent of the office of district attorney of the United States for the southern district of Alabama, it is not considered that the public interest will be promoted by a compliaiice with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and documents therein men tioned to the Senate in executive session.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. H. GARLAND, A i tornpy-f-lrneral.
Now, Mr. President, there was the square issue made, not by the Attorney-General but by the President of the United States, that in his judgment the public interest would not be promoted by having the Attorney-General comply with the resolution. In other words, the President of the United States assumed to judge, and did judge, that it was not incumbent upon him to comply with the demand of the Senate, and the square issue made by the majority of the Senate, in which I say now and I have said here tofore I think they were right, was this: Shall the President have a right to judge whether or not it is to the public interest that the Senate shall have the papers, or shall the Senate judge, and shall the President have the right under that judgment, if exer cised by him, to close the door of the Department of Justice or of any other Department and say to the Senate, " In my judgment you have no right to enter and to know what is here?
Mr. President, I am tempted to proceed with that line of argu ment, but I will not, because I started to read the argument of the Senator from Wisconsin, which is far superior to anything I can say. I repeat the last sentence which I read in order to have the connection of the Senators speech:
An executive officer
This is the speech of the Senator from Wisconsin from which I read
An executive officer of the United States, recognizing the fact that the papers are in his custody, not denying for a moment then1 existence, says to the Senate, by direction of the President, that " it is not considered that the public interest will be promoted by a compliance with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and documents therein mentioned to the Sen ate in executive session."
Quoting the reply. Then the Senator proceeds:
la it to be admitted that a Cabinet officer, even by direction of the Presi dent, shall be at liberty to refuse to transmit any papers to the Senate in ex ecutive session unless satisfied that the purpose for which the Senate desires them is one which in his opinion is wise and proper? Is it to be assumed by an executive officer or by the President that Because a nomination is pending in the Senate of a person to fill an office that the Senate may not in executive session lawfully call for the papers filed in a Department touching the con duct of that office?
If Burnett had been confirmed and Duskin had been thereby removed, could the Senate be denied the production of the papers mentioned in the resolution? Kven though called for in executive session, who will so contend? Does the fact that the nomination was pending change the character of the papers or the Senates power to demand and its right to receive and inspect them?
If George M. Duskin were still in office, discharging the duties and func tions of the position, and the Senate m open session or in executive session should pass this resolution calling for those papers, would the Attorney-Gen eral or would the President hesitate for one moment to transmit them? Sup pose the House of Representatives had passed the resolution instead of the Senate, upon what theory jould the Attorney-General, either of his own mo tion or upon the direction of the President, refuse to transmit them?
It has always been supposed that either the House of Representatives or the Senate had plenary power to investigate the Departments, had abundant authority to examine the Cabinet officers, even to bring them before the committee, with all papers in the jffice which would tend to show ite condi tion, and the manner in which it had been conducted. It may be done in

,

11

order to expose corruption; it may be dons In order to uncover defects in the organization of ft Department; it may be done in order that Congress obtain tie information essential to the application of a corrective by new legislation. Such power in great fullness must of necessity exist, to be exeroiseit under varied conditions and circumstances and with many different purposes.
Is this not the attitude? The President, not denying that there may be circumstances under which either the House or the Senate would be entitled to such papers, to demand them and compel their production, assumes that they are wanted for n purpose which in his judgment is not within the juris diction of the Senate,
The Senate will mark that the Senator comes directly to the issue as to whether or not the President has the right to assume that.
If for any purpose within the power of the Senate it can direct under any circumstances the Attorney-General, or any other Cabinet officer, to trans mit to the Senate papers touching the conduct of a particular office, then it is essential to the orderly conduct of the Government that tho executive offi cer should assume that the papers are desired for a legitimate purpose. Or has it come to this, that the Senate or the House demanding the production of papers, which either may rightfully demand for some purpose, must go with Eastern salaam to the Department door, bound to disclose, first, to the Attorney-General or the President, the precise purpose for which the papers are desired, under penalty of not receiving them at all?
How would it look, in response to a resolution adopted by the Senate ask ing that the Attorney-General or the Secretary of the Interior transmit to the Senate papers like these, in their very nature official, relating to the trans action of the public business, for the President to transmit to the Senate a message of this nature: " If you desire these papers you must first indicate to me the purpose for which you desire them, and if after having disclosed that purpose I think they are within your jurisdiction, and that the purpose to be subserved is a legitimate purpose, I shall transmit them; otherwise not?"
The Senator asks how it would do for the President to transmit such a message as that, and he continues:
Would that be in effect any different from this response of the AttorneyGeneral? Would it not be humiliating? Would it be anything less than a one-man government? Would it do anything less than enable the President of the United States to shut out at his will the sunlight of investigation from all the public offices? Must the Senate, must the House because if he may require the performance of that precedent condition of the Senate he may of the House first advise him of the purpose and submit to his judgment as to whether it is a legitimate one?
The resolution interprets itself, and relates upon its face to papers which no man can deny are in their nature public. The President by a message, as to the propriety of which I have nothing to say. tells us, not that there are no such papers on the files, but that there were other papers filed during that period which he considers private and confidential papers.
I shall spend little time in discussing the question in theabstract as to what constitute private and confidential papers in distinction from public papers to which the Senate or House has the right of inspection. I concede, of cour&e, that there may be addressed to the President, and doubtless are, many papers which are confidential.
So one questions that: but I deny that papers addressed to a head of a De partment or to tho President of the United States touching the conduct of an officer of such a character that they may be properly acted upon by either the head of the Department or the President, proper to be placed on tho files - of the Department, relating to the transaction of the peoples business in one of the peoples offices, can bj>- any magic become the private and confidential and secret papers of the President himself.
Now, Mr. President, it is true that there the distinct question was as to whether Congress or the Senate should judge whether its motive was a legitimate one or whether the President should judge whether it was a legitimate one. But it matters not as to what question is raised, under the argument and under the rea soning of the argument, whenever there is any objection on the part of the President as to the disclosure of information which is desired, the question is one to be determined by the Senate and not by the President, because if the President can in the one case say, "In my opinion you have no right to have this information," he
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can say it in all cases, and it is within the power of the President of the United States, in his discretion and for any reason deemed by him to be sufficient, to absolutely shut up and hermetically seal every door of every Department of the Government.
The Senator continues, and I am sorry to have to omit any of it, because it is all strong and directly to the point. On the same page from which I last read and I call the attention of my learned friend
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator kindly give me the page? Mr. BACON. Yes. sir; I have given it already, and I will give it again. Page 2488, March 18, 1886. The Senator said as the conclusion of that branch of his argument:
I assert now the proposition that the Senate has a right to obtain of a Cabinet officer upon demand, and of the Presidant upon request, such infor mation to enable it to act intelligently upon the question as to whether it will advise and consent to a proposed removal.
And yet it is sought to differentiate such a power from the other power of the Senate as to whether or not it has, in the lan guage of the learned Senator, the right to obtain from the Presi dent, upon request, information to enable it to act intelligently upon the question as to whether or not it would advise and con sent to the ratification of a treaty. If he can differentiate as to the two it will be but another evidence of the versatility and abil ity of the distinguished Senator.
Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield? Mr. BACON. I yield to the Senator. Mr. TILLMAN. I wish to suggest to the Senator from Georgia that the history which he has been reading is so interesting that it recalls the old fable about the bull and the ox. Mr. BACON. I will say to the Senator that I have had that in mind, but not being a happy raconteur I did not venture upon its narration. I will allow him to go ahead. Mr. TILLMAN. It appears to be very clearly proven that if a Democratic President gets up a tree the Democratic dogs bark at all intruders, and when a Republican President gets up a tree it is the same old thing; and we appear to occupy positions on con stitutional questions of this character according to the exigencies and necessities of our parties. Our friends on the other side undoubtedly voted for the con tention of the Senator from Wisconsin. Then it would be unrea sonable for us to expect them to vote that way now. Would it not? In other words, consistency is a jewel. Mr. BACON. If the Senator takes issue with me on any point I shall be happy to hear from him. If he is on my side, let me go on. Mr. TILLMAN. I was trying to illuminate the question. I could not do it as well as the Senator from Georgia or the Sen ator from Wisconsin; but I was trying to ease my friend from Wisconsin out of the unpleasant attitude of being on both sides of this question. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I had not finished what I pro pose to read from the speech of my distinguished friend. I resume at the particular place where I was reading when the Senator from South Carolina interrupted me. I hope I may be allowed, in order that the connection may be kept, to read that sentence over again, because the next sentence
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directly relates to it. I read again that sentence, from the Sena tors speech:
I assert now the proposition that the Senate has a right to obtain of a Cab inet officer upon demand, and of the President upon request, stich informa tion to enable it to act intelligently upon the question as to whether it will advise and consent to a proposed removal.
The Senate will mark that that is not qualified. It is a right to have it,when requested, not conditionally; and the Senator, iu full recognition of the fact that that was his meaning, turns to the Democratic Senators and asks thisy question, referring to the ut terance which he has just made:
The Senators on the other side will not, I think, charge that the issue, so far as I am concerned, is not broad enough.
The Senntor states it in as emphatic language as his great com mand of language would permit him, and then emphasizes it by turning to his opponents and challenging them to his statement, that it is as broad as it can be made, and that nobody can find fault with it by reason of its failure to be broad enough.
In other words, Mr. President, the Senator lays down, as broadly as his language will permit him, the proposition that as to any thing which relates to the business of the Sena_te and within the jurisdiction of the Senate the Senate has the right to have it on a request addressed to the President, not a qualified right; and he emphasizes it "by the statement that no one can find fault with that statement on the ground that it is not broad enough; and if anybody had challenged him to make it still broader, if he had had it in his power he would have done so. because it was his in tention to nirfke it as broad as language would permit.
The Senator then goes on as a lawyer and says this:
Is the proposition sound in law?
That is the great question here to-day.
Is the proposition sound in law? I want1 no other principle of law .to guide me to a conclusion in favor of the right of the Senate to the information upon that theory than is found in the report submitted by the minority of the committee and the message which the President has seen fit to transmit. I call the attention of the Senate to the statement of the law in tho report sub mitted by the minority of the Judiciary Committee. It is very guarded and very advisedly made, and is sufficiently broad and accurate for the purposes for which I desire to use it.
Then the Senator proceeds to quote from the minority report: " The minority admit" Beading now from the minority report
" The minority admit, once for all, that any and every public document, paper, or record"
The Senator from Wisconsin then reading that report interjects this language:
Note this, if you please "on the flies of any Department, or in the possession of the President, relat ing to any subject whatever over which either House of Congress has any grant of power, jurisdiction, or control under the Constitution, is subject to the call or inspection of either House for use in the exercise of its constitu tional powers and jurisdiction."
There spoke Pugh, and George, and Jackson, and Vest, and Coke. Continuing to read from the minority report:
" It is on this clearly defined and well-founded constitutional principle that, wherever any pover is lodged by the Constitution, all incidents follow such power that are necessary and proper to enable the custodian of it to carry it into execution. Whether the power ig granted to Congress, or either House, or to the President, or any Department or officer of the Government, or to the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the princi ple is as fundamental as the Constitution itself that all the necessary inciuents of such grants accompany the grants and belong to and can be exer-
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cised by the custodians of such powers, jointly or severally, as they may be vested by the Constitution.
" It is on the application and enforcement of this unquestioned rule of con struction that either House of Congress has the right inherent in the power itself to direct the head of any Department or request the President to trans mit any information in the knowledge of either "

Then the Senator from Wisconsin again interjects the words:

Note that " or any public or official papers or documents, or their contents, on the flies or in the keeping of either, provided such papers or documents relate to sub jects, matters, or tilings in the consideration of which the House making the call can use such information, papers, or documents in the exercise of any right, power, jurisdiction, or privilege granted to Congress, or either House, or to the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate."

That is the end of the part of the minority report which was then read in that speech by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, and then he resumed. The Senator from Wisconsin said:

Here, in a lawyer-like way, and in a bold way as lawyers ought to state their case, the minority, without shuffling or technicality, place the (question upon this proposition: If the Senate of the United States has any jurisdiction over the subject-matter to which papers re-late, or to which information in the hands of a Department officer or in the hands of the President relates, then they aay unqualifiedly, and it would seem to be unmistakable law, the Senate has a right to the inspection of such documents and a right to elicit such information. The President, placing it upon a little different ground, recognises the same principle, and in doing this he only follows the example of Washington in somewhat the same language upon the same subject, and of every Executive from Washington down, thus

Quoting now from Mr. Cleveland

" To the end that the service may bo improved, the Senate is invited to the

fullest scrutiny of the persons submitted to them for public office, in recogni

tion of the constitutional power of that body to advise and consent to their

appointment. I shall continue, as I have thus far done, to furnish, at the re

quest of the confirming body, all the information I possess touching the fit

ness of the nominees placed before them for their proposed to fill vacancies and to take the place of

action, both when they suspended officials."

are

After reading that the Senator from Wisconsin said:

Why? Because under the Constitution the. Senate is a factor in the act constituting, on the whole, the appointment of the officer; because, in the lan guage of the minority of the committee, the Senate, under the Constitution, has jurisdiction over "the subject-matter."

Mr. President, as I say, I regret very much that I can not read the whole speech of the Senator; but on a subsequent occasion, on the 19th of March, the next day, as will be found on page 2539 of the CONGRESSIONAL RECOHD, the Senator from Wisconsin, in a discussion of the same resolution, uses this language:

Possessing, therefore, the right to call for papers and information from the executive department of the Government necessary to enable the Senate to discharge with fidelity and intelligence its duty under the law in the mat ter of removals, it can not forego that right when in its opinion its exercise is necessary.

There is the distinct issue made, and there is the distinct propo sition so clearly announced by the Senator from Wisconsin. In other words, it can not submit to the statement of the President of the United States that, in his judgment, it is not a matter for the Senate but a matter for him to determine; that the Senate "can not forego the exercise of this right;" that it will not admit and can not acknowledge the right of the President to say that it is not entitled to the papers; but that the Senate will insist upon and maintain its rights. That is the language, or rather the sub stance, the meaning, of the language of the Senator from Wis consin.
He continues:

It can not suffer, by its acquiescence, the principle as to papers, now asserted by the executive department, to grow into precedent. It is not a
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question of etiquette, nor is it a question of politics. It is very far above either.
The Senate has no right to trench upon the prerogative or powers of the Executive. The maintenance, sacred and inviolate, of the prerogatives of the three great coordinate departments of the system under which we live, as the fathers framed it, is essential to the permanency and success of our Government. Neither should be permitted to trench upon the other, and neither may permit any impairment, through aggression or concession, of its constitutional faculties and prerogatives.
By which the Senator certainly meant to say that one of the prerogatives of the Senate was to determine for itself what papers it required, and that it would not forego or surrender that pre rogative to the Executive.
The Senator from Wisconsin continued:
The Senate can not yield the principle that in any case or under any cir cumstances the files of the Departments, evidencing the conduct of public offices, shall be secret from the inspection, or that any paper or letter bear ing upon the conduct of a public office, placed upon tho files of any Depart ment, or in custody of any executive officer, and which ought to be placed upon tho file of any Department, can, at the will of anybody, even though it be the President, Become personal and subject to removal or destruction.
Mr. President, the language of the Senator there was directed to the particular subject-matter under consideration, but the rea soning and the language will embrace all matters in an Executive Department, and asserts, as the prerogative of the Senate, and also of the House of Representatives not the Senate exclusively, ex cept as to matters within its exclusive or peculiar jurisdiction asserts the right of either House of Congress in a matter in which it has jurisdiction to enter into any executive office; to see any thing that is in it; to ask no mans permission to do so, and to re ceive from no man a denial.
Mr. President, I am glad this question has come up. I sat here yesterday and heard the message from the executive department responding to a resolution introduced by the Senator from Ten nessee [Mr. CARMACK] calling for certain information, in which the Senate was told that, in the opinion of the Executive, it was not a proper matter to be sent to the Senate.
Mr. KEAN. Has the Senator from Georgia read the message of the President of the United States?
Mr. BACON, I only heard it read. Mr. KEAK. If the "Senator would read the letter of the Secre tary of the Treasury accompanying the message, I think he would find a very good reason given for the declination to furnish the information. Mr. BACON. I do not care what the reason is. Mr. KEAN. It is a very good one. Mr. BACON. If the request by the Senate was not qualified, and was made in the discretion of the Department or of the Presi- dent, it matters not what the reason is which is assigned for re fusal. The reason can properly be conveyed to the Senate before final action is taken upon the demand of the Senate. If there is a good reason, it is perfectly proper that the President should send to the Senate a communication in confidence, that for such and such reasons he asks that the demand shall not be insisted upon. Can anybody doubt that, if any proper reason is given in such a case, the Senate will not respect a suggestion of that kind? But to refuse is to deny; it matters not whether it be for a good or a bad reason, the power to refuse is the thing; and if the Presi dent has the power to refuse, he has the power to refuse for a bad reason as well as for a good one; and when he refuses, it matters not what is the reason, good or bad, he has, in my opinion, violated
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the law and invaded one of the highest prerogatives of Congress, which is to know everything that relates to this Government everything; and if there was another word that was more compre hensive than that, I wotild use it. So it matters not, Mr, Presi dent, whether the reason be good or bad. If there was a good reason why the information should not be given to the Ssnate, the proper course would have been, through the proper officer, to have communicated to the Senate that such a demand had been made, and then
Mr. KEAN. But, Mr. President, that is just what the President did; and if the Senator from Georgia will read what the President says, he will find it out.
Mr. BACON. But the Senator did not hear me through. I say that the proper action to take was to communicate in a proper way to the Senate that such a demand had been made, and to say that for such and such reasons, whatever they may be, in the opinion of the President it would be unwise to furnish the in formation, and to ask the Seriate not to insist upon it: but when he assumes that, in his judgment, that reason is sufficient, and refuses without more, it matters not whether it is good or bad, sufficient or insufficient, he can control it. So I say, Mr. Presi dent, that if you admit his right in his judgment, upon what he may consider to be a good reason, to shut the door of a Depart ment, the power is unlimited to shut that door upon any judgment or any reason which he may deem to be sufficient.
Mr. President, that is the exact point that was involved in the great debate of 1886 in this Chamber; that wa_s the exact point at issue, and the only point at issue. It was maintained with great power and ability, and I think with conclusiyeness of argument on the part of the Republicans, that the President did not have that right; and in the language of the Senator from Wisconsin, which I have read, it was vigorously contended that it was the high prerogative of the Senate and that the Senate would not forego it at the behest of any man, be he even the President.
Mr. MITCHELL. May I ask the Senator a question? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. MITCHELL. Does the Senator from Georgia draw any distinction between the two cases: In one case where papers are called for bearing upon the question of the removal of a man from office and, in the other case, where papers are called for in connection with the consideration of a treaty? Mr. BACON. None whatever, because the principle is abso lutely the same. Mr. MITCHELL. Then the, Senator does not agree with the position taken by President Cleveland. Mr. BACON. I certainly do not, and I am unqualified in agree ing with what was said on that occasion by distinguished Repub licans in the debate. Mr. MITCHELL. One other question. The Senator has stated that that was the only question discussed at that time. There was another question, and a still more important one in my judg ment, which was reported by the Judiciary Committee, discussed at length, and passed Upon, and that was what action should be taken in the event of the Senate of the United States calling upon the President of the United States to send papers to the Senate for instance, it may have been in the consideration of an appoint ment and the President refused to send the papers. The posi tion of the Republican party at that time was that it was the duty

17

of the Senate to stop business, to refuse to consider appointments, and there was quite an extensive controversy over that matter.

Now, I want to ask the Senator from Georgia: Suppose the Presi dent is called upon for papers and declines to submit them, what is the remedy?

Mr. BACON. There is none.

Mr. MITOHELL. Is there any remedy except by impeachment?

Mr. BACON. None whatever; nor isthere any remedy for any dereliction of duty by the President save only that. But that does

not answer the question; that does not meetiuy proposition at all. Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, the Senator, I think through
inadvertence, has twice said within the last few minutes that the Senate had made a demand on the President. The Senate always requests the President.
Mr. BACON. In this case I will state to the Senator that I am not incorrect in the use of language, for the reason that I was

discussing a resolution which had been adopted by the Senate, which was a direction to the Attorney-General, and which was replied to by the Attorney-General in the name of the President, so that it was a demand in that case. But in all of the debate to which I have referred all the Senators spoke of it as a right to demand or direct a subordinate officer, and a right to receive in formation on a request to the President, and a right which they

would not forego. Mr. GALLINGEE. What has puzzled me somewhat as a lay
man is to differentiate between the demand upon a Cabinet officer and a request made to the President. It has seemed to me that the fact that we request the President carries with it the pre sumption that he may decline to accede to our request.

Mr, BACON. Not at all. The Senator will pardon me if I re

ply in the language of the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEE] in that regard.

. I should like to quote him as to all these matters, and I will return to what I have already read, in order that I may reply, in much more felicitous language than I can command, to the inquiry of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINGBB]. The Senator from Wisconsin had been discussing what is the right

of the Senate: and he said it is the right of the Senate to receive this information upon the request of any officer, even if it be the President.
Now, if it is right, of course it is not a matter subject to quali fication ; it is a right which the Senator says it "can not forego using that language. I will now read again the last sentence which I read from the speech of the Senator from Wisconsin:

The Senate can not yield the principle that in any case or under any cir cumstances

That is certainly pretty broad language

The Senate can not yield the principle that in any cage or under any cir

cumstances offices, shall

btheeseflcireestoffrotmhetDheepianrstpmeecntitosn, ,eovridtehnactinagnythpeapcoerndour cltetotferpbuebalirc

ing upon the conduct of a public office-placed tipon the files of any Depart

ment, or in custody of any executive officer, and which ought to be placed

upon the flies of any Department, can, at the will of anybody, even though it

be the President, become personal and subject to removal or destruction.

Or subject evidently, according to the context, to the refusal of the President to communicate it to Congress.
Mr. GALLINGEE. If the Senator will permit me, that is cer tainly very strong and direct language; and if we are to accept that as the correct doctrine, then I apprehend that the phrase-

. 5823 3

18
o7ogy that we request the President, "if not incompatible with the public interest," is a mere matter of courtesy. Is it?
Mr. BACON. Not altogether BO. There are many instances where the Senate has used that language because they did not think it of vital importance that they should obtain the informa tion; but I think, as a matter of courtesy, it should always be in troduced except in a case of extreme urgency.
I do not know that the Senator from New Hampshire heard what I said in the outset of my remarks, that I am not discussing this question so much with reference to this particular resolution, because I have no doubt that, tinder the as_surances already given, the President will furnish us with all that is required, but that the announcement had been made on the other side of the Chamber to-day that as to whether or not the President should respond to any request the Senate might make of him was a matter within his discretion, and I cited the Senate to the fact that on yesterday, in response to a resolution previously sent by the Senate directing one of the officers or the head of one of the Departments to send certain information here, we had had a communication from the President that, in his judgment, it was a matter which ought not to be communicated to the Senate.
As I just said in replying to the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. KBAN] , it matters not whether the reason which the President gave was a good one or a bad one, if he has got the right to exer cise his judgment as to whether it is good or bad, and to act upon that right when a direction ia thus given by the Senate to the head of a Department, then he has the right unqualifiedly in every case to say " no " to any request that may be made for the com munication, of anjr information needed by the Senate. That is the proposition which I make, and which I say has been so ably main tained, not by me, but by the distinguished Republican Senators whose names I read. I do not think the Senator from New Hamp shire was in the Chamber at the time, but I mentioned the names of George F. Edmunds, GEORGE F. HOAR, William M. Evarts, John J. Ingalls, and Samuel J. R. McMillan. of Minnesota.
Mr. GALLINGEE. I will say to the Senator, if he will permit me. that I have been listening with great interest to his very able address, but I was unavoidably called from the Chamber in the transaction of public business and did miss a portion of his speech, which 1 regret.
Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President The PBESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I should like to proceed with my remarks, but I yield. Mr. TILLMAN. I want to suggest to the Senator from Georgia, who has illuminated this subject to fully, an inquiry along this line: Whether there is not a difference between a request for in formation conveyed in the usual courteous language if in his judgment not incompatible," etc. calling for relatively unim portant information, and a resolution calling for information of much moment. Might there not be some things which the Presi dent would feel warranted in sending to us to go into the RECORD or to become public property, and some which he would not feel warranted in sending to us unless it was in the nature of a secret communication, which would be for our information alone? Does the Senator not differentiate in that particular? Then, if in the judgment of the Senate it was still desirable and necessary
5888

A-.

:



19

that it should have the information, I agree with him entirely-^it would have the right to demand that it be sent in confidence. But does not the Senator differentiate- between the ordinary courteous resolution of inquiry on matters that are not of very serious moment and those that are vital?
Mr. BACON. I endeavored to suggest that same idea in re sponse to the inquiry of the Senator from New Hampshire.
Now, let me illustrate the orderly way in which this can be done and ought to be done. I will illustrate it by an occiirrence during the Spanish war. I introduced a resolution directing the then Secretary of War, the present junior Senator from Michigan [Mr. ALGHE] , to communicate to the Senate certain information I have forgotten now exactly what it was relative to the defenses of the southern coast, where people were apprehensive that they were not prepared to meet the onset which they anticipated. That resolution was sent to the Secretary of War.
If the proceeding for which the Senators on the other side now contend had been adopted the Secretary of War would have gone to Mr. McKinley, and Mr. McKinley would have sent in a mes sage saying that in his opinion it was incompatible with the public interests that that information should bs given. That would have been a good reason, but still it would have been an infringement of the prerogatives of the Senate. Instead of that, the proper course was taken. The Secretary of War sent for the chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, General HAWLEY, and communicated to General HAWLKY the facts which in his opinion would make it improvident and unwise to commu nicate that information to the Senate, even in executive session, because it might get to the enemy.
General HA.WLEY came to me and explained what the Secretary had said. I recognized at once that his reason was a good one; and as soon as the Senate met I myself moved that the Senate withdraw the request, and it was withdrawn. Can anybody doubt that in any case where there is a good reason for it a similar course would not be taken?
But, Mr. President, while that course is practicable and works no harm, whenever you once set up as a law the right of the Presi dent to say peremptorily, " I will not give the information," you give him the right in all cases and under all circumstances to close the door to the inquiries of the Senate; because if he has the power in one case, he has it in all, and the question of its exercise is a question solely in his discretion.
Mr. President, I had no expectation vhen I rose of occiipying so much of the time of the Senate, because I really did not feel physically able to do so, but I want to read a little more of the debate from which I have been quoting.
While the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr - SFOONER] made an argument in that case which is not surpassed in its ability and soundness by that made by any other Senator, arguments upon the same line werj made by others of the distinguished men whose names I have mentioned and by some others whom I have not mentioned.
I will read now what Mr. Logan, then a member of the Senate from Illinois, said. He may not have been as distinguished a lawyer as some others whose names I have mentioned, but still I think he enjoyed the confidence of the people as a man of strong mentality and as a lawyer of ability. Said Mr. Logari, then a
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Senator from Illinois and I read from page 2799 of the same vol ume from which I have been reading:
If the people through their representatives can not have access to the records of the country, on the general theory that they are the source of power, when such records or documents are requested to aid in the perform ance of a duty incumbent upon them in their coordinate capacity, where is such a theory to carry us if it is followed up?
And that is the important inquiry.
We have been told for years hy our opponents that the concentration of power was one of our objects; thut our theories as well as the character of our legislation proved this to be the design of our party
Referring to the Republican party
that this had been increasing and growing from year to year; that the power of the Government was being placed in the hands of the few; that the people were being stripped of their power day by day.
I should like for any Senator to tell me
I hope Senators -will listen to this language
I should like for any Senator to tell me what greater concentration of power has been shown during the existence of this Government than the at tempt made by the President of the United States to take into his own hands the right to allow or not the people of this country through their repre sentatives to examine public records, documents, and papers as he sees proper. Suppose the man guilty of fraud; suppose he has been guilty of em bezzlement; suppose he is charged with any offeuse; will the Presidentof the Lnited States say. when we send for the papers to examine into the conduct of his office to see how it has been managed because he has suspended this man, the Congress of the United States shall not examine the papers?
Will you say that? Suppose the Senate of the United States organizes a committee of investigation to-day and calls upon the President of the United States, the Attorney-General, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Postmaster-General, or any other head of a Department, for papers in con nection with the case either for or against the man accused, will it be said that the Senate of the United States can not have those papers? If so, why refused? Would it be on the ground that they are private documents? Is that the ground?
But, Mr. President, the same argument might be used as to any other information which Congress might need in the conduct of its business. There is no argument which could be used in favor of the right of the Senate to see any paper connected with the question of an office where the incumbent was under investi gation, or where inquiry was to be made concerning him, which does not apply with equal force and conclusiveness as to any other subject-matter relating to the Government about which Congress asks information, and there is no reason why the President should be clothed with a power to shut the door for one purpose which would not give him an equal power, if he saw fit to exercise it, for another purpose, and it may be either in the same Department or another Department of the Government.
I will read further from Senator Logan. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. What page? Mr. BACON. Page 2799 of the same volume:
If this theory is to be carried out
That is, the right of the President to deny access to any paper or any document or any information in one of the Departments
If this theory is to be carried out, the head of a Department might suppress papers tha_t would convict his friends; he might suppress papers that would convict criminals; he might suppress papers that would convict himself if he be corrupt enough, and this merely upon the ground that they were private papers and could not be given out. Suppose papers charging men with vio lations of law, charging them with robbery, with theft, with murder, with arson, no matter what crime, came to the Secretary of the Treasury as a let ter directed to him making these charges, because the letter is written to him and not officially, but is filed with the papers in the archives of the Govern ment, when the Senate calls on him for those papers he says, "It is a private letter. I shall not give it to the Senate or the Congress of the United States," though on the flies.

aes a mg nvove n crmna proceengs some vu pens to be an official of the Government and friend of the Secretary?
Of course, Mr. President, the same illustration can be used as to any other information which Congress may desire, as to any .subject-matter about which it wishes information in the disharge of its great and high duty.
There are numbers of other quotations I might make, but I will read from Mr. Evarts, a great constitutional lawyer. This is to be found on page 2?42 of the same volume. I will not read the whole of it. I should like to do so, but I will only read the most pertinent part.
That great lawyer, Mr. President, comes down to this distinct question, and it is a great question in the case, as in the case of the difference between the Senate and the President upon the question of the communication of information to the Senate. In that case of difference who is to determine it, the Senate or the President? That is the question v hich was in that great debate, and one upon which that eminent man made these utterances which I am now to read:
It is said in the first place
That is, by the opponents
It is said in the flrst place, and thus the proposition of the committee is sought to be avoided, that the papers called for can by no moans touch any matter subject to the public action of the Senate. Let us look a moment at that proposition. "Who is to determine in the first place that on a topic which the Senate has to do with it has a right to the inspection and use of papers in the Departments, but it has no such right when the Senate can not possibly touch or deal with any subject-matter to which those papers relate? Who Is to determine in the first instance that the Senate may or may not explore and make use of papers that are on file? Certainly the Senate is the judge of that.
What does he mean? The question at issue was whether the Senate was the judge when the President desired that informa tion should not be given or whether the President was in that case the judge; and Mr. Evarts says:
Certainly the Senate is the judge of that. The Senate, as a component part of the legislature represented in Congress, is not of limited jurisdiction. It is not confined to this or that topic. What ever touches, in the language of one of the clauses of the Constitution, the common defense and the general welfare belongs to the two Houses of Con gress. When, therefore, either House under its responsibilities and under the determination of a constitutional majority of votes on any subject in either of these Houses undertakes itself to deal with public documents and papers in the Departments, it deals with what belongs to the Government of the United States for use by the Congress of the United States, and upon its judgment of what its duties, its faculties, and its proposed actions relate to.
Mr. President, could language be more explicit and more com prehensive than that? I repeat it. He says that it acts upon its judgment of what its duties, its faculties, and its proposed actions relate to.
In other .words, it does not act upon what the President may think its duties, its faculties, and its powers maybe, but that the Senate is the one to judge what are its facilities, it duties, and its powers, and that all these documents are not the documents of the President of the United States, but of the Government of the United States, and the Senate was entitled to the inspection of each and all, and that it is for it to determine whether the in spection of any paper or the getting of any information is in ac cordance with the proper discharge of its duties under its faculties and under its powers.

22
Thus spoke the great lawyer, and I rest upon Mm and not upon what I may feebly say:
And now for the first time is it found that a preliminary question arises, when the Houses of Congress, one or both of them, have asked for papers on file, that there is a preliminary j udgmeut to be exercised and to be final, and to be under the unlimited range of discretion and of personal judgment of the President, whether or not these papers that are described and exist as on the files or on deposit in the Departments are on the face of them papers that belong to the uses and for the purposes of the duty of the Houses of Congress.
He announces that as a great and startling proposition, and it is a great and startling proposition, and dark will be the day when ever it comes to be recognized as the law of this land that the President of the United States is vested with power to say what papers or what information Congress shall have, and that if the reason, in his judgment, is sufficient he can close the door to that information and say no " to the demand of Congress.
The learned Senator and great lawyer, Mr. Evarts, continues:
Where is this preliminary line to be drawn? "Who is to be patient under it? Who is to look in the face the two Houses of Congress in the illimitable range of their duty, dealing in the matters of the Departments, dealing with the matters there deposited and there preserved for the Government for its uses, for action in reference to the Government, and for no other purpose whatever?
Who is at liberty to sift and cull out of these papers thus deposited, and to be accorded this prejudgment of the action of the two Houses of Congress? Who is to be this arbiter between the Government and the Congress to de termine what shall be given and what shall be withheld?
I should like to find votes cast here on the other side of this alley upon that preliminary question.
I will say to the Senator that if I had been here undoubtedly I would have voted with the Republicans on that issue: and, Mr. President, I desire to say, so far as it has been within my power, I have always contended for the prerogatives of the Senate. The first speech I ever made in this Chamber upon that subject was taking issue with a Democratic President when, in my opinion, his action invaded the prerogatives of the Senate. I will read that sentence again:
I should like to find rotes cast here on the other side of this alley upon that preliminary question.
He proceeds:
Give us the premises of the powers of the two Houses of Congress under the Constitution that are not disputed here I mean the general powers give us the constitution of the Departments; give us the arrangements of law regulating the action of these Departments; give us the fact that the papers we seek for are in the possession o the Department of Justice and the Attorney-General can lay his hand upon them, and then after that a per emptory instruction of the President can follow out these deposits and select from them those that are suitable for the inspection of the Houses; let it be conceded that it is not thus to be arbitrarily, thus capriciously, thus undutifully discharged by the President in this preliminary authoritv; lot it be agreed that he means to send to the two Houses all that are useful and perti nent to every public use, how do you by that proposition but advance the most monstrous doctrine under the Constitution
Listen to this, Senators!
advance the most monstrous doctrine under the Constitution that the Presi dent is the judge of what the duty of the two Houses of Congress relates to, and the further question at what the papers would have to say and to sliow and to decide whether they were or were not important and interesting to the two Houses of Congress on the very matters that the Congress has au thority over.
I could continue those quotations to a very great extent, but I have read enough to show what was the attitude of the Repub lican party upon that question and what was the constitutional view of these great lawyers who then ornamented this Chamber. I do not feel that I can add to it.
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23 But, Mr. President, there is one matter that this question closely relates to, and that is the power of the Executive and the unlim ited power which such a concession would make to him. Now, as illustrative of that, I want to say that that learned coterie of Senators who made the report of the committee, signed by them individually George P. Edmunds. John J. Ingalls. Wil liam M. Evarts, GEORGE F. HOAK. S. J. R. McMillan. and James F. Wilson were so impressed with the fact that it was the claim of a power which would be most dangerous to the institutions of this Government, that if conceded there was no limit to be set to the Executive power so impressed were they with that that they not only made this most elaborate and able and luminous report, but they set out as an exhibit the report made to the House of Representatives in the Twenty-seventh Congress, when a similar question was up. It is called Appendix B. House Report 945, Twenty-seventh Congress, second session. That related to the removal from office of Henry H. Sylvester. I myself would not as an illustration of the danger of Executive power now bring this report to the attention of the Senate as a warning against the encroachments of Executive po\yer, because, while I might consider it pertinent, I recognize that if I did so, it might be construed as an extreme action on my part and my mo tive might be misconstrued into an intention to give offense to the Executive. That purpose I not only disclaim, but say that I would not even venture to have it read, but that it is the report of these eminent Republicans when they were resisting the claim of power by a Democratic President, and in which they were so impressed with the dangers to. this Government in the absorption of all power by the Executive that they solemnly set out, as a part of their re port, this report made to the House of Representatives in the . Twenty-seventh Congress. I will not burden the RECORD with reading all of it, but I am going to read, not as applicable, I distinctly say. not by inference, but emphatically, in any manner to the present Executive, but simply as the utterance of these great and conservative Repub licans as to the danger of unlimited power when wielded by the Executive. Mr. President, it is a long report, and the whole of it is decid edly interesting, quoting Mr. Webster and others on that sub ject, but I will read simply an extract from page 17, and I will state that it is in this same document, Report 135, Forty-ninth Congress. I will read an extract on page 17, in -which is quoted .an extract from a report made by Mr. Benton to the Senate of the United States embracing in part this subject the question of the absorption of power by the Executive. And I repeat that what I have said to-day is in no manner personal. I have no special interest in this particular resolution, and if the matter had been limited to this particular resolution I would not have uttered a word, and all that I say is in upholding to the extent of my feeble power the prerogative of the Senate and the House and the denial of the right of the Executive. I care not whether he be a Democrat or a Republican, to say "No," per emptorily and finally, to any demand which may be made upon him by either House of Congress for information as to any mat ter properly within their jurisdiction and to be used in the dis charge of their duty.

24
Now, with that disclaimer of course i can not be misunderstood in reading this extract. It is simply vipoii the general question, and in my opinion relates as much to the danger to this Govern ment when one party is in power as when the other is in power:
In 1828 Mr. Bentou made a report to the Senate, embracing, in part, this subject, which ought to be carefully read by every American. In that paper we find this powerful passage:
Now I quote from the report of Mr. Benton:
"The King of England is v the foun tain of honor; the Presidentof the United States is the sonrce of patronage. He presides over the entire system of Fed eral appointments, jobs, and contracts. He has power over the support of the individuals who administer the system. He makes and unmakes them. He chooses from the circle of his friends and supporters, and may dismiss them, and, upon all the principles of human actions, he will dismias them as often as they disappoint his expectations.
" There may be exceptions, bat the truth of the general rule is proved by the exception. The intended check and control of the Senate, without new constitutional or statutory provisions, will cease to operate. Patronage will penetrate this Body, subdue its capacity of resistance, chain it to the oar of power, and enable the President to rule as easily and much more securely with than without the nominal chock of the Senate.
" If the President himself was the officer of the people, elected by them and responsible to them, there woufd be Jess darker from this concentration of all power in his hands; but it is the business of statesmen to act upon ftings
i tthhey are and not as they would wish them to "bbee. We must look forward to the time when the public! ]revenue will be doubled "
This was in 1836, and of course that proportion has been very largely exceeded
" when the civil and military officers of the Government will be quadrupled; when its influence over individuals will be multiplied to an indefinite extent, when the nomination of the President can carry any matt through the Senate, and his recommendation can carry any measure through the two Houses of Congress; when the principle of public action will be open and avowed the President wants iny vote, and I want his patronage; I will vote as h& wishes, and he will give me the office I wish for. What will this be but the govern ment of one man? And what is the government of one man but a monarchy?
" Names are nothing. The nature of a thing is. in its substance, and the name soon accommodates itself to the substance. Those who make the Presi dent must support him. Their political fate becomes identified, and they must stand or fall together. Right or wrong, they must support him. etc."
Then this report goes on to say:
All this was prophecy then. It is now history.
Mr. President, I must apologize to the Senate, for I recognize that it is due it for having occupied so much of its time; but I agree with what was_ said by the Senator from. Wisconsin in the former debate, that it is a most serious and grave question, one. according as it may be finally determined, very fundamental and far-reaching in its consequences, and for these reasons I have ventured, while taking some part of the time in my own argument, to call the attention of the Senate and the country somewhat at length to the arguments of the distinguished Republican Senators whose speeches I have read in part out of the RECOKD,
5838
o

Relations with Colombia.
SPEECH
EON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OP GEOBGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Friday, January $9, 1904.
The Senate having under consideration the following resolution submitted by Mr. BACON January 12.1904:
"Kesvh'ed, That the President be respectfully informed that the Senate favor and advise the negotiation, with a view to its ratification, of a treaty with the Republic of Colombia, to the end that there may be peacefully ana satisfactorily determined and adjusted all differences between the .United States and the Republic of Colombia growing out of the recent revolution in Panama and the consequent secession of Panama from Colombia, and the alleged aid and assistance by the land and naval power of the United States in toe successful accomplishment of said revolution and secession, through the alleged forcible prevention by said land or naval forces of the assertion and maintenance by Colombia of her sovereignty and authority in Panama; and that full and complete compensation may be made by the United States to the Bopnblic of Colombia for the loss of her sovereignty and property rights in Panama, so far as tlie same may be shown to be due to any act of the United-States through the land or naval forces of the same.
"Resolved furtlier, That the President be respectfully informed that if it should prove to bo impracticable for the United States and the Republic of Colombia to agree through a convention upon the question of the said alleged responsibility on the part of the United States, or upon the question of the amount of compensation to bo made when such responsibility shall be estab lished, the Senate in that case tavor and advise the negotiation, with a view to its ratification, of a treaty_ with the Republic of Colombia submitting to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at Tho Hague or to some other tribunal to be agreed upon, for impartial arbitramentand peaceful determination, all questions between the United States and the Republic of Colombia growing out of the matters herein, recited "
Mr. BACON" said: Mr. PBESIDENT: Most of the resolutions which have been offered on the Panama question, if not all of them, except those which relate to this particular phase of the question, naturally provoke a discussion of the questions relating to the advisability and pro priety of the ratification of the Panama treaty. This particular resolution, however,has no such relation to tha discussion which is now in progress. It does not in any manner involve the ques tion as to whether the treaty should or should not be ratified. One might he in favor of the ratification of the treaty and at the same time be opposed to the adoption of the psnding resolution. On the other hand, he might favor the adoption of the resolution and be opposed to the ratification of the treaty; or he might be opposed both to the treaty and the resolution, or he might favor both the resolution and the treaty. So the consideration of this question need not in any manner enlist either opposition or ap proval, according as a Senator may or may not be in favor of the ratification of the treaty. The sole purpose of the resolution is to endeavor to place the Senate and. the Government of the United States, through its
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treaty-making power, in a position which may avert hostilities, violence of any Mud which otherwise may ensue, and at the same time put the Government in a position where it may have advan tages in the future in its peaceful relations with Colombia which might otherwise be denied to it.
When the resolution was introduced it was most vigorously and vehemently assailed by Senators on the opposite side of the Cham ber. It was assailed in terms little short of indignation as being utterly beyond the possibility of approval by the Senate, and of a character so objectionable that it could not even have the con sideration whichwould result from a reference to a committee.
The junior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] , immedi ately upon the introduction of the resolution, denounced it in most unsparing terms, and endeavored to deny to it the opportunity even of a reference to a committee by a motion to make imme diate disposition of it by laying it on the table, and the general consensus, so far as might be judged by utterances upon that occa sion by the Senators on the other side of the Chamber, was in accord with that position taken by the Senator from Massachusetts.
It was not until later in the day, during the debate, that the resolution had the recognition of any kindly word from any Re publican Senator, although it is a resolution addressed to the con science of the Senate and of the Government, and an appeal not for strife, but an appeal for peace and concord. Later in the day, I repeat, there was one kindly word of recognition which came from the senior Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE] , and the original suggestion of the Senator from Maine was one which I was pre pared and disposed to be in accord with, although it did not go, as I stated then, as far as I desired it to do. The original sugges tion of the Senator from Maine looked to a negotiation with Co lombia direct by the United States Government with a view to an agreement for a settlement, of differences between the United States and Colombia, and I was disposed to accept the same, and I even then invited him to frame a resolution upon that line.
Unfortunately, however, upon reflection the Senator from Maine did not go so far in the resolution which he proposed as a substitute as was originally suggested by him, and therefore, when it was introduced, I said to him, in recognition of what had passed the day before, that I must not be considered as accepting the resolution as a substitute, which he recognized as entirely proper.
Mr. HALE. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me, I did not consider what the Senator said when upon his feet at that time as binding him in any way to accept my amendment. In fact, I afterwards introduced my proposition separately and dis tinctly from the Senators and had it referred to the committee. I do not consider the Senator as in the slightest degree bound to accept what I offered.
Mr. BACON. I do not know that the Senator heard what I said previously, which was to the effect that if the resolution had been in accord with the first statement of the Senator in the col loquy which we had I would have been disposed to have accepted it, but the resolution as introduced by the Senator, first as a sub stitute and afterwards, I understand, as an independent measure, did not go as far as he first suggested at the time when I signified my disposition to assent to the proposition suggested by him.
Now, Mr. President, the attitude of the Senators on the other side of the Chamber with reference to the resolution is, or was at
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3
that time, that it was utterly inappropriate and inadmissible, and that it was not even to be considered by the Senate with a view to concurrence therein. The attitude of Senators on the other side of the Chamber was that the proposition to enter into any negotiations with Colombia with a view to a peaceful settlement of. our differences with her was monstrous, obnoxious, and not entitled to the decent and respectful consideration of the Senate. The object which I have to-day in addressing the Senate is to call attention to the fact that that resolution is in direct accord with and in direct pursuance of the declared policy of the United States Government, as manifested in actions innumerable in which the Government has committed itself in the most emphatic and solemn manner to the proposition that it is opposed to war; that it is opposed to violence as a remedy for disagreements with other nations; that it will treat with other nations with a view to agreement as to differences, and that if in the pursuance of such negotiations and treaties it is impossible to come to an agree ment, rather than resort to violence or to attempt to have settle ment by the assertion of might, it will in all cases, speaking generally, of course, endeavor, by reference to a third party, to arbitration of some kind, to avoid a resort to force and violence.
Then I propose, in the second place, to show that this is one of the direct classes of cases which properly fall within those thus rec ognized as properly to be settled either by treaty negotiation or by arbitration, and that unless there can be shown to be some de fect in that statement this Government is bound by its pledges, bound by its repeated utterances of all kinds, by treaties, acts of Congress, resolutions, utterances of our Presidents and our Sec retaries of State, bound by the most solemn of obligations, of plighted faith, to recognize it in this instance, Mr. President, I wish to cite the Senate to the record that the United States Gov ernment has made on this subject, not beginning at the begin ning, but at a point where the action and declared attitude of the United States Government, or rather of the legislative depart ment of the Government, became more pronounced possibly than at any previous time. I call attention to Senate Document No. 141, Fiftieth Congress, first session. In that Congress there appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee a committee appointed and sent by a large public meeting in the city of New York, This committee was composed of eminent men Mr. David Dudley Field, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Morris K. Jesup, Mr. Charles A. Peabody, Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, of which committee Mr. Field, Mr. Carnegie, and Mr. Peabody appeared in person before the Senate Committee on For eign Relations.
The memorial presented there by these citizens of New York was one in which there was a specific application for the negotia tion and making of a treaty between the United States Govern ment and the Government of Great Britain, the particular occa sion for that application and memorial being the result of a large public meeting held in New York to receive an address which had been made by some two hundred and thirty-odd members of the British House of Commons asking that such a negotiation should be had for the purpose of making such a treaty.
That committee appeared, as I said, before the Committee on Foreign Relations and personal addresses were made to the committtee by each of the three gentlemen whom I have mentioned as present, and they presented a written memorial, which is in-
fine

4
eluded in this Senate document. They set out the fact, a most remarkable fact, that there had been within recent years, speak ing relatively, of course that is, within the years of the nine teenth century following the general pacification in 1815 about sixty treaties submitting differences to arbitration, and that of those treaties some thirty-odd had.been made by the Government of the United States with different governments. That was stated by them to be an incomplete statement of the number of treaties made by the United States Government, and it is true that some were omitted. Counting those that were thus omitted and adding to them such as have been made since that date, it is a fact very much to the credit of the Government of the United States and very much in point in the present consideration that the United States Government has entered since its organization into about fifty different treaties for arbitration of differences with other governments.
Of course it is not necessary to enumerate them. Senators are familiar with them, and there are some thirty-odd of them set out in this document. I wish to read only one of them. At the conclu sion of the Mexican war, when we made the treaty of peace with Mexico I only use this as an illustration, one of many the fol lowing article was included:
ARTICLE XXI.
If unhappily any disagreement should hereafterarisebetween the Govern ments of the two Republics, whether with respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, or with respect to any other particular concerning the political or commercial relations of the two nations, the said Governments, in the name of those nations, do promise to each other that they will endeavor in the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so arising, and to preserve tho state of peace and friendship in which the two countries ara How placing themselves, using, for this end, mutual representations and pacific negotiations. And if, by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one Republic against the other, until the Government of that which deems itself aggrieved shall have ma turely considered, in the spirit of peace and good neighborship, whether it Would not be better that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of commissioners appointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature of the difference, or the circumstances of the case.
I only read that as a sample, as one of many, as I said, nearly fifty of them, forty-nine possibly may be the accurate number of treaties which have been made by the United States Government, each of them recognizing the principle of agreeing with a country, if possible, when there is a difference existing between the two, and, in case of an impossibility of agreement, for a reference of that matter to the arbitration and settlement of some friendly and neutral power or tribunal.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia will please suspend one moment while the Chair lays before the Senate the Calendar of General Orders.
The SECRETARY. Order of Business, Senate bill 887. Mr. CULLOM. I ask unanimous consent that that be laid aside for the balance of the dav. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois asks unanimous consent that the Senator from Georgia be allowed to proceed. The Chair hears no objection, and the Senator will pro ceed. Mr. BACON. The memorial thus presented, to which I have
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alluded and which represented a large meeting in the State of New York, concludes in this language:
We beg, therefore, most respectfully to ask from Congress the passage of a joint resolution requesting the President to propose to the Government of Great Britain the making of a treaty between the two nations, for a limited period at least, providing in substance that in case a difference should arise between them respecting the interpretation of any treaty which they have made or may hereafter make with each other, or any claim of either under the established law of nations, or respecting the boundary of any of their re spective possessions, or respecting any wrocg alleged to have been committed by either nation upon the other or its members, or any duty omitted, it shall be the earnest endeavor of both the contracting parties to accommodate the difference by conciliatorv negotiation; and that in no event shall either na tion begin a war against the other without first offering to submit the differ ence between them to arbitrators, chosen as may be then agreed, or if there ba no different agreement, then by three arbitrators, one to be choson by each party and an umpire by those go chosen; it being understood, however, that arbitration as thus provided for shall not extend to any question re specting the independence or sovereignty of either nation, its equality with other nations, its form of government, its internal affairs, or its continental policy.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator be bind enough to read again the number of that document?
Mr. BACON. Yes, sir. Its number is 141, miscellaneous doc ument of the Senate, Fiftieth Congress, first session.
The presentation of that memorial under the very impressing circumstances which gave rise to it had such influence upon the Senate, and at about the same time there were so many other memorials upon the subject of the peaceful settlement of inter national disputes, and so many bills and resolutions introduced into the Senate, that the following order was passed by the Senate:
Resolved, That the several memorials, statements, interviews, bills, and resolutions on international arbitration, presented to the Senate or to the Committee on Foreign Relations during the present session, be printed for the use of the Senate.
And in response to that order this document which I hold in my hand was compiled and printed.
The presentation by that committee was a very small part of the general public movement which was made at that time to commit this Government by direct action to the principles sought to be established, to wit, conciliatory and peaceful agreement, if possible; arbitration, if such agreement should be found to be im practicable. I want to call the attention of the Senate to some of the numerous memorials addressed at that time to the Senate of the United States, and to various proceedings of the Senate in pur suance of that general wish, which are to be found in this docu ment. They are from people all over the United States, regard less of section. The first one to which I call the attention of the Senate is a petition from citizens of California. The* presentation to the Senate of the memorial was January 10,1888, at least that is the date of the memorial, and it was within a few days after that that the committee appeared before the Senate Foreign Re lations Committee. . Mr. FAIRBANKS. May I ask the Senator wjiat memorial he refers to? I did not hear hi earlier statement.
Mr. BACON. I refer to the memorial which was presented to the Senate through the Foreign Relations Committee by a com mittee of eminent citizens of -Ne w York, appointed by a large mass meeting in the city of New York, the immediate convocation of which was due to an address which had been presented by two hundred and thirty-odd members of the British House of Coinmona urging upon the citizens of the United States that steps should

a
be taken by which a treaty should be had between Great Britain and the United States which should provide for conciliatory nego tiations in case of any differences, and in the absence of any prac tical agreement t o provide in such a case for a court of arbitration. I will not go further in the repetition of what I had stated before the Senator was in his.seat in the Senate. I presume that will be sufficient to connect what I am now saying with what I had pre viously said.
I called the attention of the Senate to the fact that that proceed ing had enlisted the attention of the Senate to such an extent that it ordered that there should be compiled and printed for the use of the Senate the memorials and addresses from different parts of the country which were during that session of Congress presented in advocacy of this general idea and desire for conciliatory agree ment and for practical arbitration in the absence of a satisfactory result in an attempt for conciliatory negotiation. I was about to read, at the time the honorable Senator from Indiana interrupted me, the short petition, as it is here designated, from the citizens of California, signed by a great many of them: To the honorable Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled:
The undersigned, citizens ot the United States and of the State of Califor nia, profoundly impressed with the evils of war, and rejoicing that our own country is at peace, and not, like so many other nations, staggering under immense armaments as costly as war itself, would earnestly pray your hon orable body either to enact as a law one of the ten bills intondedto promote international arbitration, already introduced and referred to appropriate committees of Congress, or to provide in some way for a convention of Ameri can and other nations, the object of which shall be to discuss and agree upon a permanent high court of arbitration in which the civilized world may be represented, and to which may be referred those disputes that have usually led to war.
Till such a/permanent court is established, we would urge the insertion of a clause in every treaty providing that differences arising under it should be referred, to disinterested arbitrators.
I do not read all of these memorials and petitions; but I skip to different sections of the Union in order that it may be seen there was this general and widespread desire on the part of our people that the Government of the United States should, in its most authoritative and solemn utterances, provide measures which would make the possibility of war least and provide the machinery by which the possibility of war might be avoided.
I read one now from New Hampshire, and I do not think that I will unduly occupy the time of the Senate if I put upon record in consecutive form that which shall indicate the high and honor able and solemn purpose of the people of the United States iinder all circumstances and on all occasions to put itself in the attitude of a peacemaker and a peace observer, a deprecator of wrar, and one ready to submit differences to a tribunal of arbitration rather than stand otit with the attitude of one who asserts he is right and can not be wrong and will not admit the adjudication of that question by anyone.
I will not read all of the memorial from the citizens of New Hampshire, because I want to read several from other States, and I would unduly burden the RECORD if I read each in full; but in speaking about the desirability that there should be this arrange ment made between the United States Government and the Govern ment of Great Britain the citizens of New Hampshire, large num bers of whom signed the paper, go on to express the view which indicates that their desire was not one simply for peace between this Government and the Government of Great Britain, but that
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it was a desire that the United States Government should occupy the position of desiring peace with all peoples. It concludes in this language, speaking of the desirability of the proposed treaty between Great Britain and the United States:
That it would induce other governments to join in efforts to supplant by the methods of reason the unjust, rude, and cruel ways of war, of which the masses of mankind are weary, and that the definite inauguration of a policy thus aiming at perpetual peace and universal law would constitute one of the greatest services and greatest glories of the American Republic.
Next I read one from the State of Ohio. This, also referring to the immediate proposition for a treaty between Great Britain and the United States, concludes:
Respectfully pray that you will take such proceedings as may be necessary to propose aucli a treaty, believing as we do that the L nited States of Amer ica are peculiarly fitted to take such a step in the interest of humanity and universal peace and good will among men.
Not simply peace between the United States and Great Britain, but in the interest of humanity and universal peace and good will among men.
Now. the memorial from the State of Maine uses similar lan-
fuage, signed by a large number, filling half a page on thisprinted ocument, of the citizens of Maine, referring particularly to the proposed British treaty, and then recognizing that that is not the sole idea, but that the idea is that the United States Government shall take a position which shall plant it upon the side of those who favor peace, not only with Great Britain, not only with the strong, but with the weak and with all peoples.
That it would induce other governments to join in efforts to supplant by the methods of reaaon the unjust, rude, and cruel ways of war, of which the masses of mankind are weary, and that the definite inauguration of a policy thus aiming at perpetual peace and universal law would constitute one of the greatest services and greatest glories of the American Eepublic.
Before I finish I desire to show not only that the people of Maine were imbued by such a desire, but that some of the most eminent men from Maine, who have illustrated their State and the citizenry of this country, have in the most pronounced man ner committed this Government, so far as they were able to do it by their voice and by their influence, to this most benign and be neficent policy.
Mr. President, I have here a large petition, printed in this docu ment, from the State of Massachusetts. I shall not stop to read it. I am sorry that the junior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LOPQB] , who was so exceedingly indignant at the bare idea that the Government of the United States, the great, strong Govern ment of the United States, should for a moment contemplate a submission to arbitration or contemplate the attempt at concilia tory negotiation with the weak, feeble power of Colombia, is not now present, in order that he might hear me read the resolutions of the legislature of Massachusetts upon that subject, also founft in this same document.
Mr. McCREAB Y. Will the Senator tie kind enough to tell the date of those resolutions?
Mr. BACON. I have already stated it; it is in 1888, during the first session of the Fiftieth Congress, when the Senate of the United States by order had -this document compiled, showing the memorials which had been presented to that session of Congress. I have read a number of them, but I presume the Senator was not in his seat at the time.
5783

8
This is a resolution by the legislature of Massachusetts, signed by all of its officers, both of the senate and the house:
Resolved, That the senate and house of representatives in general court assembled approve of the efforts being made relating to the ultimate ratifi cation of treaties which shall provide for the settlement by arbitration of any difference or disputes arising between the Governments of Great Britain or other civilized nations and the United States which can not be adjusted by diplomatic agency, and thereby providing for the settlement of all inter national difficulties which may arise without resorting to cruel methods of War and bloodshed.
Mr. President, in the same document there is printed a resolu tion which was reported from the Committee on Foreign Rela tions as the result of all those memorials and of this particular hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Sen ate of this New York committee. It is a resolution which Mr. Sherman, the chairman of the committee, reported as the action of the Foreign Relations Committee in consequence of the appeals which had been made to it and to the Senate:
Iff THE SEHATJ3 OF THE USJTUD STATUS,
June IS, 188S. Mr. Sherman, from the Committee on Foreign Eolations, reported the fol lowing concurrent resolution to invite international arbitration as to dif ferences between nations
Not simply betweeen this nation and Great Britain
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring'), That the President be, and is hereby, requested to invite, from time to time, as fit oc casions may arise, negotiations with any government with which the United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any differences or disputes arising between the two governments which can not be adjusted by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration, and be peaceably ad justed by such means.
Before I get through I intend to briefly discuss whether or not this particular proposed negotiation will fall within the terms of that resolution thus reported from the Committee on Foreign Re lations, but I pretermit that for the present.
It also sets out two bills which were introduced in that session, each of them by a Senator from the State of Iowa. Under date of December 13,1887, all in the same session of Congress, Mr. Wil son, of Iowa, introduced this bill:
IN THE SEXATE or THE UNITED STATES,
December 1%, 18S7. Be it enacted, etc., That the President be, and hereby is, authorized and requested to institute negotiations with other governments for the creation of a tribunal for international arbitration, or other appropriate means whereby all difficulties and disputes between nations may be peaceably settled and wars prevented. SEC. 2. That the President be, and hereby is, authorized to invite the sev eral governments of North, Central, and South America, and such other governments as he in his discretion may determine, to send delegates to an international convention to be held in Washington, at such time as he may designate, for the purpose of considering and agreeing upon measures for the promotion of peace and amity among nations.
A proposition which afterwards materialized, to which I shall call more specifically the attention of the Senate.
The other Senator from Iowa, the present senior Senator [Mr. ALLISON], introduced a bill, which I shall now read. I should like very much if Senators would note, in view of our recent dis cussions here, the language which the Senator from Iowa used in the bill which he introduced. He goes further than his colleague, who simply requested the President. His bill reads:
Be it enacted, etc.. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized and directed to institute negotiations with the Govern ments of Great Britain and France for the purpose of creating a permanent tribunal for international arbitration, whereby all difficulties, differences,
5783

and disputes between the United States and these nations may be promptly, peaceably, and amicably settled.
But, Mr. President, while all of these to -which I hare called attention were in that particular session of Congress and I have not called attention to all of them, by any means, but only selected some of the most prominent that was not the origin of the pacific policy of the Government of the United States and of the people of the United States.
It is a remarkable fact that before the present Government of the United States was ever formed, in a treaty made by the old Confederation with one of the Barbary States I have forgotten which one it was, but it was made in 1787 even with that distant and semicivilized people, there was inserted a clause which pro vided for peaceful negotiations between us and them in regard to any disputes that might thereafter arise in order that thereby war might be averted. But it is true that the most pronounced and decided attitude of the United States Government upon that subject was not assumed until after the period known as the period of the great pacification in 1815, at the end of the Napo leonic wars and of the war between this country and Great Britain.
But beginning, if I recollect correctly, with the year 1816 up to the year 1902 there has been an almost unbroken series not sim ply of utterances in Congress, not simply of resolutions introduced or of acts passed looking to such settlement, but of actual treaty negotiations entered into between the Government of the United States and almost all other governments, either making some general provision for arbitration whenever the necessity for it might arise or providing for some particular arbitration to settle some particular dispute. I desire. Mr. President, to express what mtotbea cause of pride to every American when I state that within that term more than half of all the arbitration treaties which have been entered into by all the nations of all the world have been entered into by the Government of the United States with other nations for the purpose of avoiding war and for the purpose of settling disputes by friendly negotiation, if possible, and then, if not possible, by submission to the determination of some impartial tribunal.
I am going, sir, simply to touch along at different points and not endeavor to present the whole record to the Senate, because I think I ain within the bounds of moderation when I say that if the archives of this Government could be searched, if all the rec ords that are beneath the Dome of this Capitol could be produced, there would be found absolutely tons and wagon leads of memo rials which have come to Congress from the people of the United States, all praying for the accomplishment of this great, benign, and beneficent purpose and end.
If there is one thing that is more absolutely settled as the pur pose and desire of the people of the United States than another, it is that; and, sir, it is not limited to that honorable sect which is opposed to war tinder any and all circumstances, but it per vades all classes of our people who thus generally deprecate war, bloodshed, and violence, and who desire that there should be an appeal to reason and a settlement, if you please, by concession rather than a determination by brute force.
As I have said, I am simply going to sMp along and note at dif ferent times what have been the utterances of this Government, either by acts or resolutions or by the expressions of the commit-
5783

10
tees of either House of Congress and otherwise. Away back in 1851 the resolution which I shall now read was reported from the Committee on Foreign Belations of the Senate, and will be found in Senate Report No. 270, Thirty-first Congress, second session. I -will read the resolution. There is nothing new in it, but I will read it just to show what has been the uniform mani festation and utterance by the Senate of the United States.
Whereas appeals to the sword for the determination of national controver sies are always productive of immense evils; and whereas the spirit and en terprises of the ago, but more especially the genius of our own Government, the habits of our people, and the highest permanent prosperity of our Repub lic, as well as the claims of humanity, the dictates of enlightened reason, and the precepts of our holy religion, all require the adoption of every feasible measure consistent with the national honor and the security of our rights, to prevent as far as possible the recurrence of war hereafter: Therefore,
Sesolved, That in the judgment of this body it would be proper and desir able for the G-overnment of these United States, wherever practicable, to secure in its treaties with other nations a provision for referring to the de cision of umpires all future misunderstandings that can not be satisfactorily adjusted by amicable negotiation in the first instance before a resort to hos tilities shall be had.
In 1853, in the very next Congress, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations makes a most elaborate report of many pages in advocacy of the same idea. This was in response to peace me morials which had been referred by the Senate to that committee. Without stopping totead the report, which is quite lengthy, after reciting the evils of war and alluding to the various difficulties which are encountered in the effort to provide for peaceful arbi tration, the committee say:
All that the committee are willing to advise and recommend for the p_resent is that in the treaties which are hereafter made with foreign nations it shall be stipulated between the contracting parties that all dillerences which may arise shall be referred to arbitrators for adjustment.
And in the same report I will read now what I may have occa sion to use subsequently in some things which I may have to stibmit to the Senate, replying to the contention we now have that the United States can not submit to arbitration any question involv ing a question of our honor the committee say:
It sometimes happens that "the point of honor " between nations seems to demand immediate action and a blow is given without time for deliberation. The nation struck resents, and war is the consequence. Treaty stipulations requiring arbitration would be a salutary remedy in such cases. The "point of honor " would then consist in adhering to the treaty.
In 1872 Mr. Sumner, then a Senator from the State of Massa chusetts, introduced a series of resolutions with preambles setting out the evils of war, etc. I will read two of the resolutions. I read from the Journal of the Senate, May 31,1872:
Resolved, That any withdrawal from a treaty recognizing arbitration or any refusal to abide the judgment of the accepted tribunal or any interposi tion of technicalities to limit the proceedings is to this extent a disparage ment of the tribunal as a substitute for war and therefore hostile to civiliza tion.
Resolved. That the United States, having at heart the cause of peace every where, and hoping to help its permanent establishment between nations, hereby recommend the adoption of arbitration as a just and practical method for the determination of international differences, to be maintained sincerely and in good faith, so that war may cease to be regarded as a proper form of trial between nations.
In 1874 the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate again, through Mr. Hamlin, a member of the committee Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, then being its chairman responsive to the petitions and memorials which had come to it, as stated in
5783

11

the report, from all over the United States, submitted the follow ing resolution:
Resolved, That the United Statea, baring at heart the cause of peace every where, and hoping to help its permanent establishment between nations, hereby recommend the adoption of arbitration as a justand practical method . for the determination of international differences, to be maintained sincerely and in good faith, so that war may cease to be regarded as a propel- iorm of trial between nations.

During these periods,.Mr. President, unnumbered resolutions of a similar kind were pending in the House of Representatives, responsive to similar appeals made by people from all over the United States. I have not followed all of these resolutions to see what was the ultimate action taken in each case, but I have fol lowed one, which is a resolution reported from the Committee on Foreign Eelations of the Senate, in this language:

,

IN THE SENATE OB THE UNITED STATES,

February 14, 1830.

Resolved by the Senate (the Souse of Representatives concurring), That the President be, and is hereby, requested to invite, from time to time, as fit oc casions may arise, negotiations with any government with which the United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any difference* or disputes arising between the two Governments which can not be adjusted by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration, and be peaceably ad

justed by such means.

The Senate resolution went to the House of Representatives and was passed by the House on the 3d day of April, 1890. So that outside of the unnumbered utterances, only comparatively a few of which I have even alluded to, through committees of this body and of the other House, here there was at last, if not before that time, finally enacted by the concurrent action of the two Houses the solemn enunciation by the Congress of the United States of . the declared policy of the United States that in all cases and the word "all" is comprehensive and admits of no limitation of meaning that in all cases it should be the effort and the desire of the people of the United States to agree by friendly negotiation for the settlement of all differences, and in the absence of the practicability of such an agreement to submit those differences to the determination of an impartial tribunal.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Geor gia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. FAIRBANKS. If the Senator will allow me, if I under stand his resolution,it really is predicated upon the assumption that the United States did actually lend aid and assistance through its land and naval powers to accomplish revolution. Is not that so? Mr. BACON. I desire to say, with- all respect to the Senator, that I shall at a future point in my remarks give particular at tention to that inquiry. I simply ask now that he may pretermit it until I come to that part. I will not overlook it. Mr. FAIRBANKS. That is satisfactory. Mr. BACON. I will only say now, without stopping to discuss that and asking that the Senator will not require me to do so now that I do not agree with him as to the proper construction of the resolution, and I will endeavor to show why at the proper time. Mr. FAIRBANKS. That will be perfectly satisfactory to me. I only wish the Senator to explain fully the scope and meaning of the resolution before he concludes. Mr. BACON. I shall endeavor to do so.

6783

12

Mr. President, not only by such, action by Congress, but by the uttsrances of every President of the United States elected since the close of the civil war, there has been the most emphatic and cordial approval and recommendation and advocacy of the pursuance of that pacificatory policy by the United States, with out limitation as to the character of the government with which we are to deal in a case of difference other than that they shall be civilized nations.
The first one to which I call attention is an utterance of Presi dent Grant, which I find in this same document from which I have been reading. In the memorial which was presented by the New York committee to the Senate through the Committee on Foreign Relations there is this statement:

tforoPhmirseasciovduoenyntatrgyGemraaernnot.u,nbIdyntehasneamwadopdrlreledas,snhdteobsaayiPdph:rielcaedpetl,prheicaosmocmieetnyd, eadftseurchhisa

course return

fahbenaarvt"eeteTnlpecohbsecoe,sheut,hngiwenhfhrsoeteuIennahndadaevvcooeeoffrupbkerrweeteeavnrpseeictnnarogtaigtinlninamgierzgetdehedweasbshtdyaearnanaswd,loliiilnnndnggiae:mtarioroyamfnntosihdepwesih,nislaiawlovsnsoete,rhptdsetoa.lyemrtiIdiencoltiowpeionraakntyEeafduotcirrooiownunplaamderl.d"adnniotfyot

That was the statement of the great soldier. This memorial, embraced in this document, goes on to say:

in

Presidents Hayes the same views.

and

Garfleld

did

not

hesitate

to

declare

their

concurrence

We all know the distinguished part played by that most distin guished man from the State of Maine. Mr. Blaine, in the effort to accomplish this result, not only with the nations of the world at large, but particularly with the states of Central and South America. It would be very instructive if I could read all of the circular letter of Mr. Blaine of the date of November 29, 1881, in which he sets out the attitude of the Government of the United States upon this important question and in which he endeavors to inaugurate a congress of all the Central and South American states, together with those of North America, for the purpose of a solemn league and covenant that in any difference which might arise between either of them or between this great and powerful and overshadowing nation and the least of them there should be extended the hand of conciliation, that there should be put behind the thought of force and power and war and bloodshed as the re sult of such differences, and that there should be an effort by con ciliatory means to agree where such differences should arise and in case such agreement could not be had that they would solemnly pledge themselves that such differences should be settled by the determination of a disinterested party and that there should be no appeal to the sword.
I will read some from that famous letter. I beg to say possibly I am not altogether a good judge of what is most creditable and distingiiishing in one who was preeminently a Bepublican, and, I will add, no less preeminently an American, but I will venture to say that while there may be some things and are many things in his history and career which will challenge more admiration for the brilliancy and ability and power he pos sessed and displayed, there is no utterance that ever fell from the lips of that distinguished man which will more distinguish him, and properly and rightfully distinguish him, than the sentiments uttered in this famous circular letter and the great movement he sought thereby to inaugurate. If it were not that I felt it would be a trespass, I would read all of it. But I will read only a part.
arsa

&
13 It 5s a letter addressed to the representatives of the United States in the different countries which he sought to reach:
For some years past
I am not reading1 from the beginning of it; I am reading from page 98 of the eighth volume of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents-7-
For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by certain states of Central and South America to refer disputes affecting grave ques tions in international relationship and boundaries to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several such occasions a source of profound sat isfaction to the Government of the United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to by all the American powers as their friend sad mediator.
Words to be remembered, I respectfully suggest, when it is not simply a question of friendship and mediation as between two disagreeing Central or South American countries, but when the thing comes closer home to us, and it is a question between this great country and one of those countries, however weak and feeble it may be.
Mr. Arthur waa then President, and Mr. Blaine goes on, being then his Secretary of State, as follows:
The just and impartial counsel of the President in such cases has never been withheld, and hi3 efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of sanguinary strife or angry contentions bet\veen peoples whom we regard as brethren.
The existence of this growing tendency convinces the President that the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good will and active coopera tion of all the States of the Western Hemisphere, both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations.
He conceives that none of the governments of America can be leas alive than, our own to the dangevs_ and horrors of a state of war, and especially of war botween kinsmen. Ho is sure that none of the chiofs of government on the continent can be less sensitive than he is to the sacred duty of making every endeavor to do away with the chances of fratricidal strife, and he looks with Jiopefvil confidence to such active assistance from them as will servo to show tlie broadness of our common humanity and the strength of the ties which bind us all together as a great and harmonious system of. American commonwealths.
Impressed by these views, the President extends to all the independent countries of North and South America an earnest invitation to participate in a general congress to be hold in the city of Washington on the Kith day of November, 18&3, for the purpose of considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the nations of America. He desires that the at tention of the eongiess shall be strictly confined to this one great object; that its sole aim shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of cruel and bloody combat between countries, oftenest of one blood and speech, or the even worse calamity of internal commotion and civil strife; that it shall regard the burdensome and far-reaching consequences of such struggles, the legacies of exbmisted finances, of oppressive debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries, of devastated fields, of ruthless conscription, of the slaughter of men, of the grief of the widow and the orphan, of embittered resentments that long survive those who provoked them and heavily afflict the innocent generations that come after.
Those are the thrice memorable words of James GK Blaine, Sec retary of State, when he held aloft in the name of the great Amer ican Republic the ensign of peace and asked all the nations of the "Western Hemisphere to rally beneath its folds.
Mr. President, I concede that there was but little thought then in the mind of that great man this great man entitled in the light of those words to be denominated as the great philanthropist that his words would be read in the Senate of the United States at a time when the question was not one of conflict between two feeble powers of Central or South America, but when it would be a question of difference between this great and all-powerful Gov ernment and one of the weakest of the peoples whom he then conjured to the ways of peace.

14
But, sir, can any Senator or any citizen of the United States take to himself for a moment the conclusion that while it was proper for the great Government of the United States thus to in tercede and counsel the weak nations of this hemisphere that there should be peace among and between them, and that they should settle their differences by agreement, and if not by agree ment then by the determination of some impartial tribunal can the conclusion be taken, I say, by any Senator or citizen of the United States that while that was a legitimate desire and end to be accomplished, it did not relate to a case where the interests of the United States might come in conflict with the interest of one of those nations, or where there might be a controversy between it and one of the feeblest of those peoples?
Mr. QUARLES. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. QUARLES. I have been very much interested in the dis cussion of the distinguished Senator. He always illuminates any subject he touches. But I should like to see if we can at this stage of his discussion arrive at something practical. Mr. BACON. I will endeavor to be practical in iny application before I get through. I hope the Senator will allow me to arrive at it by my own course. Mr. QUARLES. Most assuredly. I would not ask to antici pate any of his discussion, but I was going to ask the learned Senator whether, notwithstanding all he has read and said, he looks upon the qviestion raised by his resolution as belonging to that class of questions which great nations, or small ones either, are in the habit of submitting to arbitration? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, if he had been in the Senate all of the time he would have heard me say that I in tended, as a corollary to the proposition which I am now endeavoring to submit to the Senate, to discuss that very question, and I propose to do so. If I can not succeed in showing that these differences do belong to this class, of course
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Mr. QUARLES. That being so, I will not Mr. BACON. I do not object to any interruption, the Senator will understand, but I simply beg that he will allow me to answer his question at the point in my argument where I had designed to give attention to that particular inquiry. Mr. President, the President of the United States, at that time Mr. Arthur, in his annual message of December, 1883, immedi* ately succeeding the date of the circular letter of Mr. Blaine, used this language:
I am unwilling to dismiss this subject
He was speaking then of the proposition that there should be convoked a congress of all the Central and South American and North American republics for the purpose of agreeing upon the pacific policy which was advocated by Mr. Blaine in the circular letter, and then he adds this:
I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without assuring you of my support of any measures the wisdom of Congress may devise for the promotion ol peace on this continent and throughout the world, and I trust that the time is nigh when, with the universal assent of civilized peoples, all international differences shall be determined without resort to arms by the benignant processes of arbitration.
5783

15

Mr. Harrison, the signally distinguished patriotic man who came from the State of the present occupant of the chair [Mr. BEVERIDGE in the chair], in transmitting to the Senate and House of Bepresentatives the letter of the Secretary of State and. the re ports adopted by the conference of the American republics in the congress which had theretofore had its sessions in Washing ton uses this language:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Septembers, 1SSO. To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, which is accom

panied by throe reports adopted by the conference of American nations re

cently in session at Washington, relating to the subject of international arbi

tration, The ratification of tho treaties contemplated by these reports will

constitute one of the happiest and most hopeful incidents in tho history of

the Western Hemisphere.

BENJ. HARRISON.

That was all there was in the message. Then conies Mr. Cleveland. I said that almost all of the Presi dents since the civil war had advocated this policy. I have thus far given the uttei-ances of every President since the civil war, other than Mr. Johnson, who was elected as Vice-President during the civil war and then succeeded to the office, but on the part of every President elected since the civil war there has been this most emphatic commendation and advocacy of this policy. I have cited from Grant, Hayes, Q-arfleld, and Harrison, and now come to Mr. Cleveland. In the annual message of Mr. Cleveland, Decem ber 4t 1893, he uses this language:

By a concurrent resolution passed by the Senate February 14,1890, and by the House of Representatives on the 3d of April following-

Thai is the resolution I have already read to the Senate ayd

called attention to the fact that it had been passed by each House

By a concurrent resolution passed by the Senate February 14,1890, and by the House of Eepresentatives on the 3d of April following, the President was requested to "invite from time to time, as. fit occasions may arise, negotia tions with any government with which the United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any differences or disputes arising be tween the two governments which can not be adjusted by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration and b6 peaceably adjusted by such means."

That is a quotation from the resolution. The President con tinues:

April 18,1890, the international American conference at Washington by resolution expressed the wish that all controversies between the republics of America and tho nations of Europe might be settled by arbitration, and rec ommended that the government of each nation represented in that conference should communicate this wish to all friendly powers. A favorable response has been received from Great Britain in the shape of a resolution adopted by Parliament July 16 last, cordially sympathizing with the purpose in view and expressing the hope that Her Majestys Government will lend ready co operation to the Government of the United States upon the basis of the con current resolution above quoted.

.That is simply introductory to the utterance I now read. He continues:

It affords me signal pleasure to lay this parliamentary resolution before Congress, and to express my sincere gratification that the sentiment of two great and kindred nations is thus authoattatiyely manifested in favor of the rational and peaceable settlement of international quarrels by honorable re sort to arbitration.

And again in 1897, January 11, in transmitting to the Senate the proposed treaty of international arbitration between the United States and Great Britain, President Cleveland uses this language, speaking of the proposed treaty:

Though the result reached may not meet the views of the advocates of immediate, unlimited, and irrevocable arbitration of all international con troversies, it is nevertheless confidently believed that the treaty can not fail
6783-

16

to be everywhere and aa embodying two countries will

recognized aa making a long step in the right direction, a practical working plan by which disputes between the reach a peaceful adjustment as matter of course and in

ordinary In the

irnoiutitaintieo.n

of

such

an

important

movement

I omit part of it which does not relate exactly to the point I am after. Further on he says:

itmthseeTauhhnlatesipmoepxfaietpseseetretaitnmluissnuepgininctgieonsbft.eesrnuInetbasftististsouitncaucarteelisnnqsgouoetucsligtivikhoieltnilnzyseotdotoftombreibegtlehihmdotodiwtuseibdlfltoftrutohlbt,urhasuentbdetewtfhtooreircecfodeaucauntsnttrhtdiheeaesrt immediately concerned should cause it to be promoted all the more eagerly. The example set and the lesson furnished by the successful operation of this atrnedatwyiallrethsuusremtaorkbethfeelbt eagnidnntainkgenoftoahneeawrteapooocnheirnocrilvaitliezrabtiyono.ther nations,
Profoundly impressed as I am, therefore, by the promise of transcendent good which this treaty affords, I do not hesitate to accompany its transmis sion with an expression of my earnest hope that it may commend itself to the favorable consideration of the Senate.

Mr. President, that brings us down to the utterances of the ever and universally lamented McKinley. I will say that this is not a sole utterance which 1 am about to read. When Mr. McKin ley was a Member of the House he was one of the foremost ad vocates of peaceful negotiation for the settlement of differences rather than a resort to war or violence, and, in the failure of peace ful negotiations, to submit all those differences to the determina tion of an impartial tribunal. When he first took upon himself the great office, when he stood in front of this Capitol to take the oath of office, that first utterance from him contained the declara tion of his adherence to this policy. He referred in his inaugural address to tho proposed treaty with Great Britain and used this language:

Arbitration is cal or individual

tdhieffetrreunecmese. thIotd"woafssreetctloegmnieznetdoafsinthteernbaetsitomnaelanass

well as lo of adjust

ment of differences * * * and its application was extended to our diplo

matic relations by the unanimous concurrence of the Senate and House of

the Fifty-first Congress in 1890. The latter resolution was accepted as the

GubeoitipawsgrsoennrinasapittonoioBffinliticrrincaiaetytitaginivitoovnhentiri;twaoaistnutaiiiongsoJnchanseniowgauuintitatterhhrodeayuasuartlstbyaes"ebnotWe.ytfniartarseSherhiebcninnoiactBggteritnarootitihnntziiioaessanldhnhtadrbHiseseotatttrhuwtoayesnreeyliseseomnafcdtilChteitnaeoegrmdlUyfmetnotaoihttnteeuhsdrereienSsSoutfe1aln8ott9eauo3str,feaafofonnourddrr

In this statement Mr. McKinley gives affirmation to what I have endeavored to present as the fact to the Senate to-day regarding the settled policy of the United States

the adjustment of difficulties by judicial methods rather than by force of patrgeerermrseapcaoseet;fe,cpsatnfotnoulnditlcalsyyptii,anuobscrnsuegsioetiintantshptaerahneeeddsaeuwrnwtloytyasrlrtado,tco,mtcaitoonahnnneetkorxwoifnalotmldhir.nlepdglSeTtethhchneeeearitgtmealroietpnhrloaieotrtrotiueaosobnnenecsx,efoanbamloenlottdpwwmlmeeeeedoornferbalrtyylewiaaonosstfohloaunefmeranstnha.ctdeeI of the ratification of such a treaty can hardly be overestimated in the cause of advancing civilization. It may well engage the best thought of the statesmen and people of every country, and I can not but consider it fortunate that it was reserved to the United States to have the leadership in so grand a work.

Mr. President, if Mr. McKinley had been less impressed than he was with the great desire that peaceful negotiations should be the means by which differences should be settled, he might have pretermitted that utterance upon that occasion. He might have reserved it for a direct communication to the Senate, because the Senate was the power which was to deal with the question whether the treaty should be ratified. But, sir, Mr. McKinley, not con tent with that, took occasion upon the most eventful occasion of his life to say, not only to the Senate, but to all the people of the

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United States and to all the people of the world, that he was the apostle and the advocate of this benign policy.
Mr. President, I have taken a great deal of time in the effort to present the fact which I might have stated in a sentence, and that is that the people of the United States through memorials without number presented to Congress, and through the utterances of Con gress, by direct enactment, and through the utterances through its committees and through unnumbered treaties has been and is most thoroughly committed to the proposition that without ex ception and without qualification, in proper cases, I will say, in order that I may not overstep the bounds in all proper cases, with any country, great or small, the policy of this country favored this conciliatory action, involved concessions, if you please, and of arbitration in the failure of such effort through peaceful con ciliatory measures. I say I might have stated that in a sentence and gone on, but I desired to put here in consecutive form, not all or by any means a hundredth part of what could be produced here, but enough to show that what Mr. McKinley said in his first inaugural is the truth, that it has been from the foundation of this Government the well-defined, loudly advocated, and persist ently pressedpolicy of the Government and people of the United States that there should be peace between ourselves and other peoples, and that by peaceful means differences between this and other governments should be arranged and settled.
But. I preferred, in order that emphasis might be given to it, thus to bring to the attention of the Senate these various utter ances. I want to give emphasis to them in order that I might with the more earnestness invoke the conclusion which I will seek to present, that, bound as we are by this solemn plighted faith, re peated innumerable times, this is an occasion where we can not honorably refuse to abide by the ru!e which we have laid down, which we have so often reiterated, and which we have so uni formly practiced in all cases properly coming within the purview and jurisdiction of such negotiations. I shall endeavor hereafter to show whether this particular controversy does or does not so come within the class of those that should thus be dealt with. Be fore proceeding I desire to call the attention of the Senate to the fact that in pursuance of all these efforts, of all these utterances, of all these expressions of desire, of all this plighted faith, there was assembled in this city, as the result and under the provisions of an act of the Congress of the United States, a congress of all the Central and South American reptiblics, and also including the Government of Mexico and the Government of the United States.
As a result of that congress there was framed a plan of inter national arbitration, and that was agreed to by all the representa tives of those various governments, and was transmitted by the President of the United States, then Mr. Harrison, to the Con gress of the United States. I have already read and as it is short I will repeat it the message of President Harrison trans mitting the letter of the Secretary of State and the draft of the proposed agreement, in which the President so forcibly gave his adhesion to the general desire and intention of the work of that congress:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, September s, 1SSO. To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a latter from the Secretary of State, which is accom panied by three reports adopted by the conference of American nations re cently in session at Washington, relating to the subject of international arbi tration. The ratification of the treaties contemplated by these reports will
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constitute one of the happiest and most hopeful incidents in the history of the Western Hemisphere.
BENJAMIN HARRISON. I can not read all of that agreement between all the representa tives of the various countries, but here are the first two articles: The delegates from North, Central, and South America--
Constituting what Mr. Blaine in his circular letter so happily termc,"! " the great and harmonious system of American common wealths"
The delegates from North. Central, and South America in conference as sembled: Believing that war is the most cruel, the most fruitless, and the most dangerous e_xpedient for the settlement of international differences;
Recognizing that the growth of the moral principles which govern politi cal societies has created an earnest desire in favor of the amicable adjust ment of such differences;
Animated by the conviction of the great moral and material benefits that peace offers to mankind, and trusting that the existing conditions of the re spective nations are especially propitious for the adoption of arbitration as a substitute for armed struggloa:
Convinced by reason of tlioir friendly and cordial meeting in the present conference that the American republics, controlled alike by the nrinciples, duties, and responsibilities of popular government, and bound JJfcether by vast and increasing mutual interests, can, within the sphereJjWlieir own action, maintain the peace of the continent and the good will ofSil its inhab itants;
And considering it their duty to lend their asaent to the lofty principles of peace, which the most enlightened public sentiment of the world approves;
Do solemnly recommend all the governments by which they are accred ited to conclude a uniform treaty of arbitration in the articles following;
ABTICLE I. The-republics of North, Central, and South America hereby adopt arbi tration as a principle of American international law for the settlement of the differences, disputes, or controversies that may arise between two or more of them.
ABTICLE n.
Arbitration
I call attention to this particularly because it is, in a sense,.a reply to the inquiry of the junior Senator from Wisconsin:
Arbitration shall be obligatory in all controversies concerning diplomatic and consular privileges, boundaries, territories, indemnities, the right of navi gation, and the validity, construction, and enforcement of treaties.
It will be noted that in this Congress of all the American repub lics, including the United States, there is a distinct recognition that arbitration is obligatory for the settlement of all controver sies growing out of the construction of treaties. This will be specially applicable to a subsequent portion of my remarks.
The proposed agreement, or, rather, the proposed treaty which was agreed to, goes on making all the provisions necessary for a complete agreement for arbitration providing the machinery, etc., and I only omit reading the whole of it because of my reluctance to take so much time of the Senate and my unwillingness to un duly encumber the RECORD.
I had here, but I have misplaced it I hope to get it before I conclude the statement of Mr. Blaine as to his estimate of that work thus done by that Congress. I desire to state in this con nection that there were a number of bills introduced into either House of Congress for the purpose of bringing about this result. One of them was introduced by Mr. McKinley. another one was introduced by the present presiding officer of the Senate, Mr. FBYE, and another one was introduced by our distinguished col league from Kentucky, now Senator McCKEARY, but then, like Mr. McKinley, an honored member of the House of Representa tives, and, by the way, it was that bill introduced by Mr. MC CKEARY which passed. It came to the Senats, some alterations
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were made, and upon a conference the bill was finally passed, which brought about this happy result.
Now, it is true that that treaty has never been enacted as a treaty. It has never been made the law; but it is nevertheless the ti;uth that it expresses the desire and wishes and professed faith of the American people. It had the sanction of the Con gress in the proposal for the legislation which brought it about. It had the sanction of more than one President President Arthur, and President Cleveland, and President Harrison, and President McKinley. There can be no question that, so far as the moral, binding force of it is concerned, it thoroughly committed the American people to the proposition that in all cases of difference between any one of the governments of North, Central, or South America and any other government of those two continents there should be peaceful arrangement, and, if necessary, arbitration.
I may have to read it o_ut of its order when I get it, but I will nevertheless read the estimate of Mr. Elaine of the scope and im portance and the great value of the work of that convention or congress in its effort to accomplish the design, to do away with wars or violences of any kind between the governments of North, Central, and South America, and the substitution therefor of peaceful negotiation, and of arbitration in the event of the failure of such negotiation.
Ten years thereafter, under the same authority, by the initia tion of the President of the United States, another congress of the North American and Central and South American republics was convened in the City of Mexico; and while they formulated no treaty, in the report which I have before me, and which is en titled Second International Congress of American States, held at the City of Mexico from October 22,1901, to January 22,1902,"on pages 10 and 11 in the report made by the commissioners of the United States to the President, of which former Senator Davis, of West Virginia, was chairman, the statement is made that after prolonged effort in the attempt to bring certain Central American States to a consent to arbitration, and in some instances compul sory arbitration, the final outcome of the whole matter was that they agreed they would become signatories to The Hague conven tion, and in that way put themselves under the terms of that convention and declare it, as they termed it, a part of the inter national law to be controlling with the governments of North, Central, and South America.
Mr. President, after all the century of effort on the part of the people and Government of the United States to bring about this arrangement for peaceful negotiation and for international arbi tration, as^, conclusion and as a culmination we had the great Hague treaty, in which the Government of the United States solemnly pledged itself and not only by the presence of its com missioners, but by the formal ratification of the treaty that in all proper cases, certain exceptions being made, it would resort to peaceful measures for the settlement of difficulties and not resort to war for their determination.
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLAY in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield? Mr. SPOONER. I am only asking the Senator for information. Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Has the Senator in mind the exceptions to which he referred this morning?
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Mr. BACON. I have them right here, and I can read them. I will do so. I wish to read first another matter.
Mr. SPOOLER. At your leisure. Mr. BACON; I will read it in this connection directly, but here is a matter I passed over. I did not have before me the statement by Mr. Blaine of his estimate of the action of the first American conference, which assembled in Washington in the autumn of 1889. Mr. Blaine, then Secretary of State, said of it:
If in this closing hour the conference had hut ono deed to celebrate, we should dare call the worlds attention to the deliberate, confident, solemn dedi cation of two great continents to peace, and to the prosperity which has peace for its foundation.
Alluding to the agreement which had just been executed. Now, I will endeavor to read from The Hague treaty, I have so many papers here that I find it difficult to refer to them readily. Here it is. It is quite a voluminous document and I do not know that I can refer promptly to the particular part concerning which the Senator from Wisconsin makes inquiry. Does the Senator refer to the particular saying clause which was made in favor of the United States? Possibly the Senator will take the document while I proceed and call my attention to that particular part of it. Mr. SPOONER. I did not refer to that. I referred to the New York memorial. There were some qualifications. Mr. BACON. There were some. Mr. SPOONER. There were some exceptions. Mr. BACON. Is this what the Senator wished to see [handing document]? Mr. SPOONER. Yes. I did not hear distinctly the qualifica tions. Mr. BACON. Now, if the Senator will pardon me, I am com ing to a direct discussion of that a little later, and I will then read it, if that will answer his purpose as well. Mr. SPOONER. I only asked for information. I will look it up. Mr. BACON. I regard that as quite important, and I intended to use it in a discussion of the question as to whether or not the assumed controversy between this country and Colombia Mr. SPOONER. Here is what I referred to [indicating]. Mr. BACON. I am glad the Senator calls my attention to it, because that brings me to say what I possibly should have said before. Mr. SPOONER. That is not what I directed my inquiry to. Mr. BACON. Innderstand; but I am glad my attention has been called to it for this reason: Much that I have quoted from docu ments and utterances relates to arbitration. The Senate will easily mark the fact that a commission of the Government to the policy of arbitration necessarily involves an adherence to the pol icy of agreement by treaty, if that is practicable. Inotherwords, the one is connected in the other. There is no possibility of suc cessful contention that a government could be in favor of the sub mission of a difference to the determination of a neutral and impartial tribunal and not at the same time be thoroughly com mitted to the proposition that if, without such submission, they can agree among themselves they should do so. I do not suppose there can be any question about that fact. Sol have not stopped, as I have gone along, drawing attention to the various utterances in the one case for conciliation and in the other case for arbitra-
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tion, to call attention to the fact that the advocacy of arbitra tion necessarily recognizes the advocacy of a conciliatory agreeme.nt, if that were possible, as a precedent to any submission to arbitration.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. Mr. President, may I interrupt the Senator? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. FAIRBANKS. I do not understand, if the Senator please, that there is any very great divergence of view among Senators, or in the country for that matter, with respect to the wisdom of arbitration between countries in proper cases. Mr. BACON. I am coming to that question. Mr. FAIRBANKS. That seems to me to be the material ques tion. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I have already given assurance that I intended to discuss that question when I reached it in its proper order. Mr. FAIRBANKS. I did not know whether the Senator was ready to touch upon that question or not. Mr. BACON. If I do not do that, any man who knows the re lation of a predicate to a conclusion must, of course, recognize the fact that all I have said goes for nothing. Senators on the other side do not realize that fact and are not more alive to it than I am. I recognize that, and if I do not succeed in doing that, then I have failed; but I want to get at it in the proper way. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONER. Of course, as to everything the Senator has said in favor of international conciliation, no one will dispute that that ought to be the attitude of nations peculiarly, perhaps, of this. We will have no antagonism about it on this side of the Chamber, or I think anywhere in the country; and that means, as the Senator well says, a preliminary effort at conciliation. Mr. BACON. A preliminary effort at conciliation. Mr. SPOONER, A preliminary effort at adjustment without resort to war. Mr. BAGON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER. In other words, arbitration before war. Mr. BACON. Yes; _ if conciliatory conferences between the parties fail to accomplish an agreement, which will make arbitra tion tunnecessary. Mr.lSPOONER. That is the general result of The Hague treaty. That is happily the trend of the sentiment in the world at this time. But I suppose the Senator will admit that no government yet. however Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will let me proceed with that argument. I am coming to that very question. Mr. SPOONER. However far it may have gone in the way of conciliation and arbitration, no government has ever been willing to submit to foreign arbitrament a question of national honor Mr. BACON. I am coming to all those questions. Mr. SPOONER. Or political rights. Mr. BACON. Well, yes; that too. Now, Mr. President, I am coming to what, of course, is the crucial question in the case, and possibly the long time I have consumed in presenting the evidence of the attitude of the people
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of this country and its Government for a hundred years has done nothing more than emphasize, as I have stated, what I might have said in a sentence.
At the same time I think it well that there should be presented in this consecutive form somewhat of the history, because I do not want it simply_ recognized, as it is by all Senators and by the people, that such is the fact. But I want the realization strong, complete, overwhelming, to ba in every mans mind and heart that if this is in its nature a proper case for conciliation, if it is a proper case for submission to an impartial tribunal in the event of failure of attempted conciliatory measures, then there is no escape from the conclusion, that the United States are, through the utterances and pledges and practice of an hundred years, bound by every sentiment of honor and plighted faith to accord it to Co lombia in this instance. I say I do not want it simply recognized as an independent, abstract fact that such has been the pledge and covenant, but I want it home in the heart and conscience of every Senator, which can only be impressed upon them by a review of these unnumbered utterances, both by the people and their gov ernment, their Congress, their Presidents, leaving no question whatever as to their settled conviction and purpose. As I have said, I have barely touched upon the record, but enough to indi cate what has been for a century the unbroken and most solemnly uttered plighted faith of the people and of the Government in that regard.
Now, Mr. President, I come to the question: Is this a case where the plighted faith of this people and Government for a hundred years places them under obligations to endeavor to settle what ever differences there may be between the United States and Co lombia by conciliatory negotiation if possible, and if that is im possible then by impartial arbitration? Are the differences which exist between the two countries and the issues which are pre sented by them of the character which devolve it as a duty upon this country to attempt their peaceful settlement either by nego tiation or by arbitration?
Before I proceed to that I want to answer the question which my learned friend, the Senator from Indiana [Mr. FAIRBANKS] , propounded to me as to the terms of this pending resolution, as to whether or not it assumes that any liability exists to Colombia on the part of the United States. I said to the Senator not only that I would endeavor to show that it did not, but that I would answer him then that it did not. An examination of the words of the resolution shows that there is no assumption of any liability on the part of the United States. The resolution simply states the grounds of difference which should be adjusted either, by agree ment or by arbitration.
I will again say to the Senator, however, what I said to the Senate when I addressed it upon this subject some considerable time ago, and of the resumption of which I have been denied the opportunity by-a personal illness of some duration, that that is not the intention of the resolution; that I am not wedded to the phraseology, and that I am perfectly content that there should be taken out of the resolution anything which could be properly construed to assume that. And not only so, but that I am will ing that there should be incorporated in the resolution language which shall distinctly negative it, just as was done by Great Britain in the Washington treaty. I certainly can not go further than that.
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Mr. FAIRBANKS. Would the Senator so far modify it as to exclude the consideration of political questions?
Mr. BACON. Yes: so far as the submission of that class to arbi tration. I am content with anything which shall commit the Government of the United States in the face of the world to the proposition that, whatever there may be of difference between the United States and Colombia, the United States, as a great overshadowing power which can not be compelled by this feeble power to do anything, will voluntarily endeavor to agree with it in the settlement of existing differences; and that if it can not come to an agreement by peaceful negotiations it will not assert its great and resistless power, but that it will endeavor to have a determination of such differences and the claims growing out thereof by some impartial tribunal.
Now, in further answer to the question of the Senator from In diana, I again call his attention to the fact that this resolution contains two propositions first, that there shall be an effort by negotiations directly between the parties to accomplish by agree ment a peaceful settlement; and second, if an agreement can not thus be accomplished, that the questions of difference in that case shall be submitted to some impartial tribunal for determination and settlement. Now, it will be conceded that there are some classes of questions so closely affecting a nation that it would be unwill ing to leave their determination to the judgment and will of any third party. But it must also be conceded that there should be no kind of difference that a nation would not be willing to itself endeavor to. settle- by agreement with the other nation. So all must recognize this as a correct proposition, that never inind what is the cause of difference, whether it relates to the honor of a coun try or to its internal policy or to anything else, there is no impro priety in the effort by negotiation to agree with the adversary, even though they may be questions which should not be sub mitted to the arbitration and determination of a third party. In the case of the direct negotiation between the parties there could be no conclusion which was not satisfactory to each party and agreed to by each party. There is no possible escape. So that if t should accede to the suggestion of the Senator from Indiana and have incorporated in this resolution words which would exclude the particular class of questionsWhich he suggests, that exclusion ought not to relate to that pfert of the resolution which seeks to adjust such differences by negotiation between the parties. That excl-usioiyin such case ought only to extend to the part of the reso lution which proposes to subiriit any questions of difference to arbitration of a third party or tribunal.
And thus it is perfectly apparent that the character of the ques tions which may be involved can not be urged as an objection to that part of the pending resolution which advises negotiation be tween the United States and Colombia for the purpose of accom plishing an agreement between them and a peaceful settlement based on snch agreement. Senators who oppose that feature of the resolution will have to seek for some other ground on which to base their objections.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. If the Senator will allow me Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. FAIRBANKS. It appears by the note of the Secretary of State to General Reyes of the 5th instant Mr. BACON. I am coming to the discussion of that, if the Sen ator will permit me.
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Mr. FAIRBANKS. Indicates that the questions they proposed for submission to The Hague tribunal were political in their na ture.
Mr. BACON. I am coming to that; but I hope the Senator will keep in mind the suggestion which I have just made that, while the exclusion of a question o_f that kind, might properly be made from any agreement providing for arbitration, there is no kind of difference that one party can not honorably talk to another about and settle by a satisfactory agreement between them.
Mr. SPOONER. Will tho Senator allow me to ask him a ques tion?
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. Not for debate. Mr. BACON. I am willing to yield to the Senator. Mr, SPOONER. While the Senator is expressing his willing ness to accept a modification of the language of the resolution Mr. BACON. Anything which preserves the principle of arbi tration or conciliatory agreement. Mr. SPOONER. I want to ask him if he would not be willing to strike out all after the word " Resolved" in the resolution Mr. BACON. No. Mr. SPOONER. And insert: " The approval of the Senate or of Congress, to the tender by the Secretary of State or by the President to Colombia of the good offices of the United States to adjust all matters of difference between the Republic of Panama sanhdipth"e Republic of Colombia, to the end that good fellow Mr. BACON. I will come later to a discussion of that particu lar question Mr. SPOONER. The Senator is not willing to accept that amendment? Mr. BACON. I will come to a discussion of that particular amendment before I get through, but I prefer to do it in a regu lar way, and if I fail to remember it, I hope the Senator from Wisconsin will call my attention to it. Mr. SPOONEJR. I had no thought of discussion, but only asked the Senator a question. Mr. BACON. Yes; but if I do not answer the qiiestion before I get through I hopa the Senator will do me the kindness to call my attention to it, because, if I fail to do so. it will be through inadvertence. lamcomingto that particular discussion, but that is behind this. I am now on the discussion of the vital question in the case: Whether, in view of their plighted faith, their un numbered asssverations, their league and covenant, existing con ditions do not make such a case as calls upon the United States for an attempted agreement for the settlement of any differences between the United States and Colombia, and whether, if such effort at agreement fails, the existing conditions do not, under their unnumbered professions and promises, demand of the United States an agreement for the settlement of these differences by arbitration. Mr. President, before proceeding with that discussion and ad verting to the particular phraseology of the resolution, and with out stopping further to analyze it, I wish to again say that if the language of this resolution is susceptible of the construction which the Senator put upon it, to wit, that it assxirnes liability on the
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rt of the United States Government, I am willing that the guage to that extent shall be changed. Not only so, but I am ling that any recognition on the part of the United States Government shall be expressly negatived, just as it was in the case of the Washington treaty at the time when Great Britain entered into .a treaty with the United States Government in 1871 or 1873 for submission to a tribunal at Geneva for the adjudica tion of claims of the latter against the former. There was an ex press denial by Great Britain of any recognition of liability, and there is no impropriety in the insertion of such words here if de sired. There would certainly then be no possibility of the con struction to which the honorable Senator from Indiana thinks the resolution is open. I do not, however, wish to bo misunderstood relative to this matter. I think the resolution is all right as it stands and that it is not legitimately subject to the criticism made upon it. Never theless I am willing to the change suggested if that will secure the support of Senators on the other side. If, however, such changes will not secure the support of Senators, I prefer that the resolution shall stand as it now is. I come now to the question -as to what is the nature of the dif ference between the United States and Colombia for the purpose of seeing whether or not such difference is of a kind that this Government in the first place could recognize as a difference on account of which it could treat, not for the purpose of arbitra tion, but for the purpose of agreement with Colombia. And first I submit this proposition as a sound one, that it mat ters not what the differences are or what their nature may be, those differences can be legitimately the subject-matter of conconciliatory negotiations between the parties with a view to agree ment, because thai; such negotiations do not submit the determi nation of any question to a third party, which the Government might not be willing to have anybody else decide for it. It keeps that decision to itself when it does not provide for sttbitration by a third party as to those particular questions. When the Government says, "I will treat with you, I will con fer with you, I will negotiate with you as to this, that, or the other question," the Government reserves to itself the power to agree or not to agree to any proposition which the other side may make. Consequently there is no danger that its honor may be in the keeping of s_omebody else and that a question affecting its honor, may be decided adversely by some one else. When it comes to the question of submission to arbitration, then the cas^xrcsented is different, and it is important to see whether or noTthe difference and the claim based thereon are of the class which can properly be submitted by the Government to the determination of some other party. Mr. President, when this question was before the Senate for discussion upon a former occasion, we had had no communication which indicated what was the character of the claim made by Colombia and what was the character of the issue which the United States Government made upon those claims. We were limited in that consideration simply to the information which we gathered from the public nress and from the utterances of parties in an unofficial way by which the public could gather conclusions as to what were the distinct matters in controversy. We knew the fact that Colombia had a representative here; we knew the fact that that representative was in conference with the Secretary
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of State; and we had the general information that propositions and counter propositions or presentation of claims on the one hand and a denial of the justice and correctness of those claims on the other hand were passing between the parties; but what they were we then did not have the specific information concerning.
Since that time the President of the United States has sent a message, in which he has communicated to Congress the distinct demand made by the representative of Colombia and the distinct reply of the representative of this Government, the Secretary of State. So that we do now know what the controversy is and what the issues are. Senators on the other side, at the time the matter was heretofore before the Senate, said that they did not know I certainly did not what was the character of the demands which were made; but we do know now. Here, in,the communication sent to us by the President, is a long letter, in the first place, from the Colombian special minister (General Reyes) to Mr. Hay. which I will not stop to read in full; but on page 25 there is a distinct statement by General Beyes of the grounds of complaint a_gainst the United States Government and of the demands which he makes in consequence thereof. In the letter from General Reyes to Mr. Hay of January 6 he uses the language which I am about to read.
Whatever may be my personal opinion, I beg the Senate, before I read the language, to bear in mind that I am in no manner in this presentation asserting that any single thing that General Reyes says is correct or that any single proposition he makes is maintainable. I am simply trying to show what the controversy is, so that whatever may be the personal views of any Senator relative to the merits of the controversy he may still recognize the propriety of providing a means for the peaceful settlement of that controversy. I read it simply as his assumption, without, for the purpose of this argument, any recognition whatever of the correctness of any fact stated or any conclusion drawn; and then I propose to read the issue made thereon by Mr. Hay in his reply; and those two things join the issue. Then the_ question is pre sented whether that issue is of a character which could, in the first place, be properly dealt with by friendly negotiation without any reference to arbitration, and, in the second place, whether or not, in the absence of an agreement, it furnishes a legitimate subject-matter for arbitration under the recognized policy of this Government in that regard.
I will not read all of General Reyess contentions nor all of the claims he makes, but simply the clear-cut proposition, on page 35, of the grievances of Colombia, as he alleges them to be, against the United States. He says in his letter of January 6:
Mr. SECRETARY: I have received the note which your excellency did me the honor to address to me under date of the 30th of December last, in an swer to mine of the 29th of the same month. I transmitted it by nable to my Government and have received from it instructions to make to your excel lencys Government the following declarations:
First. That the said note of the 304th of December from your excellency is regarded by my Government as an intimation that the Colombian forces will be attacked by those of the United States on their entering the territory of Panama for the purpose of subduing the rebellion, arid that for that reason, and owing to its inability to cope with the powerful American squadron that watches over the coasts of the Isthmus of Panama, it holds the Government of the United States responsible for all damages caused to it by the loss of that national territory.
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There is the distinct statement of the claim and the grounds upon wljich it is based.
Second. That since the 8d of November last the revolution of Panama would have yielded, or would not have taken place, if the American sailora and the agents of the Panama Canal had not prevented the Colombian forces from proceeding on their march toward Panama, and that I, as commander in chief of the army of Colombia, would have succeeded in suppressing the revolution of Panama as early as the SOth of the same month if Admiral Coghlan had not notified me in an official note that he had orders from his Government to prevent the lauding of Colombian forces throughout the ter ritory of the Isthmus.
Then, on page 26, he says:
Ninth. That on the grounds above stated the Government of Colombia believes that it has been despoiled by that of the United Stiites of its rights and sovereignty on tho Isthmus of Panama, and not being possessed of the material strength sufficient to prevent this by the means of arms (although it does not forego this method, which it will use to the beat of its ability), solemnly declares to the Government of the United States:
First. That the Government of the United States is responsible to that ol Colombia for tlte dismemberment that has been made of its territory by the separation of Panama, by reason of the attitude that the said Government assumed there as soon as the revolution of the 8d of November broke out.
I repeat that, even if for the purpose of the argument that is recognized by us as an utterly-unfounded claim, it is nevertheless the claim made, and that is on the one side. Now, Mr. Hay takes issue with Q-eneral Eeyes, and makes the statement which is found on pages 33 and 24. of the same document. It is true that Mr. Hays contention is stated in a letter written prior to that time, but it is made by Secretary Hay in response to a letter previously writ ten to him by General Beyes, in which practically the same con tention was made, so that the issue is joined in that way. I only read from the subsequent letter of General Beyes to Mr. Hay, be cause he therein more concisely states the proposition than he did in the previous letter. Here is the contention of the United States on those issues:
- By the declaration of independence of the Republic of Panama a new situ ation was created. On the one hand stood the Government of Colombia invoting in the name of the treaty of 1846 the aid of this Government in its efforts to suppress the revolution; on the other hand stood the Republic of Panama that had come into being in order that the great design of that treaty might not be forever frustrated, but might be fulfilled. The Isthmus was threatened with desolation by another civil war, nor were the rights and interests of the United States alone at stake, the interests of the whole civi lized world were involved. The Republic of Panama stood for those interests; . the Government o\Colombia opposed them. Compelled to choose between thesa two alternatives, the Government of the United States, in no wise re sponsible for the situation that had arisen, did not hesitate. It recognised the independence of the Republic of Panama, and upon its judgment and action in the emergency the powers of the world have set the seal of their approval.
In recognizing the independence oil the Republic of Panama the United States necessarily assumed toward that Republic the obligations of the treaty of 1846. Intended, as the treaty was, to assure the protection of the sovereign of the Isthmus, whether the government of that sovereign ruled from Bogota or from Panama, the Republic of Panama, as the successor in sovereignty of Colombia, became entitled to the rights and subject to the obligations of tho treaty.
Mr. FAIRBANKS rose. Mr, BACON. The Senator will pardon me. I think I can an ticipate -what he wants to ask. He will let me state it before he asks anything in regard to it, if he pleases. Mr. FAIRBANKS. I will not interrupt the Senator if he is going to answer the question. Mr. BACON. I will answer straight away. If I do not, I hope the Senator will interrupt me.
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Now, if we assume for the purposes of this argument that every word that the Secretary of State says is true and that every word and conclusion drawn is correct, and if, on the other hand, we as sume for the purposes of the argument that every word that the Colombian minister says is untrue and that every conclusion that he draws is unwarranted, nevertheless these conflicting claims and contentions make the issue. As to what the issue is, in part, I apprehend that the question the Senator was about to ask me is this, Whether ornot the question of the rightof our Government to recognize another government should be submitted to arbitration?
Mr. FAIRBANKS. The Senator has anticipated the question I was going to ask.
Mr. BACON. Of course; and I most unhesitatingly say it should not be. I agree with the utterance of the Department of State that that is not a proper subject-matter of arbitration. But that is not the whole of the issue by a great deal. There is an other important issue involved here that is entitled to consider ation, and I am coming to specifics about it. Before proceeding to discuss that I will say to the Senator from Indiana that while the question of recognition, rightful or wrongful, of the inde pendence of Panama could not be deemed a proper subject-matter of negotiation for arbitration, that question could be a matter for conference and agreement between the parties. However impos sible it might be that the United States would ever concede any liability on account of such recognition, there could be no diffi culty or impropriety in treating with Colombia with the view of removing irritation and hostile feelings which have been caused thereby.
But there is another point at issue raised between the two Gov ernments by these conflicting claims and denials. On the one hand, it is contended by the Colombian minister that the United States Government has incurred a liability by reason of the fact that it prohibited, by the use of its armed forces, the Colombian Government from asserting its authority and thereby prevented Colombia from quelling rebellion. What is the reply that the Secretary of State makes to that? The Secretary of State ad mits it.
Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Admits what? Mr. BACON. Probably it will be better that I read what the Secretary of State says. The Secretary of State, in replying to the statement that Colombia has been wronged in that regard, says that when the United States had recognized the Government of Panama the treaty obligations which they had previously under taken with Colombia inured to Panama, and that instantly, as soon as the recognition was made, the Government of the United States, by reason of the obligations of that treaty, was in a posi tion where it was justified and required to use force to prevent any hostile demonstration by Colombia for the reassertion of its sovereignty in Panama, because so soon as Panama became by the recognition of the United States the sovereign of the Isthmus the obligation was instantly imposed upon the United States by tha treaty of 1846 to protect the sovereignty of Panama in the Isthmus against all the world, including Colombia herself. Mr. SPOONER. Right there let me ask, Does the Senator pro pose to submit that contention to arbitration? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will allow me to proceed. I will state what it is. I do not think any Senator can think from what I am saying that I am trying to evade the question.
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Mr. SPOONER. I do not think that. Mr. BACON. Before proceeding to answer that question I wish to state with somewhat more of elaboration what I understand from this correspondence to be the claim of the Colombian Gov ernment on the one hand and the contention of the United States in reply thereto on the other hand. The Colombian Government, through General Reyes, says that the United States, by use of their powerful squadron and by the use of their armed forces, prevented Colombia from using her forces to suppress the rebellion in Panama, and that in the absence of such intervention on the part of the United States and the pro tection thus given to the Panama revolution the rebellion would have been speedily suppressed, and that, in fact, it would never have taken place; and that by reason of such forcible action by the United States in aiding and protecting the revolutionists in Panama the Colombian Government has been despoiled by that of the United States of its rights and sovereignty on the Isthmus of Panama, and that the United States are responsible for the dis memberment of the territory of Colombia. Our Secretary of State in his reply admits that the United States protected_ the sovereignty of the Republic of Panama as against Colombia by armed force, and justifies the action under the treaty of 1846 with Colombia, or New Granada, which is the same thing. The contention of the Secretary is that whereas in the treaty of 1846 the United States guaranteed the rights of sov ereignty and property of Colombia in the Isthmus of Panama, so soon as Panama seceded and her independence was acknowledged all the rights of Colombia under that treaty inured to Panama, and that on the instant the United States became obligated by the treaty to protect the sovereignty of Panama in the entire Isth mus, even as against Colombia, with whom the treaty was origi nally made: that therefore the United States were justified in protectingnhe revolutionary government in Panama and in pre venting by armed force Colombia from using her forces in sup pressing the rebellion. The clause in the treaty of 1846 upon which the Secretary of State bases this contention is found in the thirty-fifth article, and is as follows:

And in consetiuence the United States also guarantee, in the same manner, the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada (Colombia) has and possesses over said territory.

Under that clause of the treaty of 1846 the Secretary contends that the United States were right in protecting the new Panama Republic against the effort of Colombia to suppress the rebellion which set it up. The statement made by him to this effect in the extract already quoted is as follows:

In recognizing the independence of the Republic of Panama the United

States necessarily assumed to ward that of 1848. Intended, as the treaty was, to

Republic the obligations of the treaty assure the protection of the sovereign

of the Isthmus, whether the government of that sovereign rules from Bogota

or from Panama, the Republic of Panama, as the successor in sovereignty of

Colombia, became entitled to the rights and subject to the obligations of the

treaty.

From this it is seen that Colombia claims that the United States, by forcibly preventing Colombia from suppressing the rebellion, caused the dismemberment of her territory. The United States admit the protection of the Republic of Panama as against Co lombia, and assert their duty so to do under the treaty of 1846. and thus the issue is clearly joined between the two.

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Upon this issue thus presented the question whether or not the contention of the Secretary of State is correct is a question as to the correct interpretation of the treaty of 1846.
Now, the point I am coming to is this: The Senator from Wis consin asked me whether that claim of Colombia on the one hand, and the contention of the United States on the other hand, con stitute an issue which is a proper subject-matter of arbitration. I lay down this as a proposition, that the question of the proper construction of a treaty, including the question of whether there has been wrong done in the violation of a treaty, is a question which, above all questions, is recognized as the simplest and most natural question for treaty negotiation, for agreement, if possi ble, and for submission to other parties for decision, if such agree ment can not be had. If there can be any successful dispute of that as a correct proposition I do not know where to find the basis upon which to rest the argument.
Mr. President, the Government of the United States makes no claim of any right in Colombia, makes no argument in justifica tion of anything which has been done there, which is not based on rights, duties, and posy ers under the treaty of 1846. The whole question at controversy is one which grows out of the question of the construction of that treaty. The message of the President of the United States is one which bases the action of the Govern ment of the United States upon the construction of that treaty; every argument which has been made in this Chamber in defense of what has been done has been necessarily based upon the ques tion of the construction of that treaty; every argument which assails or disputes the propriety of the action which has taken place is based on the question of the construction of that treaty, and the question of the construction of a treaty is of all questions one which is a proper subject-matter of adjudication and arrange ment either by agreement of the parties or by arbitration where such agreement can not be reached.
But in order that there maybe no mistake about this matter Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator permit me to ask him a question? for I want to get at his position. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER. What is the real dispute? Mr. BACON. I am sorry the Senator was not in the Chamber when I stated it. Mr. SPOONER. I am always sorry if I am out of the Chamber when the Senator is addressing the Senate. The Senator knows we can not be here all the time. Mr. BACON. I understand that. Mr. SPOONER. I should like, in a word, if the Senator will point out the precise basis of his observation that all that is in dispute here involves the construction of a treaty. Mr. BACON. I have just stated it. I will state to the Senator he has this document before him, and I do not want to read it over again. Mr. SPOONER. But the Senator can state to me his contention. Mr. BACON. I am endeavoring to do it. Mr. SPOONER. I know that Secretary Hay contends that ar ticle 35 of the treaty of 1846, in its obligations as well as in its
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grant, upon the independence of the Bepublic of Panama, being a local obligation, became transferred to the Republic of Panama.
Mr, BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER. And it is claimed, and I think correctly, that the corollary of that is that our corresponding correlative obliga tions that once had run to the Republic of Colombia were trans ferred to the Republic of Panama. Now, is it that dispute on that question which the Senator proposes to submit to some for eign tribunal? Mr. BACON. Not necessarily, if it can be arranged through friendly and conciliatory negotiations between the two Govern ments. Mr. SPOONER. I want to remind the Senator, if that be true, that there are three parties now, if Colombia be one, interested in that subject the United States, the Republic of Panama, and Colombia. . I should like, if I can. to get at precisely what the Senator pro poses. Mr. BACON. The Senator would get at- it very much more quickly if he would let me proceed. Mr. SPOONER. All right. I think that is true. Mr. BACON. I repeat the proposition in brief. My proposition is that these documents, contained in the communication sent to us by the President, show that there is a controversy between the United States and Colombia, and that even if for the purposes of the argument we admit that there is no sound basis for the claim of Colombia it is nevertheless a controversy, and the fact is plain that that controversy grows out of the construction of the treaty of 184C. Mr. SPOONER. If that is to become the rule, it will any day rest in the power of any government with which we have a treaty to force u0 into a position where we must submit the interpreta tion of that treaty to some foreign tribunal. If the merits of the controversy are not to be considered at all, if it is only that one party asserts it, however silly it may be, and the other denies it, and then this great principle of conciliation requires the submis sion of it to arbitration, I do not know what would become of treaties. Mr. BACON. While I do not wish to discuss the merits of the controversy, I scarcely think that the denial of the remarkable contention of the Secretary of State will be pronounced to be "silly." Without discussing that, I simply repeat the proposi tion which I think the Senator will find it very difficult to contro vert upon authority, that a controversy which, grows out of. a dispute as to the construction of a treaty and acts done under that treaty are recognized as proper matters of negotiation for arbitra tion. Now, if the Senator can produce any authority contrary to that, I should be very glad to see it. But I was about to say when the Senator interrupted me Mr. SPOONER. I beg pardon. Mr. BACON. The Senator need not beg my pardon, because he is always at liberty to interrupt me, and he knows it. I only desire, in the interest of time, when I am trying to elucidate a certain point, that the Senator will let me proceed to do it, and if I fail, at the end of my effort in that regard, I shall be more than happy to have Ma suggestion to that effect.
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The question of submission to arbitration is not the first or the main question in the resolution. It is the secondary question and the minor consideration. The main proposition and the one of greatest importance is that we will in a conciliatory spirit en deavor to agree with Colombia.
So, Mr. President, all I have said in reference to the committing of this great people and Government to the policy of arbitration is with the view of the recognition of the fundamental proposition, with which the Senator himself has already expressed his agree ment, that every word said in favor of arbitration necessarily in volves and implies the prior willingness of the governments to agree between, themselves if they can do so. If that is the block irf the way, if Senators are willing to say they are ready to adopt a resolution which shall simply advise the President that it is the sense of the Senate that there shall be negotiations opened with a view to negotiating a treaty for the settlement of all the differ ences between the two countries, without specifying what they are, I will accept that and be glad to have it done. It meets the great object that I have in view.
Sir, I have said that the purpose I had was to manifest a proper friendly spirit to this people and arrange for a peaceful settle ment of our differences, and that we should not plant ourselves upon our strength and our might and say to those people: "While you think you have been wronged we know you have not been wronged, and as we know it we do not propose even to talk to you about it, and we will not treat with you or hear your complaint." That was the attitude of some here two weeks ago when the dis cussion was had. Senators on the other side of the Chamber then waxed indignant at the bare suggestion that the United States should even entertain or consider the proposition to treat with Colombia. They scoffed at and spurned it. The great and all powerful United States were not to even discuss the matter with this weak and feeble nation. That is what I object to.
It is excellent To have a giants strength; l>ut it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.
Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEB] asks me to read the closing part of the memorial presented to the Senate in 1888 by David Dudley Field and others of the committee from New York, in which there was a specification of the class of cases which properly would be included in a treaty providing for a court of arbitration. I now read, for the purpose of my argu ment, and also in response to the request of the Senator previously made, as follows:
We beg therefore most respectfully to asi from Congress the passage of a joint resolution requesting the President to propose to the Government of Great Britain the making of a treaty between the two nations, for a limited period at least, providing in substance that in case a difference should arise between them respecting tho interpretation of any treaty
That is the first specification
which they have made or may hereafter make with each other, or any claim of either under the established law of nations, or respecting the boundary of any of their respective possessions, or respecting any wrong alleged to have been committed by either nation upon the other or its members, or any duty omitted, it shall be the earnest endeavor of both the contracting parties to accommodate the difference by conciliatory negotiation
That is the first thing, and that is what we want in this case
and that in no event shall either nation begin a war against the other without first offering to submit the difference between them to arbitrators, chosen as may be then agreed, or if there ba no different agreement, then by three ar-
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bitrators, one to foe chosen by each party and an umpire by those so chosen; it being understood, however, that arbitration as thus provided for shall not extend to any Question respecting the independence or sovereignty of either nation, its equality with other nations, its form of government, its internal affairs,1 or its continental policy.
It -will be noted that the very first dispute mentioned as fur nishing properly a subject-matter for negotiation is any difference arising " respecting the interpretation of any treaty." It is really difficult to argue concerning a proposition so self-evident as that of difference respecting the interpretation of a treaty. If such a difference is to be excluded, what possible dispute of a serious na ture between nations could be included? As reflective of Ameri can sentiment, I read to the Senate two editorial utterances of recent date which have appeared in prominent newspapers.-
The first is from the Courier-Journal, as follows:
There is nothing in the Bacon resolution which should so palpitate the Honest heart. That resolution does not eay that we shall pay Colombia for lost sovereignty over Panama. It merely proposes that we pay her if we have done her any wrong, and if we and Colombia are unable to agree whether we have done her any wrong, it leaves that, with other points on which we may differ, toarbitration. Whatis there in that which should cause clean hands to clench with rage, a clear conscience to seethe with commotion? If the Administration has not wronged Colombia, then, under the terms of the resolution, we should not have to pay Colombia.
If negotiation or arbitration should prove that no such wrong was done by the Administration, then surely the Administrations innocence of such alle gations would stand more clearly established before the world than it is by the Administrations more word of assertion and protestation. And if nego tiation or arbitration should show that we wronged Colombia, then why should we not pay her for what we have taken and propose to keep, without resorting to the Administrations roundabout and disingenuous method of paying for it by guaranteeing Panamas promises to pay.
The second is from the Independent, which, while approving of the action taken by the United States in Panama, advocates arbi tration of the differences with Colombia growing out of such action. The editorial is as follows:
Senator BACON has offered a resolution in the Senate proposing to refer to the Court of The Hague the question whether the United. States owes reparation to Colombia for damage to her done by our action in securing or protecting the independence of Panama. "We see no objection to that, for we want to make the most of arbitration, whether as a preventive to war or as a means to secure international justice but, provided that Colombia first accepts the independence of Panama. That is an accomplished fact, achieved by the people of Panama, and having our full sympathy, recog nized but not inaugurated by us. But as to this there is a sharp difference of view between Colombia and the United States.
We declare that we have done absolutely nothing that is not justified by the law of nations and the treaty of 18-tfi, while Colombia declares that we have unjustly prevented, her from maintaining her supremacy over the Isth mus, to her serious loss and injury, such as she is entitled to go to war to assert her right. This ia a question of fact and interpretation. If our officers have really done what Colombia asserts, we ought to pay damages; and if they have not done wrong, our innocence will be niade clear to the world by such a reference, and we shall be on better terms with Colombia and all South America for such a decision. Accordingly, under proper provisions, we should favor such a reference to The Hague Court of the mam question be tween Colombia and this country. Whether our officers were right or wrong, we ought to be equally ready to abide by the verdict of such an august tri bunal of .the nations.
There is to my mind no possible escape from the proposition that the controversy arises out of the construction of a treaty. We claim no right in Colombia or in Panama except under that treaty; they claim no right against us except as they claim a violation of that treaty: and, so far as the books can show, I do not think the industry of the Senator from Wisconsin or any other Senator can find anything which controverts the proposition that so far as a difference arising out of a treaty is concerned it is a

34
proper subject-matter of arbitration; but, whether a proper snbject-inatter of arbitration or not, it is in the language of this me morial a proper subject-matter for " conciliatory negotiation."
If Senators desire to meet this proposition upon grounds that they can approve, I am perfectly willing that this resolution shall be limited to the matter of conciliatory negotiations as to all dif ferences between the parties. I do not think it can possibly be subject to any criticism there, that the G-overnment would in any manner imperil its honor, or that a matter would be in nego tiation between them about which nations ought not to negotiate with each other with a view to the prevention of differences.
The Senator from Wisconsin has asked me a question, to which I will now endeavor to reply, to wit, whether or not I would be willing that the resolution should simply provide that this Gov ernment would tender its good offices for the purpose of reconcil ing any differences between Colombia and Panama. I have two answers to that. In the first place, such a resolution would not touch the question as to the differences between Colombia and the United States. However much we may deny the correctness of any position taken by Colombia, we must recognize the fact that there is a contention on her part which, even if we deny its correctness, we should in a friendly spirit endeavor to settle and arrange by conciliatory negotiation. Therefore the suggestion of the Senator from Wisconsin would not in any manner cover that phase of the case.
Another thing which I desire to say, in all respect to the Senator, is this: If a guardian held an infant in his arnls, and there was a cause of controversy between that guardian and a grown man, another grown man, relative to some property interest of that infant, the guardian might as well gay: "I will exercise my good offices to arrange amicably the differences between this baby in my arms and yourself." We know, Mr. President, that so far as Panama is concerned she is there simply to do what we say about this whole matter.
We know another thing, that if this is an accomplished revolu tion Colombia has no claim against Panama. There might be some question about prorating the preexisting debt or something of that sort, but when a country achieves its independence and its independence is an accomplished fact, the country from which it has been wrested has no claim against the country which thus achieves its independence.
What is the claim that Colombia has against Panama? None whatever except the claim of a right to sovereignty over it. Is that a matter for negotiation? Is that a matter for settlement? Here is Colombia, whatever else the balance of the world has done, denying that its sovereignty has been rightfully wrested from it. If its denial is untrue, if its sovereignty has been wrested from it, then Colombia has no claim against Panama which Panama can for a moment consider. To consider it would be to admit that her independence had not been achieved.
Did the Government of Great Britain have any claim against the thirteen colonies when they achieved their independence? What they had won by the sword left no obligation from them to the Government from which they had won it. If Panama inde pendence has been achieved, it is idle to talk about the claim of Colombia against Panama. Are we here to waste words?
Colombia contends that she has been aggrieved and damaged by the United States, and tinder the suggestion of the honorable
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Senator from Wisconsin we are to answer.that contention by say ing-to her, " We will try to settle the difference between you and Panama and make Panama comply -with the obligations that she has to you," when we know, when every man in the Senate, who is necessarily familiar with international law to that effect, knows that when Panama has achieved her independence there is no ob ligation left on the part of Panama to Colombia. And yet we are to answer the question as to whether or not there is a grievance on the part of Colombia against the United States by saying to her in that empty way, " We will try to see that whatever Panama owes you is paid," or words to that effect, when we know it does not owe her anything.
Nobody disputes the right of the Senate 4q address this commu nication to the President if it is a proper subject-matter, if the cir cumstances warrant it. It is recognized in numerous precedents that it is proper for the Senate to advise the President in advance of what it conceives to be a proper subject-matter for a treaty.
Senators contended on the 12th of January, the day when this resolution was presented and debated in the Senate, that it was improper to suggest that there should be any negotiations. That, at that time, was their opinion on the 12th. It seems on the very next day after this resolution was thus presented and debated, the 13th, however, the Secretary himself, as is shown by this com munication which has been sent here by the President, did sug gest negotiations. On page 33 of this document is the statement by Mr. Hay that he is willing to the following:
First. To submit to a plebiscite the question whether the people of the Isth mus prefer allegiance to the Republic of Panama or to the Republic of Co lombia.
Second. To submit to a special court of arbitration the settlement of those claimsof a material order which either Colombia or Panama by mutual a greement may reasonably bring forward against the other, as a consequence of facts preceding or following the declaration of independencs of Panama.
I think those submissions would be entirely ineffectual I mean they would accomplish no good; and at the same time it is a step in the direction of negotiations with Panama. If the introduc tion of this resolution on the 12th and the debate in the Sen ate on that day stimulated the Secretary to his action on the 13th, as mnch as that action fell short of the requirements of the situa tion, the resolution has nevertheless not been entirely fruitless in the initiation of negotiations between the United States and Panama.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. The offices were to be extended in order to bring about proper relations between Panama and Colombia.
Mr. BACON. Yes, I understand. But it is evident that Pan ama is only used as a buffer in a transaction to which she is not a party.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. The Secretary says:
This Government is now, as it always has been, and as I haye frequently had the honor to inform your excellency, most desirous to lend its grood offices for- the establishment of friendly relations between the Republic of Colombia and that of Panama.
Mr. BACON. I understand that, and he also suggested that the United States would be willing to submit to a court of arbi tration the settlement of claims between Colombia and Panama, which, as I have already endeavored to show, replying to the Sen ator from Wisconsin, would amount to nothing. It looks very much like the case I have just put, as an illustration, of a guardian with a baby in his arms offering his good offices to settle differ ences between another man and that baby. The only practical
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thought connected with the suggestion of the Secretary is that the United States feel constrained to make reparation to Colombia, but prefer to do it in the name of Panama. Which is the manlier, nobler method that one, or the open, frank method of negotiating directly with Colombia and coming to an agreement with her without masquerading behind little Panama?
But I want to call the attention of Senators to the statement of the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. ALDKICH] yesterday, made in this Chamber. In speaking about this very question of the relations between Colombia and the United States, the Senator said this:
And not upon negotiations-
Speaking about the question of information to be had from the State Department or from the President
And not upon negotiations of a difficult and delicate character, perhaps, which are now going on between some of these governments in regard to matters which have grown up since the treaty was negotiated.
Mr. FAIRBANKS. From what page of the RECORD does the Senator read?
Mr. BACON. Page 1406. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. The Senator from Rhode Island is absent from the Chamber. If he were here, I do not think he would admit that he stated upon his knowledge that negotiations were now rjending. Mr. BACON, No; he said "perhaps." Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Yes. Mr. BACON". He said " perhaps." I have read his language. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. It was by way of illustration, as I understood it. Mr. BACON. Of course those of us who are not on the inner circle have not definite information, and it is to be regretted that we are now told by some who are on the inner circle that he did not mean what we understood him to mean. I repeat what I said upon a former occasion that I recognize as a concluded fact the revolution in Panama, and that it is not going to be undone. I want to add to that another fact which I recognize as an undoubted one, and that is that there is to be no more controversy as to where the canal is to be dug. I recognize that it is going to be built at Panama. These are two recognized facts, to my mind, and out of them there grows to me this conclusion: That viewed from a selfish standpoint there is no more important duty resting upon the Gov ernment of the United States now than to remove whatever cause of friction or of ill feeling there maybe between the Government of the United States and the Government of Colombia; and I think that being an accomplished fact, the revolution being an accomplished fact, the Government of Colombia having no pos sible opportunity in the future to be recompensed for whatever it may claim to have suffered by any restoration of this territory, the only possibility being that she may be recompensed in some other way, I am strongly of the opinion that the very best invest ment we could make in connection with this matter would be a liberal concession to that country which would remove the pres ent feeling of hostility and make those people our friends in the future. There is one feature of this controversy about which there can be a conciliatory negotiation without compromising any honor or any suggestion of it, and that is this: There is no question about
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the fact that Colombia denies the loss of her sovereignty in Pan ama: that she denies the independence of that country. In other words, that she still claims it as a part of her territory, and will again subject it to her authority if she can ever do so.
We, on the other hand, say that the title of Panama to her in dependence is complete; but nevertheless there is the claim of Colombia, out of which controversy -will grow and future difflculty will grow. Is there any dishonor in our negotiating with Colombia that she shall make a quitclaim to that title? I would be willing to pay to Colombia ten times as much as I think her claim is worth, or a hundred times, if you please, if thereby peace is going to be had between Colombia and the United States.
It matters not that it may be, as suggested by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. PLATT] the other day, that there is no danger of an outbreak of war.
If there are hostile relations between that country and this country, we are necessarily committed for an indefinite time to a condition of predatory or guerrilla warfare, if no other. We are thereby necessarily put into a position where we must maintain a suitable army there. We are necessarily put in a position where even though there is no open declaration of war we will have to protect that property against the predatory bands of an unfriendly people and protect those who are there engaged either in the con struction of the canal or its operation, and what that will cost will outweigh a dozen times the amount of money that we would pay to that country and thereby get friendly relations between us. And, sir, this condition of hostility with the Colombian people will not only cost us treasure; it will during long-continued years cost us the lives of our soldiers, officers, and men lives compared with the value of which tho money necessary to make these people again our friends is as dust in the balance.
Mr. President, another suggestion. I have no doubt that the time is coming in what way or when, I do not know when tha United States Government is going to secure the possession of that Isthmus and own it. When that comes I do not wish that Colombia shall have this unsettled claim with which to harass us. If we are to construct the canal successfully and without un due cost and without the loss unnecessarily of life and treasure, it is important that we should have the friendship of that people.
If we are to operate the canal and protect it successfully there after, without undue cost and sacrifice, it is necessary that wo should have their friendship and cooperation, and the only way to have their friendship is to agree with them, by the way, before it is too late. We should, as his constitutional advisers, say to the President: "We advise that there shall be such conciliatory negotiations between this country and Colombia as will bring about, as soon as practicable_, a friendly condition of affairs.
Mr. President, another thing. Does any man doubt that even if that country is
Mr. SPOONER. That is a very different thing from your reso lution.
Mr. BACON. No; it is not. The first part of the resolution refers exclusively to negotiations looking to an agreement be tween the two nations and will include all kinds and subjects of friendly and conciliatory negotiations.
Mr. SPOONEB. But, Mr. President, if I may take just a mo ment, the first part of the resolution refers to the negotiation of a treaty. I never heard before of the Senate advising the President
5783

38
to negotiate a treaty for ratification by the Senate unless the Sen ate was of opinion that there was some substantial and honest difference whereby we became equitably indebted or beholden to the other government.
Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, exactly the op posite of that was the case on the part of Great Britain in the Washington treaty. The United States claimed that the Govern ment of Great Britain was indebted to citizens of the United Spates by reason of the fact that the Government of G;eat Britain had not restrained war vessels which were to be used by ths Confederate, government from departing from their ports; that by reason of that neglect on the part of Great Britain those vessels did depart from their ports and preyed upon the com merce of the United States, and that therefore the British Gov ernment was under liability and obligation to make good the losses.
Now, when it came to the negotiation of that treaty, the Brit ish Government, while it agreed to the treaty for arbitration, ex pressly said in the body of the treaty that it did not recognize that there was any liability on its part. So that is a case exactly in point with the suggestion of the honorable Senator and fully answers his criticism.
It is entirely competent, if there is a controversy between two nations, for a nation which utterly disowns and disavow_s any lia bility to say: " For the purpose of the settlement of this contro versy, wherein we deny our liability, we will enter into a treaty with you looking to its determination and settlement in some way, either by conciliatory negotiation or by arbitration." In every case the controversy is due to the fact that one party makes a claim which is denied by the other party. That makes the is sue, and it is the existence of that issue which calls for adjudica tion by arbitration. So the Senator, I think, is entirely wrong in that contention.
Another 1 bought cot unworthy of our consideration, Mr. Presi dent, is that even if Colombia is too feeble to go to war with us, even if she recognizes her feebleness to the extent that she makes no declaration of war and attempts to wage no war, the very fact that she permits the accomplishment of the revolution in Panama without an attempt to prevent it will certainly throw that coun try into the throes of civil war.
Mr. President, in view of all our professions concerning our care and regard for the American republics, are we under no moral obligation, in the presence of such a situation as that? Are we under no moral obligation even to treat with a country with a view to arriving at some agreement which will soothe their wounded and angry pride and which will prevent these internal commotions among her people?
I confess, sir, that there was pity( stirred within me when I read the extract from the letter of General Keyes to Secretary Hay of December 23, 1903, which is found on page 9 of the communi cation sent in to us by the President of the United States. It is as follows:
Sad indeed is the fate of my country, condemned at times to suffer calam ities from its own revolutions and at others to witness the unexpected attacks of a powerful but friendly State, which for the first time breaks its honored traditions of respect for right especially the right of the weak to deliver us pitilessly to the unhappy hazards of fortune.
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39
Then another thing, Mr. President, we have American citizens in that country who own property, and they are jeopardized by this1 condition..
I have a letter now from a citizen in my own town, whoso brother resides in Colombia. This brother, whose business and property are in the interior of that country, has gone to Carta gena because he is afraid to stay in the interior. He writes to his brother that he fears and apprehends the loss of all his prop erty on account of the -unfriendly nature of the feelings of the people of that country to the people of the United States, growing out of this proposition. This is doubtless only one of many sim ilar instances.
I am, sir, willing for one, and I believe the American people are willing, that we should deal liberally with the Colombians, because, I repeat, what are a few paltry millions to this great Government compared with the great advantage to this Govern ment of making a friendly, satisfactory arrangement with that people?
I have heard it said I do not know whether truly or not, I do not pretend to say now that it is true, but it is repeated around that the Government of Colombia has proposed to the United States that it will be entirely satisfied, that it will produce a res toration of good feeling, that it will surrender all claims on Pan ama and on the canal if this Government will devote 10,000,000 to the building of a railroad from a point on that canal to the city of Bogota.
I do not know whether there is a particle of foundation in that report, but if there is I do not think there is anything which this Government could do which would b3 more to the interest of the Government in connection with that enterprise than to do it, for two reasons,
In the first place, it would bring about that condition of friendly feeling which is so important, and, in the second place, it would really very largely add to the value of the canal when constructed to have such a railroad leading into a country filled with minerals and especially abounding in the coal which will be needed by the ships traversing the canal.
Mr. President, why should we hesitate or delay in inaugurating these negotiations for a settlement so consonant with justice and with our professions of a century and so important to our future interests? Delay is fruitful of evil. Each day adds to the ill feel ing of the Colombians. The seeds of popular prejudice and hate, when they once germinate in a national soil, are most difficult of eradication.
Do we delay because the great United States are too proud, too vainglorious, to offer conciliation to a feeble people powerless to cope with it? I am sure, sir, that this is not the wish of the American people, but that, on the contrary, it is their wish that examination be made and that whatever is due to Colombia from us shall be paid in libaral measure.
6788
o

Panama Canal Treaty.

______________

_

REMARKS

AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEOBGIA, . IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Tuesday, February .S3, 1904.
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: I desire to say a very few words. Without any special order of the Senate, and by what may be termed a general tacit agreement, there has been by Senators a discussion in the open Senate of the pending Panama treaty, and Senators have on the one side and the other stated the reasons why they will vote for or against the ratificaton of the treaty. As this is my last opportunity, I desire to avail myself of the privilege which has thus been exercised by Senators to state how I shall vote upon the treaty and to give my reason for it, for I have but one reason. I shall not enter into a discussion of any of the questions in volved, and my only reason in now making any statement is that I do not desire to be misconstrued or misunderstood on account of the vote which I shall cast. I desire that it shall be understood what I intend by my vote, and I still more desire that there shall not be implied by that vote anything I do not intend shall be im plied. It is not necessary at this time, Mr. President, that I should state what are my views or my opinions relative to recent occur rences upon the Isthmus of Panama further than to say that so far as those occurrences embrace actions which are alleged on the part of the United States, I entirely disapprove of them. It is a very much mooted question, and has been for many years, whether a Senator in casting his vote upon any measure should be guided by the wishes of the people of his State or whether he should be controlled by his own judgment. There are very_ strong arguments which have been urged upon either side of this ques tion. There are those who think that a Senator should be so guided, and there are others who contend that he should not be; and, as I said, very strong arguments can be adduced and have been adduced in support of either the one or the other proposition. Of course one necessarily has to consider a question of that kind in the course of his Senatorial service; and it has been a matter of thought to me in the past. As the consequence of the reflection which I have gjiven to it I have heretofore come to the con clusion, which I still entertain, that it is the duty of a Senator to be guided by the wish of the people of his State when their wish is indicated in a manner not to leave him in doubt as to what it is. In my capacity as a Senator I stand as a representa tive, and I conceive it to be my duty as such, generally speaking,
5894

where no constitutional question is involved, to vote in accord ance with the known wish of the people of my State upon any question of such importance, or where there has been such inter est aroused in it as to elicit from the people an expression which leaves no doubt as to their wish.
And, Mr. President, I think that this is very much more so in a case where the measure is one of large scope and where it nat urally involves in a vast degree the material interests of the people.
In this particular case I desire to say that, regardless of my own personal views in the matter, after the most careful inquiry by my colleague [Mr. CLAY] and myself, and through sources of information coming to us voluntarily, there is no doubt left upon our minds that it is the wish of a large majority of the people of Georgia that we should vote for this treaty, and, in compliance with that wish and in pursuance of the duty which I conceive de volves upon me under such circumstances, I shall do so.
I want to say, however, Mr. President, that while I "believe, in fact, while I am quite confident, that the majority of the people of my State desire that I shall vote for this treaty, I do not under stand by any means thatJiftiey approve of the recent occurrences on the Isthmus of Panama, so far as they involve any of the al leged actions of the United States in aiding the accomplishment of the revolution. I believe quite the contrary of that.
But, Mr. President, the people of Georgia and of the whole South have been striving for this canal for fifty years, and they are nat urally impatient of anything which they think will cause any additional delay in the beginning and prosecution of the work of building an isthmian canal.
They are of opinion that whatever injury has been done to Co lombia by the dismemberment of the territory of Colombia can not be remedied by a rejection of the treaty; and they believe that the only practical effect of a rejection of the treaty is to cause a still further delay in the beginning of the construction of the canal,
Now, sir, I know that a very great deal can be said and is said contrary to the correctness of that proposition. Without stop ping to discuss it, I only state it for the purpose of giving, as I understand, the position of those who, while they favor the rat ification of the treaty, do not approve of illegal actions by the United States in connection with the revolution upon the Isthmus of Panama. If the people of Georgia thought that the ratifica tion of the treaty involved an approval of the alleged illegal actions of the United States in connection with the revolution, as earnestly as they wish the building of the canal they would be opposed to the ratification of the treaty.
I think it proper I should further state that, while the people of my State thtnk that whatever wrong has been done to Colombia by the dismemberment of her territory can not be remedied by the rejection of this treaty, they are very decidedly of the opinion that it is the duty of the United States Government to endeavor to agree with Colombia upon a peaceful settlement of all claims and all differences which have grown out of the occurrences connected with the recent revolution in Panama; and I believe, sir, that that view is shared not only by the people of Georgia, but generally by the conservative people in the United States. I have myself been very much impressed with the strength of
5894

that view. I have been very much in sympathy with it, and I have very strongly desired to contribute what I could to the ac complishment of that end.
As is known to the Senate, I have introduced a resolution, and a. modified resolution, and I have offered an amendment to the treaty) all looking to this end. I desire, in order that these sev eral propositi6ns may appear in sequence in the EEOOBD. now to read them to the Senate. The original resolution is as follows:
Resolved, That the President be respectfully informed that the Senate . favor and advise the negotiation, with a view to its ratification, of a treaty
with the Republic of Colombia, to the end that there may be peacefully and satisfactorily determined and adjusted all differences between the United States and the Republic of Colombia growing out of the recent revolution in Panama and the consequent secession of Panama from Colombia, and the alleged aid and assistance by the land and naval power of the United States in the successful accomplishment of said revolution and secession, through the alleged forcible prevention by said land or naval forces of the assertion and maintenance by Colombia of her sovereignty and authority in Panama; and that full and complete compensation may be made by the United States to the Republic of Colombia for the loss of her sovereignty and property rights in Panama, so far as the same may be shown to be due to any act of the United States through the land or naval forces of the same.
Resolved further, That the President be respectfully informed that It it should prove to be impracticable for the United States and the Republic of Colombia to agree through a convention upon the question of the said alleged responsibility on the part of the United States, or upon the question of the amount of compensation to be made when such responsibility shall be estab lished, the Senate in that case favor and advise the negotiation, with a view to its ratification, of a treaty with the Republic of Colombia submitting to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague or to some other tribunal to be agreed upon, for impartial arbitrament and peaceful determination, all questions between the United States and the Republic of Colombia growing out of the matters herein recited.
The modified resolution, which I will read to the Senate, in tended to take the place of the original resolution, is as follows:
Resolved, ThatthePresidentberespectfullyinformedthattheSenatefavor and advise the negotiation, with a view to ite ratification, of a treaty with the Republic of Colombia, to the end that there may be peacefully and satisfac torily determined and adjusted all differences between the United States and the Republic of Colombia, with the intent of removing any cause of irritation or conflict and of restoring the cordial relations heretofore existing between the United States and Colombia, and also of securing the hearty cooperation of the Colombian people in the construction of the canal at Panama. ,
While the original resolution is satisfactory to myself, I have modified it in this way simply to meet some criticisms as to phrase ology which have been made by Senators on the other side of the Chamber. . In addition to this change of phraseology, it will be noted that in the modified resolution the provision in the original resolution .looking to a submission of the controversy to The Hague tribunal has been eliminated. I would be unwilling that it should be thought I had abandoned the contention that a submission to The Hague tribunal is a proper proceeding in case there should be a failure in the effort at peaceful agreement, but, as a reference to arbitration is a secondary proceeding only to be had when there is a failure at peaceful agreement, that provision may very well be postponed for the present, until it is seen whether there can be such peaceful agreement.
And then, I have offered to the treaty an amendment which has been made public, and which 1 will now read. The amend ment which I have offered is to the first article of the treaty. The first article is one which guarantees to Panama the sover-
6894

eignty of Panama, and to that I propose an amendment in the way of an addition, which is in these words:
Amend Article I by adding the following at the close thereof: "In consideration of the guaranty on the part of the United States of the independence of the Republic of Panama, and in further consideration of the importance to both the United States and the Republic of Panama, that there shall be peaceful and cordial relations between their Governments and peo ple, respectively, and the Government and people of Colombia, it is agreed by and between the United States and the Republic of Panama that the Govern ment of the United States, acting both for the United States and for the Re public of Panama, and in their names, shall be empowered to treat with the Republic of Colombia and agree in their behalf upon a sum of money to be paid to and received by the Republic of Colombia in full compensation for the surrender and quitclaim of any and all right of sovereignty alleged and claimed by the Republic of Colombia in, to, and over the territory embraced in the Republic of Panama, and on account of any and all concessions hereto fore granted by the Republic of Colombia to the New Panama Canal Com pany and to the Panama Railroad Company, or claimed or held by either of said companies, and on account of any and all claims and alleged rights in 9r to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and of the Panama Rail road Company or snares or other interest in the same; and also in full com pensation for any and all alleged claims of the Republic of Colombia against either the United States or the Republic of Panama on account of the recent revolution in Panama and the secession of Panama from the Republic of Co lombia, or any alleged matter or thine connected therewith. And it is fur ther agreed that the United States shall guarantee to the Government of Colombia the payment in full of the sum of money which shall be agreed upon for the said considerations."
Under the restrictions which have been observed, although there has been no order passed upon the subject, I do not think it proper that I should discuss the provisions of this proposed amend ment in the open session, and I will reserve it for the considera tion of the Senate in executive session.
I will repeat, however, that I think the approval of the resolu tions which I have offered in the Senate, and the amendment proposed to the treaty which I have just read, is shared not only by the people of Georgia, but by the thoughtful and con servative people of the United States, and I believe that as time passes the truth of that statement will become more apparent to the Senate and to the people.
It is not the desire, sir, of the thoughtful and conservative people of the United States that Colombia shall be torn and rent by the domestic revolution and anarchy which will certainly follow if the Government of Colombia lies down in supine submission and does not attempt to seek any redress for alleged wrongs, which, whether they exist or not, are believed by the people of Colombia to exist. Nor is it the wish of the conservative and thoughtful people of the United States that the Government of Colombia, in the effort to avoid that domestic disorder and anarchy, and in the effort to redress the wrongs its people believe they have suffered, shall engage in a war with the United States, however confident ^we may be of our perfect capacity to deal with that war without any material sacrifice on the part of the United States.
I do not desire to trespass further upon the time of the Senate. In order that my vote shall not be misunderstood or misconstrued, that it may not be taken to imply that which I do not wish it to imply, I deemed it proper to make these few remarks.
6894
o

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL.
COST OF ARMOR PLATE. INCREASED COST OF NAVAL EXPENDITURE ON ACCOUNT
OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Monday, March 7, 1904.
WASHINGTON. 1904.

SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. B. 12220) making ap propriations for the naval service for the fiscal year ending June 30,1905, and for other purposes-

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: There are two or three things which I desire

to have noted before we pass from the consideration of this bill.

I will not enter into any general discussion of the Philippine

question, which has indirectly been brought into consideration

by reason of its influence upon the appropriations for the naval establishment, but I very much hope that the anticipations of the

junior Senator from Colorado [Mr. PATTERSON] may not~ be re

alized. I trust that the time will come when, for one reason or

another, the United States will cease to exercise sovereignty in

the Philippine Islands. I am impelled to that hope by two very

different reasons. I hope in the course of time the conscience,

if I may so speak, of the American people will urge them to a

course which I think is the proper course the granting of self-

government to the people of the Philippine Islands.

I think possibly a stronger reason will be that the time may

not be far distant when the American people will come to a real

ization of the fact that the retention of the Philippine Islands is

not a paying investment from the standpoint of dollars and cents,

and I think that this debate and the disclosure of the enormous

money expenditure which we have made and must contwrtie to

make on their account will have some influence in arousing pub

lic attention to the question whether or not it is a paying invest

ment, the more particularly when experience shows, as it surely

will, that no commerce which it is possible for us to have with

those islands can ever amount to as much, or even nearly as much,

as they will cost us every year. But I can not stop to elaborate and demonstrate that now, as easily as I think it can be done to

the satisfaction of any unprejudiced and impartial person.

Mr. PATTERSON. Mr. President, just one word, if it will not

interrupt the Senator.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Colorado?

Mr. BACON. Yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. I want to say, Mr. President, that I share

in the hope of the Senator from Georgia that the conscience of

the American people will be so aroused as that what I have sug gested shall not in fact occur, but I fear and believe to the con

trary.

Mr. BACON. The Senator will note that my hope is based upon

both the conscience and the interest of the people of the United

States, and I strongly hope that the former may be greatly qtiick-

ened by the latter.

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3

I was about to say, Mr. President, when the Senator asked leave to interrupt me, that I hope this debate will arouse to some extent the attention of the people of the United States and contribute to the conviction of the unprofitableness of the Philippines as an in vestment, and I think the statement of the Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE] , the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, with reference to the influence which the retention of the Philip pine Islands has upon the magnitude of naval expenditures, is a most important contribution to the information which it is neces sary that the people of the United States should have upon this subject,
I very much regret that the very interesting and instructive speech of the Senator from Maine has not yet appeared in the RECORD, and fox this reason I am compelled to refer to it simply from memory of some important statements made by him.
Mr. HALE. I will say to the Senator that I felt very mortified myself when I came to look at the notes to find how long my speech was. It was a longer speech than I ever before made in the Senate, and much longer than I ever shall make hereafter. It was so covered by interruptions, which were pertinent and just, and so many tables had to be adjusted, that I never got any opportunity as I have been managing this bill to look at it un til yesterday. That is the reason it has not been published.
Mr. BACON. I am simply expressing my regret, because it was an exceedingly interesting speech and I should have been very glad to have looked it over carefully in print; but as I have not had as yet that opportunity, I will state, if I remember cor rectly, that the Senator from Maine, in resr-onse to an inquiry made by myself in a colloquy which he kindly permitted while he was on the floor, stated the fact that it was the retention of the Philippine Islands the fact that because we were in posses sion of the Philippine Islands, and in conseqiience that there de volved upon us the duty and necessity of defending them and of being prepared for their defense that that fact alone created the necessity now for an increase in the Navy. In other words, that but for the necessities and duties imposed upon us by the posses sion of the Philippines, our present Navy, as completed and under construction, would be adequate for our needs, and that the vast expenditure which we must make in continuing to increase our Navy must be charged up to the account of our possession of the Philippines. I say that is a most important contribution, Mr. President, to the question whether the Philippines are or can be a paying investment on the part of the United States, and one about the correctness of which there can be, I presume, no pos sible doubt. To that great annual expense, not only in building but maintaining a great navy, must be added an annual expense, even as now reduced, of not less than $30,000,000 on account of the army we maintain in the Philippines, to say nothing of at least $500,000,000 we have already expended to maintain our sov ereignty over them.
I do not propose to pursue the question which has been dis cussed here, it is true, only partially, but still with very much interest, as to the attitude which the people of this country will bear toward the Philippine Islands. I wish, however, to put in the BECORD in this connection what I consider to be a very valu able expression relative thereto which was recently made by the distinguished senior Senator from Vermont [Mr. PROCTOR]. I
6893

will premise by saying that the utterance of tlie Senator, which I ain about to read, and also thatwhich has fallen to-day from the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEB] , have inspired me with renewed hope that we are not always to continue upon a policy "which I conceive to be inconsistent with the traditions and principles of our Government, and which. I arn thoroughly con vinced, will not prove to our advantage from a commercial, po litical, social, or military standpoint. The Washington Post of October 13, 1903, contained an extract from a speech made by the Senator from Vermont at a reunion of the "Association of the Vermont Civil War Officers " in the pre ceding week which I am very glad to have the opportunity now to read, in order that it may go into the RECORD as a most im portant contribution to the thought of the country at this time and, as I think, a very high tribute to the Senator who uttered it. I would particularly ask that the reasons for the faith of the Sen ator be marked, and I will particularly emphasize the fact that the reasons which he gives are equally as gratifying to me as the conclusions to which he comes.
The speech, the extract from which is found in this excerpt from the Washington Post, is as follows:
The government of a people or a country by another people or country not contiguous is, at the best, experimental and temporary. Such a condition may last & long time, but it can not be permanent, with training and de velopment it is the God-given human nature of all people to wish to govern themselves and not owe allegiance across a sea. We snail make some mis takes, for we are human; but I believe we shall so carry ourselves that the world will be better for our having assumed these colonial responsibilities.
"Go slow " should be, and I believe will be, our policy in the new field. If I could make the future geography of the American Union I might be a little uncertain about the northern boundary whether to make it Canada or the Arctic Ocean; preferably the latter In. Gods good time. Franklin said in 1783 it must come some time, and he was a wise man. But the other Unas would be fixed east by the Atlantic, west by the Pacific, and south by the Republic of Mexico and the Gulf. And within these boundaries may the future Government of our countryremain, its executive, legislative, and ju diciary, and the voting population that makes that Government.
I alluded to the Philippine question more for the purpose of reading that extract than to express any views in connection therewith, and I shall not pursue it further. When two such leaders as the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Wis consin express such views, I refuse to abandon the hope that the day is not far distant when we shall surrender to the Filipinos their sovereignty over their land, and that both on their account and our own as well.
Mr. President, I wish to say a word about the provision in this bill for the purchase of armor plate. I will premise what I have to say by reading the provision in the bill, which is the last one found in it:
Armor and armament: Toward the armament and armor of domestic manufacture for the vessels authorized, $12,000,000.
The Secretary of the Navy is hereby authorized to procure by contract armor of the best quality for any or all vessels herein authorized at such price as in his judgment is just and reasonable.
Mr. ALLISON. Herein authorized? Mr. BACON. " Herein authorized." I will read it again. Mr. HALE. The appropriation precedes. Mr. BACON. The appropriation of $12,000,000 for armor and armament precedes. The words "herein authorized" do not occur there; but in the subsequent clause of the sentence in the
6893

same paragraph the words " herein authorized " do occur, which relate exclusively to the contract to be made for armor:
The Secretary of the Navy is hereby authorized to procure by contract armor of the beat quality for any or all vessels herein authorized, at such price as in his judgment is just and reasonable.
Mr. President, I have no hope, in anything I may say, to affect the action of the Senate upon this provision; but I have two pur poses in view in calling the attention of the Senate to it. One is it is possible that the knowledge of the fact that there is at least still some attention paid to the question, that there are still some protesting, may have some influence upon these armor-plate fac tories in the pi-ices which they shall fix and exact from the Gov ernment, because at last that is what it means. They fix and ex act what they please. There may be some benefit in calling at tention to it, while, of course, there will be none as to any influence upon the vote of the Senate.
The other consideration which moves me to say anything on the subject is to call the attention of the Senate and the country to the fact that after one of the most determined contests Congress has ever made with any of those who have contractual relations with the Government, extending over a period of eight years, there has been on the part of Congress the most perfect and complete and unmitigated surrender of its contention.
In 1895 and 1896 I had the honor and the very great pleasure to serve upon the Naval Committee, of which at that time the pres ent chairman was a most honored member. Although then not its chairman, he was the ranting member next to the chairman, who was Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania. At that time the at tention of the country and of Congress was aroused to what was conceived to be the enormous extortion of the armor-plate manu facturers in dealing with the Government, and thereupon the Naval Committee was instructed by the Senate to make investi gation as to whether the armor-plate factories were dealing in good faith and in a good spirit with the United States Govern ment.
A protracted hearing was had before the committee, at all the sittings of which I was present, I think, without exception. There were examined a number of witnesses, naval officers, the former Secretary of the Navy, and the then Secretary of the Navy, and the armor manufacturers themselves, the owners of these great establishments, including Mr. Carnegie in person and the head of the Bethlehem factory, whose name I now do not remember. The testimony taken in that investigation is in print and makes a volume probably one-third, if not a half, the thick ness of that [exhibiting a copy of the annual report of Secretary of the Navy with accompanying documents], in which the whole thing is gone through with most thoroughly.
Prior to that time the then Secretary of the Navy, who was Mr. Herbert, had himself instituted an investigation in which he sought the information to be had through experts, including naval officers and those engaged in the manufacture of armor plate, and he had come to the conclusion, if my memory is not inaccurate, and if it is the Senator from Maine will, I am sure, correct me, that after allowing to the armor-plate manufacturers the most liberal profit, $800 per ton was a proper estimate of the amount which should be paid by the United States Government for the armor. If I recollect aright, 50 per cent profit upon the cost as
5893

it was then ascertained was allowed to these manufacturers, and in the cost was included interest on the investment and a most liberal allowance for animal depreciation of the plant. The com mittee came to the conclusion that $300 was a proper price, and in the next appropriation bill inserted snch a provision.
While I have the data here before me, I am endeavoring to state it from memory to avoid the unnecessary consumption of time. Lmay not. state it correctly, and if I am incorrect I know the Sen ator from Maine, who is entirely familiar with it, will correct me. If I recollect-aright, in the next appropriation bill Congress stood upon the recommendation of the Naval Committee, in which it said that $300 was a liberal provision, and it stipulated that in the contracts for armor that amount should not be exceeded. Ac cording to my recollection the armor-plate manufacturers refused to make any contracts at that price, and in the next Congress, in order that the ships, the hulls of which had been constructed, might not be unduly delayed, while there was no recession from the position taken by Congress as to what was a proper compensa tion for this armor, Congress authorized $400 per ton. It conceded that because compelled to do so, still contending, however, that $300 was a proper amount.
If I am not mistaken, in that debate, either that or the next year, the Senator from Maine himself, while taking a most conserv ative attitude throughout the debate, which will be remembered by all who were then here, said that these armor-plate manufac turers had taken advantage of the Government, and that as soon as they had, at the invitation of the Government, constructed these plants the Government was in their power. To use the lan guage of the Senator, "they had proceeded to put the knife into us."
The extra $100 was allowed that year as a concession rather than that the ship should rot upon the stays, because we were abso lutely at the mercy of these armor manufacturers. There was no other establisement in the country which could make the armor plate, and although, as shown in the testimony, and as conceded in that debate, and prior to that time, the amounts which they had received from the United States Government had not only paid them a profit, but had returned to them every dollar they had invested in the construction of these plants, although all that was conceded to be so in that debate and stated to be so by Mr. Her bert in his report, they still stood upon the vantage ground which they occupied, that their price must be paid or these ships should rust and rot upon the stays.
Mr. President, I am only stating this for the purpose of show ing the struggle we have been through, and I am coining to the point where it will be seen how perfectly and if I did not fear the term might be taken offensively, I would say abjectly Con gress has surrendered in this contest and given up the fight.
After various contests had been waged in this Chamber with the utmost earnestness and determination, in 1900 Congress finally came to the conclusion that if the armor-plate manufac turers would not come to terms and if they would not be reason able the Government would erect a factory; and in that year this provision was put into the bill which passed June 7,1900, which, I say, was the culmination of the fight.
There is where we came to what we said should be the parting of the ways. There is where we took our stand and said we are

8
not going to be dominated by this ijreat monopolistic concern, and I do not use the word monopolistic in any offensive or abusive sense. I mean simply to express a fact that they did have an ab solute, unquestioned monopoly, and that they exacted their own terms from us. In the act of June 7,1900, there is this provision:
That the Secretary of the Navy is hereby authorized to procure by con tract armor of the best quality lor any or all vessels above referred to, pro vided such contracts can be made at a price which in his judgment is reason able and equitable
That was not a radical condition; that was conservative but in case he is unable to make contracts tor armor under the above con ditions
That is, at a price which is reasonable and equitable he is hereby authorized and directed to procure a site for and to erect thereon a factory for the manufacture of armor, and the sum of $4,000,000 is hereby appropriated toward the erection of said factory.
Now, Mr. President, I say that is the last stand we have ever made, and that thereafter we have absolutely, without condition, submitted to the exaction of the armor-plate factories.
The fact to which I wish to call the particular attention of the Senate is that, although less than at one time charged, we are now paying the prices which were the cause of the great struggle that the Senate made, and we are now paying the prices which were the cause of the insertion in the appropriation act of 1900 of that provision. In other words, we thought those prices were then such that they were an imposition upon the Government, and that on account of them, in order that the Government might be freed from such imposition, we would make a provision for the con struction of a factory at the cost of $4,000,000, and with the same prices to-day we have not in the bill any provision under which the Secretary of the Navy would be justified in not contracting for armor at any price which they might seek to impose.
There is nothing in the bill which would authorize the Secre tary to refuse to contract for the armor even if the prices exacted were not in his opinion "reasonable and just." There is no con dition and no recourse to anjr precautions for the future protec tion of the Government even in case the Secretary should think or Congress conclude that the prices exacted were unreasonable and extortionate. At one former stage in the struggle we did provide a precaution for the protection of the Government in case armor could not be obtained at a reasonable and just price, and in since failing to do so it is an utter, unconditional, abject surrender of the contest which the Senate and the House waged in a most determined manner for five or six years. It was a ques tion who should yield whether the United States Government should yield and submit to extortionate prices or whether those who made the armor plate in their factories should themselves yield and make it at reasonable prices. We proposed then to force them to reasonable prices by ourselves constructing the fac tory and making our own armor plate; and when we held up the threat to them and they would not comply with our demands, we have absolutely abandoned the contest and without condition we have surrendered at discretion.
Mr. ALLISON. Has the Senator any data which shows the price now paid for armor?
Mr. BACON. Yes, sir; I have it here. Mr. ALLISON. I would be glad to have the Senator state it. Mr. BACON. I shall be very glad to state it. I have no in
5393

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- formation except that which is contained in the report of the Secretary of the Navy. I will state to the Senate before reading this that the price which was stipulated by the Government as that which would be satisfactory to it in the year preceding the . year when we put that provision in the appropriation act was $800.
The act-of March 3, 1899, stipulated $300 as a proper price, and they/would not furnish it. Then when we came to make the ap propriation act of June 7,1900, while we would not say that they should furnish it at $300 or we would erect a plant, we did say that it must be at a reasonable rate or we would erect a plant. The plain inference was that Congress regarded something in the neighborhood of $300 as a reasonable price; certainly something between that and $400. Senators will remember that at the very next session of Congress we tried again to put in a similar provi sion. In 1901 we tried again to put a similar provision in the naval appropriation act, and the contention of those who defended the makers of the armor was that this matter should betaken out from the control of Congress; that we should no longer discuss this question; that we should no longer, in appropriating these vast amounts, seek to determine and control the prices to be paid for armor, but that we should leave it absolutely to the Depart ment to determine, and that has been the direction given to it from that day to this.
Congress has ceased to talk about it, has ceased to make any effort about it, and after having for years made the struggle, after having gotten up to the point where we absolutely appro priated $4,000,000 for the construction of a plant, we have since that time absolutely abandoned the effort to control this matter; and this bill does not even say that the Secretary of the Navy shall only make contracts which shall be " reasonable and just, but gives him unlimited power to make contracts, when we know the fact that at last it will be a question how much will these fac tories exact and extort from the Government of the United States, and that whatever they say in that regard we have got to comply with.
Mr. President, I recollect that in that debate it was urged, and I think very truly, that if we put up this plant and were in a po sition where we could make armor it would be a paying invest ment if we never made a pound of armor.
Mr. SPOONEB. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a ques tion?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator stated a few moments ago that we are paying now the price we were paying in 1900 when we in corporated this provision in the law. Does the Senator remember what the rate is? Mr. BACON. I think it was $400 when we incorporated it, if I am not mistaken. Mr. SPOONER. What is it now? Mr. BACON. Four hundred dollars and royalties (at least it is so stated here), bringing it up in the neighborhood of $458, the present price. I will ask the Senator from Maine if he can give us the information? Mr. HALE. It is $398 now. Mr. PATTERSON. Oh, no. Mr. BACON. It is not so stated in this book. Mr. PATTERSON. That was the contract for 6,000 tons with

10
the Midvale Steel Company. At the same time that they let the contract to the Midvale Company they made a contract for 10,000 tons with the Bethlehem and Carnegie Steel Company for $458 per ton.
Mr. HALE. I was giving the lowest bid. Mr. PATTERSON. That was the lowest bid. The Midvale Company bid for all of it at $398 and it only got 6,000 tons, while the other two companies got 10,000 tons at $458. Mr. PERKINS. If the Senator from Colorado will permit me, I will state that our present contract, exclusive of royalty, for the Krupp plate, is $420. The royalty is $88.07, making $453. For the harveyized it is 400, the Government paying the royalty. The Midvale Company say they will pay the royalty themselves. Our GQvemm ent Mr. PATTERSON. They will pay the royalty, at $398 a ton. Mr. PERKINS. That is what they propose doing. They will undoubtedly have a lawsuit over it, and it will result in a claim being made against the Government for the royalty on the plate manufactured by the Midvale Company. I wish to state to the Senator from Georgia, because I was a member of that committee with him some five years since Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. PERKINS. We gave the subject a great deal of thought and consideration and study, and the question is to-day what is a reasonable price for this armor plate? England is paying 107, $530, a ton to her manufacturers for it. Russia purchased here a few years since, or last year, 4.000 tons of the Krupp iron plate, the same as that we have, with the same ballistic test, and she paid $545 a ton to the same works from which we are now pur chasing plate. I want my friend, while he is on his feet, to explain the great disadvantage the Government would be at in manufacturing this armor plate. It is only a certain proportion of each ingot of steel that can be vised in the manufacture of armor plato. The capacity of this $4,000,000 factory would not supply two battle ships in six years from the time we let the contract. Therefore, considering how much less we are paying for our armor plate than Great Britain or Russia or Germany, it seemed to our authorities to be reasonable and just and fair, both between the manufacturers and our Government, and for that reason they did not exercise the power delegated to them in the act of 1900 to build a 84,000,000 work. It would have required also $3,000,000 of stock to have carried it on successfully. Mr. BACON. What the Senator has said is in further illus tration of the statement I have made as to the surrender of the Senate on that subject, because my recollection is that the Sena tor from California, who was then, as he states, a member of the committee, was one of the most active members of that commit tee in the contention that the prices charged were unreasonable. Mr. PERKINS. I think so, Mr. President, and I would think so yet had I not investigated the matter thoroughly. I went to capitalists. I had a friend go to the Illinois Steel Company, who had a plant ample and sufficient for doing this work. It was pro posed informally that they would take a contract from the Gov ernment at the rate fixed; but they said, " We have no assurance as to how much we shall get hereafter. The ballistic test of this armor plate is subject to the whims of your naval officers, who
5393

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may reject it, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth be thrown aside because a flaw is detected in one of the armor plates. The best answer to my friend from Georgia is that capitalists would not build an armor-plate plant to manufacture armor plate for the Government, and therefore until we investigated it
Mr. BACON. What does the Senator mean by saying that they would not do it?
Mr. PERKINS. They declined to do it, because it did not offer them the same inducements that it did to manufacture steel rails and structural steel for buildings, bridges, and other works which require iron and steel. In other words, a manufacturer said to me, " I can make 10 per cent, aye, 20 per cent, more upon manu facturing structural steel for bridges than in manufacturing armor plate."
I dislike to interrupt the Senator, and I only interject here in justice to our naval officers, because they believe this price is reasonable and fair, and judging by what Great Britain pays for the same test, what Germany pays for the Krupn steel armor plate, and what Russia paid, our Government is doing better to day than either of those countries in price.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the question as to what is paid by other governments is not the question. They may be subjected to the same influences that we are. I suppose that when the question comes up with them they point to what we pay here for armor. So this thing is balanced first on one side and then on the other. I do not know what steel costs now
Mr. SPOONER rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me just a moment Mr. SPOONEE. I have not interrupted the Senator. Mr. BACON. I beg pardon. Go ahead. Mr. SPOONER. No; I am waiting for the Senator to finish his sentence. I only wanted to ask a question for information, when he finishes, of course. Mr. BACON. The Senator is at perfect liberty to interrupt me, and I always yield to him with pleasure. I do not remember, I was going to say, what the price of steel is now, but I remember at the time that investigation was made the steel ingot out of which the plate was made was worth $17 a ton, and that after it was put through certain processes of manipulation which, while they required ponderous machinery and of course a large invest ment, were not difficult processes, that steel which was worth $17 a ton was converted into a product for which in the neighborhood of $500 a ton was asked of the United States. Mr. SPOONER rose. Mr. BACON. Now, in that connection, if the Senator will per mit me, I will say that a ton of steel is scarcely as large as the top of one of those desks. If I recollect aright, a ton of steel con tains some four and a fraction cubic feet. Now I am willing to hear the Senator from Wisconsin. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator will allow me just a question for information. I advocated the incorporation in that law of the armor-plate-plant provision. I did not watch its operation and the effect of it. I should like to ask the Senator the rate per ton at which we secured the first armor plate after the enactment of the law which included an armor-plate-factory provision? Mr. BACON. I do not find on this table the prices quoted later than 1900, so I can not answer the Senators question. But I do

12
remember that in the very next session of Congress it was soughtto incorporate a similar provision in the appropriation bill because of the fact that we were not satisfied with the price, and I do recol lect the fact that that was most strenuously debated here, and the position was taken that it ought to be taken out from the debates of Congress; in other words, that we should give it up, that we should no longer stand here and contend as to the question whether the price was right or wrong, and that it should be turned over to the discretion of the Department. I remember that the con tention was that the question of the price of armor should be treated on a " business basis," and that" business basis " consisted in turning the matter over to the determination of a departmental officer, reserving only to Congress the great privilege of appropri ating whatever money this officer and the manufacturers agreed upon.
That view prevailed, and that was the last of it. That is what I say was the surrender. And from that day to this there has never been a condition in the appropriation; from that day to this Congress has virtually put it away from itself and said it would not consider the question, involving these millions of dollars, whether the price was right or wrong, but would leave it to the Department.
I do not see how under the phraseology of this bill the Secre tary of the Navy has any discretion whatever. He is not even vested with the discretion to take it or not as he may consider the price reasonable and just. But it is said that he must get it at prices reasonable and just. What is the effect if a price is named to him which he thinks is above that which is reasonable? Is he authorized in this bill to reject it? "We have no alternative
Mr. SPOONER. What would happen if he did reject it? Mr. BACON. Of course the ships would rust and rot on the stays. That is exactly the point I am after. I say that in malting a provision of that kind we have surrendered all possible control over the prices which shall be asked, and it is simply a question as to how much they will exact. If we had a provision here such as was in the act of 1900, then, even if we went forward and paid the prices, there would be that restricting influence which would be in the hand_s of the Secretary to bring these people to the proper figure. And if it did not have that influence we would only con tinue to submit to unreasonable prices during the time which would intervene until the Government could erect a plant to man ufacture armor. I shall vote for the amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado if I have the opportunity to do so. because I believe it should be the policy of this Government, if it did not make a pound of armor plate, to be in a position to make it if proper prices are not granted by those who now have the exclusive power and opportunity. Now, I wish to ask the Senator from Maine one question, simply for information. I do not know how to regard it. I have here a compilation of the annual naval appropriation laws from 1883 to 1903. I find in each act a certain amount appropriated, and I am unable to determine from the phraseology of these acts whether the total aggregate amount named in these various acts is the amount which has been appropriated, or whether it is true that in some instances the appropriations were not used and were cov ered back into the Treasury, and for that reason the appropriation

13

to be again made. I am unable to tell, and I should like to

know for my own information which is the case,

Mr. HALE. There may have been cases where comparatively

small amounts have been turned in, but, generally speaking, the

appropriations found in those different acts are the amounts

which have been expended in after years by the Department upon

those ships. The turning into the Treasury does not cut very

much figure.

Mr. BACON. That being the case, I wish to read in this con

nection the appropriations which we have_ made for armor. I

will state that in the last appropriation bill I think it covered

armor and armament, but in previous ones, certainly in most,

if not all, the appropriations are for armor only.

In 1897 the appropriation for armor was $3,407,500; in 1898,

$7,163,800; in 1899, $4,000,000; in 1000, $4,000,000; in 1901, $4,-

000,000; in 1902, $9,000,000; in 1903, $10,000,000, and the present bill

carries $12,000,000. I was uncertain whether those were each, inde

pendent appropriations or whether there were some appropria

tions not used, which had been covered in and again appropriated.

Mr. HALE. The large increase, and of course the Senator

sees

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Mr, BACON. I beg the Senators pardon for a moment. lam

told by the Senator from Colorado that I said the present pro

vision is for armor alone, I certainly did not mean that. It is

for armor and armor plate.

Mr. HALE. The large increase has come, as the Senator can

readily, see, from the fact that it is only within the last very few

years that we have been confronted with an exceedingly large

programme each year.

Mr. BACON. I understand that.

Mr. HALE. The appropriations next year for this kind of work

will be larger than this year, because the programme last year

was exceedingly large, and the appropriation that will be needed

to carry it out will, as I said in the remarks I made in presenting

this bill, be more the second year than the first. After that they

begin to dwindle, and if we do not keep on with a very great pro

gramme they will gradually wind themselves up, so that there

will not be these very large appropriations for continuing work.

Mr. BACON. Yes.

Mr. HALE. But that is why the figures the Senator read show

so very largely in the last two or three years.

Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly. I appreciate the fact.

Mr. President, I desire to say cue word, in reply to the Senator

from California, as to whether or not these are reasonable prices.

When I call attention to the fact that a ton of steel costing $17 is

by processes purely of manipulation of course there are some

face hardenings, etc., which might be classified otherwise, but

with that exception it is nothing in the wide world but shaping

the iron converted into a plate the size of the desk at which the

clerks sit, and the $17 of material is converted into the neighbor

hood of $500 in value, it seems to carry a great dealiwith it in the

way of conclusion as to whether or not that is a reasonable price;

but still such a presentation might be regarded as the statement

of one who knows nothing about it.

But what I wish to call attention to, in ans-wer to the Senator

from California as to whether or not this is a proper price, is the

testimony read here to-day from Mr. Cramp. Does anybody con-

14 "

tend that Mr. Cramp does not know what he is talking about?

Does anybody doubt that Mr. Cramp knows the value of this

process and whether it is true that the conversion of steel at $17

a ton into $450 or $500 steel allows a reasonable profit?

Does anybody doubt whether Mr. Cramp knows it or not? And

yet what does Mr. Cramp say; and I will put what he says against

all that may be done by other governments in payment for simi

lar armor? Mr. Cramp says that if you will let him have the

profit on the armor plate made by_ the manufacturers of armor

out of the Government he will furnish the ship at cost and charge

no profit. Who is to answer that statement; and who is to doubt,

after that statement, that the price is exorbitant and extortionate

unless yon. can convict Mr. Cramp of insincerity when he makes it?

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Mr. BACON. Of course, Mr. President, it is no answer to the argument to say that because a ton of steel worked up into watch springs is worth a fabulous sum, therefore a ton of steel the size of this de_sk, when put into different shape, is worth some twentyfive or thirty times what it was in the original shape. That is the thing that without a change in the character of the material, except as to face hardening, simply putting it into a different shape, making large plates of it, it is made by these manufacturers to increase its value from twenty-five to thirty times over. I say the proposition that because a ton of steel, when worked into watch springs, is of fabulous value, can net be used as an argu ment to sustain the proposition that the iron, when put into different shape, is worth twenty-five to thirty times as much as it was in the original shape.
As to Mr. Cramps proposition, the Senator seeks to get away from it upon the statement that if it is so profitable Mr. Cramp has the way open to him to put up a plant if he wishes to do so. That is no argument, for this reason: It takes a large amount of money, several million dollars, to build one of these plants, and

while Mr. Cramp could command that amount of money without any trouble, he does not desire to put up a plant at that cost which would simply put him into ruinous competition with some body else who, by reason of the fact that they have enjoyed a monopoly for fifteen years, have already paid for their plant and could undersell anybody and drive anybody out of the business and into bankruptcy who attempted to compete with them, but who, so long as they have no competition, can thus exact from the Government a profit of this immense amount, as stated by Mr. Cramp so great that he, a shipbuilder, knowing all about

shipbuilding, and doubtless knowing just as much about armor plate, says that if he could make the profit on the armor plate that is put upon the ship he would agree to make the ship for the Government without a cent of profit.
Mr. President, I am not, as the Senator from California might seem to imply, proposing to refuse to give this money for the armor plate. We are in a position where we are compelled to do it. But what I ani contending for is that we should get into a position where we will not be compelled to do it hereafter.
I am very much impressed, as I stated the other day, with the suggestion of the Senator from Maine that we ought, as we have to go to this immense expense in the building of war vessels, to look to the construction of ships which, while their efficiency and

fighting power shall not be impaired, shall be of less cost.

893

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Tfee Senator from Maine says that a ship of a certain class I hav> forgotten the type he mentioned can be constructed for $5,000,000, which, while it may not be so luxurious in its appoint ments, will have all the fighting qualities ol the ship which by this bill is to cost $8,000,000. I do_ hope the time is at hand, if we can not do it in this bill, -when in the future we will recognize the immense amount, the fabulous amount, that is now being ex pended upon our naval construction, and that attention will be given most closely to the suggestion of the Senator from Maine .that, so far as we can without impairing the fighting qualities, we will endeavor to decrease the cost of the ships.
There is one thing which brings to my mind a greater realiza tion of the cost of a battle ship than anything else that has been suggested. We all know the magnificent building across the Capitol grounds, the Congressional Library, upon which this Government spared not a dollar to construct the most magnificent building of the kind in the whole world. It covers four acres of ground. It is a great palace worthy of the thrice worthypurpose for which it was designed. It is a triumph of archi tecture; it is a triumph in decoration; it ia a triumph in every thing which makes it the admiration not only of this country, but of all foreigners who come here; and yet it is a fact that that magnificent building, the triumph of art, the subject of lavish and unstinted expenditure, this pride of the country, did not cost as much as one battle ship, which one ball may send to the bot tom of the ocean.
Not only so, but it did not cost as much as the battle ship con templated by the Senator from Maine the $5,000,000 battle ship for if I correctly recollect the cost of the Library it was something under $5,000,000.
Mr. CULLOM. Six million dollars. Mr. HALE. About six million. Mr. BACON. Very well. I stand corrected as to that It cer tainly did not cost as much as the battle ship provided for in this bill, by $3,000,000. We look at figures upon a paper and we see $5,000,000 and $8,000,000 and a hundred million dollars and we hardly have any realization of what it means, but there is an object lesson for all men to look at and realize that that great Library, upon which there was no stint of expenditure, did not cost within $2,000,000 of what the one battle ship provided for in this bill will cost. Mr. President, much as I regret and deprecate this enormoua expenditure, I am going to vote for this bill. I intend to vote for it because we are put in a position where we can not do other wise. If it were an .original proposition and our situation in the Far East were different, I would seek to have the bill cut down, BO far as I might have any influence to accomplish that end. But the ships which have already been provided for to meet the ne cessities growing out of our possession of the Philippines must be constructed and the armor must be provided, and the only office of any value that this debate can accomplish is not in cutting down this appropriation, but is in bringing home to the Congress and to the people of the United States the realization that we have already spent $500,000,000 for the privilege of holding the Philip pines, and that in the increased size of our Navy made necessary thereby and in the expense of Army and Navy required on account of the Philippines we are to spend from seventy-five to a hundred
5893

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millions of dollars a year, and, further, in impressing upon Con gress the great necessity of bringing future appropriations within the lowest practicable limit.
Sir, take the army bill of seventy-odd million dollars and the naval bill of ninety-odd million dollars, making about a hundred and seventy million dollars for this year, and let any Senator here calculate what is the amount of money which the people of a single State pay as their part of that enormous bill for the army and navy establishment. If I am not mistaken in the calculation, he will be safe in doubling the population of his State, and when he has doubled it he will find about the number of dollars that his State is paying toward this army bill and the navy bill. The State of Georgia and the State of Iowa each has about two and one-half millions of inhabitants. Upon this navy bill and the army bill for the year which is to follow the people of Iowa will pay about $5,000,000, and upon these same two bills for this year the people of Georgia will also pay about $5,000,000,
And a State which has 4,000,000 inhabitants will find itself pay ing about $8,000,000 of this money. And so as to the people of other States according to population. Federal taxation is paid on consumption of the people, and the amount gotten from the people of each State is about in the proportion of population. We get our money for the Government in a way that our people do not realize that they are paying it, but it is all folly to contend or think for a moment that it does not come out of the pockets of the people just as certainly as if a man put his hand in his pocket and took out the dollars. The money spent by the Government does not drop from the skies. It is not given to us. It is not found by the roadside. It is the product of the labor and the toil of the people of this country, and we are just that much poorer when that money is paid.
If that be not true, why should there be any consideration of economy in the public expenditure? If the people do not pay the money spent by the Government, why should we care how much money we appropriate here? The safeguard against public ex travagance and waste is the realization by the people that they furnish the money that the Government spends.
Mr. President, I am sure there is no one in this Chamber who is more impressed with the necessity and the importance of the view which I have endeavored to express than the honorable Senator from Maine. There is no Senator who enjoys in a greater degree the confidence of the Senate and of the country for his personal conservatism and good judgment, and I believe that in the future there will be an earnest effort upon the part of the Senator himself and of the honorable committee over which he presides to see to it that no such expenditure for naval construc tion shall be had in the future as we must have this year.
5893
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ARMY APPROPRIATION BILL.
STATUE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.
REMARKS
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, Wednesday, March 9,1904
1904.

REMARKS
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BAG OK

The Senate, as in Committee of the "Whole, having under consideration the bill (H. E. 10870) making apprroriation lor the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 80,1905^ind for other purposes

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT : I desire to make an inquiry of the Senator from

Vermont. I notice that on page 2 of the bill there is an appro

priation for the Army "War College. The question I desire to ask

the Senator from Vermont is whether or not any part of the $15,000

there appropriated can be used for the expenses of the erection of

the statue of Frederick the Great in the "War College grounds.

If the Senator desires it, I will state my reasons for making the

inquiry before he replies.

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As the matter is up, I desire to say a few words on this subject. It is, perhaps, a very ungracious thing to do; it is certainly a very unpleasant thing to do; but I think, Mr. President, there are some matters of sufficient importance to require a man to perform an unpleasant duty, if he regards it as a duty. I confess that I do not regard this as a slight or immaterial matter.
I desire to say first, Mr. President, that nothing is farther from my desire than to say anything here which should be considered as in any manner an affront to the German Emperor or in any manner disrespectful or offensive to him; nor would I be willing that anything that I should say should be considered in any manner as disrespectful or offensive to the great people over whom he pre sides as Emperor. There is no greater race than the great Ger man race. TheVe is with them and the great English-speaking people a common origin of race, and the same blood largely courses in the veins of each people; but there are many who are famous in English as well as in German history whose statues I would not be willing to see erected in Washington.
I should be more than glad to see erected in this capital the statues of a great many Germans whose names could be easily selected, men who have illustrated in their lives and achievements those things which have advanced the civilization of the world and have conduced to progress and to humanity. Germanys his tory is full of the names of such men, those who have glorified Germany and honored all mankind, and if the German Emperor or the German people were to offer to this nation a statue of Goethe or Wagner, or any of many other Germans whose names might be suggested, men who have been famous in literature, phi losophy, invention, art, and science, I should be very glad, as a Member of Congress, that Congress should accept it and should erect such a statue as a representative here of the German people

2

5S93

*m the capital of this nation, and to bear whatever of expense

might be required for that purpose. I want to say, further, that

so far as the expense of this matter is concerned, it does not weigh

the shadow of a feather; that is not the consideration at all.

* But, having premised that, I take opportunity to say that I do not

believe that it is in accord with the wishes of the people of the

United States that the statue of Frederick the Great should be

erected within the lim its of the capital of the United States. I may

be mistaken in that, Mr. President. I do not think I am, however,

from the discussion of this matter which has been had in the press

of the United States and from the verjr considerable number of

letters which I have received on the subject. If I am mistaken,

then I know there are some who deeply regret the situation, and

I wish to state in my place that I do most sincerely and deeply re

gret it.

I want to say another word, in order that I may not be mistin-

derstood. I said that I wished to do nothing that might be con

sidered as disrespectful or in any manner an affront to the German

Emperor. Neither do I wish to say anything which shall be dis

respectful to the President of the United States. I recognize the

fact that the President has been put in a very embarrassing posi-,

tion by the offer of this statue, and I regret that he did not refer

the matter to Congress, where the authority to accept and erect

a statue in this city properly belongs.

Mr. President, statues are erected for high purposes. They are

erected frequently and most often as the testimonial of the grati

tude of a nation for distinguished services performed to a nation

and to its people services of great devotion and great personal

sacrifice and great accomplishment for the good of the people.

Certainly no consideration of that kind can be considered in this

case, because all connected therewith is entirely foreign in all par-t

ticulars to the history of this Government.

There is a still higher motive which prompts the erection of

statues, and that is when the person whose effigy is set up con

stitutes an ideal for the admiration and emulation of the people,

that all who look upon it, be they high or low, may be stimulated

to similar performances and similar efforts and endeavor.

Sir, I submit, in all respect to all who are connected with this

matter, that the erection of a statue of Frederick the Great in

the capital grounds of the United States can not be in that view.

There is no single thing connected with the history of Frederick

the Great which would make him an ideal for the emulation of

the people of the United States, except so far as courage and

heroism and devotion to his kingdom are concerned, which we all

accord him as one of the greatest warriors known to history. There

is no doubt about that.

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I repeat, Mr. President, that of course there are qualities which, were displayed by Frederick the Great which are to be admired, and which give him high rank in history, but nothing, I respect fully submit, that can possibly appeal to the people of the United States as an ideal to be emulated by the citizens of the United States in the effort to preserve and develop the institutions of this country and to contribute to the great consummation which we all hope for it.
Sir, I shall use no words of disrespect or disparagement to the memory of Frederick the Great, and what I say is not influenced

by any partisanship; it is influenced by what I cosceive to be tile

duty of this Government as the great Republic f the earth, as the advocate and promoter and exemplar of free institutions, as the great type of liberal, free government; and I submit that it is

not consistent with such a character of government, or with the traditions of this Government, or with the hopes that we have for it in the future that there should be set up within the capital city of the nation the statue of the man who, in whatever degree he may be and is entitled to the appellation of "The Great" as a warrior and an autocrat, was still to as great an extent as any other who has ever lived in modern times the type of absolutism in government.

Mr. President, our people on holidays take their children to .walk around to view this beautiful Capitol building and to note the monuments which are found in the parks all over the city; and they point out to them, " There is Washington; " " There is

General Greene;" "There is General Hancock;" "There is Gen eral Scott;" "There is Franklin;" and "There is Webster; " and

the father points out each one to his children as an ideal to be emu lated. When one of them comes in front of the statue of Fred erick the G-reat and points it out to his child, and says, "My

son, there is the statue of Frederick the Great," what is he to tell him? To what is he to point him as the ideal which he desires that son to emulate as one of the supporters of this Government;

to what is he to point him as the feature which he shall emulate considered from the standpoint of personal liberty, the right of the people to self-government, and the preservation of free re

publican institutions? There are those of German blood whose statues can be pointed to as furnishing ideals to be emulated. We have already in this city the statue of the famous founder of a school of medicine, and Congress has already appropriated money for the erection of a statue in the_ capital of the renowned Baron von Steuben, who distinguished himself as a soldier during

the Revolution in assisting us in achieving our independence.

The memories of such Germans I am glad for this Government

to honor with statues in our capital.

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Mr. President, there is another subject which I think one of importance in connection with this question, and that is as to the

authority by which a statue can be erected in the city of Wash ington or in its parks or streets or public grounds. I have made inquiry of Senators and of others, and I have not been successful in ascertaining that in any instance any statue has ever been erected in the city of Washington upon any of its public grounds

except by the authorization of Congress. As to whether or not the President of the United States has the
right to accept a statue in the name of the people of the United States, there may be room for argument, and while not prepared

to deny that. I do not concede it, except so far as to say that if there is such an acceptance it ought to be for the purpose of sub mitting the question to Congress whether or not it shall be ac

cepted; but as to the erection of a statue on the public grounds I can have no hesitation in the opinion that it is a matter exclu sively for the determination of Congress.
I base that opinion not only on my judgment of the law, but also upon what, so far as I can ascertain, is the unbroken custom of

6S92

Congress. Without pretending to get any great number of them , I -have here several resolutions which have been adopted by Con gress for the authorization of the erection of statues. Here i,s one when Stilson, Hutchins proposed to donate to the United States a colossal statue of Benjamin Franklin. It was a joint resolution, approved July 19, 1888 not a mere concurrent resolution which is not brought to the attention of the President, but a joint reso lution which has the effect of law, approved by the President July 19, 1888. It provides:
That authority Is given to erect the statue under the supervision and di rection of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, upon such part of the streets or public apaces in the city of "Washington, D. C. , as the said Com missioners may designate.
In 1895 the physicians and surgeons of the United States raised a fund for the erection of a statue to the memory of Samuel D. Gross. A joint resolution was thereupon introduced in Congress, the preamble of which provided:
Whereas the physicians and surgeons of the United States of America have raised a fund for fne erection or a bronze statue to the memory of Sam uel D. Gross, M. D., LL. D., D. C. L., late professor of surgery in the Jeffer son Medical College, of Philadelphia, whose labors in the cause of his pro fession as surgeon and as author have caused his name to be respected in the civilized world as one of the benefactors of his race and have added luster to the entire medical profession of the United States.
Upon that presentation and application, Congress passed the joint resolution, which was approved March 2, 1895, providing:
That permission be, and the same is hereby, granted to the American Surgical Association and the Alumni Association of the Jefferson Medical College to erect said statue in such place in the city of Washington, D. C., aa shall be designated by the Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, ete.
In 1903, in the present Administration, there was a proposition to erect a statue to Benjamin P. Stephenson, the founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, and yet it was thought necessary to come to Congress for the authority; and a resolution was passed, and approved May 3, 1902, as follows:
Besolved,etc., That permission be, and is hereby, granted .the Grand Army of the Republic of the United States of America to erect a statue to the memory and in lionorqf the late Benjamin P. Stephenson, founder of the Grand Army of the Bepnblic of the United States of America, on one of the public reserva tions of the city of "Washington, D. C., other than the grounds or the Capitol or Library of Congress, to be designated by the Secretary of War, the Joint Com mittee on the Library, the superintendent of public buildings and grounds,
said Grand Army of the Bepublic.
As I say, that resolution was approved by the present Execu tive.
Many Senators now here remember when Mr. Hutchins pro posed to donate a statue of Webster. Even then permission had to be obtained from Congress. It would look as if there was ever a man in the world whose statue might be erected in this capital without any distinct and direct permission it would be a statue of the great Senator; and yet it was necessary to come to Congress for thff permission.
Senators will remember it. Permission was given to erect a statue of Webster in one of the parks of this city, so restricting it that its location should be under the control of the Joint Com mittee on the Library, and specifically providing that it should not be upon the Capitol grounds.

6

As to most of the statues in this city they are made by a di rect appropriation by the Government, and they are erected by

the Government.

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Mr. President, if we want to erect statues, even if we have no motive of gratitude to influence us if we want to erect them as ideals, this country has furnished plenty of men in civil life and in military life, statues of whom could be put tip as ideals to be emulated and admired by our people.
Mr. OAEMACK. Robert E. Lee for instance. Mr. BACON. Well, everybody of course knows what I think about that in common with all other Southerners. But confining now the list to the names of those who lived and died prior to the period of the civil war, we are rich in the number of great men, illustrious in deeds and in attainments and in sacrifices, worthy ideals for the pride and emulation of our people. "We can go back to Revolutionary times, and there are plenty of men. There is no statue in this capital to Hamilton, and there ought to be one to him. There is none to Jefferson, and there ought to be one to him. There is none to Jay or to Story or to Taney. There is none to Zachary Taylor, as a Senator sitting by me suggests. There is none to the elder Adams or the younger Adams, both of whom should have statues in this capital. There is none to Madison or Monroe. There is none to Clay or Calhoun or Benton or Crawford; and the list might be extended almost indefinitely of our own great men whose eSigies should stand in bronze or in marble upon the streets and in the parks of this capital. There is none to numbers of men, civilians and soldiers, who in the Revolutionary war distinguished themselves in achieving for us our independence. There is none to Patrick Henry, or to Samuel Adams or to John Hancock. Why should we, if we are looking for ideals, go outside of our own country, and if we do go outside let us confine ourselves to those whose lives can furnish ideals to be emulated by our people, and not put up in the capital of the nation statues of men who in their lives stood for that which is diametrically opposed to every tradition and prin ciple of this Government. Mr. President, this is a serious practical matter, not simply as to the erection of a statue of Frederick the Great, but ap to the future. I said I recognize the fact that the President of the United States is put in an embarrassing position; but is the ac ceptance and erection of a statue to be put on the ground that it was offered by a foreign monarch and could not be declined? Is that precedent to be established? If so, then whenever another foreign monarch offers a statue it is simply a question of courtesy as to its acceptance and its erection in the capital grounds, and this precedent will make it an impossibility in the future for any President, if the right of the President is recognized and the duty of the President is recognized, to fail to do otherwise than to ac cept any statue that may be offered here. We can all recall the names of many heroes of other governments whose statues we would not wish to see accepted and erected in Washington. Do we desire to see in the public places of our capital the monu mental statues of Louis XIV, of Peter the Great, of Charles V, of the Duke of Alva and of Napoleon, and of others of like achieve ments? To this the American people will say no! I merely wish now, as a matter reflective of public opinion on

68C2

this subject, to read parts only of two editorials which appeared inthe Washington Post on this subject. I will not read all of each editorial, because they dealwith personalities, and I do not wish to complicate this matter with personalities. I have no ob ject in the presentation of this matter except to protect this coun try against being the dumping ground of the statues of men who have been the heroes of other nations, but who have stood for things which we do not admire, which are not consistent with our traditions or with our principles, and are inconsistent with all that we look forward to and hope for in the future.
Mr. President, I will first read from an editorial in the Wash ington Post of January, 1904:
A communication published in our issue of Monday, the 18th instant, gives a great many excellent reasons why the United States Government should not make roona upon any public reservation for a statue of Frederick the Great of Prussia.
We do not believe that history furnishes the record of a monarch who rep resented a more absolute antithesis of the republican idea. He was the very incarnation of autocracy, the very prophet of the gospel of the divine right of kings. The proposed monument wiU constitute a moctery of every prin ciple Americans have been taught to honor and revere. From that pedestal, should the project ever be realized, will look down upon us the effigy of a sovereign who despised the multitude; who recognized no law save that of his personal caprice; who believed, as utterly as he believed in the existence

cumstance, environment, and custom.

I do not read the remainder of that editorial. What I have read is sufficient to express he idea. Now, on the 1st of March of this year, this month, there was an editorial in the same paper, from which I read this extract:

The semiofficial announcement that tie grounds of the American War College are to be adorned not only with a statue of Frederick the Great, but with efflgies of Bonaparte and perhaps other illustrious campaigners, sug gests the thought that our authorities, while they are about it, might as well enlarge and amplify their present scheme. Why not, in fact, convert the college grounds into anal fresco Valhalla and gather there the sculptured war gods of all lauds and times.

Mr. President, on the question of authority I wish to say this:

The devotion of any part of the public grounds to the erection of

a statue is a permanent alienation of, that much of the ground.

It is a permanent dedication of it. It is a permanent disposition

of it; and the authority to alienate or to permanently dedicate or

dispose of public ground is committed by the Constitution of the

United States to Congress and does not otherwise rest within the

discretion or power of any person.

I want to say one single other word in regard to Frederick the

Great. It has been contended and urged through the press that

he was a friend of the American colonies in their struggle with

Great Britain, and that he even sent a sword to Washington,

but all who are familiar with the history of those times know two

facts. First, that there was not a single thought or utterance

of Frederick the Great which was in sympathy with the prin

ciples for which the American colonies were struggling, and that,

therefore, no such sympathy could have impelled him to any utter

ance of friendship.

*

Again, the fact is known that there was by him no recognition

of the independence of the United States as there was by the

Government of France. But the material thing, which I say i3

known to every man who is familiar with the history of those

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times, is that Frederick was the inveterate, unalterable foe of Great Britain and hated everything English with all the intensity of his nature, and that anything which he ever did or said which might be construed into friendship for the American colonies was not on account of any recognition of the righteousness of our cause or desire for the success of the principles which were in volved, but ptirely on account of his hatred of the English people.
Mr. LODGE. The Senator surely does not mean to say that Frederick was not the ally of Great Britain in the Seven Years war?
Mr. BACON. Certainly, I do not mean to say that. Mr. LODGE. I understood him to say that Frederick was always the foe of Great Britain. Mr. BACON. I did say he was the foe of Great Britain. Mr. LODGE. He certainly did not like George the Third. He made that very obvious. Mr. BACON. Of course. Mr. LODGE. But he was the ally of Great Britain all through the Seven Years war. Mr. BACON. He was the ally on occasions, as the most invet erate of national enemies will be allies of each other when it is to their interest to become so. But although he was closely related to him in blood, he was a most inveterate, outspoken, vehement enemy of the ruler of the English people of that time. Every body knows that who knows the history of those times. Mr. CAEMACK. I think, although the Senator from Massa chusetts probably knows better than I do, that England and France got into war, and France having joined the alliance against Fred erick, he was in that way brought to the support of England, That is my recollection as to how it came about. Mr. LODGE. They were engaged in common in war with France. France was at war with England. Mr. BACON. Whether or not this statue is erected upon the public grounds of this capital, there is no doubt about what the German Emperor intended when he offered it. It was immedi ately after the erection of the statue of Rochambeau that this proffer was made, and it was made to offset that gift from France. Bochambeau had fought to, secure our independence. The Ger man Emperor would have made a complete offset to the erection of that statue if he had sent to us one of the Baron Von Steuben, who also fought in our Revolutionary Army. I repeat that noth ing is farther from my desire than to do or say anything which can be offensive to the German Emperor. I have no doubt his offer was made in the best spirit. I would be delighted, if he would give us the effigy of some other man, to have it accepted. In such case, however, I would want Congress to accept it, because Congress is the only one that has the power to do it, both on the ground which I have stated as to the exclusive right of Congress to say what shall be done with the public domain and what use shall be made of it, and upon the ground that it has been recognized from all time, so far, as I know and so far as I have been able to find by somewhat diligent search, that the question as to what statues shall be erected and where they shall be erected is a matter exclusively within the province of Congress.
6882
o

Selection of Federal Officials in the States.

SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

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Thursday, March S4, 1904.

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. B. 126S4) making appro-

passage of the bill
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: In tlie course of the debate on this bill yester day, when the subject of civil service came incidentally before the Senate, the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] , in the course of his remarks, used language which I will read. I read from page 3750 of the BECOED. The immediate connection had some reference to appointments under the Panama Canal Commission. The Senator from Massachusetts said:
I suppose everybody will agree that with such public instruments all em ployees of this sort ought to be fairly divided between the different sections of tile country. The Government can not maintain the confidence or the af fection or the support of the people unless the people of every part of the country have their fair and full snare in it. It would not be just, if you are to appoint a thousand men for this particular public service, to take them all from California or all from Mississippi or all from Massachusetts, even if yoxi got in that way, on the whole, a better aet of public employees. Everybody agrees to that. If that is to be done, how is the President or how is an Exec utive Department to find out who are the best men and the qualities of men in a particular State, except by inquiry of the men whom that State has selected, or men of experience, acquainted with their people at home, whom the State selects as the best examples of its intelligence and capacity and in tegrity?
Further on the Senator uses this language:
"Why, then, in every instance should Senators not be expected to give any Department such information as they have in this important matter?
Speaking generally of the question of the selection of the offi cers of the Government in the Executive Departments, and es pecially of the selection of those officers who are to be located in the several States, I desire to say a word or two, because, sir, it is a matter of very great importance to the section from which I come. I think the utterance of the honorable Senator from Massa chusetts, which I have read, is a most notable one, and is substan tially a condemnation of the system which now exists in this country, which is practically a disfranchisement of the people of the entire South, constituting one-third of the people of the United States, so far as concerns any real connection on their part with the selection of executive officers who represent the Government and administer the laws of the Government in their midst. That is quite broad language, but it is actually true. It is a system which is an utter and most radical violation of the most funda mental principles of free government.
One of the dearest and most vital and essential principles of a free government is the right of the people to choose those who
. 5937

shall hold the offices necessary to administer the government. There are different ways in which, when that principle is pre served, a people may directly or indirectly choose their officers. It ntay be through a direct vote of the people in a popular elec tion, or they may be chosen through an intermediary body, such as an electoral college or a legislature, or they may be appointed by the executive with the consent of a senate. Each of these methods, while differing in form and modes of procedure, is but an agency of the popular will through which it finds expression. The governor of a State when he makes an appointment is speak ing as the representative of the people, and they are making the appointment through him; not directly, but in the confidence that in making the appointment he is considering their wishes arid that no one known to be unacceptable to them will be ap pointed. Tha-iSame thing is true of the legislature of a State When it elects an official. The election is in accordance with their will, and the people are acting through the legislature. Each , of these methods at last is but the means by which a free people select officers, whose selection is in accord with their will. None of them is -designed to be a method by which officers will be se lected whom the people do not wish or approve.
Now, I affirm, and I presume it will be conceded, that the selec tion of the officers of the Federal Government was not intended in the formation of the Federal Government to be a violation of this principle. It was found necessary to have a general govern ment, as well as a State government, and it was found necessary to have officers of the General Government, as well as officers of the State government. But who will say that it was ever de signed or dreamed of that the people, in providing for officers of the General Government and in providing the method by which those officers of the General Government should be selected, in tended to surrender the right through those chosen methods to practically select their officers of the Federal Government; in other words, that the officers thus chosen through the methods prescribed should be other than those approved by the people and personally acceptable to them? It can not be so contended. I am confident that no Senator will rise in his place and say that in his opinion it is in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, in accordance with the intention of those who framed the Constitu tion, or in accordance with the understanding of the States which adopted it that the Federal officers in a State should be selected in utter disregard and in contemptuous indifference to the wishes of the people of that State. If there is a Senator who entertains such an opinion, I trust he will avow it in language not to be mis understood.
The proposition which I submit is this: That while under our system of local State government the right of the selection of officers and of participation in the selection of officers, so far as State officers are concerned, is preserved, that right should none the less in practical effect exist in the case of the Federal Govern ment, in so far at least that the Federal officers thus selected should be acceptable to the people of the State and representative of their best elements; and it is not to be considered for a mo ment that it was ever the intention of th trainers of the Govern ment or of those who agreed to the adoption of the Constitution that there should be an exception in this regard in the case of the Federal Government, and that there should be in any State or section the denial of the right of the people to be consulted as

to the Federal executive offices in their midst, or the denial of their right to have officers who should be personally acceptable t^hem. Who can believe for a moment, sir, that any State wohld have surrendered the right to the appointment of officers in its domain if it had been conceived for an instant that the General Government would under any circumstances appoint such officers in utter disregard and violation of the wishes of the peo ple as to who such officers should be?
As a clear presentation of the circumstances under which the States surrendered to the General Government the right to ap point these officers and the care with which they sought to guard for themselves the practical enjoyment of those rights and powers, the practical administration of which they thus surrendered, I wilrYead an extract from an interesting and most instructive ar ticle written by the junior _Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] and which appeared in the November (1903) number of Scribners Magazine. It sets out very clearly the purpose of the States when framing the Constitution and founding- -the Govern ment under it to retain to themselves, through the intermediary of the Senate, the right to be consulted and to exercise a controlling in fluence and even a veto in the selection of Federal officers. It was no,t designed simply as a protection of the country at large against unlimited Executive power in making appointments, but was par ticularly designed for tho protection in this regard of the people of each State that the officers thus selected should be acceptable to them; in other words, that it never was theexpectation that the Fed eral Government, while selecting officers in tho method prescribed, should occupy any other relation, to the people of a State in the selection of such officers than that which is occupied by the peo ple of the State in the selection of their officers, to the extent, at least, that such officers should be acceptable to the people of each State. The right of selection was surrendered by the State, but it is impossible that they intended or contemplated that such se lections would be made in the most absolute disregard of the wishes of the people of that State and in known violation of their wishes. Different agencies are employed, but in each instance it was the intention that the people of a State should still be those to determine who should be their officers and to be consulted as to who should be their officers.
Mr. SPOONER. There is a difference between the right to be consulted and the right to determine. I suppose the Senator does not claim the right of a locality to determine
Mr. BACON. I am. using that language in this sense. I say that the people do not determine in the State
Mr, SPOONER. Yes, they do. Mr. BACON. Well? Mr. SPOONER. Dp they notr Mr. BACON. Possibly if the Senator will permit me to com plete the sentence he would not object to the construction I was about to put upon it. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator did not allow me to complete mine, but then I yield to him, because he has the floor. Mr. BACON. I am very much oblige_d to the Senator for his courtesy. What I mean by that is this: Take the case of the State. While in many instances the people do not directly elect, at the same time the general purpose and effect of whatever ar rangement they make by which officers are selected are to have the selection of the people. It may not be a direct vote of the

4
people; it may be by an appointment of the governor -whom the people elect; but when the governor exercises that power, he is presumed to be carrying out the will of the people and not to be acting in absolute indifference to their wish, ana possibly in con temptuous defiance of their wish, as to who shall be the officer. It is only in that sense that I use the word "determine." Not that they should have the veto power and set aside an appoint ment when that particular agency which has been selected to fill the office has exercised the power thus given to it. I do not mean that.
Mr. SPOONER. I did not interrupt the Senator for any con- . troversial purpose.
Mr. BACON. I understand. .Mr. SPOONER. I thought the language he used IU ,MT. BACONS. I think I have made my meaning clear now to .[the apprehension of the Senator. It was my fault, in that I was , not sufficiently careful to limit it before. The purpose in reading this particular part of the article of the .Senator from Massachusetts is to give expression to the opinion .that in conferring the power upon the Q-eneral Government the States had no thought or design that the people should occupy any other relation toward a Federal officer than they do toward a State officer in so far as regards the acceptability of their officer to them. I read from the November Scribner, on page 541, as follows:
The Senate, therefore, wasregardedas the keystone of the new scheme, and the framers showed their belief in its overwhelming importance by provid ing that the basis of representation in the Senate should not be altered except by the consent of every State, while every other clause of the Constitu tion could be amended by a two-thirds vote of Congress, followed by a ratifi cation by three-fourths of the States.
The reason for fixing the basis of representation for the Senate so firmly in the Constitution that so far as possible it should be beyond change is ofavioua, although often overlooked. The convention which framed the Consti tution voted by States, as did the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation. All sovereign powers of every kind, therefore, were inpossession of the States as such, and consequently every power which was given in the new Constitution to the people of the Union at large was given by the States; every power that was reserved was reserved to the States; and all powers conterred upon the Senate were intended to guard and preserve the influence and authority of the States in the now government. Hence, in the formation of the Senate the States were retaining for themselves "all the powers which they believed needful for their safety, and as everything was theirs to give or to withhold, they were naturally liberal in their endowment of the body which was to continue to represent them under a system where they necessarily parted with so much.
It was for those reasons that the convention conferred upon the Senate both executive and judicial as well as legislative powers. The Executive was to be elected by the people at large, and the executive power therefore passed away from the States, but the States took pains to limit this great gift by conferring upon the Senats tie power to reject aH nominations to office made by the President, and by granting to the Senate an equal and co ordinate part in making all treaties with foreign nations. These sovereign powers of appointing executive officers and of treating with foreign nations were, at the time of the Philadelphia convention, vested wholly in the States, and when the States parted with them to an Executive elected by the people. at large, they reserved to themselves an equal share and an absolute veto in the performance of both these great and vital functions of government.
I repeat, I read that to show that it was the intention, as ex pounded by a prominent member of the Republican party, that the people of the States should occupy the same relation to the Federal officeholder thai they occupy to the State officeholder. In other words, that the right of the people of a State to be con sidered in the selection of a Federal officeholder is as great as the right of the people to be considered in the selection of a State
5937

officer. And yet, sir, this being the design of the framers of the Constitution, as is so clearly pointed out by the distinguished junior Senator from Massachusetts, how stands it in the practical Operation of the Government?
Take the State of Georgia. She is one of the original thirteen which founded this Government. Her sons, as well as the sons of the other colonies, consecrated and risked their all in order that the American colonies might be free. With them they signed the great Declaration; with them they waged the seven years war; with.them they framed the Constitution, and with them they en tered into the Federal compact. Surely the people of Georgia are entitled to all the privileges of freemen in a free government. And yet how stands the case to-day? Georgia has 3,500,000 in habitants. They are foremost in every work. They add largely each year to the general wealth of the country from her mines, her fields, and her factories. She pays into the National Treas ury more than $30,000,000 a year. When blood is to be poured out in the public defense she offers it without limit. When the country is in danger it comes up with its full quota of men for the public defense; and I -will say again what I have said here be fore, that if the published reports are correct in the recent Span ish war the State of Georgia contributed more soldiers to the volunteer service than any other State in the Union in proportion to its population.
Her great annual cotton crop, second only to that of Texas, and the other products of her fields and of mine and factories contrib
ute largely to the balance of trade in favor of the United States. She is the largest State territorially east of the Mississippi River, and of the forty-five States in the Union stands way above the average in wealth, population, natural resources, and industrial enterprises. Nevertheless her people are not only practically dis franchised in so far as having their wishes consulted in the selec tion of Federal officeholders in her territory, but they are denied any participation in the offices of the Federal Government at home; or abroad. There is not a Federal office of importance out side of the State held by a Georgian in the United States, and if I am not still further mistaken there is .not from the State of Geor gia a single representative in the great diplomatic or consular service of the United States, extending as it does all over the world. Outside of a postmaster here or there, where it has not been practicable to find a satisfactory Republican to fill the office otitside of some instances of that kind, there is not a single Execu tive officeholder in the State of Georgia who would have been selected by the people of the State to fill the office not one!
Not only are the people utterly thus without any consideration on the part of the Government in the selection of who shall bo their officers at home, but there is absolutely no participation allowed to them in the representation of this Government in other matters. What is true of the State of Georgia is true, with most rare ex ceptions, of the entire South. If you look over it, the Government, so far as its emoluments go, so far as its honors go, ignores onethird of the people of the United States, and with these very rare exceptions they are recognized and treated as aliens in a foreign land.
But, Mr. President, there is another point to which I call atten tion. The Constitution of the United States intended that the Senators should be the advisers of the President of the United States, and the part of the article written by the junior Senator

6

from Mass jtchnsetts, which I have just read and which is, I think, a correct exposition in that regard, shows that it was the intention of each State that its particular Senators should be its particular advisers as to what was to be done in their own State.
Mr. SPOONER. Do yon find that in the Constitution? Mr. BACON. I find it in a very reasonable construction of the Constitution. As said in this article from which I have read, at the time when the Constitution was framed and adopted all these powers belonged to the States and to each of the States, and when each State surremled its particular power it was careful to pre serve the power as to the Senate in order that while this power should be delegated to the General Government it should be exer cised in a way that it should be within the control of the Sena tors, and necessarily, so far as each particular State was concernedj under the influence, to a degree at least, of its own Sena
tes. :-.-.

"Notr, whafc is fibe fact? Here are two of us from the State of

Georgia and -two from each of the other Southern States. As

suggested by the senior Senator from Massachusetts in his re

marks yesterday, it is to those who are thus selected that the

Government should look for advice as to who are the proper

officers to be selected in a State. And yet the fact is that instead

of the two Senators from each of the Southern States there are

three referees; there are three or four men selected in each

State; men who represent nobody, so far as authorized represen

tation goes; men selected by nobody, that is, inside the State;

and matters which concern the State are determined not by con

sultation with the Senators who are elected as the representatives

of that State, and who were designed when the Constitution was

framed to. stand here as representatives of that State, but, on the

contrary, the Senators are passed by and three or four unknown

men are selected as those who are to advise as to what is to be

done for the interest of the people of each of these States.

Mr. HOPKINS. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me for

a moment?

Mr. BACON. With pleasure.

Mr. HOPKINS. Does the Senator contend that the policy of

making appointments in a State and consulting the Senators is

any different under the present Administration from what it was

under President Jefferson or any of his successors in office?

Mr. BACON. If I should answer the Senator in the way; in

which he expects me to answer him probably, and which is pos

sibly true, it would not affect this case. If there has been a vio

lation of the spirit and intention of the law from the formation of

the Government to the present time it would be no argument

why thafc violation should be continued. But there is a very

much better answer to the question than that.

Mr. HOPKINS. The reason I asked the Senator is that a few

moments ago he made the contention that the Federal appointees

in his State were men who could not be elected to any office in the

State.

Mr. BACON. I did not use that language exactly, althongh

the Senator is probably justified in thinking I did, I said they

would not have been "selected."

,

Mr. HOPKINS. Was not the same policy pursued with respect

to appointments during the Cleveland Administration?

Mr. BACON. I did not use the word " elected." I said they

would not be selected.

937

Mr. SPOONER. Would there be any Republicans, then, se lected in Georgia?
Mr. BACON. No; I do not think they would be, or elected either; and there are the best of reasons why they would not be.
Mr. SPOONER. Are there no good ones there? Mr. BACON. Very few. There are some. Mr. HOAR rose. Mr. BACON, Possibly the answer which I was about to give to. the Senator from Illinois will be an answer also to the sugges tion of the Senator from Wisconsin; but before proceeding with either, aa I see the senior Senator from Massachusetts desires to propound an inquiry, if he wishes to do so before I answer them, I will yield. Mr. HOAR. I wish to ask the Senator a question, because it is very agreeable to ine that he and I seem to be starting from the same premises, which has not always been my good fortune. Mr. BACON. I am always more than fortunate when I find such to be the case. Mr. HOAR. I wish to know how far the Senator would practi cally carry his contention. Suppose, for instance, he were the President of the United States, elected by the Democratic party, and we were fortunate enough to live under his Administration, and there were two Senators from Massachusetts who thought, as many party men have thought, that no Democrat whatever in Massachusetts should be put into any office; that they did not want Democrats selected. Would the Senator, as President, take their advice, under such circumstances, and say that because the Senators from Massachusetts thought they ought not to have a Democrat in office, he would not appoint one? Mr. BACON. The Senator will probably recognize the differ ence between advice and dictation. Mr. HOAR. That is what I observed in what I said yesterday, but I understand the Senator to-day to use the phrase "taking the advice" not in the sense of hearing what they can say and getting all the information he can from them, as I said yesterday, but following the advice. Now, there is a great difference be tween letting a doctor prescribe for you and taking his medicine, as the Senator knows. Mr. BACON. I have not said that, unless I am very much mistaken. Mr. HOAR. I wanted to bring that out clearly. Does the Sen ator say that if he had been President in President Clevelands time and the two Senators from Massachusetts had said to him they did not think it was worth while to have Democrats in office in that State, the President ought, as a matter of constitutional policy and obligation, to have taken their advice? Mr. BACON. I have not said anything, I think, that would lead to that. Mr. HOAR. Does the Senator Mr. BACON, When the Senator finishes his question I will endeavor to answer. Mr. HOAR. I want to know whether the Senator does say that or not. Mr. BACON. Whenever the Senator finishes his inquiry I will endeavor to reply. Mr. HOAR. I have finished the inquiry, and I ask the question oh which to base another. Mr. BACON. The Senator will please give me an opportunity
5937

8
to make a reply to Mm. I can take the question of the Senator from Illinois inConneetion with that of the Senator from Massa chusetts and answer them together. I say that different condi tions make a very different rule applicable, or rather would make the same rule applicable in a very different way. I recognize the fact that there are very different conditions in different States. There are in some States what may be termed normal conditions; for instance, the State of Illinois or the State of Massachusetts, where there are parties evenly or unevenly balanced, still the par ties are made up of representative men in each case representa tive men as regards trie morality of the country or of a State the wealth and industries and intelligence of a States
That is what I mean when I speak of a State under normal con ditions. Then, again, there are, unfortunately and without their responsibility for the fact, other States where there are abnormal conditions where there is no such division; where there can be safely to the public interest no such divisions, and where, for rea sons which, whether satisfactory to othe_r people or not, are nec essarily controlling to that people, the division is not along lines of that kind, and where the division upon the one side, generally speaking, confines all the intelligence and wealth and the better elements of a State; where there is practically no -division which runs between any parts of that element, and where the other side is one which is not representative in any character of all those things which go to make up the greatness and the prosperity and the best features of a State.
Now, in the one case, where there are normal conditions and having defined the two, of course Senators will understand to what I have allusion when I speak of normal conditions where there are normal conditions I should say undoubtedly that the party in power should appoint those who are of their own political faith, because in so doing there is no injustice done to the community and no harm comes to the Commonwealth. I should say that it would be extremely unreasonable that the Republican Senators from the State of Massachusetts should have the right under such circumstances, in case there were a Democratic President, to say to the President that Democrats should not be appointed. But I still think that it would be the duty of that Democratic Presi dent, even though he confined himself in his appointments to the Democrats of Massachusetts, to confer and consult with the Be- publican Senators from the State of Massachusetts as to who are the proper and most desirable appointees in the State from the . standpoint of what is to the interest of the people of the State, and particularly from the point of acceptability to the people of Massachusetts on account of the personal character and fitness of such appointees, not meaning to include political preferences.
The distinguishing feature which differentiates the question of appointments of Federal officeholders in a State like Massachu setts, where there are normal conditions, from a Southern State, where the conditions are abnormal, is this: The line dividing the political parties in Massachusetts has on each side, in large pro portions, men who represent the culture, intelligence, morality, and property interests of the State, and even though the Federal officers appointed there should belong to the minority party, they would, if properly selected, be acceptable to the people generally of the State, because, while not representing them politically, they would be fairly representative of that culture, intelligence, mo rality, and property interest. That such is not true in the States
5937

9
Buffering under abnormal conditions is too apparent to require discussion. As a simple illustration, in Georgia the two most important Federal executive officers are the collector of the port at Savannah and the collector of internal revenue in the State, and each of these officers now is a negro appointments which, would not have teen made in a State where normal conditions prevail.
And what I say as to the State of Massachusetts I say also as to the State of Illinois, that it would be the duty of a Democratic President to confer with the Senators from that State as to all matters which relate to the best interest of that State, and in the selection of officers to advise with Republican Senators, if those should represent that State, as to whether or not men who are proposed to be appointed by him are men of good character, and that he should rely upon their information rather than upon the information of political heelers or other people in that State who do not represent anybody and who have not been chosen by any body to represent them.
Mr. HOPKINS. The Senator does not claim that that practice was followed in Illinois during the late Democratic Administra tion?
Mr. BACON. I do not know whether it was or not. I can not answer. I will say, however, and I repeat, I think that is the proper constitutional course to pursue. But, Mr. President, I am dealing with a condition of things altogether different from that when I speak of the South.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me a moment? Mr. BACON. I will. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator speaks of the constitutional duty of the President. Does the Senator conceive it to be a duty Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONER. Under the Constitution resting upon the President to consult Senators as to appointments, Democratic or Republican Senators? Mr. BACON. The word "duty" might in one sense be too strong for that. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator speaks about the power conferred by the States in the adoption of the Constitution upon the Presi dent. Mr. BACON. I can not hear the Senator. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator speaks of the power conferred by the States through the Constitution upon the President as to appointments. That power is absolutely conferred upon the President. Mr. BACON. I concede that. Mr. SPOONER. The Constitution says nothing about Sena tors participating in appointments. It speaks of the Senate, but not of Senators. It is a question entirely in the option, I should think, of the President whether he will consult Republican Sena tors from a given State or Democratic Senators. He is respon sible for the appointments, and he is at liberty to seek information from such sources as it seems best to him, is he not? Did the Senator mean to intimate Mr. BACON. I trust that the Senator will ask me one question at a time. He has asked me one question and should let me an swer it. Mr. SPOONER. Those questions answer themselves. Mr. BACON. I do not think they do.
583T

10
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator made a very broad remark a fewB moments ago about duty.
Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will confine himself to the question. The Senator asked me a question. Let me answer it, and then I shall be glad to hear from him on duty.
Mr. 8POONER. I will yield. ,Mr. BACON. The Senator asks whether or not I mean to say that it is the duty of the President. I do not mean that it is the duty in the sense that he would violate a specific law if he does not do it, but I do mean to say that it ii^duty in the sense that there is an obligation upon him to inform himself as to what ia to the best intei-ests of a State when he comes to appoint an offi cer in it. Nobody will or should dispute that. Mr. HOAR. I should like to be permitted to make one state ment at this point, as a matter of history, if I may, with the ap proval of the Senator. Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. HOAR. I have been on the Judiciary Committee a good many years, from a time long before the Administration of Mr. Cleveland and since Mr. Clevelands term ended, which was the last Democratic Administration. It has not been absolutely or universally true, but in nearly every instance the appointments made in the South by the Republican Presidents of those con nected with the administration of justice judges, district attor neys, and marshals have had the very warm and cordial approval of the Democratic Senators from the Southern States, and, in my opinion, it is a fact highly creditable to the Republican Presidents, but still more creditable to the gentlemen who represented those States, showing how absolutely fair, impartial, and nonpolitical the counsel they have given to us in the Senate has been on that very important point. Mr. TELLER. There are exceptions. Mr. HOAR. There are some exceptions, I know.* Mr. BACON. I have been upon the Judiciary Committee for seven years, and of course I understand the character of the con sent which is given by Democratic Senators to nominations by Republican Presidents of officers in those States. With all Demo crats barred from consideration the range of choice has been very limited, and it is rarely that the parties nominated would have been acceptable if others had been eligible. I will state, however, that so far as the judicial appointments are concerned they are very few in a State, and generally as to judges and district attor neys their professional standing is known and satisfactory. But with the permission of the. Senator from Massachusetts I will return to the reply which I was making to the Senator from "Wisconsin as to whether I consider it to be the duty of the Presi dent to consult Senators as to appointments in their States. I said I do not pretend that it is of the class of duty which would be a direct violation of specific law if disregarded, but that it is in the nature of an obligation which can not be properly departed from, especially in conditions such as I have indicated exist at the South, and that such a departure is a violation of the spirit and intentions of the Constitution. It may be true, and is true, as said by the Senator from Wis consin, that the President has absolute power of selection, and that it is then for the Senate to say whether or not it will confirm. But the President violates the proprieties, he violates an obliga tion, if he makes an appointment without regard to the inter-
Bear

11

ests of the people of a State; and I say the obligation is on the President to endeavor to make appointments which shall be in the line of the interests of the people of a State and acceptable to them; and that whatever may be the political views of the people of a State, when yon come to the question of duty, the official ob ligation rests upon him to inform himself whether the appoint ments which he proposes to make are to the best interests of the people and personally acceptable to them, and to inform himself through the Senators, because, as stated by the senior Senator from Massachusetts yesterday, they are those upon whom the President has the right to rely as those best capacitated to inform him as to what is to the interest of the State. As the Senator from Massachusetts said:

Why, then, in every instance-

Not simply as to the Panama Canal

Why, then, in every instance should Senators not be expected to give any Department such information as they have in this important-matter? ; /

Mr. President, before closing I want to read still further from the article written by the junior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr, LODGE] as to the origin of the Senate and the reasons for the powers which are conferred upon it and the relations which the Senate bears to the Executive. I read now the views of the junior Senator from Massachusetts as to the relations which should exist between the President and Senators from a State, and I think tbe views presented by him are very sound. He is speaking of the first rejection ever made by the Senate of a nomi nee made by the President, in the caseof a man named Fishburn, who was nominated for collector of the port, I think it was, at Savannah; and he goes on to say:

This case undoubtedly led, therefore, to the practice which has been con tinued to the present time or the President consulting with Senators in re gard to appointments. As the Senate, after it has confirmed a nomination, becomes equally responsible with the President for the appointment, it is obvious that the right of consultation under the Constitution, which has al ready been defined, must be exercised in some way. Thus it came about that the informal consultations with individual Senators took the place of the cumbrous and inconvenient method of consulting the Senate as a body, and in this way the intent of the Constitution has been carried out. Nothing, therefore, is more inept than to criticise a President because he consults the Senators from a State in regard to an appointment in that State or from it. The Senators are his constitutional advisers.
In some way he must consult them, and it is impossible that any President should be able to know enough about the men in forty-five States to enable him to appoint intelligently unless he could avail himself of the knowledge of those who represent the several States. The consultation of Senators 6y the President, therefore, in Tggard to appointments is BdEhing niore than carrying out the intent of the Constitution in the manner which practice has shown to be the only convenient one. The influence of the Senate in making appointments is not increased thereby, except so far as-the multiplication of officers has made it more necessary for the President to receive-looal infor mation and depend for it upon the Senators more than was essential m the early days. All that has been done constitutionally is to substitute an infor mal consultation with individual Senators for the consultation of the Senate as a body, which has been always recognized as a constitutional right in the simple rule already qnoted.

Mr. President, Senators may take the position that that wmild

only apply to Senators of the particular party of the President,

whether he be a Democrat or a Republican, and that is indicated

in the question propounded to me by th honorable Senator from

Illinois [Mr. HOPKINS] , But that is an impossible construction.

If the Constitution was framed, as contended in this article, with

, view to the President being advised by the Senators from a

State as to matters within that State, it can not be limited to

fi37

-

12 .parties of a particular political party, because the Constitution knows no political parties. It can not mean that I take issue with that, and therms nothing in this language which indicates that such is the view of the junior Senator from Massachusetts. It is in accord with the general proposition that it is an impossibility for the President to know what are the conditions and wants of forty-five States, and that the proper persons tinder the Constitu tion through whom he is to gain this information are the Sena tors.
If he desires to know what are the conditions in Georgia, a Georgia Senator whether he be a Republican or a Democrat, and .whether the President be a Democrat or a Republican is the Sena tor to give most reliably and acciirately that information, and not sthe Senator from Illinois or the Senator from Massachusetts or the Senator from Wisconsin. Yet I affirm it as a fact that as to an appointment in a State where there is no ^Republican Senator the Senator from another State has infinitely more influence as to what shall be done in that State than the Senator from the State itself.
It is due to the present President of the United States to say that he has said to me that if I knew of anything against the character of a man who was to be appointed or was proposed to be appointed he would be obliged if I would tell him of it, that if I knew of the bad character of a man I should tell him. Said I to him, "Mr. President, how am I to give you such information when the first knowledge I have as to whom you will appoint is when yon send the name of your nominee into the Senate? It is then too late. Then my independent official function in the mat ter of confirmation has begun and yours, for the time at least, has ended." So far as the ability to comply with such a request, it is an impossibility where there is no invitation or desire that there shall be any conference between a Senator from a Demo cratic State as to an appointment until it has been practically de termined upon.
Mr. President, I care nothing personally for political patronage. It is nothing to me that I have not the opportunity to obtain offices for anyone; but I do care greatly that there shall be ap pointed in the State of Georgia Federal officers who shall be entirely fit and proper for the performance of those duties and shall be personally and officially satisfactory and acceptable to the people of Georgia. In the one case, so far as I _am personally concerned, so far as concerns my opportunity to dispense official patronage, it is nothing. So far as concerns the interests of the people of the State and that these officers shall be acceptable to them, it is everything. The Constitution, under the present prac tice, ought to be amended. Instead of saying that the President shall appoint officers by and with the ad vice" and consent of the Senate, it ought to be that he shall appoint by and with the ad vice and consent of certain irresponsible parties whom he shall select in a State; for it is the selection under the advice of those irre sponsible parties that last determines the appointment. When it comes here, of course, if we can show that a man is dishonest the Senate will reject him; but in the absence of some such radical objection as that, when he has been thus s&lected and has been nominated by the President, the Senate will confirm him, although he may be utterly objectionable and unacceptable to the people of the State, and although opposed by the Senators from that State.
5957

13
Mr. SPOONER. I suppose the Senator would not amend the Constitution so as to say that the President shall appoint by and with the advice of the Senators of a State?
Mr. BACON. No, I do not go to that extent; but I would say that he should seek the advice of the Senators from the State, and I think that, in part at least, is what the meaning of it is. The President should never appoint one to a Federal office in a State who is unacceptable personally to the people of that State. It is a flagrant outrage upon the people of that State whenever he does it, and a direct violation of the spirit and intention of the Consti tution-: It was never the design in each State, when it surrendered the absolute power which it had to appoint all officers within its borders and conferred that power in large part upon the General Government, that so far as its internal affairs were concerned the advice which the President should take should be from Sen ators 3,000 miles away from that State, and that the Senators from j#that State should be ignored and not known whatever in the mat ter to be advised abont. And more particularly was it never the design in conferring that power upon the General Government that it should be exercised not only in accordance with the advice of Senators from other States and without regard to the Senators from that State, but in utter disregard of the personal wishes of the people of that State. Yet that is the necessary result of the constitutional construction of executive power implied in the sug gestion of the Senator from Wisconsin.
Now, Mr. President, in so far as it involves the practice of ap pointing officers in a State in disregard of the wishes of the people of that State, in so far as it involves the appointment of officers personally objectionable to the people of that State, in so far as it involves the ignoring of the Senators from that State and the being guided by the wishes of other Senators from other States, the practical effect is to utterly outlawthat p_eople to disfranchise them so far as concerns not only any participation in the selection of their officers, but what goes deeper still, so far as concerns any regard or consideration for the personal acceptability of such officers to the people of the State or community in whose midst they are appointed. I repeat, sir, that such a system is, in prac tice, an indefensible violation of the fundamental principle of free government.
A great section of the country is practically outlawed when its people all of its representative people are denied participation in the offices of the Government. Senators see here every day nominations come into the Senate nominations of foreign ambas sadors, judges, consuls, commissioners of various kinds, and all kinds of Territorial officers, officers of the customs and of the in ternal revenue, and the thousands of officers who gather and dis burse and administer the vast affairs of a government which spends $700,000,000 a year. These nominations are of great interest to Senators of one section, for they are confined almost exclusively to one section of the country. We have just had an illustration of it in the appointment of the canal commissioners. Out of the number there is one from a section which represents more than one-third of the population of tne United States, although that section has many eminent engineers and men of affairs. On the Supreme Bench there are but two men of southern birth, although the South has its full proportion of able lawyers. You may go through the list of representation of this Government in all the courts of Europe or other foreign countries circling the whole
5937

globe, and where is a southern man who is ever seen or heard of in that connection?
Mr. HOPKINS. If the Senator will allow me there, I think his criticism on the question of the selection of canal commission ers is not entirely fair, because on that kind of an argument the great States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Ne braska, Kansas, and Iowa are unrepresented.
Mr. HOAR. Massachusetts is not represented. Mr. BACON. There are forty-five States, and seven is the number of commissioners. Mr. HOPKINSv Seven out of the forty-five States; and certainly there can not be any discrimination in the South in the selection of those. If we were to be hypercritical we could make the same argument the Senator is making, because a member of the Com mission Was riot selected from Illinois, Iowa, or Wisconsin. Mr. HOAR. I believe New England is not represented; I am not sure. Mr. BACON. That ought to be remarked, because I think it is the first time New England was ever left, if that is the case. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. We do not get much. Mr. HOAR. The reason why New England is not represented is because the selections were made somewhat geographically and not on merits. [Laughter.] Mr. BACON. I have no doubt in the world there are a great many persons in New England who would make most efficient canal commissioners. But if New England has been omitted, that section lacks greatly of being a third of the United States either in territory or population. New England has 29 Representative_s in Congress while the Southern States have 136. It is a fact that out of the vast revenues of this Government of the hundreds of millions of dollars which we appropriate and which are expended, nine-tenths go to two-thirds of this people at the North and about one-tenth to the other one-third at the South. The great pension bill, which carries nearly one-third or onefourth of the expenditures of this Q-overnment, is one in which the disbursements are altogether, practically speaking, at the North; and this recent piece of executive legislation which we have just had enacted as a new statute by the executive depart ment, and which is to add in the aggregate to the pension roll several hundred million dollars, is one in which while we wll pay our part of it there will be nothing of it coming back to us. Now, do not understand me as making any complaint about . pensions. Senators here know that southern Senators make no contention as to pensions. We leave that altogether to the north ern Senators, and the responsibility is with them. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator would naturally expect the ap propriation for pensions to bo largely spent in the North, in view of the fact that nearly all the soldiers came from the North. Mr. BACON. I understand, and I am not complaining of it; I am simply speaking of the practical fact that while the people of the South bear their full part of the burdens, they share very little of tho benefits of this Government, either as to honors or emolu ments. Mr. HOPKINS. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me a word there, I will say that Illinois pays in internal-revenue taxes more than any seven or eight Southern States combined. Mr. BEVERIDGE. And Indiana pays more than Illinois. Mr. BACON. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. HOPKINS] was
5357

upon the Committee on "Ways and Means of the other House, but the Senator from Indiana [Mr. BEVEBIDGE] has not had that op portunity. For the Senator from Illinois, who served upon the Committee on Ways aiidMeans, the great financial committee of the House of Representatives, to take the position that the place where the internal revenue is paid is the place where the taxes of the Government are paid is the most preposterous proposition I can conceive of.

Mr. HOPKINS. The point I was making, if the Senator will allow me, is this: The Senator was complaining because appro priations were not made for the Southern States.
Mr. BACON. No, I am not complaining.

Mr. HOPKINS. My counter answer to that is that Illinois pays

more money into the Treasury of the United States from internal-

revenue taxation than any seven or eight Southern States that Can

be named.



Mr. BACON. Mr. President, in the first place I ;was riot com plaining. I was just simply commenting upon th4 utter fallacy of that proposition. To say that where the .interaal revenuejia collected is the place where the taxes are paid is utterly untenable. The Senator ought to know, as one of the former members of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, that under the internal-revenue system taxes are paid by those whoconsume the articles and not by those who make them. Does the Senator contend that all the whisky that is distilled and that all the tobacco that is made in Illinois is consumed in Illinois?
Mr. HOPKINS. Georgia consumes some of the liquor, I will admit.

Mr. BACON. Yes; we do, and in that way we pay our full share of the tax.

The idea of the Senator from Illinois making any such proposi

tion in the Senate of the United States and expecting that it will

be received as an argument

Mr. HOPKINS. I simply presented that proposition to show,

if the Senator will allow the expression, the absurdity of the

argument he was making, that the Southern States wsre being

discriminated against because they did not get certain appro

priations. The Senator will find, when he comes to look at the

appropriations made from time to time for Governmental pur

poses, that the South has had its full share,

i.

Mr. BACON; Well, Mr. President, the Senator still repeats

the fallacy.

Mr. HOPKINS. I repeat it simply because it was first made by the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. BACON. , Very well. I say the Senator is simply repeat ing the fallacy that because whisky is distilled or tobacco is made or beer is brewed in Illinois therefore Illinois pays the in ternal-revenue tax, which, I say, is a fallacy. But it is not neces sary for me to occupy a single moment of the time of the Senate

to expose that, because every man who hears me knows it with out my exposing it.
Mr. SPOONER. About the only governmental thing, from the standpoint of the South, the Senator would not complain of, so far as I can see, is the representation in Congress. He does not com plain of that, does he?
Mr. BACON. No. Mr. SPOONER. But he does of everything else.

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16
Mr. BACON. Representation is something which the Federal Government does not bestow upon us.
Mr. SPOONER. Well Mr. BACON. I do not know what the pantomime of the Sena tor means, but if the fact that we have two representatives in this Senate is a matter for which we are indebted to any govern mental action. I am now to be informed of it for the first time. Mr. SPOONER. I hope the Senator would not do himself the injustice or me the injustice to impute to me such a proposition. Mr. BACON. No, I hope not. Mr. SPOONER. I do not suppose it will be necessary for me to say to the Senator that I know under the Constitution each State is entitled to two representatives in this body, but of course the apportionment act is passed by Congress, which fixes the num ber of Representatives for each State in the other House. Mr. BACON. I do not wish, of course, to impute anything to the Senator which he does not mean, but when he spoke of our enjoying representation in Congress I did not know what other construction I could put upon it. Mr. SPOONER. When I speak of the basis of representation I do not mean, of course, in the Senate. Mr. BACON. No; in the House of Representatives, Mr. SPOONER. Yes; in the other House. Mr. BACON. I do not know of anything which is unjust in the representation the South enjoys in the House of Representa tives. Mr. SPOONER. That is one thing which the Senator finds is all right. Mr. BACON. But yet we are in no manner indebted to any action of the executive department of the Federal Government in the fact that we enjoy that representation. We enjoy it under the Constitution of the United States the Constitution in the framing of which my State took a part. Mr. President, without intending I have gone somewhat at, length into this question. When I rosa I simply wished to call attention to a very notable utterance by the honorable and ven erable Senator from Massachusetts, and to express my very great gratification that the Senator should have said that he recognized that there should be. so far as the Federal Government is con cerned, a general representation of all sections and of all the people of the United States in the offices to be held, and the further ex plicit statement upon his part that in the appointment of these officers the proper persons for the Executive to consult were those who had been chosen and sent here as Senators to represent their States in this body. I will only add, sir, that this is a matter which concerns the whole country; that it is not to the best interest of the country that a political control shall continue, which, if the present sys tem is unavoidable in administration, must continue to result in practically debarring one-third of the people of the country from full participation in the executive offices of the Government.
- 5937
o

TARIKK ABUSES.
SPEECH
HON. A. O. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
MONDAY AND TUESDAY, APRIL 25 AND 26, 1904.
WASHINGTON. 1904.
60C7

Tariff Abuses--Discriminating Prices Between Foreign and Domestic Customers.

SPEECH

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

Monday and Tuesday, April 25 and 26, 1904,

On the resolution submitted by Mr. DOLtrv KB on the 18th instant, as follows: "Resolved. That the Secretary of Commerce and Labor be, and he is hereby,
directed to prepare and send to the Senate a statement showing what com panies have been incorporated in the United States and what investments of capital made by individuals or copartnerships since the year 1900, outside and independent of the so-called trusts, and the aggregate capital, compared with the total capitalization of the trust combinations."
And the amendment of Mr. BACON to the foregoing resolution, submitted by him on the 31st instant, as follows:
Add as an additional resolution the following: "Resolved further, That the Secretary of Commerce and Labor be, and he is hereby, directed to procure, so far as practicable, the information hereinafter specified, and report the same to the Senate during the present session of Congress if practicable. "First. What classesof goods manufactured in the United States have, dur ing the year ending December 31,1903, been sold or offered for sale in foreign countries, or for export to foreign countries, by the manufacturers thereof, or through their representatives or agents, at prices less than the same classes of goods were during the same period sold in the United States by the manufacturers thereof, or through their representatives or agents; the said report, while including so far as practicable all classes of goods so manufac tured and sold, to have special reference to manufactures of iron and steel and other metals, of glass and crockery, textile goods and the manufactures thereof, boots, shoes, and other manufactures of leather, hats and caps and other wearing apparel, household and kitchen utensils and wares, household and kitchen furniture, sewing machines, vehicles of all kinds, farm imple ments and farm machinery and other machinery of all kinds, cutlery and tools of all kinds, watches, jewelry, and other articles for household and per sonal use. comfort, or adornment; and the said report to give the compara tive prices in said sales separately for each of the said classes of goods, and the foreign countries in which or for export to which said sales were made. t; Second. "What, separately stated as to each class of goods, was the general average during the said period of the said comparative prices in sales in the United States and in the several foreign countries. "Third. If, during the said period, the said comparative prices in any in stances fluctuated materially from said average, then, stated separately, what were, in such instances, the comparative prices in said sales, in the several classes of goods embraced in such instances, at different periods in the year when said fluctuations occurred. "The Secretary of Commerce and Labor is further directed to make said reports as soon as practicable, and if, when the same shall be completed, the Senate shall not be then in session, he is hereby directed to file same with the Secretary of the Senate, and there shall thereupon be copies of said re ports immediately printed for the.use of the Senate"

Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: It is not my purpose to enter upon a discussion of the trust question in its broad scope, as would seem to be jus tified by the resolution offered by the Senator from Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVER] . The fact is that his very exhaustive and conclusive speech leaves little to be said upon the trust question. At least, if his

2

'

6067

view is correct, it is certainly unnecessary to say anything more upon it. The Senator has found a very happy solution to this hitherto insoluble question, which, I presume, will result in its final disposition and removal from the field of discussion and de bate. When divested of the oratorio garb in which the eloquent Senator clothed it. the proposition submitted by him him is. when viewed in its nudity, substantially that all trusts are divided into two classes, the good and the bad: that the good trusts are en tirely beneficent and thus can do no harm, and therefore require no attention on our part; and that, happily for the public inter ests, the bad trusts have in them the inherent seeds of fatal dis ease, through the natural development of which they will cer tainly die, and that therefore no action is needed upon our part to hasten their early and inevitable demise.
If this suggestion of the learned and honorable Senator is cor rect, I repeat it is a most happy solution of the trust question, and we probably will hear no more of it, either in Congress or in the political campaign upon which we are about to enter.
The thing seems so simple which has thus been suggested by the learned Senator that each one of us is astonished that it had not occurred to any of us before. The country is certainly to be congratulated, however, that the matter has by the in genuity and eloquence of the Senator been removed from all further necessity for investigation or action.
If the proposition of the Senator is correct, the converse of the proposition, I presume, might be recognized as a sound one to wit, that if a trust has not died, that is conclusive evidence that it is a good trust, and it, in consequence, ought not to be inter fered with. While that proposition may, under the logical demon stration of the Senator, as a general one, be perforce accepted. by us as correct, in this as in all others there are notable excep tions, and the purpose I have to-day is to devote myself, in some measure, to the hfimbler task, not of a general discussion of the trust question, but of pointing out, if I may be able to do so, how, even in the case of a good trust, which we must assume to be the character of all existing trusts, because otherwise they would not be alive, there are some provisions of the present protective tariff law which enable that good trust to work hardship to the people and even tooppress them.
I am not even going, Mr. President, into the full field that that suggestion might authorize. I propose to limit myself to-day to the narrower consideration of the opportunity which some sched ules of the protective tariff law, as it is now found upon the statute books, gives to these "good trusts" undeniably good because they are alive and not dead to sell to the people of the United States their products at from 25 to tOO per cent above the figures at which they can afford to sell to foreign consumers, and at which they do sell to foreign consumers.
The amendment which I have offered to the resolution of the Senator from Iowa is almost literally a copy of a resolution which I introduced in the Senate in December last. I would very much prefer, of course, that I might have the opportunity to discuss this question after the information intended to be gained by the resolution and this amendment had been obtained. But that is manifestly impossible now.
At the time when I introduced the resolution, in December, there was promptly a motion made by the distinguished Senator from
6067

Rhode Island [Mr. ALDRICH] , the chairman of the Committee on Finance, to refer it to the Committee on Finance, and that was sufficient notice served that it was not intended that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor should have an opportunity to gain for us the information which we desired, and to report it to the Senate.
I presume, Mr. President, that it may be safely assumed that the objection of the Senator from Rhode Island, who, at least in the matter of tariff, is the mouthpiece of his party in this body, is and was a sufficient evidence of the fact that the procurement of that information and its conveyance to the public would not be to the interest of the party upholding the oppressive features of the particular law concerning the operation of which this infor mation was sought to be had. It can not be doubted that if that information, when obtained, would show that there were no dis criminations in prices between domestic and foreign consumers of our protected goods, so far from desiring to postpone the pro curement of that information, the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island would have been eager to have had it produced.
Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator from Georgia permit me to interrupt him?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KEAN in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Rhode Island?
Mr. BACON. I will for a question; but I wish to state to the Senator that at half past 4 oclock there is a special order to come before the Senate.
Mr. ALDRICH. I was simply going to say that historical ac curacy requires me to state that those resolutions were submitted, I think, in the very first days of the session. I simply gave notice that I would ask their reference to the Committee on Finance for the purpose of putting them into practical shape. I have not no ticed any zeal on the part of the Senator from Georgia to secure information which might embarrass him in a speech of the kind he is now making. I do not know that he has since called up the resolutions.
Mr. BACON. From that I assume that the Senator from Rhode Island is in favor of the adoption of the resolutions now; and while we will not discuss the past, I shall be content if the Sena tor will lend his valuable aid to the adoption of the resolution of the Senator from Iowa, with the amendment which I have offered.
Mr. ALDRICH. I have not recently had time to examine the resolutions of the Senator from Georgia; but if he will allow them to go to the Committee on Finance, I will see that they are put in some practical form.
Mr. BACON. Ths Senator indulges in pleasantry. I noticed when the Senator from Iowa introduced the resolution the Sena tor from Rhode Island was not anxious that there should be any supervision of it by the Committee on Finance: but so soon as this particular feature is touched, the sensitiveness of the Senator from Rhode Island is immediately developed.
Mr. ALDRICH. I have no doubt the Senator from Iowa at the proper time would ask to have his resolution referred to the appropriate committee.
Mr. BACON. No; he will not, if he wishes its adoption. I hope that we may adopt the resolution, with my amendment, at this session, in order that the information may be had.
But, to resume, I remark that the obvious effect of a protective tariff provision is to increase the price to the consumer of the par-
606T

ticular article affected by that part of the tariff schedule. That is the purpose of the protective tariff, so far as it exceeds the de mands and requirements for revenue. It is not to be credited that the producer would favor a protective tariff as to his par ticular product if the effect of that feature of the tariff were to compel him to receive a less sum for his product than he would receive if the tariff law were not enacted.
Even if the general proposition is to be conceded that the protective tariff is beneficent, and that there is the general good to result from it in the alleged benefit flowing from the employ ment of labor in this country in the production of the article which is to be produced, and in the retention in the United States of the money which is spent by the consumer when he purchases the article even if this general consideration is to be taken into account, it is not to be credited that there is a producer who is so public-spirited that he would be willing that the tariff should have that result, if it should be accompanied by the further result of a reduction of the price of the article produced by him. So that, from the most rational and commonplace consideration, we are justified in saying that the purpose and design of the protective tariff on a particular article is to enhance the price of it to the consumer of that article.
If, however, we accord to all consumers the patriotic spirit of self-sacrifice which would prompt them to be willing to submit to these increased prices for this general good, which is alleged to be the necessary result of the operation of a protective tariff, it is not unreasonable that these patriotic consumers, thus willing to sacrifice their personal interests for the general good, should be informed as to the degree in which this sacrifice is required of them, and that they should be informed as to whether or not the sacrifice thus required of them is within reasonable limits or whether it is unreasonable, oppressive, and extortionate.
Mr. President, if I do not trespass too far upon the time of the Senate, before I conclude I desire to say a word upon the subject of the distinction, even from the standpoint of the legitimate pro tectionist, between a legitimate tariff from that standpoint the standpoint which I myself do not occupy. I will say in passing and the extortionate rates which are included in some of the schedules which are oppressive to the people and far above any thing which would be authorized by the tenets of those who claimed in the early days to be the fathers, the promoters, and the founders of the protective system. But I will not talk about that now, Mr. President, and it is possible that I may not reach that. I do not know,
I return, however, to the proposition that the consumer is enti tled to know, even if he has this spirit of self-sacrifice, and even if he is a protectionist, whether the schedules are such that in their practical operation there is a limit within what he may con sider to be legitimate bounds or whether they go far beyond that limit. A great many tests may be applied, but I am to-day going to confine myself, as I have said, within a very narrow line of inquiry .in endeavoring to apply one test, which, while I concede it is not a conclusive test, is a valuable test in the fact that it may "be said to be a concrete test. I am not going to indulge in gen eralities, I am not going to discuss abstract propositions, for while generalities and abstract propositions give more opportunity for oratorical display, they do not give the opportunity for the close
6067
iii

test of argument which is furnished in a concrete presentation, and it is consequently my purpose to limit myself to a concrete presentation of this question as to whether or not the opportunity which is furnished to the domestic producer to sell to the domes tic consumer his product at a rate of from 25 to 100 per cent higher than he sells to the foreign consumer is or is not evidence that the present tariff has any features which are abusive even of legitimate protection doctrine as laid down by those in the past who have been its advocates and great expounders.
I said, Mr. President, that this is not an infallible test, and I recognize that there may be circumstances under which the fact that a producer sells his product in a foreign market at less than he sells it in the domestic market may not be evidence of that which I think is found in the general practice of sales of that kind. I recognize the fact
Mr. ALDRICH rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me a moment, I rec ognize the fact, of course, that the producer may sell his goods in a foreign market at less even than their cost to him, in order that he may introduce them. I recognize that there may be particu lar circumstances where, from competitive reasons, in order that a party may have the advantage thereafter to legitimately com pete, he may for such reasons make a sacrifice by a sale in a for eign land at less than he could afford to do at a profit. There fore I eliminate all of that and take none of that into the account. The consideration to which I invite the attention of the Senate is to cases where the regular business of the producer, not in iso lated instances, but in his regular course of business, is to sell the product to the foreign consumer at from 23 to 50 or 100 per cent less than he sells it to the domestic consumer. Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator permit me to interrupt him? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Rhode Island? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. ALDRICH. Does the Senator think because British or German producers sell their goods habitually in the United States at a less price than they do in their respective countries that this fact would be an evidence of inherent defect in the tariff system of either of those countries? Mr. BACON. I do not exactly catch the Senators inquiry; but if the Senator will allow me to proceed with the concrete in stances to which I propose to bring his attention, possibly that may answer his question. Mr. ALDRICH. Possibly, yes. Mr. BACON. I say, Mr. President, that while it is not an in fallible test it is a valuable test. For instance, if a manufacturer of sewing machines sells a sewing machine to a seamstress in this country for $25 and sells to the consumer in England the same machine for $15, there must be a reason for that discrimination in the price. He sells his machine for $15 in England because the English manufacturer stands therewith his machine, equally good, which he sells at that price, and the American manufac turer must sell at that price or not sell at all. On the other hand, when the English manufacturer brings his sewing machine to America he must sell his machine at $35, because, before he can sell it he must not only include in his price the cost of manufac ture and a reasonable profit, but the cost of transportation and
6007

the tariff, a-nd that brings him up to the point where the price is the same as that at which the American manufacturer sells. He must either sell at $25 or not sell at all. Therefore it is a mani fest and easily deduced conclusion that the difference between the price at which the American manufacturer sells his goods in England and the price at which he sells the same goods to the American consumer is a measure of the increase of price which he is enabled to secure by reason of the tariff. Home competi tion, if it exists, may lower that price.
Then there comes the natural inquiry as to whether or not, if he can afford to sell at $15 in England, the increased price of $25, at which he sells to the domestic consumer in America, does not indicate and conclusively show that the increase which the pro ducer is allowed to exact "from the domestic consumer is far above any legitimate need of a protective tariff law, even when considereU from the standpoint of the protectionist himself. That is not a fancied illustration on my part, because, as I shall endeavor to show before I conclude, from the best evidence we are enabled to command now in the absence of the official report, which we had hoped to get through the medium of the Department of Com merce and Labor, those are the figures; but this is not limited to sewing machines by any means.
Mr. ALDRICH. Has the Senator mentioned the company that sells the machines?
Mr. BACON. No; but I shall mention some companies before I get through.
Mr. ALDRICH. If the Senator is going to discuss the concrete question, I hope he will do that.
Mr. BACON. I think the Senator, before I get through, will be fully satisfied of the fact that what I shall mention will be con crete cases.
Mr. ALDRICH. I hope so. Mr. BACON. I shall not leave the Senator anything to com plain of in that regard. I was about to say. Mr. President, that these enormous and op pressive discriminations, indicative as they are of extortionate tariff rates, are not limited to the matter of sewing machines or any other particular machine, but extend to almost all the arti cles of common use in this country in greater or less degree. They are not limited to matters of personal and private use, but they eptend to articles which are consumed in public utilities, such as railroads utilities in which these exorbitant prices are at last paid by those who are the patrons of those utilities. In order that the patience of my learned and distinguished friend the Senator from Rhode Island may not be too far taxed, I will come to an immediate concrete case in that particular class of goods. We have pretty generally the information that the price of railroad iron and steel rails in this country is very much above what it would be but for the operation of the tariff; but, in order that we may have definite information on that subject from one who is authorized to speak, I will read something, and when I get through I shall be happy if the Senator from Rhode Island will let me know whether he thinks this is concrete or abstract. I read an article which appeared in the Indianapolis News, and which was copied by the Washington Post, September 4, 1903. I will state that the object in reading the article is to read in the
6067

hearing of the Senate a letter from Mr. Schwab, which was copied iri that article; but in order that the article may not be inter rupted, I shall read the entire article in which this letter of Mr. Schwab to Mr. Frick is quoted. I will say to the Senator from Rhode Island that here is one of the concrete instances that I promised to give him.
The Indianapolis News says:
The standpatters, including Senator Marcus AureUus Hanna, ought to be greatly interested in the book just published giving some of the facts con cerning: the steel business in the United States. The author prints the fol lowing letter, written by Mr. Schwab, late president of the steel trust, to Mr. Frick, and bearing the date of May 15,1899.
Here is the letter:
As to the future, even on low prices, I am most sanguine. I know posi-
would make rails at net cost to them at $19. We can sell at this price and ship abroad so as to net us $16 at works for foreign business, nearly as good as home business has been. What is true of rails is equally true of other steel products. As a result of this we are going to control the steel business of the world. You know we can make steel rails for Jess than $12 a ton, leav ing a nice margin on foreign business. Besides this, foreign costs are going to increase year by year, because they have not the raw material, while ours is going to decrease. The result of all this is that we will be able to sell our surplus abroad, run our works full all the time, and get the best practice ana costs in this way.
Without stopping to comment on that letter at this time, Mr. President, I will read the balance of the article from the Indian apolis News, which comments upon it. The Indianapolis News, commenting on it, says:
We do not wonder that Mr. Schwab took an optimistic view of the situa tion. For at the very time that he wrote his letter, saying that rails could be made in this country for less than $12 a ton and that they could be sold at $16 at a good profit, rails were selling in this country at |25 and $28 behind a tariff duty of $7 84 a ton. The price now is $88 a ton, or more than double the actual cost of production and $13 above the figure at which Schwab says they can be profitably sold.
And yet we are told that the tariff must not be touched. We are to protect our steel-rail men against the English mills, when, according to Schwab, it costs those mills at least $7 a ton more than it does in this country to make rails. And this after the English have bought their pig iron at cost. This is the sort of foreign cheapness against which our trusts must be protected. More than this, Schwab says that we can sell rails in England on the basis of the actual cost of producing an English rail and have a margin of more than Jt a ton profit. How about standing pat on $7.84 duty on steel rails? The only effect of it is to keep the price at twice the cost of production and so to pour millions of dollars of the peoples money into the pockets of a few million aires. The duty just about makes up the difference between the price of English rails, counting that to be $19 a ton, and the present exorbitant price now charged by the steel trust.
There is a concrete instance from which, by the testimony of Mr. Schwab himself, it appears that while rails are selling at $28 a ton in the United States, he alleges that he can deliver them in England at a cost that will compete with the English rails at $16 a ton, and that that is $4 a ton above what it it will cost him to do it that even at that rate he would have $4 a ton profit.
Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Rhode Island? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. ALDRICH. The iron producers of Alabama and the sur rounding States, who have been for the past few years selling their pig iron for eighteen or twenty dollars a ton, would be con vinced with difficulty that steel rails can be made for $12 a ton,
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whether the statement comes from Mr. Schwab or anybody else. The story and the deductions from it are simply absurd.
Mr. BACON. The statements, you will remember, are from a confidential letter a private letter of Mr. Schwab to his associate.
Mr. ALDRICH. I do not care how private it is. The statement as applied to existing conditions is absolutely untrue and impos sible.
Mr. BACON. I say " private " not for the purpose of convey ing any other impression than that Mr. Schwab in making that statement could not have been influenced by any public purpose. He was simply conferring with his associate, his colaborer in the enterprise, as to what was the future of the business in which they were thus mutually interested.
Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President, the cost of steel rails, like the ^cost of everything else, depends upon the cost of the material and the labor which goes into it.
Mr. BACON. I have not got through. Mr. ALDRICH. And there might be a possible cost of iron ore, of pig iron, and of labor that would reduce the cost of steel rails to $12 per ton, but to say that they can be produced to-day or could have been produced at any time within the last three or four years, when the price of pig iron itself which is one of the constituent elements of steel rails has been so high, is a ridicu lous statement. Mr. BACON. I have not got through with the concrete case yet. It is not necessary, Mr. President, that it should be so ex treme as the Senator says the statement of Mr. Schwab is. It would be an awful iniquity if it were that extreme; it would be still an iniquity if it were half so extreme. Now, let me give you a few figures on that subject to see where it leads. Mr. GALLINGER. Will the Senator permit me to interrupt him? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. GALLINGER. The Senator did me the honor to listen to me in a very uninteresting speech the other day and did not in terrupt me. I do not wish to interrupt the Senator, except to ask about the document from which he has been reading. My atten tion was distracted. Mr. BACON. I am reading an article from the Indianapolis News, which was reproduced in the Washington Post of Septem ber 4, 1903, in which there was quoted a letter written by Mr. Schwab to Mr. Frick of the date of May 15, 1899. Mr. BAILEY. If the Senator from Georgia will permit me, I think that identical letter appears in what is rather a history of the steel industry in the United States, recently written and pub lished by a former private secretary of Andrew Carnegie. Mr. BACON. I have no doubt that is true. Mr. GALLINGER. The reason of my inquiry, Mr. President, was that I find in the review of the evidence of the Industrial Commission, which is signed by distinguished Democrats as well, as Republicans, that Mr. Schwab, on page 25 of that review, does not talk quite as he did in that letter. I commend the Senators attention to page 35. Mr. BACON. That is all right If the Senator will allow me
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10
to proceed with the presentation of the matter with some degree of continuity, I shall be more than glad if, when I get through, the learned and distinguished Senators will proceed with this dis cussion, because the more the subject is discussed the more light we shall get. We want all the light we can get, and I shall be more than delighted to have the matter further discussed. I am not one of those who are in a hurry to close this session on Thurs day; I am willing to stay here just so long.as the public business requires it, and just so long as the discussion of great public ques tions will give light to the people of the United States as to these matters in which they are so deeply and practically interested. So I hope the Senators will reserve the information which they have, in order that they may present it with some more degree of .elaboration than they can do simply in the way of interruption. I shall feel the utmost pleasure if Senators will continue this dis cussion after I have concluded.
Mr. GALLINGER. I beg the Senators pardon for interrupt ing him.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I was going to consider what was the practical operation of the most remarkable information thus disclosed to us by Mr. Schwab. I have here some figures showing the amount of rails consumed in the United States since the en actment of the Dingley bill, in which there is the tariff of $7.84 a ton on steel rails. I find that there has been consumed in the United States for the six years beginning in 1898 and ending in 1898 those are fiscal years, as I understand 12,686,434 tons of steel rails. Of that amount all was of domestic production ex cept 143,193 tons, leaving a total of 12,544,242 tons as the amount of domestic steel rails manufactured and consumed in the United States in those six years.
Recognizing the contradiction which the Senator from Rhode Island makes to the correctness of Mr. Schwabs figures, but as suming, for the purpose of this argument, that Mr. Schwab is correct, we have from his figures, in a concrete form not ab stract what has been the total amount in those six years under the operations of the Dingley bill that the people of the United States have paid for rails over and above what Mr. Schwab says would have been the price at a reasonable profit. That excessive price thus exacted from the domestic consumer has been made possible through the steel schedule of the protective tariff, be cause, in the absence of the protective tariff, the steel rails of the British manufacturer would have been here to compete with the American product unless the American producer sold rails to the American consumer at a reasonable price. The practical effect of lowering the tariff on steel rails to a reasonable rate would be that the American producer would still sell to the American consumer, but he would be compelled to do so at a reasonable price. As shown by the statement of Mr. Schwab, the British manufacturer could not compete in the United States with the American manufacturer at $20 a ton after he had added the cost of transportation to the cost of production.
Mr. ALDRICH. But, Mr. President, the very statement the .Senator read from shows that in Great Britain steel rails can not be made for the figures at which they are made here.
Mr. BACON. What is that? Mr. ALDRICH. Suppose the duty should be taken off and the price had been the price quoted in the letter to which the Senator
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has referred, what would the American consumer then have to pay? Not $12 a ton, for steel rails have never sold in Great Britain or in, any other country in the world for $12 a ton.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the point is this: For the purpose of this presentation I am assuming that Mr. Schwab is correct. I recognize the contradiction of the Senator from Rhode Island of the cprrectness of the fact; but assuming it to be correct from that standpoint, what is the conclusion? The statement of Mr. Schwab is that he could sell steel rails at $16 a ton and make $4 a ton profit. Therefore $16 a ton would afford a legitimate profit. But as he sells them, in fact, at $28 a ton, we have the statement which I have just made, that there is $12 a ton over and above what would be, according to Mr. Schwabs own statement, a le gitimate profit of $4 a ton.
Mr. ALDRICH. In other words, the American producer of steet rails has been able to add S1G a ton profit to his entire pro duction on account of a $7.84 duty!
Mr. BACON. Very well. The Senator from Rhode Islan d does not need to be told by me that not only has there to be added the duty, but the cost of transportation, and the two together make up the $12 a ton and not $16, as stated by the Senator.
Mr. ALDRICH. It costs less to transport Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, the difference be tween the $16 and the $28 is the difference made up by the $7.84 of tariff duty and the cost of transportation. Mr. ALDRICH. It costs less to transport steel rails from the mills of Great Britain and Belgium to New England than it does from the mills of the United States. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I am not going to stop at this point to discuss the question which has been raised between the learned Senator and Mr. Schwab. I am discussing this matter now from the standpoint of Mr. Schwabs testimony. If the Senator can show hereafter that Mr. Schwabs,testimony is not admissible, that is another matter, but I was discussing this from the standpoint of Mr. Schwabs testimony. We have this remarkable fact, that in the six years during which the Dingley Act has been in operation the consumers of the United States have had from the domestic producers of steel rails 12,544,242 tons, and that, if Mr. Schwabs testimony is cor rect, the profit of $12 a ton over and above the $4 profit which he said would be satisfactory to him from his foreign consumer with the profit of $12 a ton greater than that which he charged to his foreign consumer, the people of the United States have in that time paid for steel rails $150,580,904 more than the same rails would have been sold for to foreign consumers. The aver age price of rails in that time has been about 28 per ton. Mr. ALDRICH. How is that chargeable to the protective tariff? Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I can not conceive why the Senator would ask me that question unless he wants to put me upon the stand to see whether or not I understand the most elementary principles of prices. I can not stop, of course, unless I propose to abandon the presentation of this argument, to do more than to say this to the Senator Mr. ALDRICH. I beg the Senators pardon. I shall not in terrupt him. Mr. BACON. As the Senator knows, I do not object to any
6067

legitimate interruption, and I do not say that his suggestion is illegitimate. If it were not for the notice given for half past 4, I should not object to any sort of interruption, but I shall endeavor to answer the Senator anyhow.
The Senator asks how it is that $28 a ton, which the American steel-rail manufacturer exacts of the American consumer, when he avows his readiness to sell at $16 a ton to the foreign consumer, is to be attributed to the tariff? Well, I suppose that it is an easily recognized fact that the object of a protective tariff is to keep out the foreign competitor, and that the reason why this $38 a ton is available to the American producer when dealing with his Amer ican consumer is that the foreign manufacturer is by reason of the protective tariff excluded from competition. , Mr. ALDRICH. But certainly the domestic producer is only protected to the extent of the duty, unless there are some other advantages given to him.
Mr. BAILEY. Will the Senator from Georgia permit me to interrupt him?
The PRESIDING OFFICEE. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Texas?
Mr. BACON. With great pleasure. Mr. BAILEY. I do not need to assist the Senator from Georgia. Mr. BACON. That is all right. Mr. BAILEY. Because that is plainly not necessary; but the Senator from Rhode Island knows it costs more to produce those rails in Great Britain than it does here, according to the testimony of experts. and it would be impossible for them to compete against our steel-rail manufacturers without a tariff Mr. ALDRICH. I do not accept the experts nor the statement. Mr. BAILEY. But it is true, notwithstanding the Senator from Rhode Island does not accept it. Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. BAILEY. And Mr. Schwab states in this letter that they can not manufacture steel rails there for less than $19, while we can manufacture them at $12 and can sell them at $16 a ton. Mr. ALDRICH. Is the fact that they can not manufacture for less than 19 attributable to our tariff? Mr. BAILEY. Not at all. That is not what I intended to say. But when they can not manufacture there for less than $19, against our manufacturing cost of $12 here, they can not com pete with us without a tariff. Nevertheless, in spite of that, we add $7.84, and thus that $7.84 added to the English price of $19 would make the cost price of the English rails laid down here $26.84 a ton. Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President Mr. BAILEY. One moment. The American manufacturer, knowing that the English steel-rail manufacturer can not under sell him at any figure below $26.84, plus the carrying charges, proceeds to assess the difference against the American people. Mr. ALDRICH. I will not impeach the intelligence of the Senator from Texas sufficiently to say that he himself believes the statement he has just made. Why is it, if the manufacturers and producers of steel rails in Great Britain can not produce them at less than $19 per ton, and the producers in the United States can produce them at $12 a ton, that Great Britain and Germany still have the markets of the world and we have only a small export trade? The statement, then, answers itself. If we can sell steel

13
rails at $12 a ton at a profit, we should have the markets of the world in twenty-four hours in spite of Great Britain with her $ 19 cost. The- fact that we do not export steel rails in great quanti ties, that we are not selling them in the markets of the world, and that we have not absorbed the business of the whole world, an swers the Senators statement.
Mr. BAILEY. The trouble with the Senator The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Texas? Mr. BACON. Yes, sir. Mr. BAILEY. The trouble with the Senator from Rhode Is land is that he does not take the price at the time Mr. Schwab states it in his letter. At the risk of interrupting the Senator from Georgia Mr. BACON. Go ahead. Mr. BAILEY. Longer than I desire, I want to say that that letter was written to Mr. Frick when he was fixing the value of the great properties that constitute the trust whose success my friend from Iowa [Mr. DOTXIVKB] so eloquently praised. It was in determining what would be the probable profits of that trust that Mr. Schwab wrote this letter to Mr. Frick. Mr. ALDRICH. In other words, it was a stock-jobbing and not a business statement. Mr. BAILEY. It was made to Mr. Frick for his information. I am not here to say that Republican manufacturers undertake to deceive the unsuspecting public I have no doubt that some of .them do but I undertake to say that Mr. Schwab is as reputable nd as truthful as any man who ever filched money from the pockets of the American people through the agency of a protect ive tariff. The testimony the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINGER] has in front of him shows that Mr. Schwab had can dor, under oath, to say that the American manufacturers of steel rails are selling their goods cheaper in foreign countries than to the American consumers. Mr. GALLINGER. If the Senator will permit me, he gave va rious reasons for it, the principal one being that there was an ad vantage in labor. Mr. BAILEY. I will not state his reasons. I repeat his state ment. He had the candor to say it a candor which some others would do well to imitate. There is no doubt that the prices which Mr. Schwab stated in his letter were correct at that time, but the Senator from Rhode Island knows that the cost of producing pig iron varies from year to year. It has gone down from as high as $20 per ton to as low as a fraction over $7. Of course, this varia tion in the price of raw material varies the cost of producing the finished product. I take this statement of Mr. Schwab, and notwithstanding the expert knowledge of the Senator from Rhode Island on all the tariff schedules he must stand second to Mr. Schwab, whose rise in the steel industry of this country is one of the romances of that great development. Beginning a boy as a day laborer, he rose to the presidency of the greatest steel corporation ever or ganized in the history of the world, and he rose through his un aided exertion and through his peculiar knowledge of the indus try. Therefore, when Mr. Schwab fixes the cost of producing steel rails in this country and steel rails in Great Britain I ac cept it even as against the statement of the Senator from. Rhode Island.
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Mr. ALDRIOH. But I should like to ask the Senator from Texas whether steel rails can be produced in the United States to day or could have been produced last year or the year before last at $13 a ton?
Mr. BAILEY. No; because the price of pig iron varies; but that does not affect the profit.
Mr. ALDBICH. But it affects the statement of the Senator from Georgia, who has taken the last six or eight years in fixing the cost to the American people.
Mr. BACON. As I was saying, it is not necessary that that S12 a ton should be entirely accurate. That would be a most monstrous iniquity. I say that if it were even a half or a fourth of that, it is an iniquity. , Mr. BAILEY. Of the protective tariff.
Mr. BACON. I am speaking of it as if by reason of the pro tective tariff. If not simply $13 a ton, but the half of $12 a ton over and above the cost at which they can sell at a profit to for eign consumers, is charged to the domestic consumer, it is an in iquity, only less in degree.
But I was trying to argue this question upon the assumption that Mr. Schwab was reliable. It will be for the Senators to show that he is not to be relied upon. Let them give us not their frag mentary views in the way of interruptions in my speech, but something that can go to the country that shall be based on author itative statistics, and not upon their denial simply of an assertion made by a man who, as stated by the Senator from Texas, stands at the very head and front of the steel industry, and a man pre sumed above all other men in this country to be able to speak authoritatively and truthfully of it.
I had, when interrupted, just called attention to the fact that if Mr. Schwabs statement is correct, the American consumer within six years that have elapsed since the enactment of this schedule in the Dingley Act, which gives $7.84 a ton to steel rails, has been required to pay $150,530,904 above the price that Mr. Schwab said was the price at which he could sell them at a profit.
Mr. ALDRICH. Why does the Senator confine himself to the Dingley tariff rate upon steel rails? The rate upon steel rails fixed by the German-Wilson Act was $7.84. Why not go back and show what the cost was to the country under a Democratic Administration?
Mr. BACON. If that were so, it would be none the less an iniquity if it gave opportunity for these discriminations, and when attention is called to it it ought to be corrected by those who now have the power to correct it.
Mr. ALDRICH. But the sum would be very much larger if the Senator would take in the whole Democratic Administration.
Mr. BACON. For the purpose of the argument I grant what the Senator says, but here we find a condition. It matters not who is responsible for it in the past, here is a condition under which there is an extortion upon the consumer, and who has the power to make the correction? Who has the power to correct it? I care not where it originated. If jt can be shown that it origi nated in Democratic Administration and if it can be shown to be an iniquitous schedule, the Republican party to-day is the one in power, capable of correcting it and relieving the people of the burden. Does it answer the question to say you are not the au thors of this, when you have the power to-day to correct it and
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will not do it? It matters not where it came from or when it originated.
I am, Mr. President, presenting these figures for the purpose of bringing to the attention of the Eepublican party the fact that there is this abuse of our tariff system, and that they have the power tocprrect this and other like abuses, and that they do not do it. I am bringing it to the attention of the Senate for the pur pose, if I have the time hereafter, of showing that this criticism is in a line with the utterances of the Republican party in differ ent parts of the country, and notably in the State of Iowa, and for the purpose of asking Senators and the Republican party in Congress to carry out what the Republican party in the State of Iowa announced as its purpose, to revise those portions of the ex isting tariff law as furnished a shelter for the trusts, and not hur riedly tp adjourn this Congress and leave the people under this burden, not simply as to steel rails, but as to almost all other articles of consumption by the people, both in their private busi ness and in the public utilities of the country.
Now, sir, if it be true that within that time, according to the figures of Mr. Schwab, $1,530,904 have been exacted and taken from the American consumer over and above what would have been charged to a foreign customer, it is an important matter to be considered that this does not altogether fall on the railroads. It is at last paid by those who patronize the railroads. Men put their money into railroads not for the purpose of throwing it away, but for the purpose of investment, through which they re ceive from those who patronize the roads the return of the money which they put in, with a reasonable profit thereon. More than 150,000,000 has been paid by the great masses of the American people. Every man who patronizes an American railroad, who rides upon it, or ships a pound of freight has paid his part of that $150,000,000. And of this vast amount which the people have thus paid every dollar has gone into treasure chests of the makers of steel rails. The tariff law alone has made it necessary for the people to pay this stupendous sum, but not one dollar of it has come into the public Treasury.
Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator allow me to ask another question? and I will not interrupt him again.
Mr. BACON. I am delighted to hear the Senator, but it would be so much better if the Senator would make a speech in his own time. I want to hear him.
Mr. ALDRICH. I promise not to interrupt him again. Mr. BACON. I do not exact any such promise from the Senator. Mr. ALDRICH. I wanted to know whether the Senator has made the same calculation in regard to all the other items of American production? Mr. BACON. No. Mr. ALDRICH. And if he can, to show exactly how much the protective tariff costs the American people. Mr. BACON. No; I have not. Mr. ALDRICH. One hundred and fifty million dollars does not represent the total range of American production. The pro tective tariff must cost the American people thousands of millions of dollars, according to the view of the Senator from Georgia. Mr. BACON. The Senator is undoubtedly correct in that sug gestion. I would like to have something to say on that subject, if time permitted. We have been told that American manufac-
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16

tares consumed in the United States annually amount to some $13,000,000,000. It would be a most interesting inquiry how much of this thirteen thousand millions of dollars annually thus paid by the American people represents the actual cost and a fair profit on the articles purchased with this sum, and how much of it, as in the case of the steel rails, represents a stupendous tribute wrung from the people under the operations of a public tariff law and stuffed into the money vaults of private parties. Some assistance can be rendered in such an investigation by the knowledge of the fact that the average protective duty under the Dingley Act is nearly, if not quite, 50 per cent.
But to return to the sale of steel rails to American consumers. If more than $150,000,000 has, under the operation of this law, been taken from the pockets of the American people in excess of that at which Mr. Schwab himself says he would be willing to sell the same property in England, no wonder is it that one of the chief beneficiaries under this particular system announces that he is ready, if necessary, out of his own pocket, to pay the campaign expenses of the Republican party in the coming Presidential elec tion; and no wonder that the chief concern engaged in the steel industry is reported to have made an annual dividend of more than $140,000,000. and that upon a capitalization three-fourths of which is reputed to be wind or water.
Now, Mr. President, as the Senator from Rhode Island objects to the figures of Mr. Schwab, I am going to give him something a little more concrete, about which he can not object, because the facts are not to be disputed. I hold in my hand a letter written to me personally by Mr. James T. Wright, vice-president and gen eral manager of the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad Com pany. I will state that he is an Indianian and a Republican and so avows himself in this letter. By his request, in reading the let ter though I will show it to the Senator privately, if he desires it, so that there will be no trouble about that I do not give the names of the companies with which he dealt. As he requests me not to do it, I do not care to have published in the records of the country the names of the companies. It is addressed to me and dated February 28, 1904. I will read the entire letter:

Hon. A. O. BACON, Washington, D. C.

MACON, GA., February US, WOh-

MY DEAR SIB: I beg to own receipt of yours of the 20th, and have care-

fnlly noted same.

Irecall very distinctly my conversation with you on the subject of steel

rails purchased by my company from the

company, and I take pleas

ure in giving you the details ot the transaction, asking you, however, to re

frain from mentioning the names of the parties.

The extension of our road, some 40 miles, was decided upon and cash pro

vided for it early in the spring of 1901. Owing to the demand at that time for

steel in all forms and the probability of an advance in price, it seemed wise

to take up the matter of the purchase of the necessary rails at once. Inquir

ies, therefore, were addressed and mailed to all the leading steel-rail manu

facturers in the country, asking for tenders on 60 miles of 70-pound steel rail

delivered at Savannah or Macon, the point of delivery to be optional with us.

We received prompt responses, but there was practically no difference in

the bids, the eastern rail mills contiguous to tide water quoting practically

the same price delivered at Savannah and a correspondingly higher price for

Macon delivery, the interior rail mills making a lower price for Macon de

livery and a higher price for Savannah delivery. It was very evident to me

that the field had been divided by the manufacturers and that no one of them

, and placed our order with them for 5,618 tons of rail at $29 per ton, based upon delivery at tide water. This would enable us to arrange our own freight rate to Savannah and effect
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some saving in the cost of the rails. Tho order was declined on these terms,

the

Steel Company refusing to make any price f. o. b. mill, but insisting

upon delivered price.

The matter was then taken up with interior mills, who were perfectly will

ing to make a price f. o. b. mill, but we were unable to obtain any concession

in all-rail rates which would reduce the cost of the rail below that quoted

by the

Steel Company for delivery at Savannah.

The whole transaction in the meantime had been handled by wire, owing

to the demands of the

Steel Company that it be closed at once, as the

price would be advanced.

I made one more effort. Some friends of mine were interested in a rail

road project in Central America, and I broached the subject to the repre

sentative of the

Steel Company who had come here to close the matter

with me. I told him that my friends had made some inquiry of me as to the

cost of construction in that country, and I should like to know

I am just coining to the point now that will interest the Sena

tor from Rhode Island, and I trust that he will not leave the

Chamber before I finish it

and I should like to know at what price he would sell me steel rails delivered

ai tide water for shipment to Honduras. He promptly quoted me $20 per ton.

Further inquiry developed the fact, however, that they would only loud ves

sels chartered to a foreign port, and that the charter should be an essential

part of the contract. The wall was complete. There was noticing left for

me to do but to place my order and to thank God it was no worse, as within

two days thereafter steel rails advanced $2 per ton.

Allowing a liberal amount for cost of delivery at tide water, which in this

particular case would have been very small, we American citizens paid to

this American industry $83,000 in excess of what foreigners would have been

compelled to pay. And $38,001) would have put up a very handsome library

filled with standard books on protection.

And this was a very small transaction only 50 miles of railroadl Pay

ments were cash, and we neither needed nor asked any concessions in the

matter of time. Because we were Americans, interested in the development

of a small section of our country, involving faith and sacrifices, we were com

pelled to pay out as a bonus in excess of $600 per mile.

These are the facts. Unfortunately I had only the verbal quotation on the

rails for foreign shipment, but I have no doubt that it was at least the top of

the market, but I have the full correspondence in my flies covering the rest

of the transaction.

Owing to the necessity for prompt action, I was tinable to secure prices

from foreign rail makers, but it would be foolish to imagine that that avenue

had not also been closed to us.

I have written you hurriedly, and may not have given you all the facts or

as clearly as you desire. If there is still opportunity and I can further eluci

date the matter, please advise me, and I shall take pleasure in doing so.

For purely business reasons I must ask you not to mention tho names I

have given. Personally I should like to see it given the widest publicity; and

if the statement is of any use to you, I shall be glad, as an American and as a

Republican.

Very truly, yours,

J. T. WBIGHT.

Mr. ALDRICH. Transactions of this kind have been common in the commercial world
Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will not interrupt me. If he has any question to ask, I will yield for a question.
Mr. ALDRICH. I have not any question. Mr. BACON. I can not permit him to interject a speech. Mr. ALDRICH. I was only about to say Mr. BACON. No; if the Senator has a question, I will reply; but I object to the Senator making a speech. However. I do hope he will take occasion to make a speech in his own time in reply to it. Mr. ALDRICH. I was only about to concede that transactions of this kind have taken place inthe United States and in the com mercial world from the beginning of time down to the present moment. Mr. BACON. That is all right. Mr. ALDRICH. They are not the product of a protective tariff either here or elsewhere.

18
Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will take occasion to state that with some degree of elaboration and fortify what he has to say, not simply to give us the dicta of his own assertion. Let us have facts and figures. We will be very glad to have the Senator enter the arena of debate and not content himself simply with interruptions and dicta without any facts to substantiate and fortify the statement.
Mr. ALDEICH. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, if the resolution I introduced here in December had been permitted to pass, and if the Department of Commerce and Labor, with its large facilities and ample means, had been permitted to gather the information which was sought in that resolution, we might not be in the position of having to stand upon the statement of Mr. Schwab or upon the dicta of the learned and distinguished Senator from Bhode Island; but we might have had, and I presume would have had here to-day, au thoritative statements officially uttered and conveyed to us by the great statistical Department of this Government. I trust that while it has been postponed we will have, under the opportunity furnished by the resolution offered by my learned and distin guished friend from Iowa and the amendment which I have ven tured to propose to the same, this information in time that the people may have it during this summer. Ought not the people to have the information? If what the Sen ator from Rhode Island says is true, and there is nothing in that information which would be of disadvantage to those who claim that the particular provisions of the Dingley Act under which these abuses have grown are correct and should not be changed, what have they to lose? And if it be not true if, on the contrary, it be a fact that these oppressions and extortions are permissible under the Dingley Act ought not the people of the United States to have knowledge of that fact when they come to pass upon the questions that will be submitted to them in November? Not from a political standpoint as to them, but from their great material interests, are they not entitled to have this information? Now, Mr. President, I have another letter here, from a railroad president. It is not quite as concrete in all its statements as the other, but still it is as to one statement, and as to the others it is sufficiently so to at least indicate that this Congress will fail in its duty if it omits and refuses to have the definite information which can be secured through the investigation to be made-by the Department of Commerce and Labor. I am sorry the Senator from Rhode Island is not here to hear this letter, but he will probably have the opportunity to see it in the RECORD. It is written to me by the president of the National Railroad Company of Mexico, who is to me personally known. The National Railroad Company of Mexico is owned by English men in the main, and the president of it is a railroad man from my own State. He was formerly the president of the Central Railroad of Georgia. He has his office in New York City. He spends his time alternately at his office and upon the line of his railroad in Mexico. It is a long railroad, extending from Laredo, in the State of Texas, to the City of Mexico, 840 miles, and there is a continuation of it several hundred miles long in the State of Texas, running from Laredo down to a point on the Gulf Corpus Christi. The railroad altogether is some thirteen hundred miles in length.
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I call attention to the facts stated by Mr. RaotiL. who isa Lonisianian by birth. He lived in Georgia ever since a young man, until he undertook this work about fifteen years ago. He has been for about fifteen years president of this railroad, and is now about to go out of the presidency of it to take charge of a railroad in Georgia. That accounts for certain statements made in this letter. It is in order that he may be understood that I mention that fact. , The facts which he states here I have myself had from him in years past verbally. I have made two trips with him to Mexico over his line of railroad, and in that way had opportunity, aside fronrfrequent association with him in other places, to hear him say a great deal about the business of his railroad and everything connected with it. I had previously heard from him the state ment that in dealing with manufacturers in the United States the prices charged him for goods which he was to use upon the part of his railroad in Mexico were very much under the prices charged to him by the same parties for the same goods to be used on the part of his railroad in the State of Texas, Recollecting that fact, I wrote him when this matter was first being considered by me, asking him to give me some detailed information upon that sub ject that I might use it in this debate, stating to him that I only asked him to do so in case it would not embarrass him. Here is his letter, written from New York February 25:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 30th. It would not be anv embarrassment for me to give you the information you asi: if it were possible for me to do so, but I believe it will not be practicable. I am so overwhelmed with work preparatory to getting my affairs in shape for leaving my present posi tion with the company that I have no time to devote to anything outside of my official work, and to get any accurate information would require going "back into the files of tile purchasing agents office, and the man who is familiar with^this whole business is leaving for Mexico Oity to-day.
For a long time past all our purchases have been made on the basis of ex port prices even though they have occasionally stopped in Texas, the compe tition being keen enough to produce this cut in prices in favor of the Texas shipments, so that it has been some time past since we have had any material differences, but those differences do exist and to an iniquitous extent. I "use the word " iniquitous " because it certainly seems so to me when the citizens of the United States are required under the laws of the country to pay a higher price to the manufacturers than the^o same manufacturers are will ing to make and sell to foreign people for. In 1902 I secured bids on steel rails for Mexico from United States mills at about $24 delivered at Tampico, while the price I paid at the same time for rail for our road in Texas was $88 at the mills.
I have understood that the Canadian Pacific has just bought a large lot of rails from the United States Steel Corporation at $31. It is asserted and de nied that the $31 is for delivery at Montreal. If it is, the price at the mill would be about $19, while the price for United States roads is still $28 at the mills. I do not know this of my own knowledge, and it ia merely current report.
When I saw that you had introduced a bill in Congress to inquire into these differences in prices, I was very much pleased that you had started the inquiry, and intended to write you a line expveasiiig myself in thatsense,but I was interrupted by one thing and another, and finally it escaped me. The source from which you are seeking to get this information will be official and thoroughly authentic, and it seems to me it should supply you with ma terial quite sufficient to establish your case.

With kind regards, I remain, yours, very truly,

W. Q.

I stop there to note that the $24 was the price, delivered at Tam pico, for rails which were to be used for a part of the road in Mexico. Of course , from the $24 was necessarily deducted the cost of transportation, so far as the receipt of the manufacturer is con cerned, and for the road, so far as it lay in Texas, at the mills the

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price was $38 a ton. So if you allow even $4 as the cost of trans portation, there was a difference of $8 a ton between the price charged by the manufacturers for rails sold to the same party where he was to use a part of them in Texas and to use the other part in Mexico.
Twenty-four dollars was the price at Tampico, and in that case, of course, the manufacturer paid the freight to Tampico. and that was for rails to be used in Mexico; but for rails which were to be used in Texas the price was $28 at the mills, which would have required the railroad company, of course, to pay the freight.
If $4 was the cost of transportation at a difference of $8 a ton between the price charged by the maker of the steel rails to the same person where he had a railroad line partly in Texas and partly in Mexico, he paid $8 .more for the rail to be laid in Texas than for the rail to be laid in Mexico.
Mr. BLACKBURN. At the same time. Mr.BACON. At the same time; not, as suggeste_d by the learned Senator from Ehode Island, when there was a difference in pig iron or the cost of labor or anything else. Here is $8 a ton. about representing the difference made up by the $7.84 a ton duty. I should like, if the learned Senator were present, to ask him if that is a sufficiently concrete presentation for him, and certainly he will not say in this case or in the case of Mr. Wright, the vicepresident and general manager of the railroad, whose letter I have just read, that there is any doubt as to the correctness of the state ments. In the case of Mr. Schwab, it was an estimate, and he may be in some error, but, as stated by the Senator from Texas, an estimate made under circumstances entitled to every credit as to its correctness, because it was an estimate by Mr. Schwab in all probability while conferring with his copartner as to what would be the values of securities which they were then about to put on the market, and not the price which Mr. Schwab was giv ing to the customer who contemplated the purchase of such se curities, But while it was an estimate in that case, in each of these two cases here are the actual prices stated by a customer. In each case it is the same rail by the same manufacturer to the same cus tomer at the same time, and in each case there is a discrimination of the price to this same customer of the same rail at the same time as between the rail to be used in the foreign country and the rail to be used at home. Mr. President, I repeat I am not to-day endeavoring to make a general argument against the protective tariff. I am not to-day arguing any general proposition. Some Senators are here now who were not here when I began. I repeat what I said then, that the object of the presentation which I am endeavoring to make is to show to the Republican party, to the dominant party in the Sen ate and in the other House, the abuses of the protective tariff sys tem as found in some schedules of the Dingley Act, even if viewed from the standpoint of an ordinary protective tariff; and I am asking, as I asked the Senator from Rhode Island, regardless of whether or not the same conditions were found under the Demo cratic tariff as are now found tinder the Republican tariff, why is it, unless they approve of these abuses, that the Republican party, with unlimited power to legislate, will not attempt to correct these abuses? That is the object I have to-day in what I say. But, Mr. President, in the absence of this official information
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21
which we have desired and which we are now seeking, we have had, of course, to look to various sources in the effort to get the necessary information. I call attention now to other pieces of information, which, while in some instances the evidence may not be conclusive, it is certainly sufficiently authentic to put the Con gress of the United States upon notice of the fact that the people of the United States under some schedules of the Dingley tariff act are being oppressed, and that unreasonable prices are being exacted from them, which are extortionate, even from the stand point -of a protectionist.
Here is a clipping which I have from a newspaper, the name of which I unfortunately did not put down; but as it refers to the document by name froni which it gets the information, if the statements herein contained are incorrect the fact can be ascer tained and the truth made known. The article to which I refer is as follows:
In a recent pamphlet Mr. Henry Loomis Nelson, former editor of Harpers Weekly, shows the utter fallacy of the assertion, so frequently made, that the trusts have reduced prices. He shows, for instance, that the average yearly " base " price of wire nails per keg has increased since 1894 from $1.11 to $2.60, thepresentpricebeing$3.58; andthepriceof barbed wire fromijl. 80 in 1897 to $3.17 in 1899, the present price being $4.13. The profits of the trust run from $8,000,000 to $15,000,000 a year, the increase of price being nearly all profit. It has, however, by its increase of prices, greatly reduced the con sumption of wire fencing, and in 1896 the consumption of cut and wire nails was reduced by a former trust about 1,000,000 kegs. While the trust raises the price of its goods to the American, farmer and mechanic, it sells to the foreigner for much less. In 1896, for example, the price of nails to foreigners was $1.30 and to Americana $2.70. In 1898 the retail price to Americans was about $4.50 and to foreigners $3. 14 "base," or about $3. 10 retail a keg. It was possible to buy at export price, ship the goods to Europe, bring them back, and even then undersell the trusts domestic prices. In 1899 the trust ex ported 51,000,0011 pounds of wire nails to its former foreign customers and 215,000,000 pounds of wire.
Now. I .call attention to the statement there in connection with the former statement by me, that I was not claiming that every sale made in a foreign country at a less price than made in this country was an evidence that the protective tariff as to that par ticular schedule was giving an undue advantage, but that I was limiting myself to the cases where these were in the regular course of trade or business; and here this author, Mr. Henry Loomis Nelson, calls attention to the fact that in one year, in 1899, the trust exported 51,000,000 pounds of iron nails to foreign customers and 215,000,000 pounds of wire.
Those do not indicate transactions such as those which I freely admit are to be excepted from the criticism, and show that it is not the business of that kind, but that it is in the ordinary course of their regular trade. The article continues:
Mr. Nelson demonstrates by these and other illustrations that the pro tective tariff, whatever the intended object of it may be, is practically for the benefit of a comparatively small class of persons at the expense of the many.
The beneficiaries of protection are sheltered from foreign competition by the tariff and from domestic competition by the trusts which they have formed.
Now, Mr. President, the figures which I have given as to the exorbitant amount which has been exacted and collected from the American people under the steel-rail schedule of the tariff act amounted to over $150,000,000, but I call attention in that con nection to the fact that Mr. Schwab, in the same letter to Mr. Frick, states:
What is true of rails is equally true of other steel products.
Therefore, if it be true, as stated by Mr. Schwab, that by reason
ti067

of the difference in prices at which he was selling in the United States and the price at which he could sell at $4 profit in England there was $12 a ton to be received by the producer of steel rails, it is also true under his statement as to all other steel products.
Mr. President, I have not the figures, but I presume it will be generally recognized that the steel products of the country other than rails far exceed the product of rails in value and amount. The steel product enters into all the industrial business of life. In this country, at least, it has been very much enlarged. Things which formerly were served by wood now require iron. Impor tant houses, bridges, structures of all kinds, implements, farm ing implements, which were formerly of wood are now of iron. So you might run through the whole category of mechanical in dustries, and the fact is presented that in this large degree the producers of steel, under the present steel schedule, are enabled to exact what is at least, according to this computation, 75 per cent above the reasonable profit; not 75 per cent on the cost, be cause, if what Mr. Schwab says is true, the profit on the steel rail is 75 per cent above the $4 profit, and that is true, approxi mately, under that statement, of all the steel products of the country.
Nor is it limited to steel or iron products by any means. We are, as I said, under the necessity of going to sources for informa tion which may not be as thorough as they would be if the infor mation had been given to us by the Department of Commerce and Labor. But I read from an article in the Savannah Press a newspaper published in Savannah, Ga. of December 14, 1903. in which there is set out the difference in prices charged in this country and the prices charged in foreign countries for the same articles by domestic producers. The article, after some personal mention, says:
This is one of the freaks of the tariff. For instance, the Savannah Press noticed some time ago the steel rails made in Pennsylvania cost the railroads of this country $38 a ton, and yet the game rails were delivered at Beirut for the Jerusalem and Joppa Short Line at J83 a ton. Or. if we deduct the freight, $5 a ton, the net charge abroad is a little over $17 a ton. American consum ers are paying about $10 a ton more than the foreign purchaser for the same article. The narni done in this one item amounts in one year to a tax of nearly 330,000,000 to American enterprises.
And, according to the statistics which I have just read, in the year 1903, if Mr. Schwabs figures are correct, the people of the United States paid from $33,000,000 to 35,000,000 of bonus upon the consumption of steel rails in America over and above what Mr. Schwab said would be a satisfactory profit. Continuing, thearticle from the Savannah Press says:
Not only is this true of steel rails, but of ammunition caps the export price shows a difference of about 40 per cent in favor of the foreign consumer. Axle grease made in America is sold at $5.40 per dozen gallon cans and $4 50 abroad, making a difference of 20 per cent. Kefixed borax sells at 2i cents a pound abroad and 7j cents at home, a difference of 2J cents. Coffee and spice mills show a difference of 20 per cent in favor of foreign purchasers; harness snaps 25 per cent; meat choppers nearly 40 per cent. Nails sell at home at $2 per hundred pounds and abroad about |1.30, a difference of about 40 per cent in favor of the foreign purchaser.
One make of pianos brings $275 at home and $325 abroad. Playing cards, which sell at home for $26 a gross, can be bought for half the price abroad, a difference of about 100 per cent. Powder shows a descrimination of 30 per cent; rakes a difference of about 25 per cent; sausage stuffers a difference of 20 per cent; saws a difference of about 5 per cent. Sewing machines made in America cost from $20 to $35. The same machines when snipped abroad bring about from $13 to $17. a difference of about 50 per cent. Shovels show a differ ence of HO per cent. Tin plates bring something over $4 a hundred pounds at
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home and about $i a hundred pounds abroad. $100 in this country; abroad yon can buy Bemi $65. Barbed wire brings $2.WO a hundred pound Wire rope shows a difference of over 200 per cent in favor of the foreign pur chaser.
I want to read one other statement which I take from the Au gusta Chronicle of December 14, in which the editor of that paper gives an instance within his personal knowledge, a small matter comparatively, but it illustrates the genera] proposition:
AFTER FACTS AND FIGURES.
If Senator BACONS resolution shall succeed in bringing before the people n the strong and statistical way that the new Department of Commerce and Labor knows how to array figures, an accurate statement of the present Republican protective tariff, it will prove a very illuminating document. It wifl be remembered that we published in our dispatches from Washington a day or two ago that Senator BACON had introduced a resolution directing the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to procure and transmit to the Senate in formation as to what classes of goods manufactured in the United States during the year ending December 31.1903, have been sold or offered for sale in foreign countries by the manufacturers or agents at less than the same classes of goods were sold in the United States, This inquiry is to have spe cial reference to manufacturers of iron and steel and other metals, or glass and crockery, textile goods, boots, shoes, hats, caps, and other wearing ap parel, household and kitchen utensils and wares, sewing machines, vehicles of all kinds, farm implements and machinery of all kinds, jewelry, etc.
About a year ago the representative of a foreign government who has offices in New York spent a day or two in Augusta and conversed with the writer on this very subject, and cited the fact that he had saved about $60 on three typewriters which he wanted to buy in New York for use_ in his offices in that city by getting the representative of his government in London to import these American typewriters and ship them oaek to him at New York, where they entered free of duty, being of American manufacture that is, the man in London could write to the New York dealer, and he would lay down the typewriters in London cheaper than he would sell them to a New York purchaser, not only cheaper, but so much cheaper that it was to the interest of this man in New York to go to the trouble of buying his three typewriters in this way. This, he assured me, was an actual occurrence.
It is a notorious fact that McCormick reapers and other agricultural im plements are sold in Europe for less than an Illinois farmer can buy them at the factory in Chicago, and there is no doubt that Senator BACONS resolu tion can develop some very interesting statistics if he can push it to a suc cessful issue.
I have seen a statement in the public press I can not vouch for its accuracy, but I had had information outside of that that the statement is correct that when the barbed fence wire was taken into the trust the parties engaged in that business abso lutely made 50 per cent a week profit, and that thereafter the profit settled down to 400 per cent per annum. I am fully pre pared to see how that can be correct from the knowledge which I have, and which all of us who had any experience in the,use of barbed wire have, knowing that it has increased in price, cer tainly considerably overiOO per cent, if not nearly 200 per cent, not very recently, but at the time when it was taken into the trust, and very soon thereafter.
I have a letter from an exporter in New York City, voluntarily written to me, in which he states that the price to him for barbed wire to be exported to South America is $3.20 per hundred pounds, while to the man in the United States the price of barbed wire is from $3.90 to $3 per hundred pounds. In other words, the farmer in South America can fence his fields with barbed wire made in the United States and sold to him in the United States at a less price than the farmer in the United States can buy barbed wire from the same man in the United States to fence his field with. Under the operation of the present tariff law the American farmer
eoar

2i

is compelled to pay to the barbed-wire manufacturers in the United States at least 40 per cent more than the South American farmer is required to pay when he buys exactly the same wire from the same man in the United States.

Tuesday, April SS, 1904.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, when I yielded the floor on yes terday I was engaged in presenting to the Senate the evidences of the fact of the sales of goods by American producers in

foreign countries at rates less than the producers sold to Ameri

can consumers. I wish to add a little to that particular line of the presentation.

I find in the Iron Age, a publication made inNew York, on page

6, a communication from London as to the sale of American products of iron in the markets of Great Britain:

LONDON, November 7, 1903.

From the American point of view the British metal market is now becom ing exceedingly interesting. It is almost, if not quite, in a panicky condition, because of the fear of American competition. It is curious to observe that German competition during recent months has been taken with considerable equanimity, but American competition, in the mind of the British maker and consumer, is a horse of another color.
Undoubtedly one or two small contracts have been made on American ac count, but so far the volume does not amount to much. Yet the mere threat has gone some distance in disorganizing affairs. Rumors of large contracts made with the United States Steel Corporation and with other American concerns are now thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.
Prices have been quoted by the corporation agents for " sheet bars " at 80 shillings, c. i. f., Liverpool. This is 3 or 3 shillings below German rates, and, of course, much below the English.

I have been unable to get quotations of prices at which " sheet

bars " are sold to consumers in the United States, but it will be

noted that the American prices in England are much below the English prices, and there can be no doubt in that case that they are very much below the prices charged in America to American consumers.

In the same publication a dispatch from Glasgow is to the fol

lowing effect:

GT.ASOOW, November 6,1903.

There have been many quotations from your side for pig iron, steel bars, etc., delivered in Glasgow, but no transactions, as far as I can learn, have been actually booked here. The first sale of 1,000 tons of American steel bars at Swansea was known here, I think, before New York. Further sales have been made up to XO.OUO tons, over next six months, of American steel bars, or billets, for South Wales and Lancashire.

I read those extracts mainly for the purpose of showing that

the transactions are not of a minor character, nor such as would

be found if these parties were simply endeavoring to introduce

their products into the British market, or in cases where they were endeavoring to work off an undesirable surplus which was on hand.

In connection with the above and for the same purpose I quote

the following from Representative BABCOCK, of Wisconsin, the

chairman of the Republican National Committee, which appeared

in the Washington Post September 21, 1901:

One of the points which impressed me of the desirability of revising the steel schedule was information I obtained in Scotland of the placing of an order for 20,000 tons of American steel. When you stop to think that 20,000 tons of steel mean more than 1,000 carloads, it will not do to say that such an order placed abroad by our manufacturers is only their surplus product.
I wish to again call attention to the Raoul letter for the pur pose of discussing one point that I did not yesterday call atten-

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25
tion to. I then read the letter in full, and in order to attract attention to the particular point I now have in view, it is neces sary for me to read again only one sentence. This,-.the Senate will remember, is the letter written to me by the president of the Mexican National Railway Company, in which he stated that there had been for a long number of years a distinction between export prices and domestic prices in his purchases, his railroad being located partly in Mexico and partly in the State of Texas, and that higher prices were charged for all purchases made by him as to articles intended for use on the railroad in Texas than as to those articles which were intended to be used in Mexico. In that letter there is this sentence:
For a long time past all our purchases have been made on the basis of ex port prices even though they have occasionally stopped in Texas, the compe tition being keen enough to produce this cut in prices in favor of tlie Texas shipments, so that it has been some time past since we have bad any material differences, but those differences do exist and to an iniquitous extent.
The particular point I want to call attention to is this: Here was the president of a railroad located, as I have said, partly in Mexico and partly in Texas. The price for goods sold for con sumption on that part of the railroad located in Mexico were recog nized as export prices, which were lower than the prices of goods intended for consumption or use on that part of the railroad lo cated in the State of Texas. The contention of those who defend the practice of selling goods for less in foreign countries than is asked for the same goods of the domestic consumers is that it is done for the purpose of introducing goods in the foreign market or for the purpose of working off a surplus, such as sometimes might be done by a merchant in selling at his bargain counter at less really than the goods were worth.
But in this particular case the statement of Mr. Raoul is, that so anxious were these parties for the sale of the goods to him On the Mexican part of his railroad at the low export prices that on account of the competition to get that particular custom on the Mexican part of the road those parties would absolutely make the concession of giving the same low export prices on goods which were sold for use on the part of the road in Texas, showing that the trade of the Mexican National Railroad at the foreign prices was a valuable trade and not one entered into for the pur pose of introducing goods, or for the purpose of working off a sur plus, but one sought for upon the ground that it was a valuable trade, and, in order to secure that trade, they were absolutely ready to make the concession of the same low prices for the part of the railroad which was in Texas. If there is any Senator who can make any reply to that either now or in the future, I hope he will not fail to do so.
I gave yesterday certain statements as to particular instances which I denominated concrete. I have another instance to-day. This is information given me by a gentleman who has given his name and address, so that the matter can be verified if he has made any statement which is not entirely correct. The statement is made to me by Mr. William D. Lent. His address is Murray Hill Hotel, New York City. Mr. Lent is a retired merchant, formerly in the glass and paint business in the city of New York. His statement to me is that he was told within a year or so by a gentleman in the city of New York who, by the way, is a Republican, and whose name Mr. Lent is ready to give to anyone. I presume, who will ask it of him; I do not mention it here for reasons that are

sufficient that this gentleman desired to purchase a sewing ma chine for his wife in the city of New York, and that he was asked $55 for it, but not being willing to pay that price he went to an export agent to see if he could make any arrangement through him by which he could get this machine at a less price. The ex port agent stated to him that he could dp so, but that in order for him to get the benefit of the export price he. the export agent, would have to buy the machine and send it to a ship in the port, and then send it back to him from the ship, the purchase being made manifestly with the understanding that it was for the export trade. He stated that this was done, and when the machine and the bill were sent to him the bill was $18.
Mr. President, I have no personal knowledge of that, but I have given the name of the gentleman, so that if there is any desire for further inquiry about the matter it can be made.
Mr. BATE. So this man paid $18 for his machine instead of $55? Mr. BACON. Yes; he paid $18 instead of $55. It is possible that $55 was the retail price in New York, and that $18 was the wholesale export price. But as to this I have no information. But even if this is so, the very wide discrepancy in the two prices would indicate that even at wholesale prices the price to the domestic customer was at least twice as much, or more, as the price to the foreign customer across the water. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I understand the Senator from Georgia does not know what the wholesale price of such a ma chine would be in New Vork. Mr. BACON. I do not; but while I am not prepared to state what the wholesale price was, there is very little reason to doubt that the wholesale price was very far in excess of $18, at which this New York gentleman secured a machine, which was intended by the seller to be sent abroad for what was supposed to be a for eign customer. Mr. President, I have one other concrete matter to present to the Senate, which is of more general interest even than those of sewing machines. In the Washington Post in 1902 I am not pre pared to give the exact date; but of course that is definite enough for identification there is found an editorial upon this general subject, in which is given a statement of what was said in an ed itorial in the Philadelphia Press. Everyone will recognize, of course, that the Philadelphia Press is one of the typical Repub lican newspapers of the United States, and that no statement to the effect that I am about to read would be made by that paper with any disposition to cast any reflection upon any protective feature of the present tariff law or upon its operation. This is what is stated by the Washington Post to be the statement made by the Philadelphia Press. It relates to the question of the price of butchers meat to consumers in this country. It is as follows:
About the last source to which one would naturally look for an argument in favor of the reduction of any tariff schedule is the Philadelphia Press. In

__________ .

_____ _ ng loyalty" to the Dingley t

selves squarely against any effort to revise it or to interfere in any way with

its operations. They also "affirm the friendship of the Republican party for

the breadwinner and the home builder."

To all this the Press heartily subscribes, seemingly unconscious that its

party is going into the Congressional campaign under the management of an

enthusiastic advocate of tariff revision, a revision that has for its central

point the leading industry of Pennsylvania, which is protected by duties for

which he declares there is no necessity and can be no defense.

6(167

But while the Press stands up bravely for the tariff as it is, although well

knowing that some of its schedules were framed and adopted with a view to

their cutting down almost immediately, the necessities of its position as a

real newspaper compel it incidentally to condemn some of its provisions, and

their condemnation is an inferential protest against other schedules that pro

duce similar results. Just as the free-trade organs condemn their theory by

printing the stn tistics of our industries, our commerce, our national finances,

and savings-banks deposits, so the organs of extreme protection, of protection

gone mad, furnish convincing arguments against their policy simply by print

ing facts. For example, just before the Bepublican Congressional candidates

go out on a campaign in which they will find it impossible either to dodge or

defend the tariff on meat the Press shows the difference in meat prices be

tween Buffalo and Fort Erie, directly opposite in Canada. It says the beef

trust has advanced the prices in Buffalo from 25 to 50 per cent. Porterhouse

steak, for instance, is 24 cente in Buffalo and 16 cents in Fort Erie; loin steak,

15 cents in the city which is forced to pay beef-trust prices and 12 cents in

Port Erie. The Press says that the cost of living has been increased by the

trust, so far as meat is concerned, from 10 to 50 per cent, as these figures

prove.

It did not occur to our Philadelphia contemporary to mention any reason

why the beef trust is able to run up prices on this side of the line, while they

remain in statu Guo on the other side. But it is likely to occur to a good

many millions of consumers, and especially to wage-workers, that the duty

imposed on beef cattle and all kinds of dressed meat is what has caused im

I

portant change in the contents of the "full dinner pail."
Mr. President, I have presented not only general statements but the evidence of the particular instances, from which it will

be seen that the facts exist, that to a very great degree the prices

of manufactures in the United States not only manufactures, I

might say, but, as I have just read, provisions, such as beef and

butchers meat of all kinds, is sold at an enormously higher rate

in the United States than the same articles are sold by the same

parties to persons in foreign countries.

Prom this I think I am entitled to ask, " What does the domi

nant party propose to do in the presence of such a fact? In the

first place, there can be no question as to the right of the public

to demand that this particular amendment shall be adopted and

that the Department of Commerce and Labor shall be charged

with the duty of making the investigation and of reporting to

Congress, and thus to the public, to what extent this practice

goes, in order that they may determine to what extent and in

what particulars the protective tariff in its schedules is extortion

ate and an oppression to the people.

Whenever. Mr. President, anything is urged in the way of tariff

reform, the reply is that the effort is to restore free trade. In

stead of defending the particular schedules, the issue is immedi

ately sought to be shifted to the question as to whether or not a

protective tariff is the proper thing, or whether or not a revenue

tariff should be preferred to it. In other words, the effort is to

endeavor to avoid the issue as to whether there is in exorbitant

rates an abuse even from the standpoint of the protective tariff

system. Whenever there is an effort made to correct a tariff abuse

the reply is an outcry of " Free trade! " or" Tariff for revenue! "as

if every opponent of free trade or of tariff for revenue only must

necessarily approve and defend every abuse and iniquity parpe-

trated in the name of a protective tariff.

I desire to say for myself, Mr. President, that I think the time

has come when men of all parties Democrats as well as Repub

licans should look at this matter from a practical standpoint,

and if, by the practical operation of the protective tariff, there

has grown up an abuse as to particular schedules, and under that

abuse an oppression of the people in the exaction of extortionate

prices, then every effort should be made to correct these particu-

lar abuses in the most practical way in which the end can be ac complished. I am free to say that whatever may be, from an abstract standpoint, the preference of anyone on the subject of tariff rates, I do not expect to see a low tariff in this country, certainly within the near future or within many years, which ever party may be in power. I do not expect to see a low tariff for two reasons. In the first place, the necessities of the Govern ment will not permit of a low tariff. The expenditures of the Government have grown to such an extent that, in order to real ize the necessary revenue for the support of the Government, the tariff rate must necessarily be high. And while there has been much extravagance and the public expenditures far exceed what they should be, still the Government has grown to such an extent that even with the utmost economy the public expenditure would continue to be very great, and a very great revenue, even with such economy, will be necessary.
Another reason is that the business of the country has largely become adjusted to a high rate of tariff. The values of property of all kinds, of material, of services of all kinds, including sal aries and wages, and all other values in the country are upon the scale resulting from the high tariff. And even if the opportunity were presented and there were not this necessity for a large reve nue it would be impracticable without a dislocation and derange ment of business, which could not be thought of or tolerated by the American people, to so change the tariff as to immediately reduce it from a very high tariff to a very low tariff.
But while I do not expect to see a low tariff. I do hope that we may see a reasonable tariff, one reasonable in rates and impartial in adjustment; and I do hope the attention of the country may be drawn to conditions, so that people, regardless of party affilia tions and regardless of what may be their particular views as to the question of the policy of a protective tariff or the policy as to a revenue tariff, may recognize that there are abuses which should be corrected. The particular instances which I have en deavored to point out seem to me to furnish sufficient evidence of the existence of such abuses, and to furnish basis for the conclu sion that similar abuses exist in many other instances under the present tariff law.
I recognize that so long as we limit ourselves to the advocacy of a tariff lower in scale of rate than the American people will approve, just so long will we fail to secure the cooperation and support which will enable us to correct these abuses and thus re lieve the people of the extortions and burdens such as those of which I have spoken and under which they now suffer. Any tar iff sufficiently high to raise the large revenue required to support the Government in its constantly increasing needs will, if judi ciously and impartially laid and adjusted, furnish all the encour agement and protection, if. you please, required by the industries of the country. It is the rate of the tariff which is the practical feature; and when this rate is sufficient for the demands of the country, it matters not whether it be called a protective tariff or a tariff for revenue. Its functions and effects at a given rate are the same, whether called by the one name or the other.
Many of the schedules of the present tariff law are too high, and are so recognized by many Republicans who are the most ardent advocates of protection as a tariff policy. Many of these sched ules are not only "protection run mad," but are practically pro-
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29

hibitory of any importations under them, and in consequence pre vent the Government from deriving any revenue through them. The steel schedule is an illustration. In the six years under the Dingley bill I have already shown that 12,686,434 tons of steel rails were consumed in the United States, and of this only 142,193 tons were imported. And while, if Mr. Schwabs figures are correct, the people of the United States have in six years paid to the steel producers of the United States more than $150,500,000 above a rea sonable profit on the rails bought from them, the Government has during the same time received less than $1,200,000 of revenue from steel rails imported from other countries.
I have seen somewhere stated four classes of tariff advocates: First, those who favor tariff for revenue only without any protec tion; second, those who favor a revenue tariff with incidental pro tection; third, those who favor a tariff for protection with inci dental revenue; and, fourth, those who favor a tariff for protection without any revenue. Many of the most burdensome and oppres sive schedules in our present tariff law, those which take most money out of the pockets of the people, belong to the last class; for while at the expense of the people they thus enrich the pro tected classes, they pay no money in the way of revenues to the Government.
While I do not undertake to speak for protectionists, because I am myself not one, I think it is_ easily demonstrable that the doctrines of those who were the original founders of the protec tive policy are not those which are adhered to to-day by those who have the power to frame tariff laws.
The original ground upon which the protective tariff policy was founded was or, rather, one of the grounds and one of the princi pal contentions was that by reason of the protective policy the fostering of home industries would be such that a competition would arise amons them which would reduce prices. That has been a favorite theory.
If I saw proper to consume the time in so doing, I could refer to unmimbered instances in which such contention has been made by leading Republicans. It so happens, Mr. President, that I have one recently made by a member of this Senate, the senior Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKEK], which I will read,as express ing what I understand to be the fundamental principle of the Republican party and of those who adhere to the protectionist policy as the vindication of that policy. In a speech made at Akron, in Ohio, in 1902, the senior Senator from Ohio used this language:

This does not mean that we are opposed to any kind of a change at any

time in the tariff schedules and rates. On the contrary, we believe in tariff

revision from time to time, as occasion may require, bnt it must always be

on protection lines.

At the very foundation of the protective policy has always been the idea

and claim that it would multiply industries, improve facilities, develop com

petition, and ultimately reduce the cost of manufacture below their cost

abroad.

It has also always been a part of this policy to reduce high rates of duty

deemed necessary to secure the establishment of an industry as rapidly as

its development and the cheapening of its product might allow.

#

*

#

*

#

*

*

The Bepublican party will not for light reasons disturb a law that has brought us_ such prosperity, but it will not hesitate when there is just occa sion for doing so to make such amendments as changed conditions may de mand.

*******

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30 That I understand to be a correct statement and exposition of the theory upon which the protective policy is based: and, how ever it might work out as a policy or, rather, as a theory, it is proper to say that that theory was advanced and the protective policy advocated thereunder at a time when the combinations of great industries in this country had not made it possible for the protective law to be used as a means by which competition could be absolutely defeated, not only the competition which should come from abroad, but competition which should be found among domestic producers themselves. So that it is a matter of the ut most importance for those who adhere to this policy and who stand upon this fundamental proposition which I have read, and Which was thus announced by the senior Senator from Ohio, to examine carefully the schedules and to see whether or not, in the fir.-t place, the protective aid has been extended beyond the point where it is required for the fostering of these industries and to see more particularly whether that protective aid has been ex tended to a point where it is used for the oppression and extortion of the people by the entire prohibition of foreign competition and through combinations which absolutely destroy competition be tween producers in America. Mr. President, on yesterday I called the attention of the Sen ate to particular instances where these protective rates are being used for the oppression of the people. I called attention to the case of those who manufacture steel rails, and I showed by the figures, by the estimates made by Mr. Schwab, that within six years, under the present schedule, there has been extorted from the people o_f the United States $150.000,000 over and above the amount which Mr. Schwab himself said would be a reasonable profit, and at which rate, he said, they could afford to sell their goods in foreign markets. I have called attention to the particular instances of two rail roads, one in my own State the Macon. Dublin and Savannah where a difference of $9 a ton was exacted from those who desired to extend the road $9 a ton more than was offered to the same party, provided he would buy that railway iron to be used in the foreign country of Honduras. I have called attention to the other case of the Mexican railroad, which was partly in Mexico and partly in Texas, and where, ac cording to the statement of its president, the same manufacturer of steel rails at the same time asked of him $8 more for the rails he laid upon the part of his railroad in the State of Texas than he asked for the rails to be laid upon the same railroad where it ex tended into the country of Mexico. I called attention also to the case where, upon reliable state ments, it was shown that a party desiring three typewriters found that he could have those typewriters bought in the United States by a party in England; and he did have those typewriters bought and shipped to England and shipped back to him, paying freight both ways, and made money by the transaction. I called attention to-day to the statement of the Philadelphia Press that butchers meat could be bought very much more cheaply on the other side of our northern border than at points immedi ately opposite in the United States. In Buffalo the prices are from 25 to 50 per cent higher for butchers meat than immediately across the line, in Fort Erie, and this is the testimony of the Phila-

31
delphia Press. I called attention yesterday and enumerated, and I will not repeat them
Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. What is the tariff on beef? Mr. BACON. The tariff on beef is about 33 per cent. It ig 3 cents a pound, which is about 83 per cent. If the Senator will allow me, that is on the wholesale price of the whole carcass. If the Senator will consult the price list, he will find that 2 cents a pound on beef is nearly, if not quite. 33 per cent of Chicago prices as quoted to-day. The price of the choice cuts at retail is of course several times as much as the price of the whole carcass at wholesale. Speaking in round numbers, it is about 33 per cent on beef, by reason of which fact, as stated by the Philadelphia Press, porterhouse steak is 24 cents at Buffalo and 16 cents at Fort Erie, right across the dividing line. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Twenty-four and 16? Mr. BACON. Twenty-four and 16. Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Surely the Senator does not think that that is the result of the 2 cents a pound tariff? Mr. BACON. I will answer that in a moment, as soon as I get these other figures. That seems to be the highest-priced beef porterhouse steak. Loin steak is 15 cents at Buffalo and 13 cents at Fort Erie. Now, I was about to say to the Senator that it is not simply a tax of about S3 per cent on beef, but we have a provision which absolutely prohibits the importation of beef or butchers meat ex cept where there may be a special permission by the Secretary of Agriculture. So the restriction is not confined to the tariff rate. Mr. FORAKER rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me for a moment but whether the tariff is a sufficient explanation of the fact that there is this vast difference between the price of beef at Buffalo and at Fort Erie, within fifteen minutes transportation, to what else can the Senator ascribe it? Now I will yield to the Senator from Ohio, provided he desires to ask a question. I desire to say. and I say it in all courtesy and I know he will understand me, as I do not desire to be on the floor all the afternoon if I can avoid it, that if the Senator wishes to combat my proposition, I would rather he would do it in his own time. Mr. FORAKEB. I do not wish to combat it. but I rose simply to make an inquiry, whether the beef sold at Fort Erie is that the name of the Canadian place? Mr. BACON. That is the name of the Canadian place as given in the Philadelphia Press. Mr. FORAKER. Is the beef sold in Fort Erie exported from the United States? Is it the same butcher who sells it? Mr. BACON. I can not tell you anything about that. Mr. FORAKER. The Senator was speaking a minute ago about our products being sold cheaper abroad than at home. I only wanted to know whether this was another illustration of that? Mr. BACON. I do not know whether that is true or not in this particular instance. Mr. FORAKER. I do not know. Mr. BACON. I do say that, to my mind, it is absolutely be yond credibility that the difference in the price should be due to anything else but this very meat schedule. Mr. President, yesterday I went through the figures to try to
eoer

\
show what was the immense amount of money that the people of the United States are paying over and above a fair legitimate profit to the manufacturers of steel rails in this country, and I showed by the actual figures, if Mr. Schwabs statement is cor-. rect, that it amounted to over $150,000,000 on the figures as to the amount of rails of domestic manufacture which had been consumed in this country, and according to the excess in price over the price which Mr. Schwab himself said was a price at which they could profitably sell the rails in Engand.
But, now, if I were to attempt to calculate what has been the immense amount of money which has been thus contributed not only as to steel rails, but as to all other forms of steel, where would be the limit of the amount? If 1 were to go on and en deavor to show what has been the immense amount of money which has been taken from the consumers of this country, high and low, rich and poor, in butchers meat, when, according to the tsstimony of this leading Republican newspaper, there is this vast rifference between the price of meat in Buffalo and at Fort Erie, immediately across the line, what possible amount, unless I had the opportunity to come down to actual figures, could I conjecture which would be deemed reasonable?
Mr. President, what I am saying may be somewhat in the na ture of repetition, but I am doing it for the purpose of making the application. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKER] in his speech at Akron which, by the way, was a speech made on the same day as that made by his late lamented colleague when he advised the Republican party to "stand pat" lays down the proposition as the recognized fundamental principle of the Repub lican party that it has always been a part of its policy to reduce high rates of duty deemed necessary to secure the establishment of an industry as rapidly as its development and the cheapening of its product might allow. If that is the correct principle of the Republican party, what answer has the Republican party to the inquiry whether or not under the present rates it does not devolve as a duty upon the Republican party at this time to reduce them?
Mr. FORAKER. Will the Senator allow me? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. FORAKER. I think the Senator will find, if he will look at the record, that the Republican party has from time to time reduced the rates of duties imposed on imports that came into competition with domestic products. He is talking about steel rails. My recollection is that the first tariff duty on the importa tion of steel rails into this country was $28 a ton. After a time, after the industry was started here and the home competition had begun to have some effect, it was reduced to $17 a ton. I believe, and then from time to time it was reduced until to-day it is what? Mr. BACON. Seven dollars and eighty-four cents, about, I think. Mr. FORAKER. Say seven or eight dollars a ton. That is what I had in mind, and the history of tariff duties on steel rails is but an illustration of what is the history of the duty on im ported products of every kind coming into competition with our products. Mr. BACON. I trust the Senator will recognize the fact that I am not given to o jecting to interruptions Mr. FORAKER. I know that. Mr. BACON. And that it is only by reason of our conditions
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33 that I would not like to do more than to respond to inquiries, and I will be more than delighted, if the Senator can find the time, if he will respond in his own time to the suggestions I am sub mitting.
But, replying to what the Senator has just said, the Senator says that the duty on steel rails at one time was 28, and that gradually it has been reduced until it is now $7.84. Does that answer the proposition as to whether it should be still further reduced if it is demonstrated that at the present rate the people of this country are being oppressed by exorbitant prices?
I shqwed here yesterday by the letter of a president of a rail road that he was required to pay, for an extension to his railroad, $600 a mile more for the rails which he used upon that road than the price at which the same rails were offered to him if he would ship them to Honduras. Is that a case where the reply is to be made that while that is extortion, while it is an oppression, because of the fact that the duty was once higher and has been reduced in the past there should be a halt and no further reduction?
I will not stop to illustrate it by the matters which I have already gone over, but unless Senators can refute the proposi tions which I have endeavored to substantiate, that under the present tariff rates manufacturers are enabled to sell abroad at from 25 to 75 per cent less than they sell to our own consumers in the United States, is not the proposition presented whether or not the time has come when Congress should take hold of the question for the purpose of still further reducing the tariff rates?
Mr. FORAKER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him whether he has stated in the course of his remarks the aggregate amount that has been sold abroad at prices cheaper than similar articles of our own production have been sold at home?
Mr. BACON, I can not state the aggregate amount which has been so sold, but I have stated the particular concrete instances where thene extortionate discriminations are made in favor of for eign customers and against purchasers in the United States, and before I get through, if time permits. I will allude to what the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GAL,LINER] stated as to the amount of foreign sales which are made by our domestic manu facturers.
Mr. FORAKKR. I believe he stated it in his remarks a few days ago at only about $4,000.000 in the aggregate.
Mr. BACON. Four hundred million. Mr. GALLINGER. Four hundred millions, and only four mil lions sold at a discount. Mr. FORAKER. Four millions of it at a less price. Mr. BACON. Only four million? Mr. GALLINGER. Four millions sold at a discount below what similar goods were sold for in this country. Mr. BACON. Now, where did the Senator get that informa tion? Mr. GALLINGER, I will say to the Senator that I got it from the report of the Industrial Commission. The Industrial Com mission may have been wrong, of course. Mr. BACON. That is exactly what we want to get at through this proposed investigation. Mr. FORAKER. I have seen it repeatedly stated at less than 1 per cent of the aggregate exports. Mr, BACON. That is what we want to get at by this amend-
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34
ment. We want to know definitely and authoritatively through the desired investigation what is the fact. But the fact, if it ex ists, that only a small proportion of American manufactured products are sold abroad at these low prices does not affect the argument. It is not the sale of American products to foreigners at low prices which hurts the American consumers, but it is the high prices which are exacted from the American consumers at home in the United States. It matters not practically to the American consumer whether the amount sold to foreigners at. these low prices is great or small. The only purpose in showing the amounts sold to foreigners is to show by such transactions that they are not exceptional, but in the regular course of estab lished business. If they can afford to sell to foreigners at these prices, it is an extortion when they sell to our own people at prices from 25 to 75 or 100 per cent greater.
I have stated these concrete instances where the particular op pressions are had. We are limited in our opportunities for ascer taining these matters, and we want to get information in a differ ent way.
Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a ques tion?
Mr. BACON. Yes. sir. Mr. ALDRICH. Does the Senator from Georgia think the De partment of Commerce and Labor has a right to make people tell the prices at which they sell goods abroad unless they see fit to doit? Mr. BACON. That would be a matter for the consideration of the Senate as to whether it would excuse the Secretary of Com merce and Labor if he failed to get the information which we re quired of him. But there is no reason why he should not attempt it. He doubtless can secure the information if he desires to. Mr. ALDRICH. Do you think he can require answers to ques tions at what prices they sell abroad? Mr. BA.CON. Possibly not. although I am not sure but that he has the right under the law to bring parties before him. We have provided, and that was one of the main objects for the estab lishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor, that he might be in a position to gather information which would be of service to the legislative branch and to the executive branch and also to the judicial branch in the adjudication of these matters which are necessarily involved. Mr. ALDRICH. I asked the question for the purpose of find ing out what the Senators view was as to the power of an execu tive officer of the Government to require answers to a question pertaining to the private business of an individual. Mr. BACON. I do not think, in the absence of any direct law, he would have the right, of course, to require testimony. I have not the act before me. The Senator will remember that the pur pose of the act was to enable the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to gather information. As I say. I have not the act before me, and I do not know to what extent he is empowered; but that undoubtedly was one of the principal objects of the creation of that Department, and it will be sufficient for us to meet that question when it is presented to us as a reason, if the Secretary shall fail to accomplish what we desire him to do. But it seems that that inquiry was not suggested to the mind of the Senator when the Senator from Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVEK] offered his resolu tion. There was no objection to it, and there was no suggestion
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35
that the Secretary might not have the power to gather the infor mation.
Mr. ALDRICH. I do not wish to interrupt the Senator on that line except to say that I supposed that the resolution of the Sena tor from Iowa, as well as the resolution of the Senator from Georgia, were introduced primarily with the view of enabling the authors of them to make speeches upon them.
Mr. BACOIST. The Senator is entirely mistaken. Mr. ALDRICH. I probably am. Mr. BACON. And I hope that he will join with me in the effort to show that that is not my object, I desire that this information shall be had. and if the present suggestion of the Senator were correct, if that had been my purpose. I certainly would have then endeavored to have made a speech on it when I first introduced the resolution. I introduced the resolution hoping that we might get the information and that we might discuss it afterwards. Mr, President, this matter is one which very largely and deeply concerns the American people. It is not a mere matter of politics. It is a matter which concerns the great masses of the people. It is a matter which is agitating the minds of many of the political party to which the honorable Senator from Rhode Island belongs and of -which he is an honor, and I propose to read some things to show what is the position of many of his own party in this matter. If Senators are prepared to say that they do not desire any change in the tariff; if they are prepared to say that they defend all the schedules of the present tariff: if they are prepared to go before the country and say they think no change should be made in the tariff, and that for that reason they have refused to make any changes during the last Congress and this session of the present Congress, then we will understand each other and the country will understand each of us. But what I desire is to bring the attention of the Senate squarely to the question whether or not they propose to stand by the present schedules or whether they propose to hold out the suggestion to the public that possibly they may not stand by them and they will change them in the future. I say that if the fact is ascertained; if it is properly brought to the attention of Congress that the schedules are wrong, that they are oppressive; that under them extortionate prices are exacted of the people, now is the time to legislate and not hereafter, and on that I propose to say something a little later, when I come more directly to it. It is in that connection that I return to the extract I have read from the speech of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOK AKKB] . I do not know that the Senator was here on yesterday, but I have endeav ored to discuss this question from the standpoint of his utterance. I have said to the Senate that while there ought to be immediate correction of some of its abuses 1 1 was satisfied there could not be within the near future a change in the tariff which should provide any very great reduction in the general schedules of the tariff, because in the first place of the necessities of the Govern ment, which require a very large revemie, and because the gen eral business of the country had been very largely adjusted to high rates of tariff. All of our standards of wages and prices of aH kinds have been thus adjusted, and therefore no violent change could be safely made. But from that standpoint I was endeavoring to show to the Senate that there were schedules that were an abuse of this
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36
particular enunciation of the principles of the Republican party and of the protective policy as it had. been always professed and advocated by those who were the great founders of the Republican policy.
On the same line of harmony with the tenets of the great found ers of the protective policy I read an extract from a speech recently made by Representative LITTLEFIELD in his State of Maine, and which has been published in part in the newspapers. The extract is as follows:
If upon investigation it turns oat to be true that any product upon which there is a tariff is sold abroad cheaper than it is sold at home as the result of the operation on the tariff, the tariff upon such articles should be reduced to the extent that it is necessary to prevent that result, assuming, of course, that the relation of cause and effect can be established in connection with the situation.
In connection with this extract I quote the following from Rep resentative BABCOOK, chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee. In 1901 Mr. BABCOCK said, as reported in the public press:
sumI mera. in*tai*n t*hat it is part of the policy of protection to protect the con We can to-day produce and undersell the world. Shall we continue a
tariff on articles that are in fact articles of export? If Congress maintains a tariff on such articles, the whole theory of protection falls to the ground, and it simply inures to the benefit of those who may secure the control of any such commodity, since by its aid they can ftx exorbitant prices in the domestic market. How can such a policy be defended?
And again, February 4, 1902, Mr. BABCOCK said: From now on I am going to push the tariff plan at every possible opportu nity. I am going to take advantage of every possible opening. The bill is going to be pressed every time the smallest chance offers, and lam not going to let anything go by. If the bill ever gets before the House, it will pass by three to one, and it will get before the House.
And that brings me directly again to the question whether or not the failure and that is the crucial question of the Repub lican party at this time, when it has the power to legislate and does not legislate, is to be taken as a statement to the American people that they do not think any legislation is required as to the present tariff schedules.
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKEK] says that he is in favor of revision, and that his party is in favor of a revision whenever circumstances require it. Does the Senator mean to say and that is the point on which I desire that there shall be an enuncia tion to the American public does the Republican party mean to say that, recognizing the fact that under proper circumstances there should be revision, there is now no such demand or require ment for revision? That is what we desire to have as a clean-cut issue. We do not desire that the Republican party shall say that there are schedules which should be revised and adjourn this ses sion without attempting to do so, imless they can give a specific reason for their refusal now to do so.
Mr. ALDRICH. Does the Senator mean to inquire whether we think we ought to revise the tariff between now and Thursday at 12 oclock, or at some other time?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, you are not obliged to adjourn on Thursday. If the people of the United States are resting un der burdens from which they should be relieved, there is no rea son why Congress should postpone that needed relief until next December.
Mr. ALDRICH. Does the Senator think the Senate ought to originate a tariff measure?
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Mr. BACON. I presume the Senator credits me with, a knowl edge of the law which requires such legislation to originate in the House of Representatives.
Mr. ALDRICH. But my purpose in asking the question was to suggest to the Senator that the questions he is asking are rather impracticable in their nature.
Mr. BACON. They are not impracticable. I am speaking not simply of the Senate, I am speaking of the Republican party; I am speaking of Congress; I am addressing the Senate, and I am addressing the Senate composed of men who are in close touch with the leaders in the other House and who, if they thought there should be a revision, would very easily be in a position to have the measure originated where the Constitution requires it to be originated.
Mr. ALDRICH. I have no desire to evade the question of the Senator from Georgia. I think it is perfectly well understood in the country that the party in power have had no desire or expec tation of revising the tariff at the present session of Congress or attempting to do it, and that whatever may be the requirement of the future as to tariff revision there is a disposition and an an nouncement and an understanding that there is to be no agitatation of the tariff question at this session.
Mr. BACON. I understand that. That is exactly what I am talking about. The Republicans have not done it. and they are preparing to adjourn without doing it. The question I am trying to direct attention to is as t-3 whether or not there is a duty and obligation upon them to legislate on the abuses of the tariff, which duty they have failed and refused to perform.
Mr. ALDRICH. I do not think there is. Mr. BACON. Very well. Then I understand the Senator from Rhode Island to say that he thinks the tariff schedules are right as they stand? Mr. ALDRICH. Not by any means. That inference does not follow what I suggested, Mr. BACON. Does the Senator mean to say he does not think the tariff schedules are all right? Mr. ALDRICH. That does not follow. Mr. BACON. But I want to know what the Senator says. Are these schedules under which these abuses exist right or wrong? Mr. ALDRICH. I will gay that the present tariff has been in ex istence for seven years, and it is utterly impossible for any tariff schedules to be constructed that will be properly adjusted at one time and that may not be in their nature either too high or too low seven years from that time. Mr. BACON. Exactly. Mr. ALDRICH. There are rates undoubtedly under the pres ent tariff law which, if we were to take up the tariff for revision and reconstruction, would be changed, unquestionably. Mr. BACON. Lowered? Mr. ALDRICH. Some lowered and some raised, possibly. Mr. BACON. In other words, the Senator thinks that the pub lic interests of the country require a change in the present tariff schedules. Mr. ALDRICH. That does not follow. Mr. FORAKER. Will the Senator please read in this connec tion the other clauses of my speech. As I recollect it Mr. BACON. I will read it. Mr. FORAKER. That is the answer.
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Mr. BACON. I do not think it answers it. The point I make is this: If the present schedule of the protective tariff contains particular rates under which oppressive and extortionate prices are exacted and collected from the people, then there is no excuse in the world why the people should be required to remain under those oppressive and extortionate rates one minute longer than the Republican party in power in all branches of the Government may have the opportunity and the power to change them and put them in a shape where they will not be thus oppressive and extortionate.
It is for that reason I endeavored to secure from the Senator from Rhode Island, who, as I said yesterday, is the mouthpiece of the Republican party, at least on the subject of tariff, in the Senate everybody so recognizes him a statement as to whether or not he, as the representative of that party, would say that the present tariff rates were right, and whether or not there were or were not any which ought to be changed in the interest of the people. If there are, I should like to know why there shoiild be any delay on the part of the Republican party in proceeding to the performance of that public duty, unless it is the determina tion and purpose of the Republican party to stand pat on these extortionate schedules, and unless it is their purpose not to cor rect and change them at any time.
The Senator said it was well understood that there was to be no general legislation at this session. Of course it has been so un derstood, and that is the very subject of my present criticism. Before we assembled here in November the country was notified that the Senator from Rhode Island and four or five other Sena tors had proceeded to the summer home of the President and there had had a conference, and they came out and gave out to the press at least the press published it as having been given out that there was to. be no tariff revision. Half a dozen Senators went there, and, with the Executive, determined the fact for Con gress, and Congress has tamely submitted to their decision and has scrupulously carried out the programme thus marked out and prescribed for them. I have no doubt this system is to continue to grow and that more and more the Executive and a few leaders of his party will prescribe legislation which shall or shall not be enacted or undertaken.
If it be true that the public interest demanded general legisla tion, is it any excuse to say that none has been had because the Senator and four or five of his colleagues conferred with the Presi dent and determined that it should not be had? It was considerate in them to notify Congress of this decision before the beginning of the session.
What is the reason why we should not have legislation at this session of Congress? Is there any lack of time? Here we are, not yet May, and under the law we can sit until the first Monday in December. We are paid by the year. There is no additional expense to the Government in our remaining here. Certainly it is not for lack of time.
I have seen it suggested that there should be no legislation at this session of Congress because it is immediately preceding the Presidential election, and I have seen it further stated as the ut terance of some Senators that it is better that there should be no legislation until after the people have instructed their representa tives as to what they want. How are the people to instruct their representatives?
If there is no legislation during this session of Congress and the
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Republicans should prevail in November, they will take it as an approval of their failure to legislate, and therefore in the next session of Congress it will be said: " Why. the people have passed upon this thing. We did not legislate at the last session, and the people have reelected us. and therefore that is an approval of pur not doing anything. It is a vindication of the stand-pat policy. It is a verdict on the part of the people that the tariff schedules do not require any change, and therefore we will not proceed to make any change."
Mr. President, I have here an extract from the New York Com mercial, published in November, 1902. after the election, in which it takes that very position. This was copied into the Washington Post of November 19,1902, from the New York Commercial, in which it says:
If the elections throughout the country on No vember 4 demonstrated any one thing clearly and emphatically, it was that the campaign cry for tariff revision anei most of the talk in that direction that has intruded itself on public attention for a year past were prompted chiefly by free-trade influ ences, etc.
In other words, the very fact that Congress did not legislate in. the Fifty-seventh Congress and that the Republicans were reelected in November, 1902, was taken as a vindication of the fail ure of Congress to legislate in the first session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, and so it will be in this case if the Republicans carry the November elections. If there is now no legislation, so far from the action of the people, in case the Republican party should prevail in the next election, being taken as an instruction to them to proceed to legislate upon the tariff, it will be taken as a vindi cation of the j-tand-pat policy and of their refusal to legislate.
Mr. President.it is said that legislation at this time iscalculated to disturb business. Which will disturb business most, for this Congress to legislate, for this Congress to make the changes, if any, which are needed in the tariff schedules, and let the people when they go to the polls know what has already been done, or to have an election with an uncertainty as to what will be done?
Mr. ALDRICH. I was not present, unfortunately, at the latter part of the Senators speech yesterday, and I should like to have him state to me. if he can briefly, what things he thinks oxightto be changed. What rates onght to be changed? He was talking about steel t-ails when I left the Chamber yesterday, and I won dered whether there was any other article he thought ought to be changed.
Ml. BACON. I am sorry the Senator has not been here this afternoon, because I do not desire to repeat what I have said.
Mr. ALDRICH. No; I do not ask the Senator to do that. Mr. BACON. The Senator is chairman of the Finance Com mittee. He is informed as to the operation of the tariff schedules. He has made investigation of it and has opportunities for investi gation which are so largely denied to many of us. No one is bet ter informed than he on this subject. Mr. AbDRlCH. I can not understand that I have sources of information that are not open to the Senator from Georgia that I know of. Mr. BACON. 1 will tell to the Senator, if he wishes me, some of the schedules which should be changed. I do not agree with the proposition that the tariff ought to be entirely repealed on all trust-made articles, nor is that the position of the Demosratic party. There ought, however, to be changes in the schedules where they permit producers to sell to American consumers at a much higher

40

rate than they sell to foreigners. I think the steel schedule should

for one be changed. When, in the instances I have mentioned,

the steel companies say that they will not sell to an American

citizen steel rails within $8 of what they sell to a man who wants

to build a railroad in Honduras, and when they are eager to sell

to it,

a I

man in Honduras, showing say that the exaction of $8

that they thereby make profit on a ton more of the American con

sumer is not to be justified, and that it is the business of Congress

to carefully investigate the steel companies can

and sell

see where the profitably to

line the

is to be drawn. foreigner at $8

If less

ictchoaannnsuN$m3a8eti,ro.hneaAlcaRgnaaiianlfr,foowardhdeitnrootnsheetlolsgaamot ietnhsteotesMealmepxeriocpdoruiacctee$rt2so0eltalhsteotonAtamhnederMaicseakxns

$28 of the same corporation for steel to be laid on the part of the

railroad that is in Texas, there is in such a transaction sufficient

to challenge the attention of Congress and to demonstrate the fact

that legislation is needed there to correct such power Whether Mr. Schwabs figures are correct or not, I

of extortion. take the fig

ures furnished by these two railroads, about which there can be

no doubt. And, according to Mr. Schwab, what is true of the steel

rail is also true of all the other steel industries.

In other words, that there is the same exorbitant excess over a

reasonable profit, exacted and collected from the American people,

not only on steel rails, but upon the entire list of steel products.

If so, all the everybody in

steel this

schedules require revision, country, for the reason that

because they affect iron and steel have

now become which these allowed and

of universal use. and that no man escapes the tribute people, by reason of the excessive tariff schedules, are permitted to exact of them. It may be true, and, I

hope, is true, that there are some steel producers who do not ex

act exorbitant prices for their goods sold in America, but the

tariff schedules give them I went through the list

the power yesterday,

and and

opportunity to do so. I showed that almost

every article of common manufacture, farming machinery, house

hold utensils, sewing machines, typewriters, almost all the arti

cles of common consumption, and all the articles used in common

industries are under the present schedule sold, so far as we may

have the information not definite and sufficient, certainly, to put Congress

conclusive. I grant upon the duty of

you. but making

further investigation and of proceeding t > legislate sold at prices

from 20 to 7n per cent greater to the American people than the

same articles countries.

are

sold

by the same

person

to

people

in

foreign

agMricr.uAltuLrDalRiImCpHle. meDnotesswthoeulSdeinnataonrythreisnpkecttakafifnegctththeedquutieesstioofnf

which he has referred to?

Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I am not sufficiently famil

tiharinwkitthhetrheecfaonrebiegnnomqauneustfiaocntuarbeorsuttothesafyacwt itthhatcethrteaiinmtyp,osbiutitonI

of these duties is based upon the assumption that if by reason of

those duties the domestic manufacturers were not permitted to

have the home manufacturers,

market they would be invaded by the foreign and if invaded by the foreign manufacturers it

would be at prices much less than the prices which are now ex

acted, and on account of which the foreign manufacturer ia en

tirely kept out of the market. be very materially reduced,

The present rates could, however, and the American manufacturer

would still control the American market.

8087

41 Mr. ALDRICH. But suppose he was not only kept out of the foreign market, but out of the American market by the removal of the duty, does the Senator think Mr. BACON. That who would be kept out of the American market? Mr. ALDRICH. The domestic producer, the manufacturer here. Do you think that would be a wise thing to do? Mr. BACON. I do not; and I am not proposing that there should be any such extreme action. I am not advocating a repeal of the duties, but only their modification. I am simply limiting myself (which I think is a very conservative position for one to take who holds the economic views that I do) to the question as to whether, even under a protective tariff, there are schedules which are abusive of the protective principle, and which permit exorbitant and extortionate prices to be exacted from the people and collected" from them in the sale of these goods. Mr. President, I am told by Senators sitting around me that these farming implement manufacturers absolutely get out cata logues in which they show different prices for domestic consumers from those which they require from foreign consumers, and, as is stated to me by the Senator from Texas [Mr. BAILEY] , it can be charged with the utmost confidence that as to all farm imple ments, speaking generally, they are sold in foreign countries at much less than they are sold in this country, and that they are not sold as a mere matter of surplus, not sold for the purpose simply of introducing into another country, but they are sold be cause it is a profitable transaction to them; and as I endeavored to show, and did show by the letter, which I again read to-day, from Mr. Raoul, the president of the Mexican National Railroad, the trade for the Mexican part of his railroad at Mexican prices was so valuable to them and so valuable to others in that line of trade and there was such a competition to get his Mexican busi ness that he could absolutely exact of them and did exact of them that they should sell to him on his Texas railroad at the same rate that thev sold for the Mexican business. Mr. DIETBICH. Mr. President The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Nebraska? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. DIETRICH. If it is true that the manufacturers sell ma chinery in Europe at less than they do in the United States, pro vided they do not sell at less than cost in foreign countries, but sell at a profit in the United States, does not American labor re ceive a great benefit? Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, in the first place Mr. BAILEY. Will the Senator from Georgia permit me. since it is a cross fire, to ask the Senator from Nebraska if the Amei-ican laborer who manufactures the foreign-sold article does not get precisely the same wages that he does when he manufac tures the American-sold article for which our people are charged the higher price manufactured in the same factory by the same laborers who receive precisely the same wages? Mr. DIETRICH. I should like to have the Senator from Georgia answer my question. I ask him if the United States is not bene fited from the fact that the machinery is manufactured here even though it be sold at cost abroad and sold at a profit in the United States? Mr. BACON. In the first place, I do not admit and I do not

credit that it is sold at cost in foreign countries. I have produced evidence here to the effect that it is not sold at cost in foreign countries, but sold at a profit. I do not know whether the Sena tor was in the Chamber yesterday or not. but I can not go all over that ground again. I gave figures. What I have just said about the Mexican National Railroad shows that it was a profit. I want to say to the Senator that the goods sold to the Mexican National Railroad for consumption in Mexico were not simply steel rails. They comprised all the articles which are bought by railroad companies in the prosecution of their business, everything relat ing to the construction and repair and to the equipment of a rail road, everthing relating to the management of a railroad, to its operation, and to its offices iron safes, furniture, all the pharaphernalia, books, and everything else connected with the manage ment and ope ration of a railroad.
Mr. DISTRICT rose. Mr. BACON. The Senator will please wait a little while. I will let him in just as long as he wants, but I must finish what I am saying. This has been going on with this railway company for fifteen years. I stated the fact yesterday to the Senate that the way I happened to know about this was that I had been inti mately associated with the president of that railroad, had been with him twice to Mexico over his own road, and had had con versations with him about this matter, and therefore when it came up, recollecting that, I wrote to him. I will state to the Senator that the information which I had from him in this intercourse was as stated here in this letter, that as to all the articles, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dol lars a year, there were uniform prices of a difference of 25. or 30, or 40. or 50 per cent as to the same article to l>e used in Mexico on the same article to be used in Texas, a part of the railroad lying in Mexico and a part of it in Texas: and that the business of that railroad with the American manufacturers as to the prod ucts bought for Mexico at these reduced rates was so profitable, not sold at cost, but so profitable, and there was such competition among American producers to get the Mexican trade at the re duced rates, not at cost, but at profitable rates, that they abso lutely, in order to get the trade i-i the competition between them and others, yielded the point and sold him for his Texas part of the railroad at the same reduced rates that were given on the Mexican part of the road. That does not look like selling at cost. But, Mr. President, if the Senator were to go further and say it was sold at a loss instead of cost, it would still be an iniquitous oppression upon the American people. And why? Does anybody suppose that one of these manufacturers is engaged in business for pleasure, that they are indifferent to profit? Even if for the purpose of carrying on their business they are selling part of their goods in a foreign market at less than cost and thereby losing on it, does anybody doubt for a moment that the loss is made up out of the American consumer? Who would be so credulous as for a moment to think that every dollar that is lost by the selling of goods either at cost or below cost in a foreign market is not re couped by that much more charged and collected out of the domes tic consumer? Mr. ALDRIOH. As I said, I was not here during the whole of the Senators argument, and I would be glad to have him state whether he has advanced any other reason for tariff revision ex cept the fact that certain manufacturers sell their goods at cost?
6067

43
Mr. BACON. The Senator was not here at the time I read from the Washington Posts narration of what had been published by the Philadelphia Press, one of the leading Republican news papers in the United States, the editor of which we all know, in which the Philadelphia Press called attention to the fact that by rea son of the butchers meat schedule meat was sold at a very much higher rate in Buffalo than it was immediately across the line in Fort Erie, and in order that the Senator may have the answer
Mr. ALDRICH. That is on the same line I was asking, whether there is any other
Mr. BACON. It is not on the same line Mr. ALDRICH. Of course it is. Mr. BACON. Because I do not say it is sold by American butchers. I say it is not on the same line for that reason. I was calling attention to that as an additional reason why these sched ules ought to be revised. Mr. ALDRICH. The Senator means that the Canadian farmers get a less price for their beef than the American farmers? Mr. BACON. I do not know whether they do or not, and for that reason I do not say that it is sold there by the American beef trust, but I do say that, by reason of the Amer can tariff if the Philadelphia Press is correct in its statement as to prices the butcher s meat that people have to eat, and without which they can not live in health and comfort in this country, is sold from 25 to 50 per cent higher in Buffalo than for the same article across the river, twenty minutes away. And the same thing is doubt less true all along the Canadian border. Mr. GALLINGER. Will the Senator from Georgia permit me to ask him a question? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. GALLINGER. The tariff on beef in the United States is 2 cents a pound and in Canada 3 cents a pound. If this tariff of 2 cents is doing such infinite mischief here, what is the tariff in Canada doing:1 Mr. BACON. I do not know anything about that: but I do know that it stands to reason, and any schoolboy can figure it out, that if we did not stand in Buffalo and say that we should pay 2 cents a pound on every pound of meat that came there, there certainly would be people enterprising enough, if they could make from 25 to 50 per cent on it. to bring it across and sell it. Mr. GALLINGER. Yes; but what would become of the Ameri can industry? Mr. BACON. The trouble about that, Mr. President, is and I can not go into it at length, because there is a great deal of ground I want to cover, and we have got to get through before 6 oclock the trouble about that is that this tariff does not protect the man who raises the beef. Mr. GALLINGER. It gives employment to American labor. Mr. BACON. The man who raises beef does not get the bene fit of it, but the beef trust gets the entire benefit, and the prices in Chicago prove that that is so. A Senator who once sat here, and who is familiar with that business and himself a raiser of beef cattle I refer to ex-Senator Harris, of Kansas could, if now present, tell of the process by which the beef trust gets from the producer of the beef his meat at a very low rate and sells it to the consumer at a very high rate. The consequence of it is that it is true, and every man within his own knowledge must testify to its truth, if not in his own ex-
6067

44
perience, certainly in his observation, that the great mass of peo ple who formerly ate butchers meat every day in the year, and the best meat, too, now are able to eat it only occasionally, and then many of them are compelled to eat the cheaper classes of meat. Q-o out to-day in the city of Washington or anywhere else, and ask men of the mechanic and laboring classes whether or not I have stated the truth in that particular.
Mr. ALDRICH. If the Senator from Georgia will pardon me, I wish to ask him whether he is in favor of taking off the duty on live animals and dressed meats?
Mr. BACON. It ought certainly to be reduced. Mr. ALDRICH. The Senator was discussing the concrete question, and that is a part of a concrete question. Mr. BACON. In reply I say that under the present meat schedule there is great oppression of the people I say that exor bitant prices are being exacted from them, and that as a conse quence the great mass of the people now do not eat meat as they did formerly, and there ought to be a change of that schedule. It ought not to be allowed to remain as it is. It is the duty of the Senator, as chairman of the Finance Committee, and of his colleagues in the other House belonging to the dominant party, who have absolute control of this matter, to look into it and see what changes should be made. Mr. STE WART. Will the Senator allow me? Mr. ALDRICH. The Senator from Georgia has not yet an swered my question. Mr. BACON. I have answered the Senators question. The Senator asked me whether or not I was in favor of taking off all the duty now laid on butchers meat, and I said to him that I was not prepared to answer that question; that while there should be a reduction I did not know to what extent the reduction should go, not having looked into the details, but that the Senator and his party, in charge of legislation in Congress, should look into it and determine it. unless they are prepared to say it is all right as it stands. I will ask the Senator from Rhode Island, is it right as it stands? Mr. ALDRICH. The presumption is that it is right. Mr. BACON. Very well; but do I understand the Senator to say that it is right? Mr. ALDRICH. I think the duties on live animals and dressed meats are all right. Mr. BACON. I am very glad to get the Senator to that point. Mr. DOLLIVER. I desire to say to the Senator from Georgia that the present duties are entirely satisfactory to the cattle raisers and farmers of the West. Mr. BACON. Well, I have not had that information. But how is it as to the consumer? How is it with the men who eat meat, or who would eat it, if they could afford to pay the present prices for it? Mr. STEWART. Will the Senator allow me one word? Mr. BACON. I will yield to the Senator for a question. Mr. STEWART. For a question? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. STEWART. The Senator says that the high price of meat and the low price of cattle is due to the tariff. May it not be due to another cause, that of the cattle being nearly all killed in one place and carried over the country and placed in cold storage, which enables a few men killing all the beef to not only furnish the
6067

45
meat to the country, but to furnish a very bad class of meat? The tariff has nothing to do with this ptomaine meat which is poisoning people all over the country.
Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, the Senator will not, of course, expect me to go into that line now, I hope.
There is no limit to the range that this discussion could take, but I want to present some few things to the Senate before the time comes when I must conclude.
The conclusion to which this discussion brings me is that the Republican party does not recognize that any changes are required. Their refusal to attempt any changes shows that. If no changes are required, let me ask the Republican party when it goes into convention in June not to use ambiguous language, but. as they have now recognized that there are no such conditions as require changes, .announce squarely a " stand-pat" policy, that they do not think there ought to be any change, and let the issue be squarely made before the country.
I will say, Mr. President, that interest in this matter has not been confined to one political party, but that it has been a gen eral feeling throughout the country not universal by any means, but still general that there were oppressive schedules, under which certain combinations in this country were enabled to shel ter themselves and thereby to oppress the people. That has been the Democratic idea for a long time, but still the Democrats have been in a minority and could not make themselves felt. But at last it saemed as if light was about to break when we had heard frohi the West the manifestation of the general unrest there was upon this subject.
The Republican party of the State of Iowa inaugurated a move ment which at one time promised to work a reform inside of the Republican party. I am sorry to say that it has very largely dis appeared and has been abandoned. But I want to read what the Republicans of Iowa said on this subject.
Mr. KEAN. When? Mr. BACON. I think it was in 1902 or 1901,1 have forgotten which. My distinguished friend from Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVER] may tell us the exact date. It was when the celebrated Iowa platform was adopted, and I am not sure whether it was in 1901 or 1902. The Senator on my right can tell us when this important utterance was made that I am about to read. Mr. DOLLIVER. There were two conventions. Mr. BACON. I will say that I am reading this from a speech of Governor Cummins, in which he recites it. I have not the original platform before me, but I have the quotation from it made by Governor Cummins. He says in the course of his speech:
Permit me to quote two succeeding sentences upon the same subject.
And here he quotes:
We favor such changes in the tariff from time to time as become advisable through the progress of our industries and their changing relation to the commerce of the world. We indorse the policy of reciprocity as the natural complement of protection, and urge its development as necessary to the realization of our highest commercial possibilities.
There are two distinct propositions first, as to changes; second, as to reciprocity both of which, in the language of my distin guished friend from Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVER] , have been absolutely abandoned by this Republican Congress.
Again:
We favor such amendments to the interstate-commerce act as will more fully carry out its prohibition of discrimination in rate making and any

modification of the tariff schedules that may be required to prevent their affording shelter tn monopoly.
Mr. LODGE. May I ask the Senator if the tariff schedules mentioned in the paragraph he has just read refer to railroad schedules or to Government schedules?
Mr. BACON. What is the question? Mr. LODGE. The Senator referred to something in regard to interstate commerce, and I thought the article mi^ht have refer ence to railroad-tariff schedules. I may be wrong. Mr. BACON. It says tariff schedules. Mr. LODGE. Does it not mean railroad-tariff schedules? The word is used in connection with railroads, as the Senator knows. Mr. BACON. No; I should think not. That is not what it means. Mr. LODGE. It is a curious connection in which to put it. Mr. BACON. That is true, but still it is so. Mr. LODGE. Government tariffs are not the only tariffs. Mr. BACON, Railroads are not shelters for monopoly tariff rates. Mr. LODGE. Where does the Senator live? They have been great shelters for monopolies for years. Mr. BACON. Certainly; that may be true as to the rates fur nished to certain customers, such as the Standard Oil Company, for instance. But the Senator and I have reference to different things. He has reference to the customers of railroads, while I have reference to the railroad companies themselves. Mr. LODGE. They have generally been supposed to be the foundation for monopoly. Mr. BACON. But when Governor Cummins uses the word "tariffs "he evidently refers to customs duties. What he says immediately thereafter conclusively proves that. Mr. DOLLIVER. If my friend will permit me, I will say that a very long and somewhat acrimonious debate ensued in Iowa as to what the meaning of those words were, the_ Republicans, prac tically without dissent, disowning the proposition that the tariff was a shelter or protection for trusts, or in any sense the author of trusts; and owing to that ambiguity and discussion the party last year, by unanimous vote, abandoned the language. Mr. BACON. Governor Cummins goes on. then, to defend the Republican party of Iowa from what he said was an unjust charge against them as to the construction of that language, and be uses this language:
It is the last phrase which, as I understand it, has excited comment throughout the length and breadth of the country. This phrase seems to me not only so plain and clear that it is incapable of being misunderstood,
__ ey favored the removal of tariff duties from all articles manufactured and sold by the so-called trusts. It requires a combination of gross ignorance and intense prejudice to give it such construction. The Republicans of Iowa understand the difference between all the products of combinations or trusts and the products in which th^re have been established monopolies, and their declaration is that tariff duties shall not be used to shelter a monopoly.
Certainly that did not refer to railroad tariffs in the opinion of Governor Cummins.
Mr. DOLLIVER. Mr. President, if it will not interrupt the Senator
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Iowa?
Mr. BACON. Yes. sir. Mr. DOLLIVER. I will say that the State of Iowa got a good
6067

47

deal of celebrity out of the language in that platform, but in reality it had been a very common expression in Republican plat forms throughout the country and, in the form in which the Re publicans of Iowa, as a rule, interpreted it, was copied substan tially from the Republican national platform of 1896.
Mr. BACON. Right in that connection Governor Cummins

says this:

I have heard it said that in this respect our platform occupies Democratic ground. If this were so, and it is righteous ground. I would not therefore abandon it. Prom the bottom of my heart I wish that the two parties did occupy common territory upon this great field, for the problems that are to be solved should not he vexed with partisan dispute. Unfortunately, how ever, it is not true that we have met upon friendly ground.

Now it is, Mr. President, that the Democrats are those who de

sire that there shall be action upon this ground, and the Repub licans have turned their backs upon it and repudiated it.
The first intimation that we had that the Iowa Republicans

were not going to stand upon that platform was in a speech made

at Marshalltown, Iowa, by the senior Senator from Iowa [Mr, ALLISON] , than whom there is no man held in higher, if so high, esteem in. this Senate. My distinguished friend irom Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVER] is doubtless entirely familiar with that speech: but I will read an extract from it as showing the first intimation we had that the Iowa idea was about to be abandoned. In the course of that speech the distinguished senior Senator from Iowa said

this:

The tariff plank in our State platform is not a declaration in favor of tar

iff revision, nor is it a declaration against tariff revision.

Our political enemies de inand a defense of the details of present tariff laws,

and thev charge us with standing pledged to the maintenance of existing

rates. This is not the Republican position, and so to officially answer the

charge it is eminently proper to make the declaration contained in the Iowa

platfo*rm.

.*

*

#

*

*

*

If the State convention of Iowa should declare specifically for tariff revi sion, or for any specific remedy for trusts, I doubt not tho Iowa delegation would be very prompt to heed, and certainly the Iowa members of the Cab inet will bring the subject to the careful attention of the President,

After that very definite and unambiguous expression of opinion on the part of the senior Senator from Iowa concerning the pur poses of the Iowa Republicans, we were naturally all filled with apprehension that the reform which we thought the Iowa Repub licans were about to introduce in their party, and which we hoped would be spread and be adopted by other Republicans all over the United States, was about to be abandoned; and, sure enough,

when the convention met there was a very remarkable utterance

upon the subject of the tariff. When it came to the question as to what enunciation should be made as to the tariff in the Iowa platform, we have this very definite one:

Duties that are too low should be increased, and duties that are too high should be reduced.

Mr. DOLLIVER. Mr. President-

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KEUN in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Iowa?
Mr, BACON. Certainly. Mr. DOLLIVER. Does the Senator from Georgia dispute

either of those propositions? Mr. BACON. I do not. I think that is a self-evident truth
that nobody could possibly dispute and one of the most catholic utterances which I have ever heard, upon which everybody can stand. If a man was dissatisfied with the schedules, he would

say, of course, ;l They ought to be reduced and will be reduced;

6067

48
therefore I will stand by the Republican party; " and if he were satisfied with the schedules, he would say, of course, " They are not too high, and they will not be reduced, and therefore I will stand by the Republican party." That made everything lovely in the Republican party in Iowa.
A popular writer, Mr. President, has compared that plank in the Iowa platform to one of the utterances of famous Jack Bunsby, the oracular seafaring man of Dombey and Son. After the Son and Heir--the name of the ship that carried Walter to far-away seas had sailed, and a long time had passed and no news could be gath ered of it and it was feared the ship was lost, our dear old friend Captain Cuttle went with Florence to consult Jack Bunsby as to whether he thought the Son. and Heir had gone down and "Walter had been lost. The oracular response of Jack Bunsby was this: " If so be he is dead, my opinion IB that he will not come back any more; if so be he is alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No."
Mr. President, I have here a cartoon, made by the young genius Berryman, which, if I were to follow the example of our distin guished friend from Wyoming [Mr. WABRKK] in endeavoring to convert the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD into a pictorial daily, I might ask the privilege of introducing but for the fact that the like nesses in it are too correct and it would be entirely too personal to do so. But I will say that, as the result of this convention in which this oracular announcement of the position of the Repub licans of Iowa was made, it represents the animal which is recog nized as the emblem of the "grand old party " the elephant and by his side, leading him and marching with him. a very prominent Republican who was supposed to have been influential in the phrasing of that utterance by the Iowa Republican con vention. On the rump of the animal, facing to the rear, is an other very prominent Iowa Republican, with a muzzle on and bound hand and foot and placarded "You cant lose A. B.," and underneath the cartoon is written " We are all in line." And so they were, but facing in opposite directions.
We all know, Mr. President, that in mediaeval times those in authority were not very particular as to the methods by which they secured their plunder out of the common people. I use the word "plunder," but I am not using it offensively as to the tariff, although it might be quite proper to be done in some cases. But I never realized the fact that the scientific method of getting plunder out of the people without their exactly knowing how it was done, as is accomplished through means of the protective tariff, was of ancient origin. But it is proved to be by one of the utterances of the noble Brutus, which I shall read, and which I can not imagine could ever have been put into his mouth by the author of Julius Csesar unless he had himself known something about the protective tariff. In the celebrated controversy between Brutus and Cassius, Brutus, in a rage of indignation, uses these words:
By heaven, I had rather coin ray heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection.
I am utterly unable, Mr. President, to understand how even so great an intellect as the author of Julius Csesar should have ever found such language unless he knew something practically, and a great deal, about the operations of a protective tariff.
6067
O

Cotton Reports.
SPEECH
OF
HON. A. 0. BAC.ON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE SENATE OF THE TjNjiH-T3rfES)
Mr. BACON. I wish to offer two amendments. The first amendment is on page 54, line 17, and then there is another i subsequent amendment on page 05, line 2. They are of the same nature that is, one is pursuant to the other.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia offers an amendment, which will be stated.
The SECHETARY. On page 54, at the eiid of line 17, after the word " month," insert the words :
And In the case of the cotton crop reports issued on the 3d, 10th, 17th, and 25th days of eacli month, beginning with the month of May and extending to the mouth of February next succeeding.
Mr. HANSBROUGH. I wish the Senator from Georgia would state the effect of tlie amendment
Mr. BACON. I will. Mr. President, there is no matter in which the agricultural Interest of my sectionof the country is so deeply interested as this particular matter. It is not offered as a matter of form, ; but in the sincere hope that it may be incorporated in the bill : and subsequently be a part of the law. It looks to an exten sion of the service which is now given to the country under the appropriation heretofore made and under tlie provisions of law heretofore enacted by which the Secretary of Agriculture en deavors to inform the people of the United States, or all of those who are interested in the cotton crop, of the condition of the cotton crop at the time of the report, both as to all matters which will contribute to the production and as to the extent of the production later along in the season. This is a matter which does not simply concern the cotton planter. It concerns all those who are interested either in the production of cotton or in the utilizing of cotton in manufac ture or in commerce thereafter. I can not better bring to the appreciation of the Senate the importance of this matter than to state, not with any attempted accuracy, but generally, the great evil and, I may say, disaster which resulted during the past year |j; from the present imperfect manner in which that service is per formed, not by reason of any inefficient effort on the part of the Secretary, but because of the fact that the law as it now stands does not enable him to make such a report as will prevent the I- evil and the disaster. Under the law as it now stands the Secretary of Agriculture is required to make a monthly report of the condition of the cot ton crop. In the early part of the season he begins with a report as to the acreage, by which those who are interested in the ques tion of production, or who will during the year become interested U in the question, are enabled with some degree of approximate accuracy to forecast the probable size of the crop. Then, as the season advances, reports are made as to rainfall fiiand other conditions, from which also these deductions can be
0253

drawn; and then later on in the season, when the plant ap proaches maturity, other estimates of the probable production are made, and later still other estimates. Each month the De partment issues a bulletin in which there is an estimate of the probable size of the crop.
Now, these estimates being a month apart, the result neces sarily is this: If conditions change materially during the month, there will be very great variance in the estimates. The whole country waits for the estimate of the Agricultural De partment Tho exchanges wait for it The manufacturers wait for it. The exporters wait for it. The cotton planters wait for it. When the report comes, if it is of an unexpected nature, the fluctuation in the price of cotton is so great as to be absolutely disastrous to those who are engaged in its pro duction or In the use of the raw material.
I call the attention of the Senate to this as a fact: During the present cotton season the Department of Agriculture, at the beginning of the month, or on the third of the month, I believe, which is the date fixed for these reports, published an estimate as to the size of the crop.
At that time the estimate was such as to make the price a very large one and to encourage those who had cotton which had been produced by them to think it was going to be still greater; and yet at the beginning of the succeeding month, during which interval there was no report from the Department and no intimation to those who were thus interested that there had been such changed conditions as would result in a greatly variant report, another estimate was made, which made, as I am informed, a difference of about $40,000,000 in the value of the cotton then on hand unsold and in the hands of the planters.
The Senate, of course, will appreciate the fact that if the re port of the Secretary of Agriculture was correct, that change in price was a legitimate change in price, because there was that change in the question of supply and demand which would have made that variance in price. But the point is this: If there had been successive reports at shorter intervals that loss would not have fallen altogether upon those who were engaged in the production of cotton, as it practically did. There would have been the same depreciation in the price and in the total value of the cotton, but, advised as they would have been of the estimates, from which lower prices would result, the losses would not have fallen exclusively upon the cotton planter, but would have been distributed between the cotton planter and the cotton consumer.
Mr. CAHMACK. I should like to ask the Senator what par ticular advantage there is to the planter in having these inter mediate reports during the early stages of the crop? What particular advantage to the farmer is there in having any re port at all during that time, especially during the early part of the season?
Mr. BACON. The planter is not so much interested in the early part of the season, of course, as he is in the latter part, but there are others who are interested in this matter besides the planter. All of our American factories, which take onethird of our entire cotton crop, are interested. There are over 4,000,000 bales of cotton manufactured in the United States. Two-thirds of the crop goes abroad. One-third is manufactured in the United States. And every man who is engaged In the manufacture of cotton, every man who is engaged in commer-
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cial business in connection with cotton is interested from the clay the first furrow is run to the day, nearly a year -later, when the last bale is ginned in any information which, can give him some idea as.to what will be the probable size of the crop.
As the season progresses and the plant matures, when it heKins to he put upon the market, it is of the utmost importance to the planter that he shall have not monthly but maco-frequent re ports, in order that he may be savedjroiH-ttarlosses which come from these violent ajid-exeesstreTIucfuatioiis when the estimates are se* parated* in thei* r public* ation by* thirty * days in* terval. * The Senator did not permit me to progress far enough to make that suggestion. The Senator will remember that at the time he interrupted me, the last sentence I had uttered was one in which 1 endeavored to show how it was that the planter lost so great an amount of money by reason of the fact that these reports are not sufficiently frequent; and I mentioned this fact: I think it was in the month of November or December and I have forgot ten which the beginning of the month, the estimates of the De partment from the information winch it obtained was that the production was so limited that the price would bo very high; and it was high.
Thirty days ran along with the planters absolutely in ignor ance of the fact that the Department was receiving information, which, when published, would make such a change in the amount of probable production that the remainder still in their hands was worth $40,000,000 less than it was at the beginning of the month. If, on the contrary, the information in the posses sion of the Department had been given at shorter intervals the planters would not have been misled and by selling their cotton they would have saved at least a part of this great loss.
Now the point is this the question of expense is another matter, and I hope Senators will distinguish between tlie two. The point is whether or not the presentation which I make is a correct one; whether there is a great evil, and whether it results in subjecting the planters to great loss. Then the next question is whether we can afford to correct this evil and pro tect the cotton planters from this loss.
Are the interests involved sufficiently great to justify the change In the law and the expense necessary for its correction? I hope Senators will not have any doubt in their minds as to the present difficulty, a difficulty arising out of monthly reports, which have such an interval between them that in that interim there is such a fluctuation in the probable amount of production as to be absolutely disastrous to those who are engaged in the production, because they have been kept in ignorance all the time of those things in the knowledge of the Department which are going to result in this tremendous reduction in price.
Mr. President, I said there was no question in which the agri cultural interests of the South are so much interested as in this particular question involved in this particular amendment which I have offered. There is not a thing you can possibly put in the agricultural bill which will mean so much in dollars and cents to the cotton producer as this, and there is nothing you can put in that bill which, in the opinion of the cotton pro ducers, can mean so much as this amendment.
Now, as evidence of that, I will call attention to the fact that within the past month there assembled in the city of New
C2D3

Orleans a representative convention, composed of delegates from the entire cotton-producing country, men informed, men of ad vanced ideas, men of large interests, a convention which resulted from the tremendous loss to the cotton producers, because the law last year \vsis what you propose it shall remain this year,
The law last year provided for only monthly reports, and there was in consequence this tremendous disaster to the cotton pro ducers. This tremendous loss which befell them in one mouth caused them to corno together in convention in New Orleans from all over the cotton States, and to ask that they should have more frequent reports from the Agricultural Department.
They, it is true, did not go as far as this amendment pro poses. They asked for semimonthly reports. They would have preferred, of course, weekly reports. They would like to know every day if they could, and if it is, in the opinion of the Senate, too expensive to give weekly reports I can not imagine how it can be that the Congress of the United States can turn a deaf ear to so great a necessity as this and refuse to give semi monthly reports.
******* The amendment I have offered does not propose In any man ner to change the present system of reports, which will continue to exist if the amendment is not adopted. It simply proposes to change some of the details of the system which will exist whether the amendment is adopted or not. In other words, the census reports are no now thing. They existed last year, and it has simply been a change of detail as to the census reports. By the change the census reports will be more frequent. In the same way the contemporaneous reports of the Secretary of Agriculture existed last year, and it is proposed that they shall continue to exist whether the amendment which I have offered is adopted or not. So the inquiry of the distinguished and honorable Senator from Maine does not go to the point upon which I am endeavor ing to have the attention of the Senate. I am not seeking to add to the system by incorporating the dual system, which the Senator from Maine indirectly criticises. That is a system which now exists. It existed last year. The two services thus contemporaneously existing are altogether on different lines. The Census Department is limited to the single thing of getting statistics from the ginneries. The scope of the work of the Agricultural Department is agreat deal wider, and goes to all matters which will affect the question of the production of cotton. That has heretofore been recognized as a proper dual system. It has heretofore been recognized that it is proper to have on the part of the census the statistical Information as to the number of bales ginned, and the much wider information as to all conditions of the crop which is to be gathered from and through the Department of Agriculture. Mr. President, I come back to the proposition upon which I was addressing the Senate at the time of the interruption of the Senator from Maine, and that is, first, the question whether there is an evil here of this magnitude which can be corrected by the proposed amendment, and, second, whether, .if there is such an evil, it is of such importance as to justify and require its correction on the part of Congress. Now, Mr. President, I have said that this is a matter which does not simply concern the cotton planter. It concerns very
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5
largely the entire business interests of this country. The cot ton crop is the most important agricultural product made In the United States, viewed from its relation to the general commerce of the country. It is the largest of nil single exports, either agricultural or mineral or manufacturing.
The largest of all single exports is the cotton crop. Taking the exports of 1903-4 as a basis, it brings more gold into this country and when I speak of bringing in gold I mean the gold actually brought in and the gold that is kept from going out, because if the cotton did not go iu its place tue gold would have to go it brings more gold into this country than any other two single products. Nay, sir, this greatly understates the ease. It brings more gold into this country than any other four products. It has done more in the last forty years to maintain the finan cial system of this country on a firm basis and to keep the bal ance of trade in favor of the United States than any other two products or any otlier four products added together.
Kext to raw cotton the next largest articles of export from the United States are wheat, including wheat flour, and iron and steel manufiictues, and yet the value of cotton exported is nearly twice as much in value as both of them added together. The value of cotton is equal to about one half of all the agricul tural exports of every kind from the United States including all animals and animal products, and it is about equal to the value of the exports of all manufactured articles of every kind and description. Take the entire value of the exports of wheat and wheat flour, of corn, including corn meal, of oats, of rye. of barley, of hogs, including hums, lard, and all other hog products, of cattle, including dressed beef and all other cattle products, take all these export values and add them together, and the ex port cotton exceeds them all in value by many millions.
Mr. Ircsideut, in my own State the cotton crop last year sold for more than all the gold that was dug in all the mines of the United States, including its Territories and outlying possessions, and the part of the crop that went from my single State to loreign parts, which was two-thirds of It, amounted to within a very small fraction as much In dollars as all the gold dug in all the United States in the year. The cotton crop as a whole each year amounts in gold dollars to more than twice as much, or about twice as much, as all the gold dug in all the mines of all the world in a year, and the part of the cotton crop that goes abroad and that brings gold into the United States amounts to more in gold dollars than all the gold that is dug in all the mines of all the world in a year.
And yet it is a fact, Mr. President, that those who confer this great benefit upon this country in producing an article that holds in its steadfast grip the gold of the world and refuses to let it leave the country, have less of the benefits and the en couragements from governmental agency than, those of any other great industry in this country. It is an impossibility that they can have any benefit under any tariff legislation, because their product ia an export and not an import, and yet it is a fact that there is scarcely an article used In the production of cotton but what is itself made very much higher in its cost to them by reason of the tariff legislation of this country, which enriches others at their expense. Upon every article used by them plows, harness, chains, wagons, tools, and equipment of
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6
every kind they are compelled to pay nearly two prices on account of the tariff, and yet the tariff law denies-to them the poor boon of even free cotton bagging and free cotton ties.
Cotton is the most difficult of all crops to raise. It takes a longer time to raise it. It takes twelve months in the year to make a cotton crop ; some people say thirteen. My distinguished friend from Mississippi [Mr. MONEY], who represents a great cotton State next in production to Georgia says thirteen, and it is a common saying in the South that it takes thirteen months in the year to make a cotton crop.
In other words, from the time the first furrows are begun to be run until the last boll of cotton is picked, is. frequently thir teen months, and during that entire interval there is little or no time to rest. It is an unceasing attention, a constant labor, and when by reason of such failure of the Government to give the reports in a degree of proper frequency, as was the case last year, there is such a fluctuation In the price that the profit on it is nothing, and cotton is to-day selling at less than the cost of production in a great many sections of the country.
Mr. President, this great interest is not limited to them. All the great cotton manufacturers of the country, in order that they may fix their prices for the manufactured goods, are inter ested in the question, What shall be the volume of the cotton crop? They are all of them interested in order that they may know whether there Is such a prospective profit in the business as will enable them to expand their business. They are all of them interested in it to know what wages they can pay to their laborers. Every cotton-goods jobber is interested, every ex porter of goods is interested, and every importer of goods is in terested. There is no single industry in this country which affects so widely the general business of the country North as well as South and in which there are such a vast number and variety of people interested as those who are interested in the question as to what will be the volume of the cotton crop.
Now, Mr. President, what does the Secretary of Agriculture say in response to this amendment? He recognizes the fact that it is a proper thing for the Agriculture Department to make these reports. It is a system which has been inaugurated for some time past, and the complaint is not against the system, but upon the fact that it has not been sufficiently expanded. Before that system was inaugurated there were other estimates made by private individuals and by representatives of commer cial bodies and organizations. They were made largely upon very imperfect information, upon limited information, and there was great evil resulting from it. Some were interested parties, and of course their estimates were biased. It was thought that when the Government undertook to furnish the information the cotton producers would be relieved from the great evil which resulted from the estimates being in the hands of private par ties. There has been benefit from it, but there is as it now stands an immense evil, one involving not a little amount of money, but vast sums of money, as I have stated, in one month losing to the cotton planters on the part of the crop still held by them about $40,000,000.
Now, With this vast product, more than $000,000,000 in value, all of it a gold crop two-thirds of it used as an actual gold crop in bringing gold into the country is the question of a few hundred thousand dollars to stand in the way ?
6253

The representative of the Secretary of Agriculture, in a letter which the Senator from Vermont now holds in his band, esti mates, if I recollect aright, that to make the reports as re quired in this amendment would involve an additional expendi ture of some four hundred and odd thousand dollars. Now, Mr. President, I say if it does involve that amount, this industry affects not only the cotton planter, but it affects all engaged in any way in the commercial operations of cotton. The banks of the country, the manufacturers of the country, the jobbers of the country, and the retail merchants as well, those engaged as employees in the manufacture of cotton, and many others in the various ramifications, direct and indirect, of this business, are interested in it.
What we desire is that the Secretary shall continue in the work, but that he shall be put in a position to make it a safe work; that it shall be such that if there are changed condi tions they shall be made known promptly to the country; that the reports which come in to him in his office for the 3d of the" month shall not be kept secret and locked up until the 3d of the next month, and that endless disaster shall not be brought upon the country by its all being suddenly and unexpectedly precipi tated at one time as information to the country.
There is one other feature of the amendment which I have offered which I think is an important addition to the system as it now exists that is, that the Secretary shall not only publish his estimate, but that he shall publish a synopsis of the informa tion upon which he makes his estimate.
There was a great outcry, whether .lust or unjust, of course, I ain not prepared to say, that the Secretary had made an im proper estimate; in other words, that he had not correctly ex amined and formed his conclusions upon information which he had. The second amendment which I have offered in this con nection looks to the giving of that information to the public, in order that they may not only have the estimate of the Secre tary, but that they may have the information by which they may bo abie to form some judgment for themselves whether or not his estimate is correct.
******* Mr. President, I desire not only the Senator from Vermont, but the country, to see how absolutely baseless this calculation is on the part of the Agricultural Department, and I read now from page 54 the provision in reference to the collection of agricultural statistics:
Collecting agricultural statistics: General expenses, Bureau of Sta tistics : Collecting domestic and foreign agricultural statistics, com piling, writing, and illustrating statistical matter for monthly, annual, and special reports; special investigations and compilations; subscrip tion to, and purchase of, statistical and newspaper publications con taining data for permanent comparative records; maps and charts, sta tionery, office supplies, blanks, blank books, circulars, paper, envelopes, postal cards, postage stamps, office fixtures, telegraph and telephone services, freight and express charges, including employment of labor in the city of Washington and elsewhere, actual and necessary trav eling expenses: Provided, That the monthly crop reports issued on the 3d and 10th days of each month shall embrace statements of the con ditions of the crops by States, in the United States, with such expla nations, comparisons, and information as may be useful for illustrating the above matter, and that it shall be submitted to and officially ap proved by the Secretary of Agriculture before being issued or published, $93,000, of which not more than $20,000 shall be expended for salaries in the city of Washington, D. C.
Mr. President, there is an appropriation which covers the en-
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tire system of crop statistical reports, of which the cotton crop

is oafy a part, and the entire expense under the present sys

tem is only $93,900, and now when we propose, in compliance

with the request of a representative convention of cotton

planters in New Orleans, that instead of this report being made

on the third of the month only it shall be made on the third

and at another date during the month, say the seventeenth,

when we propose that in the face of this confession, and not

simply a confession, but a direct representation on the part of

the Department, that $93,000 is sufficient to get reports from

all the agricultural interests once a month, we are told that to

get It twice a month will add over $300,000 to the expense.

If the Senator will pardon the expression and not take it to

himself, the proposition is an absolute absurdity. No mathe

matics can possibly be iigured out which will justify it or sup

port it.

The only pretense or suggestion of an explanation why there

should be any such claim is that, forsooth, while now it is a vol

untary service, if it is asked to be made semimonthly it will be

a paid service. Where is the evidence that it will be required to

be a paid service? Why can not Congress go ahead and let the

Secretary of Agriculture undertake it with the same assistance

that he now has? When he is unable to do it, it will be time

enough for him to say to Congress " I made the effort and I

failed." There has not been a suggestion that he could not get

the same information semimonthly that he now gets monthly, ex

cept from the Department itself, and no evidence is furnished and

no representation is made that the Department has Over made

the effort and found that such would necessarily be the result.

Mr. President, I speak earnestly about this matter because in

the face of this opposition by the Department of Agriculture, I

want the Senate for a moment to consider it. Has there ever,

since the Government undertook the matter of assisting the agri

cultural interests of the country through the methods of the

Agricultural Department, been a time when so large an interest,

in so earnest a manner as is found in the action of the conven

tion at New Orleans, came to the Congress of the United States

asking for something which it said was of such vital importance to

it, and upon such untenable grounds as are here suggested it

met with a refusal on the part of Congress? I desire for Sen

ators just for a moment to think. The wheat crop, so far as its

export value is concerned or its money-bringing properties from

abroad are concerned, is not equal to one-half the cotton crop.

Suppose the wheat growers of this country had met in a con

vention, represented by delegates from all the wheat-growing

sectionsof the United States, and had solemnly said to Congress

they wanted a semimonthly report, and that such semimonthly

report was necessary to protect them from great loss, would

any man hesitate for a moment in the conclusion that their re

quest would meet with the most prompt compliance on the part

of Congress? It would be the rankest injustice to deny to the

cotton planters the relief and assistance which under similar

circumstances would be so certainly granted to the wheat grow

ers. There are no people engaged in industrial pursuits who are

entitled to greater consideration by the Government than the

cotton planters.

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o

PANAMA CANAL APPROPRIATION.
SALARIES OF OFFICERS.
SPEECH
HON. A. O. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
DECEMBER 16, 1905.

G402

WASHINGTON.
1905.

SPEECH
OF
HON. A. 0. BACON.

PANAMA CANAL APPROPRIATION.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. BACON],
Mr. BACON. I ask that the Secretary may read the amend ment.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Secretary will read the amend ment for* the information of the Senate.
The SECBETABY. Add at the end of the bill the following as a new section:

SEC. 3. That the Secretary of the Treasury, within ninety days from the passage of this act, and thereafter at the beginning of each regular session, shall submit to Congress estimates In detail cohering all sala ries and compensation for all persons, except laborers, employed in the construction of the Panama Canal, or in connection with the same, by the Isthmian Canal Commission, including all officers and officials of said Commission.

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, it will be noted that my amend ment requires these estimates to be submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury. That is, as I understand, in accordance with the general law, which requires that all estimates for ex penditures, for whatever Department they may be, shall come from the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress.
I do not intend, Mr. President, to detain the Senate with any extended remarks upon this subject, but it does strike me that this is a most important matter. As the law now stands there is no requirement for the submission of estimates in such detail as would enable the Congress to deal with the question as to whether any particular salary is or is not exorbitant. In other words, the estimates can be made in a more general way and still comply With the present requirement of law; and if they are made in the general way in which they were submitted during the progress of this bill in either House, and after the measure was under consideration, the opportunity > is entirely lost to the House of Representatives or the Senate to properly scrutinize the question of the propriety of the allow ance for salaries made in any particular case or in regard to any particular class of officers.

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3

Now, Mr. President, that is more necessary in the case of the appropriations for the canal than it is for appropriations for any of the regular branches of the Government, for the reason that in the regular Departments of the Government the officers to be compensated are specified by the law, and being thus specified by the law it is entirely competent and prac ticable for Congress to fix what shall be the salary of each officer. But it is impracticable to specify in advance all the officers who shall be employed in this gigantic work with all its varied details and changing conditions and developments. That must be left largely to the discretion of executive and administrative officers. Therefore it is necessary that some method should be adopted by which Congress may still keep its hand upon the important matter of determining whether allowances for salaries are exorbitant or whether they are of proper proportion.
That can only be done, I repeat, when the question of appro priations comes up. The estimates are then made for so many Commissioners, so many officers in the engineering depart ment, and so on; and then it is perfectly practicable for Congress in making the appropriations upon these estimates to fix the amounts which are to be paid.
I do not suppose that it is the intention of Congress to be extra critical upon the subject, because much must necessarily be left to the discretion of those who are on the ground and by whom the conditions are probably better known and more accu rately appreciated than they can be by those of us at this distance. But, it is not only proper, but I will say necessary, that there should be the opportunity for Congress to correct anything in the matter of expenditures which is exorbitant.
The necessity for that, I think, Is clearly disclosed by the salaries which are being paid now many of tnem, not all of them. I have not the list before me. I am sorry I have not If any Senator has it I wish he would let me have it. Speaking generally, I may be in error, but I think that the general scale of compensation, not with exactitude, but approximately
Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator means the list used in the de bates in the House?
Mr. BACON. The one that gives the salaries of the officials. Mr. TILLMAN. Here it is. [The paper was handed.] Mr. BACON, t was saying that I think the general scale of compensation which the Government observes in the payment of its civil officers, while not exactly followed, should be largely a guide to those who have the fixing of salaries In this important* work.
6402

Now, what is a fact with reference to the salaries which have

already been fixed and which are now being paid? We have, in

the beginning, the man who is put at the head of the Commission

with a salary which, outside of ambassadors to foreign coun

tries, is twice as large as that of any civil officer of the United

States except the President of the United States. If I recol

lect aright, the salary of the Chief Justice of the United States

is $15,000, and it has only been raised recently to that amount;

it was much less than thai up to a few years ago. The salary

of $30,000 is paid to the head of this canal work.

As I was saying yesterday, Mr. President, I do not think that

the salaries which are paid by large corporations to their

officials ought to be the guide by which is to be determined the

scale of salaries to be paid to these officials. I repeat what I said

yesterday or the day before, that we have every reason to believe

as to these corporations and I am no man to inveigh against

corporations, and my record in the Senate will show it we

have every reason to believe that the salaries paid by these cor

porations are largely matters of favoritism and are not meas

ured by the proper scale of the value of those services. In my

humble judgment, the man does not live whose personal serv

ices are worth $150,000 a year for any work. I mention that

salary as an extreme one. I might say the same thing of a

great many other exorbitant amounts which are being paid by

these large corporations to their officials, very far in excess, in

my humble judgment, of the -value of any mans personal serv

ices in any capacity.

It is very easy to be liberal in the expenditure of the money

of other people. And these particular corporations which of

late have had such an amount of public advertising in thia

regard have been dealing with the money of other people peo

ple of every class, scattered all over the United States and they

have squandered these trust funds to the point of criminality

in heaping these vast sums upon themselves and their favorites.

The immense salaries thus paid by them have been far in excess

of the value of the services rendered by these favorites.

Whether that be true or not, the policy of this Government is.

well known. It has been settled by more than a hundred years

and is shown in the salary lists of the officials of the Govern

ment of the United States. While it may not bq necessary to

strictly conform to it, still the general policy of tire Government

in the payment of moderate salaries to its officials ought to be

observed as a guide in the fixing of these salaries, at least

approximately.

Why, Mr. President, what is the salary paid to the auditor of

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6
the canal expenditures? I have forgotten. Some Senator here will tell me.
Mr. TILLMAN. For the Canal Commission? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. TILLMAN. Ten thousand dollars. Mr. BACON. Ten thousand dollars is paid to the auditor, and his work comes here for supervision and correction and ap proval by an auditor in the War Department, an officer who gets $4,000 per annum under the Government. The auditor of the canal expenditure gats $10,000. The Secretary of War, .at the head of all this business, gets $8,000; and the clerks in the auditors department, who are ready to do the work and whose knowledge and skill and experience Is that upon which the head auditors in the Departments rely in determining as to the cor rectness of expenditures the clerks, more competent or fully as competent as the man In Panama to do the work, are men who get from twelve hundred to fourteen hundred dollars and sixteen hundred dollars, and in rarest of instances $2,000 a year.
Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. There is not any evidence that this auditor has been at Panama, or that he stays there. Mr. BACON. That may be true, but I am stating the case in the most favorable light in which it can be stated for him and for those who allow him this exorbitant salary. I say even if he is on the Isthmus, and that is stating it as strongly as it can be stated for him. The Secretary of the Treasury, the man at the head of the great financiaj Interests of this Government, the man to supervise all, the man to control all beneath him, gets $8,000, and, forsooth, an unknown man, the appointment not con firmed by the Senate or required to be confirmed by the Senate, Is to receive more money than the head of the financial De
partment of the Government. So I might go on through, Mr. President. I am not niggardly
In my ideas as to salaries. I would be perfectly willing to pay the salaries which I see are paid, if I recollect correctly, to tie Commissioners, $7,500. I would be perfectly willing to do that. I am quite frank to say that I think the officials of the Govern ment are largely underpaid. When I say " largely," I mean a great many of them, using the word " largely " not as to the
amount but as to the classes. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia
yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? fii02

Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONBR. Would the Senator fix the salary of the chief engineer, the officer who is to reside upon the Isthmus, upon whose skill and knowledge of the profession depends very much the successful
Mr. BACON. What is it? Mr. SPOONER. I do not know what it is. Mr. GALLINGER. Thirty thousand dollars. Mr. BACON. The chief engineer? I certainly do think It is too high.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator would limit it? Mr. BACON. I certainly would. Mr. SPOONER. How would the Senator limit it? Mr. BACON. I would not pay any official connected with that business more than is paid the Chief Justice of the United States not one of them. That is the highest salary paid to any civil officer of the Government outside of foreign am bassadors.
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will permit me a moment, the commission feature of the canal act was,as the Senator from Georgia stated yesterday, his amendment. The original propo sition, as I drew it and introduced it, contemplated the con struction of the canal without the intervention of a commis sion. On the passage of the bill the Senator offered the amend ment providing for the commission, and it was adopted. I think I voted for it.
Mr. BACON. The Senator signified his acquiescence in it before I offered it.
Mr. SPOONER. One reason _why I voted for it was that the Senators amendment left the matter of salaries within the power of the President, in order that he might be able to adjust the compensation which he could pay to engineers and others of a professional character with reference to the sum which might, in view of the competition of great corporations needing such services, be necessary to procure the men.
Now, does the Senator think that it would be in the interest of the public, that it would be wise policy, to limit the salary of the chief engineer of the canal to the salary of the Chief Justice? Upon what theory? What -similarity in conditions exists between the two propositions? The railway corpora tions of this country make a great market for engineering tal ent. They bid against each other for great civil engineers. Every few days you will find a successful, scientific, and tal ented chief engineer leaving one corporation with which he has long been, and going to another because he will draw a better salary.
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Mr. RACON. The Senator, I understood, asked me a ques tion. He does not let me reply to it.
Mr. SPOONER. I think the President of the United States, in choosing a chief engineer to take charge of this great work, so far as the plan is concerned, and to conduct the operations, ought to be permitted to get the best talent that can be found in the United States, and to pay the necessary price to induce such a man to go there and do that work. Does not the Senator think so?
Mr. BACON. Now, will the Senator Mr. SPOONER. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. BACON. Will he please give me his question. The Sena tor did not state his question.
Mr. SPOONER. I asked the question in the first place, Mr. BACON. One question at a time. Mr. SPOONER. Then I thought I would explain the ques tion to the Senator.
Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the Senator. I am sure I would not have understood it otherwise.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator from Georgia draws an unfair Inference from a joking remark.
Mr. BACON. Perhaps the Senator from Georgia rejoined i the same spirit.
Mr. SPOONER. My question is whether the Senator is sure that he would limit the salary of the chief engineer to $12,500.
Mr. BACON. I did not say that. Mr. SPOONER. Or limit it at all?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the Senator has accompanied his question with a considerable statement, and therefore it is necessary that I should do more than give him a categorical answer.
As to the amendment which is now found in the seventh sec tion of the Spooner Act, the Senator correctly states what oc curred with reference to that amendment. The bill as originally introduced by him and which was pending in the Senate did not contain any provision for the Commission or for any machinery by which the President should proceed with the execution of the work.
Mr. SPOONER. It was to be done under the War Depart^ ment.
Mr. BACON. Yes; it simply devolved the duty upon the President, and the only limitation was that he should do it through the War Department. I became satisfied, Mr. Presi dent, that machinery would be required, and I thought it was better that machinery should be prescribed by Congress and
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have somewhat of a legal status and something permanent In Its nature rather than that the machinery should be left to the con struction entirely of the Executive Department, with the liabil ity to constant changes.
I drafted &e amendment, and having every confidence in the judgment of my distinguished friend, the author of the bill, I submitted it to him before I introduced it. If he will remem ber, the amendment as originally drawn by me contained specifi cations as to the salaries of the Commission.
Mr. SPOONER. Yes. Mr. BACON. So I am not taking any position now which I did not originally occupy. Upon the suggestion of the Senator, however, that that should be left open, I yielded to his judg ment in the matter for two reasons. In the first place, as it was his measure and one the success of which would redound to his honor and his credit and the want of success of which would be to his disadvantage, I felt it was due to him that in putting an amendment upon the bill which should contain this somewhat radical change there should be such provisions as would meet wifh his approval. That was one ueason. The other reason, possibly a more practical one, was that I did not think in the face of his opposition I could secure the adoption of my amendment. For those two reasons, Mr. President, the amendment was changed to conform to the view of the Senator from Wisconsin, the number of commissioners and their character simply being prescribed, and the right to fix tlieir salaries being left to the President of the United States. Then the amendment further provided, and it is now a part of the law, that the Commissioners should appoint all the sub ordinate officers, subject to the approval of the President, which was manifestly correct. In framing the amendment, leaving the salaries unfixed, it was never in my contemplation, nor do I suppose it was in the contemplation of the learned and dis tinguished Senator from Wisconsin, that Congress would en tirely surrender its right to determine whether the salaries fixed were proper or whether they were exorbitant. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr.-BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONEJl. The Senator is partly right about that I supposed, of course, and the language of the Senators amend ment contemplated it, that the salary to be paid to the mem bers of the Commission would later, when it could be intelli gently ilonlt with, be fixed by Congress.
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Mr. BACON. Exactly; I recollect that now.
Mr. SPOONER. I supposed, also, that the salaries of the employees of the Commission In Washington would be fixed by Congress. But if the Senator will pardon me a moment I will say that I preferred his plan, although with some misgivings as to the Commission, to my original proposition to have this work done under the War Department, for the reason that it gave to the President greater freedom in obtaining what obviously was needed and will be needed the highest talent in various direc tions for utilization on the Isthmus and I did not suppose at all that at any time, at any rate not until the plan had been adopted and the work was well along, that Congress would attempt to limit the salary or compensation to be paid to such . officials as the chief engineer. You can not get the best men at a low price. Men who can make $50,000 a year in the employ of great corporations will not put that behind them. They will feel that they can not in justice to their families and to them selves work for the Government in the Tropics at 12,000 a year. This very elasticity of the Senators amendment, so far as it applied to the men who were to be employed on the Isth mus, was what commended it to me as very much superior to the proposition which I had made, that the work be done under the War Department, where the salaries would be flsed and the President would be tied down by the limited number of people whom he could select for the work of the engineering depart ment, and so forth.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I had not finished my reply to the interrogatory of the learned Senator, and, while I am always delighted to hear from him, I will resume where I left off.
I desire to say that so far as this question is concerned I regard the question of the payment of salaries, which some may think to be exorbitant to the higher officials, as the least impor tant one in the question of exorbitant salaries. I repeat what I said, that I think any officer connected with this gigantic work ought not to be paid higher than the amount of the salary of the Chief Justice. While I repeat that, I say in this connection that I regard that as the least important one in regard to the matter of salaries, because there are only one or two of them, and they stand out clear and distinct from the others; and there may be reasons such as those which have been so forcefully pre sented by the learned Senator from Wisconsin, which will obtain in their case which do not apply to others.
I think nevertheless, Mr. President, that the question of the salary of the chief officer in charge and of the chief engineer is influenced very largely by the same considerations which influ-
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cnced the learned Senator from Wisconsin to accept a salary of $5,000, when he can make ten times as much at the bar. It is because it Is an honor to him to sit in this body which, if you please, he also honors by serving as one of its members. So it is an honor to these men to stand before the world as worthy to be in charge of the execution of such a work, the accomplish ment of which is to be for them through all the ages an im perishable monument
It is not merely a matter of dollars and cents. It may be said that is not a correct argument, that that is not a legitimate argument, but it is the argument upon which the Government proceeds when it fixes the salary of the learned Senator from Wisconsin; when It fixes the salary of the Chief Justice of the United States; when it fixes the salary of the Cabinet officer, and even that of the President of the United States. Why, Mr. President, should we abandon it in this important work, and why should we make an exception to it?
I repeat, I do not desire that it should he held down to exact figures or that we should be niggardly; but as to these chief officers there is something else besides the mere matter of money. It is a matter of imperishable fame and honor to the man who is the chairman of that Commission if he shall be retained, if he can go through in the successful prosecution and ending of this work; and it is a matter of only less fame and honor imperishable in its character to the engineer who, under his chief officer, shall successfully prosecute that work to a favorable termination. It is not simply a question of the money he is receiving. He is not simply getting compensation in money, but he is getting it in that which is worth more than money to e>ery man of honorable and exalted ambition.
Do you say the Government seeks to get services for less than they are worth on the ground that the honor of such services is compensation? My only answer is that is what the Government does year after year. It does it as to the other departments, and this work is equivaleat to a department of the Government, and it ought to be governed in a large measure by the same con siderations.
But, sir, I repeat I will not stickle on the question of the compensation for the chief officer or for the chief engineer. I yield on that if it is necessary, although I abate in no particular the. view I have to-day expressed. But the alarming thing withwhich we are confronted is the fact that the most exor bitant salaries have been paid and provided for for men of only such capacity that there are hundreds and thousands of others of equal capacity whose services can be had. That is the point.
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We have one I do not know the gentleman, and I do not desire to do him an injustice we have one of them right here in this town to whom we pay $10,000 a year for a very indefinite kind of work that he is to do and has done in the capacity of a press agent.
But leaving that out as an exceptional case, if you please, we come down to the more important matter of compensation of this army of officers because there must be an army of them all upon a scale absolutely disproportioned to the pay ments made by this Government to other officers performing the same character of services and services of greater responsi bility, because while these canal officers have only a subordinate responsibility, their work is supervised by these Government officers in Washington for approval or for condemnation in the simple fact that the man who holds a subordinate position gets $10,000, while the auditor, who is to supervise his work, gets but $4,000, and so on in proportion. I only mention that because that is right at hand and within touch; but you may go through the scale, and it is the same way. I have no doubt that it is true, although I have not the figures before me, that the subordinate officers of the auditor of the canal work receive just as great a disproportion In salaries paid to the subordinate officers of the auditors here as the auditor of the canal work receives in proportion to the salary paid to the auditor here.
The statement is perfectly monstrous that an officer who is not only subordinate, but doubly subordinate, should get 250 per cent more than the Government officer who supervises him and 25 per cent more of salary than the head of the Treasury Department of the United States or of the War Department, each of which has to deal directly or indirectly with this work.
Mr. President, it is not simply a matter of squandering the public treasure. When I say " squandering" I do not mean any offense to those gentlemen who have fixed these salaries, because I have said twice, and I will say a third time, that I do not attribute any improper motive to those who have fixed these salaries, and therefore I will modify the word which sounds harshly and say " improvidently spending the public money." I think it was an error of judgment upon their part, a difference of judgment between them and ourselves; but, Mr. President, I venture the suggestion that there is not a Senator in this Chamber who will rise in his place and say that he thinks these salaries are proper and should be continued. If there is one, I pause to give him an opportunity to say it. [A pause.] Well, Mr. President, nobody answers. When in this body, clothed with our high trust to see that the public
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money Is properly expended, no man arises in bis place and says that he thinks these expenditures are .lust and proper, is it true we are to pass the matter over without taking some measures to^correct it?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I repeat what I said in an earlier stage of my remarks, that I think many of the salaries paid by the United States Government are on too low a scale; but I will say that is the policy of the Government; and if it is the policy of the Government in one Department, there is no reason why there should be an exception in this case.
Mr. President, I do not believe that there is any scarcity of competent men in the United States to do this work, as I have suggested, but I repeat that the payment of the two principal officers is a minor consideration to me, because I am more con cerned about the subordinate positions. There Is where I say the evil is shown.
But before I pass from the subject suggested by the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINGEB] , I desire to say this: At the time the Spooner Act was passed we already* had a Canal Commission. It was presided over by a naval officer. When this amendment was drawn there was not only a permission, but a requirement that both Army and Navy officers should be upon this Commission. I am very frank to say that I think it was not only my contemplation, but the contemplation of other Senators, that possibly it might be continued in the future as it had been in the past, and that the Commission would be pre sided over by an Army officer qr by a naval officer; but no requirement was made in that regard. I am confident, however, of the fact I will say that I will not permit myself to doubt the fact that there are engineering officers in the Army of the United States fully competent to occupy the position of chief of this Commission; but whether or not a naval officer is equally competent, by reason of the different character of his work upon the sea, I am not prepared to say. It may be that a naval officer would be equally competent for the chief posi tion as chairman of this Commission. I am equally confident that there are engineering officers in the Army of the United States who are fully competent to occupy the position of chief engineer of the canal. . Mr. President, it was intended by this law that the Army offi cers and the Navy officers, when they were appointed upon this Commission, should not be limited to their regular salaries. It was intended that they should have just as much as civil officers should have in similar positions. But while that is true,
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it was never the intention or the contemplation, so far as I know, of the Senate that the salaries should be exorbitant, whether enjoyed by military and naval men or by civilians.
But I am constantly brought back to the proposition that the thing which presses upon me is not so much the compensation of these higher officers, for there are very few of them, but the scale of compensation for men in subordinate capacities.
I was saying, Mr. President, when I was interrupted by one of the learned Senators, that it is not simply a question of dollars and cents. It is more than a question merely of money. In niy humble judgment there is nothing which has done more to debauch the public conscience and to demoralize the young men of this land and not only the young men, but some of the older men, also than the knowledge of the fact ever present before them that while they have to dig and delve and toil for a pit tance there are other men who do not do half the work they do who are enjoying each year what would be to them a princely fortune for all life. Therefore we have these irregularities, these defaultings, these efforts to get rich by gambling of one kind or another to acquire quickly large wealth.
Sir, these depraving and debauching influences are destructive of the high ideals and beneficent designs upon which our Gov ernment was founded. This was a Government in its inception designed for the happiness and peace and content of a simple and a frugal people. It was not designed for the aggrandize ment of officials, much less was it designed for the enrichment of officials; and in the scale of compensation of its officers the door was shut in the faces of* those who would seek public pre ferment in high places with no higher motive than to gain money thereby. And these same exalted considerations should not be entirely ignored in fixing the salaries of these higher canal offi cials, upon whom a great and an honorable public trust is de volved, and who are to win imperishable fame and honor if they succeed in their great undertaking. And as to the officers of less rank their salaries ought to be measured, approximately, at least, by the scale of salaries that the Government pays to its officials of corresponding grade and responsibility. If conditions in that tropical climate make it proper to do so, then let the salaries of such officials be higher by a certain per cent than corresponding salaries of Government officials at home, as is done in the case of officers serving in the Philippines. But fet not these differences in conditions cause all considerations of economy to be thrown to the winds.
Sir, we have no control over the question as to what salaries some profligate corporations shall pay to their officers, except
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so far as the,authority having jurisdiction shall see that certain things which trench upon the domain of dishonesty are not permitted to pass with impunity. Nevertheless their example is debauching and demoralizing upon the public in witnessing the riotous prodigality with which unearned luxury and wealth is lavished upon their favorites. And, sir, it does not become us to follow in the same track, and it does not become us, when we have entered upon a great physical and material enterprise, to be establishing a scale of salaries for its officials which shall have a demoralizing and debauching influence upon the young men of tliis country when they contemplate the pitiful amounts they receive for their labor in comparison to what these men enjoy.
Mr. President, we are at the beginning of this great wrork. It has to contimie for years how many years we do not know and right in the inception of it, right at the first stages of it, we are met with these startling facts. Now, imputing no im proper design to anybody, what has been developed shows to us the absolute necessity that Congress shall lay its hands upon this matter.
It is the contemplation of our Government that all expendi tures shall be only such as are authorized by the Congress, and whenever you fix it so that the executive department has no_ check upon the amount which it can undertake to pay and which it can contract to pay you at once surrender the purse to the Executive. Therefore, while we must of necessity in this case leave the matter largely to the Executive, at the same time it is our duty, so far as we can practically do so, to arrange the progress of this work in a manner that Congress shall keep its hands upon the question of expenditure and shall determine what shall be the scale of wages, of salaries, and of other dis bursements.
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o

THE MOROCCAN-ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE.
PARTICIPATION IN EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS.'
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THK
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Monday, January 15, 1906.
WASHINGTON. 1906.
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SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Senate having under consideration the following resolution sub mitted this day by Mr. BACON :
"Resolved by the Senate, That Interference with or participation in any controversy between European governments relating to European international questions is a violation of the well-settled, well-defined policy of this Government, which has been recognized and observed for more than a century past

Mr. BACON said: Mr. IBESIDENT : On last Monday T introduced a resolution re questing of the President of theUnited States, if not incom patible with the public interest, that certain information be given to the Senate relative to the appointment of, or the alleged ap pointment of, delegates to a European conference in reference to the Moroccan matter. The question of the consideration of that resolution in public was by order of the Senate considered in secret session. What I shall have to say to-day will not in any manner contravene the order of the Senate in that regard. The particular scope of the resolution was one calling ujWi the Senate to ask certain information from the President. I shall not discuss the question of asking information from the Presi dent, nor shall I discuss any information received from the Presi dent, because it so happens that we have not received from the President any information with reference to the Moroccan matter. What I shall have to say will relate exclusively to a great public question of vital importance and with reference to the information we have upon that subject from the press of this country and of the world, which has not been communicatqd to us in confidence, which is not enjoyed by us alone, but which we have learned in this public manner and which is known to all the world. I presume, Mr. President, whatever may be true in the future, at present, at least, the right to publicly discuss such matters upon information thus obtained in public, still remains to the American Senate.
Before discussing directly the question involved in the resolu tion, I desire to read to the Senate part of a news article which appeared on yesterday in the Washington Post under the head, " Data on Morocco." That article, in part, is as follows:

Secretary Koot yesterday permitted without hesitation a represent ative of the Post to see all the papers bearing on the Moroccan ques tion. This is the subject that excited so much interest in the Senate l.ist week by reason of the introduction of a resolution by Mr. BACON calling upon the President to send to the Senate a copy of the instruc-

2

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tlons he has given to the two delegates he appointed to represent the United States at the international conference at Algeciras, Spain, be ginning January 17.
As previously announced by the Post, any member of the Senate is at liberty to call at the State Department and examine the documents In the case and study .minutely every phase of the issues involved as revealed by the correspondence which resulted in President Roosevelt appointing the delegates and the instructions sent to them. The in structions were conceived and written by Elibu Hoot. Those who know John Hays successor at the head of the Department of State will under stand from this that the instructions do not contain anything that savors of impingement by the Executive upon the legislative functions or that In any way Is calculated to commit this Government to a policy that will embroil the United States in the politics of Europe.
Both President Roosevelt and Secretary Root are known to regret the fuss and fume created in the Senate last week by the Bacon reso lution. It is also known that neither of them requested Senator LODGE or anybody else to oppose the adoption of the Bacon resolution, though they hewrtily approved the action of Messrs. LODGE, SPOONEII, and other Senators, who in the secret sessions contested the position of Mr. BACON.
PrBLTCTTY MIGHT INTERFERE.

It is asserted by the President and Mr. Root that the only objection to a copy of the instructions being sent to the Senate as requested by Mr. BACON is based upon the fear that some of the correspondence of the State Department with its confidential agents in Morocco and in Europe touching upon the issues involved might gain publicity and thereby cause embarrassmen t to two or three European nations that will participate in the Algeciras conference.
All of this correspondence is included in the pamphlet containing the instructions to the United States delegntes.

Mr. President, I think I may safely assume that that publica tion is by authority of the State Department at least I think I may safely assume that every allegation in it is in consequence of a communication which this newspaper reporter has had with
the Secretary of State and that the allegations are in accord ance with those statements thus made to him.
Mr. LODGE. Why does the Senator think he has the right to make that assumption?

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PERKINS in the chair).

Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Mas

sachusetts?

Mr. BACON. I have yielded, Mr. President.

I make the statement because all of the allegations in this ar

ticle are of a nature which import that they could not possibly

have been learned except through the Secretary of State, and the

article contains the indicia of authenticity, unless we are pre

pared to believe that so reputable a newspaper as the Washing

ton Post, with its well-known writers of high character, integ

rity, and credibility, has deliberately falsified when it represents

that this information has been received by it from the execu

tive department. That is the ground upon which I base the

statement that I think we may safely assume that this state

ment is issued by the authority and upon the representations of

the Department of State.

Mr. LODGE. Is it stated there that the information was

received directly from the Secretary of State?

Mr. BACON. I would call attention to several things; but

the article begins by stating:

^

Secretary Root

Calling him by name

Secretary Root yesterday permitted without hesitation a representa tive of the Post to see all the papers bearing on the Moroccan question.

That is the way the narration begins.

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Mr. LODGE. Does the Senator think that that makes the

State Department responsible for that article?

^

Mr. BACON. I am going on to tell the Senate why I think

the State Department is responsible. I do not have any pleas

ure in bringing this matter to the attention of the Senate, atsd I

shall be more than delighted if the Senator, with his close relations

to the State Department,1 can at any time be able to rise in his

seat and say that that is not the correct representation of the

Information imparted by the Secretary of State to this news paper writer. I will feel a personal obligation to the Senator

If he can give that assurance, and this Senate if I may be

permitted to presume so far as to speak for it will be under

obligations to the Senator if he can secure from the Secretary of

State a disavowal of the things which are stated in this article.

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Rhode Island?

Mr. BACON. With great pleasure.

Mr. ALDKICH. From my knowledge of the personal char

acteristics of the Secretary of State, I should think it very un

likely, if he decided to communicate to the Senate or to Senators

in reference to a matter of this kind, that he should do so

through a newspaper correspondent.

Mr. BACON. Very well. I shall also be under equal obli

gations to the Senator from Rhode Island if he can Gring to

this Senate that assurance. But, Mr. President

Mr. LODGE. The Senator misunderstood my question. I do

not care to discuss the statements contained in that article or

any other article, for I think that would be contravening the de

cision of the Senate. I merely wish to find out whether the

Senator is prepared to state that that article was inspired or

authorized by the Secretary of State.

Mr. BACON. Does the Senator mean that I can state it as a

fact?

Mr. LODGE. I should like to have it stated as a fact.

Mr. BACON. The Senator very well knows that I have no op

portunity to knotv that as a fact. I am judging simply by sur

face indications by that which appears on the paper itself not

even by any information which I have received from the news

paper reporter or the slightest communication which I have

had with him on the subject, but I judge of it just as a court

would judge when a paper is presented as to the authenticity

of it or as to the relation which it may bear to the question.

Mr. LODGE. The Senator said we were to assume it.

Mr. BACON. I said I think it is fair to assume it, and I still

think so. Mr. LODGE. The Senator has a right to assume anything he

pleases, but I think he can hardly commit the entire Senate to that assumption.

Mr. BACON. Very well. I will say for myself, as I did say

for myself, I can fairly assume it. I did not presume in that to

speak for the Senate; but I do presume to speak for the Senate

when 1 say that is not respectful to the Senate, and that if the

Senator can secure the disavowal of the Secretary of State he

will confer not only an obligation upon the Secretary of State,

but also upon the Senate.

Mr. LODGE. It seems to me that is the very best reason for

6475

assuming that the Secretary of State is not responsible for it if it is disrespectful to the Senate.
Mr. BACON. That may be true; that is one argument. But if there are other evidences which bear out in a still greater de gree the fact that it is not, we must strike the balance.
Mr. LODGE. The Senator has no right to charge disrespect or any intention or desire of being disrespectful to the Senate on the faith of a newspaper article of which he knows nothing.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, throughout this article there are statements made by the newspaper reporter which represent as speaking the sentiments, if not the very wrords, of the Presi dent and of the Secretary of State.
Mr. LODGE. Well, Mr. President, last week the same news paper stated that my motion to go into secret session was made after consulting with the President in view of shutting off public information, and the Senator from New Jersey and myself had made a careful canvass of the" Senate to see that it was done. If this statement is as accurate as those statements, I think it is a rather dotibtful form of assumption.
Mr. BACON. I will call the honorable Senators attention to the fact that this particular paper which I now hold in my hand represents that the President and Secretary of State denied the authenticity of that statement.
Mr. LODGE. Well, Mr. President, what the same paper said last week, which I presume the Senator will now recognize is not correct, seems to me to impair its absolute certainty as a foundation for an assumption.
Mr. BACON. I had not assumed it as an absolute certainty. Mr. LODGE. The Senator is assuming that the Secretary of State has been disrespectful to the Senate. I say that is an assumption no one has a right to make. Mr. BACON. There might be a difference between the honor able Senator and myself as to whether what is contained here Is disrespectful. I did not assume that. I said I would assume, and I thought I could fairly assume, that this publication was hy his authority and under the statement made by him. Then, as to whether or not it is disrespectful is a matter for each Senator to determine for himself. But I did not rise for the purpose of making specifically a charge against the Secretary of State with a view of bringing him to judgment in this tribunal as to whether or not he has been disrespectful. I think, however, if the Secretary of State is responsible for what appears in this article, it could properly be suggested in the most respectful language that it is not re spectful to the Senate. Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. I wish to suggest that we could very easily settle this whole question in five minutes. When I introduced here a couple of weeks ago, or something like that, an article from the New York Herald which contained very serious im putations upon certain transactions in Panama, the Senator from Massachusetts felt so much concern that he went to the telephone and in a moment came in and in the most emphatic manner said upon the authority of the Secretary of War he pro-
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6
nounced the statement a lie. The same course is now open to him: the telephone is working, and with all due deference to the Senator, I think it would be entirely apropos thatthe Secretary of State, for whom I have the most profound admiration and re spect, should be permitted now and instantly to clear himself from the supposition that in the slightest way he has done any thing or permitted anything disrespectful to the Senate, because I do not believe he has done it.
Mr. LODGE. Mr. President Mr. T1LLMAN. But, if the Senator from Massachusetts will pardon me, we have fallen into such a condition in the relation ship between the Executive and the Senate that I am prepared for almost any exhibition of disrespect as well as usurpation in that quarter. Mr. LODGE. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me, as the Senator from South Carolina addressed me? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. LODGE. I should certainly not show so little respect either for myself or for the Secretary of State as to invite him to enter on the office of publicly denying every unauthorized statement that appears in any newspaper. In the second place, Mr. President, I should be debarred from doing so in public, be cause the Senate has ordered that this subject should not be dis cussed in public, and I desire to conform to the rules of the Senate. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the Senate has not so ordered. There was but one thing in the resolution which I introduced and which the Senate has committed to its secret deliberations and consideration and determination, and that was the question whether or not we should ask of the Executive certain informa tion. That resolution, Mr. President, did not express any opinion as to the Moroccan question. It expressed no opinion as to the propriety of the appointment of delegates. It ex pressed no opinion as to the propriety of our being represented at that conference. It simply asked for certain information from the President. I am not here pressing that we shall ask for information from the President. I am not discussing the question as to the pro priety of asking information of the President, and I do not pro pose to do that. I may not either now or hereafter revive that question, because it is a matter entirely within the control of the majority of the Senate, and it is fruitless when a majority oppose a thing of that kind, or if it should be opposed to it, for the minorty to continue to press it. But, Mr. President, there is nothing in that resolution, there is nothing in the order of the Senate with reference to it, which debars the Senate from the consideration, in the first place, of a great abstract proposition, as expressed in the resolution which I have introduced to-day, or which will debar the Senate from a proper consideration of the question whether the particu lar instance now being developed in the history of this country is one which is applicable to that particular policy of this Gov ernment, and whether that particular instance is or is not in contravention of that policy. So, Mr. President, with all due respect to the honorable Sen ator from Massachusetts, I must differ from him in the sugges tion that there is anything in the resolution which I have sub-
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initted, or in the remarks which I propose to submit thereon, which contravenes the order of the Senate. There has been no decision on the part of the Senate that it would consider this subject In secict. As I have said before, I am not discussing any communication fromthe Executive. I am not discussing any subject upon which the Executive lias communicated to us directly or indirectly. There was nothing in the annual mes sage of the President on the subject, nor has there been any special communication to us on the subject. We are as free as we are upon any other question which relates to tlie interests of this Government. In discussing it there is nothing confiden tialin our possession.
Mr. President, I was proceeding to say, when I was interrupted by the Senator from Massachusetts, that I thought I might safely assume that this article was published by the authority of the Secretary of State and upon the basis of information received from the Secretary of State. Not only does the article set out the statement that in the interview, which was evidently for the purpose of conveying information to the newspaper re porter, the Secretary of State unhesitatingly showed him all these papers which have been withheld from the Senate, but there is also a general discussion of the subject of the Mo roccan conference, and in that general discussion there is a statement and a repetition of the statement in more than one instance of what is said by the Secretary of State and also by the President, as well as a general statement of their views, as definitely ascertained, and not as in any manner surmised or guessed at.
Unless, sir, we are prepared to believe, which I do not, that the reporter of the Washington Post has falsified or misrepre sented what occurred, we have every reason to believe from the statement made by him that these statements were made upon the authority of the Secretary of State. For this reason, while I do not assert it as a fact, I feel justified in assuming that what is published in this article has been written and published by the authority of the Secretary of State.
Now, what is the information conveyed to us in this newspaper excerpt from which I have read? It professes to give a state ment of a part of what is the history of the appointment of delegates to the Algeciras conference, and then that part that it does not give it informs "us each and any Senator can get if he will respectfully go to the State Department and ask permission to be allowed to see the papers.
As the Senator is talking about respect, I will not say that is an affront to the Senate or that it is an indignity to the Senate, but I will venture in all respect to the Secretary of State, for whom, like the Senator from South Carolina, I have a very pro found respect and admiration I will in that deferential and respectful manner, suggest that withholding the papers from the Senate, even though desired by a minority of Senators, and a display of them to newspaper reporters, and the information conveyed to the Senate, not in the ordinary official channel, but through the newspaper press, that if any Senator will go to the State Department and there humbly, hat in hand, ask permis sion to see these papers, he will be allowed to do so, is not re spectful to the Senate. I shall be very much gratified to be
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authoritatively informed that the reporter misunderstood the Secretary of State.
Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. I am sure the Senator from Georgia does not wish to do Mr. Root an injustice, and although it is none of my business, as the Senator from Massachusetts is here as the representative and defender of Cabinet officers, and 1 would not by any means be suspected of interfering with his pleasant work, I feel constrained to say the Senator is doing Secretary Root an injustice, because the resolution has never- been passed by the Senate at least that is my understanding. Probably the Secretary, feeling that a tempest in a teapot had been stirred up in the Senate by his overzealous friends, has taken this means of showing how harmless would have been the pas sage of the resolution of the Senator from Georgia and how lit tle would have come out of it. That seems to be a commonsense view. I may be in error. Mr. BACON. Tbat may be true, Mr. President, and I am very glad to accept the suggestion that possibly the Secretary of State designed it as a rebuke to his officious friends on the other side of the Chamber. ,1 understand that to be the suggestion of the Senator from South Carolina. Mr. TILLMAN. It seems to me that that is the only logical and reasonable explanation of the action of the Secretary of State if he did give this information to the Post newspaper; and I have no doubt that be did. Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the Senator from South Carolina for the suggestion, because there is another road out of the dilemma. Not only will we be relieved if the Senator from Massachusetts will have the information con veyed to us that this report is not the representation of what occurred between the reporter and the Secretary of State, but if it did occur that it was not regarded as a reflection upon the Senate, but as a rebuke to his friends on the other side of the Chamber who had put him in this awkward dilemma. In either case we shall be relieved, and I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will be very much gratified that he shall be relieved of such an imputation. But, Mr. President, I did not rise for the purpose of making any special animadversion upon the Secretary of State; I rose for something of more grave importance I think; that is, to bring to the attention of the Senate, and through the Senate of the country, a consideration of the question whether or not this proposed conference at Algeciras (under the information which we have in common with the rest of the world, and which we do not enjoy from any confidential communication or any exclusive information) comports with the interest of this coun try, whether or not it is in accordance with the traditional timehonored policy of this Government, or whether in truth it is a most pronounced violation of the policy well defined and thor oughly established and of uninterrupted observance for more than a century. That is the question I wanted to bring to the consideration of the Senate and of the public, because I think it is a most vital one.
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Mr. President, for a hundred years and more, for one hun dred and ten years and more, it has been the announced and universally observed policy of this Government not to commit ourselves to any entanglements in European political or inter national affairs. Unless I am very much mistaken in iny view as to what will be the necessary result of our participation In this conference, if this is recognized as a proper thing and be comes a precedent, then for all time In the future there can no possible international question come up in Europe when it will not be considered proper for us to participate in it and become entangled in it and be affected by its result and by the general policy which will therefrom result.
The resolution recites that this is a time-honored policy of more than a century. It had its origin in the Administration of Washington. The tirst treaty ever made by the United States with a foreign government was the treaty made in 1778, if I recollect correctly, between the United States and France. That treaty contained a provision of alliance, offensive and defensive, between the United States and France, the only one we ever did make, and I hope the only one we ever will make. In 1703, either in the closing of Washingtons first Administra tion or in the beginning of his second, I am not sure which, France called upon the United States to make good its pledge, and there was a great controversy in this country as to whether or not in compliance with that pledge we should go to war with England, with which power Prance was then at war. There was great diversity of opinion. Washingtons Cabinet was divided upon it. Penally Washington sided with Hamilton and Randolph and himself took the position that we should not engage in foreign wars at the behest and will and in the interest of a foreign country. In consequence of that decision the obli gation of that treaty was directly repudiated by the Govern ment of the United States and we refused to take part in the war between France and Great Britain.
That policy had never theretofore been announced in any State paper, it had never been announced as the policy of this Govern ment, and the first time, so far as I know, that it was ever for mally presented is in Washingtons Farewell Address.
Mr. President, 1 could get a great number of utterances by public men upon this subject, but I have not had time this morning to collect them. The article which has called this matter to my attention and made me feel the importance of bringing it more directly to the attention of the Senate appeared only yesterday morning, Sunday, w-en I had no opportunity to have access to libraries. But in Washingtons Farewell Ad dress, which we read here on the 22d of every February, occurs this, directly in accord with the position taken by him with reference to the French treaty:
Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent contro versies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, Is must he unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the or dinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. II we remain one people, under an efficient gov ernment, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external nnnoyance ; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupu-
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10
lously respecte<?T when belligerent nations, under the Impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not legally hazard the giving us provocation; when we tnay choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our des tiny with that of any part ol Europe, entangle our peace and pros perity in the tolls of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice ?
That Is from Washingtons Farewell Address. In the mes sage of President Monroe, in which he announced what is now known as the " Monroe doctrine," Mr. Monroe also used similar language, a part of which I will read. Said he:
In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to them selves we have never taken any part, nor does It comport with our policy so to do. Our policy in regard to Europe, whicli was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains -the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the govern ment de facto a.s the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with It, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none.
In the succeeding annual message by Monroe the same doc trine is as emphatically stated by him, as follows :
Separated as we are from Europe by the great Atlantic Ocean, we can have no concern In the wars of the European governments nor In the causes which produce them. The balance of power between them,, into whichever scale it may turn In Its various yibration, cau not affect us. It is the interest of tlie United States to preserve the most friendly relations with every power, and on conditions fair, equal, and applicable to all.
Mr. President, I might not only give these utterances, but in unnumbered instances could I call to the attention of the Senate the utterances of our Presidents and of our Secretaries of State, of our publicists, and of our great men of all parties, enunciat ing the same doctrine and advocating adherence to the same policy. Rut it is scarcely necessary that I should take up the time of the Senate to do so, when in a general way they are so well known to all. From the day of Washington to the present time the doctrine of noninterference and nouentanglement in the international political controversies of Europe has been uniformly and continuously held by all Administrations and by all political parties in the United States, and it has become the fixed policy, the unwritten law as it were, of this country, rec ognized, advocated, respected, and obeyed by all.
While not taking the time to read these many utterances, I will read something which is extremely pertinent to the sug gestion which I am just making as to the continuity and un interrupted observance of this policy. I will read an extract from the proceedings of The Hague conference, showing the attitude of the United States as announced most formally there. When we so recently met with the nations of the world in that great conference, in the interest of peace and to discour age war and rob war of its atrocities, fearing that indirectly even our adherence to an agreement of such a character might be construed into an abandonment of this time-honored policy, this provision was inserted :
And whereas the said convention was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the United States of America under reservation of the following declaration.
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That is a part of the proclamation of the President announc ing the making of this treaty, and this is the language of the reservation made Iby the delegates of the United States when they signed the peace treaty at The Hague:
Nothing contained in this convention
This is The Hague convention
Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in the political questions of policy or internal administration of any for eign state; nor shall anything contained in the said convention be con strued to imply a relinquishrnent by the United States of America of its traditional attitude toward purely American questions.
This is as strong and distinct an enunciation of the position and policy of the United States on this subject as has been uttered by any one of our Presidents, or in any State paper which ever has been issued, or in any speech that has ever been made in Congress on the subject. I will read it again that we may weigh the words.
Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to require the United States of America to depart from Its traditional policy
What is its traditional policy?
of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in the political questions of policy or internal administration of any foreign state.
Mr. President, if the question whether or not the United States should take part in the Algeciras conference had then been before any body charged with its consideration, could the language descriptive of what should be done in observance of this policy be more accurate than that language is? Although intended as general language, could It be applied more spe cifically to any case than it can be and must be applied to the particular case before us? "Intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in the political questions of policy or in ternal administration of any foreign state." That is the spe cific reservation we made in the adherence to the Hague treaty.
Now, is this participation in the Algeciras conference, in this language, " intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling" the United States " in the political questions of policy or inter nal administration <of any foreign state? " What words more apt than these could be found to describe our action when we meet in conference the delegates of the nations of Europe to determine what shall be the European power which .by virtue and authority of that conference shall hereafter dominate and control the political future of Morocco!
Mr. President, what gives rise to this Algeciras conference? The history of it is known to us all. France, having a con tiguous territory, feeling that she has peculiar interests In Morocco, entered into an agreeemerit with Great Britain and with other powers particularly interested in the Mediterra nean those contiguous to and bordering on its shores by which she should have thereafter a controlling influence, a political influence and domination, in Morocco. Germany took offense; but I will not go through the details, which are known to us. I will state that the issue raised between Germany and France made such a tension as to threaten war. It drove the
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prime minister of France out of office, and it was only by so doing that war was averted. It is a question of that magni tude and of that menace to the peace of Europe one which, if it caused war, would embroil, in all probability, all the great powers of Europe.
Then, in order that the matter might be settled amicably, if possible, it was arranged that this conference should be had. While there are minor questions in it, as the whole world knows, the great question to come before the conference at Algeciras is as to whether France shall have a political control and domination in Morocco or whether, as contended by Germany, that polit ical control shall be shared by her with Germany and other European powers. When we needlessly participate in the con sideration of this question between these irritated and rival nations we enter into a dynamite storehouse.
Mr. President, I say that is a question particularly and exclu sively a European question. That is a controversy exclusively relative to European politics. That is a question which does not concern us. It is a question which may be settled in a way to bring peace. It -is a question which may be determined in a way to result in war. All Europe recognizes the fact. All the press of Europe to-day is teeming with the question whether the result of the Algeciras conference will bring peace or bring war. The European governments are inarsl^ling their forces and concentrating their fleets with reference to the fact that It may bring war.
Mr. President, I hope and believe that war will not result; I hope and believe that peace will come out of it; but I think that while of course we desire that there should be peace and hope that there shall be peace, so far as the United States Gov ernment is concerned, if it shall participate in that conference and if there shall be peace as the result of it, our participation will be more disastrous to us in the long run than if war should come out of it. Why? Because if war results from it, it will be taken as a lesson. It will be said, " We should not have participated in this conference, and here is t;he result of it." It will be a warning as to the future. On the contrary, if .peace results, especially if we ourselves should be instrumental in securing so desirable a result, then it will be said, " Behold the benefit of our entangling ourselves in foreign matters, of our participating in the settlement of fofeign controversies," and thereafter for all time, whenever a complication arises in Europe growing out of controversies of an international char acter between European powers, we will be expected to take part in it, forsooth, to assist in arriving at a conclusion one way or the other.
Mr. President, I am reluctant to detain the Senate; but there are one or two things that I wish to suggest it is proper that we should consider and that the public should consider. It is suggested that this is premature; that the President of the United States has the right to enter upon negotiations for the purpose of making a treaty, and that until such treaty is made and submitted to the Senate there can be no possible propriety in the Senate or the House asking any question of the President relative thereto; that it is an encroachment upon his preroga tives, that it is an intrustion upon his domain, that it is not entirely respectful to the President.
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I grant that is in a measure true, or at least that there is room for such contention, as to any matter where the negotia tion is looking to the making of a treaty, as to a matter which is within treaty jurisdiction, but I respectfully submit and urge that the main question to which I have alluded which will be before the Algeciras conference is not a question within the treaty jurisdiction of the United States.
Of course I know, as every other one knows, that there is no limit in the Constitution of the United States upon the treatymaking power of the President and of the Senate. There is no limitation whatever. There could be, so far as the Constitution of the United States goes, a treaty between the United States and Germany by which it should be guaranteed that we would see to it that France should not have a controlling influence in Morocco. But while that would not be a violation of the Con stitution of the United States, it would be a violation of a policy of this Government which has become as binding in its opera tion as if it were in the Constitution of the United States until the people of the United States themselves shall see fit to decree to the contrary.
There are two policies known to our Government which are not found in the Constitution of the United States, but which have practically become law. Of course such laws can not be enforced in the courts, but they are obligatory upon the political departments of the Government. The constitution of Great Britain is not a written constitution, and yet there are certain principles, certain policies, known to that constitution in Great Britain which are as binding upon the Parliament of Great Britain as if there were a written constitution expressly provid ing for such principles and such policies, and it is only when the question has been submitted to the people and decided upon by them in a general election that Parliament feels at liberty to change what is the recognized constitution of Great Britain.
We have a written Constitution, but we have, in addition to the written Constitution, these two principles of public policy, which have become ingrafted as a part of the unwritten con stitution of this country, two policies which have become recog nized as of authority, two policies so long and so well estab lished that no Executive and no Congress has the right to depart therefrom except the authority so to do is received from the people in an election where that is the isstie. I do not recognize that any unwritten law can amend or repeal any provision of the written Constitution; but when, by all Ad ministrations, bv all parties, by all the people, a policy not inconsistent with the written Constitution has been upheld and recognized for a century, that policy may be considered as a pnrt of our unwritten constitution and binding as such.
Now, what are those two policies? One is the Monroe doc trine. The Monroe doctrine, until it shnll have been decreed otherwise by the people themselves when they have an oppor tunity to so decide in elections when that question shall be in issue, is just ;is much the law of this land as the written Con stitution of the United States.
Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question right there?
Mr. BACON. With much pleasure. Mr. ALDRICH. Whose understanding of the Monroe doc trine is to obtain as a law?
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Mr. BACON. That is a political question, and of course It

must be decided by the political department of the Government.

When I say that Congress has no right to change it, I ani not

speaking of the decision as to how it should be properly inter preted. That rests in a mans conscience. I am speaking of a deliberate and an intentional setting aside of any provision

of the Monroe doctrine as the Congress that sets it aside may understand it. I speak of it as Congress understands it, and within the conscience of each Senator and Representative making up that Congress it is the law to him, because it is

the well-settled and well-understood policy of this Govern

ment. While it does not require that it should be changed

in the manner that is prescribed in the Constitution for a con

stitutional change, there is none the less the great moral obli

gation upon every department of the Government to observe

it until the people, in the method which they are authorized to

pursue to change it, shall indicate to the Executive and to

Congress their will that it shall be so changed. Again, Mr. President, we have another great policy which
belongs to the unwritten constitution of the United States, and that great policy is the one we are discussing to-day, the

one first announced by Washington, a policy recognized by every Administration from that day to this, a policy advocated by

every public man of prominence if there is an exception, I do

not now recall it that we should avoid entangling alliances and

that we should not be committed to controversies of an inter

national character between European powers.

Mr. LODGE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Massachusetts? Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr. LODGE. I have listened with great interest to the Sen

ators eloquent defense of the Farewell Address of Washington.

Mr. BACON. That is very kind. Mr. LODGE. Who is departing from it? Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will permit rne a word to thank him for the compliment.

Mr. LODGE. Who has departed from it?

Mr. BACON. I say this will be a departure from it.

Mr. LODGE. What will be? Mr. BACON. What I am arguing. Mr. LODGE, Who has departed from it? That is what I

want to get at.
Mr. BACON. Mr. LODGE. Mr. BACON.
Mr. LODGE. Mr. BACON.

We have not departed from it yet. Then what is the purpose? But if we go into the Algeciras conference Is this merely a warning? No; it is not merely a warning.

Mr. LODGE. This is to keep us from violating it? Mr. BACON. If possible. Mr. LODGE, The point of the Senators remarks is to keep

us from violating it?

Mr. BACON. If possible.

Mr. LODGE. I am glad to know the object of it.

Mr. BACON. I am very unfortunate. I know that I am not

very happy in the ability to express clearly my ideas, and with the Senators well-known great and acute intellect of course

when he does not understand it it must be the fault of the

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15
speaker. It could not possibly be suggested otherwise, and it is extremely mortifying to a speaker when he happens to fall under the very great misfortune of not being understood by the learned and distinguished and honorable Senator from Massa chusetts.
Mr. LODGE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDKNT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Massachusetts? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. LODGE. I merely want to say that I knew, of course, the Senator had some great object in what he was saying, and that the fault was undoubtedly mine. I wanted only to know what the object was. Now I have found out that the object is to save the country from violating Washingtons Farewell Address, Mr. BACON. Mr. President, it is not simply Washingtons Farewell Address. It is to save the country from the violation of the policy announced in Washingtons Farewell Address, . which has been the universally observed and recognized policy from that day to this. I will take the privilege of saying that the repeated assertion of the honorable Senator that he has not so far understood me adds to the mortification which I feel and the consciousness that I have not properly expressed myself. But, sir, the character of this colloquy does not com port with the gravity of the subject I am discussing. Mr. LODGE. I understood what the Senator was saying. I did not understand before why he was saying it. Now I understand he is trying to preserve the great policy of the Gov. eminent, which nobody has violated. Mr. BACON. Possibly, then, I should be relieved somewhat of the humiliation and the mortification when the Senator kindly observed that he had not understood me, that so far he has not made application of what I said. Mr. LODGE. That was it. Mr. BACON. I was endeavoring to make the application, and I shall proceed to do it in the very great hope that I may liave the ability to state it in a way in which the Senator may prop erly understand it. .Mr. LODGE. I hope so. Mr. BACON. And if he fails to understand it I know it will be due to my imperfection and not to his want of ability to thoroughly understand it. Mr. President, to resume after the somewhat lengthy digres sion which has been occasioned by the facetious remarks of my honorable friend, I was endeavoring to make the application. The principle is that we shall not engage in any entanglements by participating in any conference which relates exclusively to a European controversy or a European issue or Question. I was illustrating it. I had passed that by, however ; but in view of the suggestion of the honorable Senator I shall return to it to the extent of stating it, in order that I may if possible escape the calamity of being misunderstood. I may possibly have been misunderstood by some other Senator. I have endeavored to show (and I only return to it because of the very serious sug gestion of the Senator from Massachusetts that I had not ex pressed myself intelligibly) that this question is exclusively a European qxiestion. It matters not to us whether France has
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16
a controlling power In Morocco or whether she shares it with Germany.
[At this point Mr. BACON was interrupted by the expiration of the morning hour, and the unfinished business was infor mally laid aside that he might conclude.]
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I will endeavor not to. intrude upon the courtesy of the Senate at any great length. I simply desire to continue the direct line of thought upon which I was in the attempt at least to express, and when I have finished that I shall leave the subject, although it is a very broad one and I think is a very vital one, one which is to affect us unfortu nately in the next hundred years or for all future time through a departure from the policy, as we have been affected advan tageously in the past hundred years by an observance of it.
I was saying, Mr. President, that the question which relates to the political control of Morocco is necessarily a European question with which we have no right to interfere and with which it is not our interest to interfere.
Resuming the thread of my remarks where they were inter rupted, I repeat that it is within the authority, of course, of the treaty-making power to make a treaty with all the other powers of Europe, or with any one power of Europe, relative to the political control of any particular part of Europe by any other part or any other government of Europe, but that while it is thus within the written Constitution, it would be in viola tion of that which I have denominated a part of the unwritten Constitution of the United States, which prohibits us from en^ tering upon entangling alliances or participating in controver sies purely political between European governments.
I had said that if there will result peace from this confer ence, as I think there will, while of course it would be gratify ing to all lovers of humanity that there should be such a result, and while we desire such a result, it would have an unfortunate effect for the United States, because in a case where war re sulted it would be an object lesson which would deter us in the future, and if peace resulted it will be pointed to as a reason why there is no danger in such political entanglements and we should engage in them in the future.
Mr. President, there is but one single ground upon which there can be, in my opinion, any defense made of our participa tion in the Algeciras conference; that is, as to its relation to our commercial interests and to the protection of our citizens there or those ill whom we may he interested. As to that I desire to make two remarks. First, if it is the fact that our commercial interests are involved, and that be the ground of our interference, then there can be no possible conference be tween political powers in Europe relating to the political con trol of any part of Europe in which there will not be found the same warrant for our interference. The political control of a country necessarily exercises an influence on the business of such country, and in every instance of such a political con ference it will be found for the same reasons and in the same way that we have commercial interests which are involved, be cause we have commercial interests in every country in Europe, and with every one of them, even the least of them, in larger degree than we have with the semibarbaric country of Morocco.
If that were the principle or the test by which we should be 6475

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guided, then the policy .of noninterference, of nonentanglement, would have been destroyed a hundred years ago; and the policy of noninterference and nonentanglement was made in view and in full recognition of the fact that we had such commercial re lations with every other country, and the principle was adopted and has been adhered to by the United States for more than n hundred years in full knowledge of the fact and of the conse quences involved in such fact.
The policy, Mr. President, is not a limited one. It is not a conditional one. It is an absolute policy as it has existed here tofore. It was not a policy that we should not become entan gled in European controversies of a political character except in cases where we might have commercial interests in the coun try. It was a policy that we should not thus become entangled in any country of Europe, whether we had commercial inter ests there or not. It was not a policy that recognized as an exception that we should become entangled in political contro versies in Europe in a case where by our assistance we might prevent a European war. If such were the policy, then there could be no conference called in Europe for the settlement of political controversies but what the exception would prevail, be cause there is no conference called with reference to a political question but what it is a conference called in the interest of peace and for the purpose of avoiding war. Therefore in every such we would be called upon to interfere on the ground that by so doing we could avert war and accomplish good.
It is an absolute unconditioned policy, for the highest and best of reasons that even though we may accomplish good, even though we may secure peace and avert war, nevertheless we shall refrain from entanglements in these conventions, because our highest and first duty is to guard the interests of our own country.
So I might go on and illustrate as to all other matters. It is not a policy that we shall refrain when we can not accom plish good and that we shall participate when we can accom plish good. It is a policy that we shall refrain at all times, whether we can accomplish good or not.
Now, Mr. President, to hasten to a conclusion so as not to impose upon the courtesy of the Senate, in what particular does the commercial interest of the United States in Morocco differ entiate the present situation from any other situation where there shall be called a European conference with a view to the settlement of political disputes, and where the country out of which the questions arise has commercial relations with us? In what particular docs the Moroccan commercial interest or the interest of the United States in Morocco differ from any other interest which will arise and which must necessarily exist in all cases where European countries meet together for the- purpose of settling their peculiar international politic] differences? The only difference is one that accentuates the utter want of necessity of any participation by us in this mutter.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. I always do, with pleasure. 6475 2

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Mr. SPOONER. What conferences abroad, if aiijy would the Senator consider it proper for the United States to send repre sentatives to, on his theory?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the question is an extremely per tinent one, and in response I will say to the Senator I think there are conferences in which the United States should be a party. I think, for instance. The Hague conference was one occasion when it was entirely proper for the United States to participate with the other civilized nations of the world, and I think that the United States were extremely prudent and guided by a proper action when they put in the proviso that nothing therein contained should be construed as committing this Gov ernment to the policy of intruding upon or interfering with any matter connected with a European international controversy.
I will say to the Senator, in order that I may give concrete instances and not have to confine myself to an abstract reply, that the conference of 1880 between the European powers and Morocco was an eminently proper one, because that did not j-elate to the question of the political control of Morocco. That had nothing to do with any international European controversy. It related solely to the question of the rights and privileges which should be granted to the subjects or citizens, of other countries resident in Morocco, as to the privileges of "ministers and con suls and their retinues, and as to the right of persons engaged in certain commercial pursuits there, and particularly as to the right or privilege of each one of those nations to the most favored treatment that any nation received in commercial mat ters at the hands of Morocco. That was an eminently proper occasion for the United States to meet with the European na tions and agree upon what treaty should be made with this semibarbaric country. There was there no question of interna tional politics. There was no controversy between European nations which might lead to war. There ,was no question as to the control of Morocco politically by any other country com mercially or in any other way.
If the Senator will consider that as a sufficient answer I will not detain the Senate by giving other concrete examples or abstract examples. I think that my reply so far made suffi ciently illustrates not only those two concrete cases, but the classes of cases where it was proper for the United States to interfere.
But I will pause long enough to say in a general way that I think it entirely proper for the United States to join in a con ference which relates to the regulation of commercial matters, which relates to anything outside of politics, which has no connection with controversies for dominion and power relatively between two great countries as in this ease, or in a conference which has no relation to the great question of the balance of power iii Europe, the great question which to-day keeps the _great countries of Europe each an armed camp with its three hundred thousand and five hundred thousand armed men, a question with which, if we become connected, the time is only too short in our future when we also must be prepared to face the world in arms, in the maintenance of questions which now do not concern us but in the settlement of which we will then have the same obligation as the European nations now have.
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But, Mr. President, to return, at the time the Senator inter rogated me very properly, I was asking the question what differ entiates this particular conference from any other conference which might be called in Europe for the settlement of European or international questions or controversies, when the fact exists that in each one of them there are and always will be commer cial interests of the United States to be guarded, and which might rightfully and properly be said to be necessarily affected by whatever might be decided by such conference.
Mr. McCUMBER. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from North Dakota? Mr. BACON. I will yield with pleasure, although I shall have to return again to the same point. Mr. McCUMBER. May I ask a question or two of the Sen ator that I do not think have yet been answered? If they were answered, it was when I was not present. Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. McCUMBER. I should like to ask the Senator whether he has any information that would justify the inference that the delegates selected to attend the Moroccan convention will go out side of what he declares is the settled policy of the country that is, that they will take any part whatever in the discussion of the policing of that country or as to which power shall be the dominant power; and if there is no information to justify that inference, then I should like to ask the Senator another question. Mr. BACON. Will the Senator permit me to answer one at a time? Mr. McCUMBER. Very well; but this is connected with it, and the Senator can answer them both together. If there is nothing to justify that inference, then the next question is this: Suppose that we have treaty obligations with Morocco Mr. BACON. Now, I submit to the Senator that those are two questions, and must necessarily be answered separately. But the Senator may go ahead. Mr. McCUMBER. Suppose we had, as it is assumed we have, a commercial treaty with Morocco, and suppose that in the set tlement of this other matter the question of keeping the open door in Morocco should be discussed as between the powers, would hot we be justified in sending delegates there for the very purpose of discussing that subject, and to prevent, if pos sible, any interference with our treaty rights or with our com mercial interests? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will permit me, I will endeavor to answer what I think are practically three questions pro pounded by him; and if I do not answer them. 1 hope he will do me the kindness to call my attention to anything I may omit, as I must bear his several questions in mind while I am en deavoring to answer one. The Senator, as I understand, asks the question, What evi dence there is that these delegates are to engage iu any part of this conference relative to the political control of Morocco, or as to any of the political questions which are dividing some countries of Europe and about which they are in controversy? That is the question of the Senator? Mr. McCUMBKR. Yes.
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Mr. BACON. Mr. President, unfortunately we have no evi dence of that fact, because we have received no information from the executive department as to what are the instructions of these delegates. Even, however, if the suggestion contained in the question of the Senator is correct, that our delegates are limited to questions of a commercial character, or rather that their instructions do not extend to participation In any confer ence relative to political questions, nevertheless there are sev eral reasons why we should not be in this conference.
As I have previously said, there can be no conference in Europe as to international European political questions which concern any country in Europe which will not relate to a country with which we have commercial relations. Therefore, if the rule is to be laid down that wherever we have commercial relations with the countries in Europe and a political contro versy grows up in Europe as to the political control of that country between the nations of Europe, and war is threatened on account of that political controversy and a conference is to be called for the purpose of settling the controversy, and, if pos sible, of avoiding war if that rule is to be laid down then a conference can not at any time be called in Europe upon any political international European question which will not call for our participation also, because we will always have these commercial questions there which can be affected by the result of such a conference; and in consequence, as I have already en deavored to show, if this were1 recognized as a sufficient reason for participating in such conferences the precedent would be established which would require us to participate in all future European conferences called for the settlement of European political questions.
Mr. SPOONER. Let me ask the Senator a question. The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. Suppose that be true, and our delegates to sach a conference are limited absolutely to the questions or subjects of interest to the United States, what is the objection to that? Let me put another question. Mr. BACON. Which one shall I answer first? Mr. SPOONER. Answer them together. Does the Senator conceive it to be impossible, or at all difficult, where a confer ence is to be held that involves questions of interest to the United States and also questions of purely European interests, that the representatives of the United States may attend, and properly attend, that conference, and after having looked to the interests of the United States withdraw from it? Is that inconceivable? Mr. BACON. I will take the first question, or answer both together. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator conceive it impossible that the representatives of the United States may properly attend a foreign conference which deals with questions affecting the Interests of the United States and also with European interests, limited in their powers to a consideration only of American interests, and instructed that when that is concluded they shall withdraw? Mr. BACON. Mr. President
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Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will pardon me one observa tion, on his doctrine, or his argument, in all cases and with all countries with which we have commercial interests and con cern we would keep away from all conferences.
Mr. BACON. No; all political conferences. Mr. SPOONER. Oh! But suppose it is both commercial and political. Is the Senators argument that where both are combined we should keep entirely away? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. SPOONER. And that we should attend only those con ferences across the sea where there is involved nothing but our commercial interests? It will often happen, as it has happened before and happens now, perhaps, that a conference is called, which involves di rectly the commercial interests or treaty interests of the United States and also involves European political questions with which we have no concern. On the Senators theory we should stay away from such a conference and leave American interests to go uncared for, rather than act on the theory, which seems to be a sound one, that we may attend it with perfect propriety, and when American interests are disposed of withdraw from it, taking no part whatever in the controversy as to European policies. Now, is not that a fair statement of the situation in this transaction so far as the Senator knows it? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the Senator has asked such a number of questions, and has made comments upon them, that I can only answer in a general way, because it is not possible to answer specifically questions put with such complement of argument sound argument, or, rather, plausible argument, if he will pardon my so denominating it. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator will pardon me Mr. BACON. I always enjoy the interruptions of the Senator, even if the Senator prevails in the argument. I then have con solation in the consciousness of having been overthrown by an Ajax and not by one of small prowess. Mr. SPOONER. I have rather a poor memory, Mr. President, and I fail to recall any time when the Senator admitted I had prevailed when there was a controversy with him. [Laughter.] Mr. BACON. Probably that excuses the generous indisposi tion of the Senator to recognize that fact himself in my case, but in my struggles with him it might have been so recognized by others less magnanimous than he. But, Mr. President, that brings me back really to what I was saying in response to the inquiries of the Senator from North Dakota [Mr. MCCUMHEB!. Here is a proposition, that if the controversy is a political controversy and relates to a country with which we have commercial interests and if the fact of the existence of such commercial interests is to determine the question whether we are to be parties to a conference, then there can be no conference in Europe with reference to a politi cal controversy that will not call for our participation, at least in part, because there is no country about which a controversy can arise in Europe with which we have no commercial relations. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I will yield to him later in the fullest degree. I assure him of that. I wish him to allow me to state my proposition before I am compelled to break it in two.
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The conclusion from that proposition is this: The avoidance of entanglement in European political controversies is so im portant, and the evils of participation in a conference over political controversies of an international European character are so great, and in consequence the necessity for the observ ance of the rule of nouentaiiglcmeut is so imperative, that un less it can be shown to be utterly impossible to accomplish that result in any other way it wquld be unwise for us to participate in any European conferences which will endanger our being entangled in those controversies.
We have before had conferences in Europe, but they have always related to countries with which we had commercial interests; they have always related to countries with which we had tenfold more interest than we have or ever will have in Morocco; and yet the proposition has never before been ad vanced in the Congress of the United States, or in this branch of it, that because of that fact when European governments met together in conference for the purpose of settling the ques tion of the political control of any part of Europe we should be there as a part of that conference for the purpose of protecting our commereia.1 interests never. If the suggestion of the Sena tor from North Dakota [Mr. McCuMBERl and the contention of the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] are to be adopted as the proper policy of the Government hereafter, the result of it must be that hereafter we must be parties to all political confer ences in Europe, because they will always relate to countries in which we have commercial interests.
Mr. MORGAN. Mr. President Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me until I finish iny answer, then I will yield with pleasure. I will recall it to him if he does not remember it, and if he does not interrupt me for the purpose I will ask him to do so. Mr. MORGAN. Very well. Mr. BACON. In this particular instance there is absolutely no excuse for our going there for the protection of our commer cial interests that is, so far as we have information through the public press of the country, through dispatches from Europe. and the different statements as to what are the subjects-matter for consideration in this conference. We have every reason to rely upon what statements are made in the press as to these matters these dispatches are from the great capitals of Europe for the reason that these countries have not acted in secret as to what they proposed to do and as to what questions are to be under consideration at this conference. France has issued a book (called the " Yellow Book ") in which she has given the whole history of this matter from her stand point, giving, as I am informed, all that she has done and all that she contends for. Germany has also issued a book (called there the " White Book ") in which she has made public to the world every step that she has taken and every contention that she has made. Therefore, when the papers state that such and such are the provisions of the agreement of conference we have every reason to believe that these statements are reli able from the fact that they are not based on rumor, but are based upon the published reports of the Governments, whk;h, unlike the .Government of the United States, have made public to the world what they propose to do and what are the issues they propose to have settled. It is stated emphatically and not
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denied, and I have no doubt it is absolutely true, that the agree ment to be submitted in this matter to the conference especially excepts from all power of consideration by that conference the question of any change in the commercial relations as settled by the treaty of 3880.
The treaty of 1880 between Morocco and almost all the civi lized countries on the globe, all the leading powers of Europe and the United States included, expressly provides that each nation shall have in its commercial intercourse in Morocco the benefit of the most favored terms which shall be given to any other nation. There is a permanent treaty containing that guar anty ; and this submission to that conference expressly pro vides that while the delegates sent to that conference may settle the question as to whether France shall have the predominant control in Morocco or whether Germany shall share in it, and while it may settle other questions of a political character, it shall not touch the consideration of the question of the commer cial relations of any country with that Government as settled by the treaty of 1880. Now, what possible excuse can there be. in view of that, for our participation in this conference? If that were not there, there would be every opportunity for us to have acted, as we did in 1880 in a conference which related exclusively to these personal and commercial matters, and not be mingled and mixed up and take part in these great European questions which threaten war. It is because it is known that this con troversy threatens war that the powers are ostentatiously pa rading their military and naval strength, that armies are being concentrated on the frontier, and that all these nations, and, I am sorry to say, including the United States, are concentrating their fleets to-day at Gibraltar. There is a warlike pageant there to-day that has no part in the assembling of a peaceful conference to determine on matters of friendly commerce and trade.
Mr. HALE. Mr. President Mr. BACOX. I promised I would yield in a moment to the Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN] and that I would call his attention to an interruption be desired to make, so I hope the Senator from Maine will excuse me for a moment. Mr. MORGAN. I desire merely to make an inquiry of the Senator from Georgia or any other Senator. I want to know whether we have any authentic or official statement of any invitation for the Government of the United States to partici pate in this serious conference? Has that been brought to the attention of the Senate? I suppose, Mr. President, that the character of the invitation would, in a large measure, if not entirely, determine the character in which we accepted it, in which we are to be represented, and the purpose for which we are to be represented in that conference, if you call it such. Therefore I think the Senate ought to be informed, of the nature of the invitation, so as to see whether it is proper for the President of the United States to accept it in full or to accept it in part, or whether the acceptance of it would create that state of entangling alliance with foreign European governments in respect particularly of political questions that we have always denounced in every action heretofore taken, more par ticularly in sending our delegates to the Panama conference. Mr. HALE. Mr. President
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.lie VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Maine?
Mr. BACON. Will the Senator from Maine allow me to an swer the question of the Senator from Alabama?
Mr. HALE. I am called from the Chamber, and desire to say only a few words.
Mr. BACON. I will yield to the Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE] now, and will reply to the Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN] later.
Mr. HALE. I only desire to say, Mr. President, that I do not in the least regret this discussion. I think in all matters relating to not only action upon treaties submitted to the Senate. but upon grave considerations involving the negotiation of treaties, that the participation of the Senate was never by the framers of the Constitution intended to be shut out. I do not go so far as some Senators have gone in saying that until a treaty negotiated by the President is submitted to the Senate in terms the Senate shall stand dumb.
Mr. President, in that storehouse of information upon this sub ject, the Madison Papers and the best iorin of those papers is the edition that was authorized by a resolution of Congress, edited by an eminent master of jurisprudence whoever will go back to that fountain head of discussion and of consideration of all these great subjects, including the treaty-making power, will find that the participation of the Senate in all matters re lating to treaties was most jealously guarded. Both Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Pinckney submitted the grave proposition that the entire treaty-making power should be left with the Senate. Mr. Dickinson and Doctor Franklin believed that it should be left to an Executive, with an executive council. Whoever exam ines that record and goes to the fountain head of information will find that the compromise, that was at last agreed upon by one vote of all the States, only came after a determined resis tance on the part of the advocates of the power of the Senate, that the Senate should still be in sympathy with all subjectsmatter attending foreign relations either before or after a treaty should be submitted.
It is said that we may trust the Executive. I think we may; but what would happen if at some time there was an Executive that we could not trust? What would happen if an Executive should desire to rehabilitate his own fortunes or build up the waning strength of his party by a war issue, and the Senate be lieved and was convinced that there was danger of that? Must the Senate wait until the mischief is done?
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question ?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Maine yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. HALE. I do. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator speaks outside of treaties. The Senator is not referring to treaties? Mr. HALE. I am referring to steps that lead to treaties. Mr. SPOONER. I should like to ask the Senator what would the Senate do in such a case? Mr. HALE. I have rio doubt, Mr. President, that if such a condition as that I have touched upon arose, and it was be lieved that an Executive for such reasons they do not apply
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now, as I have indicated was taking advantage of his power to commit the country to a war policy, I have no doubt that the Senate, in connection with the House of Representatives, could and would interfere by joint resolution and would not let that danger be presented to the lips of the Republic.
So, as I say, I do not go so far as some Senators do in be lieving that the Senate can do absolutely .nothing until a treaty In form is launched before the Senate." But I am not troubled upon this matter now by any consideration of that kind. Under the administration of this Government as now conducted I do not believe that the Secretary of State, who has immediate-charge of all thesa matters, will in any way involve this country, or let it be involved, in any of the controversies that will arise out of this conference between European powers. I think we may safely assume that the conservative interests of the country will be guarded in that respect, and that the Senator need have no alarm.
I wish I am not hesitant in saying that I wish that the Secretary -of State and the President acting together had de termined not to send delegates to this conference. The con ference is, as the Senator from Georgia [Mr. BACON] says, not a conference called to meet commercial questions. It Is a simon-pure outright political conference. It has given rise to great excitement; the European press has all been full of it, and, I am sorry to say, Mr. President, that our press has been full of it a thing with which we have little or no concern, and the less concern that we have with it the better.
I do not find fault. I can see that the Secretary of State and the President, being called upon, as I think they were, by this little fought-over country of Morocco to send delegates, de termined to send them. 1 can not speak for the President or the Secretary of State, but I should, if I made a guess, think that if the matter were to come up now, in view of the discus sions, in view of all the conditions, the President and the Secre tary of State would hesitate to send delegates to this con ference. But they have gone there.
The danger, Mr. President, is not from the President nor from the Secretary of State. The danger of this whole business is the still ascending prominence of the war sentiment in the country. The President is not accountable for that; the Sec retary of State is not accountable for that; we are not ac countable for that.
I picked up a copy of this mornings Post, Mr. President, and I have it here. It is a newspaper which deserves all that has been said of it by the Senator from Georgia. It means to be rf careful paper, and it is mainly a conservative paper; but the Washington Post this morning has more than a whole column showing that our danger of getting into these complications and getting into entangling alliances is not from .the President nor from the Secretary of State nor from us, but from outside senti ment. More than a whole column is given to this Moroccan ques tion, to what will come out of it, to the presence of our fleet at Gibraltar, and to the complications that will result In the same paper, in a little inconspicuous place, is a notice of a common mine conference between all the operators of coal, all the repre sentatives of the transportation of coal, and all the organizations that represent labor in the mining of coal and its transportation,
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but it is given no conspieuousness. Nobody thinks of that. The trouble is, Mr. President, that, under tlie incitement that the military sentiment is constantly pushing us forward to, with every officer of the Army and of the Navy eager and anxious for a complication that will bring us into war, the public atten tion is drifting away from the tremendous problems that at home are clutching at the foundation of our entire social and business and political fabric.
I hope to live long enough, it may be I shall not, when the obscure item which is given in the Post of this great meeting, involving all these great questions of coal transportation, of coal mining, and the interests of coal operators, the interests that labor has, will excite some attention, and that we will cease to give the best of our thought and our agitation to these foreign problems.
We have very little todo with Morocco. We could negotiate. if need be, another treaty with her in sixty days by sending commissioners for that purpose. In* this conference between the European powers, who stand with hands at each others throats, making an excuse for innovation and a policy that may mean war, the question of commerce will never have an ounce of consideration. The subject of commerce and of our commerce will never have the consideration of a moment in that conference. It is called for another purpose; the interest in it is in another purpose, and it would be much better if we kept our hands off of all such things.
I wanted to say this, and I want to say that I do not agree with the Senator in his apprehension that either the President or the Secretary of State is going to lead us into any trouble in this matter. The conservative instinct will take care of that. We shall get out of it without being entangled in the jealousies arid strifes of the European powers. But I think this discussion itself is valuable, and I am very glad it has taken place.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I have listened with great pleasure and interest to what the distinguished Senator from Maine has said. I agree with him in almost everything he has said, and I will indicate a little later wherein I xmfortnnately differ from him, as slight as that difference may be. I cer tainly agree with him decidedly as to the principles announced on all matters.
First, however, before responding to what was said by the distinguished Senator from Maine, I will reply to.the inquiry of the learned Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN]. The Senator inquires whether we have any evidence of the nature of the invitation which has come to us for participation in this conference. I think it is extremely unfortunate, Mr. President and I believe that every Senator who hears me thinks it is un fortunate that the President had not taken us into his confi dence when he sent his most elaborate message to the Senate at the beginning of this session, in which he treated of so vast a number of subjects.
Tt was extremely unfortunate that this jnost vital of all sub jects, in my opinion, was not touched upon by him in his mes sage, and I can only attribute his failure to do so to the fact that in the multitude of other matters he was not impressed with the importance of this step which he was about to take or
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had taken. I attribute it to 110 desire to withhold from the Con gress of the United States information which it is proper to have and which the public should have. I say I think it is ex tremely unfortunate. I do not believe there is a Senator in the sound of my voice who does not agree with me now in that proposition, especially in view of the fact that the governments of Europe interested in this matter have without hesitation pub lished to their countries and to the world everything that re lates to the connection of each of their governments with this most important problem.
We are left to the information which we gather from other countries, and to the statement of newspaper correspondents of what has been given to them by the State Department All I can state in answer definitely to the learned Senator from Alabama is in reading still further from the excerpt from which I read this morning from the Post, in which it is stated what is the character of the invitation which has been sent to this Government. The Senator will perceive that there is no invitation here to participate in any partial consideration. There is no invitation here to limit the action of the delegates of the United States to the consideration of commercial or per sonal questions; but it is a broad invitation to go into that conference on the same footing, and with the same powers, and with the same scope of duty as the delegates from the European countries thus vitally interested in the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe, and sensitive and alert even to the point of war in the prevention of undue advantage of any one country at the expense of the powers exercised by another.
I read farther from the article from which I rend this morn ing, beginning at tho point where I left off. This article from the Washington Post appeared in yesterdays paper:
Examination of the correspondence shows that this Government was invited to participate in the conference by the Sultuti of Morocco. The Mohammedan monarch was constrained to extend an invitation to the United States along with exactly worded invitations to all of the European nations of the first class, because this country was one of the signatories to the international agreement with Morocco in July, 1880, as the result of an international conference at Madrid, Spain, called at the request of the ruler of the Shereefian empire to bring his country within the pale of Christian civilization.
It is true that that statement is made as giving a reason why the invitation was the same to the United States as it was to the other countries, but that does not change the fact that the invitation is the same to this country as it is to the other coun tries. We all know, as stated by the distinguished Senator from Maine, that while there may be minute reference or attention paid to commercial matters, this conference is called for the settlement of questions on account of differences as to which France and Germany to-day have their hands ready to lay upon each others throats.
Mr. President, there is a further fact that we learn from the European press, informed as it has been by its own governments. The very agreement upon which this conference is based speci fies that the conference shall not have power to interfere with the commercial relations now settled by treaty as between Morocco and these other countries. So if such were the reason it is not a good reason.
There is no reason why the fact that the United States was a party to the Morocco treaty should require that it should be a
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party to this treaty, because the main thing in the Moroccan treaty, the treaty of 1880, it Is stipulated shall not be interfered with by this conference.
Mr. President, in relation to the very interesting remarks of the distinguished Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE], I thoroughly agree with him, and not only so but I believe that nine out of ten men who have heard him to-day agree with him as to the principles which he has announced, and as to the policy which we should observe and of which we should be regardful. I do not expect to hear any Senator rise in his place to-day and take issue with him as to these principles and policies. There is but one point upon which I differ from the learned Senator. As I understand the position of the Senator, he very frankly says that he would have preferred if we had not been parties to this conference, and he gives the soundest and the best and most unanswerable reasons why his preference in that matter is well founded. But he says that in this particular case we have no particular reason to fear.
Well, Mr. President, I do not believe that any great injury Is going to come to us out of this particular case, because I be lieve, as I hope, that it is going to be settled peaceably; but the question as to whether it is a prudent thing to do is not to be settled by the question of what is most likely to happen; it is to be considered in the light of what may possibly happen. I put to the Senator a question upon the result of this conference as to Germany, for instance, and I only speak of these countries because of the facts involved, and what I am saying does not relate in any manner to any relation between us and these countries, and consequently there is no indelicacy in speaking of it. If the result of this conference should be one which Germany would refuse to abide by, what would result? Where would stand the United States? Suppose, for instance, as is given out in the papers and who will doubt it? the European governments are looking to the United States as one power which is to exercise a great influence in determining what shall be the order and decree of that conference. It may be that there is a tie vote except the vote of the United States, which may be the one to decide upon the judgment and order of the conference. It may be that the deciding vote of the United States shall" determine a policy to which Germany will object and on account of which she will go to war.
Mr. HALE. Now, I should hope Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will pardon me and let me finish. I always listen to him with the greatest pleasure, but it is better that I should finish the proposition Mr. HALE. Very well. Mr. BACON. Because there is another alternative that I wish to pnt, and I shall then be more than glad to hear the Senator, as he always enlightens every question which he touches. Suppose that in the vote, as I was saying, it should turn out as the result that the determination was reached in consequence of the casting vote of the United States Government, and that on account of the decree and order of that conference Germany should refuse to abide by what it should thus determine and should go to war, where would stand the Government of the United States? I understand the Senator, and I hope he will
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reply afterwards, because I will be more than glad to have him do so.
Mr. President, when European nations get togethei in a con ference for the purpose of settling a question on account of which war is threatened, there is an implied and moral obliga tion, in the first place, that they will abide by the Judgment and decree of the conference; and there is an implied and a moral ob ligation, in the second place, that if any power refuses to abide by the decree of that conference those who thus agree to it will compel its obedience. They are not there for idle play. They are not there for the solution of abstract eotfundrums. They are there for the practical and, if need be, the forcible settle ment of great questions upon which will depend the powers of the world and who shall exercise them.
When they agree to get together in the conference the coun try which consents to that conference and then refuses to abide by it is at war with all the others, and all the others are under a moral obligation to enforce it. To-day a large part of Europe, an important part of it, is regulated and controlled by the decree of the Berlin conference. If there should be on the part of any one of the signatory powers an infraction of that decree, every government a party to that decree is under a moral obligation to support every other power in the enforcement of that decree. The United States can not take part in that conference, it can not be one to decide by its vote what shall be the decree, and then refuse to assist in the enforcement of the decree.
Now, I have one more suggestion to make, if the Senator will pardon me. It will be very short, and he can answer them both together, because they are cognate. Suppose, as in the European press it is suggested, that possibly the Ameri can delegates will not vote, but that they will simply counsel and advise, and suppose, in consequence of that counsel and advice there is a result reached which otherwise would not be reached, because sometimes a mans counsel and advice is worth very much more than his vote, as is the case with the learned and honorable Senator from Maine. Yet the moral obligation upon the United States, which would thus be imposed by its action would be no less great than the moral obligation in case it had itself voted. In either case to shirk the respon sibility of the result brought about by its own act would be a pusilanimity.

Now I will hear from the Senator, although I have not quite completed what I had to say in response to his valuable suggestions.

Mr. HALE. The point on which the Senator arrested mj" attention was the proposition that it might happen, not upon some matter touching commerce, not upon some matter affect ing our trade, but upon some matter vitally affecting the peace of Europe, that there .might be a drawn condition among them, and that the vote of the delegates from the United States would decide the result.
My mind, Mr. Presideiit, is as clear as crystal upon what should,be done and what I believe would be done in such a grave emergency. Conferences to-day are not like the oldfashioned world conferences, where the world learns the result

after weeks and weeks have passed, where battles are fought after treaties have been concluded, but every nation is In hourly

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30
and momentary touch with its representative in any great con ference.
I should1 have no doubt that in such a condition, in such a grave emergency as the Senator has arrayed before us, the Secretary of State would telegraph the approval of the Presi dent that the United States delegation should decline absolutely participation in that vote.
Mr. BACON. But, if the Senator will pardon me,-would it not be better that they should be kept away from there alto gether?
Mr. HALE. They are there. I wish they were not, but they are there; and when it comes to a critical condition, if it ever does, I should have no doubt that Secretary Root, backed up by the President, would send a swift dispatch over the wires that in these conditions the American delegation is instructed not to vote, and. if need be, to emphasize its absolute declination to participate in the grave problems that are confronting the powers of Europe, to withdraw from the conference and return home.
Mr. BACON. Exactly. Mr. HALE. But I do not agree with the Senator in his inti mation that that would involve any pusillanimity on our part. That is, we do not go into the conference in the way European powers do. The reason that is given is a slight one the com mercial relations; and if the other things, which mean war, horrid war, between European powers, jealous of each other, confront that conference and our deciding vote shall settle it either way, I have no more doubt than I doubt that I stand here before the Senate, the Administration would withdraw our delegates absolutely, if necessary, and that Europe would go on and fight its own rights out and take the dread arbitrament of war, in which we have no part and ought to have no part. I would not be troubled in the least by the situation that the Senator has pictured. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Seifator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will allow me to reply to the Senator from Maine. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I wish to ask only a question for informa tion. How many European powers are requested to attend this conference? Senators have been talking about a deciding vote. I think there are seven. Mr. BACON. So far as I can gather from the public press, France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Russia. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Seven. So there can not be a tie vote of seven. Mr. BACON. Oh, well. Mr. BEVERIDGE. But the Senator talks about a deciding vote. Mr. BACON. Possibly one of themmight withdraw. We can not tell. But that is not material. Mr. President, replying to the Senator from Maine, as I catch the meaning, the kernel of the Senators suggestion, when reduced to its last analysis, it at last comes back to what the Senator has substantially stated, although with very much more
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point than my words, to wit, that we really have no business there. What the Senator has last said, when reduced to its last analysis, means that we have no" business there, because, according to tile suggestion of the Senator, it the time ever . conies when what we are to do is to influence the .action of that convention our delegates should be telegraphed to withdraw from it. As the Senator says, we have no business there; it is a mere matter of tinsel, so far as that goes, a mere parade,, so that we may hereafter be classed with the great war powers, a mere sending, of delegates to cooperate with delegates from European powers as a matter of pompous show and display, with tb.5 simple understanding that they are there merely as a matter of -ornament and not to accomplish anything, not to attend to anything; but that if it reaches a point where their participation will determine the result-tliey will be telegraphed to withdraw. If so,-why are they-there at all?
This construction of his last utterance is all consistent with what the Senator from Maine says.- The Senator from -Main* said in his previous remarks that he not only wishes that they were not there, but he has practically aid tjiat they have no business there; that we have nothing to aceouiplis.h there for the good of this Government, but that we have great dangers to incur to this Government on account of our participation.
Then he goes further to express his confidence in the Presi dent and .Secretary of State, and says if it should turn out that our presence there would be a matter which would exer cise an influence on the determination of these grave questions by the conference, his mind is clear as crystal that they would tie instructed to withdraw from it.
But I want to follow still further the suggestion of the Sena tor in the first part of his interesting remarks as to whether or not he would agree with me in my present contention so far as regards the present instance. Mr. President, if we concede all that the Senator says, if we recognize the propriety and cor rectness of his want of concurrence in the propriety of mingling in such matters, is the question as to such propriety met by the suggestion that in the present case there is such confidence in the President and in the Secretary of State that no harm will come, that no harm will come in this instance because of the confidence of the Senator that we now have a good President and a wise President and a good and wise Secretary of State?
Conceding that no harm will come, and conceding the sound ness of all the confidence which he expresses in these high and distinguished officers, does the Senator shut his eyes to the fact that we are establishing a precedent"? If a good President and a wise President and a good Secretary of State and a wise Sec retary of State and a patriotic President and a patriotic Secre tary of State can send delegates to a European conference rela tive to European international controversies, can not an unwise. President do it? Can not an unwise Secretary of State advise it? Can not a President not so good and not so patriotic and a Sec retary of State not so good and so learned and so patriotic as the Senator believes these officers to be also do these things.
Mr. HALE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Maine? Mr. BACON. Certainly.

32
Mr. HALE. I have already stated that such a condition might happen. There might be an Executive and an Adminis tration that believed a policy which embroiled us in war would be to the advantage of the President or the Administration in precipitating a war. I have felt that we have a safe standing with the present President and Secretary of State, and that can not result.
And I do not believe that in such a condition the Senate and House of Representatives are robbed of all power and must wait until the mischief is done. The Senate is not an eleventhhour body. It has not got to wait until the horse is stolen, There would be under such condition the right in Congress to arrest and prevent the great calamity which would fall upon the country from such an Administration.
Mr. BACON. I quite agree with the Senator in that opinion as to the powers and duties of the Senate,
Mr. NEWLANDS. May I ask the Senator a question? Mr. BACON. If the Senator from Nevada will permit me to reply to the Senator from Maine first, I will then yield with pleasure. I quite agree with the Senator from Maine in that regard, Mr. President, and I am only replying to so much of what he said as might be construed into a consent on his part to the propriety of such interference and such entanglement in a case where there happened to be a good President and a good Secretary of State. I said in the earlier part of my remarks that this rule Is an absolute rule. It is not a rule with qualifications. It Is not a rule with exceptions. It is a rule absolute and without exceptions that not only when we have a good President or when we have a good purpose are we to abstain from these entangle ments, and not only when we fail to have them are we going to abstain from such entanglements, but also whether we have a good President or a bad President, or a good purpose or a bad purpose, we are to abstain, because the rule must apply equally in each case. I was simply endeavoring to point out that while the Sena tor might be free from apprehensions on account of the particu lar facts in this case and the particular officials involved, still we are engaged in a matter which establishes a precedent, a precedent which may be followed in the future, and followed by one not good and not wise who may sit in the Executive chair, because it is altogether possible that there may be such a fate in store .for this country- The time was when a man who was not a good man had in the electoral college a tie vote for the Presidency of the United States, a man who after wards was tried for treason to the United States. Now, I will hear the Senator from Nevada. Mr. NEWI-iANDS. Mr. President, on this very question of precedent I should like to ask the Senator from Georgia a ques"tion. I understand him to say that the question in this matter will be a question for the future, even though the action may be attended with no ill results. I wish to inquire whether there are any instances in the history of the country in which similar action has been taken by the Government. In this con nection I would ask the Senator to differentiate between the action taken by the President in this case and the action taken by Mr. Hay at the time of the breaking out of the war
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between Russia and Japan when he addressed a letter to the

great powers, including Russia and Japan, intended to secure

the integrity of China and to confine the war entirely to Man

churia.

As I understand it, that was a political complication, not

merely a commercial complication. I do not understand that

the action was taken upon the ground that we had commercial

interests there in jeopardy. It was just as much political

action then as this action is to-day. How would the Senator

differentiate between those two cases?

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I may be very unfortunate in

my viewof the two cases, but it seems to me that they bear no

similarity whatever. In the first place, there was no confer

ence. There was no delegation of power to anybody.

Mr. NEWLANDS. Yes; if the Senator will permit me, there

was an interference upon the part of the United States with a

political complication existing upon the continent of Asia. How

did the United States have anything more to do with that polit

ical complication than it can have with a political complication

in Europe? If we have no business in the political complica

tions of Europe, have we any business in the political complica

tions of Asia? Liet me say to the Senator that I am not taking

any position hostile to that which he assumes. On the contrary,

I am quite sympathetic with the view that he expresses. I sim

ply wish to inquire whether we have not gone already a consider

able degree in the line of this policy of interfering with matters

that are no concern of ours?

Mr. BACON. Mr. President, it is possibly true that we have,

but that would be no reason why we should go still further.

It would be rather a warning to us why we should be on our

guard not to proceed still further.

Now as to whether or not the Senators suggestion is entirely

accurate, that in the matter of the suggestion of Secretary Hay

we violated this rule wliich has been laid down and observed

by our Government for more than a century, it would take, of

course, a good deal of time to analyze all that and to discuss

the relation of it and the question as to whether it was such a

policy.

.

*

But there is this great distinguishing difference between the

two, that in the one case there was no conference of the

powers, no delegation of authority of the powers of Europe and

of America, but there was simply a note, if I recollect cor

rectly, sent by Mr. Hay to each of the representatives of this

Government at the courts of the leading powers intimating tbat

there should be a suggestion to the two great powers then en

gaged in war that they would limit the theater of war to the

country in which it legitimately belonged, and that there would

not be an intrusion by the armies of those aountries into the

adjacent country and territory of China. The question as to

whether or not that was entirely proper I can not now stop to

discuss, and if it did infringe upon the well-established principle

I would deprecate it to that extent.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. I understand from the Senator that we

were invited because we happened to be one of the signatory

powers, of whom there were eight, seven of whom were Euro

pean and the eighth ourselves. Does not the Senator think

that it would have been extremely discourteous, being one of

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34
the signatory powers, if Morocco had asked all the others and had not asked us, when its action might modify the treaty or arrangement to which we were signatories?
Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I will respond to the learned Senator that according to my understanding and ac cording to the statements which I have seen in the published dispatches from Europe, this conference is based upon an agree ment in which it is expressly stipulated that the commercial arrangements which are now secured by treaty shall not be called in question, and therefore I do not see that it would have been a matter of discourtesy on the part of Morocco to have failed to invite us to that conference.
Mr. BEVEKIDGE. At all events the Senator will admit it was proper, since Morocco was inviting those powers who were signatory, to invite us?
Mr. BACON. No ; I do not think so. Mr. BEVERIDGE. And if we had not been Invited it would be a matter of which we might make complaint, providing we wanted to make any complaint, aH the other signatory powers having been invited. Now, if it was proper to invite us, it is certainly not improper to respond when all our sister signatory powers go there. Mr. BACON. In the first place, I do not think it was at all important to invite us, or that we should have been slighted if we had not been invited, in view of our well-known policy of noninterference in European political questions, and of the fact that the powers which called this conference expressly stipulated that commercial matters shall not be interfered with, and that the conference shall have no power to discuss them or make any order or decree about, them. In the second place. I do not think it would be discourteous on the part of this Government whenever it receives an invitation of that kind to reply that, there being questions of this grave character of European international politics, it is contrary to the traditional and well-recognized and thoroughly settled and defined policy of this Government to participate in such controversies, and, therefore, with utmost thanks and courtesy, to decline. Now, Mr. President, if it were true that there were important commercial interests, or even vital commercial interests, whether large or small, involved which might be considered, it would certainly be perfectly practical for this Government to reply, " This is a question in which the commercial question is insignificant compared with the political questions involved; it is to have little or no attention. The great question which is to concern you is one on account of which one government is ordering 20,000 cars to transport troops, and another govern ment is concentrating troops on the border, and, on account of which, each of these governments is concentrating its fleets at Gibraltar, and on account of which the European press is teeming with apprehension as to war. It is a matter that we are not to be connected with, and therefore we respectfully decline. When you get through, if you have commercial matters to consider we will be glad to join with you in the consideration of them." But there is no room for that in this case, for, as I have said a dozen times, the commercial matters are expressly excepted from the jurisdiction of this conference. Mr. President, I have detained the Senate very much longer than I intended, and very much longer than I would have done
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had It not been, I think, for the very proper and pertinent and interesting interruptions of Senators, and I shall not longer do so.
Now, Mr. President, I want to say one word in conclusion In order that I may not be misunderstood. There have at times been suggestions that this is an assault on the President. 1 have been influenced in this matter by no partisanship. I be lieve I am capable of supporting a principle for reasons higher than partisan reasons. If this were the act of a Democratic President I would be all the more earnest and emphatic in my dissent from its propriety. There is no basis for the suggestion that anything I have said Or done can be construed as an assault on the President, or that any word I have uttered can be considered" as personally or officially disrespectful to him. I have made it my rule in the Senate never to speak disre spectfully of the President of the United States. I have been in the Senate under three different Presidents, and it has al ways happened that with no one of the three have I been in entire accord on all matters. It has fallen to me to differ with each ofthem on particular matters and to express those differ ences plainly and earnestly in debate in the Senate, but I can challenge the record that no word has ever fallen from my lips in the Senate in disrespect to either President, whether he be Republican or Democrat, and so long as I can guard my utter ances none ever shall.
Nor, sir, do I desire in any manner to reflect upon the Presi dent or to depreciate his services. For instance, coming back to this matter of international conferences, I recognize that he per formed a great public service, a great service for humanity, one on account of which his name will go down to posterity in great honor, in bringing about peace between Japan and Russia. I think that he not only honored himself, but all the American people, when he did so, and I do not think that in so doing he in any manner contravened this great principle. It is always in order for the United States Government to interpose its good offices to stop the shedding of blood.
But, Mr. President, the corollary of that is not true. It is not in order for the Government of the United States to inter pose in a conference called in Europe for the purpose of avoid ing war, for if it is, then the doctrine is gone, and there is none of it left, because every conference of that kind that is called in Europe is called for the purpose of preventing war. I also rec ognize the character and ability of the Secretary of State. I know him to be a man of great ability, entitled to esteem and respect. He is a man with whom my personal relations are entirely pleasant and against whom I would not say a word that is disrespectful. I believe the President of the United States is a patriotic man, but I believe he is also a strong-willed and an impulsive man, and I think it is the duty of the Senate of the United States, as well as of the House, but more particularly of the Senate, to en deavor in a respectful way to guard the institutions of this coun try and the policies of this country, not in antagonism, but in harmony with the President of the United States, whether he belongs to one party or the other party.
I have no reason, Mr. President, to have any other feeling toward the President of the United States than that which I have expressed. While he is a man of a different political party from myself, while he is a native of a different State, a part
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of his ancestry is from my own State, and not only from my

own State, but from the immediate little community in which I

myself was reared; and, in the cemetery of historic Midway

there sleep some of his ancestors by the side of those who gave

me life and being. I would say no word which would be dis

respectful to him. But when I differ from him upon a grave

public question, one in my opinion of vital importance to

the safety of this country, I violate no propriety, on the con

trary, I perform a public duty, in giving utterance to the rea

sons for my difference.

The President of the United States is not a lawyer, and ac

cording to him the utmost good faith, one who is not a lawyer

will sometimes do things which are not in accordance with what

would be done by one versed in the law. For instance, Senators

who hear me know the fact that there is now included and

published among the treaties of the United States an agreement

made with Cuba as to the extradition of criminals from the part

of the country leased to us for naval stations which has never

been submitted to the Senate, but which has been marked " ap

proved " by the President of the United States and put in the

flies, and it is to-day printed in the volume entitled " Treaties

in Force." Of course it is utterly without force and effect, be

cause it has never been ratified by the Senate or submitted to

this body for ratification.

I do not believe that the President of the United States did

that advisedly. Who-would believe it? But I give that simply

as an illustration of the fact that in this great Government,

with its vast interests, with its tremendous labels, with its multi

plied duties of all kinds, one not a lawyer, one necessarily with

his attention divided with myriads of uncounted things, will

sometimes do things which otherwise he would not have done,

and which more particularly one trained in the law would not

have done.

Now, I do not believe that any harm is going to come to us out

of this Algeciras conference except in the matter of precedent.

I think it very possible if this matter had not been brought to

the attention of the country, if it had not been discussed in the

Senate, if it had not been most intelligently and widely dis

cussed, as it has been, by the press from one end of this country

to the other, possibly there might have been done there things

which would not have been to our interest, and which would

have contravened our vital policy of nonintervention in Euro

pean political disputes. But 1 believe the effect of this discus

sion in the Senate, and I believe the effect of the very elaborate

and able discusion which it has had in the public press, have

awakened the whole country to the danger and will safeguard

our interests there.

The great evil is the -precedent, and to avoid that evil, Mr.

President, it should be known in no uncertain words that it is

not hereafter to be considered as a precedent, and that when the

nations of Europe gather together in conference for the purpose

of settling great international questions involving peace and war

and involving questions of domination of this foreign country,

or that, or the other, or of the balance of power, the United

States Government will severely let it alone and confine itself

to the consideration of its own affairs.

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CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT AND OF THE SENATE IN MAKING TREATIES.
MOROCCAN AND SANTO DOMINGAN AFFAIRS.
SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Tuesday, February 6, 1906.
"WASHINGTON. I9O6.
6fi68

SPEECH

(

OF

HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT : I have already addressed the Senate at some length upon the subject of the policy and propriety of sending delegates to the Algeciras Moroccan conference. It had not been my purpose to ask again the indulgence of the Senate upon this subject or upon questions which are nearly connected therewith. It has, however, happened that in the progress of the debate upon that subject and also on the subject of the Santo Domingo treaty certain propositions have been an nounced on the floor of the Senate and have been very earnestly and very ably discussed by learned and distinguished Senators, magnifying the powers of the President and minimizing the powers of the Senate, to which I can not give my assent and to which I ask the further indulgence of the Senate that I may make reply. Before proceeding, Mr. President, I desire to say that in submitting an argument to-day on this subject I will endeavor to make it impersonal, because I consider it a very grave ques tion, involving the relative rights and prerogatives of the Presi dent of the United States and of the Senate a question im portant to be settled correctly and, if possible, without refer ence to partisan feeling or bias. I think I may possibly with propriety repeat what I have said upon a former occasion, that there is no justification for the statement which has been more than once made upon the floor of the Senate that the discussion of this question is in any manner an assault upon the present occupant of the executive chair. Legitimate and respectful discussion, not only of the rights and prerogatives of the Execu tive, but of the official acts of the Executive relating to ques tions of such rights and prerogatives, can not in any manner be construed into a personal assault, and it occurs to me, Mr. President, that the reiteration of the suggestion to give it no stronger term that such discussion is an assault upon the President- and sometimes stronger terms have been used must imply a want of confidence in their own contention by those who seek to fortify their position by such suggestion. The distinguished Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEE] an nounces, as I understand him, the following proposition: That the negotiation of a proposed treaty and every phase of the work of considering and determining what shall be the subject and terms of a treaty are, up to and including the reaching of an

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> agreement with a foreign power and until the proposed treaty is submitted to the Senate for final ratification or rejection, mat ters within the sole and exclusive right and power of the Presi dent ; and that the jurisdiction of the Senate does not attach in any manner, and that no power or duty or right of the Senate begins until the President shall have negotiated a proposed treaty with a foreign power, shall have agreed with the foreign power on the terms of the same, and shall have sent it to the Senate; and that for the Senate to attempt either by inquiry or suggestion to have part or lot in such work prior to the submis sion to the Senate, is an intrusion upon the exclusive domain and jurisdiction of the President of the United States. Mr. President, in order that it may be seen whether I have correctly stated the position of the learned Senator, I will take the libertyof reading some extracts from his speech as it ap pears in the CoNGBEssroNAL RECORD. The Senator saitf:
From the foundation of the Government it has been conceded in practice and in theory that the Constitution vests the power of nego tiation and the various phases and they are multifarious of the conduct of our foreign relations exclusively in the President. And, Mr. President, he does not exercise that constitutional power, nor can he be made to do it, under the tutelage or guardianship of the Senate or of the House or of the Senate and House combined.
Further, the Senator said :
The words "advice and consent of the Senate" are used in the Con stitution with reference to the Senates participation in the making of a treaty and are well translated by the word " ratification " popularly used in this connection. The President negotiates the treaty, to begin with. He may employ such agencies as he chooses to negotiate the proposed treaty. He may employ the ambassador, if there be one, or a minister or a charge daffaires, or he may use a person in private life whom he thinks by his skill or knowledge of the language or people of the country witn which he is about to deal is best fitted to negotiate the treaty. He may issue to the agent chosen by him and neither Congress nor the Senate has any concern as to whom he chooses such instructions as seem to him wise. He may vary them from day to day. That is his concern. The Senate has no right to demand that he shall unfold to the world or to it, even in executive session, his instructions or the prospect Or progress of the negotiation. I said " right." I use that word advisedly in order to illustrate what all men who have studied the subject are willing to concede that under the Constitution the absolute power of negotiation is in the President and the means of negotiation subject wholly to his will and his judgment.
When he shall have negotiated and sent his proposed treaty to the Senate, the jurisdiction of this body attaches and Its power begins. It may advise and consent, or it may refuse. And in the exercise of this function it is as independent of the Executive as he is independent of it in the matter of negotiation.
I do nt deny the power of the Senate either in legislative session or in executive session that is a question of propriety to pass resolu tions expressive of its opinion as to matters of foreign policy. But if it Is passed by the Senate or passed by the House or passed by both Houses it is beyond any possible question nurely advisory, and not in the slightest degree binding In law or conscience upon the President.
And again:
Mr. President, I do not stop at this moment to cite authorities in support of the proposition, that so far as the conduct of our foreign relations is concerned, excluding only the Senates participation in the making of treaties, the President has the absolute and uncontrolled and uncontrollable authority.
I have read this much, Mr. President, for the purpose of show ing that I have not overstated or incorrectly stated, as I under stand, the position of the learned Senator. As to whether or not he Is correct in that construction of the powers of the President and the want of power in the Senate, must depend
6568

upon the language of the Constitution of the United States. Fortunately so much of the language of the Constitution as re lates to that is within a very small compass; it is in one sen tence. It is the second paragraph of the second section of the second article of the Constitution, and it is in these words
He shall have Power
Speaking of the President of the United States
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds oi the Senators present concur.
That is all there is in the Constitution as to the power of the President to make treaties and as to the right and power of the Senate to participate in the work of making treaties. Now, Mr. President, it will be seen that in that language the word " negotiate" does not occur. There is no separate, ex press grant of power to negotiate a treaty. It is necessarily true, however, that the power to negotiate a treaty is an im plied power involved in that language; in other words, the power " to make" a treaty necessarily implies the power to negotiate a treaty. But there may be a very great difference in opinion as to what is the meaning of the word " negotiate," if we assume it and concede it to be an implied power found in that language. So far as the power to suggest a treaty to a foreign power is concerned, or to receive a suggestion from a foreign power that a certain treaty should he made, or to dis cuss with a foreign power the subject or the terms of a pro posed treaty, undoubtedly the power to negotiate within that narrow limit is one which can only be exercised by the Presi dent, because he alone under this clause can have direct com munication with the foreign power. No other officer or author ity on the part of the United States can submit a proposed treaty to a foreign power. No other authority can discuss with a foreign power the terms of a proposed treaty, or come to a preliminary agreement with the foreign power regarding the same. Within this restricted sense the implied power to negotiate a proposed treaty is in the President alone.
But it is evident that the learned Senator in this discussion does not confine his understanding of the word " negotiate " to such narrow limits in defining the power of the President in the making of treaties. Evidently the Senator intends to include in the exclusive power to " negotiate" a proposed treaty, the exclusive power to do everything connected with the policy or impolicy of a treaty prior to its actual submission to the Senate for its ratification. In other words, the Senators proposition is that under this implied power to " negotiate " everything in the way of consideration of the advantage or the disadvantage, or of the propriety or the policy of making a treaty, or of its terms, is a matter for the exclusive suggestion and deliberation and determination of the President, and that any suggestion or inquiry or advice on the part of the Senate prior to such sub mission is gratuitous and intrusive, and, as has been suggested, even insulting to the President. The radical and extreme posi tion of the Senator in this regard is best understood when the fact is known that his utterance above quoted is caused by the introduction of a resolution asking information concerning the instructions given to the delegates appointed to the Algeciras
6568
i

6
conference. That resolution the Senator condemns as Intrusive upon the exclusive jurisdiction of the President According to the contention of the learned Senator, alone in the brain of the President, alone In his suggestion and deliberation, and alone in his judgment must be evolved and shaped up the policies and measures which, if they become law, are to be. the supreme law of the land.
According to that contention, the Senate has nothing to do with it no concern, no right to consider, no right to be heard, no right to inquire, no right to advise until the President shall have thus perfected it according to his judgment and submitted it to the Senate, to receive at its hands a perfunctory often, I should say, a perfunctory reply of " yes " or " no ;" and accord ing to that contention to proceed beyond that is an intrusion upon the exclusive domain and jurisdiction of the President.
Mr. President, that proposition is not sustained either by the letter or by the spirit of the Constitution or by the history of the treaty-making power as found in the history of the conven tion which framed the Constitution. On the contrary, they all, and the history as well of the adoption of this provision- of the Constitution as found in the debates of the constitutional conven tion, combine to establish the proposition that in the making oC treaties it is proper for the Senate to advise at all stages. Upon the very surface of it lies the oft-repeated suggestion that, if that were the case, the Constitution would limit itself to the term " consent."
Mr. SPOONER. Limit itself to what? Mr. BACON. I say, if that were the correct construction, there is the oft-repeated suggestion that if it had been the in tention of the framers of the Constitution to limit the action and function of the Senate solely to the power to ratify or to reject, the language of the Constitution would not have been " advise and consent," but the language would have been " consent," because there is no reason why the word " advise " should be given to add to or explain the meaning of the word " consent." We do not advise men after they have made up their minds and after they have acted; we advise men while they are considering, while they are deliberating, and before they have determined, and before they have acted. As I have already said, Mr. President, there is no direct, ex press, separate grant of power to negotiate. The entire power is the power to make treaties; and yet the learned Senator would have us divide that power so that the term " to make " should be construed to mean, in the first place, in one division " to negotiate" and in another division " to conclude." But there is -nothing in the words of the Constitution to justify any such division as that. It is one indivisible power " to make," and in the entire power "to make" the Senate is given full participation in advising and consenting. The contention that the power of the President includes everything up to the time of the submission of the proposed treaty to the Senate might be sustained if the language of the Constitution were that " the President of the United States should have power to negotiate and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties." Then it would Indicate a separate function; then It would indicate a first division of the duty, to negotiate, the jurisdiction of which was confided entirely
6568

and solely to the President; and the second division, to make, one in which the President and the Senate together should act.
But the language of the Constitution is, " He shall have power, by and with the consent of the Senate, to make treaties," which plainly indicates not that the Senate should be limited to saying yes or no to a perfected and finished work when presented to it by the President, but rather the assistance of the Senate, the advice and cooperation of the Senate in the determination as to the propriety and policies of proposed treaties and also the terms and provisions they should contain. But the word " negotiate " is omitted before the words " to make." That is not an accidental omission. There was design in it. Aside from the fact that there is no ground upon which to predicate the suggestion that it was an accidental omission, the words used by the framers of the Constitution in the very next clause, really only divided from it by a semicolon, prove that they were weighing carefully the language when they conferred the power upon the President of the United States. Separated from it only by a semicolon is this language I will read the entire clause, part of which I have already read:
He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur ;
Then follows the semicolon. Then the language proceeds: and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, etc.
There it was the evidently distinct purpose to divide the .duty and to confer in the first part of that division an ex clusive function and jurisdiction upon the President of the United States:
He shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint.
Showing that the purpose was that up to the time it was submitted to the Senate, the Senate had no function in the matter of appointment, and that the function of the Senate was limited to advising and consenting to the nomination previously made by the President in the discharge of a function and of a. jurisdiction exclusively confided to him.
Can it be said that the frames of the Constitution of the United States in writing a clause, or two parts of the same clause, were careless in the use of language when they were conferring the great power of treaty making; that they intended to say that the President. should Have th exclusive function up to the time of the submission of the treaty to the Senate, and that the duty and the power of the Senate, as the Senator from Wisconsin has said, should only begin when the President had so done, and that they used this language as found in the Consti tution, leaving to be implied only the construction contended for; and then thereafter, in the less important matter of the appoint ing of officers, should have been critical in the vise of language, leaving nothing to implication, and should have said " he shall nominate," and then added " and thereafter" I interpolate the word " thereafter" " and thereafter, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint?" Mr. Presi dent, it is incredible.
Mr. BEVERIDGB. Mr. President 6568

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana?
Mr. BACON. I yield. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I wish to ask the Senator whether he therefore concludes that the advice of the Senate is necessary from the inception of a treaty to its ratification? Mr. BACON. I do not say it is necessary, Mr. President, be cause nothing is necessary which would not invalidate if it were lacking. If the Senator means by " necessary " proper and designed and contemplated, I say " yes." I think I have an swered the Senator. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I have listened to the Senators argu ment, which is cogent and very closely knitted, with interest; but if the Senators argument is compelling at all, it is that the difference in the language used in the two clauses means, ac cording to the Senator, that the advice of the Senate is needed from the inception of a treaty to its ratification. Mr. BACON. I maintain that it was the design of the framers of the Constitution. But the only thing necessary to its validity is the consent, because that makes the treaty, so far as the Senate is concerned. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will pardon me for just a moment. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Certainly. I shall not interrupt the Sen ator until he gets through. Mr. BACON. But the question is as to the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution as to the functions which should be performed by the Senate. My learned and distinguished friend the Senator from Wisconsin, from whom I should differ with the utmost hesitation upon a question where there was no politics, which was simply one of law I say that to the Senator in all kindness, for all of us are more or less so influenced by politics, and neither the Senator nor myself is free from that the proposition of the Senator from Wisconsin is that the duty and function of the Senate, the right of the Senate, as stated in his language, does not attach and does not begin until the treaty is submitted to the Senate by the President. My proposition is that according to the language of the Con stitution, and as I shall endeavor a little further on to show by the history of it, the purpose and intention was that the Senate should give to the President that be should have the right to receive and they should have the right to offer advice and counsel from the inception of the treaty. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Now, may I interrupt the Senator? Mr. BACON. Yes. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Then the Senators argument goes to the propriety, not to the necessity of the advice of the Senate up to the time a treaty is ratified? Mr. BACON. I think I have answered that question in show ing what I considered to be the meaning of the word " neces sity."
Mr. BEVERIDGE. I think the whole discussion hinges on that.
Mr. BACON. I do not think the Senator misstates the posi tion I occupy, as I understand him.
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, I do not intend to interrupt the Senator
6568

9
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from .Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. SPOONBR. I do not intend to interrupt the Senator, but, if agreeable to him, I should like to ask .him one question. Mr. BACON. With pleasure, and if I can answer it I will. Mr. SPOONBR. In reference to this language " and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors," etc., what significance does the Senator give to the word " advice " as contradistinguished from the word " consent" in that clause of the Constitution? Mr. BACON. Well, I had anticipated that that question would be asked. Mr. SPOONER. Then it is no surprise to the Senator. Mr. BACON. No; it is not a surprise to me, and I confess it is a question which has caused me some trouble. I recognize that. I can only say that there is no- question about the fact in my mind that the use of the word " nominate," and thereafter the use of the words " advice and consent," implies that so far as the nomination is concerned there is to be no advice and consent. I grant the Senators contention, which I understand, of course, to be implied by his question, that there is strength in the argument that if in the case of a nomination the words " advice and consent" are used where there is no previous ad vice given, therefore the argument that " advice and consent," as used In the making of treaties, is not necessarily to be con strued as an intention that we should advise prior to the time. I grant that; but there is this which can .not be escaped, and that is, that in the clause with reference to the making of treaties there is no division Mr. SPOONER. There can not be. Mr. BACON. And there can not be any; but yet the Senator makes a division. Mr. SPOONER. No. Mr. BACON. Or I so understand him. I understand the Senator makes, a division in the one case of treaties; and the language of the Constitution makes the division in the case of appointments. It distinctly makes a division between the nomi nation and the submission of it to the Senate and the action of the Senate. In the other case there is but one act authorized, and that is to make treaties, and " to make " includes every part of it, from the beginning to the end; and the only possible ex ception, the only possible exclusion from that is in the matter of the discussion of it the interviews, you might say, between thisGovernment, through the President, and the foreign power. That is manifestly a matter that the President alone can per form, because lie is the one authorized to make it; but in the making of the treaty, not only as to a part, but as to all, the Senate is made the complete, the unqualified, the unabridged factor in common with him in the making of it. The making of a treaty is not simply the exchange of ratifi cations. The making of a treaty is the conception of it, and includes everything, from the inception -of the subject-matter to the minutest details. Mr. SPOONBR. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin? Mr. BACON. I do.
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10
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senators statement is correct, that from the beginning of it the Senate is by constitutional right a factor, that involves the right of the Senate to be constantly in formed does it not first, as to whether the treaty is being ne gotiated, and, second, the progress of the negotiation? I might go further, but I will not. Does the Senator say that?
Mr. BACON. Let me answer one question at a time. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator say that the Senate has any such right? Mr. BACON. No; not in the sense the Senator means it. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. Let me answer the question. Mr. SPOONER. Yes. Mr. BACON. I used the word right Mr. SPOONER rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I do not see that it has a right in the sense the Senator means it, as something which can be compelled, something which would be a violation of law if withheld; but if " right " means propriety; if " right " means something in contemplation to .be had whenever the cir cumstances may be proper and desirable that it should be had, then it is a right. Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will allow me, I was not dis cussing for one moment a question of etiquette or a question of propriety; 1 was discussing the division of constitutional power. If the Senate has a right and the Senator stated it very strongly to participate in the negotiation of treaties, it follows of necessity that, upon proper request for information of the President as to the status of negotiations, he has no .con stitutional power rightfully to refuse to respond; and yet theSenator will not for one moment contend that it is not entirely permissible for the President to decline to send to the Senate any information upon the subject, will he? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, we must discuss these questions with reference not to what antagonistic people would do where one man was opposing another. I am speaking of the President and the Senate Mr. SPOONER. Upon this question of power. Mr. BACON. It is a little more than a question of power; it is a question of propriety; it is a question of what was contem plated and designed in the law; it is not a question as to what the Senator talked about of power, physical power. We have no means of absolutely compelling the President to do it. Mr. SPOONER rose. Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will permit me to answer the question. Mr. SPOONER. I will not interrupt the Senator again Mr. BACON. I do not object to interruptions, if the Senator, when he has asked a question, will permit me to answer it. The Senator says he is not talking about etiquette, that he is not talking about the matter of propriety, and yet I respect fully submit that the language of the Senator as used before raised a question of propriety. The Senator takes the position that the Senate has no right in the matter; that it has no juris diction up to the time that the President sends the Senate a treaty, and that for the Senate to make an inquiry or to attempt in any maliner to influence the act of the President is an in-
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11
trusion upon him. That is the language of the Senator. I will not read it again. I have already read it, and it is. in the RECORD.
The Senator goes on thereafter and speaks of a case where the command is, according to his view, properly given to the Senate, in the foreign affairs, to " hands off." The Senator is speaking of propriety. It is of the utmost impropriety if their duty does not begin, but I am going to come to a little more de tailed statement as to what I conceive to be the exact relation ship and reciprocal duty of these parties, and see whether, ac cording to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, and according to what was said by the great men who framed it, at the time they framed it, and according to the uniform and well-recog nized practice of this Government for a hundred years, it has been recognized as a propriety, or whether it is an impropriety and an intrusion.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Speaking, then, of the question of pro priety, to which the discussion is reduced, I ask Mr. BACON. It is not reduced to that. Go ahead, though. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I thought the Senator had reduced it to that. Mr. BACON. Go on. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I ask the Senator this question: Does the Senator think it Would be .within the proprieties, confining it to that alone, not discussing the question of power,-for the Senate, under the Senators construction of the word " advice," to send a resolution to the President advising the President to negotiate a treaty? Mr. BACON. I will come to that direct point, though I will now say to the Senator, yes, before I get to it in order. But I will come to that, and that is directly in th.e line of what I have been discussing, if the Senator will permit me to ap proach it at the proper time. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I shall not Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator from Indiana, as I have already stated that I shall discuss it in nrder, will let me get to it. Mr. BETERIDGE. I will ask this question: Would the Presi dent be bound in any wise to respond to a resolution to negotiate such a treaty? Mr. BACON. Certainly not, any more than* we are bound to ratify a treaty that he negotiates. Mr. BEVERIDGE. It is a mere matter of politeness. Mr. BACON. It is a good deal more than a mere matter of politeness, and I think I will show it before I get through, if I am permitted to have the opportunity. Now, Mr. President, I have dwelt upon that part of the sub ject a little longer than I otherwise would have done in en deavoring to meet the inquiries which had been propounded to me by Senators. I have endeavored to show that according to the language of the Constitution the function of the Senate, whether it is in each actively employed or not, properly begins with the inception of a treaty; that the law makes the Senate
6568

12
the adviser of the President in the making of a treaty through all its stages, not that it requires that in every instance the President shall have the advice and counsel of the Senate, but that in every instance the President has the right to have it, and, correspondingly, in every instance the Senate has the right to offer it. That is what I mean. If the Senator from Indiana construes that as mere acts of politeness, I will take that as a definition of it.
That is the relation. It is the right of the President to have; it is the right of the Senate to offer. It is no intrusion upon the right of the Senate, before the submission of a treaty and before it is asked whether or not it will ratify it, for the President to ask the advice of Senators, either collectively or individually, and it is no intrusion on the part of the Senate to ask of the President information with reference to any treaty he proposes to make and to advise as to the policy or impolicy of making It. That is the proposition which I make, and it involves a little more than politeness.
Ordinarily in the making of treaties it is not needful that the rule of constituti nal law for which I contend should be in voked in practice. And when invoked there will doubtless be occasions when by reason of the delicacy of a diplomatic situa tion, the President will reply that he does not consider it com patible with the public interest to give to the Senate informa tion as may be requested a suggestion of which fact by the President, is always courteously acquiesced in by the Senate. But the reciprocal right and duty nevertheless exist, and in grave emergencies they should be exercised, and the effort to thus exercise them is not properly met by the denial of their existence. Much less is there warrant for resenting as an in trusion, the attempt to exercise such right and duty either by suggestion or inquiry on the part of the Senate.
Mr. President, what is the history of this mutter? I hold in my hand the Madison Papers, written by Mr. Madison, taken down by him during the convention and given to the public by him later, in which there- is a detailed account of the entire proceedings of the convention, with a statement of every motion that was made, every paper that was submitted, and a summary of everything that was said by every member of the convention. I now want to state this fact: That convention was in session about four months. From the beginning of it to the end of it, until near the close of that convention, the consensus of opinion of all of the delegates to that convention was that the Senate should be clothed with the entire and exclusive right and power to make treaties, and there was never a draft of a constitution submitted to the convention that did not have in it the express, unqualified provision that the Senate, and the Senate alone, should make treaties.
Now, what I have said needs this partial qualification: We all know that Mr. Hamilton was a great advocate of central power, and Mr. Hamilton, so far as I have beenable to find in an examination of this book, was the only one up to the latter part of the convention about which I will speak more defi nitely a little later on who even suggested that a provision for the participation of the President in the making of treaties should be incorporated in the Constitution; and even when Mr. Hamilton suggested it, saying at the time that he would
6568

13

not offer It, he suggested it as something which the President should do upon "the advice and with the approbation of the Senate." Those are his words. If the Constitution had that language in it now, there would be no question; there could possibly be none, it seems to me, because the advice there evi dently contemplated, preceded the act of approval.
This was the first suggestion in the convention, that the Presi dent should participate in the making of treaties; and it is instructive to note well the phraseology, especially when coming from Hamilton, indicating clearly as they do that the advice was not to be limited to the time and the act of ratification. And when this was finally incorporated in the Constitution the intended meaning was doubtless the same, although the phraseology is different. But my main purpose in citing this fact is to cite the only instance until near the close of the convention in which it was even suggested that the President should participate in the making of treaties. And from the be ginning to the end of the convention it was never once suggested by anyone that the President should exercise that power alone.
Mr. Charles Pinckney submitted to the convention a complete draft of .a proposed constitution, and it was the basis of what ultimately was adopted as the Constitution. In that draft Article VII was in these words :

The Senate shall have the sole and exclusive power

Omitting parts which relate to other matters

to make treaties.

That was in May, and so it ran on until the latter part of the convention before there was ever any change made or sug gested.
All the various provisions proposed were debated, and finally it was committed to a committeeon detail, the purpose of which was to have a committee of learned and prominent men to shape up all the various provisions of the Constitution which had been proposed and substantially agreed upon, and when the commit tee on detail, after all this long discussion, reported to the con vention the proposed Constitution, it had in it this language:

AEf. IX, sec. 1. The Senate ot the United States shall have power to

make treaties.

.

No participation by the President; and in the discussion of it as it went along, finally Mr. Madison made this suggestion. The language as found in the book which I am about to quote being somewhat peculiar, if this book had been written by some one else* and it had represented in it that Mr. Madison had used this language, it might have been thought that possibly he did not use these exact words, or did not mean what those words im plied, but Mr. Madison, as it happens, is the author of the book and was also the man who made the motion, and here -is what he said in making the motion. It was on the discussion of the article I have just read:

Article IX, section 1, being resumed, to wit: " The Senate of the United States shall have power to make treaties "

That was then under consideration, the provision being as it had been intended by the convention from the beginning

Mr. Madison observed that the Senate represented States alone, and that for these as well as other obvious reasons it was proper that the President should be an agent in treaties.
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14
And it was upon Mr. Madisons motion, based upon the propo sition that the President should be an agent in treaties, that the present provision in the Constitution was incorporated in it. Not only so, Mr. President
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will permit me, an agent in what particular?
Mr. BACON. I am not attaching any special weight to the word " agent," except to show that it could not have been con templated in the use of the word " agent" that he was to be the whole thing.
Mr. SPOONEE. He was a joint maker, made so by the Con stitution.
Mr. BACON. Yes. But up to that time he had not been. Mr. SPOONER. No; but in what particular did the Consti tution intend the President should be a participant? Mr. BACON. Just in the particular that the Constitution
Mr. SPOONER. WellMr. BACON. I think the Senator left the Chamber and did not hear what I said previously. Mr. SPOONER. No; I heard it. Mr. BACON. Very well. I was tracing the history of this in the convention, where throughout the purpose was to confide this power solely in the Senate, and while finally, after the committee on detail had reported and the convention had taken up the Constitution, which they had reported, section by section, when they came to section 9, which provided that the Senate should have the sole power to make treaties, Mr. Madison says that, as the Senators were the representatives of the States, for that and for other reasons, the President should be an agent in treaties. The convention then went on and made the provision which gives him full participation with the Senate in the making of treaties, and I am not detracting from that power in any par ticular. I am simply denying that the purpose was to give him any superior authority in the making of treaties over the au thority which was conferred upon the Senate. To each it gave a separate function, and the exercise by each of that function was necessary to thft making of treaties. There was no divi sion of the making of treaties into two parts, the decision of every material part and parcel by one, with only the power to say yes or no by the other. They were equal in function and dignity. The Senator from Wisconsin in his argument said that the President was supreme he used the word " supreme " in the making of treaties to the extent that even after a treaty was submitted to the Senate ar^d ratified by the Senate, the Presi dent could put it in his pocket and not promulgate it or ex change ratifications. No doubt that is true, and in the same way when the Presi dent sends a proposed treaty to the Senate, the Senate, if it sees proper to do so, can treat it without any attention whatever and not even refer it to a committee. It would not be seemly to do so, but no more so than for a President to be likewise heedless and regardless of the views of the Senate in reference to the propriety or the policy of making a proposed treaty in a matter touching vitally the interests and the institutions of
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15

the country. It would be not less unseemly far blm to reply to

an inquiry or suggestion of the Senate, " Hands-off."

In what particular is the power of the President thus to put

a treaty ratified by the Senate in his pocket more supreme than

the pow&r of the Senate to bury in its archives without action

a proposed treaty sent to it by the President? I am not de

tracting from the President or his power; I concede to him his

full constitutional power; but I deny the proposition that the

President has any superior power or any superior dignity In

the making of a treaty over and above the Senate.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Suppose the Constitution had been silent

uprtu the question of the treaty-making power, where would that

power have lodged? Or I will put the question in this way:

Suppose the Constitution had said nothing about making trea

ties, would not the complete power of making treaties have been

in the President, under section 1 of Article II, which lodges the

executive power in the President?

Mr. BACON. I think not. I do not understand the word

" executive " to mean anything of the kind.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Does not the Senator think that in the

natural division of the powers of Government into legislative,

executive, and judicial the treaty-making power has always been

considered an executive function, and, therefore, if the Con

stitution had been silent upon the subject of treaties, it would

have been completely under the Presidents control, under that

provision of the Constitution which confides in the President

the executive power, and that that section concerning treaties

is merely a limitation upon that universal power?

Mr. BACON. Oh, no. The Senator has gone to his favorite

doctrine as to extraconstitutional power, which I will not stop to

discuss with him to-day. The two continents* separated by the

Atlantic Ocean, are not wider apart than the Senator and I upon

the subject of the exercise of powers not found in the Constitu

tion.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. If the Senator will permit me

Mr. BACON. I can not discuss it to-day. It would take all

my time.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. I will ask the Senator to answer this

question: Since the Constitution has said aotlung about ^-

Mr. BACON. The Senator has asked that question, and he

does ftot let me answer before repeating it. The Senator will

pardon me, but he has already asked it twice.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. I will ask this question: If the Consti

tution Ifad said nothing about the treaty-making power, where

would the treaty -making power have been lodged?

Mr. BACON. I have received that question, from the Senator

several times. I have said that I did not agree with hjm that it

would be with the Executive.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Where would it be?



Mr. BACON. I think, undoubtedly, in the legislative branch

of the Government, for reasons which I will give.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. That is the whole question.

Mr. BACON. Here is whereJthe sovereignty of the Govern

ment was intended to be in almost its totality in the legisla

tive branch t>f the Government and the vast array of powers in

the first article -of the Constitution prove it; and, further than

that, the Constitution of the United States^was intended to take

16
the place of and to supersede the Articles of Confederation, un der which articles the power to make treaties did lodge in Con gress alone; and it was not to be presumed when the Constitu tion was formed, in the absence of some special and particular designation, that it was the intention to confer it upon the Executive. The presumption would be the other way.
I was about to say, however, at the time of the interrogatory propounded to me by the learned Senator, in concluding what I had to say on the history of this matter, that President Wash ington in one of bis messages casts a very strong light upon tlie question as to what was the estimate which this convention hnd of the treaty-making power and of the duty and function which the Senate should exercise in the treaty-making power. In a famous message, which the Senator from Wisconsin cited and which has been cited frequently and with which we are all familiar, where President Washington refused to send certain papers to the House of Representatives upon its demand, upon the ground that the House of Representatives had nothing to do with treaties, and that the Senate alone was the body with which he was to deal, the Senate alone was the body which had the right to ask of him information, the Senate alone was the body which had the right to share with him the secrets connix-ted with foreign affairs, stated this fact:
It is found in his message. He. said not only was the treatymaking power confided in part to the Senate, but, speaking as he did and as he said, as a member of the convention and familiar with what had been done and said there, he added that there was a very strong effort made not only to require that twothirds of the Senate present should agree to a treaty, but that two-thirds of the entire Senate, whether present or not, should be required before a treaty could be put into effect. There could scarcely be stronger evidence than is found in this his torical fact of the supreme estimate which was placed by the convention of the importance that the Senate should be the con trolling influence in determining whether or not any given treaties should be made with foreign countries.
Mr. President, we have often had cited the fact that Wash ington during his Administration met personally with the Senate to advise as to the making of treaties. He had been present during all the deliberations of that Convention; he was presi dent of the Convention which made the Constitution; he had heard all the deliberations; he had doubtless in personal inter views canvassed this matter and discussed it with members of the Convention, and the fact that he met personally with the Senate, the fact that he conferred personally with the Senate as to the propriety of making treaties before attempting to negotiate them, show what he understood to be the intention of the Convention that the Senate should be not simply the body to say yes or no to the President when he proposed a treaty, but that the Senate should be the adviser of the President whether be should attempt to negotiate a treaty. What possible doubt can there be under such circumstances as to what was his understanding of the purpose and intention of those who framed the Constitution? And what possible doubt can there be that his understanding was correct?
Mr. President, it is true that that practice has been aban doned, so far as concerns the President coming in person to
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stt In a chair on the right of the presiding officer to confer with members of the Senate, as our rules still provide he shall do should he come here personally, showing we recognize the propriety of his coining and his right to come. But nevertheless during my official term it has been the practice of Presidents and Secretaries of State to confer with Senators as to the propriety of negotiating or attempting to negotiate a treaty.
I know in niy own experience that it was the frequent prac tice of Secretary Hay, not simply after a proposed treaty had been negotiated, but before he Jiad ever conferred with the representatives of the foreign power, to seek to have conferences with Senators to know what they thought of such and such a proposition; and, if the subject-matter was a proper matter for negotiation, what Senators thought as to certain provisions; and he advised with them as to what provisions should be incor porated.
I recollect two treaties in particular. One is the general ar bitration treaty. I do not know whether he conferred with all Senators, but I think he did. I think he conferred with every Senator in this Chamber, either in writing or in person, as to the general arbitration treaty. He certainly conferred with me.
Mr. SPOONER. Who did? Mr. BACON. . Mr. Hay. He certainly conferred with me, not only once but several times, and I presume he did the same with other Senators, not simply as to the question whether a treaty should be negotiated, but as to what provisions should be in. corporated in it. I am sorry to say that while agreeing with the purpose in view I could not agree with some of the provisions incorporated in that particular treaty^and he went on and the treaty was formulated with which in all particulars I did not agree. But I am simply speaking of the fact that he conferred with Senators before he formulated a treaty, not simply before the President sent it here, not simply before it was negotiated with Sir Mortimer Durand and the ambassadors of other countries, but before it had been formulated.Then, as to another, I recollect distinctly the Alaskan treaty. Time after time and time after time Mr. Hay, then Secretary of State, conferred with Senators, and, I presume, with all the Senators, as to the propriety of endeavoring to make that treaty and as to the various provisions which should be incor porated in it, recognizing the delicacy of the situation, and the provisions of that treaty were well understood by members of the Senate and approved by members of the Senate before it was ever formulated and submitted to Sir Michael Herbert. But what was Mr. Hay doing in all that time? Was he car rying out the contemplation of the Constitution? Was he en gaged in the performance of a high duty? Was he availing himself of a valuable instrumentality, or was he simply en gaged in the interchange of politeness? Mr. SPOOXER. Will the Senator permit me to make an inquiry of him? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator conceive of no distinction betwesn consultation by the Secretary of State, if he so wills it, with: Senators, and the participation of the Senate as a body, the thing of which, we are sneaking, as a part of the negotiating power?
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Mr. BACON. The Senator leads me to remark what I said to a Senator yesterday, that the Senators mind necessarily works more rapidly than another mans tongue can. The Senator is simply anticipating what I was coming to on that point.
Mr. SPOONER. That is a high tribute to my intelligence. Mr. BACON. On the contrary, I consider it a tribute to me, that the logical sequence of the question is directly where the Senator put it, and that I had been so fortunate as to be going straight in that direction. So I can take it as a compliment to myself. I wfll, however, now take the subject which I was about to discuss otherwise, just in the form in which the Senator puts it, because it is practically the same as that which I had in tended. The Senator asked me this question: Do I draw no distinctinction between the voluntary action of the Secretary of State endeavoring to get the opinion of the Senator or of myself and the act of the Senate seeking I do not know whether I am cor rectly quoting him; if not, the Senator can correct me to proffer to the State Department or to the President advice unasked? Is that the question? Mr. SPOONER. Well, yes; substantially Mr. BACON. That is the way I understood it. Mr. SPOONER. Although I want the Senator to understand that I have not questioned the right of the Senate Mr. BACON. I know; but the Senator asked me a question. Let us discuss that afterwards. Mr. SPOONER. To offer its advice, either-in public or in private. Mr. BACON. I do not understand the Senators question. Mr. SPOONER. The question I put to the Senator was this: If he did not recognize a distinction, from the standpoint of the matter of constitutional power, between the President leave out the Secretary of State asking individual Senators their judgment as to a proposed treaty, and his inviting the Senate as a body, or individual Senators volunteering to the President their advice as to a proposed negotiation, and the action of the body as a body volunteering their advice, especially if they asserted the right to do so? Mr. BACON. Well, I will answer the Senator definitely. I do not recognize the distinction, and I will tell him the reason why. When the President or the Secretary of State either say, the President, to simplify it asks a Senator what he thinks about the proposition to negotiate such and such a treaty, and what he thinks as to the specific terms to be incorporated in that treaty, he does not ask that Senator that question as he asks Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith, whom he happens to meet upon the Avenue, in order that he may have the advantage of advice and assistance from a man in whose intellectual processes and capacity he has confidence, but he asks him because of the fact that the Constitution of the United States makes the Senator his adviser, his constitutional, official adviser and counselor in the making of treaties* Now, Mr.. President, if that is true, ie that advice something which the President I>jt8 exclusively within his control? Is it
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something which he can ask, and which he alone can get the benefit of in case he does ask, or is it a great constitutional provision which makes it a reciprocal right for a common benefit?
Can it be said that while it is proper for Senators or the Sen ate to respond when advice is asked, it is improper, under the <:onstltrtional provision, to volunteer such advice? It is un doubtedly true that the President alone determines whether he will approve and act upon the advice of the Senate, just as the Senate determines whether it will or will not approve a pro posed treaty. But can it be contended that the Senate, al though the constitutional adviser of the President, can only give advice when asked for it, and that it is an intrusion to proffer It when thus not asked for it? Where is the warrant in the Constitution for such contention? That it has not been so recog nized by the President or by the Senate is shown by the fact that it has frequently happened that resolutions have frequently been passed by the Senate informing the President that the Senate would approve a treaty for a given purpose. Can it be said that while proper to thus notify the President, in advance, of what the Senate would approve in a treaty, it is improper to notify him also, in advance, of what It deprecates, if it is pro posed to embody it in a treaty ? Can it be proper for the Senate to offer advice or counsel to the President as to the policy or impolicy of a proposed treaty, and at the same time improper to ask for the information upon which to base such advice or counsel? Where is the logic of such a contention?
Again, can it be proper to advise the President as to the de sirability and policy of negotiating a treaty where he has not taken any action relative thereto and where the suggestion originates with the Senate, and on the other hand be improper to advise him of the nndesirahility and impolicy in the opinion of the Senate, in a case where it is reliably learned through other sources that he has begun to take or has taken action rela tive thereto? Where does the Senate get power to amend a treaty if its authority is limited to consenting to what the President has done? When the Senate has amended a pro posed treaty and the President thereafter submits the amend ment to the foreign power for its consideration, has not the Sen ate taken part in the negotiation of that treaty?
If the contention is correct that the jurisdiction and power of the Senate do not begin until the proposed treaty is sent to the Senate, then none of these things are proper, and to make an inquiry of the President relative to a proposed treaty is an intrusion upon his exclusive jurisdiction. If the contention is correct, it matters not what may be the well-understood purpose of an Executive in negotiating a treaty or in sending delegates to a conference, the Senate is dumb until it receives a proposed treaty. It may be, as forcefully suggested by the Senator from Maine [Mr. HALE] a few days ago, that the proceeding tends inevitably to war, and yet it will be an intrusion for the Senate to even make an inquiry of the Executive concerning the same.
Again, the Executive may, without ever sending any proposed treaty to the Senate, continue to send delegates to European international political conferences, and in time practically de- s stroy our recognition of the long-established doctrine of non-^

20
entanglement by us In such disputes. After having taken an active part by our delegates in the Algeciras conference, no proposed treaty may be submitted to the Senate. Nor is that all in sight. We are told in the press dispatches that European questions concerning the Balkan States are again becoming acute; that there is great tension, and that another European war cloud is gathering in the East Doubtless there will be another conference to deal with that situation and determine the relative rights and powers of the war lords of Europe. To that, according to the new doctrine, it will again be in order to send delegates from the United States. And after having taken an active part in the deliberations of the conference, again no proposed treaty may be sent to the Senate. And although in attending each of these conferences by our delegates tremendous strides will have been taken in establishing precedents and in destroying the doctrine of an hundred years against entangle ments in European international disputes, still in the absence of any proposed treaty submitted, the Senate must be dumb, and it is an intrusion to even make an inquiry of the President in the interest of the preservation of the cherished policies of our country. Mr. President, I can not subscribe to such a doctrine.
It seems to be somewhat remarkable that there should be such extreme sensitiveness about the Senate assuming to advise as to the " negotiation " of a treaty, when it seems to be entirely proper for " advice " to be given by the President to Senators as to how they should vote on the question of the ratification of a treaty.
Mr. SPOONBR. If the Senator will permit me, does he think if the President asked a Senators advice as to whether a treaty should be negotiated or not, the Senator is under any constitu tional duty to give it, or would be committing a breach of Sen atorial duty if he declined to advise in advance?
Mr. BACON. If the Senator declined? Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator declined. The Senator speaks of reciprocal rights. He says the President has the right to ask a Senator for his advice as to whether any foreign policy shall or shall not be pursued in the matter of negotiating a treaty. To test that, does the Senator think if the President has a right to ask it Mr. BACON. Ask the question now. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator, I should think, ought to have a reciprocal duty to answer. Mr. BACON. I think so, undoubtedly. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator think the Senator is obliged to answer? Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly he may not be able to give it. He may say, " I have not the information; I have not made up my mind." But for the Senator to say, " I have an opinion, but I will not give it to you," would, in my opinion, be a con travention of his constitutional duty. There is but one possible ground upon which a Senator could base any such refusal, and that is, if he were to say (and I do not think he would be cor rect in that), "I recognize that this is an act which should be performed by the Senate as an organized body and not by myself in my official individual capacity, and therefore I de cline to give any individual opinion." That is the only ground upon which he could put it, and I do not think that would be a correct ground.
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Mr. SPOOLER. Would it not be an eminently proper and wise ground for the Senator to take that the people were en titled to his independent judgment on the question as to whether a treaty should be ratified or not by the Senate after it had been negotiated and submitted to the Senate?
Mr. BACON. I ask the Senator to please repeat his question. Mr. SPOONER. Would it not be entirely proper and wise and almost a duty for a Senator to say, " I decline to commit myself as a Senator in advance to a proposed treaty. I prefer to wait until the power of negotiation, which the Constitution lodges in the President, shall have been put forth and the Sen ate is in possession of the instrument, so that I can read it, study it, have the advantage of debate upon it among my asso ciates, and then give to it the independent judgment to which the people are entitled from every Senator? " I doubt myself, and I have had some experience, the wisdom of a Senator committing himself blindly to a foreign policy, to end in the negotiation of a treaty, to find himself later, when the negotiation is ended and the document is laid befpre the Sen ate, halfway (which with an honorable man means a great way) committed, and committed too early and too hastily. Mr. BACON. The Senator asks me a question and proceeds to argue it. Mr. SPOONER. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. BACON. No, the Senator need not do that, and he knows it. But I said that for a purpose. I was so much in terested in the Senators argument, I am not sure that I have his question exactly formulated in my mind, and therefore I ask the Senator to repeat it. Mr. SPOONER. My question was as to whether if the Presi dent asks a Senator his advice as to a- negotiation : Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will just give me the ques tion. Mr. SPOONER. Does the Senator consider It the constitu tional duty of a Senator to give advice? Mr. BACON. Is that the Senators question? Mr. SPOONER. That was the question, Mr. BACON. I answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator from Ohio will pardon me. The Senator from Wisconsin asked me a question and he then argued It. He has asked it again, and I am trying to reply to it. I shall with the greatest of pleasure yield to the Senator after wards, but I hope he will permit me to answer the Senator from Wisconsin. The Senator asks me the abstract question whether or not I consider it to be the constitutional duty of a Senator to give ad vice to the President as to the propriety of the making of a treaty before it has been sent to the Senate. I answer in the affirmative. The Senator goes on to say that no Senator ought to give blindly his advice. I quite agree with him, as I have intimated before. A Senator may decline to give the advice upon the ground that he has not had the proper time for making up his mind satisfactorily to himself, or for other good reason. But, Mr. President, advice means also counsel. Advice means more than giving simply the statement of what the Senator thinks ought to be done. It means counsel; and, therefore, while the Senator might say to the President, ".I am not in a position
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to nuike up my mind definitely as to what ought to be done," the President would then proceed to counsel with him and sug-. gest such and such a condition of affairs and such and such remedies which might be applied, with a view to arriving at a conclusion as to what would be the proper thing to do. Then, I say if the Senator would turn his back on the President and say, " I decline to counsel with you or to hear your suggestion or to confer with you as to what is the proper thing to be done," while, of course, it would be a matter of conscience for each Senator, from my point of view the Senator would be derelict In so doing. Now I will hear the Senator from Ohio.
Mr. FORAKER. The Senator has gone by what he was talk ing about when I rose a moment ago.
Mr. BACON. I beg the Senators pardon. Mr. FORAKEK. But what I had in mind to ask him I can ask now, if he is courteous enough to yield. The Senator was speaking of the individual responsibility of Senators. I under stood him to say that each individual Senator, if called upon by the President for his advice with respect to a treaty he was negotiating, was under a constitutional obligation and duty torespond and give to the President his advice. I wanted to ask the Senator whether or not he thought, that being the case, it would be a good excuse for a Senator to answer that he had opinions which, under other circumstances, he might be willing to give him the benefit of, but he was bound by the order of the party caucus not to advise him on that subject. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I do not know of anyone who is in a better position to propound that inquiry or to answer it than the Senator from Ohio. Mr. FORAKER. Why so, may I asfe? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, I do not want to be too personal, and I will not say " the Senator from Ohio." I will take that back. But I do say there arc Senators on the other side of the Chamber who aze in an admirable position to propound and answer that inquiry, for to my certain knowledge, for reasons which are satisfactory to them? and persuasions \vhich are sufficiently forceful, they would be in exactly the same position when the President asked advice of them, because under such persuasions and such forceful influences they have some of them, not all of them given their adhesion to measures of which they did not personally approve. Mr. FORAKER. The Senator will allow me to say that dur ing all my service here I have never been bound by the action of my party in caucus, because it has never held a caucus. We have conferences, in which we exchange our views, but no man is bound by the action of a conference. I have been in confer ences and then I have gone out and differed on the floor of the Senate from what a majority of the Senators attending the conference saw fit to agree upon. Mr. BACON. In some few instances, that is a fact. Mr. FORAKER. So far as treaties are concerned, there has never been a caucus during all my service here until last SatuMay by either party, so far as I am aware. Mr. BACON. Now, Mr. President, I am not going to antici pate what is going to be a very interesting performance to-mor row, if we are correctly informed, and I would dislike ex tremely, by any suggestion of mine or by being led away into
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23 the very attractive field to which the Senator Invites me, to deprive the expectant public of what is to he given them to morrow. _
I will simply say this, however, in response to the Sena tor, and then I hope we may pretermit until to-morrow the fur ther consideration of these very Interesting developments. I believe it to be strictly true, as the Senator says, that the Republican Senators have never had a binding conference or a binding caucus, but I believe it is equally true that they have never had one simply because- they have that which is very much more persuasive, very much more constraining, very much more binding, very much more coercive than the order of a caucus. Now, what that persuasive and constraining and coer cive influeace is I will wait until to-morrow for somebody to tell the honorable Senator.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Will t]je Senator from Georgia per mit me ?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana?
Mr. BACON. Is it on the same line? If it is on that line it would be better to wait until to-morrow.
Mr. BEVKKIDGE. Very well. Mr. BACON. I want to resume my argument. Mr. BEVKKIDGE. Upon the subject of treaties, did either party ever take any action of any kind as a party? Mr. BACON. Well, Ml1. President, if Senators on that side of the Chamber, or any of them, are led by any other reason than their own judgment to support a treaty; if any of these persuasive and binding and - coercive influences to which I have thus somewhat occultly alluded have induced Senators to vote otherwise than their judgment would dictate, then, by suggestion at least, they fall under the condemnation of the Senator from Indiana. Mr. FORAKER. I was about to ask the Senator if he would not Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will reserve his ajnmunition until to-morrow. Mr. FORAKER. If he would not excuse me from the appli cation of the rule he has just been propounding? Mr. BACON. I will, as a matter of friendship. [.Laughter.] Mr. FORAKER. Will you not do so in view of the record? Mr. BACON. No, Mr. President; not now. I am going to hasten on. This is all very pleasant, and I would do the best I could I do not know how good that might be to meet the suggestions and pleasantries of the honorable Senators on the other side, but for the fact that I feel it due to those who are to be the star performers to-morrow that nothing should be now anticipated by me on that line. [At this point the Vice-President announced the close of the morning hour, and, by unanimous consent, the unfinished busi ness was temporarily laid aside.] Mr. BACON. Now, Mr. President, I am not certain whether I had fully answered the inquiry of the Senator from Wiscon sin [Mr. SPOONER] or not. He is present, and if I have not I hope he will call my attention to it. My attention has been so diverted I am really not certain whether I completely re plied to his interrogatory. But before leaving it I wish to say
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in a general way that according to my view of the treatymaking power, of the duty of the President, and of the duty of the Senate, it is a reciprocal and a common duty, one in which each has the advantage of the services of the other, one in which there is, perhaps, no compulsion, one in which each can defeat the work of the other, one in which the cooperation and com bination of the two from the inception to the end is necessary in order to fully comply with the intention and design of the Constitution makers in this regard.
The Senator from Wisconsin, in order to accentuate and em phasize the fact that the President of the United States sat away up on a pedestal above us in all matters which related to treaty making, except the simple matter, as he himself ex pressed it, of " ratification," because he translates the words " advice and consent" as meaning in the common parlance " ratification," the Senator, I say, in order to emphasize that fact, goes further, and in the clauses of his speech which I have already read he puts up as the supreme power, the supreme con troller in all foreign affairs, the President of the United States. The President, according to the Senator from Wisconsin, in all of our foreign affairs is supreme. And, Mr. President, he lays down the proposition with much emphasis, and says that that is I am not quotin* the words now, but the substance practi cally conceded by e^ery man who has ever studied the Consti tution. He asserts this so broadly and so emphatically that for one to assert the contrary is to recognize in advance that in so doing he, according to the Senator, puts himself out of the pale and class of reputable lawyers. Yet, Mr. President, at the risk of being thus debarred, I want to analyze a little bit the powers conferred by the Constitution with reference to foreign affairs, and see whether they rest with the President alone or whether, in the main, they rest with Congress, and with the Senate in conjunction with the President.
It is true, Mr. President, that in the countries antedating our Government the executive, who was almost universally a king I believe little Switzerland was the only exception at that time, and I am not sure that it was at that time, because it has had varying fortunes, and I have forgotten whether at that partic ular time it was a republic or not but almost universally the executive of a nation was a king, and he did ha^e, among other kingly powers, all control over foreign affairs. But, Mr. Presi dent, when our Constitution came to be framed there was par ticularly and definitely withheld from the executive every im portant foreign function, according to my view of it. 1 know in one particular the Senator differs from me, but in all others he will agree. It took away from the Kxecutive, with the ex ception of the treaty-making power, all power over foreign affairs. It made him, in the language the Senator used the other day, the organ of intercommunication with foreign na tions. It made hitn the spokesman for the Government. It made him the person to discuss with foreign governments, to make demands, if jfou please, on foreign governments, to guard so far as watchfulness goes, the interest of our country and of our citizens in foreign lands. But when it came to action, when it came to the power to do anything, that power was expressly conferred upon Congress, or upon the President in conjunction with the Senate.
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What is the most important of all foreign relations? Why, the most important of all foreign relations is the relation of peace and war. Can the President declare war? Can the President ^jprevent a declaration of war? The President not only can not declare war, and it is not only conferred in terms upon Congress, but even if the President should be opposed to a proposed war, two-thirds of each Branch can declare war. It would not require his approval. There is the most important of all foreign relations. It does not belong to the President. Nor can the President alone make peace. He can only do so with the cooperation of the Senate.
The question of commerce is certainly an Important matter of relation between two countries, and yet the President has no power over commerce with foreign nations. The power to regu late commerce is not simply withheld from the President, but it is expressly conferred upon Congress; and the subsidiary question as to what shall be the terms upon which the mer chandise of a foreign country shall come to this country is a question largely important in foreign relations, and is one over which the President of the United States has no power. It belongs-, under the Constitution, to the lawmaking power; and that lawmaking power can be exercised by Congress not only without the consent of the President, but over his objection.
The terms upon which foreign ships shall be allowed to enter our ports or do business with us is an important one in our foreign relations, but the power to fix and determine them is altogether with Congress.
The question as to whether or not citizens of another country shall be allowed to come to this country, and if so, upon what terms, is an important question of foreign relations; and yet, the President has no power to control it. It is a question esclusively within the lawmaking power. The question whether this country will permit any of a certain nationality to come at all to this country is a question not with the President, but a question with the lawmaking power.
Nay, sir, the question whether this Government will hold any relations with a foreign country is a question with Congress. It is entirely within the competency of Congress to pass a law that no citizen of a given country shall come to this country, that no goods shall be received from it, that no merchandise shall go from this country to it, that no letters shall come from it, that there shall be no intercommunication of any kind what ever. Who doubts the power of Congress to do so?
In other words, it is within the power of Congress to abso lutely sunder the relations between this country and any given foreign country. When that is said the whole thing is said; when that is said the whole argument is exhausted as to where rests the supreme power in foreign affairs, because the whole must include every part. If it is within the power of Congress to absolutely sunder all relations of every kind, commercial, social, political, diplomatic, and of every other nature, it is cer tainly within the power of Congress to regulate, and .control every question subsidiary to that and included within it. Congress and not the President is supreme under the Constitu tion in the control of our foreign affairs.
Now, Mr. President, there is but one question about which there is even any controversy as to the power of the President
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over foreign relations, and that is the one about which.the Sen ator and myself have differed for years, and about wliich I pre"sume we will continue to differ. It is as to the right of the President of the United States to finally recognize or finally refuse to recognize the independence of a revolutionary or rebel lious country.
Of course, time does not permit me now to discuss that ques tion at length. I have heretofore discussed it in the Senate, and while I am not very fond of labor, if the time shall ever come when that question is per se discussed, I shall endeavor to take my part in it. for it is a most interesting arid important question. It is a matter to me of the strongest and most abso lute conviction as a legal proposition. Of course, I do not ques tion at all that where it is a question as to what is the de facto government in a fully independent country, that is a question which is practically determined by the President of the United States in the recognition of diplomatic relations, but where a country is in a condition of rebellion, which has asserted its independence and is endeavoring to establish its independence, and where the parent country is denying its independence and is by the force of arms endeavoring to put down the rebellion or the insurrection, to say that the President of the United States solely and alone can determine finally that question for this country, and that Congress has no power over it, is a mat ter to me absolutely without the domain of logic. I say in every act of that kind, the supreme power, the final power of decision, is with Congress, the lawmaking power, and whatever is done by the executive department in that regard is necessarily subject to the revision and control and reversal of the lawmaking power.
Why, Mr. President, we have seen in the papers that a prov ince of Russia some month or two ago rebelled and set up an independent government, or, rather, professed to do so. We have heard nothing of it lately. I presume it has been sup pressed. Suppose in a case of that kind, not this President, but any President, had taken upon himself to say, " I recognize that province as an independent government." To claim that that would have been a final, conclusive act? on the part of the Government of the United States, and that Congress would in such case have no right or power to reverse the decision and save the country from war with Russia, is something; to me, I say, beyond the possibility of comprehension. But I will not go into that argument now, because I know I would necessarily enter upon a field which in itself would be larger really, or as large, as the main one upon which I am now engaged in this discussion.
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McCuMBEB in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wis consin?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. SPOONER. The Constitution gives to the President the power to receive ambassadors and ministers. Does the Sena tor think that the action of the President in the exercise of that function is subject to the control of Congress? Mr. BACON. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that Congress, in such a case as I have just mentioned, could
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pass a law and send that ambassador back to the country from which tf& came.
Mr. SPOONER. What sort of a law would that be? I am not talking now about declaring war or severing diplomatic relations.
Mr. BACON. It can be done that way. Mr. SPOONER. What sort of an act would be that instruc tion to the President to send the ambassador back? Mr. BACON. I do not suppose that the President would need any instruction more than the law. Mr. SPOONER. But what law? Mr. BACON. The act Mr. SPOONER. What form of law? Mr. BACON. The act which should be passed by Congress. Mr. SPOOKEK. What would be the form of such a law in a general way? Mr. BACON. Simply to say we would not have an ambassa dor at all from that country, because we did not recognize it as an independent country. That is the act of Congress I have in mind when I say it would control the President and reverse his decision recognizing that province as an independent nation. Now, as to whether or not Congress should say to the Presi dent of the United States, You must not receive John Jones, or William Smith, or any other particular man from any particular country. Of course nobody contends Congress could do that. That is not the question at all. It is the question whether in the case where a country, 3r part of a country In rebellion to the mother country sets up a professed or pretended independent government and sends an ambassador to this country, the recep tion by the President of the United States of that ambassador ,is a conclusive and final determination on the part of the Government of the United States that henceforth there shall be no question but what that is an independent country so far as the recognition of this country is concerned. My reply to the Senator is that if such an ambassador were sent, Congress; would have it within its power to pass a law that it would not recognize that country as an independent country, and that it would continue as in t]ie past to recognize it as a part of Russia, for instance, and when that law was passed it would be the duty of the President to give that ambassador his pass ports and no longer recognize him or any other as an ambas sador from that pretended government. Mr. MALLORY. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Florida? Mr. RACON. Certainly. Mr. MALLORY. In the event that the President receives the ambassador or minister and Congress takes no action to re scind tUe action taken by the President or to contradict it, would not that ambassador be an ambassador from that country to the United States? Mr. BACON. I think so, undoubtedly. Mr. MALLORY. In every sense of the word? Mr. BACON. I think so, undoubtedly. Mr. MALLORY. Then until Congress does take action it Is conclusive. Mr. BACON. I think it is upon all other departments of the Government. It has been so decided by the Supreme Court of
6SG8

28
the United States. I have no question about that whatever. I am speaking about the ultimate power, the ultimate control, and that alone.
The fact that Congress can for any reason that is deemed by It sufficient, absolutely sunder and destroy all relations, includ ing relations diplomatic, commercial, and all others, with any other country or government, old or young, is a complete dem onstration of the power of Congress to reverse any decision and action that the President might take in recognizing as an independent nation a part of a country still engaged in a strug gle to secure its independence from the government to which it had theret6fore been in allegiance or subjection. What logical escape there can be from the conclusiveness of that propo sition I can not see. The recognition of the independence of a people, with all of the consequences which may flow from such recognition, is necessarily an act of the highest sovereignty. Mr. Seward, when Secretary of State, and when that question was a most vital one to the United States, used this language in a letter addressed to Mr. Adams, then minister to England:
To recognize the independence of a new state, and so favor, possibly determine, its admission into the family of nations, is the highest pos sible exercise of sovereign power, because it affects in every case the welfare of two nations anfl often the peace of the world.
The prerogative to determine upon the exercise of this highest possible sovereign power belongs properly and necessarily to that authority in the State which in its constitutional functions most fully represents its sovereignty. That authority in this Government is the law-making power. The Government in its entirety, is the sovereignty. But the Constitution has invested Congress with almost all of the prerogatives of that sovereignty.
To my mind it is inconceivable that upon the claim of an implied power in the Constitution there can be vested the con tention that this " highest possible exercise of sovereign power " has been reposed in the President alone and finally, when the same Constitution requires the approval of the Senate before he can appoint to a foreign country an ambassador or even a consul.
It is not pretended that there is any express grant of power in the Constitution to the President to recognize *he independence of a new nation. It is claimed that this final and conclusive power is given to him by implication in a single line of the Con stitution. That line is as follows :
He shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers.
Now, let me read for the benefit of my distinguished and learned friend the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONEB] something that Mr. Hamilton said on that subject. The Sena tor will of course remember that at the time the Constitution of the United States was under consideration by the various States as to whether or not they should adopt it, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison wrote a number of letters advocating the adoption of the Constitution, and Mr. Hamilton, in one of his letters the letter numbered 69 said this:
The President is also to be authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. This, though It has been a rich theme of declamation, is more a matter of dignity than of authority. It is a circumstance which will be without consequence in the administration of the Government; and it was far more convenient that it should be arranged In this manner than that there should be a necessity of con-
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29
vening the legislature, or one of its branches, upon every arrival of a foreign minister, though it were merely to take the place of a departed predecessor.
There was no man from whom that could come with more force thatf from Mr. Hamilton, because he was the great advo cate of the concentration of power in the hands of the Executive. He even wanted the President to have the power to appoint the governors of the States. It is true that later Mr. Hamilton reversed his position and announced the doctrine that the power given to the President to receive ambassadors, etc., implied the power to recognize the independence of a new nation; and to that utterance by him Mr. Madison made and published a reply in No. 3 of his letters, signed Helvidius, of which the following is a part: . ,
Had it teen foretold In the year 1788, when this work (the Federalist) was published, that before the end of the year 1793 a writer, assuming the merit of being a friend of the Constitution, would appear and gravely maintain that this function, which was to be without con sequence in the administration of the Government, might have the consequence of deciding on the validity of revolutions in favor of lib erty, " of putting the United States in a condition (o become an asso ciate in war " nay, of laying the Legislature under an, obligation of declaring war " what would have been thought and said of so visionary a prophet ? The moderate opponent of the Constitution would probably have disowned his extravagance. By the advocates of the Constitution his prediction must have been treated as an experiment on public credulity, dictated either by a deliberate intention to deceive or by the overflowings of a zeal too intemperate to be ingenuous.
But this question as to the right of the President to finally determine the question of the independence of a new nation is only incidental to the real question I am endeavoring to discuss to-day, and I can not discuss it fully in this connection, inviting as it is. I have discussed it at length heretofore in the Senate, as the Senator knows. I am now speaking as to the power of the President over our foreign affairs, and I am endeavoring to show that there is not a single important function, a single important power, saving only the pardoning power, that has been given by the Constitution to the President of the United States to be exercised by him alone, unless this implied power for which the Senator from Wisconsin contends is amongst them; and that as to all others, they have been withheld from the President of the United States and have been expressly conferred upon Congress, or upon the President in conjunction with the Senate.
If we concede the contention of the Senator from Wisconsin that the recognition of the independence of a State is a power, the ultimate exercise and the highest exercise of which is in the President of the United States, it is no answer, even with that one exception, to the general proposition that the President of the United States has no such great power, so supreme and ex clusive a power and control over foreign affairs, as to illustrate and emphasize the proposition that he has similar power, such supreme and uncontrolled and uncontrollable power In the making of treaties as that when the Senate of the United States makes an inquiry as to what is proposed to be done in regard to a treaty, the reply could be given, in the language of the Senator from Wisconsin, that the President of the United States exer cises his power in the matter of treaties, under neither "the tutelage nor the guardianship of the Senate."
Mr. President, not only in the matter of foreign affairs, but in all other matters, in all other powers, the design of the mak-

30
rs of the Constitution was that there should be no supreme and royal powers in the President of the United States. The fight out of which they had just emerged was to rid themselves of one-man power, and when they came to frame the Consti tution they did not intend to confer any absolute power upon any one man. The only reason that they provided for a Presi dent at all was that in the nature of things somebody to execute the law was deemed to be necessary.
In all the enumeration of the powers of the President, he has the appointment of officers and the making, in conjunction with the Senate, of treaties. Outside of that substantially his whole power is embraced in one half line " he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." There is his great office, and that is what the Constitution intended should be bis great func tion. " He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Outside of that, Mr. President, his power is a bagatelle. Out side of that, and the treaty-making power, and the appointing power, it is a bagatelle. He is, as stated by the Senator in his speech, the organ of communication with foreign govern ments ; but his great function, that which gives dignity and power to his office, is that he is to execute the laws.
But the Constitution has invested Congress with almost all the prerogatives of sovereignty. The broad, unlimited, and exclusive grant of all legislative powers under the Constitution, without more, carries with it the larger and most important part of the powers of sovereignty. But the enumeration in the Constitution of the powers of Congress goes further, conferring upon it, among others, the powers
To lay and collect taxes. To provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. To regulate commerce with foreign nations. To coin money and regulate the value thereof. To define and punish offenses against the law of nations. To declare war. To raise and support armies. To provide and maintain a navy. To suppress insurrections and repel Invasions.
Each of these, besides others of which I have omitted to make mention, is a distinct power of sovereignty the powers which kings with sovereign power personally wield; and in addition thereto after enumerating these moat sovereign powers, there is the following comprehensive grant of powef to Congress:
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying Into execution the foregoing powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
By this not only is Congress clothed generally with all power of legislation necessary to carry into effect all the powers granted to Congress, but Congress is further and exclusively vested with the power to make any and all laws necessary and proper for the execution of any of the powers of the Govern ment of the United States and of any Department of the Gov ernment, including both the executive and* judicial depart ments. Mr. President, when to these great powers is joined the power to impeach and remove from office any officer of the Government, from the President to the lowest civil officer, little could be added to completely invest Congress with every attri bute of the sovereignty of the Government.
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Compared to this great array of sovereign powers granted to Congress, those conferred upon the President present a most striking contrast. He is clothed with the great power "and re sponsibility of the execution of the laws, but beyond this the only prerogative of sovereignty with which he is exclusively invested is the itordoning power, and even that is denied to him in cases of impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.
We have passed by more than two hundred years the period in the history of our race when one man could assume and ex ercise the power to determine, independently of the legislative department, what should be, ,even in part, the laws of the Gov ernment. The framers of the Constitution stood nearer by a hundred years than we do to the time when a King sought to rule without Parliament and -in" defiance of Parliament; when he souglit to take to himself all the powers of government and set, at naught the laws of the countrys constitutional legis lators. The great and wise men who framed out fundamental law stood in the century next removed.from that which had witnessed the culmination of that great struggle from the events of which they gathered the lesson that the material in terests and the liberties of a people are safest when the great powers of government are lodged not in the control of one man, of whatever title or office, but in the hands of their elected representatives.
They had learned from it that one man invested with such powers was quick to consider his own fortunes and the for tunes of his favorites of more consequence than the pros perity of the whole people. They were taught by that history to fear that one so girt with power would grow great in his own conceit; that he would attempt to draw to himeslf all the authority of Government, and that not only one born to the kingly office, but also one who held but temporarily the elective office of President, might come to think himself compassed with
The divinity that doth hedge a king. - While they hoped that only good and wise men would be chosen to that high office, they forgot not the frailties of the weak nor the grasping ambitions of the strong. They guarded against the worst. They designed that in the hands of a weak Executive the Government should not fail, and that in the hands of one strong, self-willed, and ambitious there should not be imperiled the free institutions which they sought to establish. Therefore, while they created a great and noble office, one within its legitimate sphere the greatest and noblest of all the earth, they designed that its greatness and nobility should not con sist in the arbitrary powers of the kingly office. The greatness of the Presidential office does not consist in his will being the law to 80,000,000 people, but in the fact that the President in himself personifies the will of a great and free people as that will is expressed by them through another de partment of the Government. No man can shut his eyes to the fact that to that end, while they invested the President with all the great dignity and power of the Executive office, they care fully withheld from him ttie grant of the powers of sovereignty. Every po,wer given to him was most carefully restricted and guarded.
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While they gave him the power of the veto, they gave the

Congress the power to override his veto by a. two-thirds vote

of each House.

While they gave him the power to make treaties with for

eign nations, by and with the advice of the Senate, they re

fused to him the power to make such treaties without their

sanction.

They gave him power to pardon those convicted of crime,

but denied to him the power to pardon in cases of impeach

ment

They gave him the power to appoint all civil officers, but ex

cept temporarily, when Congress is not in session, such appoint

ments are of no validity until confirmed by the Senate.

They made him Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,

but they left it to Congress to determine what should he the

size and constitution of the Army and Navy, and whether there

should be any Army and Navy. They denied him the. power to

appoint a single officer of either the Army or the Navy, from the

commanding officers to the lowest subalterns, unless each of

such appointments should receive the confirmation of the Sen

ate. They gave him no power to equip and maintain either

Army or Navy for a day. They gave him no power to make

war, nor can he of himself conclude peace. The power to make

rules for the government and regulation of the Army and Navy

i denied to him and is expressly conferred upon Congress. It

is evident that as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy

he is but the Executive arm, and that in that capacity he is

himself, in every detail and particular, subject to the commands

of the lawmuking power.

Finally, they made the Chief Executive, as well as every

other civil officer, from the head of the Cabinet to the most ob

scure civil official, subject to trial and removal from office, with

out appeal, upon impeachment by the House and conviction by

the Senate a power, in much conservatism and wisdom, but

seldom exercised, but nevertheless a power, resting.as it does,

without denned limits as to what shall be deemed a high crime

or misdemeanor, almost exclusively in the discretion of the

House and Senate, which is the great safeguard against en

croachment and official misconduct.

"

Mr. President, the fact is not to be disguised that the actual

exercise of power by the executive branch of the Government

in this day far exceeds the bounds originally contemplated for

it by the Constitution. The correspondence in relative position

of a president in a republic, and of a king in a monarchy: the

glamour of a great office in which one man among 80,000,000 is

chosen as the sole head of a great department of the Govern

ment, while in the other departments the honors are divided

among many; the gigantic measure of patronage and removal,

where he seems to have unlimited power to bestow, or to with

hold, or to take away these and other influences combine to

elevate in the popular mind the prerogatives of<he President

far above the point designed for them in the Constitution.

It is a remarkable fact that in England, a monarchy, the con

stant progress has been toward restraint of executive power

and the enlargement of the power of the legislative branch of

the Government, until now practically all political power is in

the control of the elected representatives of the people. It is

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a fact still more remarkable that in the United States,"de signed distinctively as a representative republic, there has been a no less steady progress in the direction of the absorption of power by the Executive and of its practical surrender by Con gress. >

Mr. President, Senators are concerned and solicitous about the alleged encroachment of the legislative branch, or of the Senate in its executive capacity, upon the powers of the Exec utive ; but it seems to me there is very much more reason why they should be concerned about the invasion by the executive department of the power conferred in the very first sentence of the -Constitution of the United States. What is that first sen tence, found in Article I, section 1?

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Rep resentatives.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Will the Senator permit me to interrupt him right .there?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana?
Mr. BACON. I will yield; but I want to comment upon what I have just read.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. It is merely to call the attention of the Senator to the first section of Article 2 of the Constitution, which says that

The executive Power shall be vested In a President of the United

States of America.

^

Mr. BACON. Who doubts that? Mr. BEVERIDGE. Nobody doubts it; but the^ Senator is arguing against it. Mr. BACON. No; I am not. Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator said the President had uo other power than a limited treaty-making power and the power to see that the laws were faithfully executed. Mr. BACON. I consider that latter an executive power. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Certainly it is one of the executive powers; but does the Senator say it is all of the executive power? Mr. BACON. I say that is the generic meaning of the word " executive." The Senator has diverted me from what I was saying. I want to go back. I will say to the honorable Senator that, when I have finished, ff he desires to revert to that branch of the argument, I will return to it with pleasure, provided the Senate has the patience and can be induced to listen to it. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I regret that I diverted the Senator. I merely wanted to place immediately parallel with his statement about the legislative powers being vested in Congress, which no body denies, the statement that the executive power is vested in the President of the United States, which nobody denies; and that " executive " powers include the power to make trea ties, so that anything said in the Constitution about the making of treaties is not so much the conferring of power as the limita tion of power. If nothing had been said about treaties in the Constitution the power to make them, absolute and unlimited, would have been in the President under the grant to him of
" executive " powers, would it not?

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34
Mr. BACON. I will not stop to discuss that matter now. I confess that I can not see the pertinency of the Senators sug gestion. If he will permit me to proceed I will simply say to him that the word " executive" conies from the verb " to execute," and it means one who is to execute the laws of the government. He is an executive officer and not a legislative officer. I have just read this section of the Constitution, and I read it again after the interruption in order that it may be in proper connection.
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Is that the law to-day? It is the law on the book, but who will say that the legislative power of this Government is exer cised in the two branches of Congress? Who does not know that the most influential part of the legislative power of the Government is at the other end of the Avenue in the White House? I am not speaking only of the present occupant, although I think he is doing his full share of it; but it has been so in all Administrations in greater or less degree within a generation. The Executive has encroached continuously upon the legislative branch of the Government, and it has never been more pronounced in its encroachment than it is to-day.
Why, the time was when one who desired legislation by Con gress came to Congress, and with proper or improper means, if you please certainly with proper means endeavored to influ ence Congress in the enactment of certain legislation. How is it to-day? Who is it that wants legislation who comes to the House of Representatives or to the Senate? We see every day in the newspapers accounts of pilgrimages to the White House for the purpose of securing legislation; we see every day in the newspapers forecasts as to whether or not such and such legis lation will be passed or can not be passed, according as it may be announced that it will receive the support or the active oppo sition of the Executive. Absolutely, Mr. President, I saw within the past few days an explanation given that the stock market had gone or up or down I have forgotten which in conse quence of the announcement of the position of the Executive as to a proposed piece of legislation which woulSl affect prices. And I have seen statements in the papers that Members of Con gress had gone to the White House to solicit the aid of the President to secure the passage of certain desired legislation. Mores the pity!
Well, Mr. President, as I say, it is not only this President, nor the last one, nor the one before, but it has been going on and increasing for more than a generation. It is better that Senators and Representatives should concern themselves about the question as to whether or not their own prerogatives and rights and powers are being encroached upon rather than be supersensitive as to whether or not in the assertion of our own powers we may be overstepping the mark. Of course, we ought not to transgress the limits set to our" powers by Con stitution, not by a hairs breadth, but our particular and special duty is to preserve and protect against encroachment our own rights and our own powers in this matter.
Mr. President, the time will come, if this thing continues and increases, when the question of the attitude of Senators and
6568

Representatives with reference to any proposed legislation will

not be an important matter, anil when it will he well under

stood that such and such legislation is to be enacted or defeated,

as the case may be, regardless of the personal views o Sen

ators and Representatives. When that time comes members

of each House will cease to discuss measures, because of the ab

solute uselessness of it. Only "Administration measures " will

be enacted, and none others will be attempted from very hope

lessness.

Mr. President, I recall an incident in my own experience. I

once visited a country which was nominally a republic, and,

being interested in legislative matters, I frequently visited the

hall of the assemblage, which corresponds to our House of

Representatives. While I was not familiar with the language

of the country to any great extent, I had sufficient knowledge

of it to be able to tell a negative from an affirmative vote, and

possibly a little more than that.

.

Day after day I visited that assemblage, and in no single day

did I ever aee a member rise and hear him address the Chair,

and in no single instance did I ever hear a member of that as

semblage cast a vote in the negative on a bill ghich was before

it. The votes on bills were always taken by the yeas and nays,

so that I could tell how each member voted. Every member

present had his name called, and every one of them, in every

instance, answered " yes " in the vote on a bill. After I had

been there several days and had daily witnessed this perform

ance, the members seeming absolutely dumb, nobody being heard

except the presiding officer and the clerk who read the bills, and

no sound being heard from a member except to say " yes " to

every bill, rny curiosity was excited. Not being able to un

derstand the bills as they were read, I stopped at the door

as the house adjourned they generally sat about an hour,

passed without a negative vote all the bills that were read to

them, and were dismissed and went home I stopped at the

door, and as he came out I addressed a member who looked to

me as if lie might speak English. Fortunately it did prove

to be so.

I narrated what I have said here and told him that it ex

cited my surprise and my curiosity; that I was very much inter

ested in legislative affairs, and that I could not understand how

that body a large body, too; certainly over 100 men could sit

there day after day, with no man ever addressing the Chair,

and no man ever saying a word, except in private to one of his colleagues, and no man ever voting in the negative. He rather

hesitated in his reply, and I said, " For instance, to-day I saw

passed two bills which were read by the clerk and the roll was

called, and in each instance every man answered yes, just as to

every other bill I have seen put to that house for passage there

was the answer yes by every member." " Yes," said he.

" Why was it," I said, " that there was no debate, and why was

it there were no negative votes?" Said he, "There was noth

ing to debate about; they were simply appropriation bills which

the President had written and sent to us, and there was nothing

for us to debate about or to do but to pass them. There was no

reason why we should discuss them or why we should any of us

vote no upon them."

So, Mr. President, if things continue to progress, it may hap

pen I think, though, it will be a long time before it does, be-

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36
cause our disposition 5s different from theirs, and sucli subjec tion and. such servility it is. impossible to conceive will ever come to the Amercan people but in practical result it will be so that the question of what this Congress shall do in any im portant matter will be a question not decided by their own judgment or the judgment of a majority, but decided by other Influences. It is largely so now. More and more the idea will be that, excepting "Administration measures," the only business of Congress is to pass appropriation bills and then disperse. / It is notorious right now that most important subjects of legisla tion, such, for instance, as the revision of the tariff, are receiv ing no attention, and the question whether Congress will or will not legislate on them depends solely on whether they will or will not be made "Administration measures." That is openly and undisguisedly now recognized in the case of the question of the revision of the tariff.
There can be no condition more dangerous to the maintenance of free government than is found in the concentration in the hands of one man at the same time of both the executive power and practically the power to make the laws he is to execute. Whatever may be the form of government, when these two powe"a are thus concentrated in the hands of one man the government where that condition exists is an autocracy pure and simple. It makes no difference in practical effect whether that one man himself decrees the laws or whether they are enacted in obedience to his dictation.
Mr. President, I did intend to have something to say about the Algeciras conference and possibly about Santo Domingo, but I have occupied so much time I will not do so, except to call attention to a matter which was the subject of a very short col loquy between the learned Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] and myself when he was on the floor discussing the Santo Domingo treaty. The Senator will remember that when he was speaking of the condition of Santo Domingo being such as to warrant and to require our interference I asked him whether or not, in his judgment, if similar conditions should ex ist in other countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea, it would be likewise the duty of the United States Government to inter fere for the purpose of collecting their revenues and settling their indebtedness, with a view, perhaps, to prevent the forcible interference of other countries. The Senator from Massachu setts was rather reluctant to reply categorically, and said that he did not think that such conditions would arise.
I want to read something, Mr. President, to indicate to the Senator and to the public whether or not there are now such conditions in the Central American countries and in the countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea as will bring us again face to face with the same conditions and require of us if duty now requires of us again to take the same action with reference to them that it is now proposed to take with reference to Santo Domingo. I have here, Mr. President, a part of the January number of the Monthly Review, an English publica tion, from which I will read a short extract Speaking of these Central American and South American states, with reference to their financial condition, this article says:
Anything like a historical survey of the numerous conversions, unifications, consolidations, and more especially reductions, to which the externar debts of the minor Latin-American republics have been
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87
subjected could not fall to weary the reader. But It may be of In terest to state that the foreign debt of Colombia has been In existence for eighty-three years, during approximately forty-seven of which no interest was paid; the corresponding figures for Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela being, respectively, seventy-eight and forty-eight, serentyelght and seventy-two, and eighty-three and forty-one.
That is, the debt of Guatemala has existed seventy-eight years, In forty-eight of \vhicb. no interest has been paid; the debt of Honduras has existed seventy-eight years, in seventy-two of which no interest has been paid; and the debt of Venezuela has existed eighty-three years, in forty-one of which no interest has been paid.
Qpsta Rica and Nicaragua have benefited by intervals during which they owed nothing to the foreign bondholder. Nevertheless the external debt of the first has been in default for some thirty years out of the forty-seven which represent its total existence, whilst Nicaragua paid nothing for forty-nihe years out of sixty-six.
Again, in the same publication Mr. MALLORY. What is the paper? Mr. BACON. It is the Monthly Review. Mr. MALLORY. For what month? Mr. BACON. It is for the past January.
Moreover, there are various reasons for thinking that even in the best-disposed of these Republics the outlook is by no means promising. Two or three illustrations will suffice to Justify this assertion. The Nicaraguan debt is small, but owing to the depreciation of her cur rency every pound sterling she pays abroad represents about $25 of the local money instead of $5. Some two years ago Colombia issued from a protracted civil war, which, if the number of privates killed was in any degree proportionate to that of the generals, colonels, etc.. who fell, must have decimated the population. She has since lost 1anama, while the expenses of the war were met by the shortsighted expe dient of issuing forced currency. As a result she now finds herself saddled with a debt in notes- reaching the enormous total of nearly $850,000,000.
At one time the rate of exchange for the paper dollar touched 25,000 per cent; but by legislative enactment .the parity between gold ana paper was fixed not long ago, in respect of Government transactions, at the relatively moderate figure of 10,000 per cent. Even this means that Colombias dollar represents only 2d. of our money, and the. Drain whirls at the thought of the equivalent in currency of the 8i,OOU which sbe will in future have to pay each year for the service of her foivign debt.
The article I am now about to read is from the Washington Post of June 24, 1905, in which is given an extract from the South American Journal, of London. It says:
The South American Journal, of London, in its issue of June 3, voices the joy of the British bondholders in the deal recently consummated between Costa Rica and Messrs. Speyer & Co., in which the Government of the United States is made a party. It says
Now it quotes from the South American Journal
" Fluctuating between 29 as the highest and 17i as the lowest, and opening this year at 28, Costa Rica A bonds have this week advanced to 581, much of this improvement having taken place quite recently. Costa Rica has been in default so long that bondholders are to be con gratulated on a deal which gives such a high value to their bonds, for which they are greatly indebted to Messrs. Speyer. Of course, this great American firm are not philanthropists, and it is believed that behind them they have at least the moral support of the United States Government.
" Several clauses in the agreement would seem to point to this, for it would appear that the new loan is to be specially secured upon the Republics customs receipts, which are to be collected through a customs agency to be designated by Messrs. Speyer, but should default take place then designations may be made by the President of the United States, who, in another clause, also has the right to request Costa Rica to submit any disputes or questions arising to arbitration."
The London publication adds this most significant sentence: 6568

38

" It is believed that Messrs. Speyer have other Central American de faulting states in hand."
Nearly all the honds of the Central American republics have felt the stimulus of the new Monroe doctrine. The South American Journal prints a list showing the highest prices during 1904 and the latest quotations, revealing a marvelous improvement, and strongly supportfog the report that " Messrs. Speyer have other Central American de faulting states in hand."

Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President



The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from South Carolina?

Mr. BACON. I do.

Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator is a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and I presume is informed in regard to these matters. I desire to ask him whether or not he is cog nizant of any arrangement by which this Government could properly he called a party to this Speyer agreement?

Mr. BACON. I am not; but I would say this to the Sena tor

Mr. TILLMAN. But is the Senator aware that anybody is authorized to deny it?
Mr. BACON. Well, I think I am. Mr. TILLMAN. In what way would the Senator put it? Mr. BACON. I will proceed to tell the Senator. I deny that anybody has the right to bind the United States in that way. Mr. TILLMAN. " In that way; " but I want to know whether anybody has tried whether we have had another SanchezDillingham protocol down there.

Mr. BACON. The Senator has asked a question and I would ask him to please let me reply, and then I will submit to an other with very great pleasure, because the Senator always asks very interesting questions.
There is no reason to believe that there has been any- author ization for any such arrangement, at least any authorization which itself had behind it any authority of law; but this fact is true, that this arrangement is in substance practically the same arrangement as that which some creditors of Santo Do mingo made with Santo Domingo and which was carried out by the award of certain arbitrators who were navjjed, which award has been gent to the Senate by the President of the United States in a message as a basis for his action in the Santo Do mingo matter; in other words, just such an arrangement as has been made by Speyer & Co. with Costa Rica was made between the Santo Domingo Improvement Company and the Govern

ment of Santo Domingo, and the effort to carry that agreement out is really the basis of the proposed treaty between the United States and Santo Domingo.
That agreement provided that in case of default in payment by Santo Domingo the customs duties should be corralled and certain officers should be nominated by the President of the United States and should go into office for the purpose of col lecting the revenues of Santo Domingo and paying them over in extinguishment of thjs debt. Under that arrangement there was an agreement as to the amount of the debt, and an arbitra

tion as to the way in which the agreement should be carried out, and the officers were named, and before the proposed Saiito Do mingo treaty was ever promulgated the officers were put in charge of the custom-houses in the Dominican Government and

were engaged in the collection of revenue.

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39

*

It was under that arrangement, it was at that time Mr. NEWLANDS. Mr. President TLie VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Nevada? Mr. BACON. In a moment I will, with pleasure. It was at that time, if I understand it correctly, while these officers were thus engaged in the collection of the revenues of Santo Domingo under an agreement between the Santo Domingo Improvement Company and Santo Domingo itself precisely like this Costa Rican arrangement that the proposed treaty with Santo Do mingo was sent to the Senate. <Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator from Georgia has not answered my question. If the Senator from Nevada will permit me, I wanted to know whether the Senator from Georgia was author ized to state or could state whether or not there is now some where lying around in the State Department another SanchezDillingham protocol with Costa Rica? Mr. BACON. I have no such information. I never had Mr. TILLMAN. Yet the Senator says that the Costa Ricau condition is on all fours with the Santo Domingo condition. Mr. BACON. Not at present. I said Mr. TILLMAN. You mean it is just ripening. It has not got ten to the point where the Executive is willing to commit the Government, by his own authority and will, without any con sultation with the Senate on the subject. Mr. BACON. I will Jet my euphemistic friend make his own statement in regard to that. Mr. TILLMAN. I want to get light, if there is any light lying around. Mr. BACON. I have not got it, at present, at least, on that subject. Mr. TILLMAN. Maybe the Senator from Massachusetts has it. He seems to be well posted. Mr. BACON. I suggest to the Senator from South Carolina that he let me conclude, and then he can ask the question of the Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. TILLMAN. We do not want to drag this thing in by the head and ears after the Senator is all through. I should like to get that information from anybody who is willing to offer it whether or not Costa Rica is in a similar condition or situation, or likely to get into it, that Santo Domingo was before the treaty was negotiated. Mr. LODGE. I know nothing about Costa Rica, but I will merely observe that the Senator does not seem to see any better after he gets light. Mr. TILLMAN. That is the Senators opinion, perhaps. There might be difference of view, according to the man who is talking or listening. Mr. LODGE. I do not expect the Senator from South Caro lina to agree with me. Mr. TILLMAN. Of course not. Mr. BACON, i simply have read these statements relative to Central and South American countries in pursuance of the colloquy which the Senator from Massachusetts had a few days ago, in which, when the Senator wste speaking upon the Santo Domingo conditions as calling for intervention, and action by this Government as it is proposed in this treaty, I asked him
G568

40
the question, as stated by me a moment ago, whether, in his opinion, if like conditions arose or presented themselves in the countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea, a like obligation and like duty would be Imposed upon this Government as to them.
The Senator from Massachusetts replied that he did not think that a like condition would arise or be presented. I have read this for the purpose of endeavoring to show to fiirn and to the country that like conditions are not only liable to arise, But at present exist, and that when we enter upon this process we will not only ingraft upon this Government this ulcerous sore, this pestiferous cancer of Santo Domingo, for all time, but we shall have entered upon a career where like conditions and like duties and like sacrifices and like calamities are to again befall us.
It is a salutary practice for the President to be advised by the Senate whether there should or should not be an attempt to make a treaty. There are Senators who have been here for a generation and whose advice and counsel would be valuable to any President, however learned and able and patriotic he might be. An election to the Presidency does not ipso facto endow- one with all knowledge and all wisdom, and it is not an unreasonable suggestion that in the aggregate of ninety Sena tors, many of them men of large experience, there is more of knowledge of public affairs, more of correct judgment of the requirements of the public interests than is possessed by any one man in the United States, whoever he may be.
Mr. President, what stronger illustration could be made of the advantage, of the good policy, of having the President of the United States confer with Senators before entering upe/i trea ties than is found in the present situation? If the President of the United States had conferred with the Senators of this body before he took any step with reference to Santo Domingo, If he had conferred with an open mind for the purpose of getting advice and not for the purpose of directing the views of others, is there any man who believes that one-half of the Senate would have advised him to undertake that enterprise? Does any man believe that half the Republican side of the Senate would have advised him to undertake the enterprise? It illus trates the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution.
Mr. President, that is not all. It would have been greatly to the advantage of this country if the President of the United States had been advised by the Senate, as some of us endeavored to advise him, as to the settlement of difficulties with Colombia ; and I can conceive of no reason why to-day the suggestion of arbitration is not made to the French Government of the diffi culties with Venezuela, it being known that France is consulting the executive department of this Government with reference to what it shall do in Venezuela. I can conceive of no reason why, under the obligations imposed by The Hague treaty, com mitting us thoroughly not only to the principle of arbitration, but to the principle of offering between two parties the sugges tion of arbitration, this Government does not suggest arbitra tion to France in its dealing with Venezuela, except that our mouths are closed by the fact that we would not arbitrate our selves with Colombia.
I recognized the position which some Senators took when the question was before us, that there were questions between
6568

. 41
this Government and Colombia which the self-pride and honor of this Government did not permit to be submitted to arbitra tion. For instance, the claim of Colombia that this Govern ment had instigated or aided the insurrection in Panama. But there are questions which did not fall within that category. We had a treaty with Colombia, formerly made with Grenada and inherited by Colombia, in which we guaranteed to that Government the sovereignty of the Panama peninsula; and whether it is right or wrong, the claim was made by Colombia that we had violated that provision of the treaty. The ques tion of the violation of a treaty is one distinctively within the contemplation of The Hague tribunal, one distinctively within the ordinary scope of courts of arbitration. When we refused to arbitrate that question and the additional question whether or not by the presence of our troops and of our ships we pre vented Colombia from herself putting down the insurrection, I can understand why our mouths are now closed, so that we can not now break the silence and say to France, " You ought, in common justice, you ought in pursuance of the principle of The Hague treaty, to which you are a party and to which we are a party, to arbitrate this difference between yourself and this weak and comparatively helpless country."
I believe, furthermore, that if the question of advice on the part of the Senate had been sought by the President before he sent delegates to Algeciras more than half of the Senate, if not two-thirds of it, would have advised against it.
Mr. President, I wish to conclude with just one single addi tional reference. The fact is not to be forgotten that all of this discussion has been precipitated by the effort to ascertain from the executive department what were the instructions, aud what were the limitations of the instructions, given to and im posed upon the delegates sent to the Moroccan conference at Algeciras. That was resented not only as an intrusion but I will not use the words that were used by some of the honorable Senators to designate that effort on the part of some of us in the Senate. It was not always so regarded. There is a notable instance in the diplomatic history of this Government where directly the contrary view was taken by the executive depart ment. It was in what was known as the " Panama conference." There was a conference called by the Latin-American repub lics
Mr. SPOONER. A congress. Mr. BACON. The Panama conference. I think you will find it called in this volume a " conference." But it makes no difference about that not a particle. The Government of the United States was invited to send delegates and to partici pate. The Senate of the United States, not taking the view of the honorable Senator from Wisconsin that it would be an intrusion, or possibly something worse, to make an inquiry of the President of the United States as to what invitation he had received and what he woWd do, adopted a resolution re questing the President of the United States to give information to the Senate on the subject. So far from taking that as an affront, so far from consider ing it as an intrusion, so far from considering it an impropriety, the President of the United States returned to Congress not only his reasons, but also conies in full of the diplomatic cor-
6568

respondence, and he went further and in the message submitted the names of the delegates and asked the Senate of the United States to confirm them before he sent ihein to the conference. John Quincy Adams was President and Henry Clay was Sec retary of State. This is found in the Congressional Debates, volume 2, part 2, 1826. Here is the message of the President of the United States, all of which I can not read, but a portion of which I will trespass enough upon the indulgence of the Senate to read:

Message of the President of the United States to the Senate relative to the Panama mission.
WASHINGTON, December B6., 1825. To the Senate of the United States:
In the message to both Houses of Congress at the commencement of the session it was mentioned that the Governments of the Republics of Colombia, of Mexico, and of Central America had severally invited the Government of the United States to be represented at the Congress of American Nations, to be assembled at Panama, to deliberate upon ob jects of peculiar concernment to this hemisphere, and that this invita tion had been accepted.

The Senate, it seems, was not content to know the fact that the invitation had been accepted. It desired to know in advance what instructions had been given or would be given to the dele gates.

Although this measure was deemed to be within the constitutional

competency of the Executive, I have not thought proper to take any

step In it before ascertaining that my opinion of Its expediency will

concur with that of both branches of the Legislature ; first, by the deci

sion of the Senate upon the nominations to be laid before them ; and,

secondly, by the sanction of both Houses to the appropriations, without

which it can not be carried into effect.

,,

A report from the Secretary of State and copies of the correspond

ence with the South American governments on this subject since the

invitation given by them are herewith transmitted to the Senate. They

will disclose the objects of importance which are expected to form a

s\ibject of discussion at this meeting, in which interests of high impor

tance to this Union are involved. It will be seen that the United States

neither intend nor are expected to take part in any deliberations of a

belligerent character ; that the motive of their attendance is neither to

contract alliances nor to engage in any undertaking or project import-

Ing hostility to any other nation.

The President of the United States was not sensitive upon the subject of being inquired of as to what instructions he had given or proposed to give the delegates; he did not regard such inquiry as an intrusion, but. on the contrary, he conies forward to give the assurance to Congress in the most complete and com prehensive manner.
Then, after going on through the narration, the conclusion of the message is in these words:

In fine, a decisive Inducement with me for acceding to the measure is to show, by this token of respect to the southern republics, the inter est that we take in their welfare and our disposition to comply with their wishes. Having been the first to recognize their independence and sympathized with them so far as was compatible with our neutral duties In all their struggles and sufferings to acquire it, we have laid the foundation of our future intercourse with them in the broadest principles of reciprocity and the most cordial feelings of fraternal friendship. To extend those principles to all our commercial rela tions with them and to hand down that friendship to future ages is congenial-to the highest policy of the Union, as it will be to that of all tb-ose nations and their posterity. In the confidence

That is in response to the request for information. He not only sends the information, but he winds up the message in this way:

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43

In the confidence that these sentiments will meet the approbation of

the Senate, I nominate Richard C. Anderson, of Kentucky, and John

Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, to be envoys extraordinary and ministers

plenipotentiary to the Assembly of American Nations at Panama;

and William B. Rochester, of New York, to be secretary to the mis

sion.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Thereafter follows a copy of all the correspondence with the diplomatic representatives of the other governments, including a letter of the Secretary of State, Mr. Clay, to the President, in which he sets out in detail and with care how scrupulously every point was guarded so that by no possibility could dele gates sent to the conference engage in any deliberation or be a party to any compact which would be inconsistent with our absolute neutrality as to all controversies between other nations.
The action of the executive department was very different then from what it Is now. And the attitude of the Senate then was very different from what it is now.
And while Senators are so scrupulously guarding what they consider the exclusive prerogatives of the Executive that while they seek the information they will not ask for it officially, what is the situation? There Is no question about the fact every day the dispatches bring to us the knowledge of the fact that we are there In a powder house which is liable to explode at any time; that we are there engaged in deliberations with par ties who are ready to fly at each others throats in a most terrible war; and, as I said, on a former occasion, it is no justification to say that we may not participate in anything which will lead to war, but that we may forsooth participate In preventing war.
The point is this: There can not be a conference called in Europe hereafter that will not be justified as an occasion to which we can send delegates if this is a proper occasion; and if it shall turn out that we have been beneficial In averting war and in securing peace, it will be all the more argument used hereafter why we should for all time to come be mingled in in ternational political disputes in Europe. When It is said by the Senator from Wisconsin that in his opinion we should partici pate in every conference in Europe where by so doing we may avert war between European nations, the whole policy of non interference and nonentanglement In European polities and European quarrels is given away and abandoned. If this is to be the precedent and this the principle by which we are to be guided in the future, it marks the beginning of a revolution in our cherished policy in this regard.
The Senator from Wisconsin smiled when I said we were in a powder house. Let me read something, and see whether it is a laughing matter in which we are there engaged.
Mr. SROONKK. I was simply smiling . Mr. BACON. The Senator was smiling because I said we were in a powder house. 1 understand that. I do not object to the Senator smiling. It is a very engaging smile. Mr. SPOOXER. I was smiling that those envoys or repre sentatives over there were in such danger. Mr. BACON. We are speaking of the fact that it is resented as an intrusion that we want to know what those instructions are. That is what we are speaking about; and I am contrast ing it with the action on a former occasion when the President not only responded by giving us the fullest information as to

(5568

44
those instructions, but went so far,as to supplement it by saying " I not only give their instructions, but I will send you the names of the delegates to be confirmed before they shall be allowed to go."
Mr. TILLMAN. I noticed that the Senator read a moment ago what the then President said that there would have to be an appropriation in order to pay the> expenses of the delegates or ambassadors, or whatever they were, to the conference at Panama. Where does the money come from with which to pay the people who have gone to Algeciras?
Mr. BACON. I do not know; I can not speak officially; but I understand there is a provision in the deficiency bill or one of the bills I think it is the deficiency bill.
Mr. TILLMAN. That is coming. Then they have not yet been paid.
Mr. BACON. I am so informed. I would not like to be au thority for the statement, but that is my information.
Mr. TILLMAN. It used to be necessary to ask the permission of Congress before contracting a debt. Now they contract a debt and come to iis to pay it. Is that the way we are doing?
Mr. BACON. I wish to read something to illustrate the ques tion whether or not we are there in the deliberations of a body concerned about commercial relations and trade and all that sort of thing. The Senator from Wisconsin enumerated the treaties, or the Senator from Massachusetts did I have for gotten which. The Senator from Massachusetts commented on the treaty of 1880, and I have that treaty here. It is right here for anybody to look at It is not a very long one, but I disyke to read it. But I do state this: Not only the treaty, but the diplomatic correspondence, shows that the sum and substance of that treaty was that the diplomatic representatives of foreign countries in Morocco, a semibarbarous country, if you please, and one dealing very harshly with its own subjects, had largely extended the sphere of their protection beyond what was con sidered to be the legitimate scope of those who were directly connected with the various legations. Thus it was that one representative of a government one minister would extend his protection over hundreds of Moors, subjects of the Sultan, and claim the exemption that members of a legation are entitled to. It had come to be a great abuse; it was one that was in creasing; and Morocco itself said to the civilized countries, " We are being treated unjustly in this matter. ^We have a right to control our own subjects, and it is not proper for the minister of Great Britain or France or Spain to be protecting two or three hundred Moors here and claiming exemption for them from the operation of the laws of Morocco." That is the correspondence, and the Senator will find it so stated, if he will look it up and read it.
Thereupon those Governments met together, and the whole of this treaty, generally speaking, prescribes what people shall be entitled to protection as connected with a legation, in order that people who are not connected with a legation may not be put within the screen of diplomatic protection and thus taken where the Moroccan Government could not reach them.
The only things in the treaty outside of that were some few provisions about what right certain brokers should have there, and a general provision which has lasted from that day to this,
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45
and with which, as I understand, the Algeciras conference is prohibited from interfering, which gives to each country all the benefits of the most favored nation.
Mr. President, so much for that I return now, of course, to this question: Is the present conference for the consideration of matters of that kind? Was there anything in that treaty to be revised by this conference or in the treaty to be made by it? Does not everybody know, is not the whole world absolutely without doubt on the fact that the Algeciras conference has been brought together because of the animosity between Ger many and France, and the unwillingness of Germany that France shall have the control of power in Morocco? Does not everybody know that to-day that is the thing which keeps the Algeciras conference in session and the thing about which they can not come to a conclusion, and that in the controversy be tween France and Germany in that regard the whole of Europe is actually or partially aligned in anticipation of a war which may desolate the whole of Europe and change its map?
Now, let me read a dispatch from London on that subject. I suppose I may read from an English so.urce as to what atti tude England occupies in the matter. I read from a dispatch from London, February 3, which I also clipped fromthe Wash ington Post, and the authenticity of which is guaranteed by the fact that it appears in the Washington Post under,the date line, " Special cable dispatch to the Washington Post, London, Feb ruary 3: "
Apprehension regarding the outcome of the Algeciras conference has not disappeared. The .proceedings in reference to practically noneontentious matters
Mark that
The proceedings in reference to practically noncontentious matters Im ply no increase in the hope of an agreement upon subjects which are really in dispute. It is known that no private understanding has yet heen reached between Germany and Prance in regard to administrative and police reform, and these questions have, therefore, been postponed until the end of the conference. No agreement is possible unless some compromise is privately, arranged in advance.
ENGLAND WOULD FIOHT.
In the absence of such an understanding the conference must come practically to an abortive end. This, however, does not mean war. The alarmists argue that Germany wil! repeat her dangerous bluff of last summer In the belief that the new Liberal government in England, while supporting France diplomatically, will never go to the length of joining in actual hostilities. If the Kaiser acts on this assumption, he will make the greatest mistake of his life. He is right to this extent only, that the present premier is an opportunist who Is quite outside the ranks of real statesmen. He will do his utmost to avoid war, as it is his duty to do, but if he fails to fling the navy against Germany the moment she strikes a blow at France, he will find himself con fronted by the British nation in anger.
Many sober, conservative Englishmen of all parties are convinced that a struggle with Germany in the not distant future is .all but in evitable. They reason with obvious logic that the sooner it comes the better for their country. To allow Germany to crush France and turn the latter into the bitterest enemy of Great Britain would foreshadow nothing less than the destruction of the British Empire as at present constituted.
There can, therefore, be no doubt as to the course of Great Britain in case war breaks out between France and Germany, no matter what man or party may be in power here.
Mr, President, where could a situation be presented more grave than that? Under no conditions could there be a con-
6568

4(5.
ference where it is more important that we should adhere to the time-honored principle of more than a hundred years that we will participate in no conference, that we will in no manner intermeddle with those things which concern the international politics of Europe, but that we will confine ourselves to our own affairs, to the development of our own industries, to the settlement of our own problems.
6568

EXTRACTS FROM DISCUSSIONS OF RAILROAD RATE BILL
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, I
MAY 3,11, AND 18, 1906.
W-A-SHnSTG-TOHST.
1906.

Extracts from Discussions of Railroad Kate Bill,
BY
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GKORG1A, IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES.

May 3, 1906.

Mr. BACON. Will the Senator from South Carolina permit

me to ask him a question before he takes his seat?

Mr. TILLMAN. Certainly.

Mr. BACON. The Senator from South Carolina, I preswme,

knows the fact that in the equity practice of the United States

there is no jury; in other words, the final decree is made by the

judge. The point to which I wish to direct the Senators atten

tion is the fact that the judge who would pass upon the ques

tion of an interlocutory decree is the same judge who would finally pass upon the question whether or not there shall be a

permanent injunction. The question I want to subniiit to the

Senator is this: If among these judges, taken as a whole not

all of them but if there are among them generally so many ob

jectionable practices and characteristics, as they have to pass

upon it finally, in what way does the Senator propose that as to

final injunction the people can be protected from these " cor

rupt " and "dissolute" and "unworthy" judges?

Mr. TILLMAN. By decree of the Supreme Court. I want

the judge to try the case according to the constitutional require

ments, but I do not want him to half try it, or to pretend to try it, and take advantage of the opportunity offered by some

lying complaint, like that of this railroad official in Florida, who

goes in and swears to one thing when it comes to the value of

the property for taxation and turns right around and swears to

another when it comes to valuing the property in regard to con

stitutional rights. I do not want that sort of thing to be per

mitted by the Senate. The Supreme Court may declare the

provision unconstitutional, but let us give the court a chance.

I want to give the people the benefit of the doubt.

In regard to fixing rates by the Commission, let the rate go

into effect; let the appeal of the railroad company go to the

court; let the court try it, not issue any preliminary order, but

try it all, and send it up to the Supreme Court. That is my

contention.

Mr. BACON. If the Senator will permit me, I wish to ask

him a question: What does the Senator propose to do between

the time of final decree by the circuit court and the hearing by

the Supreme Court?

2

6889

3 i
Mr. TILLMAN. Do nothing except let the decree by the cir cuit court stand. If it is by injunction, let the injunction hold, but rush the case to the Supreme Court in the most expeditious way possible and get the decision of that tribunal, so that the matter will be settled once for all, either by reversing the cir cuit court or by indorsing its action.
Mr. BACON. I understand, then, that the Senator does not propose to interfere in any manner with the operation of the injunction, when that shall be ordered by the circuit court, between its issuance and the time it goes to the Supreme Court?
Mr. TILLMAN. I want a full hearing before the circuit court grants the injunction.
Mr. BACON. I understand, but I repeat the. question. I understand the Senator does not desire to suspend in any way the operation of that injunction after the final decree by the circuit court and between that time and the final decision by the Supreme Court?
Mr. TILLMAN. Of course not. Mr. BACON. I simply wanted to know the Senators position. Mr. TILLMAN. No amendment like that has been offered by anybody here. Mr. BACON. I understand, but I wanted to call the Senators attention to the fact. Then, as I understand, the objection of the Senator is not so much to the character of the judges, to their " unworthiness " and to their " disposition to do wrong," as it is to the fact that they might hear it and make an interlocutory decree without having sufficiently investigated the case.
#**$***
Mr. TILLMAN. I want the Senator from Georgia to give me light on this point: Suppose an appeal is taken from the finding of the Commission, its order, and the judge is permitted
Mr. BACON. The Senator means if a bill is filed. There is no provision in this bill for an appeal.
Mr. TILLMAN. You understand what I am driving at, so far as results go, without regard to technical language. I mean suppose the Commissions order is attacked in court by the carrier.
Mr. BACON. Very well. Mr. TILLMAN. Then the judge grants a preliminary sus pension order or injunction, and the Senator pointed out, I be lieve, that this act which I hold in my hand gives the right of appeal from that to the circuit court of appeals. Mr. BACON. No; not in this bill, but the general law. Mr. TILLMAN. The new act to which allusion has been made. Mr. BACON. Go on. Mr, TILLMAN; What becomes of the rate? Does the rate go on while this appeal is going on to the Supreme Court; and then if the rate is suspended by a preliminary injunction, and the appeal to the circuit court or to the Supreme Court, either, is on a technicality, will the Supreme Court determine the whole case or will it merely determine the point before it and send it back for furtheraction below, thereby playing battledore and shuttlecock, and thereby doing nothing to relieve the shipper? That is what I am trying to get at.
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Mr. BACON. Is that the Senators question? Mr. TIIiLMAN. That is the question. I have made It clear, or I hope I have. Mr. BACON. The Senator always does. The suggestion of an appeal to the circuit court was not made by myself, but by the Senator from Wisconsin. Under the present law, if there were an appeal given, it would go to the circuit court of the United States, unless the matter involved a constitutional question, when upon final decree it would go direct to the Supreme Court and not go to the court of appeals at all. I do not think, however, that the question of the learned Senator from South Carolina is very practical in Its nature, from the fact that, as has been suggested by another Senator, the general consensus of opinion in the Senate, so far as I have been able to learn it, is in favor of an appeal direct from the circuit court to the Supreme Court. I know of no one who favors a measure which will give an appeal in a case of this kind from the circuit court to the circuit court of appeals. There is, so far as I know, a determination on the part of the Senate that there shall be only one. appeal. There is one amendment pending possibly there are more providing for a direct appeal in these cases from the circuit court to the Supreme Court. I myself would certainly favor that provision of law. I think it would be a very great mistake to do other wise and to have an appeal from the circuit court to the cir cuit court of appeals. Now, as to what would be the effect of an appeal, is the Sen ator speaking of an appeal from the final decree or aji inter locutory decree? Mr. TILLMAN. There comes my trouble. There is my \vhsle trouble. If the circuit court is left with the opportunity to partially adjudge the cause, and the appeal is made on that, It may go up to the Supreme Court and take a year or some thing like that I do not know how long to get it back. And then it will take another year for the inferior court to finish its judgment, and that will go up. I want to prevent that kind of business. Mr. BACON. I think the Senator is very correct in his de sire in that regard, and I entirely sympathize with him. Mr. President, it is recognized by us all, I think, that when the Commission makes an order the public should have the benefit of that order promptly so far as Is practicable. Of course the laws delays have been proverbial, certainly from the time of Shakespeare, and long anterior to that date. They have continued to this date, not because of any desire on the part of the lawmakers that there should be delay in the administration of the law, but because in the natural imper fection of all human institutions this has been found to be one of the difficulties which could not be thoroughly cured, where the effort to prevent delay is met frequently by the necessity to have delay in order that justice may be done. That neces sity is undoubtedly frequently taken advantage of improperly, and the laws delays constitute a serious evil now, as they have constituted a serious evil from the beginning of courts. In this particular case, I repeat, we all feel that the rate of the Commission should give to the public the benefit of the order made by the Commission as soon as practicable. There

are two propositions, as I understand them, for the purpose of meeting that requirement. One is to deny to the* courts the right to issue an interlocutory order. The other is one which, while I can not claim that it was in its entirety original with me, is an amendment offered by myself, in which it is proposed that there shall be no stay of the operation of the rate of the Commission by an inerlocutory order unless there shall be a requirement by the court of the carrier making the complaint and seeking the stay that he shall pay into court the daily pro ceeds from freight shipped over and above the amount specified in the rate of the Commission. In other words, if the rate of the Commission, for illustration, permitted fl and the carriers rate was $2 and he sought to have the rate of the Commission arrested, before such order could go into effect there must be another order which will require him to pay that additional dol lar into court, not only on that day, but on each succeeding day, and also the machinery is specified for a return by the carrier to the court giving in detail the statement of all shipments thus made affected by that rate and the names of the shippers, so that upon the conclusion of the case the court can distribute this money, if the carriers complaint is overruled, to the people from whom the money had been improperly collected, and if, on the contrary, the carriers complaint shall be held to be valid, the money may be returned to him, that that may not be taken from him to which he is justly entitled.
I can not go into that now, Mr. President* Possibly when we come to discuss amendments I will go into it a little more fully, but I state it merely for the purpose of showing that there is not a monopoly of a desire to protect the interests of the public in this regard.; that there is not a monopoly in this desire and purpose enjoyed by those who seek to accomplish the purpose by a denial to the courts of the right to use the process of in junction. \
The Senate will mark the fact, Mr. President, that whatever else may be said about that proposition, there can be no doubt about one result from it, that is that the carrier having to pay this amount of money into court of the daily proceeds of his business over and above the Commission rate, he will be as extremely anxious as he could be made by any other process to expedite the proceeding in the courts. There would be no pos sible inducement to him to delay; on the contrary, there would be every possible inducement to him to expedite.
Having said that much, Mr. President, I desire to say further in regard to the proceedings in the courts that the rules in equity are, under our law, made by the judges of the Supreme Gourt. The rules in equity in the United States courts are ex tremely simple and extremely efficacious. It is possible for a case to come to trial in three months after the first rule day. Of course It is unusual that that should occur, because the taking of testimony and other matters in the trial of a case will frequently delay it beyond that time. But it is perfectly competent for the Supreme Court to make special rules for the trial of cases of this class; and I think it would be a much wiser plan to require by some provision in this bill that the Supreme Court shall make rules which will expedite the trial of the case in the circuit court rather than to attempt to ac complish this end by other means.
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We have now on the statute books a law by which such cases are expedited on the trial upon an appeal from the final decree of the circuit court to the Supreme Court, and there is an amendment pending here to apply that particular machinery to cases which will be decided in regard to the rates made by the Commission.
But I think we should go further, Mr. President. It is not sufficient to expedite the trial of a case after it has been finally determined by the circuit court and when there is an appeal taken to the Supreme Court. There ought to be something which would insure the expedition of the trial after the filing of a bill and until the time when it is finally heard by the cir cuit court. While I believe there is no amendment pending to that effect, one, I imagine, can be framed,, and I trust it will be brought before the Senate.
It is a great injustice to suggest that those who may not favor any particular proposition are therefore opposed to the same end which the author of that particular proposition may have in view. For myself, I desire that there shall be here a most effi cient bill. I desire that there shall be a bill which, while it will do no injustice to any of the carriers, shall at the same time put them under the most perfect control in the matter of the regula tion of their -rates by the Interstate Commerce Commission. I believe that the death of competition because that is the mild est word which can be applied to it the absolute necessity which is upon, every man to employ the agencies of the common carrier whether he wishes to or not, the absolute impossibility that he can employ any other agency, the consequent putting in the power ot the carrier the arbitrary fixing of the rate,the absolute denial to the patron of the carrier of the opportunity to agree with him on the rate, the absolute necessity on the part of the public to accept the rate, make it an absolute neces sity also that there shall be some one who will stand in a posi tion to see that so great and so arbitrary a power is in no man ner abused.
Mr. President, I say I desire earnestly the accomplishment of that end. I desire not only that, Mr. President, but I desire that the machinery of this bill shall be so arranged that there shall be the most speedy accomplishment of the determination of the Commission as to what shall be the rate. At the same time I am also desirous that the great safeguards which our Constitution has thrown around the enjoyment of property by all persons shall also be enjoyed by these interests which we now assume and undertake and intend hereafter to control.
For these reasons I desire, as much as those who favor the particular amendment which is now under discussion, that there shall be provisions in this bill which shall prevent undue delay. I am in favor of having provisions in the bill which shall give to the public, so far as it may be practicable, the benefit, from the beginning, of the orders of the Commission, so far as that may be done without destroying the rights of other parties.
I recognize the fact that in the suggestion which I have made as to requiring railroad companies to put up a deposit or to pay into court moneys which are to be received over and above the amount specified in the orders of the Commission, there are grave difficulties, and that there are serious imperfections in the plan. I will be very glad to have those difficulties and

those imperfections removed, if it is practicable to do so. I will not stop to discuss it now, because these amendments are com ing before us for discussion, and when they do coine I shall endeavor to speak with a little more deflniteness as to the par ticular provisions of them.
While this is very disjointed, Mr. President, still I want to refer, in order that I may not be misunderstood, to my inquiry of the Senator from South Carolina, in which I used certain adjectives in connection with judges. I suppose it will be .understood, but to guard against possibility to the contrary, I will say that those adjectives were intended to be in quotation marks, because I do not sympathize with the wholesale criti cism which has been made of the judges of the United States courts. I have no doubt there are unworthy members of that high body of functionaries. It would be very remarkable if it were not so. T have no doubt there are many cases where judges have acted with harshness and with cruelty and with injustice. I will go further and say, Mr. President, that there is no court in this land, Federal or State, as to which, if parties litigant, who had been before the court, were allowed to pre sent to the Senate their one-sided statements of their cases where they had been losers, those courts would be made to appear in a very unfortunate and more than unfortunate light before the public.
But, Mr. President, while it is true, as I have no doubt, that there are unworthy members. I believe, in the first place, that it is not true of the great body of judges of tffe courts of the United States. I believe that, taken generally, they are men of ability and men of character, and 1 say further, Mr. Presi dent, that while unworthy members of that official body should be sought out if possible and held to public view, it is a great mistake to attempt to magnify the imperfections of the judi ciary and thu% to try to bring them into contempt and disrepute before the people of the United States.
Mr. President, the great sheet anchor of conservatism in the United States must be with the courts, and whenever it comes to be that the conservatism of the courts of the United States can no longer be depended upon, it matters very little whether there is conservatism in the other branches of the Govern ment.
Mr. TILLMAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina?
Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. TILLMAN. When there are so many evidences of usur pation of authority and of willingness to strain themselves to do things they ought not to do, as a matter of justice, and there is no remedy except by impeachment, does the Senator object to the attention of the country being called to these facts, and let the judges be put on notice, so to speak, that this body is thinking about what they are doing and what they have done? Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States has invested in this body a very high function with re gardto the judiciary, but it has not invested this body with the function of originating charges against the judiciary. The
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Senator should not forget, It seems to me, that while, of course, there may be occasions when it is proper I do not deny that, but I am speaking generally the Senate should not act upon the general assumption of that which is now suggested by the Senator, 4hat in such criticisms of the judiciary, in such re viewing of their general course, and in such animadversions upon their particular acts we should put them upon notice of the fact that we are watching them. I say, Mr. President, if that general plan is pursued by the Senate we will have in vaded the functions of another branch of this Government, and we will have done what is worse we will have, by prejudgment, in a measure disqualified ourselves for the proper performance of the high function with which the Constitution of the United States has clothed this body.
Mr. TILLMAN. Now, will the Senator allow me to ask him another question?
The VIOK-PRESIDBNT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield further to the Senator from South Carolina?
Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. Did the Senator vote to impeach Judge Swayne? Mr. BACON. I certainly did, and I would do so again. Mr. TILLMAN. The other Mr. BACON. The Senator will pardon me; I must answer his question; and then I will yield to another question. I voted, Mr. President, for the impeachment of Judge Swayne, and I did so in the direct exercise of the exact function that the Constitution of the United States had devolved upon me as a Senator. I not only voted for his impeachment, But I very deeply regretted that other Senators in this body did not agree with me, according them, however, fully the merit of conscien tious judgment as I fully claim for myself. I thought that his impeachment was demanded, and therefore 1 voted for it. But, Mr. President, before that impeachment trial came I was not here ventilating before the Senate what I now believe, and what I then believed because I knew of many of the things to be the improper conduct and acts of Judge Swayne. But it would not have become me then, before the House of Repre sentatives presented at the bar of the Senate those articles of impeachment, to have brought before the Senate questions as to whether he had done right or wrong or had been corrupt or un worthy in his high office. Mr. TILLMAN. If the Senator will permit me The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield further to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. I understand the Senator by his language intends to criticise unfavorably my action to-day, and while I recognize the nice sense of propriety and the keen, I might say the almost squeamish, regard of the Senator for doing things diplomatically and in a parliamentary way, I want to ask him whether these judges are any more above criticism or are they more absolved or drawn apart, as it were, from criticism of their acts by a Senator than the Supreme Court has been by others Lincoln, for instance, in several of his speeches on the stump and probably in the halls of Congress, when he found
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fault with the Died Scott decision? There have been numerous instances in which the judges have been criticised, and while the Supreme Court is a coordinate branch of the Government entirely Independent of the Senate and Congress, does the Senator think that it is improper or an invasion of the rights of the courts for a Senator to express his opinion upon trans actions which these men perform or acts which they do which are unworthy or unlawful? For instance, ta*ke Judge Pardee
Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will put his question in such a shape that I can-answer it and that he will make it concise.
Mr. TILLMAN. Well, what does the Senator think about the criticism of Judge Humphrey by the President the other day? Was not that straining the Executive authority and going outside of the proprieties?
Mr. BACON. The Senator is wandering from the particular question we are investigating.
Mr. TILLMAN. I have been wandering around until I have got the Senator in a place where he does not want to answer, I am afraid.
Mr. BACON. The Senator wanders. He presents one ques tion and then wanders to another, and at the end there is no particular question asked.
Mr. TILLMAN. I have asked half a dozen. Let the Senator answer them at once.
Mr. BACON. I have no hesitation in my mind as to what the President said with reference to Judge Humphrey, but this is not the place to say it not under "these circumstances at least. However, as the Senator, with his usual soft and gentle way, is suggesting that I ain not answering his questions and that he is wandering around in a way that has so lost me in a maze that I am not capable of replying
Mr. TILLMAN. If the Senator will excuse me, I had not intimated
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield further to the Senator from South Carolina?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I could not do otherwise. The TICK-PRESIDENT. The Senator from South Carolina. Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator is charging me with things that I never said because I have never thought of them. I am not accusing him of = Mr. BACON. The Senator says I was accusing him of things that he has not been guilty of. I want to know if the Senator refers to the fact that 1 said that he had been saying soft and gentle things? Mr. TILLMAN. No; I was never accused of saying many soft and gentle things in this body. I have been accused, and I suppose I have been guilty very frequently, of saying harsh and ungentle things, and sometimes unparliamentary things; but I at least always try to bring myself within the rule that ought to govern, and not criticise men unjustly. Everything I have produced this morning in animadverting or criticising the judges, which I have brought out here, was worthy of the attention of the country at this particular juncture, when the Senator from Georgia and others like him have been appealing to us with almost tears in their eyes to take care of this sacred judiciary. If these judges
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Mr. BACON. Does the Senator interrupt me for the pur pose of asking me a question? If so, I hope he will propound it.
Mr. TILLMAN. If the Senator dislikes what I said I will sit down,
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I think the Senator asked the question
Mr. TILLMAN. I will ask this question, if the Senator will permit me: Will he tell me whether he thinks Mr. Lincoln and, I think, Sumner, and Seward, probably, were entirety wrong and out of their jurisdiction and rights when they criticised the Dred Scott decision?
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, hefore I answer that question I am going to answer the previous question the Senator asked me when he rather plumed himself upon having woven a sort of labyrinth and maze. The question, the Senate will remember, that the Senator propounded to me was whether I thought it was improper for him to call the attention of the Senate to spe cific acts of impropriety on the part of judges. I think Senators will remember the fact that while the Senator proceeded much further than that, that was the original question which he asked me in that particular bunch of questions.
Mr. President, I do not go to the extent of saying that a judge should never be criticised in the Senate of the United States. There are occasions when questions will arise when that may be not only proper, but necessary. I think I can re call that I have myself, if such was an impropriety, been guilty of that impropriety. I want to say, however, before I proceed more definitely to answer, that the Senator miscon strues me when he assumes that I *.m in what I am sajying intending to personally criticise him. I do deprecate, within a certain degree, and with the utmost deference to the Senator, the particular line that he has seen proper to indulge in in this criticism. It is not the fact, Mr. President, that a particular impropriety on the part of a judge has been alleged by the Senator, but it is the fact that the Senator has endeavored to cast I will not use the word " endeavored," but the effect of what the Senator has done has presented the appearance of an effort to cast discredit upon all, speaking generally, of the Fed eral judges, with the exception of the judges of the Supreme Court, whom he specially excepted.
Mr. TILLMAN rose. Mr. BACON. Pardon me one moment. I will yield to the Senator directly, but not now. Mr. President, the Senator in so doing absolutely took the country geographically. I was called out during the delivery of his speech, and do not know whether he entirely covered the geography of the United States, but the Senator took the country geographically, and with this instance and with that in stance and with the other instance certainly produced upon my mind the impression that the effort was to show that the judges of the United States courts were so accustomed to doing things which ought not to be done, were so in the habit of stepping outside of the domain of proper personal conduct, so in the habit of tyrannically using their power, so in the habit of using their power for the defeat of the ends of justice, that they were not to be trusted with the exercise of the injunctive process in the pending bill. If that was not the purpose of the Senator and if that was not the impression made upon everyone else
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who listened to him. then I was unfortunate in being singular.

Mr. President, that, I think, in a general way is an answer to

the general questions of the Senator.

As to the questions propounded with reference to Mr. Lin

coln, Mr. Seward, and others discussing the Dred Scott case,

In the first place, I might answer that by saying those were not

matters uttered in the Senate or even in the House of Repre

sentatives, where they have the origination of such matters,

but were matters uttered on the stump. In the second place, I

will say that that related to a period which was the incipiency

of a great revolution, and that men were not to be judged as

they are now as to nice questions of propriety, which questions

of propriety are questions which should never be forgotten in

the Senate of the United States.

I have no desire to continue this discussion, Mr. President. I

felt it due to myself, in view of the fact that in the colloquy

with the Senator I had used certain adjectives in reference to

judges, to shite that those adjectives were intended to be in

quotation marks, and were not original with myself.

But I want to pursue the thought which I had in mind at the

time the honorable Senator interrupted me with the questions

which have been propounded by him.and by the suggestions

which he has made. I said substantially that, whenever it

came to the point that the judges of the United States were no

longer to be entitled to be regarded as the conservative element

of this Government, it made little difference thereafter whether

the executive and legislative branches of the Government were

or were not conservative.

*

Mr. President, we must not forget one fact, that while the

legislative branch of the Government and when I say " legis-

lative branch " I mean the legislative power, which is made up

of the Congress and, in certain instances, of the Executive, in

his approval that while it is ultimate in its authority in the

enactment of law, the courts of this country, unlike those of

any other country, are absolutely authoritative and ultimate in

the decision as to those laws, not simply as to their construction,

but as to their validity. So far as I know I do not profess to

be accurately informed, but I think it is true that condition of

affairs does not exist in any other civilized country in the

world where the judiciary is authorized to set aside as invalid,

null, and void the laws enacted by the legislative branch of the

government. Whenever it comes to the point that the judges

who have this supreme and stupendous power are no longer to

be trusted either for conservatism or for honesty, where is the

protection of the Government, however conservative the execu

tive and legislative branches may be?

Mr. President, another thought. There are great forces of

unrest working in the whole civilized world, and they are forces

which need proper direction. They may be correct forces, but

they need proper direction. They are forces which threaten

the fabric of civilized government; the noise of their mighty

movement even now comes to us from across the seas : they are

forces which are not entirely quiet even in this country: and,

Mr. President, I consider it to be the highest duty of this high

est body to so act and so speak not only as to avoid stirring up

the passions of the people and destroying their faith in their

Government and in those who are called to administer it, but

that it is better to go to the other extreme, if need be, and in-

12
spire even more confidence than their individual merits may entitle them to.
Let us, Mr. President, make our people believe that we have a good Government; make them believe that, while there may be here and there an unworthy man, the great body of those who are called upon to administer this Government are honest men and patriotic men executive, legislative, and judicial. Let us do away, so far as we can, with this disposition to decry the officials of the Government and to produce in the minds of the masses of these people, and especially of the unthinking people, the extreme idea that those who are called upon to administer the Government are corrupt and unworthy of their confidence. [Applause in the galleries.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair will remind the galleries that manifestations of approbation or disapprobation are for bidden by the rules of the Senate.
May 11, 190B. Mr. BACON. I offer an amendment, to come in after the word " jurisdiction," at the same place as the amendment just proposed by the Senator from Texas [Mr. CULBEBSON]. The VICE-PRESIDENT. The amendment proposed by the Senator from Georgia will be read. The SECRETABY. On page 11 of the regular bill, at the end of line 9, insert:
No rate or charge, regulation or practice, prescribed by the Com mission shall be restrained, set aside, suspended, or modified by any Interlocutory or preliminary order or decree of the court^unless upon the hearing, after such full notice to the Commission as herein pre scribed, the same shall be considered and concurred in and ordered by at least two judges presiding in said hearing, at least one of whom shall be a judge of the circuit court of the United States or a circuit Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I ask that the Secretary indi cate the page in order that Senators may turn to it.
The SECBETARY. Page 235 of the large pamphlet. Mr. TELLER. Where does it come in the bill? Mr. BACON. At the same place as the last amendment. The SECBETARY. At the end of line 9, page 11, of the bill. The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. BACON]. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I think this is a very important amendment, and I trust it may receive the careful consideration of Senators. I am as anxious as anyone that there shall be no improvident or hasty or ill-advised interference with any order of the Commission fixing rates after complaint made. I desire most earnestly that the orders of the Commission shall go into effect and remain in effect unless the constitutional rights of parties require that they be suspended. I was constrained to vote against the amendment which prohibited under any cir cumstances the issuance of an interlocutory order or decree, because, in niy judgment, such a provision in this bill would be unconstitutional, and so believing, under my obligation I could not vote otherwise. I will simply pause long enough to say that the ground upon which I base my conclusion as to the unconstitutionality of such provision is not that the Congress has no right under any circumstsinces to control and prohibit the exercise of the writ
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13
or process of injunction. In my opini&n there are some cir cumstances where Congress can do so, and that in other circum stances it has no constitutional power to do so. I base my opin ion that Congress can not constitutionally do so in this particular case upon the belief that Congress can not control and pro hibit the exercise by the courts of the process of injunction in the proposed law, if that process of injunction is the only one by the exercise of which by the courts the provisions of the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States can be made of force and effect. Unless thisj constitutional pro vision can be enforced by the courts it is simply a piece of waste paper. I hold that Congress does not have the right, if that Is the only process of the courts by which the fifth amendment can be made of force and effect, to destroy that only remedy and thus nullify that most important and vital constitutional provision. It is the duty of Congress to so legislate as to make effective the provisions of the Constitution. I feel it due to myself to state that much. If there is any other process by which the courts can perfectly protect the citizen in the guar anties of the fifth amendment, I do not know what it is. Of course I will not undertake to go into the argument or to elaborate it. In my opinion Congress can prohibit the exercise of the process of injunction when such prohibition is to prevent its being used to imperil or destroy personal liberty or property rights. I do not believe that Congress can prohibit the exercise of the process of injunction when such exercise is essential for the protection of personal liberty or of the rights of property guaranteed by the Constitution. m
I wish to direct the attention of the,j Senate, however, to the provisions of the particular amendment I now offer.
**.***** Mr. President, there is undoubtedly a great evil found fre quently in the practice of the courts in the improvident grant of interlocutory or preliminary injunctions, and it is intended in this very grave and important matter, as tlie right is still to be exercised by the court, to throw around it all possible safe guards, so that there shall be no hasty, no ill-advised, no im provident grant of an injunction, and to guard against the pos sibility I use the word " possibility " because it is the most extreme word to guard against the possibility of any judge being influenced by any but the highest motives or having the opportunity to act when influenced by any but the highest motives in the administration of justice. Mr. President, I ask Senators to consider carefully this ques tion. It is a well-recognized feature of the circuit courts of the United States that more than one judge presides in the determi nation of questions. It is not a requirement of the law that more than one shall preside in the consideration and determi nation of questions, but it is a provision in much wisdom which permits and authorizes the consideration of questions by not only two judges but by three judges sitting together upon the circuit bench. Mr. President, that is not done as a reflection upon any one judge or as an evidence of distrust in any one judge. It is done because it is recognized that in the multitude of counsel there is wisdom. It is done for the same reason that we put nine judges upon the Supreme Bench, not that there is distrust of any one of the nine, but that in the consideration of the grave
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questions which must necessarily come before that court there shall be the advantage to be gained in the coming together of a. number of minds in the consideration of the same question. And further, if there is a question of grave doubt and difficulty where men may differ, that there may be among so large a num ber of judges the opportunity for a majority to decide aright.
Mr. President, I beg that Senators will consider this situa tion. Here is the very gravest of questions, one of the most farreaching. Under the law as it now exists, any district judge in the United States is authorized to exercise circuit court pow ers. With the right to pass upon the question of a preliminary injunction, in the absence of some such provision as this it will be competent for any district judge in the United States to ar rest the order of the Commission by an interlocutory order or decree.
This provision does not simply ask that more than one judge shall be called upon and shall concur with the judge before an interlocutory decree can be issued, but it provides that at least one of them shall be a circuit judge of the United States. In other words, it can not be done even by two district judges. It may be done by one district judge and one circuit judge, or one circuit justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Under our system the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States exercise circuit court powers and sit oil the cir cuit court. Therefore the amendment provides that before an interlocutory order or decree may issue there must be two judges who shall concur in the order, and that at least one of the.u shall be a circuit judge or a circuit justice of the,,Supreme Court of the United States.
May IS, 1906. Mr. BACON. I have been of the opinion, Mr. President, from the beginning that these words " in its judgment" were im properly inserted in this bill, and that they would endanger the constitutionality of the bill, if it should be enacted into law with these words remaining. What has been so well said on this subject by learned Senators in the debate both on yester day and to-day has confirmed me in this opinion. If the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the member of it who wrote the letter which has been read to-day at the instance of the Senator from Kansas [Mr. Lose] were to be charged with the decision of this question, of course the very emphatic opinion expressed would remove all apprehension from our minds in this regard; but, unfortunately, this opinion in no manner relieves the doubt, because the Interstate Commerce Commission is not the body which will be called upon to decide whether or not these words render this bill unconstitutional. I am very frank to say, sir, that from the time I heard in the beginning of this debate the very able argument delivered by the senior Senator from Ohio [Mr. POKAKBB], I have been impressed with the necessity of the greatest caution on our part in so framing this bill as to avoid constitutional objections. I presume there will be no question in anyones mind that there might be an attempted delegation of power by Congress to the Commission which would be unconstitutional. If we were to pass a bill in which we were to say in words that " all the legislative power of Congress in the fixing of railroad rates is
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15
hereby delegated to a commission," it wo.nld clearly be uncon stitutional. There can be no doubt about that. On the other hand, if we were to pass a bill iii which wa should specifically fix rates in so many dollars and cents, and simply delegate to a commission the administration and enforcement of the law thus enacted, nobody would deny its constitutionality. That is equally free from doubt. These are the extremes. Between these two extremes lies the debatable ground. As we approach the one extreme the danger of uuconstitutionality is greater, and as we approach the other extreme it is less. It is for us to endeavor to get upon the safe side, betweeji these two extremes, and wherever there is a proposition involving doubt in thTs regard, unless it will emasculate the bill or seriously enfeeble it to reject it, we ought to have regard to that qviestion of doubt and avoid the proposition and eliminate it from the bill if pos sible.
To my mind there is a very simple proposition which controls my conclusion in this matter. I may not be able to convey it to others with the clearness with which it presents itself to me. This bill proceeds on the theory, practically, that Congress is itself, by the proposed law, regulating the rates of the rail roads. If the bill should be passed with only the words " just and reasonable " left in it, it would be the same as if Congress were to pass a law providing that the railroads should charge rates which were " just and reasonable," and should then del egate to the Commission the sole office of determining when they were " just and reasonable," and if not, then to itself de termine and prescribe those "just and reasonable." This would be an administrative act on the part of the Commission, Congress having itself performed the legislative function of enacting that the rates shall be " just and reasonable." Con gress in the performance of the legislative function will have determined and enacted the standard of regulation, and to the Commission will be delegated the power, in the administration of the law, to ascertain and declare what is a compliance witli the standard thus fixed by Congress.
It is upon that basis that those of us who have confidence in the constitutionality of this proposed law rest our confidence; that is, that there is not in such a law with such provisions, both legislative and administrative, such a delegation of legislative power to the Commission as infringes upon the constitutional requirement that the. departments shall be kept separate and that each department .shall exercise its own powers.
But, Mr. President, suppose the present language in the bill remains, and instead of saying simply " just and reasonable rates " we use the words " in its judgment, be the Just and rea sonable rate or rates." Let us examine these words. If we paraphrase this paragraph, as I endeavored to paraphrase it with the other words, how will it read? It will read in this way: That Congress enacts that the railroads shall charge just and reasonable rates and then delegates to a commission, not the office of determining that which Congress says it shall be to wit, " just and reasonable rates " but the office of deter mining and prescribing what are, " in its judgment, just and reasonable rate^." The two things, to my mind, are very dis tinct. In the one case there is a standard set by Congress. It enacts that there shall be just and reasonable rates, and sets " just and reasonable " as the standard to be complied with and
tssn

16

to be ascertained by the Commission. With the words " in its

judgment " remaining in, the standard is a different standard.

It is a standard of what are, " in the judgment of the Commis

sion," just and reasonable rates. It seems to me there can be

I will not say no doubt, because the fact that learned Senators

and lawyers think otherwise would prevent me saying that

but, to my mind, while it may be a nice distinction, it is a very

clear distinction. While we may have the power and I think

we do have the power to delegate to a commission the office

of ascertaining when the standard of " just and reasonable "

which we require in this bill has been complied with, when that

has been obtained I do not think we have the right to dele

gate to the Commission the right simply to say that, " in its

judgment," it is so and so. It is a very different thing for a

court to say, on the one hand, that the Commission has or has

not exercised good judgment in determining whether a given

rate is "just andTeasonable " from, on the other hand, passing

on the question whether the Commission has fixed a rate which,

" in its judgment, is a just and reasonable rate."

Of course they must exercise their judgment. They must

exercise their judgment to ascertain whether or not the rate is

reasonable and just. They may be in error in the exercise of

that judgment ; and If so, it is for the courts to say. But it is

not permissible that the court should be limited to saying

whether the Commission had fixed a rate which " in its judg

ment was just and reasonable."

It might be held, if we leave the words as they are, that the

delegation which we make to the Commission is not to use its

judgment simply in the ascertainment of when just and reason

able rates have been determined and prescribed, but ttfat we

have gone farther and broadened the expression so that it is

not simply what is " just and reasonable," but what " in its

opinion may be just and reasonable." In other words, as

suggested to me by the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. FOSTEB],

the effect of It is to substitute its judgment in the place of the

judgment and will of Congress, and, as suggested in the same

breath by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. BRANDEQEE], it

really gives the right to the Commissioners to make a standard

to be erected by themselves instead of being rigidly bound by

the standard which Congress itself erects.

Mr. President, it seems to me with these words in, when it

comes before the court, there must be one of two rulings by the

court. Wither the court would hold that the words were sur

plusage and pay no attention to them, or if they held that they

were words not surplus in character and words inserted for a

distinct purpose and intended to have a specific meaning, the court

would undoubtedly then hold the provision to be unconstitutional ;

and this provision is so vital to the whole bill that if the pro

vision should be held to be unconstitutional the whole act would

fall with it. If the words are surplus, we should take them out.

But if they are not surplus and are intended to have controlling

effect and meaning, and if any such interpretation would en

danger the bill, then we should take them out For these rea

sons, in addition to others which have been forcibly presented

by other Senators, which I will not repeat," I shall vote to strike

out the words, and I deem it highly important that it should be

done.

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o

Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal--" Legislative Func tions Belonging to the States."
SPEECH
OP
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OP GEORGIA,
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, Wednesday and Friday, June 13 and 15, 1906.
Wednesday, June 13, 1906.
The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. E. 14396) to In corporate the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal, to define the powers thereof, and to facilitate interstate commerce
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PRESIDENT : It is not very pleasant to antagonize a meas ure in the passage of which Senators^ have a deep interest, and nothing would induce me to do so in this instance but the con viction, and the very firm conviction, that this is an improper piece of legislation. If I were sure that the bill would pass, I would still feel it my duty to state some of the reasons at least why I can not give it my support. Everything which is said with reference to the magnitude of this work and its importance I will freely grant, and for the purpose of the objection I may have, it may be fully con ceded. My objection is to the work being authorized, by an incorporation of the United States, a charter granted by the Government of the United States. It is not in my opinion a proper enterprise for the Government of the United States con sidered by itself, and considered as to the precedent which jsvill be established, and as to the wide departure upon which we will thus enter, I think it is very much more objectionable than simply when considered as an isolated piece of legislation. I know, Mr. President, that it is now the vogue to look askance at any suggestion that there is any function which the Federal Government should not perform, and to look with still more dis favor upon the suggestion that there is any remaining function which ought to belong to a State and to be exercised solely -by a State, and upon the exercise of which the Federal Government should not intrude. And yet we are here as representatives of States, andwe of all officials in the Government of the United States ought to be jealous that the functions which do properly belong to a State should be exercised by a State and not be usurped or exercised by the General Government. Of course, Mr. President, there are certain claims which have been made in times past as to where that line of de marcation between the Federal function and the State function.
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or Federal power and State power begins or ends questions raised in the past which are new settled definitely and finally, and the questions thus formerly involved are forever outside of the domain of dispute or discussion. But there are still im- portant matters in which that line of distinction should be re garded by all of the Government, some matters in which the functions of the States are to be guarded, and especially by us, as the representatives of States.
The dual capacity of this Government is its most distinctive and its most valuable feature, and the larger the country grows and the more numerous the States, the more important becomes the preservation of that feature, because where the General Government legislates, it legislates for the entire country, and legislation which may suit one part of the country does not always suit another, and for that reason, and out of it, grows the great demand and necessity and importance of local govern ment for local affairs and the great importance that the Federal Government shall confine itself to the functions, the necessity for which called it into being.
It is manifest that there is an increasing tendency and prac tice to devolve in great degree upon the Federal Government the functions which have heretofore been exercised by the States. There is scarcely a public need but that to satisfy it in some shape recourse is had to Congressional or Executive action. Conceding that much of this encroachment is due to the increas ing business of the country and the increasing intimacy of the business relations between the people of the different States, and can not be avoided, the fact of such tendency^ in cases which can not well be resisted makes it all the more important that the legitimate functions of the States should not be in vaded or infringed upon in cases where no public interest re quires that Congress should do so.
Mr. President, it is a well-recognized rule, one we apparently forget, but none the less fully established by the decisions of the courts, that the Federal Government has no right or author ity to grant a charter of incorporation except for the perform ance of some governmental function. Of course I can not to-day enter into an elaborate argument on this question, and I do not propose to attempt to do so. I am very sorry, indeed, that this bill comes up at the stage of the session spoken of by the Senator from Colorado [Mr. TELLER], when the Senate would be impatient at anything like an extended argument upon these special questions, great and fundamental as they nre, and I do no more than to allude to them.
I recognize the fact, Mr. President, that perhaps this par ticular bill might be held by the courts to be constitutional, but that is not the sole question which should control us. When we afe lawmakers come to make a law, we are to be controlled by .the larger consideration than wh*t the courts will hold. We are to be controlled by what we deem to be. the intent and pur pose of the Constitution in conferring upon us all power of leg islation.
On this particular question, to omit anything which may be more general, and coming down to the specific question here, of course I recognize that there are agencies of interstate commerce which it is proper that Congress should inaugurate and should charter, if you please. I recognize further that there is a gen eral principle upon which the courts might hold an Incorpora-
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tiori to be a constitutional act, which at the same time wouM not be a legitimate and proper and constitutional exercise of our functions on our part; and I illustrate-by this particular case.
There is no doubt that where the object of an incorporation is primarily and truthfully to subserve a great governmental func tion, that the act is not only one which the courts will hold to be constitutional, but a law in the passage of which we will have discharged our duty and will have in no manner contravened the spirit and design of the Constitution. I recognize, further, that an act of incorporation may be passed and words Included In it, as in this act, relative to the carriage of troops and the carriage of the mails, etc., which courts could riot dispute or call in question as to the sincerity of Congress in the use thereof, and on ac count of which words the courts would hold it was a legitimate and constitutional act; but in such case, if the words are inserted for the purpose of giving jurisdiction for such legislation, and such expressed purpose is not the purpose, and where there is no Federal public function to be performed calling for such incorpo ration, we have transcended our duty when we take advantage of such phraseology for the purpose of placing an improper en actment beyond the condemnation of the courts.
Mr. President, the line is drawn somewhere in the enactment of charters between those which are legitimately for the pur pose of enabling the Government to perform some governmental function and the other class which are not for the purpose of the performance of any governmental function, where the line is so indistinct that courts can not assume to draw the distinction, but must depend on the recitations in the act, and where it must be left to our conscience as to whether we will place the pro posed legislation-on the one side or the other. That proposition was recognized by Mr. Webster in the argument which he made before the Supreme Court in the great case of Gibbons v. Ogden. Senators "are all familiar doubtless with that leading case, and know the fact that it grew out of the attempt of the State of New York to license all steamboats which did business in the waters of New York. It was given as a monopoly to Livingston and Fulton and their assigns. Ogden was their as signee. Gibbons, owning a steamboat in New Jersey, attempted to do business between the town of Elizabeth, in New Jersey, and the city of New York, and an injunction, under the laws of New York, was applied for to restrain the owner of that boat from doing business between those two points in the absence of a license from the assignee under the law of New York.
That injunction was granted in New York and sustained by the highest court there, and came to the Supreme Court of the United States on an appeal from the judgment of the highest court of New York. The State of New York or those repre senting thelaw of New York in that particulnr case, the appel lees, attempted to maintain the authority of the State of New York to impose this license upon the proposition that there was a concurrent authority between the States and the United States in the regulation of interstate commerce. When that proposi tion was controverted by Mr. Webster, the conclusion to be drawn from that position of Mr. Webster was suggested by counsel for the appellees, that if there was not a concurrent power in a State and in the United States Government, neces sarily not only as to that important matter of interstate com merce, but as to all the sigeucies of interstate commerce (which
6919

would include every common carrier engaged in interstate com merce), there was an exclusive power in the General Govern ment and none in the State, and the wide-reaching consequences of such conclusion were urged against it. To that Mr. Webster made this reply, and, it was for the purpose of reading it that I have made this somewhat extended statement.
Mr. Webster took the position that it was necessarily a question to be determined by Congress as to what were matters of such gravity and so essfentinl concerning the governmental function as would authorize the power to be exercised by Con gress, and what were matters not of such an essentially gov ernmental nature as would leave them without that particular class. Mr. Webster used this language:
Now, what was the inevitable consequence of this mode of reasontag?
Replying to the suggestion I have just repeated Does it not admit the power of Congress at once, upon all these minor objects of legislation? If all these be regulations of commerce, within the meaning of the Constitution, then, certainly, Congress having a concurrent power to regulate commerce, may establish ferries, turnpikes, bridges, etc., and provide for all this detail of interior legislation. To sustain the interference of the State, in a high concern of maritime commerce, the argument adopts a principle which acknowledges the right of Congress oyer a vast scope of internal legislation, which no one has heretofore supposed to be within its powers, . And going on: But this is not all; for it is admitted that when Congress and the States have power to legislate over the same subject, the power of Congress, when exercised, controls or extinguishes the State power, and therefore the consequence would seem to follow froni the argu ment that all State legislation over such subjects as Imvfc been men tioned is at all times liable to the superior power of Congress, a con sequence which no one would admit for a moment. The truth was, he thought The report giving Mr. Websters argument in the third person The truth was, he thought that all these things were, in their gen era] character, rather regulations of police than of commerce, in the constitutional understanding of that term. A road, indeed, might be a matter of great commercial concern. In many cases it is so, and when it is so, he thought there was no doubt of the power of Congress to make It. But, generally speaking, roads and bridges and ferries, though, of course, they affect commerce and intercourse, do not obtain that im portance and elevation as to be deemed commercinl regulation*. This sentence which follows is the particular point I have in mind in reading this extract: A reasonable construction must be given to the Constitution, and such construction is as necessary to the just power of the States as to the authority of Congress. Mr. President, without elaborating that, the proposition upon which I rest my opposition to this bill, so far as this part of it is concerned, is that this enterprise is not for the purpose of carrying out any great governmental function, unless Senators are prepared to take the position that in every ease where the agency proposed to be incorporated can be used in interstate commerce, Congress can be legitimately called upon to In corporate it for the purpose of carrying on commerce. Mr. PENROSK. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania? Mr. BACON. I do.
691!)

Mr. PENROSE. The Senator says this is not carrying out a governmental function. I would remind the Senator that many hundred million dollars have been speat in the improvement of the rivers referred to by the Senator from West Virginia the Ohio and the Mississippi to secure inland water - transporta tion, and the incorporation of this company, that this vast ex penditure may be added to by private enterprise, certainly may be considered to be in the line of that governmental policy and that governmental function. It is certainly a laudable govern mental function which permits the private individual to con tribute and does not make application to the Treasury of the United States for the canal.
I simply submit to the Senator whether this is not a part of . a governmental function which is established in the United States, once opposed as unconstitutional and beyond the con stitutional limits of the Government, but now established the improvement of the internal waterways of the country.
Mr. BACON. In reply to the Senator, while of course to fol low his suggestion might involve a much more extended argu ment than I would now like to impose upon the Senate, I will simply say this: It Is a very great mistake, in .the definition of what may be considered a governmental function, to make such an application of it as the Senator now proposes. If what he says is correct, then let me say that the harbor of New York has had a good deal of money spent upon it to make it the great harbor it is, and If the application now suggested by the Senator is a correct one, it might equally be applied to every ^steamboat that goes to the city of New York, plying between the city of New York and any other port in the United States. It might be said that any line of boats that comes into any port of the United States upon which the Government has made improvements has thereby become so identified with the per formance of a governmental function that the company owning it should receive a charter at the hands of Congress.
Now. what I v-ns spying at the time I had the- interruption from the learned Senator is this: If this Is to be recognized as . a proper thing to do, if every agency engaged in interstate com merce is in the performance of a governmental function* such as is suggested, then the time is to come when every enterprise of any kind engaged in interstate commerce will apply to Con gress for a charter.
I should like to be told, Mr. President,, what argument can be advanced with respect to a canal which goes from one State into another, which thereby asserts that such canal becomes an agency of interstate commerce, and that the company construct ing it should for that reason be the recipient of a charter at the hands of Congress, which will not apply with equal force to a railroad running from one State into another.
Mr. PENROSE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania? Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. PENROSE. I will answer the Senator. It is a part Of an enormous system of slack-water navigation which the Gov ernment is now developing at the expense of the Government. This is an important connecting link, to be built by private en terprise, and the opinion of almost every one who has studied the question Is that the work should be done under the con-
6919

trol o| the United States, that it should be subject to its in spection and regulation, and ultimately will come within the control and possession of the Government.
Mr. BACON. I do not understand that that is any reply to what I was saying. The Senator says the opinion is it should be so. I am trying to show that such an opinion is not a cor rect opinion.
Mr. President, if the link between the two waterways of which the Senator speaks was a railroad link, would it not have an equal right to claim that it should be chartered by the Government?
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. BACON. With pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. Is the Senator denying the power of Con gress to incorporate a railway company to construct a railroad from one State to another, or across the continent, if you please? Mr. BACON. No; I am not denying that. I am not denying the general proposition that Congress has a right , Mr. SPOONER. How would the Senator justify that? Un der what part or clause of the Constitution would he justify it? Mr. BACON. The Senator did not give me his entire atten tion in the remarks which I submitted in the beginning, but I will take pleasure in repeating my statement. Mr. SPOONER. I always listen to the Senator when I am permitted to. Mr. BACON. I recognize the fact that it Is sometimes very difficult in this Chamber. I had said, Mr. President, that I recognize that there are a great many charters which might be granted by Congress which would be upheld by the courts as constitutional, but which would not be charters which we in the performance of our con stitutional duty could properly grant. I illustrated it by the statement that wherever there was the performance of a gov ernmental function, it made the action of Congress constitu tional in granting the charter, not only as to railroads, but as to any other corporation; that the courts could not look behind the language used to see whether or not the use of such lan guage was in fact the desire on the part of Congress to secure the performance of a governmental function which induced the passage of such a law, or whether the iise of such language was merely a makeweight, as it were, a device by* which free dom from condemnation by the courts on account of unconstitutionality was to be secured; but that the high duty was upon us when we came to legislate to see to it not only that under the language used in a law it would be held to be constitu tional by the courts, but that according to the spirit and intent of the Constitution it is under the facts and the real purpose, such a corporation as is designed by the Constitution to be made by the Congress; whether in deed and in truth the ob ject is to secure the performance of a great governmental function, or whether the object is otherwise, and that the com plexion of governmental function given to it is in truth simply to insure its freedom from condemnation by the courts. I had gone on to speak of the fact that while there was the general recognition of the power of Congress to charter corpo rations for great governmental interests, corporations, if you
6919

please, where that principal interest might have as one of its features interstate commerce, it was the duty of Congress to draw the line between those things which were legitimately of that class and other things which had a primary object of another character, where there was no governmental function the performance of which made tbe .creation of that corporation essential.
The illustration of the Pacific railroads is a common one. I will read in the hearing of the Senator what I Intended to read a little later, the statement of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 91, United States, as to the character of the corporation and the conditions and tbe purposes which justified the Congress

in doing that which it is not usual for Congress to do, to wit, charter a railroad company. I am reading from page 88, 91 United States, the decision of the court:

The act

Speaking there of the Union Pacific Railroad act; in the ease of the United States v. The Union Pacific Railroad Company

The act, as has been stated, was passed In the midst of war, when

the means for national defense were deemed Inadequate and the public

mind was alive to the necessity of uniting by Iron bands the destiny

of the Pacific and Atlantic States.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

But vast as was the work, limited as were the private resources to build it, the growing wants, as well as the existing and future military necessities of the country, demanded that It be completed. Under the stimulus of these considerations Congress acted, not for the benefit of private persons, nor in their interest, but for an object deemed essen tial to the security as well as to the prosperity of tne nation. (TJ. S. v. Union Pacific R. B. Co., 91 U. S. Heports, p. 88.)

I read further from the argument of Mr. Webster in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden. Mr. Webster, of course, was not de livering an opinion, but he was " the great expounder," and his utterances are entitled to great weight. There Mr. Web ster recognized the necessity of drawing the distinction between the functions which should be recognized as national func tions and those which should not be recognized as national functions, even though they were within the same subject-mat ter. In that case, when counsel representing the appellee, those representing the validity of the act of the State of New York, tried to make application of the argument to show that if what Mr. Webster contended for was true tlien the govern mental function would extend to and relate to and include every agency of interstate commerce, Mr. Webster drew the distinc tion. He said that such a thing was not to be thought of;

that the law must be construed with reference to the proper consideration of the States and also with reference to the needs and necessities of the Government, and should not include mat ters where the public interest was not the main design, but where the private interest was, in fact, the motive which led to the proposed action on the part of the Government.

I do not know whether I have in this reply made myself clear to the learned Senator or not

Now, Mr. President, where are we to stop if sw.h a bill as this can be passed and become a law? Who contends that-the construction of this canal is necessary for the transportation of troops of the United States, or for the transportation of the mails of the United States, or for the exercise of any other great governmental function? The contention is that it will be an avenue of commerce, that it will be an agency for interstate

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8
commerce, and that therefore the charter should be granted. I care not whether it is an ageniy between two States or be tween twenty-five States, if that is to be the rule, upon what ground can Congress hereafter ever deny a charter to any proposed agency which shall be or claim to be a means of conducting commerce between the States? When any railroad company, or proposed railroad company, conies to Congress and asks for a charter between the State of Pennsylvania and the State of Ohio or between any other two States, upon what ground can Congress deny it? Upon what ground can Congress deny any charter for any steamboat company that proposes to run a line from the city of Pittsburg to the city of Cincinnati, or from New York to any port along the coast of the United States?
Can we say that Congress will grant such charter in one In stance and that it will not grant such charter in another? Is it to be a question whether or not the particular persons who may desire it are those who have influence in the Government? Shall they be favored and shall others with equal right be denied?
Mr. President, if it is not denied, if in all cases we are to" act upon such a supposition, what is to become of the legislation of Congress? What will we be doing but sitting here engaged from sessions beginning to sessions ending in the granting of charters? Because every company will, of course, rather have a charter granted by the United States Government than to have one granted by a State.
But, Mr. President, there are serious considerations of another kind,- One of them is this, and I hope I may have the attention of Senators through whose States it is proposed the canal shall run. I would be glad to have the attention of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBA.KEB] for a moment. I say there are serious considerations for States in which enterprises of this kind are to be located.
It may be said that the Senators and Representatives from these particular States do not object, and therefore why should anyone else object? My reply to that is, if this charter is a proper thing it is one which Congress can grant in. a State which objects as well as in a State where there is consent.
Now, what is the effect of a charter granted by the United States Government? It becomes the law, not as it does in the case of a Territory or the District of Columbia, by virtue of the law of force in those particular areas,the power which is con ferred being thereafter exercised in States only by comity, but a general charter such as this becomes a law governing and controlling in every foot of territory of the United States, in cluding all the States. '. Now, what is the effect of that law? In the first place, it takes away from the State of Pennsylvania and the State of Ohio, the two particular States which are most interested in this matter, every right of control of every kind whatsoever in the States, so far as those rights can be asserted in courts. Thereafter no matter of dispute which arises in either of these States can be settled in the courts of those States. It is settled .in the removal cases, giving them by their general name, one In .111 United States, I think, .and the other in 115 United States, that all matters which arise under a charter granted by Congress are matters arising under the laws of the United States, and
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9
that they are, In consequence, under the Constitution, matters within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States,.and not matters which the States can assume and undertake to ad judicate in their own courts.
Here is this wonderful enterprise, vast in its power, tremen dous in the capital, with powers in this charter such as I have never seen granted in any charter, and about which I will hereafter speak more in detail if time permits, affecting the entire population hot only along the lines of that canal, because there are several of them, but throughout the country both in Ohio and Pennsylvania reached by any of the Allegheny ami three or four other rivers tributary. In that vast territory in these States and also in New York, no citizen can he heard in any court of those States, but they must go to the courts of the United States to have their rights adjudicated.
Not only that, Mr. President, but the power of taxation and I ask the attention of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. PBNKOSE] to this statement as it is somewhat in conflict with what I understand to be his statement the power of taxation is largely taken away from the State of Pennsylvania and the State of Ohio in regard to this property. It is true that so far as this bill is concerned it stipulates:
That the corporation hereby created shall be subject, in the respec tive States in which it does business, to all the laws of said Statea regulating the taxation of foreign corporations.
Mr. President, of late one very important subject-matter of taxation in corporations is the taxation of the franchises. It has gotten to be a great issue in the United States, an issue which has been settled largely in the United States that not only the tangible property of a corporation shall be taxed, but that its franchises shall be taxed. Yet the Supreme Court of the United States has determined, in the case of California v. The Railroad Company I have forgotten the number of the volume that the franchise of a corporation chartered by the Government of the United States can not be taxed by a State. This immense property, where the franchise is going to consti tute possibly the most valuable part of the property, running through Pennsylvania and Ohio, will, so far as that particular value is concerned, be free from liability to State, county, or municipal taxation.
I am speaking now of the hardship upon the communities through which these canals run. I repeat, this is a matter which more particularly concerns the Senators from those States, but as the establishment of a precedent it concerns us all. If powers such as are granted in this charter can be here after granted in any charter which promoters of any enterprise may try to get from Congress, then whose State will be next is not known to anyone. When they come for a charter what is done here in this case is to be cited as a precedent.
Now, Mr. President, another thing. I have never known a charter, either Federal or State, where there is such immense power of eminent domain granted as there is in this proposed charter, because not only does it concern the domain to be oc cupied by the canal, but it concerns the entire domain covered by all of the streams which may be classed among the head waters of the Ohio, Allegheny, and several other rivers, and all the rivers tributary thereto.
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[At this point Mr. BACON was interrupted by the expiration of the morning hour.]
Friday, June 15, 1906.
Mr. BACON. I regret, Mr. President, that I was not per mitted to finish the remarks I was proceeding to make upon this question wlien -the bill was previously before the Senate, and I particularly regret that so much time has elapsed since then that it is difficult to resume and have the matter which I shall cover to-day directly connected with and relating to that which I endeavored to cover on the former occasion.
I regard this, Mr. President, as a very grave question, not simply with respect to the particular measure now before the Senate, although that is a very grave one, but also in respect of the precedent that it sets as the beginning of what will be a most marked departure, if we shall continue to follow it, and, as I shall endeavor to show, one of very wide ,and far-reaching consequences in the future business of this Government and the relations between the General Government and the States.
Of course I am not going to elaborate these great questions, for they are great enough to elicit not only all that I might say, but all that might be properly said by a great many other Sena tors much more capable of dealing with this important question than I am.
I will not attempt, of course, Mr. President, to repent what I said on the former occasion, or even to make a synopsis of it. I will simply state, in order that the connection may be pre served, that I had endeavored to present to the Senate some reasons why this was not a proper piece of legislation fol the United States Congress; that the creation of a corporation by Congress should be limited to the creation of such corporations as are required for the performance of great governmental func tions, or for the performance of functions which corporations created by the States can not perform.
I had called attention to the proposition that even conced ing which we must do under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States the fact that a corporation which is intended to subserve the purposes of interstate commerce is one which justifies Congress in the chartering of a corporation to be thus engaged, at the same time that was not the char acter of corporation which should be so chartered if that were the sole function to be performed and if that function could be as well performed by some State corporation. In that connection, I had called attention to the fact that doubtless an act char tering a corporation of this kind, in which it is recited, as it is in this proposed charter, that it is for the purpose of perform ing a governmental function, would be held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be a constitutional enactment. This would be so held, because the Supreme Court would not go behind the action of Congress to question the sincerity of Con gress or to question whether or not that expression was inserted simply for the purpose of saving it from the condemnation of unconstitutionally on the part of the courts of the United States when they come to pass upon that question. The Supreme Court would not go behind that, and however insincere Congress might be in that recitation, /however well known it might be that the purpose of that recitation was to save it from uncon stitutionality, the Supreme Court would not undertake so to say.
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I had stated to the Senate the proposition that when It came to the responsibility of Congress in the enactment of such a law, there was a high duty upon Congress to consider and determine the question whether or not the purpose was in fact and in truth to subserve some great governmental function which could not be equally subserved by a corporation created by a State; and that if, -in the exercise of our duty, it was our opinion that the purpose was not to create a corporation for the performance of some governmental function that a State corporation could not equally well perform, even though we might be satisfied that the Supreme Court would hold such a law constitutional, our high constitutional duty was to carry out and make effective the spirit and intent and purpose of this constitutional restriction. In that connection I had quoted the very marked utterance of Mr. Webster in his argument in the great case of Gibbons v. Ogden, where he was contending for the exclusive power of the United States Government in that particular instance where the right to exclusive power in a matter which related to interstate commerce was called in ques tion, and where the right to concurrent power on the part of the State of New York was contended for by the other side. Webster, while maintaining the authority of the United States and the right of the United States and the duty of the United States to control exclusively all matters which essentially and necessarily relate to interstate commerce, recognized that Con gress should draw the line in legislation affecting the internal affairs of the States in such way as to preserve the exercise of their proper functions by the States.
That utterance of Mr. Webster was in response to the con tention of those who represented the right of the State of Ne\v York to exercise concurrent authority in this matter. This was the contention on the part of those representing New York : That if it be true that the simple fact that a matter referred to interstate commerce vested exclusive power over it in the Congress of the United States and there was no concurrent power in the State, the conclusion necessarily followed that it not only related to that particular instance involving the right to control interstate commerce, but that it necessarily extended to every corporation or every agency which could be created or which might have part in the carrying on of interstate com merce. Mr. Webster replies to that by the statement which I have previously read, which is the pith of that part of his ar gument, that that conclusion was not a necessary sequitur; that it did not necessarily follow; but that while those matters which were essential in interstate commerce and so essential that they could not be performed by the States or by corpora tions created by the States, and that for the States to attempt such performance would cause confusion and conflict, still a reasonable construction must be given to the Constitution such a construction as, while it preserved the power of the United States, would still protect and recognize and respect the rights and powers of ftie States in the performance of their legitimate and proper functions.
I will not go over again, Mr. President, the argument which I endeavored to submit upon that question when I addressed the Senate two days ago upon this subject. My purpose to-day is to conclude what I had in mind on the former occasion in
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12

bringing to the attention of the Senate some of the practical consequences of our departure from this well-recognized rule and practice of more than a hundred years; for, while it is true that in some noted instances there has been a chartering of corporations by Congress for the purpose of interstate com merce, in most of those instances the noted ones the circum

stances were peculiar and did come "within the rule as laid

down by Mr. Webster. I read from 91 United States Re ports, where, in speaking of the circumstances under which

Congress had chartered transcontinental railways, the court

shows the peculiar circumstances which justified Congress in departing from the well-recognized practice which left to the

States the chartering of these railway companies. I will take the liberty of reading it again in order that the connection may be kept up with what I am about to say. Referring to this act,

the incorporation of a transcontinental railway, the Supreme

Court, in the ease of the United States v. The Union Pacific Railroad, in 91 United States, says:

The act, as has been stated, was passed In the midst of "war, when the means for national defense were deemed Inadequate, and the public mind was alive to the necessity of uniting hy iron bands the destiny of the Pacific and Atlantic States.

And again in the same paragraph:

But vast as was the work, limited as were the private resources to build it, the growing wants as well as the existing and future military necessities of the country demanded that it be completed.

Mr. McLAURIN. From what case is the Senator reading?

Mr. BACON. The case of the United States v. Union Pacific

Railway Company, in 91 United States Reports.

y

An additional fact which is alluded to in the decision, and

which is known to us all, is that at the time of the chartering

of that railroad possibly nine-tenths, certainly four-fifths, of

that line of proposed railway lay across the public domain of

the United States, then comparatively an unsettled, wild

country.

It is true, Mr. President, that there can be found upon the statute book instances where some minor corporations have been chartered by the United States Government which would not by reason of any particular necessity for them measure up

to the, importance of these transcontinental railways which

were thus chartered by the United States Government; but we know the fact that sometimes charters of that kind go through

nem. con., nobody noticing particularly, whereas if they were

challenged, possibly they would not have gone through. How ever, I think It may be asserted as a fact that in the Ion?

course of the legislation of this Government the general rule has been recognized that the chartering of corporations, even where within the law of constitutional right, has been limited to cases where such corporations were essential to the per formance of governmental functions and where the perform ance of those governmental functions could not be as satisfac

torily accomplished by corporations chartered by the States. The question is, Mr. President, whether we are to adhere to

that recognized practice, even where we have the constitutional right to go beyond, or whether we will go beyond and open all

the great consequences which must inevitably flow from such a

departure on our part.

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Before I conclude I intend to call attention to some of the features in regard to this charter, and then I will probably have a little more to say as to the question of the consequences which are to flow from this proposed action on the part of Con gress if that action is to be taken as a precedent and followed hereafter.
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KEAN -in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. Always, with pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator, I suppose, has no doubt that the Government could build this canal itself? Mr. BACON. None whatever, and I would infinitely prefer that the Government should do it rather than it should grant this charter to a company. I would very much prefer that the Government should do It, and I will give my reason before I get through, Mr. SPOONER. If the Government might build it itself, of course it can exercise its constitutional right to choose the means by which it shall be built? Mr. BACON. I do not dispute the constitutional right, so far as the question would be decided by a court to be or not to be constitutional. Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Texas? Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me until I finish my sentence, then I will yield, with pleasure. But I say when Senators come to legislate they are not to be limited in the discharge of their duties to the simple question whether or uot the court will decide a thing to be or Hot to be constitutional, but that the high duty rests upon the legislator not only to limit himself to such matters as in his opinion will not be within the condemnation of the courts for unconstitutionality, but to limit himself to legislation which, in his opinion, is in accordance with 4he intent and purpose and practical design of the Constitution, even though when he goes beyond that it may be in a case where the court itself would not interfere. Now I yield with pleasure to the Senator from Texas. Mr. CULBERSON. The Senator from Georgia and the Sena tor from Wisconsin seem agreed that the Government of tho United States may itself construct a canar between States. Without expressing any opinion myself upon that question, I should like to ask the Senator from Georgia upon what provi sion of the Constitution he rests that power. Mr. BACON. I would rest it probably upon the same pro vision that I would rest the right to construct the Panama Canal a matter of importance to the Government in military defense, or in various ways; the improvement of the commerce of the country; in the same way and for the same reason that the Government improves a harbor or anything of that kind. I think it would be legitimate. Mr. MALLORY. In other words, the Senator would put it on the ground that it was a governmental function. Mr. BACON. Yes; the performance of a governmental func tion.
6919

Mr. CULBERSON. But the Government of the United States Is one of limited powers. Those powers are supposed to be enumerated in the Constitution. It would be a legislative act to authorize the construction of a canal, and I simply made this inquiry in order to invite an expression of opinion from the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Wisconsin as to what specific authority there is in the Constitution for the Gov ernment itself to build and construct a railroad or to construct a canal.
If the Senator will pardon me, in a sovereign State that power is the essence of sovereignty, and it may do anything which its own constitution does not prohibit. But the Govern ment of the United States is one of limited and enumerated powers, and if you undertake to say the Government of the United States may do this or that, then the question is, Where is the authority for it found in the Constitution?
Mr. BACON. Where does the Senator from Texas get the power for the Government to spend millions and hundreds of millions in building works in rivers to improve navigation?
Mr. CULBERSON. I have simply sought to invite an expres sion of opinion of the Senators who have announced themselves on this particular question.
Mr. KNOX. Mr. President Mr. NELSON. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me to

ask a question?

Mr. BACON. I must yield to one Senator at a time, and I

now yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania. Then I will yield

to the Senator from Minnesota.

?

Mr. KNOX. Thanking the Senator from Georgia for the

courtesy, I should like to answer the question propounded to the

Senator from Georgia by the Senator from Texas.

Mr. BACON. If I may do so, without the act being miscon

strued, I will sit down while the Senator speaks, because I

shall be very glad to hear from the Senator from Pennsylvania

not only briefly, but at length.

Mr. KNOX. It will be for only a moment.

Mr. BACON. I am not objecting at all.

Mr. KNOX. I should like to answer in the language of the

Supreme Court in a recent case, decided in 1893, in view of the

history of this class of legislation. I refer to the case of Lux-

ton v. North River Bridge Company, 153 United States:

It can not at tlje present day be doubted that Congress, under the power to regulate commerce among the several States/ as well as to provide for postal accommodations and military exigencies, had author ity t<5 pass these laws.

This is speaking now of the law granting a charter for a bridge to be constructed across the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York.

The power to construct or to authorize Individuals or corporations to construct national highways and bridges from State to State "is essen tial to the complete control and regulation of interstate commerce. Without authority in Congress to establish and maintain such high ways and bridges It would be without authority to regulate one of the most important adjuncts of commerce. This power in former times was exerted to a very limited extent, the Cumberland, or National, road being the most notable instance.

The courf goes on further, but I picked that out aa being con crete.
Mr. BACON. I have that case before me.

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Mr. NELSON and Mr. PATTBHSON addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Minnesota?

Mr. BACON. I yield.

Mr. NELSON* I desire to ask the Senator from Texas under what constitutional power he justifies the right of the Govern

ment to appropriate money for the construction of a canal at Port Arthur, wholly within the State of Texas, and also to appropriate money for canalizing Buffalo Bayou? Under what paragraph of the Constitution does he find warrant and author

ity for those appropriations for works wholly within the State

of Texas? Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. President

Mr. BACON. I promised to yield next to the Senator from

Colorado. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Texas to answer the Senator from Minnesota?

Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. CULBERSON. Acting upon the courtesy of the Senator

from Georgia, I will say to the Senator from Minnesota that he

takes the question I put to the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Wisconsin rather too seriously. I expressed no

dissent to that proposition myself, expressly stating that I

would reserve my opinion. But I wanted to hear from those gentlemen.

Now, in the speech I made on the rate bill I stated that

whether the power to regulate included the power to construct, and whether the Government of the United States, being one of limited and enumerated powers, could construct and operate railroads the same as a government of general sovereignty

rather than of limited sovereignty could do, was a question unnecessary to be determined. I am disposed to believe that if the Government of the United States can construct and operate railroads and canals at all, it must be rested upon the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

Mr. PATTERSON. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Colorado?

^jf

Mr. BACON. I do.



^

Mr. PATTERSON. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr.

KNOX] read a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which was based, I believe, upon an act of Congress authorizing the construction of a bridge over a navigable stream

between two States, and he read the language of the decision to the effect that Congress had not only power to grant sncli au

thority to others, but the power to construct such works. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania conclude from that decision that the right and power exist in the Government to construct,

own, and operate railways, as well as the works used by ofher

common carriers, extending through several States? Mr. KNOX. -If I may be permitted in the time of the Sena

tor from Georgia

Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr, KNQX. I will say that the language I read, while it is

found in the report of the case in which the question was

raised as to the validity of legislation authorizing the con-

001!)

-

.-

16
struction of the North River Bridge, was taken from the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley in California v. The Pacific Railroad. So the court itself answers the question propounded by the Sena tor from Colorado, which is, Can the United States authorize the construction of a railroad? Speaking of the validity of that act, which did authorize the construction of a railroad, the court says:
The power to construct, or to authorize individuals or corporations to construct, national highways and bridges from State to State la essential to the complete control and regulation of interstate com merce.
It cites a notable case, with which we are all familiar, I especially so, having been born on the line of the road, that of the Cumberland, or National, road, which was constructed by Congress, running from this city, and which was intended to go to Cincinnati, but at Indianapolis was overtaken by the develop ment of the railroads.
Mr. PATTERSON. The Senator has not given us his view. He reiterates the views of the Supreme Court of the United States in connection with that act of Congress, and then re fers to the construction of the National road.
Mr. KNOX. It is from Mr. PATTERSON. Let me ask the Senator categorically whether it is his opinion, based upon the decisions of the Su preme Court of the United States, and the interstate-commerce clause of the Constitution, that the Government may construct and own and operate railroads throughout the United States? Mr. KNOX. My opinion- of the powers of the Federal Gov ernment under the Constitution is based upon the opinions"of the Supreme Court, and I have not the slightest doubt that the Supreme Court decided that question in the way I read. If that is not a satisfactory answer, and if it were a question of individual opinion, which of course must be based upon the opinions of the court, I have not the slightest doubt about it. Mr. PATTERSON. That it has the power? Mr. KNOX. It has. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, this is a most interesting ques tion, and one of the class which I wish our lawmakers were more in the habit of considering these limitations. I have no question, I repeat I have said it several times that this act would be declared constitutional under the decisions of the Supreme Court, broadly announcing the doctrine as those de cisions have, that any charter enacted by Congress in which there should be a recitation of the purpose to facilitate inter state commerce would be declared by the court to be constitu tional. I repeat, however, that that is not the rule by which we are to be guided in the enactment of a charter, unles^ we are prepared to say that we will in practice follow the rule and charter all corporations which are to engage in interstate com merce and which may so claim and apply to us to be so char tered. I suppose no one will dispute the fact that if we were to do so, there would be an immense revolution in the business of this country and in the relation of the States to that busi ness and the corresponding relation of the General Govern ment to that business. I am going to have a little more to say about that somewhat later, and I simply pass that point now
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for the purpose of emphasizing the proposition that in dtetermining whether a charter shall be granted it is not simply the question whether or not an act Incorporating, a company, will be decided by the courts.to be constitutional, unless we are prepared to go to the extent of saying that we are ready to charter all corporations which are going to be engaged in inter state commerce, because all of them would be held, by the Su preme Court to be constitutional.
But while they would be so held to be constitutional, would it be consistent with our duty to go to that exteflt and charter all corporations engaged in interstate commerce in the United States, or should we in the exercise of our duty and our high constitutional obligation follow the suggestion of Mr. Webster, which I have twice Quoted I am applying what he said sub stantially in the matter of what ought to be our duty that we should, in determining whether or not a certain charter should be granted, be guided by the great rule, is it necessary for the performance of a governmental function, which function can not be as well performed by a charter granted by a State? In every case where that function can not be as well performed by a corporation chartered by a State, then there is the strongest reason why we should exercise the power.
Mr. President, I am going to pass from that point imme diately, because I propose to return to it a little later, when I shall make a little more practical illustration of the view which I take of our duty in regard to that matter. In regard to this particular charter, I say it will not be a corporation which will be discharging any great governmental function which could not be equally well discharged by a corporation chartered by the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio. I say the purpose of the canal is not the performance of a great governmental function. The simple fact that great interstate commerce will pass over it will not bring it within that category, unless we are prepared to go further and say that all carriers over which interstate commerce passes are performing a governmental function, and that an equal obligation rests upon us to give a Federal charter to every great railroad or steamboat or steamship company engaged in interstate commerce over which great interstate commerce is to flow.
In the second place, I say conceding all that is said by the learned Senators from Pennsylvania, who have both addressed the Senate on this subject, as to the vast importance of the con struction of this work and the great benefits which will flow therefrom and the great evil which will result from the failure to construct the canal, our refusal to grant this charter will not prevent the construction of the canal, and that immediately.
I hold in my hand a pamphlet which has been laid on the desk of every Senator, in regard to this enterprise. I suppose the fact of the authenticity of every statement in it can be accepted Ijy us from tire fact that the pamphlet comes from those who are interested in the procurement of the charter. Each Senator, if he has not disposed of it, has a copy of this pamphlet upon his desk, and on page 29 he will find the fact stated that the authority to build this canal has already been given by the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, This pamphlet professes to be the proceedings had at a meeting in Pittsburg on November 29, 1904, in which there were addresses delivered
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by several eminent men, among them Mr. DALZKLL, at present a Member of the House of Representatives, and Mr. John B. > Shaw, who I take, from the allusions made to him and from the speech itself, to be a prominent citizen of Pittsburg, one fully authorized to speak with regard to that enterprise, because he seems to have been one of the most active men in its advocacy and proposed prosecution.

First I will read from page 24 of this pamphlet, where, under the subhead " History of the ship-canal project," he says:

In 1889 tbe legislature of Pennsylvania appointed a commission to Inquire into the practicability of such a waterway, and appropriated $10,000 for their use.

I will not read further from .that part now. I will turn to that later, and I will now resume where I first proposed to read, from page 29, under the subhead " Canal can be built at once." In his speech Mr. Shaw stated this at that meeting:

The provisional committee, after their exhaustive examination of the matter, and realizing what a tremendous bulwark it would be in both maintaining and protecting Pittsburgh commerce and trade, and her mining and manufacturing industries, proceeded a step further to clear the decks, so that the canal could become a reality.

I hope every Senator will listen to what I am going to read, and I wish every Senator who is going to vote on this question were in his seat to hear it:

The route adopted as being the most economical in construction, and

serving the largest commercial interests, lies about one-half in Penn

sylvania and one-half in Ohio.

The committee procured a general law to be enacted in Pennsyl

vania, authorizing a ship canal company to be organized to construct

and operate a ship canal from the headwaters of the Ohio Rivgr via

the Beaver and Mahoning rivers to the Ohio State line.

*

A similar law was passed in tile Ohio legislature authorizing a ship

canal company to construct and operate a ship canal from Ashtabula on

Lake Erie to.the Pennsylvania State line on the Mahoning River, and

authority was given in both States to consolidate their franchises at

thje State line and operate a through canal from the Ohio River to Lake

Erie by one company.

Now, there is not only the separate authority given by the State of Pennsylvania and by the State of Ohio for the corn struction of this canal within the limits of the particular State. Here is a reciprocal piece of legislation by the two States, that

they may meet at the State line and consolidate as one company to construct and operate this canal.
Mr. KNOX. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania?
Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. KNOX. It is very obvious that there has been no at tempt to conceal that fact. Otherwise the pamphlets would not have been laid on the desks. Mr. BACON. No; of course there is no intention to suggest any such purpose to conceal Mr. KNOX. I wish the Senator would read the next para graph. It indicates why they ought to have a national charter. Mr. BACON. I have no doubt reasons can be suggested. Mr. KNOX. There is no dispute about that. Mr. BACON. I am speaking of the fact that, so far as the prosecution of this work is concerned, they have every authority and power now to proceed with its construction, and that a failure on the part of Congress to charter it will not interfere

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with the construction of the work. It goes on upon the next page I will read it if the Senator desires I should in this connection:
The committee went a step further, realizing that this canal was but a short connecting link between the waterway systems of the Great Bakes ana the Ohio and Mississippi rivers under the control of the Fed eral Government, w,hlch would sooner or later he taken over by the Government and made a part of the Federal waterway system, even If primarily built by a private corporation, Introduced a bill in Congress asking for power under a national charter to a corporation to build this canal.
That was an assumption, of course, as to the fact that the Government of the United States will ultimately take it over. I presume none of us will admit that as being correct. I sup pose I could state it as a fact, for I understand it to be the fact, that when this proposition was first presented in the other House it failed of passage in a previous Congress. But I am simply now discussing the question whether or not the granting of the charter is essential to the prosecution of this wort, even if we concede all that is said as to its great importance and Its essential character. Evidently it is not. There could not be a more complete piece of legislation on the part of two States to authorize the construction and operation and maintenance of the- canal than there already has been both by the State of Pennsylvania and the State of Ohio.
Mr. President, I want to ask the attention of the Senators present to a consideration of what are the evil consequences which are to flow from the doing of this unnecessary thing in the granting of this charter. In the first place, I called atten tion on a previous occasion to the fact that when a charter is granted by the Federal Government the States have no power to tax the franchise. The taxing of a franchise I believe Is of modern development, but franchises have come to be recognized as. a very important part of the taxable property of the cor poration. When the Federal Government exercises its power and goes into a State and charters a company, even though under the law all the visible property of that company is sub ject to taxation, the franchise, an important part of the taxable property of that corporation when created by the United States, ceases to be taxable by the State. While of course we all rec ognize the truth of that proposition, I want to read what the Supreme Court of the United States said in a case In 127 United States, California v. Pacific Railroad Company, where the question before the court was whether OE. not a State had the right to tax the franchise of a corporation which had been created under a charter granted by the Federal Government. The court says this:
Taxation is a burden, and may be laid so heavily as to destroy the thing taxed or render It valueless. Aa Chief Justice Marshall said in McCuIloch v. Maryland, " the power to tax Involves the power to de stroy." Recollecting the fundamental principle that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, it seems to us almost absurd to contend that a power given-to a person or corporation by the United States may be subjected to tax ation by a State. The power conferred emanates from, and is a por tion of, the power of the government that confers It. To tax it is not only derogatory to the dignity, but subversive of the powers of the government and repugnant to its paramount sovereignty. Itv is unnec essary to cite cases on this subject. The principles laid down by the court in McCuIloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat.. 316; Oabom v. The Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat, 738, and Brown . Maryland, 12 Wheat., 419 ; and in numerous cases since which have followed in their lead, abundantly sustain the views we have expressed.
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Mr. President, It may be a small matter that in one particular instance the United States Government will charter a corpora tion in a State and thus deprive the State of a very valuable

part of what should constitute the taxable property of a State,

but if we are to have this as a precedent and to go further and charter all corporations engaged in interstate commerce, it can

be seen at once what an immense influence it must have upon the revenues derived from taxation in a State.
Mr. PATTER SON. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Geor gia yield to the Senator from Colorado? , Mr. BACON. I do, with pleasure.

Mr. PATTERSON. Should the act creating the corporation expressly grant to the State the right to tax the franchises of such a corporation within, the State, might not then the fran chises be taxed by the several Commonwealths?

Mr. BACON. In the case I have just quoted, I will say in answer to the inquiry of the learned Senator from Colorado, the court indirectly recognized that power. But the language used by the ctiurt shows how inconsistent they consider it with

the dignity and power of the United States Government to delegate any such power to a State.
I will read

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Minnesota?

:

Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me just a moment

until I finish the reply to the Senator, I will yield to him witb

pleasure. The Senator will recall that in the paragraph wbfch

I just read from this decision these words occur:

Taxation is a burden, and may be laidSo heavily as to destroy the thing taxed or render it valueless. As Chief Justice Marshall said in McCulloch v. Maryland, " the power to tax involves the power to de stroy/ Recollecting the fundamental principle that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, it. seems to us almost ahsurd to contend that a power given to a person or corporation by the United States may be subjected to taxation by a State. The power conferred emanates from and is a portion ol the power of the Government that confers it. To tax it Is not only derog atory to the dignity, but subversive of the powers of the Govern<Bfcnt and repugnant to its paramount sovereignty.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President

Mr. BACON. So, if the Senator from Minnesota will pardon

me a minute, even if the right does exist and if Congress should confer the right, it would be in conflict with what the Supreme Court designates as the " dignity " and " prerogative " and " sov ereignty " of the Government; and even if, for the purpose of avoiding what they concede to be a hardship, Congress should incorporate that in a measure, these great corporations, which

in the aggregate, all over the United States, would make an irresistible force, would have it in their power to come to Con

gress and get relief from this burden by securing amendments taking away any power granted to the States to tax these fran chises.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Minnesota?

Mr. BACON. I will yield. I said to the Senator I would yield to him.

6919

21

Mr. NELSON. I wish to say to the Senator from Georgia

that that is precisely what we have done in the case of the

national banks. We allowed them to be taxed.

Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly.

Mr. NELSON. That does not, as far as I know, derogate

from the authority of the United States in any degree.

Mr. BACON. That Is true, and we have gone further in the

matter of national banks. We have also made them subject to

the jurisdiction of local courts. But nevertheless the propo

sition is as I have stated it. The matter of banks, Mr. Presi

dent, is different. The banking business of the country is of a

different kind from the business of common carriers or from any

other industrial enterprise. I will not stop to turn aside to

illustrate what those differences may be.

Now, Mr. President, another result which flows from Congress

going into the States and chartering their business enterprises

is that it takes away from the jurisdiction of the State courts

a settlement of the controversies between the people of those

States and these corporations thus chartered and confers it all

upon the courts of the General Government. It is a very grave

question to my mind whether, under the constitutional provi

sion which gives to the Federal courts the jurisdiction between

certain citizens in cases arising under the laws of the United

States, Congress can by any enactment take that jurisdiction

away from the Federal courts-in the case of a company char

tered by Federal law and confer it exclusively upon the courts

of the State.

Mr. KNOX. Mr. President

. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Geor

gia yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania?

Mr. BACON. I dp.

Mr.KNOX. The Senator from Georgia must surely know

that that is exactly what Congress has done in respect to na

tional banks.

Mr. BACON. I have just stated the fact that jurisdiction in

such cases has been conferred on the State courts. The Senator

was not listening.

Mr. KNOX. No; the Senator answered the question of the

Senator from Minnesota on the question of jurisdiction.

Mr. BACON. I added, in response to the Senator from Minne

sota, that the law had gone further and conferred jurisdiction

upon local courts in regard to controversies involving United

States banks.

Mr. KNOX. Then I think the Senator has answered his own

doubt.

Mr. BACON. No; not necessarily. I have doubts very fre

quently, and I have no doubt the learned and distinguished

Senator has, as to the correctness of* legal propositions, even

where they have been decided by the courts. I do not think I

am misstating any fact in that case.

Mr. NELSON. I wish to call the attention of the Senator, if

he will allow ine, in connection with the point he last made, to

the fact that in the judiciary act conferring jurisdiction on

the circuit and district courts of the United States, the very

language of the act is ths^t those courts shall have concurrent

.jurisdiction with the courts of the several States, and under

the bankruptcy act jurisdiction is left with the State courts.

6019

.-

.

22

Mr. BACON. Yes: that is true. I do not dispute that.

Mr. NELSON. That is the ease under the Federal bank

ruptcy law. So there can be no difficulty in dividing the juris

diction.

Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the learned Sena

tor for calling my attention to facts as to these matters that of

course we need to be reminded of, but which, I presume, every

Senator present is fully aware of. That does not change the

proposition that to my mind there is a doubt as to the correct

construction of that section of the Constitution which gives

jurisdiction to the courts of the United States in cases arising

under the laws of the United States, as to whether or not the

jurisdiction of the United States court can in any case be

denied to one who has the right to claim it.

,

I do not mean to say, Mr. President, that the Congress can

not give the right to a concurrent jurisdiction to one who

claims anything under the laws of the United States, who may

desire to go into the State court. The question upon which I

have doubt is whether, where a case arises under the laws of

the United States, one who claims a right to go into a Federal

court can be denied it by reason of the fact that concurrent

jurisdiction is given to a State court.

I wish the Senator from Pennsylvania or the Senator from

Minnesota would show where the Supreme Court of the United

States has ever decided that in such a case, where concurrent

jurisdiction is thus given, it was not within the power of the

party to claim his right under this constitutional provision,

under the exercise of a right which had not be,en denied, when

he asserted his right to be heard in a Federal court. If there5"

is such a case let either of the Senators point it out.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Minnesota?

Mr. BACON. I do.

Mr. NELSON. Whenever a Federal question arises the stat-

ute provides for a transfer to the Federal courts, and even

where a case is litigated in the State court when it finally,

reaches the supreme court of the State, if there is a Federal

question involved it can be taken up to the Supreme Court of

the United States.

Mr. BACON. I had previously been well aware of the fact.

Mr. NELSON. It does not cut off the State courts from liti

gation. The matter can be reviewed in the Supreme Oourt of

the United States, but in the first instance the State courts, the

nisi prius court, and the supreme courts of the State have juris

diction and try the case

Mr. BACON. That is not the question.

Mr. NELSON. And the case goes up to the Supreme Court

of the United States not because the lower courts have not had

jurisdiction, but because there is a Federal question involved.

Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I think we all must know-

that fact. We are all fully familiar with that rule of law.

But that has nothing whatever to do with the proposition I am

discussing.

Mr. NELSON. That law works in all other commercial and

business transactions of the United States. Why can we not

6919

23
>

apply that same law and that same principle to the matter of

the construction and operation of this canal?

Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, the Senator is not on the

point I am on at all, or else I clearly misunderstand him. The

proposition which I make is one upon which I challenge the

Senator from Pennsylvania, or the Senator from Minnesota

either, to furnish a decision. If there be such a decision, then

I bow to it, of course. It is this: In a case arising under the

laws of the United States (which in the removal cases the Fed

eral court says involves all cases arising under a charter

granted by the Federal Government), where concurrent juris

diction is vested by law both in the Federal and in the State

courts, and where a party interested in a case arising under those

laws claims a right and seeks to exercise the right to have his

case tried in the Federal court, where has the Supreme Court of

the United States ever held that he should be denied that right,

and that the case must be brought in the State court because

concurrent jurisdiction has been given by Congress to the State

courts?

Mr. KNOX. Mr. President

Mr. NELSON. That is not denied. Is there anything la this

bill which denies that right?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania?

Mr. BACON. I dp.

Mr. KNOX. If the Senator from Georgia had not twice ad

dressed me as the Senator from Pennsylvania and challenged

me to produce an authority, I should not have interrupted

him. But as I have not contended that there is any such.deci

sion I am not at all interested in searching the authorities to

see whether I can find one.

Mr. BACON. I beg the Senators pardon. Possibly I was

a little too abrupt in my address to him. There was nothing

certainly further from my mind than by word or manner to

say or do anything in the least degree offensive, and if I was

guilty of it, it was certainly without the slightest conscious

ness on my part. I judge from the Senators reply that he did

so consider it; and I beg of him to think otherwise, because

there was nothing further from my intention.

"

Mr. KNOX. If I may be permitted, I will say I had not the

slightest feeling about it, but it seemedto be so direct as to

what the Senator regarded as authority upon that subject that,

not recognizing the relevancy of the proposition to the bill be

fore the Senate, I did not think it worth while tfl bother -about it.

Mr. BACON. The relevancy, if the Senator wilt pardon me,

Is just this: I was speaking of one of the great evils which

would result from the Federal Government entering upon the

domain of granting charters to industrihl enterprises of vari

ous kinds engaged in interstate commerce in the States; that as

a consequence tlie State courts would be deprived of their juris

diction.

Mr. KNOX. Mr. President

Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me just a moment,

I will then yield to him with pleasure. I have not finished the

statement of the proposition. It had been suggested and stated

both by the Senator from Pennsylvania and myself that to

6919

24

avoid an evil of that character in the case of the national banks

concurrent jurisdiction had been given by the Federal statute

in the State courts and In the Federal courts; and the Senator

from Minnesota had gone further and instanced other classes

of cases where there had been such concurrent jurisdiction

granted by the Federal statute. My reply to that had been

that it did not necessarily restore the exclusive jurisdiction to

the State courts, for the reason that if the controversy arises

under the laws of the United States, as every controversy will

arise in a case where there has been a Federal charter, the

party had his right under the Constitution to the jurisdiction

of the Federal courts; and that even if the right of concurrent

jurisdiction were admitted there could not be any denial to him

of the Federal jurisdiction if he claimed it and insisted upon it.

Thereupon it was that, possibly with too much earnestness, I

suggested that if I were in error the Senator from Pennsylvania

or the Senator from Minnesota would be able to produce an

authority to the contrary. That I think, Mr. President, shows

that it was extremely relevant to the question involved.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Seuator from Geor

gia yield to the Senator from Texas? *

Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr. CULBERSON. I hope the Senator will pardon me, Mr.

President. I have not heard all the discussion on this immediate

point, and probably what I am going to say is not altogether

relevant, but I concluded to call the attention of the Senator

from Georgia to it anyway. The fact to which I refer is that

the Supreme Court ofi the United States in what are known as

" the Texas and Pacific Railway cases " has decided that by rea

son of the charter of that company alone by Congress it has the

right to remove all its cases to the Federal courts for trial. ^

Mr. BACON. The Senator is quite correct. I had referred

to them generally as the removal cases. I had not given the

name of the cases.

Mr. CULBERSON. The Texas and Pacific Railway cases.

Mr. BACON. Yes; I know the cases. In two volumes, 1,11

and 115, if I correctly remember the numbers of the volumes,

what are known as the removal cases are found. I had stated

the proposition; but I am obliged to the Senator for again call

ing attention to it.



Now, Mr. President, I am, of course, occupying very much

more time than I had any anticipation of doing. I have called

attention to the fact that in the granting of a Federal charter

for any carrier engaged in interstate commerce in a State, the

right to tax the franchise by the State is taken away, and next

that the right to the enjoyment of the trial of cases in State courts

is practically denied where a party claims his right to trial in

the Federal courts, even where concurrent jurisdiction is con

ferred by the law upon the State courts.

Another most grievous evil, to my mind, is the entering by the

Federal Government in a wholesale way upon the exercise in

States of the right of eminent domain. If the time shall some

when the Federal Government, acting upon what we recognize

as the doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United

States, proceeds to charter all those enterprises engaged in inter

state commerce, then we have not here and thete in isolated in-

6019

25
stances the exercise of the power of eminent domain by the Fed eral Government* but in a widespread system, reaching every nook and corner of a State where railroads penetrate, we have the Federal Government entering upon the exercise of this great fundamental and highest of all prerogatives, which takes a citi zens property without his consent.
Mr. NELSON. Will the Senator yield to me a minute? The PRESIDING OFFICKR. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Minnesota? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. NELSON. I want to call the attention of the Senator from Georgia, in connection with what he has just stated, that he is in error. Under sections 11 and 12 of this bill the right of eminent domain by this canal company is to be exercised under the laws of the respective States, so far as it concerns the State of Ohio, under the laws of that State, and so far as it relates to the State of Pennsylvania, under the laws of that State. So we do not withhold the exercise of the right of eminent domain from the States in any measure whatsoever. Mr. BACON. I am very much obliged to the learned Sena tor. I am not discussing this particular charter in this par ticular connection,, hut even if I were, it would none the less be the exercise of eminent domain by the governmental power and authority of the United States. Even though you adopt the machinery prescribed by the State, it is none the less the going into the State by the Federal Government and reaching every remote corner of it in the exercise of the right of eminent domain. I am net speaking as to this particular case alone or limiting it to this case, but what will be the result if we enter upon this general policy of going into a State and reach ing every corner of it in the exercise of the right of eminent domain by the United States Government. Now, in this particular case, Mr. President, coming to that, it is true, I repeat, as stated- by the ^Senator, reading from the particular section of this proposed charter, that it is prescribed that the exercise of this right shall be according to the law of each of these States. Bu it is none the less the exercise of the power by the Federal Government. I am sorry that many Senators Who are to vote upo this ques tion, and some of whom are flirectly interested in this matter, are not here to hear it discussed. 1 want to call attention to the wide, far-reaching provisions of this bill under which the right of eminent domain by the authority of the United States is to be exercised, not simply in the two States that the Senator speaks of, but also in the State of New York, because a part of the territory covered by this charter in subjecting water courses, etc., is in the State of New York, although it is not named. I wish to read some of the powers here. I read from page S. section 11: SEC. 11. That the said company, in the exercise of Its right of emi nent domain as granted in section. 2 of this act, may,- at its own ex pense and subject to and in conformity with the laws of the States, respectively, through which said canals may be constructed, enter upon and take such lands as are necessary and proper for the making, main taining, and operating of the canals, feeders, and other works of the company hereby authorized, and it shall have the authority, at its own expense and subject to and in conformity with the laws of the States, respectively, through which said canals may lie constructed, to alter any and all highways, waterways, railroads, and other works, either

26
public or private, necessary for the making, maintaining, and operat ing of the canals, feeders, and other works of the company.
Now, Mr. President, while that is to be done in accordance with the machinery of the States, the power and authority are the power and authority of the United States.
But there is another feature of the exercise of eminent do main in this bill which is a very much more serious one than that, and .that feature is found in the twelfth section, which authorizes this corporation to control all the waters of certain streams, with- certain exceptions mentioned, and which I will read, of every kind in three States Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York which, while I can not, of course, state with ac curacy, I judge by such an examination as I am able to give it upon the map will certainly cover an area of between 10,000 and 20,000 square miles.
Mr. KNOX. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BRANDEOEE in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Penn sylvania? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. KNOX. I know the Senator wants to be accurate, and therefore I call his attention, to the fact that it does not permit the control of all the waters of the Allegheny River above Franklin, but only the flood waters. Mr. BACOX. I am coming to that. Mr. KNOX. The Senator stated that section 12 provided for the whole control of the waters. I only want to call attentioa to the fact Mr. BAQON. I said with certain exceptions, which I swould name the Senator. Mr. KNOX. That is not an exception. V Mr. BACON. Well, limitations, then. I was careful to guard my language, but was possibly not accurate in its use. When I said " exceptions " I had that particular thing in my mind, and I think that possibly the language might be sufficient for the general purpose. When I used the word " exceptions " I meant that it was not unlimited, and that I would call atten tion to its particular features. Now I am going to read that section, Mr. President.
SEC. 12. That the said company in the exercise of its right of emi nent domain as granted in section 2 of this act may, subject to the rights of the States, respectively, through which said canals shall pass, or any of the municipalities thereof affected thereby, to regulate and control the same, obtain, take, and use for the construction and opera tion of the said canals, feeders, and other works from the rivers, lakes, brooks, streams, water courses, ponds, reservoirs, and other sources of water supply sufficient water for the purpose of constructing, main taining, operating, and using the said canals, feeders, and other works hereby authorized.
That certainly is without limitation. Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to read the proviso of it. Mr. BACON. I am certainly going to read it all. The Sena tor need not doubt that. I simply pause at that point, Mr. President, for the purpose of saying that where the semicolon occurs in line 19, up to that point there is no limitation or ex ception.
From the rirers, lakes, brooks, streams, water courses, ponds, reser voirs, and other sources of water supply sufficient water for the purpose
6919

27

of constructing, maintaining, operating, and feeders, and other works hereby authorized.

using

the

said

canals,

There is ijp exception, no limitation; and I repeat, Mr. Presi

dent, that, so faras I can judge by simply inspecting the map,

there is an area of territory between ten and twenty" thousand

square miles upon which there is this absolutely unlimited

power to take and use, and, as will be seen in the succeeding

portion of the section, which I shall read, there -carries with it

the power to divert and to impound; and there is not a

spring or a brook or a rivulet or a stream or a reservoir or a

pond in all that vast area but what, with the great power of the

United States behind it, this corporation can go into it and take

for its own use, of course paying for it. But who can pay for

the damage done to a neighborhood in drying up a stream,

in the impounding of its waters, and the consequent drying up

of the bed below? Who can pay, what money can pay, in a

vast territory such as this, for the absolute sequestration and

condemnation of all the water of every kind and from every

source upon which the health and the comfort and the pleasure

of a great people are so dependent? And yet there is no limita

tion to it.

Mr. President, it is bad enough for the State to grant such a

power, but it is infinitely worse for the Federal Government to

do it. When a State grants such power, if the people are

troubled by it, there is very little difficulty in their going to the

legislature and having it corrected; but who can estimate the

difficulty which would attend the people who have this great, to

say the least of it, inconvenience and trouble brought upon

them, when they come to Congress to contend with the in

fluences of a corporation with power to organize with a

capital of $200,000,000,- as is given in this charter? Who can

estimate their difficulty wherf they are to come here and ask

that Congress shall restore to them their springs, the*ir brooks,

their rivulets, their streams, their ponds, their reservoirs? Let

Congress do that .if it will, but it shall go down in the record

of this days proceedings jthat there was at least one man in the

Senate of the United States to protest against it. Then it

goea on

-

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President-

The PRESIDINGOFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Minnesota?

Mr. BACON. Certainly.

Mr. NELSON. I desire to call the Senators attention I do

not think he states the question fairly

Mr. BACON. I have read the quotation accurately.

Mr. NELSON. .All this must be done, the Senator will find

if he will read the first part of section 12, " subject to the rights

of the States, respectively, through which said canals shall

pass, or any of the municipalities thereof affected thereby, to

regulate and control the same."

Mr. BACON. Well, I have read tnat.

Mr. NELSON. All that of which the Senator from Georgia

complains must be done subject to the laws of the States; and

he has entirely overlooked the proviso at the end of the section.

Mr. BACON. I have not got to that yet. I have said to the

Senator that I was^oiiig to read it. I have already read the

particular words which he now quotes.

23
But, Mr. President, what does it mean when Congress passes a law giving certain rights and powers under that law when you say it shall be subject to the regulation and control of the States? EJpes it mean that the State can pass a law and nega tive this law? Would any man contend for a moment that any law of a State could nullify any single provision of this charter? Absolutely not. It would simply be a question, Mr. President, whether or not, when the Federal court comes to decide it, that this law, with all these powers, is being exercised in accord ance with the rights of the States. Can it lie said that where Congress empowers a company to take a stream and to im pound it, or to take all the water from all the streams or all the reservoirs in a State and impound them, that any State should pass a law and say they should not do it; that the power granted by Congress would be negatived? No man w! contend that for a moment. We give the express power to these particular things, and we give them without reservatfc" The power given to the State " to regulate and control " does not carry with it the slightest power to. negative and destroy the powers given to take, divert, impound, and use these waters. It only gives the power to the State to regulate and control the manner of taking, but in no particular to prohibit or in the slightest degree to limit the taking.
Mr. President, to continue with the reading where I left off, without the omission of any words. I am going to read it clear through, including the proviso, which the Senator from Minne sota has twice called to my attention. In the enumeration of powers it goes on to say:
Control and regulate the flood waters of the Allegheny Rlv^ above Franklin, Ja., and the Beaver, Mahoning, Grand, Ashtabula, Shenango, and Little Shenango rivers, and Sandy Creek, and the tributaries of said streams, by regulating dams, weirs, reservoirs, and impounding dams
That is sufficient up to that point. That simply means, of course, Mr. President, that as to these great rivers the flood waters are to be impounded in the same way that the waters are to be impounded under the irrigation scheme, and as to that there is no particular objection; but that has no particular relation to it That is divided by a semicolon, and it has no relation whatever to the power previously given, which author izes this corporation to utilize, divert, impound, and take to themselves all the waters referred to in the first part of this section after the semicolon in the nineteenth line. That power, up to the word " dams " in the twenty-third line, refers to deal ing with flood waters; but the words which I now read do not refer to flood waters. The section continues:
and divert, alter, or impound the waters of any river, lake, brook, stream, and the tributaries of said streams or water courses when the same is necessary to the making, maintaining, and operating of the said canals, feeders, and other works hereby authorized.
Mr. President, there could not be a broader grant to this great corporation to go into this wide extent of territory and absolutely sequester and take to itself all the waters outside of the particular rivers to which the Senator from Pennsylvania has called my attention, all waters of every kind whatsoever, and divert them and impound them and use them. There could not be a broader grant than is given in this section.
* 6919

29

I am now going to read, as desired by the Senator from Min

nesota, the proviso:

Provided, That nothing herein contained shall authorize said com pany to impair flie navigability of any river or stream, or to diminish at any time the water supply of any city, village, or municipality be low the normal minimum discharge cross-section area of any such river or stream, or In any manner to pollute the same.

Now, stop there. There is a protection of the water supply

necessary for the navigation of a river, but that does not pro

tect in the waters I am talking about. I am talking about the

water to supply this vast population in parts of three States

In between ten and twenty thousand square mile of territory.

That relates simply to navigable rivers. It also relates to

denying to them the right to " diminish at any time the water

supply of any city, village, or municipality." That is the sole

restriction. So far as the farmer is concerned and so far as

the general mass of the people throughout this vast territory

are concerned, who are dependent xipon their springs and their

streams and their rivulets and their brooks and their creeks

for health and even life, there is absolutely no restriction. If

the Senate is ready to pass a bill with such a provision in it, I

repeat it shall not be said that it was passed without objection.

There is another proviso to the same section which reads:

Provided, That no or draw water from

feeders to the Niagara

supply River

water above

thshealNl iabgearcaonFnaelcltse.d

with

That is the entire section, and I repeat that it is an impos

sibility for any legitimate construction of that section to get

away from the proposition that; outside of these large rivers,

where the use of water is limited to the flood waters, outside

of the use of water which would impair the navigability of a

stream, and outside of the use of the water necessary for the

purposes of any city, village, or municipality, there is abso

lutely no limit upon the right of- this corporation to entirely

take and use all the water which may be found in that country.

Mr. President, if anyone will look at that map, which was put

here for the purpose of illustrating the necessity for this great

work, lie will see that from the character of the streams there,

unless the water is to be gotten out of Lake Brie, all the water

that is found int these little streams will be necessary to supply

this great canal witli a depth of *5-feet of water jind a width

of 1C7 feet at the bottom. The dimensions are stated in this

pamphlet. It is to be a tremendous canal, and amounts really

to a great river.

Mr. PENROSE. It will be 12 feet deep, I will say to the

Senator.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania?

Mr. BACON. I do.

Mr. PENROSE. Little r no water will come out of Lake

Erie.

Mr. BACON. I am coming to that point a little later on. I

am speaking now of the question as to whether or not, when

the right is given to take all the water of every spring, rivulet,

brook, and stream of every kind, it is an idle grant, or whether

it is a grant which, if this canal is to be built and operated,

must necessitate the use of these waters to the absolute destruc

tion of the use of them by the people.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

GOl.t

30

Mr. President, I shall not consume further the time of the

Senate. I had not, in the discussion of this matter, had in view

the expectation of defeating this charter; but, for several rea

sons, I think tt Is a most unfortunate thing that It should be

granted. First, it is absolutely unnecessary, because the States

of Pennsylvania ancl Ohio have already granted authority for

the building of this canal, and have had reciprocal legislation

which authorizes the two companies formed in the two States

to meet at the State line and make a consolidated company for

the construction and operation of this canal. In the second

place, I am opposed to it because it opens a precedent, the ex

tent of which, if followed, is absolutely startling in its im- ^

mensity. If this charter is granted, it will be upon the ground '.

that, under the Constitution of the United States, a company W

which is to be engaged in interstate commerce is a company /^

which can be properly chartered by the Congress of the Unitei^/ .

States. If that principle is to be adopted and carried out to*"

its fullest extent, it will relate to every railroad of any conse

quence in the whole United States, and will absolutely turn

over to the Federal Government and to the administration of

the Federal courts everything which relates to the management

and control and business of practically all the railroads in the

United States. What a revolution that will be in the internal

aifairs of each State is beyond the power of practical reali

zation in its mere anticipation.

I am particularly opposed to it, Mr. President, because If we

are to follow this precedent the States would absolutely lose"

the control of matters of this kind in so far as they relate to

interstate commerce; they would lose control as to every^^r-

poration, great or small, on the land or on the water, engaged

:

in interstate commerce. Can it be said that we are not going

to do it? Are we to do it when any one of them asks for It?

Are we to grant a charter whenever a corporation comes up and

demands it, or are we to say, " We will be respecters of per

sons, and we will grant it in some cases and refuse it in others? "

What can we do consistently, Mr. President, but to say that,

recognizing the vast consequences which are to flow from this,

we will grant these charters in no case except where there is

involved a great governmental function, the performance of

which can only be properly accomplished through a charter

granted by the Federal Government, and the performance of

which can not be accomplished through a charter granted by a

State government.

*******

Mr. President, I want to say Just one word In a matter I omitted in speaking of the constitutional question. I have no doubt in the world, as I have repeatedly said, as to the ruling of the Supreme Court in the future, as it has made in the past, that Congress has the right to charter a corporation to engage in interstate commerce. I have as little doubt about that as I have about the proposition that that wae not the original con templation of the framers of the Constitution. It is true it matters not what was in fact their intention, as we are to be controlled and guided by the present interpretation of the In strument by the courts of the land. But my attention has been called to the action of the convention which framed the Con-

6919

31

stitution, which Illustrates the fact that such was not the pur pose of the framers of the Constitution.
It so happened that a similar question to this was before the Senate In the year 1869. That was a proposition to charter a railroad from the city of New York to the city of Washington, basing it upon the identical grounds that being engaged in in terstate commerce it was a legitimate matter of legislation in the granting of a charter. That was debated in this body, and there participated in that debate the present junior Senator from Maryland [Mr. WHYTE] , who has returned to us after his service of several different times in this body. In the speech which he made on that occasion against the granting of that charter, which, by the way, the Senate in that day considered to be an improper thing and refused to do, he read from the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. I have his speech before me in the Congressional Globe. It was a date prior to the CONGRESSIONAL RECOBD January 20, 1869. The Senator from Maryland [Mr. WHYTE] read this extract from the Madi son Papers. The committee of the Convention had under con sideration the clause in the Constitution which authorizes Con gress to construct post-roads, when this occurred in the Con vention :

Doctor Franklin moved to add after the words " post-roads," article 1, section 8, a power "to provide for cutting canals where deemed necessary."
Mr. Wilson seconded the motion. Mr. Sherman objected. The expense in such cases will fall on the United States and the benefit accrue to the places where the canals may be cut. Mr. WILSON. Instead of being an expense to the United States, they may be made a source of revenue. Mr. Madison suggested an enlargement of the motion

To this particular point I call attention

Mr. Madison suggested an enlargement of the motion into a power

" to grant charters of incorporation where the interests of the -United

States might require antl the legislative provisions of individual States

may be incompetent." His primary object was, however, to secure an

easy communication between th Stales, which the free Intercourse

now to be opened seemed to call for. The political obstacles being

removed, a removal of the natural ones as far as possible ought to

follow.

Mr. Randolph secinded the proposition.

";

Mr. King thought the power Unnecessary.

Mr. .WILSON. It is necessary to proved a State from obstructing the

general welfare.

Mr. KING. The States will be prejudiced and divided into parties by

it. In Philadelphia and New York it will be referred to as the estab

lishment of a bank, which has Been a subject of contention in those

cities. In other places it will be referred to mercantile monopolies.

Mr. Wilson mentioned the importance or facilitating by canals the

communlation with the western settlements.

The motion being so modified as to admit a distinct question, spe

cified and limited to the case of canals, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and

Georgia voted for the proposition; New Hampshire, Massachusetts,

Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and

South Carolina voted " no."

The other part fell, of course, including the power rejected.

So we have here, Mr. President, not a side light, but a direct light cast on what was the purpose and understanding of the framers of the Constitution. Railroads in those days were un known. If they had been known, I have no doubt the proposi tion of Mr. Madison would have included railroads as well as canals.
Mr. President, I presume the Senate will give me credit for sincerity when I say that I had no expectation when I arose

691!>

32

this afternoon of thus occupying the time of the Senate. 1

repeat, I regard it us a very grave question. We are to-day

face to face with the proposition whether we shall in the exer

cise of this power grant these extraordinary corporate rights and powers to this particular corporation on the ground that it is to be engaged in interstate commerce, and at the same time

1

have the mental resolve that we will not do so in the future*

and that we will deny similar applications in the future, or

else that we occupy the alternative attitude that we put behind

us now and forever the proposition that we are to leave to the

States the exercise of the functions of granting corporate

charters in cases not necessary and essential to the performance

of any governmental function, and that hereafter whenever a

corporation comes here and says that it is to be engaged in

interstate commerce we will give it a Federal charter, give it

the power to deny to the States the right to tax its franchise,

and the right of the citizens to go into their own courts to

settle disputes which they will have with these corporations.

We must do one of two things. We must either occupy the

attitude of being respectors of persons, of granting these char

ters in certain cases where certain influences may demand them,

and of denying them in other Instances where they may not be

so fortunate. We have either got to do that, if we grant this

charter, or else we have to open the door and say hereafter the

States shall no longer, if parties choose to elect in favor of a

Federal charter, have control of these agencies of commerce

in their own States; that the States shall no longer have the right

to tax their franchises; that the States shall no longer have

the right to adjudicate the rights of citizens in their own States

in controversies between themselves and these myriad agencies.

Mr. President, what a revolution would that be in present con

ditions.

Mr. President, there is another very serious consideration.

We can not say to corporations when they come here, " We have

granted it to others, and we deny it to you." If we do not say

that, what is to be the political effect in this country of all the

corporations engaged in interstate commerce having Federal

charters, knit together by a common sympathy, and exercising

power under a common authority? Who will doubt the fact that

they will go at once into national politics? Who can doubt the

fact, whenever the great corporations of this country, solidified

and unified as they ai-e rapidly becoming, are all of them in the

exercise of power under Federal authority, that they will exer

cise great influence over the affairs of the Federal Government?

Mr. President, I repeat it is a most grave matter, and I re

peat it simply for the purpose of excusing myself if I have

occupied unduly the time of the Senate, and if I hav expressed

myself with unwonted earnestness it is because of the gravity

of this matter in my opinion, and I may be excused and ac

quitted by Senators who have an interest in this matter of any

intention to interfere in any manner with those matters which

may seem more particularly to concern them, matters in which

they have a very deep concern, and if any intemperate word has

fallen from me in this discussion, it is due to my appreciation

of the gravity of the question, and not because of any want of

consideration of them.

6919

o

APPROPRIATION FOR TRAVELING EXPENSES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
SPEECH
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
.SENATE OF THfc UNITED STATES,
Friday. June 22, 1906.
WASHINGTON. 1906.
6923

SPEECH
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS .0. BACON.

Friday, Juno 22, 1906.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration oi the "bill (H. E. 19844) making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, and for other purposes.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on the amendment reported by the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I did not rise promptly, because I had hoped that some other Senator would have something to say on this subject. I was necessarily absent from the ses sion yesterday, and wits not present at the "beginning of the de bate on this question and am consequently somewhat at a dis advantage in my ability to address what I shall say more directly to what has been already said, and possibly to avoid repetition of some things which have been said by other Sena tors. It is not my purpose to address the Senate at any length on this subject or to make any elaborate argument. I have glanced over the colloquy which was had yesterday between the Senator from North Dakota [Mr. McCuMBEBj and the Sena tor from Maine [Mr. HALE] relative to the subject of my de siring to be heard upon this amendment. The Senator from North Dakota drew his conclusion very properly as to my de sire to be heard upon the bill from a private conversation with him, in which I expressed myself very emphatically in opposi tion to this amendment. While I may not realize the expecta tion which that Senator held forth that I should address the Senate at length upon it, I am very greatly obliged to him for considering it worth while to afford me an opportunity to enter my most earnest protest against this proposed legislation, and to give some few of the reasons why I think it should not be enacted.
In the first place, Mr. President, I am utterly at a loss, so far as I have any ability to judge of a legal proposition, to understand how any Senator, especially any Senator who is a lawyer, can claim that this proposition is constitutional. It is to my mind so plain that it is really beyond the domain of dis cussion further than a simple statement of the proposition. I presume that every Senator will recognize as a fundamental proposition that we have no right to appropriate money, ex cept in obedience to some authority given to us to appropriate it. When we come to appropriate money for the President of the United States we must do so under authority given^us by the Constitution. The authority under which we are to ap propriate money for the benefit of the President of the United

6928

.

3

States is very explicitly given in the second article of the Con stitution of the United States, which provides:
The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a com pensation, which shall neither be Increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or an; of them.
I hope I may have the attention of the Senator from Maine, because I have very great confidence in his judgment, and I want to address myself particularly to him. As he is the Sen ator in charge of this bill, I hope he may remove from my mind, if he can do so, the constitutional objections which I make to the adoption of this amendment If it is not constitutional, Mr. President, of course neither the Senator from Maine nor any other Senator will recognize for a moment that we can for any consideration or under any influence adopt it.
Mr. HALE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Maine? Mr. BACON. I do, with pleasure. Mr. HALE. I think, as I said yesterday, Mr. President, that I can understand that Senators may have a doubt whether this in the last resort will be determined to be a constitutional pro vision or a provision justified by the Constitution. I have seen enough of the literature cited to believe that that Is a doubtful question. Some Senators and some authorities set it clearly out that a provision of this kind is an emolument, and would be un constitutional, while other authorities and other citations, asgiven state just the reverse. Now, every Senator must vote on this proposition a his judgment is with reference to this point. But the Senator from Georgia knows that in many cases legislation has been put into appropriation bills and has passed in distinct, separate measures, as to which Senators have had doubts, and it is finally settled by the court. Whether this proposition, if adopted, will get by the Comptroller of the Treasury, is a ques tion; the committee having it in charge, seeing the necessity for it and not being clear that it was subject to constitutional objection, incorporated it in the bill as an amendment. I shall vote for the proposition on the ground that I am willing that it shall take its chance with the Comptroller and finally with the courts. I am not certain about the point, I will say to the Senator. Some Senators are very certain, and I feel they will not vote for the amendment, while other Sen ators believe and cite authorities showing that it is not an emolument which is going to the President But what I have stated is the attitude of the committee which has reported the amendment. I repeat, it will have to take its chance. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, the learned Senator from Maine has done me the very great favor to answer my argument be fore I presented it. Nevertheless, I will take the liberty of presenting it, although I greatly regret that the Senator has an nounced, in advance of hearing it, that he will be not influenced by anything I say, and that he will vote for the amendment. Mr. HALE. Mr. President, nobody will present the constitu tional argument as clearly and as attractively as the Senator from Georgia will undoubtedly present it; but still he will allow me to say that the point he is making is not in any way
6928

a new ope; it has been already pretty fairly discussed and pre sented to the Senate, not as well as the Senator can do it, but so that we all have It in mind. Therefore I do not feel that my decision as to how I shall vote on this matter is in any way a reflection on the Senator. I have not heard him, but I have heard the propositions presented, and I have told the Senator what my views are about them.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I Ijave very great admiration for the Senator from MHne, and for nothing connected with the Senator from Maine have I greater admiration than for his mental capacity; but to the various reasons which I have had heretofore good reasons upon which to base that admira tion I now have the additional reason of his power of pre science his ability to know beforehand what one intends to say. I have not had an opportunity to present to the learned Senator the grounds upon which I base the suggestion that the consti tutional point is so plain that I can not possibly see room for much argument upon it, and also the expression of the hope that the Senator from Maine, in charge of the bill, would take the point which I am going to present to him and remove the difficulties, because if w-e are to follow the lead of the Senator from Maine oj" course he ought to be able to show us, if we have difficulties interfering with our supporting the measure which he advocates, how those difficulties are not difficulties which should deter us, but difficulties ^which exist not in good foundation and which should be disregarded.
As I was about to say at the time the Senator interrupted me, the appropriation must rest upon some constitutional authority; and the appropriation for anything connected with money paid to the President of the United States, either directly or indi rectly, must rest upon the clause of the Constiution which I have read, and which I will again read in order that I may make direct application of it, far removed as it is now by the colloquy which has been had between the Senator from Maine and myself. The sole clause in the Constitution which justifies any appropriation of money to be paid to the President of the United States, either directly or Indirectly, is in these words:
The President shall, at stated times, receive for hjs services a com pensation, which shall neither be Increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.
Mr. President, here is a proposition to put f 25,000 at the dis position of the President for his expenditure, absolutely within his own discretion, and subject to bis own dictation and will. I would ask is that compensation"? Senators will say, " No; it is not compensation." If it is compensation, it is undoubtedly unconstitutional to make that appropriation applicable to the President of the United States during his present term of office; and therefore, for the benefit of those supporting this amend ment, we may exclude that, and say that it is not additional compensation. We concede that it is not additional compensa tion, or rather we concede that, if it is additional compensation, it is unconstitutional. Then what is it? Is it an emolument? Is it a perquisite? If so, it is also excluded.
Now, what I want, and I hope the Senator from Maine will give me his answer to it, if he can, and ^Phope I may have the
6928

attention of the Senator, because I desire the Senators reply, if possible. If this is neither compensation nor
Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator repeat his question? I was called out of the Chamber, and I should like to hear it.
Mr. BACON. I am sorry that the Senator has asked me to repeat it, because on account of interruptions I have twice stated it; but I will try to do so again.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator need not mind. Mr. BACON. My proposition is that if it is compensation it is unconstitutional. Senators will all admit that. If it is a perquisite or an emolument, it is none the less unconsti tutional. I want to know, then, if it is neither a compensation nor a perquisite nor an emolument, what is it? How would Senators who favor this appropriation designate it, and under what head would they classify it when they make the appro priation? Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to answer? Mr. BACON. With the greatest pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. What is the money which is appropriated to pay the expenses of any officer of the Government com pensation? Mr. BACON. For expenses? Mr. SPOONEK. Yes; traveling expenses. Is It compensa tion or is it emolument? Mr. BACON. No; that is a part of the expenses of the Gov ernment; but this appropriation does not profess to be for the payment of expenses. Mr. SPOONER. That is what it says. Mr. BACON. No; I beg the Senators pardon. It does aot profess to be for his expenses. If it were, it would be limitgd to expenses, and there would be vouchers for it and an ac counting, and it would be paid the same as in the case of other expenses. Mr. SPOONER. It is for traveling expenses. Mr. BACON. Yes; but this is an amount to be paid to the President of the United States, without regard to any account ing, and not limited to his personal expenses. Mr. SPOONER. I should like to ask the Senator a question. Mr. BACON. I will hear it with pleasure, because I am in very much trouble about this, and would like to have the ex planation of this constitutional difficultv. Mr. SPOONER. If the President expended $1,000 of this amount, leaving $24,000, would that $24,000 belong to him or to the Government? Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly the phraseology of the provision indicates that he shall have only so much of it as he expends. Mr. SPOONER. Would a dollar of it go into his pocket as compensation? Mr. BACON. Nobody would suggest that for a minute. That is absolutely without possibility of entertainment for a second. Nobody means to suggest anything of that kind. Mr. SPOONER. The Senator thinks the word " emolument," as used in this connection, does not mean some financial ad vantage to the President, the officer, whoever he may be? Mr. BACON. Whatever " emolument" does or does not In volve, the Senator will concede that this is not an emolument. Mr. SPOONER. I do not think it is an emolument
6028

Mr. BACON. That is what I say those who support this amendment must necessarily contend. Therefore, It is not necessary for us to discuss as to what is included in " emolu ment " and what is not, because all agree that if it is intended as emolument, it is an unconstitutional provision, and conse quently it is not an emolument, according to the contention of those who favor this appropriation, and It is not a compensation according to those who favor the appropriation. They must contend that it is neither a compensation nor an emolument.
Mr. SPOONER. The Senator agrees Mr. BACON. Pardon me a second. I will yield with pleas ure in a moment. Then, I want to know, -if it Is neither an emolument nor a compensation, what it is? Mr. SPOONER. I should like to ask the Senator, if it is neither compensation nor emolument, how does it violate the provision of the Constitution, to which the Senator has re ferred? Mr. BACON. My proposition is that it must be one of the two. I will come to that. I base my argument upon that; that it is one of the two, and Senators all agree that, if It is either, it is-unconstitutional Mr. SPOONER rose. Mr. BACON. Pardon me a second. Therefore, I say, con tending as I do, that it is compensation or emolument, Senators must concede that, if it is either, it is unconstitutional. When, they say it is neither compensation nor emolument, what is it? Mr. SPOONER. Traveling expenses. Mr. BACON. Well, Mr. President, I reply to that, in the first place, that it is not traveling expenses, because if it were travel ing expenses, it would be the exact amount spent as expenses by the President, whereas this does not profess to be that. This is an amount to be paid at the discretion of the President and to be spent at his will, not only for his personal expenses, but for the expenses of sucn other people as he may choose to have share with him the benefit of this appropriation. It is an emolument; it is a perquisite; it is an additional amount of money given for his enjoyment, to be dispensed according as he may prefer that it shall be expended. If it were the simple matter of the exact ..expenses of the President of the United States, it would have to be limited to the occasions when he was upon official business. But I would not draw any narrow line on that, because it might be said that the President of the United States whenever he is going about through the country is in a degree looking after public business, although it has frequently happened when a President has been an aspirant for election to a second term that he has "swung the circle " upon a purely personal political tour. This appro priation, however, does not profess to be strictly for th^ travel ing expenses of the President of the United States, and there is no provision under which there can be any distinction drawn in the expenditure of this money between that part of it which goes to the payment of the expenses of the President of the United States and the payment of those whom he may invite to accompany him. I will ask Senators and they can reply now or at any other time they see fit if they understand that the payment of the traveling expenses of those whom the President may see fit to
6928

8
invite to go with him is a payment of part of the personal ex penses of the President of the United States? Can any man possibly contend that it is so, and, if he does so contend, is there any man who can give a sound argument upon which to base such a contention?
I want to say further in that regard that the provision of the Constitution to which I have referred was framed in much wisdom. It .had a double purpose in saying that the Presidents compensation should be neither increased nor diminished dur ing the incumbency of a President of the United States. There was a design, in the first place, that the President of the United States should be put beyond and above the possibility of Con gress being able to coerce him or constrain him in any way by having control of the amount of money which he should receive for his compensation. That was a great and a wise purpose. There was none the less a great and wise purpose, and as ex perience shows, in the growing power of the Executive, indeed a greater and wiser purpose, that he should not have the power, by reason of the influence of his office, to secure from Congress an increase of his salary during his incumbency, or that he should have the power by the exercise of such influence to se cure from Congress any emolument in addition to his salary.
Mr. PERKINS. Mr. President The VICE-PEE SIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from California? Mr. BACON. With much pleasure. Mr. PERKINS. I should like to ask my friend from Georgia how he can reconcile his action in voting for the item in the legislative appropriation bill for the support and care of car-* riages, horses, furniture, flowers, music, and other luxuries and comforts for the President and occupants of the White House and not call them emoluments, and say that this item for trav eling expenses, which the President must pay out in traveling by reason of the action of Congress in not permitting him to travel upon a pass how does the Senator differentiate between those two purposes? Mr. BACON. It is perhaps as well that the honorable Sena tor has called my attention to that, and I will come to it before I conclude, not only as to the President, but as to some of these other gentlemen in the Executive Departments. As the Senator has so pointedly directed our attention to that subject, it is not to be evaded, and I propose to express my opinion on it without hesitation or qualification. But, Mr. President, before reaching that I will pursue what I was saying, that this provision of the Constitution is one framed in much wisdom. In the first place, by the prohibition against the decreasing of the salary of the President there was thrown around the President this safeguard against any effort on the part of Congress to coerce or embarrass the Executive, and, in the second place, by providing that his compensation should not be increased it was designed to prevent the pos sibility that the Executive, with his great office and his great influence, should have the power or the opportunity to get from Congress an increase of salary beyond that fixed by law, or any emolument in addition thereto. Mr. President, if Senators will pardon me and not take it offensively, and no Senator take it personally, I think the very fact of this proposed appropria-
6928

9
tion and the probability that it will be made is an illustration of the wisdom of that provision of the Constitution. I think that Senators, without being conscious of it not all of them, be cause I recognize the fact that there are differences of opinion as to the propriety of this provision which would control Sena tors outside of any influence but I have not a doubt in the world that there are Senators who unconsciously ajre influenced in this matter by the fact that it is the desire of the Executive, and by their desire to conform in supporting it to what is gen erally understood to be the personal wish of the President.
But, Mr. President, I have a much graver reason for oppos ing this. amendment than the unconstitutional feature of the proposed appropriation. Of course, if the feature of unconstitutioiiality related to the appropriation in the future as well as to this particular time, I could have no graver reason than that suggestion of unconstitutionality; but if this item is unconstitutional> It is unconstitutional simply as regards the next three years, and is not unconstitutional so far as it would relate to other subsequent incumbents of the Presidential office. So I repeat that the unconstitutionality of the proposed appropria tion is a much less grave consideration, to my mind, limited as it would be to three years in its operation, than is the general policy which is involved in this matter and as it will affect future administrations.
If the salary fixed by law for the compensation of the Presi dent is insufficient we should change the law and make it suffi cient. So long as we do not change the law and increase the salary we are practically saying that, in our judgment, the salary is sufficient. And when to a sufficient salary, as we pronounce it to be, we add an emolument of $25,000 a year, we are bestowing a favor upon him, we are exalting him after the manner of other, countries, where classes and rank are recognized in the adulatory bestowal of favors and privileges upon them which are denied to others.
Mr. President, if the salary of the President of the United States is not sufficient there is no undue exaltation of the President of the United States in adding to his salary such an amount as will make it sufficient, and no one could be criticised for his desire so to do. But when you say that a certain amount of salary is sufficient for the President, and that is said in fixing his salary at a given amount, and when you segregate him and separate him, not only from all the people of the United States, but from all the officials in and of the United States, and set him up with an unlimited and unqualified power over an expenditure of money, not only for his own trans portation, but for the transportation of such people as he may choose to surround himself with on his trips of business or pleasure, you unduly exalt the man who for the time holds the office of President. And when I say the man who for the time holds that office, I am not speaking of this time only, but of any future time as well. There is an exaltation of the officer; there is the setting apart of him; there is an approach ing to those things which pertain to and peculiarly characterize royalty, which are inconsistent and inharmonious with the spirit of our laws and the genius of our Government; and for one I will not consent to it.
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Mr. President, I am not in favor of exalting any man above his fellows, except so far as his merits may exalt him, or except so far as the dignity of the office in itself may exalt him. When you seek to surround that office with the trappings of royalty, and with the air and assumptions of royalty, and with the methods and practices of royalty, I make my protest against it.
It is not to the interest of those who are in these high offices that they should have around them these trappings, these em blems and privileges and recognitions of superiority, and these unusual favors. As I have had occasion to say before in this Senate, we are in a season of unrest, not only in America, but in other countries. That unrest may be unreasonable, and in many instances it is unreasonable, but in many others it is well founded; and in my humble judgment there is nothing that con tributes so much to that unrest, there is nothing which dis satisfies and disturbs the people both in this country and in other countries to such an extent, as the visual evidence that they have in such matters of privilege and display, of the favoritism whic^h throws around some men trappings and attributes of superiority and of power and of special privileges that are de nied to other men. These things are irritating and disturbing to men in this country of equality of right and equality of privilege. I say, and I wish to press it home to Senators, that it is not to the interest of those in high places that the public should have their feelings in this regard and by such distinc tions more and more irritated and ruffled and disturbed, and that they should have through such measures greater and greater cause for dissatisfaction and unrest. Everything that savors of royal distinction, everything that smacks of the special privilege of official rank and class, is justly distasteful to our people.
Mr. President, there are different ways in which the power exercised and wielded by high officials has been obtained; there are different sources from which it flows; and this country, above all others, is the one that stands out most distinctly where the source of power is from the people, in contradistinc tion to other countries, where the power had its origin with the ruler, where the liberties and privileges of the people are dis pensations from those in authority that have been granted to the people by the rulers.
This Government was not formed for the purpose of exalt ing the official. We have no rulers, and the title is a gross mis nomer, whether assumed by the official or conferred on him by others. In other countries the official or the ruler first had the power. He had the arbitrary power gathered first in small communities, and then assumed by one who took control of all the communities, and it was with the absolute power in his possession that little by little parts of that power were dis tributed to the people and enjoyed by them with its privileges as a matter of grace. But in this country the exact reverse of that was the method by which the officials became clothed with power. The power was all with the people. They formed the Government and .created the offices and provided for the offi cials ; and whatever of power and emoluments and whatever of attributes and of trappings the official has, came from the
6928

11
people by power given and privilege and advantages of all kinds which they enjoy given by the people to the official.
Senators can not too fully realize the fact that no office was ever created in this country for the benefit of giving power and dignity either to the office or to the man who should fill it The office was created not to give honor and power to the officer who should fill it, but because the office was necessary to the people. Necessarily it carried power with It I think the most dignified and powerful office in all the world Is the office of the President of the United States, and it Is not neces sary for the President of the United States to go outside of his legitimate functions or to have bestowed upon him any of the favoritism and privileges and distinctions of a royal class in order that he may still be and remain the occupant of the most dignified and powerful office of all the earth. I would say no word in depreciation of it. On the contrary, within its legiti mate functions I honor and magnify it..
It is not necessary in order that this office shall have its full" meed of dignity and power that we shall clothe it with any of those things with which those who wear crowns assume it their right to be clothed. The legislative department that depart ment in which is designed in the Constitution to be the principal department, the most influential department, the most powerful department; that which should be the most direct representa tive in the one branch, of the people and in the other branch of the States, and that which should be clothed with almost all the powers, almost all the royal powers is the branch which has * control of these matters.
In this connection I must allude to the matter called to my attention by the honorable Senator from California [Mr. PJBBKINS], that we sit here session after session and not only vote salaries toJ:hese officials of the Executive Departments in excess of those which we vote to ourselves, but that we give them carriages and horses and flowers and other things named by him. I did not know that flowers were provided for in the apropriation bill, but I take the word of the Senator from California to that effect He is a member of the Committee on Appropria tions. I desire to say to the Senator from California that never since I have been in the Senate have I ever voted for any one of the particular things the Senator has mentioned, except in so far as I was compelled to vote for them after- they were included in the appropriation bill in voting for the bill in general.
Mr. PERKINS. I desire to say to my friend that during the thirteen years I have been here those items have been enumer ated in the Book of Estimates made up and presented every year to your committee, and we have considered them.
Mr. BACON. Undoubtedly, I presume, that is true. Mr. PERKINS. And I have never heard my friend, the Sena tor from Georgia, protest against them. Mr. BACON. I think there has been" something said in the past about executive officers having carriages and horses. I have the highest regard personally for the occupants of the executive offices, and a feeling warmer than regard for some of them. I have high regard for the President of the United States, and would utter no word of disrespect of him or them; and nothing that I say here is personal to him or to any oilier
6928

12

executive officer. Everything I say relates to these officers, past and future, as well as present. But I am unable to see

Why it is that we in making appropriations shall be giving

carriages and horses to the heads of Departments. Do they

need carriages and horses any more than Senators need them?

Do they need them half as much? They sit in their offices

and have people come to see them. We have to parade this

whole town to attend to business, and yet who thinks of an

appropriation for the purpose of giving carriages and horses to

Senators?

Do not let me be misunderstood, Mr. President. I do not

favor the giving of carriages and horses to Senators. But I

say there is no reason why in the absence of the one there

should be the other. The heads of Departments are the crea

tures of Congress. They are not the creatures of the Consti

tution.

We call them, by courtesy, " Cabinet officers," and we are glad

to show them this merited courtesy. They are not known to

the law as such. They are subject to our will. We can abolish

every Cabinet office, every head of a Department, and substitute

another for it whenever we see proper to do so. There is no

expectation that we will do so, because the system has been

framed in wisdom and is satisfactory. But I am simply caHing

attention to a fact in response to the suggestion of the Senator

from California. I do not know that I would have mentioned

it, out of delicacy, if he had not called my attention to it. But

when he asks me pointedly how I reconcile the appropriation

of money for flowers and carriages and horses, I answer him that I do not approve it, but that I condemn it. Whenever the Senator, as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, willbring that question before the Senate and make an issue of it and give those of us in the minority an opportunity to be heard,

I

he will find my vote cast in the negative. I repeat, whatever

may be my personal feelings to these officials, I am not in favor

of special privileges or undue exaltation for any official.

Mr. President, I was not here yesterday. I do not know what

was done. But I wish to call the attention of the Senator from

Maine to the rule. However, before I conclude what I have to

say on the main merits of this question, I again call upon Sen

ators who say this is neither a part of the compensation of the President nor a part of the emoluments to the President, in neither of which case would it be constitutional, to tell us what it is if it is not either additional compensation or an emolument

or a perquisite. When they tell me it is a part of the expenses, I say, in the first place, that if it is a part of the personal ex penses of the President of the United States it would be uncon stitutional, because it would be a part necessarily either of the

compensation or the emoluments. Of course, if you make it a-part of the expense of the Govern
ment in the payment of the railroad fare of the President of the United States, you might say that that was not either a perqui site or an increased compensation. When you put in his hands $25,000, to pay the expenses of himself $1,000, and $24,000 to pay the expenses of twenty-four others, I want Senators to tell me whether, when you give the President the power to invite twenty-four gentlemen to go with him and share his hospitality, the expense to be paid by the Treasury of the

6928

13

United States, It is not giving him an emolument; whether

It is not a personal perquisite to him. Can it be other than

. an emolument when, because he is President, he is given

$25,000 a year with which to entertain personal friends whom

he may invite to accompany him on his tours?

*i

*

*

*

*

*

*

Now, I will take the liberty of asking the Senator from Maine another question, and that is upon what information does the Senator from Maine or the Committee on Appropria tions, which he represents here, base the estimate of $25,000?, Is }t a guess or has the Senator information as to this being the particular amount; and if so, from whom was it obtained? I hope I may have that information from the Senator.
Mr. HALE. Like a great many other appropriations, it has never been figured with a lead pencil, by adding the different items, that it will amount to just this sum. The House put this proposition on after examination, and it was struck out on a point of order. When it came to the Committee on Appro priations here, the committee moved it and inserted it in the bill. It is believed that $25,000 is ample for this purpose.
Mr. BACON. Upon what does the Senator base that belief? Mr. HALE. On the expenses of all these trips, the movements of the President, which he has a right to make and which the people want him to make. The committee believes that $25,000 will cover it. It may not. If it is not all spent, it will be re turned to the Treasury. Mr. BACON. If the Senator will pardon me, is it not true that that at last depends upon the number of men whom the Bresident may see fit to invite to accompany him? Mr. H^LE. Undoubtedly. The committee did not think it worth the while to say to the President that he could invite twelve men anil could not invite the unfortunate number of thirteen. That is all there is in the provision about the Presi dents discretion. The President never fingers this money. Mr. BACON. There is no suggestion of that kind. Mr. HALE. It is in his discretion, when he will take these trips, how many people he will invite. That is left, as it prop erly must be, to his descretion. The Senate can vote this propo sition down, but nobody can with reason ask the committee to say it will be just ?25,000 in one year. We can not say that, and do not pretend to. Mr. BACON. Has the committee any information upon which to base this sum, or is it guided solely by a guess? Mr. HALE. It is the judgment of the committee. Mr. BACON. Without any information? Mr. HALE. I would not say without any information. Mr. BACON. I hope the Senator will give us the information, in order that we may judge whether or not the appropriation is in proper proportion. Mr. HALE. If the Senate thinks it too much, it can cut it down. Mr. BACON. We can not do that unless the Senator gives us the information on which to base our judgment.
*******

Mr. President, I do not wish in anything I say to suggest that I consider that there is any impropriety in the President of ..the
6928

14
United States visiting different sections of the country. On the contrary, I think that upon occasions it is a very proper thing for the President of the United States to do. It is an example which was given by Washington himself. Washing ton, during his incumbency of the office, visited different parts of the country. He came to my own State, and within the past two days I have seen a memento of the visit which he made to Georgia, where he presented to the Chatham Artillery, a military organization which still exists in the city of Savannah, a couple of cannon which had been captured at Yorktown. Those are very highly treasured mementoes and the tradition of that visit is very highly treasured; and with that illustrious example, of course the suggestion of an impropriety Is not in my mind at all.
But Washington paid his own expenses, and every other President of the United States from that day to this, who has tcaveled through the country, has paid his own expenses. There is not, in the case of the present incumbent or of any other probable incumbent, such a want of pecuniary means, either of his own or in his salary, as would deWr him from the convenient payment of his expenses.
Mr. LODGE. Does the Senator from Georgia mean to say that when President Cleveland and President Harrison and President McKinley made journeys throughout the United States they paid for their trains?
Mr. BACON. I did not say so. Mr. LODGE. I understood the Senator to say that precise thing. Mr. BACON. I simply said they paid their expenses. Mr. LODGE. It is well known they did not. Mr. BACON. I said they paid their expenses, meaning by that that there were none paid by the Government. That is what I mean. Mr. LODGE. They were paid by the railroads. Mr. BACON. No; they were not paid by the railroads. Mr. LODGE. The railroads furnished the trains for nothing, and have for years, to all Presidents. Mr. BACON. The compensation to the railroads Mr. LODGE. The railroads will not carry the President in any other way, because the risk is too great. Mr. BACON. After the passage of this bill they will not carry free the President or any other person. Mr. LODGE. After the passage of this bill? Mr. BACON. After the passage of the rate law, I mean, they will not carry the President or anybody else free. Mr. LODGE. Precisely. Mr. BACON. That is my view about that. I do not think the President any more than the humblest citizen of the United States ought to have his expenses paid out of the Treasury of the United States. Mr. LODGE. The humblest citizen is not obliged to pay for a special train. Mr. BACON. I do not know that there is a necessity for the President to pay for a special train. But if there, is, it is not such an absolutely exorbitant amount as to prevent his doing IK He may have a special car without any very great expense, and there is no reason why the President of the United States may
6928

15
not travel in a special, car upon a regular train, and it would not involve any such expense as a special train. But this is not .limited to the question of paying the expenses of the President, It is giving to the President this large emolument, a fund, with which he can gather around him his friends, and take them through the country at the expense of the Government of the United States. If that is not an emolument, I do not know how to class it.
An emolument is something of value given, something which attaches to the office, that is outside of the regular salary some advantage, some benefit, something of good. Does any Senator pretend to say, when you say to the President of the United States that in addition to his salary he shall have the privilege and the opportunity, when he seeks to travel through the coun try, to gather around him his special friends and take them upon a train, and that he shall not be burdened with the ex pense of the entertainment of his friends, but that the Govern ment of the United States will pay it, that that is no emolu ment, that that is no advantage? Is that no increased benefit or good attached to the office of the President of the United States? That is what an emolument is. It is some additional good, some additional benefit, some privilege, if you please, some additional advantage, not the salary of the office or the direct compensation of the office, but a good, a benefit, or an advantage which inures by reason of possession of the office. That is an emolument. You might as well say it would be no favor to a private individual or to a Senator if a like advantage were given to him, and that he would receive no additional benefit. But I will not pursue that.
I hope that some of the learned Senators, and especially the lawyers, will answer the question, If this is neither an emolu ment nor additional compensation, what is it; at least so far as It refers to the expenses of persons other than the President of the United States?
Now, Mr. President, I repeat, I do not wish to suggest any impropriety on the part of the President either of the present or any other time in visitiftg different sections remote and near; but when .he does go, I do not wish, when the train passes through the country along by the toilers in the field and by the laborers in the workshop and at the desk and in the office and behind the counters, that they shall look upon a class of favored people, the guests of the .President of the United States, traveling through the country at the expense of the Government of the United States, paid out of money contributed out of the fruit of theirtoil and their labor.
6928

THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT "A REBELLION."
*_A- rebel lias no claim of r-igtat escoejpt th of fo:roe. The South, claimed the right of ler
SPEECH
HON. A. O. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
FRIDAY, JANUARY 11,1907.

7052

WASHINGTON. 1907.

SPEECH
OF
HON. A. 0. BACON.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under considera tion the bill (S. 976) granting pensions to certain enlisted men, soldiers, and officers who served in the wav of the rebellion

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT : I do not desire to say anything on this occa

sion that would tend in any manner to disturb the very gratify

ing condition of harmony which exists throughout the Republic or the marked fraternal relations now found among Senators in

this Chamber, and I would say nothing at this time but for the fact tlAt.for tlta second time the Senator from Colorado [Mr. TELEEB] bases his contention upon what lie expresses as his

desire that the truth of history shall be spoken, and be recorded. It is solely for that purpose that I say a few words upon the subject as to what should be the proper designation of the war.
I think that in this bill the language that has been agreed upon, viz, " the civil war," is the proper language, because it is

the generally accepted language. I think the war in some senses was a-civil war; In other senses it certainly was a war between the States, and the fact that the victorious party assumed that the result of that war was an overthrow of the

government of those States substantiates that view.

But I think in a larger view it was a civil war, and that is

the accepted language, and I think it is the proper language to

be used in this bill.

But, sir, what I rose particularly to say is that I do not think

the term "rebellion" is a proper designation of that war, nor

have I any belief or apprehension that history will so record it. If it is not a proper designation the word "rebellion" should not

be permitted to remain in this bill. It should be stricken out, and the words "civil war" should be substituted therefor. It is true, as aserted by the Senator from Colorado, that George

Washington was a rebel; it is true that Oliver Cromwell was a rebel; but in each instance there was a rebellion against a recog nized constituted authority, an effort to destroy by force a there tofore undisputed authority to govern without the consent

of those who sought to overthrow it. It was not a resistance

to a rule, the authority of which to govern without consent was disputed and bad never been conceded. It was in each instance an appeal to force and not a claim of legal right. There is no question of the fact that Washington and all those who cooper ated with him owed allegiance to George III and were subjects

of George III. There is no doubt about the fact that Oliver

Cromwell owed allegiance to Charles I aud was a subject of

Charles I.

7052

3

The question out of which what we now designate as the civil war grew was a disputed question from the foundation of the Government; and in that dispute, during the earlier years of the Government, much the larger weight of authority and opinion was on the side that a State could determine whether it would cr would not remain in the Union.
There was on the part of the people of the States no recog nized or conceded authority of the General Government to com pel a State to stay in that Government against its will. On the contrary, as has been stated by the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. CARMACK], in the early years of the Government it was generally conceded directly to the contrary, and it was for years disputed by the few only that the question of the remaining of a State within the Union was a question for the State to deter mine.
Without going into anything like an extended discussion of the question, I will call the attention of the Senate to a most remarkable incident in the history of this country, one not very generally known, and I confess I have been surprised, since my attention was called to it, that I had not previously known of it.
Some time, I think about the year 1830 I have forgotten the exact year there was a very remarkable libel case tried in the city of Boston, in which Daniel Webster was the prosecutor and; a man whose name I have forgotten, a prominent man, was the defendant. In that suit the prosecution was based on an alleged1* libel against Daniel Webster, the great advocate of the doctrine of the supremacy of the Union and the great advocate of the maintenance of the Union. There could have been BO case In which lie coolel have been mare directly Interested or in which every utterance must have challenged his attention, because the prosecution it was not a civil suit, but a criminal prose cution grew out of an alleged libel against Daniel Webster, charging him with having been in active sympathy with those prominent influences in New England which opposed the war of 1812 and threatened secession on account of that war.,
I have a book, unfortunately not now at hand, which was sent to me by a gentleman in Boston, Colonel Benton, who pre pared a history of that libel suit, in which there is not only a narration of the suit, but there are also copious extracts from the record, among other things, of the argument in the court, the opinions of the court,, etc., and in the course of It, with Daniel Webster an Interested party present, the fact is stated, not as an individual opinion, but as a conceded fact and principle, of the Government, I think by the court, or in the argument in the progress of the case, that it was the right of a State to secede; and Daniel Webster present and the proposition having a most material bearing upon the case in which he was so deeply and personally interested, and neither he nor any other person present challenged the statement that such was a generally con ceded proposition.
Now, I do not mention that for the purpose of contending that there is now such a right, because that question has been settled by the highest of all tribunals, in the arbitrament of war, but I cite it simply as an Illustration of what has been stated by the Senator from Tennessee and repeated by myself, that in the earlier years of the Government, even as late per
haps as 1830 I have forgotten the exact year, but it was
7052

sequent to the Administration of Monroe, I am sure of that in a case where the great expounder of the Constitution and the great advocate of the Union was so directly interested, that assertion was accepted as true and passed even without chal lenge by him.
Mr. CAKMACK rose. Mr. BACON. I will yield in a moment, if the Senator will pardon me until I finish the sentence. Therefore I say that the term " rebellion" is not a proper designation. A rebellion is resistance to an acknowledged au thority. A rebel has no claim of right except the right of force. The South claimed the right of law. Mr.. President, it was a much greater war than a war of rebellion. It was a great war between the people of the foremost nation now and among the foremost nations then of the earth, on a great question about which they had been divided for nearly a hundred years, in which war there was no resistance to a recognized conceded au thority, but in which there was an insistent and a great struggle over the question as to what was the intention of the Govern ment from its foundation. It was a war in support of a claim of legal right claimed on the one side and disputed on the other. It was % war not of a rebellious faction, but one between two great peoples who were made one indivisible people by the result of that war. The Senator from Colorado says that every one who was a Confederate soldier should acquiesce in it and be willing to albide by the designation of the war as a rebellion and of himself as a rebel. I was a very humble soldier in that war a Confed erate soldier and I object to the designation because it is not correct, and not being correct it is more or less offensive. Mr. PBesIclent, what the Senator from Colorado has read from the fourteenth amendment, in using the word " rebellion," proves nothing, except that in tte Jieat and tempest and blaze of illfeeling I started to say of hate but softened the word which was imediately consequent upon the war, terms were sed, both at the North and South, which were designed to be offen sive and odious. The term "rebellion" is odious, and what is odious must be in a degree offensive. But however it may have been as to individuals, that intense ill-feeling did not long con tinue among the people either North or Soutli. But nevertheless it is proper to say in the truth of history that the South ia in no wise responsible for the occurrence of the word rebellion in the fourteenth amendment. That amendment was not adopted in practical fact by legislative bodies, but was written into the Con stitution by the swords point. I will now yield to the Senator from Tennessee with pleasure. Mr. CARMACK. The Senator has passed from the point he was on when I wished to interrupt him. I simply wanted to say to the Senator that when I said that in the early history of the country the right of secession was universally conceded, I stated also that that was the opinion expressed in a careful historical work of the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
IiODGE].
Mr. BACON. That is correct. I had intended to mention that, and I am glad that the honorable Senator from Tennessee I has suggested it in this connection.
Mr. President, w* are now engaged, in no discussion which
.7052

6
Involves any acrimony or ill feeling, and nothing is further from my purpose than to utter any word which can arouse such feel ing, but I want to call the attention of the Senate to another fact connected with the war which illustrates the position that it was not a rebellion. Search history and find a case where at the conclusion of a great rebellion there was perfect acquies cence thereafter, especially by any great, vast number of people as those wore who were concerned in that war, and without the slightest effort thereafter by even any small fragment of such people to revive.the struggle.
I wish to call the attention of the Senate and I am glad in this high place and in this presence to do it, in order that it may go out to the country and to the world to the fact that from the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox to the present day, among all the millions of people who were on the side of the South, people who could not have been more earnest and in tense than they were in that struggle, people who had sacrificed every material interest, people who had sacrificed with lavish prodigality things which were infinitely dearer and immeas urably more precious than any material interests, and who would have sacrificed still more if there had remained more to sacrifice among all those people, in not one single instance, even in any remote out-of-the-way corner, has there ever been heard a whisper of a conspiracy to revive that struggle or to re new the contest. Rebels are never conciliated under defeat> They submit to superior force, but they watch for the recur rence of the opportunity to again strike a blow for its overthrow.
The fact to which the Senator from Colorado alludes as a most remarkable fact, as to the absolute conciliation, the perfect restoration of harmony between the people of the North and the people of the South being unexampled in the history of the world, a restoration as complete as it is prized both by the South, and the North, is due to the fact that it was not a rebellion. It is due to the fact that it was a struggle, a gigantic, titanic struggle over the great fundamental question of this Govern ment about which our people had been divided from its founda tion, which could only be finally settled by war and which when so settled was regarded as settled forever. If there had been a rebellion, there would have been mutterings thereafter. There would have been conspiracies thereafter. There would have been in this locality or that locality movements for restorations, or rather for a revival of the contentions which had led to the struggle. There would have been secret bands here and or ganizations there keeping alive the embers of war with the purpose to again fan them into a fierce and destructive blaze. But on the contrary, having been a fair, square, stand-up fight between the people of the two sections as to the construction of the powers of the Government upon this great fundamental question whether the Union was or was not devisible, when that fight was ended the result was accepted by all the people of the South as a finality, and there was no more of the spirit which would have remained or of the action which would have followed if it had been simply a rebellion. It was a much greater war than a rebellion. It was a gigantic war under the shock of the battles of which the earth quaked and the very mountains rocked. It will not rank in history with rebellions. As I have already said, it was a war between two great peoples, made two
7052

I
peoples by the existence of the war, but by the result of that warmade forever one great indivisible people and nation. We have had rebellions in this country; the whisky rebellion, and Ba cons rebellion, and two or three little things of that kind. They are properly called rebellions because they were rebellions against constituted, recognized, and conceded authority, depend ent upon no consent of those who resisted such authority. This was a great war between contending parties on questions upon which there always had been a difference, and in support on each side of legal right, as claimed by one and the other.
Now, Mr. President, I would not say anything to revive any ill feeling as to what happened after the close of that war. There are some things I might say, hut I, refrain. I am glad that it is all over, and I am willing for it to be buried with the past, and, if remembered, to be remembered only to be forgiven, whatever there may have been of wrong on cither side. It is true,, as stated by the Senator from Colorado, that there has been perfect reconciliation, and I thank God for it. It is true that those who fought over what they considered to he the right on their side on a great question of difference now recognize that question as settled, and that there are no more loyal people under the flag than those who sought to set up a sepa rate government under what they conceived to be their right, and in advocacy of their side of that controversy which had lasted from the foundation of the Government.
I think it is necessary, Mr. President, to say this much, not for the purpose of reopening any of the contentions of the past, but because if we had passed by what the Senator from Colo rado has said as constituting the truth of history not only would it have been the tacit recognition of a statement which we deem to be iacorrcct in law and fact, but it might have led to a con clusion on the part of others that there was acquiescence in the correctness of such statement by those of us whom it most deeply concerns.
7052
o

THE ATTACK OF NEGRO SOLIIIERS ON BROWNSVILLE,
Authority of the President to discharge from the Army for the good of the service enlisted men of the Twenty-fifth Infantry,
SPEECHES
HON. A. O. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
JANUARY U AND 22, 1907.
1907.
7074

l

SPEECHES
or
HON. A. 0. BACON.

January Hi, 1901.

The Senate having under consideration the following resolution : Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs Ije, and hereby is, authorized to take such further testimony as may be necessary to es tablish the facts connected with the discharge of members of Com panies B, C, and D, Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, and that it lie, and hereby is,-authorized to send for persons and papers and ad minister oaths, and report thereon, by bill or otherwise. The committee, or any subcommittee thereof, is further authorized, if deemed necessary, to visit Brownsville, Tex., inspect the locality of the recent disturbance, and examine witnesses there
Mr. BACON said: Mr. PBESIDENT : I shall occupy but a moment of the time of .the Senate. I understand, the fundamental proposition upon which the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKEB] and the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. TILLMAN] base their contention to be that the President of the United States is not clothed under the law and the Army Regulations with the power sum marily tar dismiss these soldiers. As I do not intend to occupy the time of the Senate during this debate with any discussion of that question or of any other connected with it, I will con tribute my small quota to what may he due in that regard in the shape of a precedent, which may be of some service in guid ing us to a proper solution. I hold in my hand an editorial published in a newspaper in my town the Macon Telegraph in which there is a recitation of certain facts, and then a quotation of the authority or prece dent to which I have alluded. I will ask that the Secretary read that part of it which is included within the marked lines. The VICE-PRESIDENT. Without objection, the Secretary will read as requested by the Senator from Georgia. The Secretary read as follows:

[The Macon Telegraph, January 4, 1907.]

And now comes the Charleston News and Courier and presents a precedent for the Presidents action one that is on all fours with it

from the strenuous

record of BI^JAMIN Carolinian has never

K. TILLMAN himself. had any experience at

For though soldiering in

the the

ranks, he has had a brief but lively experience at playing the part of

commander in chief. The record produced by the News and Courier was

made in connection with the almost forgotten incident of the " Dar

lington war." This " war," as it is called, occurred in April. 1894,

when TILLMAN was governor and the dispensary was still in its ex

perimental stages. " blind tigers " in

The dispensary constabulary Darlington and had assembled at

had the

been depot

hunting to take

the train for another point, when an altercation arose with gome citi-

zens which resulted in a. conflict in which a popular young citizen was

shot and killed. The populace flew to arms, while the chief State ecu-

stable and the men with him took to the swamps, where for several

days they were hunted by the enraged people. Governor TILLJIAN

70T4

3

acted with great promptness and vigor. He ordered the State military companies to assemble at Columbia and dispatched such companies as did not revolt to Darlington. Among the companies that obeyed the governors orders at first was the Newberry rifles. The News and Cou rier says:
This company on Sunday night, April 1, was ordered to take charge ol the two telegraph offices in Columbia, to inspect all telegrams tiled for transmission, and to reject all of a " sensational or incendiary character," the governor having assumed control of the telegraph lines on account of the alleged disturbances. The company performed the duty Sunday night, but on the following morning its commanding ofliccr addressed Lo the governor a letter tendering the resignations "of himself and his men from the service ol! the State on the ground that he and his command had not responded to the governors call to exer cise the " exceedingly distasteful duty of scrutinizing the private jiflairs of the citizens of South Carolina," and adding that the company be lieved that such service was calculated to further irritnle the people and that the company did not care to be subject to such orders in future.
At 5 oclock on the afternoon of the same day Governor Tillmaus
the fol lowing : "Under the laws of South Carolina the governor is clothed with dis-
cretion and power to call out the militia whenever, in the judgment of the governor, It may be necessary, and when so called into the service of the State the militia shall be subject to the same rules and Articles of War as troops of the United States. The action of your company and your daring to send it to mo under these rules is mutiny and an insult to the commander in chief, who was given his commission by the people. The duty of the soldier and the militia are soldiers when called into service is blind obedience to orders from his superior or not to question them in any degree. You have failed to learn the first lesson, and I will make of you and your company an example. Your resignation is not accepted, but you are dismissed from the service of the State as unworthy to wear its uniform."
Sir. TIUjMAN. Mr. President, I am very glad that my dis tinguished friend, the Senator from Georgia, has given me the opportunity to add just a few words of explanation to the order which has just been read.
There was insurrection and a dangerous condition in the State of South Carolina. The people were divided on the subject of the regulation of whisky, and a riot had occurred in which three men had been killed, and a mob of several hundred were pursu ing the States officers whose duty it was to enforce the liquor law. Under those circumstances I called on the militia in the city of Columbia and in the city of Charleston, some ten or twelve companies, to go to Darlington and restore order and allow the civil law to take its course.
These companies rebelled outright; refused to respond to the order. I then called on all the companies in the State by tele gram to repair to the State capital, some 60 miles from the seat of the disturbance, but really the head center of the rebellion against the State authority.
In the exercise of my duty and power under the statutes of the State I notified the railroads that they should not transport any armed bodies of men without my orders. I notified the two telegraph companies in the city of Columbia that they must" transmit no incendiary telegrams; and as soon as I got one militia company into the city, the day after the riot, this Newberry company, I issued an order to its captain to take posses sion of the two telegraph offices, the Western Union and the Postal, and to supervise and direct the transmission of tele grams, allowing-no incendiary messages to go out.
The result was that the next morning, with this condition of 7074

unrest and, as I said, of insurrection abroad in the State, these men and this captain wrote me the letter which has been read, and I issued the order which I did, adding something which has not been put in the article that has been read, " that God forbid that I should ever again have anything to do with any such bandbox soldiers." But if there is any analogy
Mr. WARREN. What sort of soldiers? Mr. TILI/MAN. Bandbox fellows who use uniforms and brass buttons to make the girls fall in love with them and have not enough of the element of a soldier in them to obey orders. [Laughter.] Now, u*> orders had been issued at Brownsville. There is no analogy whatever. My dismissal of these men was a legitimate exercise of and within my power as the chief executive and commander in chief. They had insulted me with their letter; they had assumed tlie right to resign when they were in the flel.d; and I leave it to all sensible men to say whether or not the Senator from Georgia has strengthened his case by under taking to justify the President in his usurpation of authority by pointing to a perfectly legitimate use of it on my part. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I desire to say only a word. I certainly had no intention to criticise the Senator from South Carolina. Mr. TILLMAN. Oh! I was out of the Chamber for a mo ment, and I thought it was the other friend of mine from Georgia. I did not know it was my friend the senior Senator from Georgia. Mr. BACON. I repent T had no desire whatever to criticise the Senator from South Carolina. Without undertaking to say whether all of the exceedingly stringent methods which he took preceding the particular order which is under consideration were justified, I wish to say that, so far as the issuance of that order was concerned, I think he acted clearly within his rights, and it is exactly what o\ight to have been iloue. In other words, troops which had been guilty of this great impropriety were no longer fit to be part of the militia of South Carolina, and the Senator from South Carolina as governor very properly, with out waiting for any court-martial, dismissed them peremptorily as unworthy to wear the uniform of the State of South Carolina. That is the analogy, if the Senator will pardon me, which I think exists that where the. President of the United States iound in the service of the United States soldiers who were uuworthy to wear the uniform, and- the continuance of whom with arms in their hands was dangerous to the peace and the safety of the public, he did, I think, as did the governor of South Caro lina, entirely right and acted entirely within his rights ami his power when he dismissed them summarily without waiting for a court-martial. The governor of South Carolina based his ac tion on the fact that the militia of the State were subject to the same rules and Articles of War as troops of tli3 United States. If the governor was right in summarily dismissing these State troops, then the President of the United States, act ing under the same rules and Articles of War, was also neces sarily right in dismissing these negro soldiers. Mr. TILLMAN. I dismissed the entire company. I luifi authority to dismiss the entire company. Mr. BACON. The President of the United States went the Senator two belter and dismissed three companies.
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6
January 22, 1907.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Secretary will read the amend ment proposed: as a substitute by the Senator from Florida.
The Secretary read as follows:
Resolved, That in the judgment of the Senate the recent action of the President in discharging without honor enlisted men of Companies E, C, and D of the Twenty-fifth Infantry was within the scope of his authority and power and a proper exercise thereof.
Resolved further, That the Committee on Military Affairs is hereby authorized and directed, by subcommittee or otherwise, to take and have printed testimony for the purpose of ascertaining all the facts with reference to or connected with the recent attack on the town of Brownsville, Tex., on the night of August 13-14, 1008. Said committee is authorized to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, to 8it during the sessions of the Senate, and, if deemed advisable, at Browns ville or elsewhere, the expenses to lie paid from the contingent fund of the Senate.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, as I will favor the substitute proposed by the Senator from Florida [Mr. MAXLOBY], I deem it proper to say that, while tliat is so, I do not agree with the Senator as to all the reasons which he urges in advocacy of that resolution. I agree that the President has the power. I think, however, that he has the power subject to the lawmaking power of the land, and that he has no power in the command of the Army, except the right to be its commanding officer, which is not under the control of the lawmaking power. .
I do not desire, Mr. President, to go into that, because I ex pressed my views not at length, but succinctly in the debate which I had with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] a few days ago, and since then the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOKAKEB] has discussed the question with more elaboration. I simply mention it now in this connection in order that, voting, as I shall, for the resolution of the Senator from Florida, I may not be considered as agreeing with the proposition an- . nounced by him in regard to the source from which the Presi dent derives the power.
I am the more particular, Mr. President, to do so because I regard it as one of the gravest questions which eould possibly be submitted for the consideration either, of the President or of the Houses of Congress. I think if the President of the United States is not bound to recognize as meaning in its full extent what is recited in the clause which I read in the former debate to the Senate, that there is no limit to be set to his power in the use of the Army, except such limit as lie himself may con strue to be that limit. There is no place to draw the line. I will again read the section of the Constitution upon which I base my contention. In the enumeration of the powers of Con gress there is, in the first article of the Constitution, this sen tence :
To make rules for the government anti regulation of the land and naval forces.
I believe that to be a grant of power without .limitation. I believe it to be a grant of power intended to be exclusive of the exercise of that power by any other department, unless with the consent and under the direction of the lawmaking power.
Mr. President, the other day when I announced that view the Senator from Wisconsin said that he bad heard me make that speech before. I do not think there is anything to be gained in iteration and reiteration, but there are some things so essential
7074

that their assertion can not be made too often, certainly not too often whenever there is any contradiction of them, and if it be necessary daily to make assertion in favor of the exercise of the power of the lawmaking department of the land and in contra vention of the claim of the exercise of the power hy any one man, then it can not be made too often if it is made every day. And, Mr. President, I want no higher encomium, so far as my public career is concerned, than that I was always opposed to the exercise of one-man power and in favor of the exercise of power by the legislative department, which the Constitution set up for that purpose. That is the branch of the Government which is the distinctive republican feature. Both the execu tive and the judicial departments are found even in unlimited monarchies where the legislative branch is frequently wanting. But, Mr. President, I shall not dwell upon that.
I want to say something with reference to the propriety of the. adoption of the substitute proposed by the Senator from Florida. This matter originally was brought before the Senate by resolu tions I am speaking now of when it was first brought here to the Senate by resolutions which reflected the sentiments of those who condemned the action of the President. That condem nation was put upon several grounds. In the first place, that, as a legal proposition, he had no right to make the order dis charging the soldiers of these three negro companies; that he had no right to discharge without honor; but that that was the function of a court-martial. In the second place, that the orcler involved the innocent as well as the guilty. That as a question of law it should be said that the President had no right to make the order, aud that in the exercise of the power, whether he possessed it rightfully or not, there was injustice done by indiscriminately confounding the guilty with the inno cent. Those are tue two propositions, and around those two propositions this debate for weeks has revolved.
When that proposition was first announced there was no doubt about the fact that there was a distinct cleavage in the Senate, not only among the Democrats in some degree, but in a still more pronounced manner among the Kepublican Senators. There were Senators who did not believe that the President had the power, whether he drew it as an inherent power from the Constitution or whether he received it by power granted by Congress. There were other Senators on the other side of tlio Chamber who believed directly to the opposite, that the President did have the power, some of them thinking that it was a power drawn directly from the Constitution and others thinking that it was a power granted to him by the action of Congress, or at least not denied to him, and in the exercise of the usual func tions of every commanding officer.
Mr. President, Senators on the other side of the Chamber are to-day giving an illustration of their extreme dexterity in framing measures for which they can all vote, although among themselves directly opposed in sentiment and opinion as to the matter to which the measures relate. The Senators who believed in the beginning that the President did not have the power, from whatever source it was derived, to promulgate that order, believe so to-day. The Senators who in the beginning believed that the President did have the power, believe so to-day. They are in opinion divided as distinctly and as radically as they were two
7074

weeks ago, and yet they have agreed upon I say they have agreed, but possibly all have not but, speaking generally, it is understood that they have agreed upon a resolution for which they can all vote. Why? Because it is a resolution framed in ambiguous language, under which those who believe that the President did have the power can construe it according to their opinion and vote for it, and those who believe that the President did not have the power can also construe it to mean their way and vole for it.
Mr. President, I am not snying that haphazard; I am saying it because Senators have so announced on the floor. I will pro ceed to read to show that Republican Senators on the one side and the other of this contention have so stated.
Senators will remember that on yesterday when the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] was on the floor giving rea sons why he would support the modified resolution which had been introduced by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FOBAKEB], which is in these words :
Resolved, That without questioning the legality or justice of any act of the President in relation thereto, the Committee on Military Affairs is -hereby authorized anil flircctcfl, etc.
I asked the Senator from Massachusetts whether that meant the same thing as the amendment which had been offered by the Senator from Kentucky, which is in these words:
Without questioning or denying the legal right of the President to discharge without honor enlisted men from the Army of the United States.
And the Senator from Massachusetts made a reply, to which I rejoined as follows :
Mr. BACON. So I understand, then, that the Senator construes the modified substitute proposed by the Senator from Ohio to moan ail that the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky means and to go still further?
Mr. LODGE. I do.
That was as emphatic and as explicit and as una_ualified as the Senator could make a reply in language. The Senator from Ohio was not content with the answer made by the Senator from Massachusetts, so he interjected:
Mr. FORAKER. I want to suggest to the Senator from Massachusetts lhat, according to my understanding, the two amendments do not mean the same thing.
There, in direct opposition, are the statements of the two Senators, and the Senate will remember that the Senator from Massachusetts had in this debate previously avowed his opinion that the President did have the power, and that the Senator from Ohio had_as emphatically and as explicitly avowed that, in his opinion, the President did not have the power. That was the condition before this resolution was framed, the modified resolution offered by the Senator from Ohio, and, as disclosed by that colloquy, that is the position they occupied after the resolution was framed.
In other words, the one who believed in the beginning that the President did not have the power avows that he believes so still, and the one who believed and had announced beforehand that the President did have the power announces that that is still his opinion, and yet the two Senators, directly opposed and in this avowal asserting still that opposition, agree upon that single resolution. Why? Because, as I say, the language is ambiguous. One Senator can construe it one way and vote for
7074

it and another Senator can construe it directly in the opposite and vote for it.
I read further to show that that is the construction of the two Senators.
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. Let me read this first. On the same page the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] said: The resolution as it stands
That is, the modified resolution
as absolutely satisfactory to me. It states Now, listen
It states tliat we do not question the Presidents right either to dis charge the troops or in any act relating thereto. Nothing can be plainer than that, in my Judgment.
Now, iii the same colloquy, on the next page, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. FORAKEB] used this language. Without reading it all, I will read his concluding sentence:
In other wordsSpeaking of the modified resolution proposed by him
In other words, the effect will be precisely (he same as though, we were to say " neither affirming nor denying the legality."
In one case the words " not questioning " are construed by the Senator from Massachusetts to mean there is no doubt about it, and in the other case the Senator from Ohio says that " not Questioning" means that we are not passing on that at all, liimself asserting that the reason why he does not pass upon it or does not favor a resolution which will admit of the construction jrat upon it by the Senator from Massachusetts is that he believes directly opposite to the Senator from Massa chusetts. The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. McCuMBEB], with the candor which always characterizes him, says that he believes that this "not questioning" means that it is beyond question, and not 1o be doubted or denied.
Mr. President, I am very much in sympathy with the sugges tion made, I think, first by the Senator from Wisconsin and repeated by the Senator from Colorado to-day, that the investi gation is, from some points of view, not a proper thing for us to make, and I would be willing to pass it without any resolu tion whatever and leave it where it is. But the Senate does not propose to do that. Here, with a challenge in the Senate as to the power of the President to discharge these soldiers, as to the propriety of it, this resolution proposes to pass that challenge and at the same time pursue the course which is proposed by those who deny the right, to wit, to make an investigation for the purpose of establishing the propositions which were announced originally in the resolution, that the President has not the right, and if he has the right that it has been improperly exercised.
I have no interest in this matter so far as it may relate to the personality of the President. Certainly if he is willing that those who particularly represent him in this Chamber shall agree to an ambiguous resolution, to a resolution the language of which can be construed directly the opposite by those who support him and by those who oppose him, a resolution not only susceptible of that, but as to which Senators on this floor announce these opposing views if the President is content with that, it is not for me to stand in the breach or to attempt to do so in his defense. But there is a great question and a great
7074

10
principle involved which goes beyond the question of the per sonal fortunes of any man who may occupy the White House.
Mr. ALDRICH rose. Mr. BACON. If the Senator from Rhode Island will pardon me, I think it is a strained construction that action upo_j these questions is to be considered as an indorsement or condemnation of the Administration in other matters which have no relation to it whatsoever. Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. President ~ The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Rhode Island? Mr. BACON. With much pleasure. Mr. ALDRICII. Do I understand the Senator from Georgia to say that the question whether the President is content with this language should be the main question to he decided? Mr. BACON. I did not hear the Senator plainly. 1 heard him partially only. Mr. ALDRICH. Do I understand the Senator from Georgia to contend that whether the President of the United States is content with the language is the main question to be decided by the Senate? Mr. BACON. The Senator from Rhode Island could scarcely have heard any words from me which would be susceptible of any such construction. On the contrary, I said it was a ques tion far superior to the personal fortunes or the persona! wishes of the President; that if the President is content with the resolution as it has been drafted by his friends upon this floor, it did not become me to attempt to stand in the breach for the defense of his prerogative. I think 1 have made myself quite plain on that, and I flatter myself that my distinguished friend the Senator from Rhode Island had hut one purpose in asking me the question, and that was to enable me to empha size what I had said to the contrary of what he suggested. It is, however, a most remarkable fact that, through the dextrous management of somebody on the Republican side, nil of the adherents of that party In this Chamber have been put in a position where, by agreeing to support a certain resolution, they will be compelled to vote against an unreserved and unlimited endorsement of the Presidents action, as expressed in the sub stitute of the Senator from Florida. But, Mr. President, I was saying that this is an important question. The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. TILLMAN] inTnTsBpeerrb-yestetclay said that southern Senators had tumbled over each other, or he knew they would tumble over each other, to go to the defense of the President in this case, because they were opposed to having any negroes in the Army at all, thereby, I think, impugning motives and the good faith of those of us who occupy that position, not intentionally, of course. Mr. President, I desire to say frankly that when this debate began I very gravely doubted the right of the President to make the order, and if the inclination of my mind had continued I should have voted in faver of saying that he did not have the right to make the order. It hud never been my fortune or duty to examine particularly law questions relating to the Army, especially as to the effect of Army regulations and the rules for the government of the Army, und the first inclination of my mind and impression. I may say, was that in discharging with out honor the President had inflicted a punishment, and I did
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11
not believe that in that case or any other it was according to the genius and spirit of our law, to say nothing of its explicit provisions, that any one man should have tbe right to be jntlge and jury and executioner.
It was only after the debate had progressed, particularly after I had heard my learned friend the Senator from Texas [Mr. CTTLDERSON] as to that legal proposition, that I became convinced that the first impression of my mind was wrong and that the discharge without honor is not a punishment; that it is simply the exercise of a power necessary in a great many in stances.and oa a great many occasions, but particularly neces sary as a fundamental proposition for the good of the Army, for the good of the public, and for tbe protection of the public, and that the discharging of a man without honor from the Army Was no more than turning off a servant and failing to give, a cer tificate of character. So the Senator from South Carolina is tinjust, I say again, unintentionally so, in attributing any such dispo^tion and unworthy motive to Senators on this side,
"tywish to say that the reason why I desire that there shall be an expression of opinion in this matter is somewhat twofold. In the first place, I have no belief that there will be any other occasion which will furnish an opportunity for the Senate to say that it thought the President acted within his power and acted properly, and I am unwilling for the opportunity to pass without so saying. , Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow, me to ask him a ques tion?
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. BACON. As I always do, with pleasure. Mr. SPOONER. I understood the Senator from Georgia to say that he is in favor of the Senate expressing an opinion, as this is probably the only opportunity which would be afforded for the Senate to do so. I understood the Senator a few momeiils ago to express very grave doubt as to the propriety of the expression of anys opinion by the Senate as to the legality of the Executive act. Mr. BACON. I did not express it quite so strongly as the Senator does. I did not say I very gravely doubted. I think uiy exact languagewas that I was very much in sympathy with the suggestion that there might be such impropriety in the gen eral investigation proposed. Mr. SPOONER. Is not the Senator just as much in sym pathy with the suggestion that we ought not to pass a resolution approving expressly an executive act, with reference .to his .power, as he is with respect to one disapproving it? If it is proper to pass one approving it is proper to pass one disap proving. Is not really the right thing for the Senate to do Mr. BACON. Will not the Senator allow me to answer one question at a time? Mr. SPOONER. I will add only this little question. Mr. BACON. Well. Mr. SPOONER. Is not really the proper thing for the Senate to do to express no opinion and to limit itself to an investigation of the facts? I think my friend . Mr. BACON. You ask me a question, and then you go on to argue it.
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12
Mr. SPOONER. No. Mr. BACON. I would be more than glad to hear the Senator argue it afterwards, but I want the question and the argument separate. The Senator will remember that when I said that with refer ence to what was the inclination of my mind, or the presentation with which my mind was in sympathy, I accompanied it with the further statement that while that might be the proper course to pursue and might be the one which would most commend itself to my mind, that is to say nothing, that it was also true that the matter had been brought into the Senate by those who were hostile to the act of the President, and they had assumed two positions here. One was that there was no legal power vested In the President to issue the order, and the other was that in the issuance of the order and in the action taken under it there had been great injustice done to these men. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President Mr. BACON. Pardon me a moment until I finish the remark. I will yield to the Senator from Ohio in a moment. Therefore I said that it was not proper that there should be an elimination of the consideration and enunciation by the Senate1 on the question of the existence of power, when the Senate pro posed to adopt a resolution which was in furtherance of the mo tion of those who were unfriendly to thia" act, based upon the ground that it was an abuse of power, if the power existed, and that it confounded the guilty with the innocent. That was my proposition. If the Senate is willing to accept what has been done by the President and say no more about it, I will join hands. But if you are going to say anything, tlien for reasons which I will give later if I have an opportunity, we ought to speak here em phatically as to the propriety of that conduct, both as to law and- as to fact. Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President The VIOE-PRKSIDMNT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Ohio? Mr. BACON. I do, with pleasure. Mr. FORAKER. I understood the Senator from Georgia to say two or three times in the course of his remarks, and par ticularly just when I rose to interrupt him, that this question as to the power of the Executive had been introduced into the debate by those Senators who denied this power to the Presi-dcntr-orjiLO.rils to.thjjt effect. I call the Senators attention to the RECORD in that respect. On the 19th day of December the President sent us his mes sage transmitting information in answer to resolutions which had been previously adopted by the Senate. A motion was then, made to refer that message, with all exhibits and documents attached, to the Committee on Military Affairs for consideration, and the committee was directed, in connection with that con sideration, by the resolution which was then offered, which, of course, has not been adopted, if it deemed it advisable to do so, to take further testimony in regard to the discharge of the members of these companies. What was before the Senate, therefore, was the Presidents message, coming up in the way I have indicated, and it was in that message that the question about the Presidents power was
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13
first raised, and it was because of what was said in that mes sage that, in discussing the motion then offered, that question was properly up for discussion. In other words, the question was not introduced into this debate by Senators who questioned that power. I did not introduce it. My resolution then offered was modified, I believe, on the following day it lias been modi fied two or three times but in every modification it has been re stricted to an inquiry as to facts. But when it came up for consideration the nest time, although it was confined strictly to facts, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] offered an amendment, which again raised the question of power; and then when it came up again after that hart been withdrawn and was modified the second or third time, on the 17th day of this month, the question of power was again raised by the amendment offered by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BLACKS LIEN].
So it is. We have had that question and have had debate on that proposition, but the proposition itself was not embodied in the resolution I offered and was not precipitated in this de bate by anything I said, except only what was in answer to what had been ^id by others.
JVIr. B^sON. Of course, I do not want to misrepresent the Senator in any particular.
Mr. FORAKEIi. I am sure of that. Mr. BACON. And I will accept the full statement of what he said as to the particular way in which the matter came be*fore the Senate. But I do not think there can be any question of the fact that the Senator from Ohio has been recognized as the champion, and the very formidable champion, the untiring champion, of these soldiers who have been thus discharged, and that lie has been, with the utmost earnestness, constantly in sistent upon the fact that the President did not have the power, and that he had exceeded his power. Mr. FORAKER. I have not changed my mind about it. Mr. BACON. lie has not changed his mind, and in that con nection he demands the investigation. Mr. FOKAKBK. Of the facts. Mr. BACON. Now, it makes no difference, so far as this par ticular presentation is concerned, whether he is the first one who brought it in issue in this Chamber, but be has based his most powerful advocacy of the cause of these colored soldiers upon the proposition which I have stated, that the President did not have the power, and even if he had the power it had been abused, in meeting out punishment both to the innocent and the guilty. Mr. President, when in the course of this debate as the matter goes along there is gradually an evolution in which there is an attempt to separate those two questions, with this assault upon the act of the President, this denial of the right and of the pro priety of his action, and there is an endeavor made to break the force of what there might be in an indorsement of the act of the President, and simply a direction for an investigation at the in stance of those who deny the power, while I am not an advocate or defender of the President, I say it is an injustice to the President. Mr. President, what makes the matter important to my mind, again disavowing any effort on my part to stand as the cham pion or defender of the President, even if I had the adequate
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power to do so, is that there has never been an incident con nected with tlie American Army in time of peace which has so challenged the attention and awakened the interest of the Amer ican people as this particular incident and the questions that grows out of it. I am very frank to say that there is not a section of the country in which that interest is deeper than in the section of country which I have the honor in part here to represent. That section of the country is not inflamed, as the Senator from South Carolina would suggest, simply by the fact that this outrage wag committed by negroes, and with hostility" to the race, and for that reason, this attitude is assumed. Tho southern -people have no such blind, unreasoning race hatred. It matters not whether they are white or black. The action was taken by a battalion of the United States Army, which was, as the President has denounced it, the most brutal act of sav agery ever known to the American Army, and, I may say, the most brutal act of savagery ever known to the United States by any band of people legally organized together.
Mr. TILLMAN. Mr." President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Docs the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina? Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator, I know, does not want to mis represent me. I did not say, because I have never thought it, that the attitude of the South toward the discharge of the negro soldiers was due to hatred of the race, but due to hatred of negro soldiers as negro soldiers because of the infamies per petrated by them upon the southern people in 1866 and 1867. Mr. BACON., I will accept the Senators direct statement, in his own words. I say that is an injustice, and it matters not whether these men are white or black. I am frank to say that in my opinion the southern people think it better that for good reasons there should be no negro soldiers, and in that view I personally concur; but that is not the reason of the attitude of the South relative to this action by the President. It is a mat ter, after what has occurred, of the supreinest importance for the peace and security of the country and for tho confidence of the country in the fact that they will not be subjected to such outrages, to know, as alone it can know by the utterance of the Senate after what has occurred here, that the power does rest in the President, and that whenever a proper man is in that office it will be exercised promptly, without a word and without hesi tation, to rob such men of the power to- commit such outrages in communities in which they may be stationed. That is the thing which makes it important, Mr. President, that the Senate, after the denial of that power, after the con troversy that has been had here, after the attention of the whole country has been attracted to it, that these negro soldiers and white soldiers, knowing that that question is in issue and in^ the balance, shall not permit to go forth the impression that, after all, the Senate was in doubt and refused to say the President did right. For myself one principal objection that I had to the resolution of the Senator from Ohio was that it would deprive me of the opportunity to say to tho country and to the Army that it was the opinion of the Senate that the President did have toe power and had rightfully exercised it. Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President
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15
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina?
Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. TILLMAN. Does not the Senator tliink that It is of a great (leal more importance that the people of the country should be made to understand that the law of the country, the ciTil law which deals with such crimes, shall not be interfered with by Executive orders, and that troops, black or white, who shoot up towns* and murder citizens shall be subjected to those instru mentalities to detect the true criminals and punish them? Mr. BACON. There are two questions in one, which I will answer. I think if the Senator from South Carolina or I had had the direction of those matters we might have pursued the course whichwould have more readily led to a detection of those who were guilty, and I wish to God they could be detected and could be hanged as high as Hainan, as they ought to be, a spectacle and an example for till others who might so betray and abuse a trust as those soldiers did. But it does not end there. Mr." President, in my opinion, if it could to-day be ascertained who these twenty men were, and if they could be hanged, as they should be, .i^one the less would it be the duty of the President to say thajythe balance of these soldiers should no longer wear the uniform of the United States. Why? Because I myself have not the shadow of a doubt that every single enlisted man f>f those three companies knows who those guilty parties are, and any man who is familiar with the race characteristics will agree with me, I think, in greater or less degree as to the fact that there is not a man in either of these three companies who does not know who it is of his comrades who perpetrated this monstrous and unspeakable outrage of savage cruelty and bru tality upon a peaceful community. And, Mr. President, if they know it, even though the guilty should have a greater punish ment, they should no longer be allowed to wear the uniform of the Army, no not for one day or hour. It is for that reason, Mr. President, and with that response that I think the Senators suggestion does not eontroveue the .propriety and correctness of the proposition which I make, that it is due to the country, that is is due to the future pence of the country, that it is due to the confidence which our people will have in troops stationed in their midst, that there should be an announcement in no uncertain terms by the Senate, after all this controversy and after all the attention which has been drawn to it, and afler the direct challenge which has been made to the power, that, in the opinion of the Senate, the President had the power and properly exercised it. I am glad of the opportunity, which I feared had been lost when it appeared we were going to vote simply upon the modifled resolution of the Senator from Ohio, now presented for me to vote directly on that question. I wish Senators would have the nerve to let us vote on the question and not move to lay it on the table. Let us vote on it direct. Is it true that the President had the power and that he properly exercised it?. If so, like men let us say so and not evade it and get under the cover of a motion to lay on the table. If the motion of the Senator from Ohio to lay on the table is pressed, I hope it will be voted down, even by those who propose
7074

16
to vote against the substitute offered by the Senator from Florida, in order that unflinchingly we may face our duty and say to the American people and say to the American Army for the future confidence and security of the public, on the one hand, and for the admonition and guidance of the Army, on the other whether we believe that the President under such circum stances has the power under the law to discharge summarily, and whether under such circumstances as this he has properly exercised it.
7074
o

THE EIGHT OF REED SMOOT, OF UTAH, TO A SEAT IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
REMARKS
A. O. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
Wednesday February 20,1907,
7191

REMARKS
OF
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Semite having under consideration the resolution reported from the Committee on Privileges and Elections, " That EEBU SMOOT la not eUnttaihtle"d to a seat as a Senator of the United States from the State of

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT : I do not propose to discuss this question. I design simply to give the reasons for my vote in order that I may not be misunderstood.

For the first time during my service in the Senate I am called upon by my vote to pass on the question whether one holding a seat as a Senator here shall be excluded from this body. In a matter of so great gravity it is due to myself that I shall state the ground upon which my vote will be placed.
I conceive that there can be no question devolving upon me a more definite and serious responsibility to decide this question for myself, with an eye single to the right and in accordance with the Constitution and tbe law, as in my honest judgment I may find them to require. It is not permissible that I shall be controlled in casting my vote by any personal or political consideration. Much less am I warranted in being influenced

by the views and wishes of others. Such may be permissible in settling some questions; but in passing upon the question of the right of a member of this body to retain his seat, a Senator can only be guided and controlled by his own judgment and his

conscience tinder his oath of office. There is the obligation, in the first place, to respect and pro
tect a Senator in the right and possession of his seat when legitimately entitled to it. That is a sacred right of which he should not be deprived if he has been legally elected,- possesses the qualifications prescribed by the Constitution, and has not by any act of his, either before or since his election, made him self, in tbe opinion of Senators under their oaths, unfit to re main here as a Senator of the United States.
There is also the paramount duty to guard the Senate against the danger of instability in the tenure of office of its members.
Mr. President, I regard the Senate as the most valuable and the most important branch of the constitutional framework of our Government. It is the only branch of the Government which is clothed with legislative, executive, and judicial func- . tions. It has been continuous in its organization and continuous in its membership from the foundation of the Government. Presidents come and go. The organization and official member ship of the House of Representatives expire at the end of each

period of two years. But since 1789 the organization of the Senate has been without interruption, and during all that time there has been a continuous membership, at each period, of more than a majority of Senators. It is the only branch of the Gov-

7191

2

3
eminent in which it has been solemnly covenanted that in no manner, not even by constitutional amendment, shall there be change in the representation of each State in the Senate.
The tenure of ofllce in such a body shouldbe stable and not easily disturbed. It is a fundamental right of a State to be rep resented here by the men of its choice, having the qualifications prescribed in the Constitution.
In my opinion, after the most careful consideration of the question, that fundamental right is only subject to the right of the Senate, for any cause deemed by it sufficient, to expel a Sen ator by a two-thirds vote. In other words, in my opinion, after a Senator, with proper credentials from his State, has been duly sworn in and has taken his seat, if it be conceded that he has been legally elected, that he has attained the age of HO years, that he has beea nine years a citizen of the United States, and was when elected an inhabitant of the State for which he was chosen, he can only be expelled, or in any manner excluded from the Senate for any cause, by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, whether that cause arose before or after his admission to the Senate.
Election, age, citizenship, and residence, as prescribed by the Constitution, are essential to the title of a Senator to his seat. If either of these is lacking the incumbent may be ex cluded from yie Senate by a majority vote of the Senators. As to any othe^objection to a Senator the Constitution makes no specification, but delegates all power regarding the ascertain ment and determination of the same to the Senate. And as th!s is a tremendous and unlimited power the safeguard is thrown around each Senator by requiring that he can only be expelled by a two-thirds vote. Unless a Senator has title under the Constitution in the possession of the essentials prescribed by the Constitution, he is not entitled to enter and may be excluded by a majority. If he enters with such title, only by a two-thirds vote can he be excluded from the Senate.
In my opinion any other construction of the law, if accepted by the Senate as a rule of conduct, would be extremely danger ous to the security of the tenure of ofiice in this body.
I do not undertftjce now to argue the proposition. I only state it as a conclusion uponwhich I shall base my vote, so far as concerns the rule of practice by which the Senate shall be guided in this case.
Several reasons are assigned why Senator SMOOT should be excluded from the Senate. To prevent misunderstanding, I de sire to state the ground on which I base the vote which I shall give in this case.
The fact that he is a Mormon and believes in the tenets and dogmas of the Mormon Church will not, in iny opinion, justify his exclusion from the Senate. It would be an extremely dan gerous precedent to exclude a Senator because of his religious or political belief, however erroneous we may believe that belief to be.
Mr. President, there are other alleged grounds upon whicli it is claimed that he should be excluded from the Senate. In some of these there are issues and conflicting contentions as to the facts, and differences in the construction proper to be placed upon acts alleged to have been done. These I pass by because of such conflicting contentions and of such uncertainty of facts and
71 Hi

of construction. There is, however, one fact upon which there is no issue, because the fact is avowed bv Senator SMOOT him self.
He is not a polygamist. That is conceded, and is to his credit. He is, however, an apostle, one of the governing body of the church, empowered to give spiritual and temporal law and precept to its followers. It is conceded that lie is and has been for years, both before and since his election to the Senate, in intimate official relationship and official cooperation and neces sary official approval with other members of the governing officials of the church who have been, during all the time and still are. while such officials, in the open, notorious, defiant, and even boastful violation of law in living in undisguised, undisputed polygamous cohabitation. More than this, by his own avowal, while such official, as an apostle, he has voted to place in the highest office of the church Joseph F. Smith, who was at the time of his election, as he was before and has ever since con tinued to be. in the open, notorious, and defiant violation of law in living in undisguised, undisputed polygamous cohabitation; and in thus indorsing and continuing to the present time to sup port him as their head and chief, Senator SMOOT has, during all these years, in the most pronounced and indisputable manner, held forth this violator and profaner of the law as one worthy to be by the people commended and approved as their fit teacher and exemplar.
Again, Mr. President, I do not undertake to argue the correct ness of my conclusion. I only state it in order that it may be known on what ground my vote will be based.
Mr. President, after the most careful consideration, having regard to the gravity of the interests- involved, I have r-> iched the conclusion that Senator SMOOT, in the language of the protestants, ought not to be permitted

to sit as a member of the United States Senate for reasons affecting

Die honor and dignity of the-United Slates and their Senators in Con

gress, and upon the grounds and for the reason that he is one of a self-

perpetuating body of fifteen men who, constituting the ruling authori

ties of the Church of ,lesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormon

Church, claim, and by tlieir followers are accorded the right to claim,

supreme authority, divinely sanctioned, to shape Ihe belief and control

the conduct of those under them in all matters whatsoever, civil and

religious, temporal and spiritual, and who, thus uniting in themselves

authority in church and state, do so exercise the same as to inculcate

and encourage a belief in polygamy and polygamous cohabitation ; who

countenance and connive at violations of the laws of the State prohibit

ing the same, regardless of pledges made for the purpose of obtaining

statehood and of covenants made with the people of tlie United States,

and who, by all means themselves violate the

in their power, laws of the land

protect and honor and are guilty of

those who practices

in de

structive of the family and the home.

7191

o

IN MEMORIAM.

ADDRESS

OF
HON. A. 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA,

UPON THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF

HON. RUFtJS E. LESTER,

L

(Late a Representative from the State of Georgia),

DELIVERED IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

i*
Saturday, February 23,1907.

7192

WASHINGTON.
1907.

ADDRESS
HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON.

The Senate having unanimously agreed to the following reso lutions

Resolved, That the Senate lias heard with profound sorrow of the death of Hon. KUFUS E. LESTEU. late a Member of the House of Repre sentatives from the Stale of Georgia.
Renal-red, That the business of Ihe Senate be now suspended in order that a fitting tribute may be paid to his memory.

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PRESIDENT : When one dear to us passes away, sweet is

the voice of praise which testifies to his virtues, his character,

and his deeds. With grateful ear, sir, I have heard from his

colleagues in the House of Representatives upon a former day,

and In the Senate to-day, the beautiful and touching tributes of

those who knew RUKUS B. LESTER so well, and, because they

thus knew him, esteemed and loved him so much. It is in no

perfunctory and formal observance that I lay upon his bier my

offering of affection. If length of duration is the measure of

friendship, then was I in that relation with him second to but

few, for ours was the friendship not of a few years; it was the

uninterrupted, close friendship of a long lifetime. I have known

him much longer than any other with whom he has been asso

ciated in either House of Congress. I recall vividly my first

acquaintance with him when I, a college boy upon my vacation

in Savannah, met him, then an eager young lawyer just enter

ing upon the practice of his profession in the flush of vigor

ous young manhood, his cheek ruddy with health, the glow of

expectancy lighting bis eye as of one girded for the mastery. I

shall ever remember the admiration and pardonable envy with

which I then regarded him. While he was only a few years

older than myself, still he had crossed the divide upon which as

a boy my view was strained the line to the boy and the youth

of all time as distinct and almost as distant to his impatience as

the horizon the line which separates the schoolboy from the

dignity, the liberty, the opportunity of recognized manhood,

with its associations in the responsible affairs of life.

The acquaintance then made ripened into an ardent personal

friendship which lasted without interruption through all the

long succeeding years until the sun had passed the meridian and

the lengthening shadows told of the evening of life. Imme

diately after that early meeting came the tragic conflict of civil

war, and in its thunder clouds and storms and smoke and dust

we were at times hidden the one from the other; but through

its din and uproar there came to me time and again tidings o_f

the gallantry of the youthful LESTER how on many a sanguin

ary field his sword had flashed in the forefront; how at Chica-

mauga he won the plaudits of the men and the praise of his

commanding officer; how two horses on that fateful day had

fallen under him, and how, mounting the third, he, undismayed

in that carnage of death, rode to victory at the head of the

charging legions. The South had no son whose consecration of

2

7192

life and all to her cause was more unreserved than was his, and while the fortune of war did not require from him the highest sacrifice which a soldier can make and which he so freely dared, still more than once his blood was poured out a libation in her cause; and when that cause was finally lost, among the most active of those whose efforts, in the succeeding years of trial and unwearied toil, rehabilitated the South, restored her indus tries, and rebuilt the altars of her social order was RUFTTS B. LESTEK. Only those who endured its trial can realize the a,nguish of that day, with hopes crushed, the highest endeavor and the grandest sacrifice lost in defeat, the land sodden with the blood of its sons, and a universal material desolation on every Land, with.
Scarce a. rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, To tell where the garden had been.
Heroic men and still more heroic women were they who then defied despair and nerved themselves to the herculean task of restoration.
I would not now speak a word of crimination, but by all it is now conceded, in the kindly feeling of the present, that the humiliation of the South in the reconstruction measures was an unfortunate political mistake, one which those who took part in enacting them now freely say they would not repeat.
The events of that day are not pleasant either to recite or to remember. But they summoned the men and women of the South to the rescue of their local governments from those ele ments which were destroying the material interests, overturn ing the social fabric, and blotting out the civilization of that .fair land. There was a saturnalia of public plunder and politi cal debauchery. In each Southern State the cry for rescue rang out through its borers. Among the foremost who sprang to the call was LESTEK, ftsfttling sternly and untiringly to drive out the despoilers. Georgia was the first of the reconstructed States to restore her government to the control of her own people. Within three years after the organization of the re construction State governments a legislature was elected by the white voters which was representative of property inter ests, social order, and of a civilization to be restored. When it assembled at the State capital the members found the execu tive chair vacant. The governor had absconded between two suns and left for parts then unknown.
In that and three succeeding legislatures LESTEB was a mem ber of the Senate. A most difficult and untried task devolved upon the legislature of the State during the years succeeding the reconstruction period. With practically ail personal prop erty destroyed and with the value of real estate reduced to a minimum, in three years of misrule a mountain of debt had been piled upon the State. At its close, with exhausted re sources, an empty treasury was on one hand and a bankrupt public credit was upon the other. In matters social and politi cal old things had passed away, and the legislation to be en acted must be adjusted to new conditions in their unparalleled . incongruities and ever-increasing antagonisms. To restore the lost credit of the State, to rebuild anew a social fabric upon the wreck and ruins of a former civilization, to reopen the educational institutions, and set again in motion the industries which war had stricken down, to insure the supremacy and control of the virtue, the intelligence, the integrity, and the
7192

property interests of the State, and to frame and to guard and

protect all against the license of the ignorant and the vicious

which under evil influences threatened on every hand this was

the task, the magnitude and perplexing difficulty of which can

at this distance be scarcely imagined.

But in the eight or ten years which followed this appar

ently impossible task was accomplished, and upon those deso

late ruins there has arisen a new civilization which is not in

ferior to that which preceded it, and there has been builded a

new prosperity and a new wealth greater than those of the

former day. In this invaluable work of constructive states

manship in a field of legislation for which there were no prece

dents upon which to model the work LKSTEE was one of the

master workmen, earnest, zealous, patient, determined, fertile

in resource, unwearied in effort.

Mr. President, it is a matter of personal pride to me that 1

was with him in that great work, a lesser coworker, he a senator

and I a representative; and during a large part of the time we

were contemporaneously the presiding officers of our respective

houses. During all those years I lived in the same house with

him. I learned then not only in still larger measure his per

sonal worth, but the value and extent of his labors in that

crucial time, the results of which in the lengthening years

should be to him a perpetual monument.

From.that field of labor each of us was within a few years

transferred to the National Congress, and here again, during

more than eleven years, have been continued and strengthened

the ties of friendship which have thus bound us in closest union.

Mr. President, while mine has been a friendship among the

longest in duration, a man so loved, as he was, by all who were

in close association with Mm can not be claimed in a friendship

stronger than that given by him to many others, for he was

one of those sweet and sympathetic and gentle characters,

kindly, tender, considerate, generous, loyal, whose lives are made

beautiful in the love of friends and happy beyond the power of

tongue to tell in the sweet devotion of those who stand with

them behind the sacred veil of domestic life.

Mr. President, I have known so well and so long RUFUS E.

LBSTER, I have esteemed and loved him so sincerely, that were

I to say now all that I wish I would exceed the limits properly

set for this occasion. As friend, father, husband, citizen, legis

lator, soldier, his life is a theme upon which I would dwell and

upon which I am reluctant to speak the final word. Through

the streets of his loved and beautiful Savannah, filled with the

mourning thousands of all classes who viewed the solemn

cortege, I followed him to the sacred groves of Bonaventure.

There I saw him laid to his final rest. And, fitting close to the

career of a gallant soldier was it, as beneath the bending boughs

and the drooping moss, amid weeping loved ones and sympathiz

ing friends, while tender hands covered his grave with beautiful

flowers, glorified with the rays of the sinking sun, the remnant

of the vanishing band of those who with him wore the gray,

drooped over his earthly bed the tattered banner and with

bugle call echoing through the great aisles of the giant oaks

sounded their intrepid comrade to his last martial sleep.

Until the joyful reveille of the final naorn shall awaken him,

God rest him!

7192

o

Restriction of Immigration as it Affects the South. .

EXTKACTS FEOM SPEECH

OP
.HON. AUGUSTUS 0. BACON,
OF GEORGIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

Thursday, February l.'j, Friday, February 15, and Saturday, February 16, 1907,

On the report of the committee of conference on the disagreeing rotes of the two Houses on the bill (S. 44011) entitled "An act to amend an act entitled An at to reflate the.immigration of aliens into the TJnited States, approved March 3, 1903."

Mr. BACON said:

Mr. PBESIDENT

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. President , The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from California?
Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. PERKINS. If it Jll not interrupt the Senator from Georgia, I should like to make a suggestion. I have listened to him, as I always do, with much interest and instruction, but it is not clear to me, from his remarks, how this conference re port discriminates against one part of the country in favor of the Pacific coast States. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I will with pleasure Mr. PERKINS. I want to say, in connection with that, that it seems to me we ought to restrict immigration. We have been absorbing a million immigrants into this country during the past year or more, and it seems to me it is wise policy and states manship for us to only invite those to come here who honor our institutions and have a veneration for a republican form of gov ernment. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I will with pleasure endeavor to answer the Senator, not at length, but briefly. The Senator from California, Mr. President, asks me in what particular the bill reported by the conferees discriminates in favor of the Pacific coast and against another section I will say the South and then the Senator, before hearing the reply, announced what he considers to be the correct rule as to the exclusion of immigrants, which, of course, does not particularly relate to the inquiry he propounded to me, except In so far as it may be controlled by a general principle and not by the con ditions to which his inquiry is directed. Mr. President, this bill, so far as it relates to the Pacific coast, is distinctively in the interest of the Pacific coast, so far as that interest can be gathered from the attitude of those who so ably

7235

represent it upon this floor. In other words, the Interest of the Pacific coast, as interpreted and represented by these able and distinguished Senators, is to interpose a barrier between that coast and the Asiatic countries which shall prevent the influx into the States bordering upon the Pacific Ocean and those neighboring to it of a class of population which is deemed by them to be injurious in its general interests and in conflict with the interests of the laboring and mechanic classes of that coun try ; not only so, sir, but, far more than that, pernicious, and, if not checked, absolutely destructive of the civilization of their country. I do not think I overstate the case when I say that that is the attitude occupied by those Senators and that which is recognized by the country at large, with which we are all in sympathy and in the accomplishment of which we are all ready to join with the Senators to protect them against this very great evil.
I am not sufficiently familiar with the conditions there to say whether or not this bill will accomplish that purpose, but that is the design of it. It is distinctively in the interest of the Pacific coast, and, I may say for myself, without regard to details of which I am not capable of judging, one properly directed to a laudable end. That is one side. That is the presentation of this bill as it affects the Pacific coast.
Now, how does it present itself as it affects the South? The conditions in the West and on the Pacific coast are such that it is not to their interest to have this influx of Japanese labor. It is not only not to their interest to have such an influx of this particular class of labor, but it is considered to be destructive of all that is desirable in the development and civilization of that country.
On the other hand, so far from having at the South the labor which we require, the industries of the South are languishing the industries of the South are more than languishing; some of them are absolutely paralyzed, because of the fact that we can not secure the labor which is required to keep our industries in motion.
Here is the report from which I have been reading, and the reading of which I have suspended in order to reply to the in quiry of the Senator from California. Here is the report of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, who says that upon an examination it was ascertained that 20 per cent one-fifth of the spindles of South Carolina were absolutely still, because there was no labor to keep them in motion. What is true of the State of South Carolina is true of North Carolina and true of Georgia, the three States which, more than any others in the South, are engaged in the manufacture of cotton a fact of peculiar pertinency when the fact is known that one-half of all the cotton manufactured in the United States is manufac tured in the South. And what is true of cotton mills is true of all other industries. The mines are comparatively unworked, or to a large degree unworked, because there are no laborers to do the work. The fields are in large measure untilled, be cause there is no sufficiency of labor to till them. Many fur naces are cold. In every branch of industry It is the same thing in greater or less degree. It is only with the greatest difficulty that in any department of industry in the South labor can be obtained, and in no department of labor is there a sufficiency of labor.
7235

Senators, conditions there are not like they are anywhere else. We have peculiar conditions that make it difficult for us to secure labor. The harvest is great, but the laborers are few, and we can not get them in that portion of the country. Take the cotton-mill industry. The colored people can not be employed in the cotton mills. Why, I am not able to tell you, because I have no technical knowledge in the matter.
Mr, BEVERIDGE. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Indiana? Mr. BACON. Certainly. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I do not want to prolong this discussion at all, but I can tell the Senator why the colored people can not be employed in the Southern cotton mills. It is because the white people will not work with them. Mr. BACON. Oh, the Senator is entirely mistaken. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I can produce testimony to that effect. Mr. BACON. I possibly misunderstood the Senator. I under stood him to say that the white people would not work them. Mr. BEVERIDGE. No; I said " with " them. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, if that is the case, if that were all, it would be a simple matter to have cotton mills in which there was only negro labor. But it has been tried time after time. Can anybody believe that, with 20 per cent of the spin dles of the State idle, with all that capital lying eating itself up and rusting itself away, if negro labor could be employed it would not be employed? It is true the white people will not work with the negro in the mills, but it is not necessary, in or der that the mill industry should be carried on, that the two races should be worked together. They could be worked in sep arate factories. It has been tried by those who are most anxious to make it a success, and it has been demonstrated that negro labor can no* be successfully employed in the cotton-milling in dustry. That is how we are situated. . But this condition affects all other industries as well. The presence of this great negro population deters white immigra tion. They do not care to come there voluntarily. You have to go and seek them in order to secure them. You have got to re move the prejudice which nat^ally keeps white men away from a country where negroes*are thought to come in competition with them, if not into direct competition with the particular labor upon which they are to be engaged, then in the general in dustries of the country. So far as the white labor of the South is concerned which is available for this purpose, it is practi cally exhausted; it is exhausted, and the mills of the South are to-day in excess, so far as their capacity for production is con cerned, of the possibility of getting labor to keep them in-motion. As I said, it is not confined to the cotton mills. It is so in every branch of industry, and this very week or next week, I ain not certain which, there is to be in the city in which I live a great convention of people engaged in all the various branches of in dustry to try to devise means by which, without violating the laws of the United States, immigrants can be brought into the country to keep our industries in motion. *If all the Republican Senators were in their seats to-day and could have this presentation made to them, that 20 per cent, onefifth, of the industries of the South are to-day idle because of the impossibility of getting labor, would they say they would
7235

pass a bill that would make it even more difficult than it is now

to get labor, and that we shall not have the advantage presented

by existing law? The present law, as I was proceeding to show

by reading from the decision of the Secretary of Commerce and

Labor, now gives us some slight opportunity. Would the Repub

lican Senators say that that small door shall be shut to us, and

that in face of the assertion which I have read to you from the

Secretary of Commerce and Labor that one-fifth of our spindles

are to-day idle?

So far from enlarging our opportunities and giving us a

chance to keep our industries in motion, the slight opportunities

that we now have are to be taken away from us, and this is

brought here in a conference report. This is brought here in a

conference report attached to another matter of paramount im

portance, in order that the greater and more important matter,

as it is considered by those who favor it, shall carry this immi

gration restriction through, when it would not go through other

wise by the vote of any Senators who understood it. Am I

putting it too strongly when I say so?

Mr. President, have I answered the Senator from California

when he asked me how this bill will discriminate in favor of

the Pacific coast and against the South? If I am incorrect in

my statement that this bill, which is now under consideration,

presented here by the conference report, does seek to change

that existing law under which these immigrants have so far

been obtained and under which others will be obtained, then

what I am saying is largely out of place. If I am in error I

have the excuse of saying that I have had no chance to read this

bill escept, as the saying is, with my finger, running it down

the page and catching a word here and a word there. But I do

not think I am mistaken. Before this debate is through I can

not do it now, but I am going to have the opportunity to do it,

if some one else does not do it I shall point out with particu

larity how this bill has been framed and designed purposely

to meet this ruling of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor

and with the design to take away from southern industries of

all kinds the opportunities which are now given them under

existing law to supply even a small modicum of the labor which

they require.

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Mr. TILLMAN. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me?

Mr. BACON. I will, with pleasure. I was about to suggest to the Senator that if he wishes to put anything else in
Mr. TILLMAN. Not now. I am getting ready for a week or ten days or something like that. Until I get some considera tion of the justice and fairness of a request for an opportunity to read an important bill before we are called upon to vote on it I shall be prepared to fight a little while longer. I was called out a moment ago
Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from South Caro lina yield to the Senator from Vermont? Mr. TILLMAN. I will in a moment. While I was away I understood a question was asked by the Senator from Indiana as to why negroes do not work in cotton mills. Mr. BACON. There was such a question asked, and I en deavored to answer it in this way, I will state to the Senator,

7235

in order that he may supplement the answer. I said I could not state the reason particularly, because I had no technical knowl edge; that I could only state the fact that with every induce ment to avail themselves of negro labor, if it could be done, those who had honestly and repeatedly made the effort to have negro labor in cotton mills had found it impracticable to utilize it, as it could not be successfully done. I shall be glad to have the Senator from South Carolina supplement that answer.
Mr. TILLMAN. I will supplement that by a statement of fact, which can be substantiated, that at least two mills in the South, one in my State and one in North Carolina, have been built and organized with a view to the utilization of negroes alone, and it was found that the habits of work and the charac teristics of the colored people, their inability to maintain the continued alertness of mind necessary to care for the machinery, made it absolutely impossible to run a mill with colored people; that the racial disability prohibited their employment.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, if I have not sufficiently an swered the Senator from California in the inquiry he has made of me in what manner this bill discriminates between the Pacific coast and the interests of the Pacific coast and the interests of the South, I will be glad if he will point out in what particular I haw failed to do so, and I will endeavor to add to it. I judge by the Senators silence that he recognizes the correct ness of the statement which I made, that this is a bill which, while not intended by those particularly interested to prejudice the South, is a bill which in its practical workings takes care of the interests of the Pacific coast, and that on the contrary the conferees have lugged in here and put upon it a provision which is absolutely destructive of the interests of the South.
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Friday, February 15, 1907.
Mr. BACON. Mr. President, at the time when I yielded the floor on yesterday I was calling the attention of the Senate to the ruling of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor on the Importation of some immigrants by an agent or officer of the State of South Carolina. I will not at this time, at least, oc cupy the attention of the fleuate in rereading it. I simply desire, in order that I mayKesume intelligently, to briefly re state the facts of the case. That order grew out of the im portation of immigrants by an agent or officer of the State of South Carolina, that officer or agent not having been furnished with the money necessary to carry on the work by the State, but the money having been supplied by certain associations of the State interested in the procurement of additional labor, not for any particular enterprise, but generally, which was greatly needed in the industries of the State. The point was raised that this agent of the State had violated the law against soliciting or bringing in of immigrants, in that he had not simply represented the State, but that he had represented in dividuals, not in the way of making any contract for labor, but in the way of solicitation because there had been no contract made for labor in the way of solicitation, and in the payment of the money necessary for the passage of those immigrants. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor ruled that that was not a violation of the law.
This brings us to the crucial point, I desire to say to the 7235

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Senate, in the objection which I make to this bill proposed by the conference committee. It is not a factious objection, but it is one of the most material character, as I will endeavor to show to the Senate.
The Secretary of Commerce and Labor, after reciting the facts and quoting the law on the subject of the solicitation of immigrants to come to this country and of furnishing them with the means to do so, said this:
It will not be questioned, after reading the foregoing provisions, that the actions of Commissioner Watson
that was the name of the officer of the State
as recited above, il performed by a private person, would fall squarely within tbe condemnation of the statutes.
In other words, if as a private person he had gone to Europe and used the funds which had been furnished to him for the purpose of soliciting immigrants to come to this country and had paid their passage, he would have fallen under the con demnation of the law and been liable to the penalty which is prescribed in the law. But the Secretary goes on to say:
Commissioner Watson was not acting in his privute capacity, how ever, but as the representative of the State of South Carolina.
Then in the argument that follows he discusses the question whether or not that is a violation of the law, or whether the agent was within his rights, or rather the rights of the State as the representative of that State. The Secretary comes to the conclusion, and so rules, that it is in order for a State to ap point an officer to go to Europe for the purpose of setting out the advantages to immigrants in coming to that State, and that, in the expenditures which he incurred in so doing and in the fur nishing to the immigrants of the moneys necessary to bring them to this country, he is not limited to the money which may lie given to him by the State, but that it is legitimate for him to re ceive that money from private associations.
Mr. President, that was a most important ruling and one which opened the door to the people of the South to procure im migration, which it is otherwise impossible for them to secure.
The people of the North need no such assistance. There is a great tide of immigration coming to them without any such as sistance. There were over a million immigrants in the past year who came; while there were not enough of them who came to the South to be counted. So that it is a question whether or not the South shall stand by and see its industries languish, and many of them perish, for the lack of labor, when the North and Northwest have a tide of immigration which they are utilizing, and which is bringing to them great wealth; or whether the South shall use the small opportunity, which the present exist ing law gives them, to supply themselves, even in some moderate degree, with this essential element in the prosecution of their work.
We are not asking, Mr. President, that the law be changed; we are not asking that we may be given additional opportuni ties ; we are simply asking that the law shall stand as it is to-day.
Mr. TILLMAN. On that particular point. Mr, BACON. On that particular point. But as to this issue, as to this particular report of the confer ence committee, we are not asking for a single additional provi sion of law. We are simply asking that the law may remain as
7235

It is. In many of its features it is extremely prejudicial to us;

in many of its features it operates onerously against the South;

while it does not operate against the North, because the North

can get along without it. And as Senators from that section are

unfriendly in their feelings toward the coming in of these immi

grants, if we have this opportunity under the present law it may

divert from them some of the immigration to which they now so

seriously object. But the effect of this provision, as I shall en

deavor to show, is to shut that door, so that there will be no

diversion in future from the North to the South of this tide of

immigration, some of which we want so far as it embrace/s a

desirable element, and a great deal of which the North wishes to

get rid of.

Mr. President, when this ruling was made when the South

realized this opportunity, movements were inaugurated in all of

the Southern States where this great dearth of labor prevails,

where this great injury is threatening to the industries of the

South by reason of the insufficiency of labor, movements were

inaugurated for the purpose of pursuing the same plan which

had been pursued by the State of South Carolina, not for the

purpose of importing contract labor because there is no con

tract labor in the method pursued but for the purpose of hav

ing presented to the best class of people in Europe desiring to

emigrate from those countries the advantages of the Southern

States, the opportunities that are there presented for labor to be

employed, and the rewards which can be expected if they do

come there and undertake to labor.

The newspaper press of the country took it up; communities

took it up; conventions were called and conventions met;

associations were formed, and, as I stated on yesterday, in

my own State there is to meet next week in the town in which

T live a large convention of the representatives of the business

interests of the State, men engaged in various enterprises

cotton milling, the lumber industry, mining, agriculture, and all

branches and kinds of industry to be represented with a view

to organizing a movement which will enable them to pursue the

exact plan which the State of South Carolina has pursued, and

under which she has already received some benefit, and under

which, if not interfered with, she will receive a great deal more.

Now, there is (jle situation. I say that this bill, as I con

strue it, And I thmk correctly, if enacted by the adoption of the

conference report, absolutely destroys the opportunity to suc

cessfully carry on any movement of that kind.

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Mr. President, at the time when the Senator from Massachu setts [Mr. IJODGE! asked me to yield to him I was reading from the editorials of leading newspapers in Georgia, for the purpose of showing the importance which was attached by those repre sentative newspapers to the ruling of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor sustaining the legitimacy of the action which had been taken thereunder by South Carolina, and the evident pleas ure with which these representative newspapers recognized the opportunity to supply a great need in the State, a crying need in the State, for the best class of immigration from the countries of Europe with which the people of this country are most in sympathy and nearest in blood, and in the discussion of the matter showing the emphasis which had been given by

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these representative journals to the effect of the great need of this labor in the South, where, as was stated yesterday, there is such a dearth of labor that 20 per cent of the spindles of the South are idle because there are no hands to keep them in motion, and where a condition exists in which the scarcity of labor is not confined to cotton manufactory, but extends to all departments of labor, all departments of industry, on the farm, in the factory, In the lumbering districts, in the mining dis tricts, in the proper carrying on of the railroad industry, in the domestic necessities of the people. Through them all there is a most distressing condition of affairs which by reason of the peculiar conditions in the South can not be met in the ordinary course of the migration of peoples voluntarily.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? Mr. BACON. With great pleasure. Mr. GALLINGER. As I recall the matter, on yesterday the Senator suggested that these laborers were brought from abroad by an organization, I think created, perhaps, by the legislature of the State of Georgia. Am I correct? Mr. BACON. Will the Senator permit me to state the exact facts? The State of South Carolina is the one which inaugu rated the movement and which evoked this ruling from the Department of Commerce and Labor. It consisted in the ap pointment by the authority of a law of the State of an officer or agent a commissioner, I think, his title is who was given a salary. He was furnished with the money by private indi viduals or associations with which this immigration was se cured. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor says in this ruling that if his action had been that of a private individual he would undoubtedly have been amenable to the law, but that as an officer of a State there was no violation of law. I think I have stated what the Senator desired to know. Mr. GALLINGER. Yes. Mr. President, I wish to supple ment that with another question. Has the commissioner or the representative from these States that are suffering for the proper amount of labor directed their attention to the great northern cities where there is a congestion of immigrants, with a view to encouraging them to go South? Mr. BACON. I think they have; but it is very difficult to accomplish that for this reason I am told that this is the rea son : That the immigrants are largely brought over by the fact that they have friends and relatives who have preceded them, and they naturally go to the same place where they are found. In addition to this, they get among great colonies of their own people, speaking their own language, and it is very much more in harmony with their wishes and pleasure to remain with them than to go elsewhere. The effort has been niade, and repeatedly made, but without any marked success. There are a few who here and there straggle into the Southern States, but the effort to procure then in any sufficient number to meet the demand is an utter failure. Mr. GALLINGER. I make the suggestion for the reason that I have thought, without having studied the question very closely, that one of the great evils of immigration as it exists to-day is the fact that the immigrants mass themselves in great centers of our industrial communities
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Mr. BACON. Exactly. Mr. GALLJNGER. And many of them, I should judge, do not find profitable employment. I confess that as I have heard this matter discussed I have great sympathy for the southern cities that are suffering for a proper supply of labor. I do not know that I can vote with the Senator on the question that Is now before the Senate, but I shall be glad to cooperate in any way possible to relieve the South of what I think is a great hardship. Mr. BACON. Now, Mr. President Mr. TILLMAN. If the Senator from Georgia will permit met I should like to say to the Senator from New Hampshire that the southern farmers are in a worse state than the southern manufacturers, and the demand is as much, indeed more, for agricultural laborers than it is for persons to go into factories.
******* Mr. BACON. Mr. President, I will return to what I was en deavoring to say as to the attitude of the South in reference to this matter. I will simply say, in answer to the very gracious words of the Senator from Vermont as to the sympathy of the South, that "Fine,words butter no parsnips." All these assur ances are very gratifying, but we prefer to have something that is practical in its nature and not limited to words. As I shall show before I get through, if I am permitted to do so, there is a practical injustice of the grossest kind about to be perpetrated. I would need no higher evidence of it than what has been said by the Senator from Massachusetts. The Senator from Massachu setts evidently does not understand this proposed law as the^ Sen ator from Vermont does. The Senator from Massachusetts evi dently understands that it is to break up the opportunity for immigration that is presented under the present law under the ruling of the Department of Commerce and Labor. What else can be construed as to the meaning of what he has said but that? There can be no doubt about it. As I was saying, Mr. President, I have read these newspaper extracts for the double purpose of showing the great need that we sholild be allowed to proceed under the present law as the State of South CarpUna has proceeded; that in the expression of that great neet- and in its recognition in its expression through these newspaper utterances there was also the advo cacy of the continued movement in that line and the congratu lation that the opportunity was presented, and that all over the South tfcere was a feeling of hope that there was a future for us, that the door had been opened where we could legiti mately secure the labor which is necessary to keep our in dustries from languishing, when that labor is needed in every department of industry in not simply one State, but in eight or ten States. Now, the question is, does this proposed legislation shut that door of hope? Does this proposed legislation close that opportu nity? I say it does, and I shall try to show it if I can. What the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINOER] says illus trates what I remarked yesterday. The Senator from New Hampshire says that while he recognizes this great need and sympathizes with it, he does not know that he can vote with me to protect the South against this great injustice and this great wrong. Why? Because it has been brought in here in connec-
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10
tlon with another matter, which is to control his action, and something that he would not do if left to itself, he and other Senators will do, because however unjust it may be to the South, and however much injury it may inflict on the South, they are to reconcile themselves to the action on the ground that they are to accomplish something else which they conceive to be of more pressing and paramount importance. Am I not correct in that statement?
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President The VICE-PRESIDENT. The hour of 2 oclock having ar rived, the Chair lays before the Senate the unfinished business, which will be stated by the Secretary. The SECRETARY. Table Calendar 26, Senate resolution 214, by Mr. CABTEE. Mr. CARTER. I ask unanimous consent that the unfinished business be temporarily laid aside. The VICE-PRESIDENT. Without objection it is so ordered. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? Mr. BACON. I do, with pleasure. Mr. GALLINGER. The Senator correctly states the question. It is an embarrassing situation. If this was a matter separate and independent of itself, I should certainly feel differently about it from what I do at present. Mr. BACON. Certainly; undoubtedly. Mr. GALLINGER. It is a complicated and disagreeable situ ation that we are in, I think,-so far as the contention of the Sen ator is concerned. Mr. BACON. Certainly;, we realize that the Senator speaks with the utmost candor in that particular. I believe it is true of other Senators. We all recognize the importance of the mat ter on the Pacific coast, a matter somewhat international in its importance, and a matter of great local importance to that people. I am in absolute sympathy with it myself. I am ready to do anything I can for the purpose of accomplishing that. But my complaint is that it is not necessary to do this wrong to us in order to accomplish that. There is no division of senti1 ment here as to what shall be done on the Pacific coast. There is no reluctance on the part of any of us to do what is neces sary to relieve the present situation of its tension. As I said on yesterday, this thing could be separated. A joint resolution could be taken up even at this late hour of the day and passed through this body which would accomplish every thing In regard to the matter which is sought to be accomplished by this conference report. There is no difficulty about it in the world. It would have the unanimous vote of the Senate. Then, if this is an injustice, why should that be used as a cause for it, and as an opportunity for it, and as a means for it? I do not believe, Mr. President, that this legislation could get through this body if left to itself. I believe there are other Senators who, like the Senator from New Hampshire, would realize the injustice about to be done, and would not consent to it under any pressure whatever, or to please any particular man or any particular section. Now, I want to come to the question whether or not it does it; because if I am mistaken about it, all right. I want to see whether I am right or not, and I ask the candid consideration of Senators to what I am about to submit to them.
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Under the South Carolina plan, as we will call it, it has been ruled by the Department that it is competent for a State to appoint a commissioner on immigration, who shall set forth, by advertisement and circulars, or in any other way, or on personal solicitation, or through the agency of others, as was done in this case, in different cities, the advantages to immi grants who might be induced to go to the State of South Caro lina the climate, the soil, the character of the productions, the character of the people, the character of the industries, tile wages to be paid, the demand for labor that that is all legiti mate for him to do, and that he may solicit them and try to persuade them to go in the light of such inducements to the State of South Carolina, not under contract labor, as I shall en deavor to show; and, further, that it is perfectly legitimate for that commissioner not simply to use State funds, as asked by the junior Senator from South Carolina [Mr. LATIMEE], but to use funds which may be furnished to him by an association of indi viduals who may be impressed with the importance to the in dustries of a State to have immigrants come to it; and that when he does so, it being legitimate, there can be no interference with the coming in of those immigrants. That is the ruling, and that is the situation.
Now, you will mark that there are two questions which can be presented. One is whether a commissioner in so doing would be a violator of law and could be proceeded against. That was the question which was raised upon which this ruling of the De partment was made, as to whether or not he had violated the law; and the other question is whether the persons who came in could be deported.
Another question, however, could have been raised before that by a commissioner or representative of the Government as to the right of these people to land.
Mr. President, this bill is a most adroit attempt to absolutely nullify the law as it now exists, so far as it gives opportunity for any other importation of immigrants in the manner pur sued by the State of South Carolina. It matters not if the commissioner has not violated the law, it matters not that he can not be proceeded against, if it be true that the immigrant can be met at the wharf and told, " You shall not land." Then the la* is a-^>erfectly null and void as if it were said that the commissioner had no right to go abroad and solicit immigrants to come in. Is there any possible issue which can be made upon the correctness of that proposition? I say. that this proposed law seeks to nullify that provision of the existing law in exactly that way, by prohibiting the immigrant from landing, and I say it is most adroitly inserted in this bill. Now, let me read it. I will read the law as it stands and the provision that has been ingrafted upon it at page 18. The law as it stands now, section 2 of the present law, excludes:
Any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes.
You will mark that that is the law, that if a person has been aided by his ticket or passage having been paid or having been assisted in any way to come he is not necessarily excluded by that fact, but he is excluded by that fact unless he can show that he does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes.
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The foregoing excluded classes are idiots, imbeciles, feeble minded persons, and persons brought in for immoral purposes, and otherwise.
I ask Senators to keep carefully in mind that as the law now stands, even though a party has a ticket or a passage paid for, or even though he has been assisted to come, he is entitled to come in if he can show that he does not belong to one of the excluded classes. Now the language sought to be added to that which has the effect which I say it has, is the following:
That said ticket or passage was not paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government, either di rectly or indirectly.
That could have been put in as an independent sentence, and it has the same effect as if it had been in as an independent sentence. The courts would necessarily so construe it. It is a very awkward sentence as it is, taken as a whole, but there is no possible escape from the construction that if a person has had a ticket or passage paid for by any corporation, asso ciation, society, municipality, or foreign government, either directly or indirectly, it matters not whether he is within the excluded classes or not, he is excluded by the language in this proposed law.
Now, what is the effect of that? According to the South Carolina method the passage of the immigrant was paid for directly by an association, because the association furnished the commissioner with the money with which it was done. That may look like a very small matter. It may be said, " Well, let the State furnish the money." In the first place, the States have not the money. All the State governments are supported in the South by direct taxation. The States are not wealthy; taxation is a great burden, and the people are jealous of every dollar that is imposed upon them. The States are not in a posi tion to pay the money necessary to meet these expenses of the passage of the parties here.
Further than that I do not know what other States it may be true of, but it is true of my State under the constitution of the State no such money could be appropriated by the legis lature, because the subjects for which the money can be appro priated by the legislature in my State are extremely limited and few in number. There is no prohibition against this particular kind of an appropriation except indirectly; in other words, the delegation of power is affirmative, not negative, in its terms, and they are limited to certain- classes of subjects for which an appropriation such as this can be made.
As far as the State of Georgia is concerned, if I am correct in my construction of this language, it is to utterly nullify the present law so far as any practical work can be done under it.
Now, the best evidence I can give to the Senate that I am not mistaken as to that construction is twofold. In the first place, the Senate has heard this morning the Senator from Massachu setts, who is the great advocate of this provision, in which he argues as to the necessity of it that if the law can be construed as it has been construed by the Department of Justice, and other States can do what South Carolina has done, it would flood the country with an undesirable class of labor, evidently showing that the Senator from Massachusetts understands and intends that the construction of this law and the operation of this law shall be to utterly change the present law and nullify
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it so far as any proceeding can be had under it such as was had by South Carolina.
Mr. President, if that is done, the possibility of immigration is gone, and I want to say right hero that the Senator from Massa chusetts [Mr. LODGE! argues as to the evils of contract labor and charges that this is giving opportunity for contract labor. The statement of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor is emphatic, and it is borne out by the statement which I have read from newspapers in the State of South Carolina, that there was no contract labor in the matter; that these immigrants were not engaged in a foreign country to take employment to come here and do certain work. That is what contract labor is. Contract labor is where one goes to a man and says to him: " I will pay you so much money to go, say, to South Carolina, for instance, and work for me in a cotton factory, or any other class of labor," and where the man agrees to it and comes over here under the obligation of the contract to perform certain labor. There has been nothing of the kind done and nothing of the kind is desired to be done. Certainly nothing of the kind could be attempted under the present law. The sole purpose is to bring to the country a desirable class of immigrants, and then, when they land, to have them do just as they did in South Carolina go where they please, take such employment as they desire, and be as entirely free as if they had not been brought across the ocean at all.
I will read here an extract which I have from the Washing ton Post of February 14, reciting a statement in regard to that matter, which they took from the Greenville News, of South Carolina, showing the character of that importation. The Tost says, speaking of the newspaper, the Greenville News:
It asserts that the people of South Carolina did not have to bear the expense of bringing over the first or the second shipload of immigrants ; that the cost of this movement, including the cost of the transportation of the first lot, did not fall upon the State, but that the money for this purpose was donated to South Carolina by certain corporations. The News further asserts that the greater portion of the first shipload went to the mills in. the upcountry, but it avers they were not under con^ract and were at liberty to go wherever they pleased and engage in whatever kind of employment they desired, although they were selected with a view to their /.jfilability in cotton mills. Still, it appears that many of them wsnt on farms and that some of them went out of the State.
As to rae second cargo, just arrived at Charleston, the News reports that they are from the farming classes and most of them will seek for employment on farms, while a small percentage of the number will invest in property and become landowners at once. The News thinks the State .fmmigration department has accomplished a vast amount of good even in the face of great difficulties, and now that the hard part of the pioneer work has been accomplished the News says that the future work of the department should be much more extended and beneficial.
Mr. President, there is another matter that I forgot to refer to. I stated that the evidence of what was the proper construc tion of this proposed law was found, first, in what the Senator from Massachusetts had contended here to-day. There can not be any doubt about his language none whatever. It is true that the Senator went further than the facts justified and endeavored to show that I had contended here for con tract labor. The remarks I made yesterday will be in the RECORD, and the words " contract labor " do not appear in them except where the Senator from Massachusetts himself asked me a question and in replying to the suggestion contained In
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that question. I am not here contending for contract labor. I am simply contending for the opportunity of a State to at tract to its borders the best class of people who will come there and be free, people, to do what they please after they get there. A class of people who will be desirable in every particular, who will assimilate with our people, who will be, themselves and their children, valuable acquisitions, and will supply the great need of the present, to prevent our industries from lan guishing and absolutely becoming paralyzed.
Another evidence of it is this, Mr. President: I have sub mitted to Senators in charge of this conference report a sim ple proposition. I have stated to them that if they would add after the word " indirectly " the words I am about to read I should have no further objection to the report. The words which I want to induce them to introduce are these: " Unless so paid through the official or agent or representative of a State." That would put the thing beyond doubt
Mr. SPOONBR. On what page of the conference report does the Senator from Georgia propose the amendment?
Mr. BACON. I read, in response to the Senators inquiry, the clause in the report as it would read if the words which I propose were added. It is found on page 18. The lines are not numbered, but they are near the middle of the page. After the word " classes " follows the matter in italics, which reads:
And that said ticket or passage was not paid for by any, corpora tion, association, society, municipality, or foreign government, either directly or indirectly.
To which I would add " unless so paid through the official or agent or representative of a State."
Mr. SPOONER. Do I understand the Senator to use the words "paid through?"
Mr. BACON. "Through or by." It would read, "unless paid through or by the official or agent or representative of a State; " in other words, it would still be the law tbat no asso ciation or agent or corporation could go and pay the passage of an immigrant to this country for the private purposes of that association or agent. It would limit those associations to a case where they had paid money into the hands of a State agent, who would be under State authority and perform the functions which the State now authorizes him, as the representative of the State, to perform, but which is refused to an individual. I shall be satisfied if Senators will add these simple words which I have suggested. Of course, we can not amend a con ference report, but it is a simple matter to effect this, and it has been done here often within the knowledge of Senators. If this report go back to conference by general consent and these words be added, there will be no practical difficulty in the way, if Senators are willing to accept them; but they do not seem to be willing to accept that proposition. They reject the proposition, showing that they know that the effect of the pro posed law is to prevent any State agent from using money which may be furnished to him by an association for that purpose, and the reason they will not,consent to it is that it is designed to break up the opportunity thus presented under the existing law and not let us have the advantages of it.
Mr. President, I hope Senators will not take offense when I say to them what I believe in my heart that there is no sec tion of this country that could come before the Senate and make
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this appeal to them and be refused except the section from which we come. It seems to matter not what injustice is done to the South. I have never heard any such representations of great interests made to this Senate by any other section where a deaf ear was turned to them. Let any man, if he can, show that the proposition that I have made is not well founded; let any man show, if he can, that the effect of this is not to so change existing law as to deny to the people of the South the small opportunity they now have to meet this great, this pressing, this vital demand for labor.

Mr. President, we all of vis sympathize In the desire that

Improper immigration shall not come to this country. There is

a great deal in this bill that I most heartily approve in that

regard in the exclusion of improper persons. I join Senators

full handed in any effort to exclude from this country improper

persons. There is also a great deal to sympathize with in the

demand that we shall not have an undue competition with our

labor by the introduction of foreign labor.

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But, Mr. President, in the procurement of the best class of Immigrants there is nothing objectionable. On the contrary, there is everything that is desirable. This country owes a great deal to the tide of immigration that has flowed here for the past forty years. It has developed in large degree and enriched the country. Let the Senators from the Northwest say whether or not immigration has been of value to their States. Let the Senator from Wisconsin, the Senator from Minnesota, the Sen ator from Iowa, the Senator from Nebraska, the Senator from Kansas, and the Senators from the Dakotas say what would their States be to-day if it had not been for the impulse and the material assistance given in the development of those States by . the desirable immigrants which they have had.
Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President, I rise merely to say, then

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia

yield to the Senator from Indiana?

Mr. BACON. I do.

Mr. BEVERIUJ8. I do not want the Senator to misunder

stand ny position with reference to immigration at large.

Mr. BACON. Oh, no.

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Because I sympathize to a considerable

extent with the view which the Senator happens to be now ex

pressing. I am in favor of very large and liberal provisions

with reference to the admission of immigrants, and I took occa

sion the other day to say that I supposed at one time or another

we were all immigrants, and that the immigrants to this coun

try, even those who are spoken of with much contempt habitu

ally! are dren

among

our

most

admirable

citizens,

and

their

chil

Mr. BACON. Still more admirable ones. Mr. BEVERIDGE. Their children make splendid citizens. That is not the point I was raising with the Senator. Mr. BACON. I am not criticising the Senator. Mr. BEVERIDGE. I have about as strong a view as the Sen ator has in reference to contract importations. Mr. BACON. I am not criticising the Senator, Mr. Presi dent. I was trying to emphasize the importance of this matter

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to us, and I want to appeal to Senators not to deny us the slight opportunity that we now have for the enjoyment of that which has brought such blessings upon other portions of the country.
I have no doubt that the great States of which I have spoken would in time have been developed and peopled by our own peo ple even if they bad had none of the assistance from these mil lions of immigrants, but it would have taken a long time to do it. Many of the very best people now in all that section are immigrants, and their descendants, one of whom sits among us as a Senator, and a very worthy one, whom we all admire and of whom we are all proud the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. NELSOH].
Mr. HANSBROUGH. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from North Dakota?
Mr. BACON. I do. Mr. HANSBROUGH. Does the Senator from Georgia hold that this conference report, if adopted, would preclude the kind of immigration to which the Senator has Just referred as going to our Northwestern States from going to Georgia? Mr. BACON. It would not preclude their coming there volun tarily, but it would shut the door to all practicable hope of get ting them there. The tide of immigration is elsewhere. It has been elsewhere for half a century. There are conditions in the South which are repellent to immigrants. There are conditions there which are not understood in foreign countries. There are conditions there which have been misrepresented in foreign countries; and those conditions are such that it is necessary that there shall be means used to get immigrants there. Mr. President, just to illustrate the difference, take the great States that I have spoken of. I can not tell what the proportion of foreigners and the descendants of foreigners is in those States, while in my State, with two million and a half people, I have not the figures here now, but I think there are less than 10,000 people of foreign birth out of two million and a half people in Georgia. Yet here are these perishing and languishing indus tries, all calling for them and demanding them, and we have this slight opportunity, this door which has just recently been opened, and here it is proposed to shut it in our faces, in spite of what I have said to Senators twice before and which I say again that 20 per cent of the spindles in the South are idle be cause of the lack of labor, and there is no other place to go for it. Our white population has been exhausted, and the negro population can not be utilized; and unless we can do something in the way of getting foreign immigration, there is no oppor tunity for it. While I would go as far as any man to exclude the undesir able, and while I do not propose to open any door to contract labor, I simply ask that the law as it stands to-day may re main ; that we shall not be put in the position where the Gov ernment of the United States, in the face of such representa tions as these, will turn to us a deaf ear and say, " We will hear nothing of it, and do nothing for you." We are not ask ing, I repeat, to have the law changed. We are not asking any. additional advantages, certainly not at this time. We are sim ply asking that the law may stand as it is.
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17
Saturday, February 16, 1901. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I have &s fully as I have desired placed that matter before the Senate and before the country. The Senator from South Carolina has done the same thing. We believe that the attention of the Sen ate and of the country has been interested, at least, if not ar rested, by the magnitude of the interests which are involved and the presentation of that magnitude. Whatever may be the out come of this question, we believe the country will be appreciqtive of the fact that we in the South are in a condition where we are entitled to consideration at the hands of the Federal Gov ernment in the removal of restrictions which will enable us to get not undesirable immigrants, but desirable immigrants, and which will enable us to get them not by objectionable contract negotiations, but by methods which will enable us to introduce into the country the best class of immigrants who shall conie here, unbound by any contracts, and free to make contracts when they get here such as it may be to their interest to make. Mr. President, there is another matter that I do not desire to go into at length, but still I think it proper that I should allude to it. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE], who I re gret is not now in his seat, spoke of the fact that he had 500,000 workmen in his State who are opposed to a contractlabor law. The VICE-PRESIDENT. Will the Senator from Georgia sus pend? The hour of 2 oclock having arrived, the Chair lays be fore the Senate the unfinished business, which will be stated by the Secretary. The SKCBETABY. Table Calendar No. 26, Senate resolution 214, by Mr. CARTER. Mr. HKYBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the unfin ished business be temporarily laid aside. The VICE-PRESIDENT. Without objection, it is so ordered; and the Senator from Georgia will proceed. Mr. BACON. Mr. President, that is not singular or peculiar to the -State of Massachusetts. That is a general sentiment throughout the coj^lry. There is a general sentiment in oppo sition to the abuse"of the importation of immigrants. There is a strong sentiment to that effect in my own State, which I yf course most profoundly respect and which I do not wish to vio late. I repeat there is in my State, as well as in all other States, a just opposition to the introduction of immigrants whose pres ence in our country is not desirable, and the great advantage in the plan which we may call hereafter, I presume, the South Carolina plan is that which results in the introduction of those who are desirable. But I wish to say, Mr. President, that it is not simply" the presence of the laborers to whom the operation of the law as it now exists is undesirable, and I say that that is especially true in the State represented by the Senator from Massachusetts. The fact can not be concealed that there is a serious and growing jealousy on the part of the manufacturers in the State of Massa chusetts against the growing and increasing manufacturing in terests in the South. There is great jealousy over the growing and increasing manufacturing interests of the South, and every disposition to interfere with the further development of that manufacturing interest,
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Mr. President, no surer method can be adopted to arrest the development and growth of the manufacturing interests of the South than to say that the South shall not have a proper class of immigrants with which that development can be made. Be cause of conditions, to which I have already alluded, the negro population are not available for the purpose of being utilized in the cotton mills; and the white population, the native popu lation, which is alone available, has already been drawn on to the full extent and limit of its capacity. Therefore, if other labor can not be introduced the development of the cotton Indus try must cease. Furthermore, as conditions now show that which has already been inaugurated must in part remain with out being fully utilized. As stated by the report of the Depart ment of Commerce and Labor and as stated to-day by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. SIMMONS], it is a fact esti mated reliably that there are to-day 20 per cent of the spindles of the South idle.
Mr. President, I said that there was a jealousy and a dispo sition to repress development of this growing industry in the South on the part of those engaged in the same industries in Massachusetts, and I want to present to the Senate a marked evidence of that fact.
I may not discuss what occurs in another House, but I am at liberty to read to the Senate the records of the other House so far as relates to the introduction of bills. It is a fact that a Representative from the State of Massachusetts has during four Congresses, beginning with the Fifty-sixth Congress, introduced a joint resolution looking to the amendment of the Constitu tion of the United States, in order that there may be neutralized the advantages which the South has in the manufacture of cot ton by reason of climatic and other conditions. That joint resolution was introduced in the Fifty-sixth Congress, Fiftyseventh Congress, Fifty-eighth Congress, and Fifty-ninth Con gress, all of them practically identical, if not absolutely iden tical. I will read only one the one that was introduced in the Fifty-ninth Congress. It was introduced December 4, 1905, and is in these words:
Joint resolution (II. J. Res. 1) proposing an amendment to the Const! tution of the United States relating to uniform hours of labor.
Whereas under State regulation there now exists and must always exist great diversity in the hours of labor in manufacturing establish ments, as fixed by law or custom in the several States of the United States, the present variation in the working week being from fifty-eight hours to seventy-two hours ; and
Whereas this variation in the length of the legal working week cre ates conditions of discrimination as between the citizens of the several States of the Union, which operates to the disadvantage of both labor and capital in many localities, resulting in unequal earnings for a given amount of capital and unequal wages for a given amount of labor, whicti unequal conditions are contrary to the fundamental theory of the Constitution of the United States, which contemplates equal rights and uniform privileges to all citizens of the United States, irrespective of the particular State in which they may happen to dwell; and
Whereas this lack of uniformity in the hours of labor is the outcome Of State legislation, and is beyond the power of the States, acting through their legislatures, to make uniform, by reason of the decision of the supreme courts of several States to the effect that all laws regu lating hours of labor are unconstitutional in those States ; and
Whereas unequal and partial restrictions disturb the equilibrium, of industry and are serious obstacles to national progress: Therefore
Resolved try the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House con-ourring therein), That the Congress of the United States do recommend
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to the several States of the Union the adoption of the following amend ment to the Constitution of the United States, to wit:

"ARTICLE XVI.

" The Congress shall have power to establish uniform hours of labor In manufactories throughout the United States."

Mr. President, if I were disposed to consume the time of the

Senate I could read several other bills which have been intro

duced in Congress by Senators or Representatives looking to the

same end the national control of the manufacturing industries

of the South in order, as specified in this resolution, that un

equal conditions of advantage and opportunity may be equalized

by Federal legislation.



Mr. President, it does seem to me that if there was ever any

section of any country in the world against which such a resolu

tion should not be attempted to be leveled, not only as found

in the proposed amendment to the Constitution which I have

read, but as found in the particular bill now before the Senate,

it is the South, because no people have ever dealt so heroically

with the most deplorable conditions, and dealt with them suc

cessfully, as has the South. So far from there being any dispo

sition to repress them in this regard, so far from any disposition

to throw any impediment in their way, there.ought to be every

disposition and every effort to bid them godspeed and to give

them all the aid which can possibly be given them.

I have said, Mr. President, that opportunities at the South by

reason of the peculiar conditions are restricted in the matter of

development. I want to show the contrast between the States

of the South and the State from which the Senator from Massa

chusetts comes. While we can not use the negro population,

constituting probably an average of nearly 40 per cent in the

cotton States of the total population, and while the white popula

tion has been drawn on to the limit of exhaustion, it is not only

true that the State of Massachusetts has this unlimited tide of

immigration which flows on the northern borders every year

from Europe, but, if I am correctly informed, the State of Massa

chusetts draws from Canada its mill operatives to the extent of

from two-thirds to three-fourths opportunities which are shut

to us because^lthe difference in locality.

Mr. President^ I want to bring to the attention of the Senate

in this connection something which will, I am sure, challenge

attention as to the wonderful work which has been done by the

Southern States in their rehabilitation after absolute desolation.

I am going to read an article which I clipped from the New

York Sun of September 19 last. It is very short:

MATERIAL PROGEESS IN THE SOUTH.
The Business Magazine, of Knoxville, Tenn., prints some figures which give a good Idea of the great material progress of the South in the past few years. The following is a condensation and continuation :
Individual "bank deposits.

-

1896.

1900.

1905.

Total.............................

82, 795, 625 9, 347, 597
4, 626, 017

$201, 605, 167 150,440,319 17,369,650
5, 306, 131 822,081

369,652,112 6,052,503 18,643,521 5, 590, 629
767,322,174

20
Increase 1900 over 1896 ____________________ $ir,?>. .",58, 269 . Increase 1905 over 1896 _____________________ 54oi 637. 155
These figures show an average incrcaseOf $60,026,349 a year during the nine years.
The percentage of increase in deposits in the banks and trust com panies of the South between 1896 and 1905 is, according to the reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, 246 per cent This is the largest percentage of increase in the time named of any section of the United States, not even excepting the Western States.
In one year, 1905, southern financial institutions added nearly as much to their deposits as they did in four years a decade ago.
The capital invested in manufacturing in seven Southern States Alabama, Arkansas. Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas was $117,000.000 twenty vears ago ; now, according to the census of manufactures, 1905, it is $803.000.000, an increase of $686,000,000. The yearly manufacturing product of these seven States in 1880 was $221,000,000; in 1905 it was $948,000,000, an increase of $727,000,000.
In the same seven States the increase in value of farm property be tween 1880 and 1900 was $2,053,000,000, or more than $100,000,000 a year. For poultry and eggs alone those farms get $45.000,000 a. year. Their animal products bring .$250,000.000, and the total prod uct, $900,000,000 a year, exceeds that of any other section of the United Slates except the North Central division, composed of the up per Mississippi Valley States from the Ohio to the Dakotas.
These seven Southern States, with Mississippi added, now raise nearly 500,000,000 bushels of corn each year ; they have move than 18,000,000 head of cattle, and produce more than 200,000,000 pounds of rice each year.
Only 44 per cent of the southern farms now derive their principal income from cotton. Still, cotton production has steadily increased from 7,000,000 bales, worth $300,000.000, about twenty years ago, to 13,000,000 bales last year, worth $628.000,000. The home-grown cot ton demand of the mills of the United States is now about 4,000,000 bales a year. The census of 1900 shows that in twenty years the im proved acreage of twelve Southern States increased from 78,082,484 acres to 107,573,679.
The output of manufactures of the Southern States south of the Potomac and the Ohio, without West Virginia, was $450,000,000 greater in 1900 than in 1890 and $150,000,000 greater in 1905 than in 1900.
Mr. President, I shall ask leave to insert in full, with the permission of the Senate, an article from the Manufacturers Record of January 10, 1907, headed " Remarkable Exhibit of Southern Prosperity."
******* Mr. President, I do not desire to further take the time of the Senate. I want to say simply that in the presentation of this matter I have been animated solely by the desire to preserve to the enjoyment of our people the benefits of the ex isting law. We have not sought in any manner and I have not asked in any manner that there shall be any change as to contract labor; and I do not desire that there shall be any change as to contract labor, especially if we can have the ad vantage of the law as it now stands. These words were put here for a purpose. They arc meaningless and the language was futile unless they have an enlarging influence upon the law as it now exists. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] yesterday defended the change on the ground that the Massachusetts procedure was one which would be destructive of the contract-labor law, the conclusion to be drawn being unavoidable, that he desired this change in the law in order that there might hereafter be no opportunity for South Caro lina or any other State to induce immigrants to come under the present law, and to shut the door against us of the South.
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