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TEN SPEECHES 
 
 A 
 
 OF 
 
 HON GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 MADE 
 
 HOI T SE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 FIFTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, 
 
 1. Protective Duties not necessarily an Enhancement of Price. 
 
 2. Civil Service for Government Employees. 
 
 3. Free Homes for Pioneer Settlers. 
 
 4. Plighted Faith of the Government in Payment of its Debts. 
 .5. Annexation of Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 6. Free Coinage of Silver. 
 
 7. Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union. 
 
 5. Expansion of Territories. (January 27.) 
 
 9. Eulogy on Jnstin S. Morrill. 
 
 lO. Spanish Treaty. 
 
 NVjASI-IIjSTGPTOLSr. 
 
 1899 . 
 

JO ? 
 
 r 
 
 Protective Duties on Imported Articles Do Not Necessarily 
 Enhance the Price of Such Articles to the Consumer. 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 OP 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 In the House of Representatives, 
 
 Thursday , March 25, 1S97. 
 
 The House having under consideration H. R. 397, to provide revenue for 
 the Government— 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: There are two methods of raising revenue for 
 the Government; one by direct taxation, the other by duties on 
 foreign imports. A direct tax under the existing provisions of 
 the Constitution must be apportioned to the States according to 
 their representation. Massachusetts and Indiana have the same 
 number of Representatives iu this House, while they differ greatly 
 in wealth. An attempt to raise revenue by direct taxation with- 
 out a change in the Constitution would make the people of 
 Indiana pay the same amount as the people of Massachusetts. 
 The mere statement of this proposition is enough to show the 
 injustice of a system of direct taxation without a change in the 
 Constitution. Until the Constitution is changed, therefore, there 
 is no use of talking about direct taxes for raising revenue for the 
 Government. 
 
 Duties on foreign imports were resorted to by the First Con- 
 gress of the United States under the present Constitution as the 
 source for raising revenue for the support of the Government in 
 time of peace. And the Constitution prohibits any State from 
 collecting duties on foreign imports. The Government of the 
 Union alone can do that. The States, with this exception, can 
 have such taxation as they please. Why should Congress abandon 
 the source of revenue confided to it expressly by the Constitution 
 and invade those sources of revenue left to the States? For a 
 hundred years, beginning with the First Congress after the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution under which we live, Congress has im- 
 posed duties on foreign imports in order to raise the revenue 
 necessary for the support of the Government in time of peace. In 
 this unbroken practice of more than a century Congress never, 
 until it. passed what is called the Wilson bill, undertook to invade 
 the source of taxation which belongs properly to the States. 
 
 The Congress which passed the Wilson bill abandoned what 
 had been the unbroken practice and thought it wiser to collect 
 only a part of the revenues for the Government from duties on im- 
 ports and to seek some other source for the balance. But, as it 
 proved, they were as unwise in the selection of the new source 
 from which to collect revenue as in abandoning the practice of our 
 fathers on this subject. The Supreme Court decided that the in- 
 come tax resorted to in this case for raising part of the necessary 
 revenue was unconstitutional. And since that time the advocates 
 of the W ilson bill, following the practice of some lawyers on 1 os- 
 3510 3 
 
 
4 
 
 ing their cases in court, condemn the judge and the jury that de- 
 cides against them, and still insist that their construction of the 
 Constitution and law is better than that of the court. 
 
 Whether it would be wise or unwise to attempt to change the 
 Constitution so that direct taxes might be levied without the 
 inequality that would result from an apportionment, as now re- 
 quired, I will not stop to consider at this time. The bill before 
 us follows in theory and details the practice of our fathers, uni- 
 form and unbroken, with this one exception, of raising the nec- 
 essary revenue from duties on foreign imports for the support of 
 the Government in time of peace. With an annual importation 
 of $700,000,000 to $850,000,000 in valuation of products of foreign 
 labor, it would be a poor statesmanship that could not so adjust 
 duties as to raise at least $200,000,000 of revenue therefrom. 
 
 What has been the practical operation of the tariff law now in 
 force? Take the years 1892 and 1893, under the McKinley tariff, 
 and compare them with the years 1895 and 1896, under the Wilson 
 tariff. These years are fair ones for comparison. The year’ 1894 
 it is not fair to compare with anything before or after it, for it 
 was a year of transition, when Congress was employed most of the 
 year in settling upon what was a proper tariff policy for the Gov- 
 ernment. But take the years I have mentioned and compare the 
 operation of these two tariffs for those years. That is a test, and 
 a practical one. All of the theories and declamation that we hear 
 about robbing the American people by collecting necessary reve- 
 nue is of no avail in testing practical legislation. 
 
 The people of the country are ready to pay the revenues neces- 
 sary for the support of the Government, and no one has pointed 
 out that the expenditures of the last Congress or the Congress 
 before that, were other than wise and proper expenditures in all 
 their great and leading items for the support of the Government. 
 No matter what it costs, this great country, reaching from ocean 
 to ocean, and with the longest and the greatest navigable rivers of 
 the world, with its chain of inland seas, on the bosom of which floats 
 a tonnage in commerce greater than the foreign commerce of the 
 nation, will require from year to year a greater expenditure of 
 money. The people are ready to pay the necessary expenses for 
 the development of this great country in its ever-increasing com- 
 merce at home and with all the world. 
 
 Government expenses, then, will not and can not be materially 
 reduced now or in the future. It becomes necessary, then, to raise 
 sufficient revenue for the expenditures of the Government with- 
 out borrowing. The present tariff fails to do that because of the 
 unwise adjustment of its duties even for purposes of revenue, as 
 the following tabulation of a few articles of importation clearly 
 shows: 
 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Less duty — 
 
 Tin plate in 1895 greater than 18912 
 
 Stone, china, and glass ware in 1896 greater than 
 1893 
 
 $5,121,560 
 
 1, 162, 193 
 5, 721, 055 
 191,950 
 
 27,405,161 
 
 $1,464,610 
 
 1,841,499 
 1,211.173 
 558, 848 
 
 21,477,389 
 
 Fruits and nuts in 1896 greater than 1893. 
 
 Distilled spirits in 1896 greater than 1893. 
 
 Wool, and manufactures of, in 1896 greater than 
 1893 
 
 Five articles in 1896 
 
 39,901,922 
 
 26,553,519 
 
 3610 
 
5 
 
 With an importation of these five articles of $39,901,922 greater 
 in valuation in 1896 than in 1893, the duties collected were 
 $26,553,519 less. There was no falling off in imports in these arti- 
 cles, but an increase in the quantity of importation and less rev- 
 enue collected. Is that statesmanship, when the Government is 
 running in debt at the rate of $50,000,000 a year, and has borrowed 
 already $262,000,000 to pay its deficit of four years of administra- 
 tion? Of these five articles, $39,901,922 more in valuation was 
 imported under the tariff in 1896 than was imported in 1893 under 
 the McKinley bill, and $26,553,519 less revenue was collected. 
 This is the operation of the tariff that we are asked to leave alone 
 until it shall collect revenue enough to pay the expenses of the 
 Government. 
 
 The total dutiable imports in 1892 and 1893, compared with 1895 
 and 1896, show a difference of only $10,000,000 iir round numbers. 
 The valuation of dutiable imports may be called the same for 
 these two years, and yet $68,353,224 less revenue was collected 
 under the Wilson bill than under the McKinley bill. 
 
 Much is said about duties increasing prices. I call the attention 
 of the committee to the actual facts in business. Steel rails in 
 this country in 1881 sold for $61.13 per ton. In Great Britain the 
 same articles sold for $30.41 per ton. In 1891 they sold in this 
 country for S29.92. In Great Britain the price was $21.34. The 
 price of steel rails was reduced in those ten years from $61.13 to 
 $29.92. being a fall of $39.21 per ton in price in this country, while 
 in Great Britain they fell $9.07 a ton, being reduced in this coun- 
 try three times as much as in Great .Britain for the same time. 
 While the duty was reduced $11 a ton, the market price fell $31.21 
 a ton. In 1893 steel rails sold in this country for $24.29, about a 
 fair market price, and they sold in England for $18.55. the differ- 
 ence being just about the difference in the labor cost between the 
 two countries. The duty was reduced $3.56 a ton and market 
 price $6.92 a ton. 
 
 No matter how a tariff may be arranged, unless the duty on a 
 particular article is high enough to equal the difference in the 
 labor cost in this country and other countries the laborer in this 
 country will be the sufferer. Strike from the tariff all its protect- 
 ive features, and the labor of this country must then stand un- 
 aided and alone in its competition with that labor of the world, 
 where homeless poverty is the sole heritage of the sons of toil. 
 Under free trade the wages of labor everywhere will be the lowest 
 paid anywhere. The only way to protect the wages of the Amer- 
 ican laborer is by protective duties on articles that come in com- 
 petition with his labor. 
 
 But we are told that low duties will give cheap articles to the 
 American people. Cheapness to the consumer in articles of con- 
 sumption, if made by reducing the wages of the laborer who pro- 
 duces them to the rate paid his competitors in other lands, where 
 penury sits at their fireside and sorrowing want surrounds their 
 deathbed, is not a desirable object. Shall cheapness to the con- 
 sumer in articles of consumption be weighed in the scale against 
 the comfort of the home and the happiness of the fireside of the 
 laborer who produces them? [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 3510 
 
6 
 
 March 27, 1S97. 
 
 Mr. GROW. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Tennessee 
 opened his remarks by stating what all the advocates of free 
 trade have used in the politics of this country for the last forty 
 years in the shape of what they call an argument, that a duty 
 on an article is necessarily paid by the consumer, and that if it 
 does not enhance the price of the article to the consumer, it can 
 not be any advantage to the producer or manufacturer. Like all 
 Democrats, in the discussion of the imposition of duties on foreign 
 imports they take pleasure and special pains to call the imposition 
 of duties on articles a tax on such articles. 
 
 I desire to call the attention of the committee to the actual facts 
 in business bearing upon this question without any reference to 
 the doctrines of free trade or protection. Take as an illustration 
 the last industry which has been developed to a large extent in 
 this country by reason of the legislation of the Republican party 
 in the tariff of 1890 — the manufacture of tin plate. Before ls90 
 none was made here for market. In 1892 was the beginning of 
 that enterprise, and that was the first year that tin plate of do- 
 mestic manufacture was placed in our market. Previous to 1S92 
 the duty was 1 cent per pound. Under the tariff in 1892 the duty 
 was made 2.2 cents per pound. That added §1.29 on a box of 108 
 pounds over the duty existing before 1891. When the duty was 
 1 cent a pound, in 1890, tin plate sold wholesale in New T York 
 at §4.55 per box of 108 pounds. After the additional duty of 
 §1.29 per box had been imposed, it sold in 1892 for §5.20, which 
 is 65 to 70 cents additional, and yet the duty was §1.29 additional. 
 Who paid the difference between 70 cents and §1.29 if the theory 
 of gentlemen on the other side is correct? The duty was increased 
 §1.29 a box, and yet it did not increase the market price over 70 
 cents a box. 
 
 In 1893 we collected on tin plate $13,500,000 of revenue with a 
 duty of 2'.2 cents per pound. The selling price per box was $5.37. 
 That same kind of box of tin, I. C., 14 by 20, the standard size, 
 and weighing 108 pounds, sold in 1882, under a duty of 1.1 cents 
 a pound, for §5.20 per box. 
 
 Mr. RICHARDSON. Let me ask the gentleman this question: 
 If it is not true that when the McKinley bill was passed putting 
 a tax of 2 cents 
 
 Mr. GROW. Two and two-tenths cents. 
 
 Mr. RICHARDSON. Two and two-tenths cents per pound 
 upon tin — if it is not true that within less than thirty days every 
 merchant and every store in the United States which exposed iin 
 for sale did not mark up the price to correspond to the increase in 
 the duty? 
 
 Mr. GROW. Why. I have just said that it went up 70 cents a 
 box under an increase of duty of $1.29 a box. Now, somebody 
 had to pay the difference. 
 
 The increase was but 70 cents, and the increase in duty was 
 §1.29. According to your argument, the price should have in- 
 creased the whole amount of additional duty. In 1892, with the 
 duty 2.2 cents a pound, there was collected on an importation of 
 401,030,785 pounds $8,801,358 in revenue, while in 1882, with a 
 duty of 1.1 cents a pound, there was collected on an importation 
 of 430,746,895 pounds $4,837.216 — 27, 000, 000 pounds more imported 
 in 1882 than in 1892 and $4,000,000 less revenue, and the wholesale 
 8510 
 
7 
 
 market price for tlie same kind of a bos of tin plate was $5.20 in 
 1SS2 and $5.30 in 1892. I will print with my remarks the entire 
 table from which 1 am now reading, and which shows that the 
 wholesale market price in New York of tin plate from 18S2 to 1895 
 only varied from 7 cents to 8S cents per bos of the same kind and 
 weight, while the duty on the bos was from §1.08 to $2.37 during 
 these fourteen years. 
 
 Tin plate. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Imported. 
 
 Home pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Rate 
 
 of 
 
 duty. 
 
 Duty col- 
 lected. 
 
 Average 
 price per 
 box, 108, 
 I. C., 
 
 14 by 20. 
 
 Average 
 price 
 steel bil- 
 lets 
 
 per ton. 
 
 1882 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 430, 746, S95 
 674, 664.458 
 1,057,711,501 
 403.030.7S5 
 613.679,999 
 436,780,713 
 534, 514, 907 
 266,943,277 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Cents. 
 
 1.1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2.2 
 
 2.2 
 
 2.2 
 
 1.1 
 
 1.1 
 
 $4,837,216 
 6,746,645 
 10,577.115 
 8,801,358 
 13,500, 960 
 9, 609. 175 
 7,336,748 
 
 $5.20 
 4. 55 
 5.20 
 5.30 
 5.37 
 5.28 
 4.22 
 3.59 
 
 
 1890 
 
 
 
 1891 
 
 
 $36. 32 
 25.32 
 23.63 
 20.44 
 16. 58 
 18. 50 
 
 1892 
 
 13,646,719 
 
 99.S19.202 
 
 139.22S.467 
 
 193,801,073 
 
 307,228,621 
 
 1893 
 
 1891 
 
 1895 
 
 1896 
 
 
 
 As the home production increases of a protected article, that in 
 the end we can fully supply our market with, the rule everywhere 
 in trade is that as the home product increases the importation of 
 the like foreign article diminishes, and the price falls until the 
 home market is supplied by the home product. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has espired. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I would like to have a few minutes longer, the 
 same time estended to the gentleman from Tennessee. 
 
 Mr. McMILLAN. I hope that will be done. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN. In the absence of objection, the gentleman 
 will proceed. 
 
 Mr. GROW. As the home production of the protected article 
 increases, the price constantly falls by home competition, and the 
 foreigner, if he comes into the market, must reduce the price of 
 his commodity and pay the whole or part of the duty as a license 
 to sell in our market. This amount is not charged over to the 
 consumer in a majority of cases. It depends on the state of trade 
 at the time of the importation whether the duty is lost by the 
 foreign producer and importer and the merchant who handles the 
 commodity. That is a question depending on the laws of trade, 
 and whether the consumer pays anything additional or not is de- 
 termined in all cases by the price current of the article at the time 
 of consumption. 
 
 In some cases he pays a part of the duty, but it is a rare case 
 that he pays it all. That is shown in this table from 1882 to 1896 
 by the production of tinplate in this country, its importation, and 
 its price per box. When the duty on tin plate in 1891 was 1 cent 
 a pound, the box sold wholesale for §5.20 a box. Precisely the 
 same kind of article sold in 1894 for $5.28 a box. when the duty 
 was 2.2 cents a pound. In this case who was robbed? For that is 
 the cry of free traders who call taxation robbery of the people. 
 
 Who was robbed in this transaction of tin plate? The con- 
 sumer did not pay it, for the price of the box of tin did not go up 
 the amount of the duty. If it was paid, and we collected the duty 
 3510 
 
8 
 
 as we did, who paid it? The producer abroad lost a part ot it. 
 The transporter lost a part of it. The merchant dealing in the 
 article lost a part of it. 
 
 Now, the rule in business in actual trade is that, as the home 
 production increases, the importation of the like foreign article 
 decreases and the price of the home article is lessened until the 
 home market is supplied by the home article, when the price will 
 be less than at other time. In the steel-rail industry we made in 
 1887 2,000,000 tons of rails in this country, and without the $28 
 per ton duty placed upon them in 1868 that could not have been 
 done. Who will say that it would have been better for this coun- 
 try to have bought 20,000,000 tons of steel rails from foreign 
 nations, I care not at what price, than to have made them here, 
 as has been done in the last sixteen years? The advantage of that 
 industry has accrued to this country, instead of foreign countries, 
 and steel rails are selling here to-day for less price than anywhere 
 else in the world, and that result has been produced by the pro- 
 tective duty that brought that industry into existence in this 
 country. [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 March 31, 1897. 
 
 Mr. GROW. Mr. Chairman, not desiring to interfere with the 
 amendments of the Committee on Ways and Means, which they 
 had prepared and wished to offer to the bill, I have refrained 
 heretofore from taking up any of the time of the committee. I 
 now wish to call the attention of the committee briefly to some 
 facts in trade which show the effect of protective tariffs on prices. 
 
 A tariff with reasonable protective duties is best for raising rev- 
 enue until the protected articles are produced in sufficient quan- 
 tity to supply, or nearly so, the home market. 
 
 The operation of duties since the beginning of the Government, 
 whether protective, prohibitory, or for revenue only, will show 
 throughput the whole experience of the Government under tariffs 
 one thing as true: That is, that more revenue is raised on the im- 
 portation of the articles called “protected articles” than from the 
 same articles imported under a so-called revenue duty, until the 
 articles supply, or nearly so, the home market, for in such cases 
 a larger revenue is collected on a smaller importation. The price 
 of articles upon which duties are imposed does not increase or 
 decrease according to the duties imposed, but the price is fixed 
 by the law of trade prevailing at the time, and the duties only 
 modify the price, and it is not fixed specifically by the amount of 
 duty. 
 
 While the pig-iron industry will for the whole period of its 
 existence show this fact, 1 will take three years— 1880, the first 
 year after the resumption of specie payments: 1892, under the Mc- 
 Kinley tariff, and 1895. under the present law, called the Wilson 
 tariff. 
 
 PIG IRON. 
 
 Home pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Imports. 
 
 Average 
 
 price. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Duty 
 
 (less). 
 
 Price 
 
 (less). 
 
 Tons. 
 3,835, 191 
 9,157,000 
 9, 440,308 
 
 Tons. 
 
 700,864 
 
 82,891 
 
 53,232 
 
 §28. 50 
 15.75 
 12.00 
 
 $7.00 
 
 6.72 
 
 4.00 
 
 
 
 §0.28 
 
 2.72 
 
 $12.75 
 
 3.75 
 
 3510 
 
9 
 
 The home production in 1880 was 3,836,000 tons, and the imports 
 701,000 tons; average price for the year, $28.50; the duty, $7 per 
 ton. In 1892, when we made in this country 9,157,000 tons and 
 imported 83,000 tons, the market price was $15.75 and the duty 
 $6.72. The duty was 28 cents less, but the price was $12.75 a ton 
 less. In 1895, when we made 9,447,000 tons and imported 53,000 
 tons, the duty was $4 and the price was $12 a ton, a reduction in 
 duty of $2.72 and in price $3.75. The same thing is true in the 
 steel-rail industry, as shown by the following table: 
 
 STEEL BAILS. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Home pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Foreign 
 
 importa- 
 
 tion. 
 
 Market 
 
 price. 
 
 Rate of 
 duty. 
 
 Duty 
 
 (less). 
 
 Price 
 
 (less). 
 
 Price 
 
 (more). 
 
 1879 
 
 Gross tons. 
 610, 682 
 852, 196 
 996, 983 
 2,101.904 
 1,130,368 
 1,150,000 
 
 Gross tons. 
 22.372 
 141,227 
 2,745 
 137,588 
 932 
 776 
 
 $48.25 
 
 67.50 
 
 30.75 
 
 37.08 
 
 24.29 
 
 22.00 
 
 $28.00 
 
 28.00 
 
 17.00 
 
 17.00 
 
 13.44 
 
 7.88 
 
 
 
 
 1880 
 
 
 
 $19.25 
 
 1SS4 
 
 $11.00 
 
 $26.75 
 
 1887 
 
 6.33 
 
 1893 
 
 3.56 
 
 5.56 
 
 12.79 
 
 2.29 
 
 1895 
 
 
 
 
 With the same duty in 1879 and I860, the price varied $19.25. 
 And in 1 884, with $11 a ton less duty, the price was $26.75 less. In 
 1895, when we supplied the home market with an importation of 
 only 776 tons, and with a duty of $7.88 a ton, the market price of 
 steel rails was $22 to $24 a ton, and they are to-day selling for a 
 less price than anywhere else. 
 
 The tin-plate industry shows the same thing. Previous to 1891 
 the entire consumption was imported: and the duty was from 1 to 
 1.1 cents a pound, and the price of a box of tin plate, wholesale, in 
 New York (I. C., 14 by 20, 108 pounds) was from $4.50 to $5.20. 
 The duty after 1891 to 1894 was 2.2 cents a pound; and in 1896 one- 
 half of the consumption of the country was made here, and the 
 same kind of a box of tin plate sold for $3.80 a box, being from 70 
 to 75 cents a box less than in the years from 1883 to 1891, when the 
 entire consumption was imported. 
 
 TIN PLATE. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Foreign im- 
 portation. 
 
 Home pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Rate of 
 duty. 
 
 Price per 
 box (108 
 pounds). 
 
 1890 
 
 674.664,458 
 403,0:30,785 
 266, 943, 277 
 
 
 1 cent 
 
 2.2 cents - 
 1. 1 cents . 
 
 $4.55 
 
 5.30 
 
 3.80 
 
 1892 
 
 13.646.719 
 
 307,228,621 
 
 1896 
 
 
 In concluding, I wish to say a word to the gentleman from 
 Kansas [Mr. Simpson] , who was very complimentary to me the 
 other day in his remarks, for which I thank him, and I was not 
 offended by his classing me with those who are striving to “ en- 
 slave mankind.” He belongs to that class of people who seem to 
 be opposed to about everything that is and are not much in favor 
 of anything that is not. [Laughter and applause on the Repub- 
 lican side.] 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 3510 
 
 G 
 
THE CIVIL SERVICE. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HOX. GALUSHA A. GROW 
 
 OH 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 JANUARY S, 1898. 
 
 WASHINGTON, 
 
 I898. 
 

SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
 having under consideration the hill (H.R.4751) making appropriations foi the 
 legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal 
 year ending June 30, 1899, and for other purposes— 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: I shall not trespass upon the time of the com- 
 mittee with any discussion as to the mode in which the civil- 
 service law has been administered heretofore by any Adminis- 
 tration. The manner of administration of a law is, however, an 
 essential part of it. 
 
 There is no question that there should be some law to regulate, 
 to a certain extent at least, appointments to office in such a way 
 as to relieve the President from spending so much of his time in 
 hearing the application of every applicant for all the offices that 
 are to be filled. Either the lives of our Presidents must be assured 
 by a physically iron constitution or they can not live out their 
 full official terms, if they must, in addition to other duties, be en- 
 gaged in examining all the cases of appointments. 
 
 Whether the system I shall now suggest could be introduced 
 without a change of the Constitution maybe a question; but I 
 think that by a law of Congress approved by the President regu- 
 lating the mode of appointment might continue in practice the 
 same as it would 
 
 Mr. DINGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to a question of order. 
 We desire to hear the gentleman from Pennsylvania on this sub- 
 ject, and there is so much confusion that we can not do so unless 
 we are near him. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN. The point of order made by the gentleman 
 from Maine is well taken. The committee will please be in order. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I was saying, Mr. Chairman, that as the Consti- 
 tution vests the appointing power in the President, an amendment 
 of the Constitution might be necessary to introduce a change in 
 that respect. But a law of Congress, approved by the President, 
 might, by such acquiescence by the Executive, take the place of a 
 formal amendment to the Constitution. 
 
 Without discussing at length any proposed change, I simply 
 wish to express at this time my views on this subject, which are 
 not merely the views of to-day. I have been committed to them 
 for a third of a century. Without stoping to discuss the constitu- 
 tional difficulty which might be in the way, I would have a civil- 
 service regulation taking from the President the power to appoint 
 any officer of the Government save the judges of the courts of the 
 United States and the representatives of our Government in for- 
 eign countries. These appointments should be left to the Presi- 
 dent for this reason: The judiciary is a coordinate branch of the 
 2881 3 
 
4 
 
 Government, and the power of appointment could not well be 
 vested in any inferior tribunal. 
 
 Mr. PEARSON. Would the gentleman allow the President to 
 appoint his own Cabinet? 
 
 Mr. GROW. I will come to that question in a moment. The 
 appointment of all foreign officials of the Government should 
 remain with the President, because he represents our nation in 
 its intercourse with other nations. Those two classes of appoint- 
 ments therefore should be left with the President. The members 
 of his Cabinet he would have, of course, the right to appoint, for 
 they are his own official family, and it is nobody 's business whom 
 he may choose for those positions. But I would vest in each 
 officer of the Cabinet the appointment of all persons engaged in 
 his branch of the service, and would hold him responsible for the 
 faithful performance of public dirty in his Department. Such 
 appointments as are by law to be confirmed by the Senate I would 
 have, as now, transmitted to it by the President. Thus all ap- 
 pointments of that character would pass through his hands. 
 Under the prerogative of his office he might object to some of 
 them if he chose. 
 
 But in this way he would be relieved from sitting day by day 
 for the determination of minor appointments when the most 
 momentous questions between this nation and others, and ques- 
 tions involving perhaps its life, might be at stake. He would 
 be relieved from the necessity of devoting his time to hearing 
 every applicant or the Members and Senators representing such 
 applicant. At present the member of Congress representing 
 the applicant's district must go to the President in behalf of the 
 applicant. This is a duty which he owes to his constituents. 
 Under the existing system the President in his executive office 
 must, during a period when the life of the nation and the hopes of 
 mankind might hang suspended upon the battlefield, listen day by 
 day to these applications. 
 
 Let me illustrate by a single case. During the Presidency of 
 Mr. Lincoln I desired the appointment of a judge in one of the 
 Territories. The President made a memorandum of the matter. 
 I went to call upon him one day, not to call his attention to this 
 matter, but as soon as I entered the Executive Chamber he said, 
 “Mr. Speaker. I meant to appoint your friend to that judgeship, 
 but a woman came in here, with nine small children and one at 
 the breast, and pleaded the bread act on me. and breaded me out of 
 it.” I said, “Very well, Mr. President. If there is anybody need- 
 ing consideration and cooperation from the Government it is the 
 Union men in the insurrectionary States.” This was one of such 
 cases. The family had been driven out because of their Union 
 sentiments. “ But,” said he, “ I will attend to the matter; let me 
 take the name again.” 
 
 He went to his hat filled with papers and began to fumble over 
 them, remarking, “I have a queer way of doing things.” “ Yes, 
 Mr. President,” I replied, “if your hat should blow off in the 
 street, state secrets might be scattered.” He took out a paper, on 
 which he put down the name. “Now,” said he, “I will attend to 
 the matter when it comes around.” As I left the chamber I 
 queried with myself. Why should a President of the United States 
 in such an hour be required to spend his time and strength listen- 
 ing to applications for subordinate positions in the Government? 
 The law should require an applicant to present his case to the 
 28S1 
 
5 
 
 proper Department of tlie Government — the Secretary of State, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, or whatever Department the office 
 he is applying for might belong to. 
 
 Here" was a President, charged with greater responsibility than 
 ever fell to the lot of any ruler since time began, required to spend 
 his time and strength in considering official appointments all the 
 way down to collectorships and little post-offices. This greatest 
 American of the nineteenth century, who, among all the world’s 
 civil rulers in peace or war, will through all time hold no inferior 
 niche in the pantheon of human greatness, was thus occupied. 
 Why impose these duties upon the President, when such duties 
 are constantly multiplying and have multiplied from a few thou- 
 sand appointments to hundreds of thousands? 
 
 Strictly, the Constitution would have to be changed to take away 
 from him his prerogative to make all appointments; but a law of 
 Congress, assented to by his signature, would be the same in prac- 
 tical effect as a change in the Constitution in that regard if it were 
 acauiesced in by the Executive, as undoubtedly it would be in this 
 case. 
 
 I am opposed to any life tenure in the civil service except in the 
 case of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
 there should be an exception in their case, by reason of the fact that 
 the Government takes their life services for the good of the coun- 
 try, and pays them a compensation less than a common lawyer 
 receives in his practice at the bar of any of the States of the Union. 
 They spend their lifetime in the consideration of great questions 
 affecting society, affecting the States of the Union and the rights 
 of the people. 
 
 I would leave them on the retired list for the balance of their 
 lives after they have given their life services to the consideration 
 of the grave questions in which their countrymen are so vitally 
 interested. Their case should, therefore, be a special exception in 
 any general law. But all appointments, save the judiciary and 
 those in our foreign relations, should be placed upon an entirely 
 different plane. Take from the President by law the making of 
 these appointments, so that he could say when we fill his ante- 
 chambers with our constituents who are applicants for appoint- 
 ment that the law does not permit me to make them: you must 
 go to the proper Department fixed by the lawmaking power for that 
 purpose. ” 
 
 The Constitution requires the President to make recommenda- 
 tions as to the state of public affairs, and he may from time to time 
 recommend to Congress such matters as may seem to be of im- 
 portance in his judgment. His time should be given to the ma- 
 turing of great questions of that character, for the consideration 
 of the legislative branch of the Government, and in connection 
 with our relations with foreign Governments. This being the 
 case, why should his time be taken up with the consideration of 
 the appointments in the various Departments of the Government, 
 instead of being given to the consideration of those great ques- 
 tions which affect the interests, the welfare, and happiness of the 
 whole people? 
 
 I have, Mr. Chairman, given hastily the outlines of my views of 
 what I believe the proper system of civil service should be in this 
 country. I know, of course, that without the acquiescence of the 
 President such a system can not prevail unless the law takes the 
 form of a constitutional amendment. But it seems to me that such 
 2S81 
 
6 
 
 a system can be devised as will meet every requirement in that 
 regard. It is necessary that something of the kind should be done, 
 if we would spare the life of our Presidents. 
 
 It was only the iron constitution and great physical endurance 
 of Abraham Lincoln that enabled him to go through the mighty 
 struggle of five years, when the very air throughout every part of 
 the country was vibrating with the strains of martial music and 
 mighty armies were marching and countermarching preparatory 
 to the deadly conflict on the battlefield, upon which hung the per- 
 petuity of the Union and the hopes of the great and good of man- 
 kind. that was to determine whether the free institutions be- 
 queathed by our fathers should be transmitted unimpaired to 
 future times. For if this Republic, torn by faction and internal 
 strife, should fall rent and dismembered, the last great experiment 
 of free elective government among men has been tried, and the 
 oppressed and downtrodden of the world could then hug their 
 chains as the only legacy they could bequeath their children. 
 
 There was no period during four years of his Administration 
 that the shadow of war was not hanging darkly over the land, 
 and when the very life of the nation was not in danger. 
 
 Relieve the President of the responsibility in the making of ap- 
 pointments other than those indicated and allow the heads of the 
 Departments to select their confidential and chief clerks, and at 
 the same time abolish the various classifications of salaries. That 
 is one of the mistakes made in the administration of this law. 
 
 As long as there is a salary list, varying from $720 a year to 
 $1,600 or $1,800, whoever administers the law has an opportunity 
 by reclassifying to put in their political favorites, by putting per- 
 sonal friends into the higher salaried places and reducing others 
 to the lower grades. In the mutation of politics, in the changes 
 in the political hea*is of the various departments, these different 
 salaries offer great temptation for a maladministration of the 
 law and injustice to faithful and competent employees for the 
 mere purpose of rewarding political favorites. I know of clerks 
 in the Pension Office who have drawn a salary of $1,000, $1,400, 
 and $1,600 a year, and yet have remained at the same desk and 
 performed precisely the same kind of work all the time. From 
 $1,600 they were changed by a change of Administration to $1,400, 
 then back to $1,600, then from $1,600 to $1,200 — just by a political 
 change in the Administration. 
 
 There should be but two classes of salaries for all clerkships, and 
 then make the law imperative that no clerk, except for cause, shall 
 be reclassified in salary from a higher to a lower one. 
 
 I have thus presented briefly my views on this question, long 
 entertained and confirmed by experience. I would not have the 
 “spoils system,” as it is called, prevail, so that every Administra- 
 tion that comes into power in the changing politics of the country 
 might use these high places as “sugar plums” and favors for a 
 few political favorites without qualification for the duties of the 
 positions sought. 
 
 The modification of the system as I have suggested would take 
 away that feature. The great evil complained of at the time of 
 the passage of the civil-service law was that the political classes 
 at the points of great population could combine for the nomina- 
 tion of some person for President whom they felt assured would 
 give them the offices they might ask for, and thus they could by 
 such action forestall to a great degree the free action of Presiden- 
 2881 
 
7 
 
 tial conventions. The modification I suggest would effectually 
 remove such complaint, for no one could possibly know who the 
 Cabinet of a President would be before election, and the selection 
 of a candidate for President would therefore rest wholly upon 
 public sentiment. 
 
 There should be no regulation such that a person who holds 
 office under the Government can not maintain his manhood with- 
 out fear of losing his position. Why should he, from the time he 
 goes into office, feel that he is bound to suppress his honest con- 
 victions or lose the place he holds? It is a degradation and a dis- 
 honor to write over the office doors of the Government of this 
 Union, “ Who enters here leaves his manhood and his honest 
 convictions behind.” The officeholder is a citizen of the United 
 States as much bound to have political convictions as any other 
 citizen of the country. He is a part of it. 
 
 He has a right to contribute his money where he pleases, and no 
 official of the Government any more than anyone else has a right 
 to impose a tax on him for any purpose without his consent. The 
 law should prevent that, for it is the same as the highwayman’s 
 command to stand and deliver. I would have those two evils 
 abolished by law. The law should prevent the taking from the 
 salary of any official of the Government under duress one cent, for 
 that is the effect in levying contributions upon the officeholders of 
 the Government without their free and voluntary consent. Pre- 
 vent that, prevent reclassification of the clerks upon a change of 
 Administration, and make all appointments as far as possible by 
 the Secretaries in their own Departments, and you will have done 
 away with most if not all the evils that are complained of con- 
 cerning the office-holding class in the Government. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I am obliged to the gentleman from North Car- 
 olina [Mr. Pearson] and to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
 [Mr. Moody] for their kindness in yielding me the floor for these 
 few minutes, and to the House for its courtesy. 
 mi 
 
 O 
 
FREE HOMES FOR PIONEER SETTLERS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 ON 
 
 FREE HOMESTEADS, 
 
 MARCH 10 , 1898 . 
 
 WASHUSTG-TOISr, 
 
 1898. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALHSHA A. GROW. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
 haring under consideration the Senate amendments to the bill (H. R. GS9G) 
 making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses of the Indian 
 Department, etc. — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: The objections urged against the passage of 
 this amendment would have been equally good against the enact- 
 ment of the original free-homestead law. [Applause.] W e heard 
 all these objections then of giving away the lands and of the con- 
 dition of the Treasury. By the estimate of the Commissioner of 
 the Land Office in 1862. the Government then had 1,650,000,000 
 acres of public land. Multiply that by $1.25. and it would be over 
 two thousand millions of dollars. It is now claimed that the Gov- 
 ernment might collect thirty or thirty-five million dollars that it 
 is proposed to give away. If that is a good reason why we should 
 not pass this amendment, then there was a much better reason 
 why the original homestead act should not have passed. By the 
 present reasoning it took out of the Treasury then two thousand 
 millions of dollars. 
 
 The homestead act was not passed as an act of charity. It was 
 passed as an act of simple justice and of right to the pioneer settler 
 on the public domain. It was passed so that the pioneer settler 
 who falls leading the van of civilization through the wilderness and 
 is buried in the dust of its advancing columns should not be com- 
 pelled to pay to the Government or to land speculators a part of his 
 hard earnings, which are necessary to make his home comforta- 
 ble and his fireside happy, and to rear his children educated, 
 respectable members of society. The pillars of the Republic rest 
 upon the comfort of the home and the happiness of the fireside of 
 its laboring people. [Applause.] 
 
 It was to secure that that the original free-homestead law was 
 passed. If the objection to the passage of this amendment is good 
 to-day by reason of the condition of the Treasury, it would have 
 been a doubly good reason then, and the men who sat in these halls 
 at that time would not have passed the original free-homestead act. 
 It was at a time when the Government needed all its resources. 
 A half million brave men, schooled in the traditions of a heroic 
 ancestry, were in arms on the battlefield for its overthrow. The 
 House passed a bill authorizing a loan of $500,000,000, and the 
 Senate amended it by pledging the proceeds of the public lands 
 to be applied in payment of the loan. This House refused to con- 
 cur and it was left out. A few months after the homestead bill 
 became a law. If these gentlemen who object to this amendment 
 2 3121 
 
3 
 
 had been there, they would have insisted on it that we were rob- 
 bing the Treasury by giving away these lands. 
 
 I ask that the Clerk will read for me. from the Congressional 
 Globe, second session Thirty-seventh Congress, an extract from a 
 speech made February 21, lm:L It was on a motion to refer the 
 homestead bill, after it was introduced in the House to the Com- 
 mittee on Public Lands with instructions to the committee to 
 bring in a bill providing for a soldier bounty .and law in lien of 
 the homestead. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 ■While we provide wish, open hard ror the soldier :n the tented held. let is 
 not heap tnmeeessary burdens vpcti these heroes o £ the garret, the workshop, 
 art the wilderness home mev have home 7 : w eagles m tritmph from 
 ocean to ocean and spanned the oontment with great empires of free States, 
 built on the mins of savage life. Such, are the men whom the homestead 
 policy vonld save from me grasp of speculation. Bv it yon would secure to 
 them" ail their earnings, with whim to made their homes comfortable- bund 
 the schooEhonse and church, and thns oonrrmnre to the greatness and glory 
 of the Beptiblic. 
 
 'Applause.” 
 
 3lr. GROW. Hr. Cha ir man, tie ho mestead settler t o-day on the 
 public lands of the L nite<i States needs the same things that we 
 gave him them This amen ament comes here now by reason of the 
 innovation on the policy of the free-homestead law which had 
 been in force unbroken for a third of a century. The Adminis- 
 tration sent commissioners to make a treaty with the Indian, traces 
 ani buy their lands by the acre, recognizing in them a fee simple 
 in the wilderness of this country, and thus they become to-day 
 the land speculator, instead of the old land speculator under the 
 old policy of the Government, when it sold its lands at a dollar 
 and a quarter per acre. 
 
 Is ow the Government comes in as agent and trustee of the In- 
 dian to take from the settler from -51 to 83.75 per acre, thus per- 
 forming the part the land speculator 'lid un ier the old system. 
 What right in the lands had the Indian to convey ? What did the 
 Government buy? they bought nothing. f:r the i u dw.~ had 
 nothing of real value to selL The Indians ' claim to these lands 
 is that they had wandered over them with shotgun and fishing 
 rod or bow anl arrow. AH the Government got was the India ns ' 
 strolling occupancy, bow you ask that the settler who goes 
 there to make a home and rear a family should pay to the Gov- 
 ernment from 81 to 53.75 per acre in : rider that the Government 
 may pay it to the Indians. 
 
 The Government made a bargain it had no business to make by 
 which the people's money was squandered. It disregarded the 
 great rights of the people. If it was wrong, are not the Repre- 
 sentatives of the American people ready to vote for justice and 
 right, no matter what it costs the Treasury? [Applause.] It 
 was an inexcusable innovation. L p to the time of these treaties 
 i: was the policy to pay the Indian so much tc leave his old hunt- 
 ing grounds and the graves of his fathers and go forth and find 
 new ones. 
 
 Why did not the Government treat with h-'m for his removal 
 instead of recognising him as the :wner of the soil in fee simple 
 to be purchased by the acre: The! Indian bounds his claim of 
 ownership by rivers and mountain ranges, and within these air- 
 cumserib ed hun ts he claims ownership n : : inly to the land b ut to 
 the wild beasts that hide in its jungles: to the Lsh that swim in 
 aa 
 
4 
 
 its running waters, and to the birds of the air that disport in the 
 foliage of its green forests. And he has just as good a title to 
 them all as he has to any one of them. [Applause.] 
 
 Yet this Government sends forth commissioners to treat with 
 these Indians as the owners in fee simple of a portion of the earth 
 created for the benefit of mankind and for the support and happi- 
 ness of the race. And then we are asked to take from the settler 
 who makes his home on these lands the money that may be nec- 
 essary to pay for the fault of the Government in making any such 
 arrangement. 
 
 The public lands of this Union are the patrimony of the sons of 
 toil. Whoever applies his labor to an unoccupied portion of the 
 earth's surface in its cultivation seals his title of rightful owner- 
 ship thereto in the sweat of his face as it moistens the soil he 
 tills. [Applause.] What rightful claim can the Indian have by 
 merely wandering over a wilderness with a fishing rod or a bow 
 and arrow, doing fiothing in the way of cultivation and occupa- 
 tion to establish his right to the soil? 
 
 Blackstone said — and every law student reads the passage in the 
 beginning of his studies: 
 
 That there is no foundation in nature or natural law why a set of words 
 on parchment should convey the dominion to land. The use and occupancy 
 alone gives to man an exclusive right to retain in a permanent manner the 
 specific land which before belonged generally to everybody, but particularly 
 to nobody. 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Yet this Government violates that great principle; and the Sec- 
 retary of the Interior sends here as a reason why this amendment 
 should not be adopted the same argument in almost the words of 
 James Buchanan in his message vetoing the first free-homestead 
 bill that passed Congress. [Applause.] 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
THE GOVERNMENT'S PLIGHTED FAITH IN 
 THE PAYMENT OF ITS DEBTS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLV ANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 Thursday, May 26, 1898. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 1898. 
 
The Government’s Plighted Faith in the Payment of Its 
 
 Debts. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A, GEOW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 In the House oe Representatives, 
 
 ' Thursday, May 26, 1S98. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, 
 and having under consideration the bill (H. E. 10353) to amend the internal- 
 revenue law, relating to distilled spirits, and for other purposes — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 The honor and good faith of the Government of the United 
 States is pledged to the payment of its debts in all cases where the 
 kind of payment is not specified in such legal tender, if it has 
 more than one, as its creditors may select at the time of payment. 
 For the reason, if there was no other, that the Government alone, 
 in the exercise of its arbitrary though legal power, makes the 
 tenders for the payment of debts, and can change them at its own 
 will, without the consent of its creditors. There are no two 
 parties, and there can not be, to this transaction. The Govern- 
 ment, therefore, in promising to pay its creditors a certain number 
 of the units of its own coinage must, in honor and business fair- 
 ness, allow its creditors to select the tender in which to receive 
 the payment. 
 
 In the business transactions of individuals neither party has 
 anything to do with making tenders for the payment of debts and 
 are in no way responsible for their change. Hence, each takes 
 the chance as to what may be legal tender at the time of the ma- 
 turity of their contracts. The debtor, being the party to pay, has 
 the right, therefore, in all business fairness, to select the tender 
 with which he will pay. Not so with the Government, which 
 3396 8 
 
4 
 
 makes the tenJers, when it is itself the debtor, for the Govern- 
 ment is bound to see to it that all the tenders it creates for the 
 payment of debts are at all times the equivalent, one with the 
 other, in commercial value. And it is this obligation which in 
 business fairness makes its position in the payment of its debts 
 different from that of individuals. 
 
 If that is not the case, then the Government could make a ten- 
 der perfectly worthless with which to pay its debts, while a tender 
 good in commercial value is in use. For instance, the lawmaking 
 power could buy copper and have each ounce of it stamper at the 
 mint $1, then make such dollars a tender in the payment of debts, 
 and with such copper money pay all its coin obligations. That 
 would be just as honest and just as fair a business transaction as 
 to pay its coin obligations in any legal-tender dollar of a commer- 
 cial value of 30 or 40 cents or less. 
 
 All the laws ever enacted changing the ratio in weight of one 
 money metal to another were for the purpose of keeping one the 
 equivalent of the other in commercial value. If the Government 
 neglects this plain duty, it can not on the first great principle of 
 equity take advantage of its own wrong. It must, therefore, in 
 honor and fair business dealing allow its creditors the option of 
 the tenders in the payment of its debts. It has the power, of 
 course, to pay its debts in anything, or not to pay them at all. 
 For it makes the legal tenders and can not be sued without its 
 consent. Hence it is under a double obligation, in honesty and 
 fair dealing, to allow its creditors the option of tenders, if it has 
 more than one. at the time of payment. 
 
 The creditors of governments which have a bank like England, 
 France, and Germany, through which they do their financial busi- 
 ness, collecting the government revenues and holding them on 
 deposit, must receive over the counters of such banks the legal 
 tender offered by the bank, for the bank in this case, not the gov- 
 ernment, is the debtor, and the bank does not make the tenders. 
 Hence, it has the same right of option in paying its debts as an 
 individual. But when the government itself is the debtor, and 
 makes the tenders for the payment of debts, it has in business 
 fairness no such right of option in paying its debts at the counter 
 
 of its own treasury. 
 
 3396 
 
0 
 
 The law of 1862, which authorized the first issue of legal-tender 
 Treasury notes, by its accepted terms at the time of passage and 
 by the understanding of its supporters bound the Government in 
 good faith to pay its debts in gold or its equivalent. 
 
 In discussions upon debatable legislation it is always desirable 
 to have the correct history of such legislation, and, if possible, the 
 reasons existing for it at the time of its enactment, especially if 
 the laws are of an unusual character. The House will, therefore, 
 bear with me in recalling briefly a part of the history of the legis- 
 lation creating our national debt. 
 
 The first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, in obedience to 
 the proclamation of the President, convened on Thursday, July 4, 
 1861. On Monday, the 8th of July, the House was fully organ- 
 ized by the election of all its officers and the appointment of its 
 standing committees. Both Houses adjourned finally on Monday, 
 the 6th day of August, having been in session thirty-three days, 
 including five Sundays. In these twenty-eight working days acts 
 were passed revising the tariff, levying direct and internal taxes, 
 reorganizing the military establishment of the Government, en- 
 larging the Navy. increasing the Regular Army, authorizing the 
 enlistmentand equipment of 500,000 men, and a loan of $250,000,000 
 was authorized and $300,000,000 were appropriated for the sup- 
 port of the Army for the then current year. 
 
 At that session, after disposing of the foregoing measures and 
 others of public necessity, it was not thought advisable to take 
 up the financial question, therefore no change was made in the 
 money then in use, though every member of either House re- 
 garded the financial policy to be adopted by the Government to 
 meet the contingencies of the then overhanging future as the 
 most vital as well as the most difficult question to be settled in 
 legislation. The shot had already been fired at Sumter which, 
 like that at Lexington, rang round the world. 
 
 At the next session, beginning December 2. 1861, almost three 
 months were spent in the discussion and consideration of the 
 financial policy to be adopted by the Government. One hundred 
 and fifty million dollars in gold had already been borrowed from 
 
 the banks of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Specie pay- 
 
 3396 
 
6 
 
 ments had been suspended in the previous November. A bill was 
 finally matured in the House, authorizing the issue of bonds, 
 bearing 6 per cent interest, to the amount of $500,000,000, since 
 known as the five-twenties, and $150,000,000 of Treasury notes, 
 known as “greenbacks,” without interest, but legal tender in 
 payment of debts. 
 
 At that time the Government was in a life-and-death struggle 
 for its existence. Its Treasury was empty and its credit greatly 
 impaired. At such a time the Government was about to appeal 
 for a loan of $500,000,000, to be repeated how soon, or how often, 
 no human sagacity could then foretell, with which to provision, 
 clothe, and equip its defenders on the battlefield. Without such 
 munitions of war, no matter how brave their hearts, their arms 
 would have been as powerless as if paralyzed in death. The vital 
 question with those charged with the administration of the Gov- 
 ernment at that time was. therefore, how to give the greatest pos- 
 sible credit to the Government in securing such loans of money as 
 it must have. 
 
 This question gave rise to greatly diverse opinions. There was 
 no difference of opinion in either House as to the bonds to be au- 
 thorized. The differences of opinion were as to the kind of Treas- 
 ury notes, if any, to be issued. There were those in both Houses, 
 not small in number nor of inferior ability or statesmanship, who 
 were opposed to issuing any kind of Treasury notes, and who ad- 
 vocated the policy of keeping the Government on a specie-paying 
 basis by selling bonds in the market for gold with which to do it. 
 Others were opposed to that policy and in favor of issuing Treas- 
 ury notes, made legal tender for all debts and demands of every 
 kind. Others favored the issue of Treasury notes legal tender for 
 all dues to the United States and for all claims and demands 
 against the United States of every kind whatsoever, but not a 
 legal tender between individuals. 
 
 In the bill that first passed the House these notes were made 
 legal tender in payment of debts of all kinds, public and private. 
 The Senate amended the bill by adding after claims and demands 
 against theUnited States, “except interest on the bonds and notes 
 
 of the United States.” The reason for this amendment was elab- 
 8396 
 
/ 
 
 7 
 
 orately presented by Senator Fessenden, of Maine, chairman of 
 the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Collamer, of Vermont, 
 discussing the amendment, said: 
 
 The bill as it came from the House of Representatives, in order to give 
 currency to these notes, provided that men should have a right, when they 
 had a quantity of them, to fund them in Government bonds, having twenty 
 years to run, with interest payable in what? In these very notes that they 
 had put in. It was saying to them, “ If you will only take these notes, you 
 may fund them in a bond, and take your pay in the notes again.” What a 
 financial juggle is that? That is the form in which it came to us from the 
 other House; but an amendment reported by our committee and adopted 
 by the Senate provides that the interest, at least, shall be payable in money. 
 
 This amendment to pay interest in coin bad been reported unan- 
 imously by the Finance Committee, and it passed the Senate 
 without a division. This amendment and one pledging the pro- 
 ceeds from the sales of the public lands in payment of the bonds — 
 after the bill was returned from the Senate — caused a long and 
 very earnest debate in the House. The following extracts from 
 speeches made in the House will show what was the prevailing 
 sentiment at that time as to the meaning of the word “coin ” in 
 the amendment: 
 
 Mr. Spaulding, chairman of the subcommittee on Ways and 
 Means, who reported the bill that passed the House, and who was 
 in favor of only one kind of money, in opposing the amendment 
 of the Senate to pay interest on the bonds and notes in coin, said: 
 
 All bonds and Treasury notes heretofore issued are payable generally 
 without specifying that either the principal or the interest shall be paid in 
 coin, and yet the legal effect is the same. 
 
 ****** 
 
 By all means let us pay the interest in gold to those who desire it, if it is 
 possible to do so. 
 
 Suppose the public debt to amount to the sum of 51,000,000,000 in one year 
 from this time. Six per cent interest on this sum would require $60,000,000 
 in gold to be obtained annually— $30,000,000 every six months to pay interest. 
 How is the gold to be obtained? i’ou will notget it from taxes or from duty 
 on imports, because these by the bill are payable in Treasury notes. The 
 only way. then, to get this gold will be by selling your bonds at the market 
 price to procure it. This is a large amount of coin to be procured on a forced 
 sale of your bonds— $30,000,000 every six months. 
 
 ******* 
 
 A sum greater than all the gold possessed by the New York banks at this 
 time. The fact that you create by your bill this large demand for gold will 
 tend greatly to enhance the price. 
 
 Mr. Pomeroy, who had opposed the issue of legal-tender paper 
 
 3396 
 
8 
 
 in any form, in advocating the amendment of the Senate to pay 
 interest in coin, said: 
 
 The credit of the Government has been recently brought to the test of 
 practical experiment in a much more favorable time than the present, when 
 the banks were plethoric with gold beyond all former experience and 
 promptly meeting all engagements in coin. 
 
 Now, this paper is or is not equal to gold. My colleague may take which- 
 ever horn of the dilemma he pleases. If it is not, it is folly to suppose that 
 people are voluntarily going to place themselves in a position where, for a 
 term of years, they compel themselves to receive it in interest and assume 
 all the risk of depreciation. If it is equal, then there can be no unjust dis- 
 crimination in paying interest in gold. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 While we exercise the power to compel the people to receive it as gold in 
 the payment of debts, we unfortunately have not the power to compel them 
 to loan it back to us on time and receive more of the same kind in interest. 
 ******* 
 
 The Committee on Ways and Means are talking about paying, whereas the 
 problem is how to borrow. If capital will seek Treasury notes at par for the 
 purpose of investmentin bonds, with the interest payable in notes, how much 
 more readily will it seek the same notes, at a slight depreciation, for the pur- 
 pose of such investment with the interest payable in gold. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 N o inducement is offered by the House to fund these notes in the nature of 
 the new security. The credit of the Government is alike bound for the pay- 
 ment of both classes of indebtedness ultimately in gold. 
 
 Mr. Stevens, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, 
 who had from the first advocated but one kind of money, either 
 all paper or all coin, to he used, whichever it might be, for all 
 purposes whatsoever, said: 
 
 All classes of people shall take these notes at par for every article of trade 
 or contract, unless they have money enough to buy United States bonds, and 
 then they shall be paid in gold. 
 
 In discussing the report of the committee of conference on the 
 bill, Mr. Stevens, who was chairman of the committee, said in ref- 
 erence to the action of the conference committee: 
 
 We provided that the Secretary of the Treasury, in order to raise gold to 
 pay this interest, should throw into market the bonds of the United States 
 at whatever they would bring. * * * We saw no way but to raise the coin 
 in some other mode than selling our paper. * * * We made the imports 
 payable in coin. 
 
 In all the discussion in either House on paying interest in coin 
 the words “coin” and “gold” were used indiscriminately. No 
 one had any idea then that the interest would ever be paid in 
 silver or that the bonds at their maturity would be paid in any- 
 thing but gold, as all such bonds had always been paid thereto- 
 fore. 
 
 3390 
 
9 
 
 The House finally concurred in the Senate amendment for pay- 
 ing interest in coin, but nonconcurred in the pledge of the pro- 
 ceeds of the sales of the public lands. The committee of confer- 
 ence on the bill struck out the pledge of the proceeds from the 
 sales of public lands and inserted in lieu thereof that duties on 
 imports should be paid in coin, and that was agreed to in both 
 Houses without a division. In this way the disagreement between 
 the two Houses was finally settled, and the act of February 25, 
 1862, became a law with the following provisions relative to the 
 United States notes and the national debt that might be created: 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America in Congress assembled , That the Secretary of the Treasury is 
 hereby authorized to issue on the credit of the United States $150,000,000 of 
 United States notes, not bearing interest, payable to bearer, at the Treasury 
 of the United States. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 And such notes herein authorized shall be receivable in payment of all 
 taxes, internal duties, excises, debts, and demands of every kind due to the 
 United States, except duties on imports, and of all claims and demands 
 against the United States of every kind whatsoever, except for interest upon 
 bonds and notes, which shall be paid in coin; and shall also be lawful money 
 and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the 
 United States, except duties on imports and interest as aforesaid. 
 
 ******* 
 
 And such United States notes shall be received the same as coin at their 
 par value in payment for any loans that may be hereafter sold or negotiated 
 by the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Sec. 2. And be it further enacted. That to enable the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury to fund the Treasury notes and floating debt of the United States he is 
 hereby authorized to issue on the credit of the United States coupon bonds 
 or registered bonds to an amount not exceeding $500,000,000, redeemable at 
 the pleasure of the United States after five years, and payable twenty years 
 from date, and bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, paya- 
 ble semiannually. 
 
 * ***** * 
 
 Sec. 5. And be it further enacted. That all duties on imported goods shall 
 be paid in coin, and the coin so paid shall be set apart as a special fund and 
 shall be applied as follows: 
 
 First. To the payment in coin of the interest on the bonds and notes of the 
 United States. 
 
 Second. To the purchase or payment of 1 per cent of the entire debt of 
 the United States, to be made within each fiscal year after the 1st day of 
 July, 1862. 
 
 That was the pledge of the nation to pay its debt, principal and 
 interest, in coin, which everybody understood at the time to be 
 gold. This pledge was to collect the duties on imports in coin and 
 to set apart the coin so collected in payment of the interest on the 
 
 bonds and notes of the United States and for payment of 1 per 
 
 3396 
 
10 
 
 cent of the entire debt of the United States annually after July, 
 A. D. 1862. This pledge was made in the darkest hour of the 
 nation’s history, and is a component part of its act making paper 
 a legal tender, and the terms “ coin ” and “ gold ” were used inter- 
 changeably by the lawmakers at that time, and with the general 
 expectation that the interest and the debt would both be paid in 
 gold. Until the last dollar of the Government indebtedness cre- 
 ated by that legislation is paid the Government is bound in honor 
 and good faith to pay it in such tenders as its creditors may select 
 at the time of payment. 
 
 By these two amendments to the original bill — one made in the 
 Senate without a division, to pay the interest on the bonds in coin; 
 the other to collect the duties on imports in coin, made in confer- 
 ence committee and agreed to unanimously by both Houses — the 
 national currency was in reality kept on a specie basis, and the 
 industries of the country were saved from serious depression, if 
 not entire prostration. Had the duties on imports been collected 
 in this paper money, with nothing to prevent its depreciation ex- 
 cept its being legal tender in payment of debts, it would have 
 reduced the rate of duties so it would have resulted in almost free 
 importation of foreign manufactures from all countries, to the 
 great detriment of our home industries. 
 
 With the interest on the national debt payable in paper, the 
 capitalist, no matter how patriotic, would have hesitated to part 
 with his money and receive nothing as an income for the support 
 of his family except these paper promises, which would fluctuate 
 in their purchasing power with the uncertainties hanging over 
 the battlefield, and with an additional doubt whether this paper 
 might not possibly in the end become entirely worthless by the 
 excessive issues required by the necessities of the Government 
 itself. But with an income while the conflict might last that 
 could not be destroyed or lessened in its purchasing power, men 
 of wealth were ready to part with their money and trust to the 
 future for the repayment of the principal. Of all the legislation 
 of that period, these two provisions of paying interest in coin and 
 collecting duties in coin were the wisest and the best. 
 
 Both came almost by accident, so far as human foresight is con- 
 cerned. They were not the conception of any one member of either 
 3396 
 
11 
 
 Honse, but resulted from the disagreement of the two Houses in 
 discussions as to the best method to give the greatest credit to the 
 Government in borrowing money for its then pressing needs. 
 
 The provision of the act of February 25, 1862, which requires 
 the interest on the bonds of the United States to be paid in coin 
 receives not a little denunciation from the Democrats and Popu- 
 list members of the House whenever they have occasion to refer 
 to it. And they freely charge that this provision must have crept 
 into the bill by some lobby influence around these Halls, in the 
 favorite phrase of Populistic orators, of “organized greed’’— of 
 bankers and capitalists seeking their own avaricious and selfish 
 gains; and that it was such influences which controlled in the 
 enactment of that legislation. 
 
 Sir, the only lobby influence around these Halls when that act 
 passed was a lobby of patriotism. It ill becomes this generation 
 to asperse the memory of the dead or the characters of the living 
 legislators of those times. But they need no vindication in words 
 of eulogy. The far-reaching beneficent results of their acts will 
 be their vindication through all time for wise statesmanship and 
 patriotic devotion to the best interests of their country in that 
 crisis hour of its existence. And the only vindication for unselfish 
 patriotism required for what is known as the “moneyed class” of 
 our citizens at that period is a correct knowledge of the history of 
 their acts. The banks of Boston. New York, and Philadelphia, at 
 the first outbreak of the rebellion, loaned the Government $150,- 
 000,000 in gold, on the application of Mr. Chase, then Secretary of 
 the Treasury. 
 
 Justice to this greatly maligned class of American citizens, liv- 
 ing and dead, compels me to say in this connection that the prompt- 
 ness and patriotism with which the bankers and the capitalists of 
 the country at that time devoted their wealth to the cause of their 
 country was excelled only by that of the soldier who periled his 
 life on its tented fields. 
 
 In support of this declaration I trust the House will pardon me 
 in calling attention to a remarkable instance, not then uncommon 
 except in its degree. 
 
 Two war ships were being built on the Clyde, in England, and 
 
 were almost ready to sail. Charles Francis Adams, then our rain- 
 3396 
 
12 
 
 ister to the Court of St. James, called upon Lord John Russell, 
 secretary of state for Great Britain, with a request, based on the 
 recognized obligations of strict neutrality between belligerents, 
 that an order should be issued by the governmeut preventing the 
 sailing of these cruisers. He presented the evidence, full and 
 complete, which he had procured through his detectives, that the 
 cruisers were built with money furnished by the Confederacy, 
 were to be manned with Confederate sailors, and outside the 3-mile 
 limit were to take aboard their war armament and go forth on 
 their mission of destruction of American commerce upon the high 
 seas. 
 
 Lord Russell, after listening patiently to the presentation of the 
 case by Mr. Adams, declined to comply with his request. Mr. 
 Adams, rising from his seat and turning to leave the audience 
 chamber, said (in that sharp, concise tone of voice and with com- 
 pressed lips, which always characterized him in earnest speech): 
 “ I need not remind your lordship this is war. ” 
 
 Next day Mr. Adams received a note from Lord Russell request- 
 ing him to call at the foreign office. At their interview Lord Rus- 
 sell said to Mr. Adams that it had been decided to issue the order 
 preventing the sailing of the cruisers, provided he would place in 
 the Bank of England, within forty-eight hours, £1,000,000 sterling 
 in gold, to be held as an indemnity fund against any award of 
 damages that might be obtained against the Government in the 
 court of admiralty. 
 
 Mr. Adams returned to his office perplexed and in great doubt 
 what to do; for it seemed impossible for him in this short time to 
 comply with the conditions imposed. The evening shadows of 
 the day scarcely closed in, when a gentleman called at Mr. Adams’s 
 residence and said to the servant at the door: “Tell Mr. Adams 
 that a gentleman wishes to see him on strictly private but im- 
 portant business. ” 
 
 In response to this message, Mr. Adams repaired to his recep- 
 tion room and found there George Peabody, then a London banker. 
 Mr. Peabody, addressing Mr. Adams, said: 
 
 I know all about your interview to-day with Lord Russell; and realizing 
 how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for you to procure a loan of 
 $5,000,000 in the time specified, even if you had the authority of your own 
 Government, duly authenticated, I have come to say to you that at 10 o’clock 
 3396 
 
13 
 
 to-morrow I will see tliat §5,000,000 in gold is placed to your credit in the Bank 
 of England on one condition, that it shall be a profound secret how this money 
 is obtained, known only to President Lincoln and such of his officials as must 
 know about it. I will take the bonds of the United States as soon as they 
 can be prepared and sent to you here for delivery in payment of this loan. 
 
 Nest day Mr. Adams called on Lord Russell and the £1,000,000 
 sterling in gold was placed on deposit in the Bank of England, as 
 required by Lord Russell, and an order was issued preventing 
 the sailing of these two cruisers. 
 
 By this prompt, patriotic act of this millionaire banker the 
 lives and the property of American citizens were saved from de- 
 struction upon the wide ocean and the cause of the American 
 Union from impending disasters. And by this act the ruling 
 classes of England were saved from a hatred and rancor in the 
 hearts of the loyal American people deep and bitter as ever burned 
 in the bosoms of the old Continentals against the redcoats and 
 the hireling soldiery of George III. 
 
 I judge what would have been the feelings of the American peo- 
 ple at that time by my own. Such a national animosity in this 
 period of the world's history between these two English-speaking 
 peoples would have been a calamity to the well-being of the future 
 of mankind scarcely less than would be the dismemberment and 
 destruction of the union of these States. 
 
 The Republic owes it to itself some day to erect in front of this 
 Capitol two colossal statues— the one to be inscribed in letters of 
 living light, “ George Peabody — the Massachusetts boy, the Lon- 
 don banker, the devoted patriot in the hour of his country’s great- 
 est need; the other to be inscribed in characters as enduring as 
 the granite of his native Quincy, li I need not remind your lord- 
 ship this is war. ” Such a group to stand through all the years of 
 the long-coming future a memorial of one of the most vital inci- 
 dents in the history of the new Republic. 
 
 But to return from this digression into which I have been led 
 in vindicating the patriotic devotion of all classes of loyal Ameri- 
 can citizens, including banker, merchant, and capitalist, in the 
 five years of the crisis period of the country's history from 1861, I 
 will call the attention of members to the wording of the act to 
 strengthen the public credit, passed March 18, 1869: 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America in Congress assembled , That in order to remove any doubt as to 
 3396 
 
14 
 
 the purpose of the Government to discharge ah just obligations to the public 
 creditors, and to settle conflicting questions and interpretations of the law 
 by virtue of which such obligations have been contracted, it is hereby pro- 
 vided and declared that the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged 
 to the payment in coin or its equivalent of all the obligations of the United 
 States not bearing interest, known as United States notes, and of all the 
 interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in cases where the 
 law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has expressly provided that 
 the same may be paid in lawful money or other currency than gold and silver. 
 But none of said interest-bearing obligations not already due shall be re- 
 deemed or paid before maturity, unless at such time United States notes shall 
 be convertible into coin at the option of the holder, or unless at such time 
 bonds of the United States bearing a lower rate of interest than the bonds 
 to be redeemed can be sold at par in coin. And the United States also 
 solemnly pledges its faith to make provision, at the earliest practicable 
 period, for the redemption of the United States notes in coin. 
 
 The act expressly declared that the debt is payable in coin or 
 its equivalent, and it provided that no interest-bearing obligations 
 of the Government shall be redeemed before maturity unless the 
 United States notes are at the time convertible into coin at the 
 option of the holder. What was the reason for any such legisla- 
 tion at that time? For the pledge in the act of February 25, 1862, 
 was specific that the Government would pay the interest on its 
 bonds in coin, and would pay in coin 1 per cent of its entire debt 
 every year after 1862. 
 
 Why was this act of 1869 passed? At the time there was neither 
 gold nor silver circulating as money. Specie payments were sus- 
 pended in November, 1861, and were not resumed until January, 
 1879. Coin at that time meant gold, or its equivalent. The equiva- 
 lent was either silver of the commercial value in the markets of 
 the world of $1.29 an ounce, or paper made the equivalent of gold 
 by adding the discount, whatever it might be. 
 
 The Greenback party, which sprang into existence in 1867 and 
 1868, insisted that these bonds were payable in greenbacks at the 
 expiration of five years from the date of their issue; for the reason, 
 they said, that the wording on the face of the bond was that the 
 United States were indebted in dollars, and the wording of the 
 greenback on its face was that the United States promised to pay 
 dollars. Therefore, whenever the time for payment matured, the 
 promise on the greenback to pay dollars, being a legal tender, was 
 good for the payment of these bonds, that on their face called only 
 for dollars, though the law under which they were issued said 
 
 they should be paid in coin dollars. 
 
 3396 
 
15 
 
 To put at rest this question then agitating the public mind, and 
 in order to remove all doubt and settle conflicting questions and 
 interpretations of law by the cheap- money advocates of that time, 
 the act of 1869 was passed, declaring that the faith of the United 
 States is solemnly pledged to the payment of the national debt in 
 coin or its equivalent. 
 
 The wording of the act is that “the faith of theUnited States is 
 hereby solemnly pledged tothepayment in coin, or its equivalent. ” 
 Could it have been intended in using the word “equivalent” to 
 declare that the silver dollar of the weight of 41 2| grains of stand- 
 ard silver, worth in the markets of the world in 1869, when this 
 declaration was made, a little over 100 cents, is the equivalent to 
 the silver dollar of 4124 grains of standard silver, worth in the 
 markets of the world in 1898 from 42 to 45 cents? 
 
 The act of July 14, 1870, to authorize the refunding of the na- 
 tional debt, is especially explicit as to the kind of coin in which 
 the debt was to be redeemed, “ in coin of the present standard 
 value; ” that is, of the standard value of July 14, 1870. At that 
 time the silver dollar was equal in commercial value to the gold 
 dollar, and each was of the value of 100 cents. There is nothing 
 said in this act, or any other law, about weight being an equiva- 
 lent to value. 
 
 Y et all the advocates of paying the bonds of the Government in 
 silver claimed that the weight of 412| grains of standard silver 
 is equivalent at all times to 100 cents in value, making no dis- 
 tinction between debt-paying value and commercial value, and 
 ignoring entirely the words of the act of July 14, 1870, which are, 
 “Redeemable in coin of the present standard value.” At that 
 time the standard value of coin was equivalent and equal to gold; 
 silver and gold dollars were then of the same commercial and 
 debt-paying value. 
 
 Treasury notes of 1890, issued in payment for the purchases of 
 silver bullion, are in specific terms payable in either gold or silver 
 at the option of the Government. If the Government has the 
 option of tenders rightfully in paying its debts, what necessity 
 was there for so specifying in this case? It was thought by those 
 who advocated it that as it was silver received, it was fair and 
 
 right to pay in the same kind of money; and for that reason it 
 338fi 
 
16 
 
 was specifically provided that the Government had the option. 
 And the only reason urged at that time why the Government 
 should have the option was that it was paying in just the kind of 
 money it received. 
 
 But for the act of Congress pledging the good faith of the Gov- 
 ernment to keep all kinds of money— gold, silver, and paper— on a 
 parity with each other, the Treasury notes of 1890 might be paid 
 in silver coin. But these notes, being in every way exceptional in 
 character, stand by themselves in every respect an exception to 
 the general rule. There is not a bond of the United States to-day, 
 and there never has been one except those issued in aid of the Pa- 
 cific railroads, nor is there any other obligation of the Govern- 
 ment, not specifying a specific kind of payment, that the Govern- 
 ment is not bound in good faith and fair, honest, business dealing 
 to pay at maturity in legal-tender money at the option of the 
 creditor, if the Government has more than one kind of tender, at 
 
 the time of payment. 
 
 3296 
 
 © 
 
ANNEXATION OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 Tuesday, June 14 , 1898 . 
 
 •WASHINGTON, 
 
 1898. 
 
HON. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 GALUSHA A. GROW. 
 
 The House having under consideration the joint resolution (H. Res. 259) to 
 provide for annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: This nation needs the Hawaiian Islands for the 
 benefit of its commerce in peace and its protection in war. It is a 
 fact conceded by everybody that for commerce between the west- 
 ern shores of this continent and Asia there must be some inter- 
 mediate land for a coaling station for ships engaged in commerce. 
 The Hawaiian Islands hold such a position, being for all practical 
 purposes about midway between the two continents, with a land- 
 locked harbor unsurpassed in size and safety. To secure the 
 possession of this harbor for the future against all contingencies 
 the sovereignty of the islands is necessary, for whoever owns the 
 islands owns the harbor. All treaties whatsoever would fall with 
 a change of ownership. 
 
 It is claimed by the opponents of annexation that there is an- 
 other route of equal commercial advantage and less in distance 
 from continent to continent by the way of Unalaska. It is a 
 route discovered in the argument of this question and not here- 
 tofore discovered by commerce. I venture the assertion that few, 
 if any, vessels in trade between the American and Asiatic conti- 
 nents ever yet sailed on this route from San Francisco to any port 
 in Asia, unless it was one in the Arctic seas. 
 
 When presented in this debate, it reminded me of the chap in 
 New York who surprised the stockbrokers for a short time with 
 a declaration that he had found a railroad route between New 
 York and Chicago 250 miles shorter than any existing one, or any 
 other that could be constructed, and he could prove it by his map. 
 When the map was produced, there was a heavy red straight line 
 drawn from New York to Chicago, which crossed the Alleghany 
 Mountains at the highest summit in the range. And this was his 
 shortest route. The map was correct, but the capital to build the 
 railroad was not in sight. 
 
 Lines drawn on the map of a wide ocean representing the chan- 
 nels of commerce are very well if commerce follows such lines. 
 But if it does not, reasons why it might do so are of little conse- 
 quence. If the reasons urged against annexation now had pre- 
 vailed while the purchase of Alaska was pending, we should not 
 have this new logical route at all, for Alaska itself would still be 
 Russian territory. There never has been any acquisition of ter- 
 ritory without more or less opposition at the time of the acquisi- 
 tion. and the reasons were very much the same as those now 
 offered — unconstitutional and dangerous to the liberties of the 
 country. 
 
 I will not take the time of the House in discussing any consti- 
 tutional question relative to the acquisition of territory by this 
 3437 3 ' 
 
4 
 
 Government. Mr. Jefferson said in 1803 that there was no grant 
 of power in the Constitution for such acquisition; yet, beginning 
 with his Administration, we have acquired foreign territory in 
 area more than three times as great as that claimed by the original 
 thirteen colonies or which the Government owned at the time of 
 the adoption of our present Constitution. 
 
 For almost a century, beginning with Jefferson, the nation has 
 been acquiring territory by treaty and by joint resolution and 
 under Administrations of different political parties. If anything 
 can be settled by the uniform practice of the Government, the 
 power to acquire territory ought to be settled by this uniform, 
 unbroken practice for almost a century ^sustained by every branch 
 of the Government and ratified universally by the people. 
 
 I am content to follow this uniform, unbroken practice in the 
 exercise of a power that must certainly rest somewhere in the 
 Government, or it could not have been thus sustained by all de- 
 partments of the Government for this long period. 
 
 This question is not a law to be construed; it is a power of gov- 
 ernment to be exercised. And by that exercise in the past and by 
 that alone the nation has in this first hundred years of its exist- 
 ence been enabled to expand from thirteen feeble colonies, hemmed 
 in by the Atlantic Ocean in front, the Mississippi River in the 
 rear, and Spanish and French dominion on the south, to forty-five 
 independent Commonwealths, spanning a whole continent from 
 ocean to ocean and extending through almost every zone. 
 
 For the exercise of this power to acquire territory it only needs 
 a clear, unequivocal commercial necessity for the American peo- 
 ple and a willing consent of the people occupying the territory to 
 be acquired. In such case, while there could be no question as to 
 constitutional power, the circumstances existing at the time would 
 determine as to the wisdom of its exercise. 
 
 The great reason for the exercise of this power now by the Con- 
 gress of the United States applies to Hawaii and not to any other 
 portion of the earth. It does not apply to Mexico, Canada, Cuba, 
 or any other territory on the American continent. For the rea- 
 son that after Cuba shall have established a republic, the institu- 
 tions of all these countries being substantially republican can not 
 be a menace in any way to our liberties, and there are no great 
 commercial necessities, nor can there be any, requiring any gov- 
 ernment changes in our territorial relations with either of these 
 nations. Hence in our commercial necessities Hawaii stands 
 alone, separate and distinct from any other portion of the earth’s 
 surface, and in no way connected with any question that may 
 hereafter arise as to other nations. 
 
 The ultimate annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United 
 States is not a new question. Every President except one for 
 half a century has notified the nations of the earth that the people 
 of these islands could never unite their destinies with any- nation 
 except our own. When England, in 1843, took possession of these 
 islands, Mr. Legare. then Secretary of State, notified the Govern- 
 ment of Great Britain of our position, and she withdrew. Later, 
 when France attempted to take possession, Mr. Webster, then 
 Secretary of State, repeated to France in substance Mr. Legare’s 
 dispatch to England, and France withdrew. 
 
 For fifty years every President except Cleveland has notified 
 the world that no other nation would be permitted to establish 
 their sovereignty over these islands, and that the people thereon 
 must be allowed to control their own destiny. Grover Cleveland 
 3437 
 
5 
 
 was the first official in the administration of this Government to 
 attempt a reversal of its historical policy relative to Hawaii. 
 
 He undertook to restore over that people a monarchy over- 
 thrown by its liberty-loving subjects, and, using the revenue cut- 
 ters and war ships of the nation with shotted guns as a menace in 
 the harbor of Hawaii, he directed his accredited agent to the new 
 Republic to demand, in the name of the United States, that its 
 chosen officials should abdicate their powers, and, kneeling in ab- 
 ject submission at the foot of the restored throne, kiss the extended 
 hand of its dusky Queen. This attempt by the President of the 
 United States to restore a defunct monarchy will brand Grover 
 Cleveland through all time in the annals of impartial history as 
 recreant to liberty and false to the spirit and genius of free insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 If I had any doubt as to the vital importance of these islands to 
 the future commercial well-being of the United States, I should 
 hesitate long before setting up my own judgment against the 
 united opinions of the long line of eminent statesmen who have 
 been intrusted with the administration of public affairs, and who 
 are held in so high estimation for political wisdom by their coun- 
 trymen of all political parties. The gentleman from Arkansas 
 [Mr. DinsmoreJ quoted a general opinion by Mr. Sherman against 
 the acquisition of foreign territory, and then attempted to impeach 
 his own witness, who, as Secretary of State, signed the treaty for 
 the acquisition of these very islands included in the resolutions 
 before us. 
 
 He could have quoted with equal force from Mr. Legate and 
 Mr. Webster in their correspondence with England and France, 
 in which they declared that it was not the policy of this Govern- 
 ment to acquire colonial possession, and yet they both insisted 
 that these islands, by the consent of their people, must some day 
 become a part of American territory, or at least that they never 
 could by our consent become a part of any other. And now when 
 their people desire to cast their political fortunes with ours and we 
 refuse, will it be claimed by anybody that henceforth we can 
 rightfully prevent them from casting their lot with any other na- 
 tion? Such a refusal would be an attempt on our part to impose 
 upon them a despotic control more odious than was that of Cleve- 
 land. 
 
 The gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Dinsmore] said that the 
 time might come when it would be, perhaps, advisable to annex 
 these islands, but not now. Now is the only time that the United 
 States can rightfully dispose of that question. After our rejec- 
 tion the destiny of these islands is in the keeping of their people, 
 and to be determined by them alone. Whether their fortunes 
 shall then be cast with England, France, Japan, or any other 
 nation will be for them to determine. 
 
 All questions arising out of the existing war with Spain properly 
 belong by themselves and are to be settled in view of the circum- 
 stances and conditions existing at the time of their settlement. 
 
 In the discussion on the question be ore us we have heard much 
 about wars and their dangers to liberty. War prosecuted for 
 selfish ends in upholding despotic dynasties or for the mere ex- 
 tension of territorial dominion is an unmitigated, inexcusable 
 barbarism. 
 
 But wars, with all their miseries and woes, in the interest of 
 humanity, in behalf of struggling races or nationalities, to secure 
 or regain their inalienable rights, have been of great benefit to 
 
6 
 
 mankind. In the world's decisive battles from Marathon to Get- 
 tysburg, such battles as have changed for all time the current of 
 human events and the destiny of empires, great battalions have 
 always marched in the rear of great ideas. 
 
 The generation of the American people now fast passing away 
 have had not a little home experience in the horrors of war. They 
 have seen their country shrouded in the sable habiliments of 
 mourning and woe and flooded with widows' and orphans’ tears. 
 And to the end of this generation an occasional tear for the un- 
 returning brave will glisten in the eye of bereavement around 
 disconsolate firesides. But the new Republic is worth over the 
 old the priceless sacrifice of blood and sorrow which it cost. 
 While “peace has its victories no less renowned than war,” yet 
 most of the mighty achievements in the onward progress of the 
 race to a better civilization have been wrought by the sword. 
 
 It seems to be a part of the plans of Divine Providence that 
 every marked advance in civilization must begin in mighty con- 
 vulsions. The moral law was first proclaimed in the thunders of 
 Sinai, and the earthly mission of the Saviour of mankind closed 
 with the rending of mountains and the throes of the earthquake. 
 The Goddess of Liberty herself was born in the shock of battle, 
 and amid its carnage has carved out some of our grandest vic- 
 tories, while o’er its crimson fields the race has marched on to 
 higher and nobler destinies. As the lightnings of heaven rend 
 and destroy only to purify and reinvigorate, so freedom's cannon 
 furrows the fields of decaying empires and seeds them anew with 
 human gore, from which springs a more vigorous race to cherish 
 the hopes and guard the rights of mankind. 
 
 The millennium, long promised, when the lion and the lamb 
 will lie down together and a little child shall lead them, will 
 some time come. But not till all governments are based on the 
 consent of the governed and every human being is in the enjoy- 
 ment of liberty protected by law. Then, and not till then, can the 
 sword be beat into plowshares and the spear into pruning hooks. 
 Until that time the ear of humanity will be pained with the roar 
 of hostile cannon and the angels must weep over the martyred 
 brave. 
 
 When the smoke vanished from the last battlefield of the Amer- 
 ican civil war and its armed hosts returned to their homes, lay- 
 ing aside their armor for the implements of the various avocations 
 of peace, there was a universal belief that the Republic had seen 
 its last war. It was not thought then that any circumstances 
 could possibly ever arise for the Government to call its citizens 
 again from their peaceful pursuits to the tented field. But such 
 a summons has gone forth, and the drumbeat and tramp of 
 marching armies are again heard, and the thrilling reports of un- 
 precedented naval victories come floating over the seas. 
 
 This nation is at war with Spain to end her brutal warfare upon 
 women and children and to put a stop to the infliction of her 
 cruel atrocities upon a neighboring people, and because she failed 
 to maintain in the Island of Cuba a government able and willing 
 to protect the lives of American seamen under the flag of their 
 country on a mission of peace to her ports. 
 
 In justice to the memory of the hero martyrs who died under the 
 flag of their country by Spanish treachery, and in behalf of the 
 claims of a common humanity, of a people doomed to extermina- 
 tion by starvation and the sword, this nation demanded that Spain 
 3437 
 
7 
 
 should withdraw her flag and forever abandon her sovereignty 
 over the Island of Cuba. 
 
 For this purpose the President was authorized tointervene with 
 the Army and the Navy of the United States and stop this doubly 
 cruel and barbarous warfare. When that shall have been done 
 the people of Cuba cau then establish for themselves a free and 
 independent government to be recognized by the United States of 
 America as a sister republic. 
 
 In the discharge of this national obligation to humanity and to 
 liberty, as well as the higher obligation and duty of protecting 
 the lives of American seamen, under the flag of their country 
 wherever it floats, this nation has intervened with its great power 
 for the accomplishment of such a purpose. And when it shall 
 have been accomplished, the vindication of the patriot heroes who 
 found a watery grave in the harbor of Havana will be the expul- 
 sion forever of Spanish sovereignty from the American Continent. 
 And these heroes will not then have died in vain. The tablet 
 that will bear their memory through all time can then be in- 
 scribed: 
 
 Whether on the scaffold high 
 Or in the battle’s van, 
 
 The fittest place where man can die 
 Is where he dies for man! 
 
 The objects to be obtained, and the only ones expected when 
 Congress passed the declaration of war against Spain, were con- 
 fined to the Island of Cuba. And the gentleman from Missouri 
 [Mr. Bland] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Richard- 
 son] quoted the declared purpose in that declaration of war to 
 sustain their positions against any acquisition of territory as a 
 result of the war. 
 
 I agree with them that when that declaration of war passed there 
 was no purpose or thought by anybody of acquiring additional 
 territory as a result of this war. Humanity alone controlled 
 in the passage of this declaration. But a nation which appeals 
 to battle for the settlement of any question must be ready to meet 
 any and all responsibilities resulting therefrom, whether foreseen 
 or not. 
 
 The same Congress of the United States which authorized the 
 equipment of 500,000 men to preserve this Union declared by reso- 
 lution that the war was not to be prosecuted for the emancipation 
 of slavery. Yet the first gun fired in that conflict was the death 
 knell of human bondage, and the sun in his course across the con- 
 tinent from ocean to ocean no longer rises on a master or sets on 
 a slave. 
 
 In our national destiny what new pathways may be blazed out 
 by American cannon on land and battle ships on the seas no pro- 
 phetic ken can now foresee. And how and in what way the Amer- 
 ican people ought to discharge the new, unforseen, unexpected 
 responsibilities cast upon them in far-off Asia no human sagacity 
 can now foretell. 
 
 If the intervention of this nation in the affairs of Spain in be- 
 half of humanity and liberty in Cuba shall result, in the provi- 
 dences of God, in the emancipation of ten millions of people in 
 her colonies from her despotic rule, shall the American people 
 shrink from these new responsibilities in behalf of liberty and 
 humanity? Has the rule of Spain in the Philippines been any 
 more humane than in Cuba? Through along history her cruelty 
 in peace and brutality in war have produced at intervals long or 
 3437 
 
8 
 
 6hort the Alvas and the Weylers, counterparts of the Neros and 
 Caligulas of pagan Rome in the zenith of her brutal shows of 
 dying gladiators and women and children torn to pieces by wild 
 beasts in the arena of her Coliseum, a gala-day spectacle for 
 Roman holidays. 
 
 Within a week after the declaration of war against Spain by the 
 Congress of the United States 8,000,000 of people in the Philip- 
 pines that had been subjected for four hundred years to the des- 
 potic, cruel rule of Spain, such as she had exercised over the Island 
 of Cuba, were liberated from their thraldom by a naval victory 
 in battle unparalleled in the world's history, unexpected and un- 
 thought of when the declaration of war against Spain passed. 
 
 Commodore Dewey, with a squadron of the American Navy, 
 cruising in Asiatic waters on the customary mission of his Gov- 
 ernment to friendly nations, suddenly finds himself shut out of 
 the ports and harbors of every nation by the enforcement of the 
 international law of strict neutrality between belligerents. With 
 the Stars and Stripes flying at the masthead of his squadron he 
 enters a harbor of Spain, destroying its land fortifications and 
 sinking a formidable navy moored there for their defense, with- 
 out the loss of a man or a ship, and with slight injury to either. 
 
 Does anyone who believes in the control of an overruling 
 Providence in the affairs of men believe that such a victory was 
 a mere accident? There is a divinity in the destiny of nations as 
 well as in the lives of individuals — 
 
 That shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will. 
 
 In the retributions for organized national wrongs it is fixed in 
 the immutable decrees of that overruling Providence that nations 
 which incorporate into their institutions, their customs, or their 
 laws a barbarism that blunts the sense of justice and chills the 
 humanity of their people will soon or late surely die. It is the 
 great fact stamped on all the crumbling ruins that strew the path- 
 way of empires. 
 
 If we divest ourselves of the egotistical belief so congenial to 
 human nature that the generation of the present is wiser than any 
 that will succeed it, w r e can then safely intrust the settlement of 
 all public questions to the considerate judgment of the generation 
 that may be called upon to settle them, in full confidence that it 
 will be done quite as wisely and as well as it would be if done by 
 ourselves. Let the present generation with bold and manly hearts 
 meet its own responsibilities to liberty and humanity, and settle 
 them in its own best judgment in view of surrounding circum- 
 stances. without reference to supposed conjectural conditions in 
 the future. 
 
 Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! 
 
 Let the dead past bury Its dead! 
 
 Act. act in the living present! 
 
 Heart within, and God o’erhead! 
 
 The starry banner of our fathers, baptized in patriot blood in 
 the first and second war of American independence, and re- 
 christened in the mighty conflict of arms in this generation will 
 henceforth, over whatever portion of the earth's surface it may 
 float, be the emblem of liberty, justice, and the inalienable rights 
 of mankind. 
 
 3437 
 
 o 
 
Free Coinage of Silver, 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 In the House of Representatives, 
 
 Thursday, February 13, 1896. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
 having under consideration the bill (H. R. 2904) to maintain and protect the 
 coin redemption fund and to authorize the issue of certificates of indebted- 
 ness to meet temporary deficiencies of revenue — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: Money adds no value to anything without pre- 
 existing labor. Law, within its jurisdiction, fixes the debt-paying 
 value of money by making a legal tender; but real value in money 
 for trade and commerce is no more the creature of law than is 
 value in flocks, herds, and cultivated fields. Law fixes the unit 
 of value, but can not fix or make the value in the unit. That is 
 done by the dealers in the commodities for which money is ex- 
 changed, and it is graded according to the cost of production, the 
 supply and demand of money and the commodities at the time of 
 the exchange. The dealer in the products of labor fixes the value 
 of what shall be received for them. Like the wood-chopper on the 
 banks of the Mississippi River, near the close of the rebellion, when 
 hailed by a steamboat captain, who asked whether his wood was 
 for sale, and he answered, “ Yes.” The captain inquired, “ How 
 much a cord?” “ How do you propose to pay?” “ In Confederate 
 money.” “ Then cord for cord.” [Laughter.] 
 
 If it were possible to pass a law which would be sustained by 
 the courts providing that every 3-year-old steer should pay a debt 
 of $20, that would be the debt-paying value of the steer; but the 
 butcher, if he bought it, would pay only what its meat, when 
 dressed, could be sold for to his customers. Law can compel the 
 creditor to receive from his debtor what the law says shall dis- 
 charge the debt. But law can not compel a dealer in the products 
 of labor in the course of trade to exchange his ownership for any- 
 thing that he does not at the time consider an equivalent of what 
 he parts with. 
 
 When contracting a debt, if the seller knows what he must re- 
 ceive his debt in and does not believe the article worth in real value 
 the commodity he is selling, he adds to the price of his commodity 
 so as to make it even; and the greater his doubt or distrust the 
 greater per cent he adds, until the distrust makes the proposed 
 article of exchange worthless. So every dealer in commodities 
 judges for himself as to the value of articles in actual exchange. 
 But when the value of his commodity is put into a debt, then lie 
 must take in its discharge what the law declares legal tender. 
 
 Legal tender creates no value; it simply declares what shall pay 
 a debt. A thing of no commercial value is not an equivalent of a 
 product of labor, and no legislative enactment can make it such. 
 It may be used as such temporarily, under the stress of some 
 overruling necessity; but if continued any length of time will, 
 2244 1 
 
2 
 
 by the inevitable expansion and contraction that must follow, 
 end in bankruptcy and financial ruin. The question before us is 
 whether it would be wise for this Government alone, without the 
 cooperation of any other nation, to open its mints to the free and 
 unlimited coinage of silver, stamping 371^ grains of pure silver 
 as a dollar. When it is thus stamped with the unit we have fixed 
 bylaw, its debt-paying value is fixed at $1, but its commercial 
 value is not changed. If it were, what would be the use of put- 
 ting the stamp “ One dollar ” on 371]- grains. Why not stamp that 
 amount of silver as $1,000? We could do it just as easily. 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 Many Members. Goon! 
 
 Mr. McCALL of Massachusetts. I ask unanimous consent that 
 the gentleman's time be extended for five minutes. 
 
 There was no objection. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I thank the committee, Mr. Chairman, for its 
 courtesy, and I will proceed as speedily as possible with my illus- 
 tration in reference to the unit value of money. 
 
 For successful business at home and in trade with the nations, 
 debt-paying value and commercial value ought to be the same. 
 And it is essential that a standard or measure of values should be 
 recognized alike by all the dealers in the commodities or real 
 values for which the standard or measure is exchanged. Money 
 is the commodity used to facilitate the exchange of other com- 
 modities and to settle the difference in the values of the commodi- 
 ties. Its chief employment is to pay balances in business. The 
 standard or measure of values should therefore retain the same 
 value when paid out that it had when it was received; otherwise 
 somebody would be the loser by its use. And it should contain 
 the greatest amount of commercial value in the smallest space; 
 for weight and bulk affect the convenience and expense in its use. 
 
 Gold [holding up a twenty-dollar gold piece] represents what the 
 commercial nations of the earth, or the most of them, have adopted 
 as a standard or measure of value. In this gold piece there are 
 twenty units of value by our law; and in this roll of 20 silver dol- 
 lars there are the same number. But the bulk of the silver is over 
 twenty times greater and the weight is sixteen times greater. The 
 value of the twenty units in the silver, if there were no pledge of 
 the Government to keep them on a parity in the markets, would 
 to-day be about one-half of the commercial value of the same units 
 in the gold dollar, while the debt-paying value would be the same 
 in each. If, then, there is to be but one standard of value, the gold 
 would be preferable by reason of its greatly less bulk and weight. 
 If the two standards of gold and silver could be kept equal — that 
 is, interchangeable in purchasing power — then it would be best to 
 have both, for thereby the silver could be added to the volume of 
 circulation. 
 
 If our mints were now opened to the free and unrestricted coin- 
 age of silver at 16 to 1, what would he the result? A merchant in 
 France, Germany, or England owing our citizens $1,000,000 could 
 bring silver and have it coined here; and if the commercial value 
 of silver, 371J grains, in his country were 50 cents, he could have 
 what cost him $500,000 stamped at our mint $1,000,000, with 
 which he could pay his debts. But an American merchant owing 
 in either of these countries could not do the same thing by taking 
 American silver dollars there. His $1,000,000 in standard Ameri- 
 can silver dollars would pay his creditors there only $500,000. 
 
 [Here the hammer fell. ] 
 
 2244 
 
 O 
 
ORIGIN OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE 
 ON THE STATE OF THE UNION, AND ITS 
 USES IN LEGISLATION. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 DECEMBER 14, 1898. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 1898. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GEOW. 
 
 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 
 
 Mr. DINGLEY. Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Grow] may make a state- 
 ment that will be of value and interest to the House, as I know it 
 will, respecting the origin and functions of the Committee of the 
 Whole on the state of the Union. He desires to occupy five or 
 ten minutes, and I ask that he he allowed to do so. 
 
 The SPEAKER. Is there objection? 
 
 There was no objection. 
 
 Mr. GROW. Mr. Speaker, at the last session of Congress, in a 
 debate that sprung up during quite a little excitement over the 
 question as to the right of members to debate. I stated, in answer 
 to some queries, my recollection as to the origin of the Committee 
 of the Whole House on the state of the Union, and its uses, and 
 why such a committee existed in the American Congress. The 
 first great rule of parliamentary bodies everywhere is that debate 
 must be confined to the subject under consideration. 
 
 In the old Congress under the Articles of Confederation and 
 Perpetual Union the title of all its acts was “The States in com- 
 mittee assembled.” That was the beginning of legislation by the 
 colonies after their first union. In that committee of the States 
 assembled resolutions were adopted stating what they thought 
 advisable to be done, and these resolutions were submitted to the 
 separate colonies to be acted upon. The Congress of the Confed- 
 eration could only recommend. 
 
 The Convention that framed our present Constitution passed a 
 resolution at the beginning of its sessions “That the House re- 
 solve itself into a Committee of the Whole House to consider the 
 state of the Union.” The wording of this resolution would be 
 most appropriate for use in naming the committee when rules 
 came to be adopted for legislation in Congress. One of the rules 
 adopted on the report of a committee of which Madison was a 
 member, in the First Congress, in 1789, even before the inaugura- 
 tion of the President, was: 
 
 It shall be a standing order of the day through the session for the House to 
 resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union. 
 
 The original formula for the report of the Chairman of this com- 
 mittee, and which. I think, continued unbroken until quite re- 
 cently, was: “ The Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
 the Union have had under consideration, according to order, the 
 Union generally, and particularly a bill ” (stating its number and 
 title), “and have come to no resolution thereon,” or “have adopted 
 sundry amendments,” as the case might be. The reason for the adop- 
 tion of the word resolution in this formula was that the original 
 3608 3 
 
4 
 
 reports of this committee were all in resolutions, as embodying, 
 after full consideration, the sense of the committee as to wliat 
 ought to be done on the subject referred to. 
 
 Mr. Madison, in the First Congress, on his resolution in the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, declar- 
 ing that certain duties ought to he levied on imported merchan- 
 dise, which was the basis of the first tariff passed by Congress, 
 said, in reference to discussions in that committee, that — 
 
 We must consider the general interest of the Union, for it is as much every 
 gentleman’s duty to consider as is the local or State interest. 
 
 After our present Constitution was adopted the same idea was 
 carried into the proceedings of Congress under the name of the 
 Congress of the United States of America, and among the first 
 rules adopted under the new Constitution was one that the House 
 should resolve itself each day into the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union. And if you will look at the 
 Annais of Congress you will find the chairman of that commit- 
 tee very often reporting, as there was nothing before the com- 
 mittee specifically, that the Committee of the Whole House on the 
 state of the Union have had. according to order, the Union gen- 
 erally under consideration and have come to no resolution thereon 
 Hence comes this word “resolution” in the report from that com- 
 mittee now. 
 
 Each day the House was obliged to go into the Committee of the 
 Whole House on the state of the Union, and in that committee 
 any member offered a resolution stating what he thought ought 
 to he done. That resolution was discussed and amended. The 
 first tariff act, as I have just said, was passed in that way. Mr. 
 Madison offered a resolution that duties ought to be levied on 
 imported merchandise, and after discussion and amendment it was 
 reported to the House. 
 
 The House could amend these resolutions as it pleased after they 
 were reported from the committee, and then a committee was 
 specially appointed to bring in bills, if necessary, which bills were 
 referred to the Committee of the Whole House: and in the Commit- 
 tee of the Whole the legislation was perfected. But the Committee 
 of the Whole House on the state of the Union was simply to pre- 
 pare business and give every member an opportunity to express 
 his views upon all things relating to the Government of the Union 
 and its people; and therefore all propositions for legislation began 
 with this committee, differing probably from any legislative body 
 in the world. 
 
 For there is no government to-day on the face of the earth that 
 has the American system of independent States, with three coor- 
 dinate departments with almost full legislative powers over their 
 respective territorial limits, and those States in their relation to a 
 general government over all like ours; so there was a necessity for 
 the Government of the Union to have some place for legislating for 
 them all, where everything that related to their general welfare 
 could be considered. It seemed to be a settled point in forming the 
 more perfect Union that a Committee of the Whole House on the 
 state of the Union was the proper place for determining in free 
 discussion principles or policies before they were sent elsewhere 
 to be embodied in bills or resolutions under strict rules of debate 
 for final enactment into law. 
 
 Hence, the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the 
 Union was a necessary and natural growth out of the old Corn- 
 3608 
 
5 
 
 mittee of the States Assembled under the Confederation. The title 
 of the old acts und- r the Articles of Confederation was: "We, the 
 United States, in committee assembled/’ Then, from it, under 
 the new Constitution, was adopted the title which we now use: 
 “ Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
 United States of America in Congress assembled.” 
 
 The first messages by the Presidents were speeches, not written 
 messages in the form in which we now receive them. A time 
 was fixed when the President would appear in the Senate Cham- 
 ber and deliver his speech, in imitation of the practice of the 
 British Government of a speech from the throne at the opening of 
 Parliament. The two Houses assembled ,n the Senate Chamber, 
 the speech was delivered: and the first speech of George Wash- 
 ington was delivered on the 30th of April. 1789. On the 1st day of 
 May the Speaker laid before the House ‘ ‘ a copy of the speech de- 
 livered by the President yesterday in the Senate Chamber.” 
 
 That speech was referred to the Committee of the Whole House, 
 because all that was necessary was to prepare an address in reply 
 to it, and the Committee of the Whole was the place for perfecting 
 all acts of the House. The Committee of the Whole on the state 
 of the Union was where they initiated legislation, everyone amend- 
 ing and changing and talking and discussing and giving his views. 
 Whatever resolution the Committee of the Whole House on the 
 state of the Union reported, a committee, if one was necessary, 
 was ordered in the House to prepare bills to carry out the object 
 of the resolution, and these bills, when reported by the committee, 
 were then referred to the Committee of the Whole, and there every 
 member must speak to the subject under consideration. 
 
 No place was left in the early rules any more than now in which 
 general debate was allowed except in this Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union. The first speech of the President, 
 therefore, was referred to the Committee of the Whole, and a com- 
 mittee was appointed before the House went into that committee to 
 prepare an address in reply to the speech of the President. Madison 
 was at the head of it. When that committee had prepared their 
 address and reported it to the House, the House referred it to the 
 Committee of the Whole, and after perfecting it reported it back, 
 and the House could then amend if they chose to, but if not, then 
 it stood as the address in reply to the President's speech delivered 
 in the Senate Chamber. 
 
 Under the old parliamentary law of our ancestors, the Speaker 
 of Parliament delivered the address in reply to the speech from 
 the Throne, but it was the speech of the House — it was the speech 
 of Parliament. So our fathers adopted this old custom: and while 
 the Speaker had nothing to do with preparing the address, he 
 must deliver it. The House accompanied him to the Executive 
 at a time fixed to suit his convenience, and the Speaker delivered 
 the address of the House of Representatives, in reply to the speech 
 of the President, to both Houses assembled in the Senate Chamber. 
 In Parliament the Speaker delivered the address of the House of 
 Commons in reply to the address from the Throne. And the 
 reason why the only member of Parliament that did not speak at 
 all was called the Speaker was because he must deliver the reply 
 of the House of Commons to the address from the Throne. 
 
 Following the practice of the British Parliament in the organ- 
 ization of the American Congress, its presiding officer was called 
 Speaker because he was to speak the speech of the House in reply 
 3608 
 
6 
 
 to the speech of the President, accompanied by the House of Rep- 
 resentatives and which had been previously prepared by the House 
 in one of its special committees. That continued until 1801, when 
 Mr. Jefferson sent a note with his first annual message, referring 
 to the inconvenience of this method of the Executive communicat- 
 ing with Congress, and suggested that it be by written message, 
 which he sent to Congress. That note accompanying his message 
 and the message itself were referred to the Committee of the 
 Whole House on the state of the Union. That was the last action 
 taken upon it by the House. 
 
 And the formula has continued — the President communicates 
 to the House a message in writing. From that time all the 
 messages of the Presidents have been referred to the Committee 
 of the Whole House on the state of the Union; and as it would 
 he the first thing done by Congress it would stand at the head 
 of the Calendar, and would he good reason, and consistent with 
 all parliamentary law that any member might discuss in Com- 
 mittee of the Whole House on the state of the Union any sub- 
 ject, because the President’s message related to any subject that 
 any member would probably desire to talk about. But whether 
 he did or not. the committee itself was the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union, and in it anything pertaining to 
 the people of any of the States, or the relation of any State to the 
 General Government, or this Government to any other, was a 
 proper subject of debate and would be in order in that committee. 
 
 But the President's message was a double reason. That prac- 
 tice has continued down to the present time; and if I understand 
 aright, with the exception of one Congress, it has been referred to 
 the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union; and 
 in that Congress occurred the innovation of having it referred to 
 the Committee on Ways and Means. Then the Committee on 
 Ways and Means reported with resolutions of distribution, and 
 had it referred, and it passed away from the Committee of the 
 Whole House on the state of the Union. But that would not 
 change the object of the origin of this committee; and members 
 should understand fully that there is a place under the rules of 
 the House that allows just as unlimited debate as that which 
 exists in the Senate. Gentlemen think they are confined and 
 cramped here. They have in this committee the same unlimited 
 debate, except as to the time of each speaker. 
 
 There never was any rule limiting the time of debate of mem- 
 bers in the House until about 1840, 1 think, or thereabouts. Later, 
 the five-minute rule was adopted. The rule was the same as now, 
 that after general debate closed in Committee of the Whole House 
 on the state of the Union upon any question, the five minutes' dis- 
 cussion could be had upon any amendment, and no bill could be 
 reported from the Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
 the Union so long as a member had an amendment he proposed to 
 offer. 
 
 But under the old practice (and the rule is not changed) he 
 offered an amendment and was allowed five minutes to advocate 
 it, and one speech of five minutes in opposition was allowed, and 
 then it was the duty of the Chair to put the question on that 
 amendment. Then you could not move to strike out the last word 
 and talk on anything else, which is an innovation that prevents 
 the perfecting of legislation. The five-minute rule, if enforced, 
 would make sure that every bill should be read through in the 
 3608 
 
7 
 
 Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, and so 
 long as anybody proposed an amendment it could not be reported 
 to the House; if the majority of the committee was opposed to the 
 bill it could strike out the enacting clause; and if the committee 
 did that, and the House did not agree in it, under the old practice 
 the bill immediately went back to the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union. 
 
 So if this rule, which is the same as it always has been, were 
 strictly enforced and lived up to, there could no bill pass the House 
 any more than it does the Senate without being read through from 
 the beginning and any and every member having an opportunity to 
 offer his amendment if he desired to. In Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union the old formula in reporting 
 from that committee was: ••The committee has had, according to 
 order, the Union generally under consideration and particularly ” 
 a bill (naming the number and title). I think the old formula 
 should be continued — it means something— instead of reporting 
 the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union has 
 had under consideration a particular bill, omitting “have under 
 consideration the Union generally,'’ which is the highest object of 
 the committee, the old formula required it to be stated every time 
 the report was made by the Chairman of the Committee of the 
 Whole House on the state of the Union. 
 
 In the last session, it will be remembered, we had little asperi- 
 ties sometimes when gentlemen were addressing themselves to 
 subjects not before the House, and the rule was attempted to be 
 enforced strictly, and requiring them to confine their remarks to 
 the subject before the House, which is a rule that has always 
 been and always must be enforced if the House is to proceed 
 orderly and discharge the business in the House expeditiously. 
 
 That could not be done if there was unrestricted debate in the 
 House. The subject before the House must be considered. The 
 Senate, in its unlimited debate, almost, has generally the subject 
 before the Senate that the Senator speaks on, or any Senator can 
 call him to order as not speaking on the subject; and if in no other 
 way, he offers a resolution on the subject he wishes to speak on, 
 which brings him under the old parliamentary law. In the House, 
 when in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the 
 Union, we have the same unrestricted debate, with the exception 
 of the limit of time to one hour. No resolution need be offered. 
 General debate can proceed on any question unlimited except as 
 to the time limit on the individual. 
 
 So no injustice by the rules is done to any member. If the rule 
 were strictly enforced in the House that all debate must be con- 
 fined to the subject before the House and in committee, after gen- 
 eral debate is closed, all discussion under the five- minute rule must 
 be confined strictly to the amendment offered, there could be only 
 one speech for and one speech against, and then the vote must be 
 taken before allowing another amendment to be offered. Every 
 member would have full opportunity to offer any amendment to 
 any bill and have it voted upon. 
 
 But under our practice, with the five-minute discussion, it 
 amounts to nothing in perfecting legislation. Gentlemen take 
 that occasion to talk upon all subjects, move to strike out the last 
 word and speak on anything else. Under the old rule the Chair- 
 man would hold him to show the reason why the last word should 
 be stricken out, and he could not talk upon anything else. If we 
 3608 
 
8 
 
 had that rule enforced to-day, every bill would have to be read 
 through by clauses and every member would have the right to 
 speak five minutes on any amendment he might offer. 
 
 In every other case, except in the Committee of the Whole 
 House on the state of the Union, the debate should be confined 
 strictly to the subject under consideration in order to hasten and 
 facilitate legislation, and the Committee of the Whole House on the 
 state of the Union is the place for general discussion. All ques- 
 tions that members desire, either for their local community or for 
 the greater community, the people of the United States, is there 
 open and free to discussion by any member. In that committee 
 all of the discussions of fifty years on the question of slavery in 
 this country, its relation to the State, to the Union, -whether an 
 economic institution or not, all the grave questions affecting the 
 States and their relation to the Union, and the question of the dis- 
 position of the public lands, took place. 
 
 That was the onty place you could be heard on these grave 
 questions in most cases, for in most cases there would be nothing 
 pertaining to the question that would allow general discussion. 
 Day after day the first motion after reading the Journal was to 
 go into Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, 
 with the understanding by everybody that it was for general 
 debate— general talk on anything that a member desired to talk 
 on, and the first man that obtained the floor was entitled to be 
 heard. 
 
 Sir, it was only in that way that the little baud of free-soilers in 
 early days could be beard. There was no favoritism given to 
 their views: extreme abolitionists in the North could be heard on 
 this floor; all the powers that controlled it then did not favor 
 their opinion. The free-soil element of the great North would 
 have been silent unless the rule prevailed somewhere that they 
 could be heard on their views upon this great institution that 
 affected more vitaly the welfare of the Republic than any insti- 
 tution that ever existed on American soil or ever wil 1 exist. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, I had no idea of making any speech on bygone 
 questions. It was simply in compliance with the request of many 
 members of the House, after that little discussion at the last ses- 
 sion, that I promised that I would avail myself of some opportu- 
 nity to explain more fully the reason why this general debate ex- 
 isted in one committee of the House and did not exist anywhere 
 else. I did not see any good opportunity to trespass upon the time 
 of the House in the last session, and I would not now only there 
 seems to be a little lull in the business, nothing requiring imme- 
 diate action. I thank the House for its attention and courtesy. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 3608 
 
 O 
 
If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. 
 
 — General Dix, Secretary of the Treasury, 1861. 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 JANUARY 27, 1899. 
 
 WASHINGTON, 
 
 1899 . 
 
REMARKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
 having under consideration the bill (H. R. 11032) for the_reorganization of the 
 Army of the United States, and for other purposes — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: When Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated Presi- 
 dent, the area of territory of the United States of America was less 
 than 900.000 square miles. The population, by the census of 1800, 
 was a little over five millions, scattered along the Atlantic seaboard, 
 hemmed in by the ocean in front, the wilderness and the savage 
 in the rear. 
 
 In 1S50 the territorial area of the United States was a little over 
 3,000,000 square miles and its population 23,000,000. When the 
 declaration of war against Spain passed Congress, the territorial 
 area of the United States was 3.600,000 square miles, and the popu- 
 lation was about 75.000,000. In our past history the population 
 has doubled in numbers every thirty years. This vast acquisition 
 of territory began in 1803, not by the expectation or solicitation, in 
 the first place, of the American people. The acquisition of Louisi- 
 ana came to us not because of our solicitation. Jefferson in 
 structed our ministers to France and Spain to procure, if possible, 
 a landing place at what is now New Orleans for goods for reship- 
 ment without the payment of duty, and the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi River. They were authorized to pay for these privi- 
 leges §2,000,000. if they could not be procured for a less sum. But 
 Napoleon, as if marking out for us the manifest destiny of the 
 great Republic, instructed his secretary of treasury to cede to the 
 United States all the territory received from Spain from the mouth 
 of the river to its source, including both banks, for a fixed com- 
 pensation. 
 
 Our commissioners, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe, were sur- 
 prised at this proposition, but as it was in the days of sailing ves- 
 sels, with no means of communicating with their Government at 
 home in reasonable time, they agreed if France should make 
 this cession of territory — double that of the old original thirteen 
 States — we should pay France $15,000,000. This country has never 
 yet taken a foot of soil as a conquest of war alone. All of its acquisi- 
 tions have been made on the payment of money. Even when our 
 flag floated over the halls of the Montezumas, we paid Mexico 
 $15,000,000 for the territory acquired at the close of that war. 
 With the exception of the Floridas, Alaska, and the Gadsden pur- 
 chase, all the acquisitions of territory to the United States have 
 come, as I said before, unexpected and unsolicited on our part in 
 the first place. 
 
 With the declaration of war with Spain our Army and Navy 
 went forth to conquer the power of Spain in the island of Cuba 
 because it was our neighbor, and in behalf of liberty and human- 
 3685 3 
 
4 
 
 ity. They went forth in a great crusade tor the rights of a com- 
 mon humanity. But within a week ten millions of the colonists 
 of Spain, in far-off Asia, were placed under the American flag, 
 and that people relieved from the cruel despotism of Spain that 
 they and their fathers had groaned under for three centuries. 
 
 To-day our flag rightfully floats over an island in the Atlantic 
 Ocean, a thousand miles from our eastern shore. In the same 
 manner it floats over a larger island in the Pacific, in far-off Asia, 
 10,000 miles away. The last rays of parting day scarcely fades 
 from the hillsides of Porto Rico before the morning sun gilds the 
 spires of Manila and the mountain tops of Luzon. What disposi- 
 tion shall be made as to the people in this vast expanse of terri- 
 tory over which our flag floats to-day rests with the American 
 Congress. 
 
 What kind of government shall be established will depend on 
 the calm, deliberate judgment of Congress on that question when 
 the treaty of peace with Spain is ratified. Under that treaty it is 
 agreed that Spain shall withdraw her sovereignty from the Philip- 
 pine Islands and we send her soldiers home. On the 10th of De- 
 cember, 1898, the time of the agreement on a treaty of peace, one 
 volume of the world’s history was closed and a new one opened. 
 In the last chapter of that closed volume is recorded that the sov- 
 ereignty and the flag of Spain have been withdrawn forever from 
 the American continent, a flag that at one time floated over a 
 larger portion of the American hemisphere than that of any other 
 one nation. 
 
 What shall be recorded in the new volume on American history 
 depends upon the action of the American people; and when the 
 treaty is ratified the duty and responsibility of Congress will not 
 be how they can shirk the duties and responsibilities thrown upon 
 them by the fortunes of war. It will then become a question of 
 how can the American people best discharge their responsibility 
 to liberty and the common rights of humanity; for it was for that 
 the sword was unsheathed and Spain was required to withdraw 
 her sovereignty from this continent. Any nation in this age of 
 Christian civilization that appeals to war to settle any question 
 must be willing and ought to be ready to discharge all its respon- 
 sibilities to liberty and humanity cast upon it by the fortunes of 
 war, whether foreseen or not. 
 
 Now, it seems to be agreed on all sides that there shall be an in- 
 crease in the Regular Army, whether it be a few thousand more 
 or less is of little consequence. The flag of our country wherever 
 it is rightfully planted can not be removed with honor to the Ameri- 
 can people by any power except that which planted it, and so long 
 as patriotism dwells in the American heart and it is loyal to the 
 glorious traditions of a heroic ancestry, over whatever portion of 
 the earth's surface it may rightfully float it will never be lowered 
 except by the same power that raised it. [Applause. ] 
 
 We have to determine what is to be done with these new acquisi- 
 tions of territory, what government shall be established, and to de- 
 termine these questions in view of the rights and happiness of the 
 American people and the rights and happiness of the people that 
 dwell in the new acquisitions. Whatever disposition shall be 
 made and what kind of government is to be established, the 
 same rule applies to the Philippines that applies to Porto Rico. 
 The flag was planted in both by the power of the American na- 
 tion, and must stay where it was thus planted until the American 
 nation withdraws it. [Loud applause on the Republican side.] 
 3685 
 
 O 
 
EULOGY ON JUSTIN S. MORRILL. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 FEBRUARY 22, 1899. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 I899. 
 
EULOGY ON JUSTIN S. MORRILL. 
 
 Mr. GROW. Mr. Speaker, in December, 1855, Justin S. Mor- 
 rill took his seat in the old Hall, a Representative in Congress 
 from the State of Vermont. The two great political party divi- 
 sions of the American people were then Whig and Democratic. 
 Mr. Morrill took his seat on the Whig side of the House. For 
 four years preceding I had occupied a seat on the Democratic 
 side. ' But during the eight weeks’ contest for the election of 
 Speaker, we both voted for Nathaniel P. Banks. From that time 
 to his death we were coworkers in the Republican party, with a 
 personal friendship devoted and sincere and never in the least 
 degree impaired. 
 
 I come now to lay an offering of affectionate sorrow upon his 
 new-made grave, with a sadness such as falls upon the heart when 
 a lifelong friend whispers that last earthly farewell as the spir- 
 it's frail bark puts off into the unknown dark, but with an abid- 
 ing consciousness and unwavering faith that we shall meet again. 
 For the world's Redeemer, in His teachings on the seashore and 
 along the hillsides of Judea, bade the desponding of earth's pil- 
 grims take courage, for the grave is not the end of man. 
 
 Mr. Morrill’s life was cotemporaneous with that of all the 
 Presidents except Washington. The death of both Jefferson and 
 John Adams, the first after that of the “ Father of his Country.” 
 was on the 4th day of July, 1826. At that time Mr. Morrill was 
 16 years old, just entering upon the threshold of young manhood. 
 
 Our history since the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 can 
 be divided into three important epochs or periods of about one- 
 third of a century each, marking the formation and distinctive 
 action of political parties, into which the American people have 
 been divided during this hundred years. Each of these periods or 
 epochs had its distinctive political agitation on grave questions 
 of national welfare. The first of these periods ended in 1824 with 
 four Presidential candidates and with the disintegration of the old 
 political parties, known as Federal and Republican, and the for- 
 mation of new ones, which finally took shape under the party 
 name of Whig and Democratic, continuing thus until the repeal 
 of the Missouri compromise in 1854. Since that time the two con- 
 trolling political party divisions have been known as Republican 
 and Democratic. 
 
 In each of these epochs or periods the country was engaged in 
 war. In the first, from 1812 to 1816, was the second war of Ameri- 
 can independence with the ‘-proud mistress of the seas,” resulting 
 in the establishment forever of the inviolability of American citi- 
 zenship by any foreign power. In the second period was the war 
 with Mexico, resulting in a vast expansion of our territorial area, 
 reaching from ocean to ocean. In the last of these three periods 
 is the war with Spain, which marks a new era in the history of 
 the nations. 
 
 In each of these periods or epochs, in addition to its war, great 
 political questions have agitated the nublic mind on the hustings 
 3795 3 
 
4 
 
 ancl in the forum, all of which have been comparatively settled 
 except those in this last epoch, now just ended. 
 
 In the first was the question of the fundamental principles of 
 the more perfect Union formed by our fathers, represented on 
 one side by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, on the other 
 by John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. In 
 the second was the financial policy to be finally established in the 
 Government and the constitutional limits of legislation between 
 the government of the Union and that of the States. In the 
 third, more intense and excitable than all others, was the ques- 
 tion of the constitutional limits and restrictions on the expan- 
 sion of slave-labor institutions, which finally culminated in the 
 mightiest conflict of arms in the history of the race, ending with 
 an indivisible Union and a country without a slave. 
 
 Mr. Morrill's life began in the first of these three epochs or . 
 periods of national existence and ended with the third. His serv- 
 ice in both the House and the Senate was a little over forty-three 
 years, exceeding by six years that of any other person in continu- 
 ous service. In the last two it can be said of him what Hlneas 
 said of himself in describing to Queen Dido the trials and the great 
 deeds at the siege and fall of Troy, “quorum pars magna fui”— 
 of which I was no insignificant part. In the legislation and the 
 events of our country’s history in these last two epochs of over 
 fifty years Mr. Morrill has been a conspicuous figure. By his 
 untiring industry and unselfish devotion to the best interests of 
 his country he impressed himself upon this great historic period 
 and has linked his name inseparably to most of its useful and en- 
 during legislation. 
 
 His private worth, his amiable traits of character, and his pub- 
 lic services have been specifically so faithfully portrayed that no 
 additional words of mine are needed. Whoever by heroic or great 
 beneficent acts stamps his character upon the pillars of the age 
 in which he lives can never die. Though wrapped in the shroud, 
 he will live in the affections of the present and the gratitude of 
 coming time. 
 
 It can be truly said of Mr. Morrill, what is the highest possi- 
 ble praise that can be bestowed on individual statesmanship, “He 
 never gave to party what belonged to his country. ” 
 
 The battle of our life is brief — 
 
 The alarm, the struggle, the relief — 
 
 Then sleep we side by side. 
 
 But in that brief battle man is permitted by a kind Providence 
 to perform deeds of greatness— deeds that live long after the mar- 
 ble crumbles and the brass fades. 
 
 The State of Vermont, with fitting and well-becoming pride, 
 can engrave the name of Justin S. Morrill on the mountain 
 sides of its polished marble and enduring granite, in her long list 
 of distinguished citizens who, by their eminent services to their 
 country, have made their names immortal. 
 
 3795 
 
 O 
 
THE TWENTY MILLIONS TO BE PAID TO SPAIN UNDER THE TREATY 
 NOT PURCHASE MONEY FOR THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 MARCH 1, 1899. 
 
 washimgton, 
 
 1899. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GALUSHA A. GROW. 
 
 The House having under consideration the hill (H. R. 12203) making ap- 
 propriations to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the fiscal year 
 ending June 30, 1899, and for prior years, and for other purposes — 
 
 Mr. GROW said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: It has been alleged, and the idea exists in the 
 pnblic mind, that the §20,000,000 which was to he paid to Spain 
 under the treaty was purchase money for the Philippine Islands. 
 I have taken a little pains and some trouble to get together the 
 facts in consecutive order by dates relative to the negotiations 
 pending between the American and Spanish commissioners, from 
 the beginning to the close of their negotiations, which will show 
 that this §20,000.000 was not paid for the Philippine Islands at all, 
 but it was paid in closing the negotiations that began in a discus- 
 sion as to how much of the debt of Cuba, amounting to some 
 §500,000,000. should be assumed by the United States or by the 
 island of Cuba when it should form a government of its own. 
 
 At the time of offering the §20,000,000 by the American com- 
 missioners not an article of the treaty had been agreed to. The 
 various propositions had been discussed and assented to condition- 
 ally, dependent on a final agreement as to the whole treaty. The 
 negotiations had reached a point at the time of this offer where 
 there was serious doubt whether any treaty would be signed by 
 both commissions. That this was the case i quote the following 
 from a speech of Senator Gray, one of the American commis- 
 sioners. made by him in New York at the banquet of the Ohio 
 society February 25, 1S99: 
 
 There came a time iu the course of those negotiations — and this, perhaps, 
 is one of the secrets to which your president alluded — when, after four or 
 five weeks of doubt and anxiety, it became apparent that these negotiations 
 must either be broken off and your commissioners return without a 
 treaty at all. and that we would be 'relegated to the necessity of taking not 
 only the Philippines, but Cuba and Porto Rico, by the ruthless hand of mili- 
 tary conquest, or, by some concessions that comported with the magnanim- 
 ity and greatness and character of this country, gain them by the voluntary 
 cession of a treaty of peace. * 
 
 It was at such a time the offer was made as a final settlement of 
 all the questions in dispute. 
 
 The payment of §20.000,000 to Spain provided for in the treaty 
 was not, therefore, purchase money for the Philippine Islands. A 
 careful examination of the negotiation on the several articles of 
 the treaty shows conclusively that the §20,000.000 was finally 
 agreed on to cover all the points of difference between the Amer- 
 ican and Spanish commissioners on all the articles of the treaty, 
 none of which was finally concluded until the adoption of the last 
 article. 
 
 The most strenuous contention of the Spanish commissioners 
 from first to last was the liability of the United States for the pay- 
 ment of the debts of Cuba and Porto Rico. The withdrawal of 
 3777 3 
 
4 
 
 Spanish sovereignty over Cuba, the cession of Poito Rico and the 
 Spanish islands in the West Indies, and the cession of the island 
 of Guam in the Ladrones, and the withdrawal of Spanish sov- 
 ereignty from the Philippines, all these questions were left un- 
 determined until the final agreement on the payment of the 
 $ 20 , 000 , 000 . 
 
 I call the attention of the House especially to the facts in the 
 negotiations on the several articles of the treaty, which I will pre- 
 sent from the official record of the negotiation published in Senate 
 Document No. 62, part 1, of the third session of the Fifty-fifth 
 Congress [the italics in all the extracts are my own] : 
 
 The protocol signed August 12. 1898, was the basis of the treaty 
 of peace. Article III of the protocol was the only one over which 
 there was any considerable discussion as to its specific meaning. 
 Its wording is— 
 
 The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila 
 pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace; which shall determine the control , 
 disposition , and government of the Philippines. 
 
 October 1, 1898. The peace commissioners met at Paris. The 
 subject of the first conference was the status quo in the Philip- 
 pines. This question was passed over with the right to bring up 
 the subject hereafter. Without consuming time in remarks of 
 my own, I will ask consent to extend them after the House has 
 heard read certain extracts from the discussions on the proposi- 
 tions that were finally agreed upon between the American and 
 Spanish commissioners, which will be more interesting to the 
 House and give members more information, which I am anxious 
 they should have, than any remarks that I can make. 
 
 From October 7 to October 26 the commission was engaged in 
 discussions on the debt of Cuba, amounting to about $500,000,000, 
 and the cession by Spain of her sovereignty over the island; and 
 the cession of Porto Rico and the Spanish islands in the West 
 Indies, which ended temporarily with the following language; 
 
 The American commissioners deem it unnecessary, after what has been 
 stated, to enter into an examination of the general references, made in the 
 Spanish memorandum, to cases in which debts contracted by a state have, 
 upon its absorption, been assumed by the absorbing state, or to cases in 
 which, upon the partition of territory, debts contracted by the whole have 
 been by special arrangement apportioned. They are conceived to be inappli- 
 cable, legally and morally, to the so-called “Cuban debt,” the burden of 
 which, imposed upon the people of Cuba without their consent and by force 
 of arms, was one of the principal wrongs for the termination of which the 
 struggles for Cuban independence were undertaken. (Executive Document 
 No. b2, part 1, page 50.) 
 
 At the conference October 14, 1898, the following suggestion was 
 made by the Spanish commissioners and agreed to by the Ameri- 
 can commission: 
 
 The Spanish commissioners stated that before proceeding with the discus- 
 sion of the questions under consideration they desired it to be understood 
 that if certain articles should be agreed to, but in the end no treaty should be 
 signed, the articles so agreed to should not in such case be taken as expressing 
 either Government's estimation of its just rights in respect of the subjects to 
 which the articles related. (Senate Executive Document, No. b2, part 1, 
 page 45. ) 
 
 October 14, 1898 (Senate Executive Document No. 62, part 1, 
 page 59) : 
 
 After much discussion, the president of the Spanish commission stated 
 that the Spanish commissioners did not care for the phraseology in which 
 the relinquishment of sovereignty was expressed, so long as it embraced an 
 obligation as to debts, such as was stated in the second of the articles pre- 
 sented by them. 
 
 3777 
 
5 
 
 The president of the American commission, replying to this statement, 
 inquired whether the president of the Spanish commission intended thereby 
 to say that the Spanish commissioners would refuse to consider any articles 
 as to Cuba and Porto Rico which contained no provision for the assumption 
 of indebtedness by the United States or Cuba, or both. 
 
 October 26, 1898 (Senate Executive Document No. 62, part 1, 
 pages 61 and 62) : 
 
 The Spanish commissioners, although understanding that strict law de- 
 cides the question of the Cuban debt in their favor, are in duty bound and 
 are willing to moderate the said strictness in view of the advantages which 
 Spain may derive from other stipulations of the treaty which, without being 
 prejudicial to the United States, may be favorable to Spain. 
 
 Considering, therefore, that the article or articles to which the president of 
 the American commission refers can not at this time be the subject of final 
 approval, since they must remain subject to the others to be included in the 
 same treaty, meeting the approval of both high parties: 
 
 “The Spanish commissioners answer the said question by stating that, re- 
 iterating their conviction that pursuant to law the colonial obligations of 
 Cuba and Porto Rico must follow these islands and their sovereignty, they 
 do not refuse ‘ to consider any articles as to Cuba and Porto Rico which con- 
 tain no provision for the assumption of indebtedness by the United States, 
 or Cuba, or both,’ subordinating the final approval of such articles to that of 
 the others which are to form the complete treaty, and they therefore invite 
 the American commissioners to enter upon the discussion of the other points 
 to be embodied in the treaty and. at the outset, to take up the discussion of 
 the Philippine Archipelago, and to propose to the Spanish commissioners 
 what they understand should be agreed upon in said treaty with respect to 
 this subject.” 
 
 The American commissioners, after the reading of this paper, inquired 
 whether they were to understand that the Spanish commissioners accepted 
 the articles previously presented by them as to Cuba, Porto Rico, and Guam. 
 
 The Spanish commissioners replied that they accepted them in the sense 
 stated in the paper— provisionally, subject to the conclusion of a treaty of 
 peace. 
 
 October 31, 1898 (Senate Executive Document No. 62. part 1, 
 pages 108, 109): 
 
 The American commissioners, having been invited by the Spanish com- 
 missioners at the last conference to present a proposition in regard to the 
 Philippine Islands, beg to submit the following article on that subject: 
 
 "Spain hereby cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the 
 Philippine Islands and lying within the following line: A line running along 
 the parallel of latitude 21° 30' north from the one hundred and eighteenth to the 
 one hundred and twenty -seventh degree meridian of longitude east of Green- 
 wich, thence along the one hundred and twenty-seventh degree meridian 
 of longitude east of Greenwich to the parallel of 4° 45' north latitude, thence 
 along the parallel of 4° 45' north latitude to its intersection with the meridian 
 of longitude 119° 35' east of Greenwich, thence along the meridian of longi- 
 tude 119° 35' east of Greenwich to the parallel of latitude 7° 40' north, thence 
 along the parallel of latitude of 7° 40' north to its intersection with the 116th 
 degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, thence by a direct line to 
 the intersection of the tenth degree parallel of north latitude with the one 
 hundred and eighteenth degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, and 
 thence along the one hundred and eighteenth degree meridian of longitude 
 east of Greenwich to the parallel of latitude 21° 30' north." 
 
 A proper reference to the cession thus proposed may be inserted in the 
 article of the treaty relating to public property, archives, and records in ter- 
 ritory which Spain cedes or over which she relinquishes her sovereignty. 
 
 The American commissioners beg further to state that they are prepared 
 to insert in the treaty a stipulation for the assumption by the United States 
 of any existing indebtedness of Spain incurred for public works and improve- 
 ments of a pacific character in the Philippines. 
 
 November 4. 1898. Proposition of the American Commission to 
 assume the indebtedness of the Philippine Islands was rejected by 
 the Spanish commission. 
 
 November 23, 1898 (Senate Executive Document No. 62, part 1, 
 pages 210. 211). The following is the reply of the American com- 
 missioners on the rejection of their proposition: 
 
 The situation that has arisen in the Philippines was neither foreseen nor 
 desired by the United States, but, since it exists, that Government does not 
 shirk the responsibilities growing out of it; and the American commissioners 
 3777 
 
6 
 
 now make to the Spanish commissioners, in the light of those responsibilities, 
 a final proposition. 
 
 The proposal presented by the American commissioners in behalf of their 
 Government for the cession of the Philippines to the United States having 
 been rejected by the Spanish commissioners, and the counter proposal of the 
 latter for the withdrawal of the American forces from the islands and the 
 payment of an indemnity by the United States to Spain having been rejected 
 by the American commissioners, the American commissioners, deeming it 
 essential that the present negotiations, which have already been greatly 
 protracted, should be brought to an early and definite conclusion, beg now 
 to present a new proposition embodying the concessions which for the sake 
 of immediate peace their Government is under the circumstances willing to 
 tender. 
 
 The Government of the United States is unable to modify the proposal 
 heretofore made for the cession of the entire archipelago of the Philippines , 
 but the American commissioners are authorized to offer to Spain, in case 
 the cession should be agreed to, the sum of $20,000,000, to be paid in accord- 
 ance with the terms to be fixed in the treaty of peace. 
 
 And it being the policy of the United States to maintain in the Philippines 
 an open door to the world's commerce, the American commissioners are pre- 
 pared to insert in the treaty now in contemplation a stipulation to the effect 
 that, for a term of years, Spanish ships and merchandise shall be admitted 
 into the ports of the Philippine Islands on the same terms as American ships 
 and merchandise. 
 
 The American commissioners are also authorized and prepared to insert 
 in the treaty, in connection with the cessions of territory by Spain to the 
 United States, a provision for the mutual relinquishment of all claims for in- 
 demnity, national and individual, of every kind, of the United States against 
 Spain and of Spain against the United States that may have arisen since the 
 beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba and prior to the conclusion of a 
 treaty of peace. 
 
 The American commissioners may be permitted to express the hope that 
 they may receive from the Spanish commissioners, on or before Monday the 
 28th of the present month, a definite and final acceptance of the proposals 
 herein made as to the Philippine Islands, and also of the demands as to Cuba, 
 Porto Rico, and other Spanish islands in the West Indies, and Guam, in the 
 form in which those demands have been provisionally agreed. to. 
 
 November 28, 1898, the Spanish commissioners reply to the ulti- 
 matum of the American commissioners in the following language 
 (Senate Executive Document No. 62, part 1, page 213): 
 
 Spain having on her part exhausted all diplomatic recourses in the defense 
 of what she considers her rights and even for an equitable compromise, the 
 Spanish commissioners are now asked to accept the American proposition in 
 its entirety and without further discussion, or to reject it, in which latter 
 case, as the American commission understands, the peace negotiations will 
 end. and the protocol of Washington will consequently be broken. 
 
 The Government of Her Majesty, moved by lofty reasons of patriotism 
 and humanity, will not assume the responsibility of again bringing upon 
 Spain all the horrors of war. In order to avoid them it resigns itself to the 
 painful strait of submitting to the law of the victor, however harsh it may 
 be, and as Spain lacks the material means to defend the rights she believes 
 are hers, having recorded them, she accepts the only terms the United States 
 offers her for the concluding of the treaty of peace. 
 
 The stipulation in the treaty as finally adopted relative to the 
 inhabitants of the islands acquired is in the following language, 
 Article IX of the treaty: 
 
 The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the terri- 
 tories hereby- ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, it will be seen by these extracts from the official 
 records of the discussions on propositions to be incorporated as 
 articles in the treaty of peace that all of them were left in abey- 
 ance until the treaty should be finally agreed on: and the final 
 conclusion of the treaty was the proposition on the part of the 
 American commissioners to pay Spain $20,000,000, which should 
 cover all the controversy from beginning to end about the cession 
 of territory or the debts of Cuba, Porto Rico, or the Philippine 
 Islands. 
 
 Then the different articles that have been passed over were 
 agreed to, and the last one was that “ The civil rights and polit- 
 3777 
 
7 
 
 cal status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded 
 to the United States shall be determined by the Congress." What 
 their civil and political condition shall be is to be determined by 
 the Congress of the United States. The territory is already an- 
 nexed. 
 
 W e hear a great deal about forcible annexation of the Philip- 
 pines. They are a part of American territory to day, whether 
 Spain ratifies the treaty or not. Supposing she does not, which 
 she is quite likely not to do, in accordance with her whole history 
 in reference to recognizing the independence of the South Amer- 
 ican Republics, she can refuse, and say to the world, “The 
 United States in its great power robbed Spain of all her colonies, 
 and we have no power nor means to prevent it." The territory 
 that the United States has already taken would still be American 
 territory, and the only question would be whether we have to pay 
 Spain the §20.000.000. 
 
 The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has 
 expired. 
 
 3777 
 
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