ment. I leave that in the hands of the Senate. If the Senate think it advisable now to stop that appropriation and to destroy that little office I shall interpose no serious objection. I do not think it advisable to make the change at this moment. I would not recommend it myself until there was a systematic effort to establish a statistical bureau in the Treasury Department to which this might be transferred. But this may be abandoned without any serious detriment to the public business. The State Department will not suffer. Therefore, I shall say no more about it.

But when we come to the two other offices, the examiner of claims and the Second Assistant Secretary of State, there I have to say that the proposed change cannot be made without serious detriment to the public service. The Senator from New York [Mr. CONKLING] seems to have a very inadequate idea of the services rendered by the examiner of claims. Since his remarks yesterday I have made further inquiry with regard to those services, and all the testimony that I can obtain is that they are of great importance to the public interests. Indeed, I doubt if the business at the State Department, or much of it in which our fellow citizens are interested, could move easily and smoothly without some such office as that. That office was created after a discussion running over two or three years, in which many Senators took part. I did not myself vote for it, or come into its support in any way, except after the most careful inquiry. I satisfied my self two years before that office was created that it ought to be created; that there was need of such an office in the Department of State. Finally it was created; and now I understand the Senator from New York to ask for evidence of the importance or of the necessity of that office? What evidence would he have? He has the testimony of the Committee on Foreign Relations, charged with the special consideration of this question. I believe they were unanimous originally in the recommendation made two or three years ago, and they are now unanimous in thinking it expedient that the office should be preserved. What more would the Senator have? If I might venture my own personal testimony I do not know that it would be any reënforcement to that of the committee, and yet circumstances have given me some opportunities of knowing the course of business there and the important duties discharged by this officer. I consider him essential to the business of the Department.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Tell us a little of the details of what he does. I do not understand it. Mr. SUMNER. Since the war and during the war there was a large number of claims against our Government much beyond what had ever been at any time before, so large in number, so extensive in amount, so important to the claimants that they required very great attention.

Mr. HOWE. Where did they come from? Mr. SUMNER. From every source, North, East, West, and South, growing out of the war, growing out of the action of British cruisers, growing out of the enforcement of the rights of war, claims upon our Government, claims of our own citizens directly on our Government, other claims of our citizens on foreign Gov

ernments.

Mr. HOWE. By what law does the State Department take jurisdiction of those claims on our Government?

Mr. SUMNER. They are claims that arise under the office of the Department of State. However, those are very small; I merely allude to them. The great body of our claims grow out of our relations with foreign Powers.

Mr. HOWE. I wish the Senator would explain a little of the nature of those claims, and how the Department gets jurisdiction of them to adjust them.

Mr. SUMNER. I am not aware that the State Department has undertaken to adjust

them.

Mr. HOWE, Then what are the duties of this officer?

Mr. SUMNER. To make reports to the Secretary of State on all these claims as they are presented from time to time, day by day, and then they are presented to Congress. There are two or three bills that I have reported from the Committee on Foreign Relations within a short time founded on these very inquiries; one growing out of a claim under the mixed commission of the United States and Peru that sat two years ago; another, a claim of a colored person in the island of Nassau, who rendered important assistance to one of our cruisers through which a prize was captured of some seventy thousand dollars in value. That was presented to the State Department.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Then there are the claims also to carry out the decrees of the United States courts.

Mr. SUMNER. Then there were another class of claims to which the Senator from Maine calls attention, with regard to which there are two or three bills now on the Calendar, in order to carry out decrees of the Supreme Court of the United States, the district court at New York, and the district court at New Orleans. Mr. HOWE. They are sent here.

Mr. SUMNER. Not at all. They are sent to the Department of State, and by the Secretary of State they are referred to the examiner of claims, who makes a report on the facts that the Secretary may be able to judge what he shall do with regard to them. It is to this officer that complicated papers of all kinds and inquiries are referred by the Secretary. Take these very questions of naturalization; take the case of Father McMahon and the case of John Lynch: I find that going through the papers that all the papers relating to those two cases went through the hands of this examiner of claims, who made an abstract of the papers and a report upon them.

Mr. HOWE. Who is he?

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. E. Peshine Smith, of New York. I believe the services are of great value. I think the business of the Department would halt without such a person there.

But the Senator from New York told us that this gentleman was about to leave. Of that he has, I am inclined to think, exclusive information. At any rate, I have never heard of it before; and on inquiry this morning of the person who ought to be best informed I found that he had no such information. But whether he is about to leave or not is a matter of indifference. The office should be preserved. If he leaves, then I trust we shall find some person who will be a proper suc

cessor.

And this brings me to the other case, of the Second Assistant Secretary of State. I need hardly add anything to what was said yesterday so well by different Senators. It is within the knowledge of all that this office was created for Mr. Hunter, believing that it would furnish a field for the exercise of his talents and of his peculiar experience, and also that he deserved this promotion. It surely was not a very large promotion for one who had at that time given nearly forty years of his life to the public service; but it would be very hard at this time to deprive him of this rather small promotion, where I am sure he is rendering efficient service to the country.

The Senator from Maine [Mr. FESSENDEN] reminded me yesterday that in other countries there were usually two Assistant Secretaries of State, or Assistant Secretaries of Foreign Affairs. This is particularly the case in England. One of those goes out with the administration; the other remains to continue, if I may so express myself, the traditions of the office. He is not regarded as a political character, and he holds under all administrations one after the other. I think that in the conduct of our public affairs there is some reason why such an officer should exist among us. I think he may be useful; and I hope now we may set an example of that stability in the Department of State that will make this office permanent; so that amid all the vicissitudes of politics this Second Assistant Secretary may remain un

disturbed. The First Assistant Secretary would naturally give up his office with the administration. He is always supposed to be in pecufiar personal and political relations with the Secretary of State, and of course he would share the fortunes of that functionary. But it need not be so with the Second Assistant Secretary; and, indeed, I think for the public interests it should not be so.

If I add to these remarks something of what I said yesterday, that in all other departments of the Government, though there may not be by name two assistant secretaries, there are officers who in the service they render are practically assistant secretaries of the department, I shall complete, I think, the argument for retaining this office.

Mr. HOWE. If this amendment moved by the Senator from Massachusetts could be so modified as to save so much of the section which the amendment of the committee proposes to repeal as provides for a Second Assistant Secretary of State, and would still rid us of the employment of this clerk of claims, I should apply to my chief, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for leave to support the amendment.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I have drawn up an amendment for that purpose, and if the Senator will allow me I will offer the amendment. Mr. HOWE. Certainly, if it is in order. Mr. HENDRICKS. I offer the following amendment—

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. There are two amendments pending now.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I propose to amend the matter proposed to be stricken out, and it is in order to perfect it before it is stricken

out.

Mr. HOWARD. Let it be read, that we may see what it is.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It will be read for information.

The Chief Clerk read the proposed amendment of Mr. HENDRICKS, which was to insert after the word "that," in line three hundred and fifty-seven, the words "so much of," and after the word "purposes," in line three hundred and sixty-two, to insert the words authorizes the appointment of an examiner of claims for the Department of State;" so that the latter portion of the proviso would read:

**as

And also that so much of the second section of the act of July 25, 1866, entitled "An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic expenses of the Government for the year ending 30th June, 1867, and for other purposes," as authorizes the appointment of an examiner of claims for the Department of State, be, and the same are hereby, repealed.

Mr. HENDRICKS. If the Senator will allow me, I will explain the effect of that proposition.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Wisconsin give way for an explanation?

Mr. HOWE. Yes, sir; but I think I understand it.

Mr. HENDRICKS. The same section provides for the Second Assistant Secretary of State that provides for this examiner. My amendment proposes to strike out so much of that section as authorizes the appointment of that examiner of claims. I have not any thought that that office is of any consequence at all to the public service, and therefore I wish to strike it out.

Nor do I believe in the doctrine of the Senator from Massachusetts, that there are any such dark places in the Departments as that a man of ability cannot master their duties in a very short time. I believe anybody with force of character, intelligence, and education can go into that Department and understand all about it in a reasonable time. I do not believe in the idea that all the wisdom of the age and all the efficiency of the public service are going to pass away with Mr. Hunter. But, sir, Congress, after careful and full debate a year or two ago, decided upon this office for the express purpose of making provision for him; and I know no reason now for reversing that action.

We decided then to provide this office for him. That was a thing decided, and I am in favor of letting it stand decided.

Mr. SUMNER. Allow me to suggest that Congress at the same time, in the 'same section, gave the same decision with regard to the examiner of claims, and after a most careful inquiry. The Senator says he does not believe the office is necessary. If that Senator would tell me that he had taken the trouble to inquire into the business of the Department, and on inquiry had satisfied himself that this office was not necessary, I should be willing to accept his judgment; but he will pardon me if I say that I do not think that on this question the divination of the Senator can be set against the knowledge and testimony of others who have made themselves acquainted with it.

Mr. HENDRICKS. This much I do know, that when there is a Bureau of Statistics in one Department we do not need another. All this information ought to go there.

Mr. SUMNER. I say nothing about the Bureau of Statistics. The question now is as to the examiner of claims. You observe, under this amendment of the committee, there are three different offices that are touched; one is the clerkship of statistics, then there is the examiner of claims, then the Second Assistant Secretary of State. I say nothing about. the clerkship of statistics, because if the Senate choose to sacrifice that I say it can be done without detriment to the public service; but I do not think that you can sacrifice either of the other offices without mischief.

Mr. HENDRICKS. The Senator has called in question my knowledge of the labors of this gentleman. I will ask the Senator from Massachusetts whether he has made any report of his labors, whether it has been communicated to Congress, and whether, indeed, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations himself knows anything about them? Of course I have not gone into his office and sat beside his desk. I do not know personally by observation what he has done. I will ask the Senator whether he has made that sort of observation, or whether there is any public report of his labors which enables us to know anything about them?

Mr. SUMNER. I answer frankly and fully to the Senator that I have, to the best of my ability, made that inquiry. My inquiry and observation have extended now over two or three years.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I will ask the Senator what the labors have resulted in?

Mr. SUMNER. They have resulted in facilitating immensely the business of the State Department.

Mr. HENDRICKS. That is very general. What have they done?

Mr. SUMNER. We will take the claims on England for spoliations on our commerce. Those have all been presented to the State Department.

Mr. HENDRICKS. The old French spoliation claims?

Mr. SUMNER. Oh, no; the English, the Alabama claims, the Shenandoah claims, the Stonewall claims, growing out of depredations on our commerce during the rebellion. Those claims, as the Senator is aware, are multitudinous. Their name is legion. They have been presented, on the invitation of the Department of State, to that Department. It has been the duty of this examiner to arrange them and put them in condition for action. They have been made the basis, as the Senator is aware, of an extensive correspondence with the British Government, part of which has been communicated to Congress, and some of it is still uncommunicated. That is one very considerable item of his duties; and beyond that, as I am informed, whenever an inquiry occurs which does not properly belong to one of the clerks of the Department, out of the ordinary run, it is committed to this examiner of claims; and, as I have already said, I have had occasion, within twenty-four hours, to read his report on the evidence in the case of Father McMahon,

and also of John Lynch, who were proceeded against in Canada.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I was not aware that those cases fell under the description of claims. Mr. SUMNER. The Senator is aware that I said that inquiries which did not properly belong to any clerk were, by the Secretary of State, handed to him. But then I do not wish to be carried into any wrangle on this subject; I am only here in the discharge of my duty. I have stated my information.

Mr. HENDRICKS. The Senator carried me into a wrangle by saying I knew nothing about it, and I wanted to see what the Senator knew.

Mr. CONKLING. I did not say he was. The Senator, in answer to my honorable friend from Indiana, adduced the Alabama case, which everybody conceived to be the complicated case, if there was any truth in this idea that we needed such an officer, because it is the conspicuous instance of claims of a charactes falling within the purview of the State Department. The Senator, therefore, instanced that case as showing the overmastering importance of this officer, with prolonging whose life he has been charged, he says, by his committee. Now, then, the inquiry being put as to what has been done in that one case, it turns out, as far as the Senator has gone, that a very able man has been reviewing and abstracting the correspondence; has been doing that whatever it may be

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator is entirely mistaken in supposing that that belonged to the duties of the examiner of claims. The exam

to consider the claims as presented by American citizens to the Department of State. Mr. Bemis, as I have always understood, devoted himself to perusing the correspondence that had passed between the Department of State and Mr. Adams relating to the great principles involved in those claims.

Mr. CONKLING. I ask the Senator from Indiana to let me interpose, if there is any danger of a wrangle. Will the Senator from Massachusetts be kind enough to enlighten me upon this point? Under the examination of the Senator from Indiana, who, he says, does not know anything about this, he has cited oneiner of claims, as I understand his duties, was case in which the examiner of claims has been a useful man-the case of the Alabama claims. Without professing to know anything|| about it, and appealing to the fountain of light on this subject, I ask the Senator from Massachusetts to state anything that the examiner of claims has done in that case, except to superintend the copying of the correspondence. I ask him also whether it is not true that an accomplished lawyer from his own city has been here for long periods of time to deal with, and has dealt with, those Alabama claims, and dealt with them exclusively, so far as professional treatment is concerned. If what I say be true, then I wish to submit to the Senator, as well as a man who does not know anything about this is permitted to do, that he does not make any case by that item of evidence showing the utility, even in the past while war claims were accumulating, of continuing this officer.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator inquires with regard to an eminent lawyer from Boston, who, on my invitation, came to Washington, and at his own charge volunteered his services to the State Department, not, as the Senator from New York imagines, to go over the claims of American citizens on Great Britain-not at all; he has not looked at one of them, to the best of my knowledge, but to review the correspondence between the two Governments relating to the great principles of international law involved in that inquiry.

Mr. CONKLING. I will inquire of the Senator whether Mr. Bemis did not make the brief, and the only brief I have heard of, that ever has been made, representing the position of our Government upon those claims?

Mr. SUMNER. I am not aware that Mr. Bemis has made any brief upon the subject. I hear it now for the first time, though my intimacy with him is great.

Mr. CONKLING.

It is possible I characterize it in the wrong way. Has anybody ever made, to the Senator's knowledge, any statement upon paper, any codification, any exhibition upon paper, whatever the proper term may be, representing the position of this country upon those claims as the State Department view it, except Mr. Bemis?

Mr. SUMNER. I am not aware that Mr. Bemis has done it. I hear it for the first time, though my relations with him were almost daily while he was here in Washington.

Mr. CONKLING. Shall we understand, then, from the Senator that Mr. Bemis confined himself to perusing this correspondence?

Mr. SUMNER Mr. Benis perused the correspondence and made his own abstract of it.

Mr. CONKLING. "Abstract!" That is a word with which I was not familiar. [Laughter.] That is the word I ought to have employed.

Mr. SUMNER, The Senator and myself do not understand each other. I am not aware that Mr. Bemis has performed there any function that belonged to the examiner of claims; that he was in any respect an examiner of claims.

Mr. CONKLING. Am I wrong, then, in supposing that the Senator from Massachusetts cited the Alabama claims as the instance in which this officer had been so valuable?

Mr. SUMNER. I cited that as one instance. I hope my friend will pardon me. I do not care about prolonging the discussion.

Mr. CONKLING. In answer to that, to trespass one moment further upon the courtesy of my friend from Indiana, I beg to say this: I have heard the Senator from Massachusetts repeat a great many times that the Committee on Appropriations had acted in the dark, taken a step in the dark; and then I have heard him repeat as often expressions indicative of the painful labor, the procrastinating and attenuated attention which he had bestowed upon subjects of this sort, and the methodical, the conclusive, the infallible manner in which he had reached the opinion which he expressed. Now, he says he does not wish to be drawn into anything of this sort with me, and awhile ago he said that he did not wish to wrangle with the Senator from Indiana. With him we all know it is very hard to wrangle, because it takes two to wrangle, and he is usually not one of the two who do that business. But I submit to the Senate, with great respect, that it will hardly do, for any man to rise here and, ex cathedra, express opinions of this sort, and put down the report of a committee, and then decline to state what the facts are that he has picked up in the long process through which he has gone.

I believe, after hearing the honorable Senator, that this office in the State Department, looking to the future, is wholly useless; and Í believe the Senator would be utterly unable, on the stand as a witness, or in his place as a Senator, to respond to intelligent questions in such a way as to show, within his own knowledge, any reason whatever for retaining this officer. He has cited one instance, that of the Alabama claims, which, as I understand it, is a most striking illustration of the want of auy utility in this officer in question. And now, when I press it a little, without meaning any disrespect to him, ofcourse, he declines because he does not wish to be drawn into a wrangle with one Senator, nor into the answering of unncecessary questions of another.

My understanding is that Mr. Bemis is the man to whom was committed the perusal, the codification of this correspondence, the man to whom was committed the solution of those questions upon which the claims of all the claimants depended; and it is to that I was calling the attention of the Senate and of the Senator. certainly do not wish to pursue the subject if he does not; but I beg to say to him that he will find more willing hearers than I am if he finds Senators who will take in the lump these

I

with the business that was pressing upon him from the very great number of those claims that must come before him for examination, I aided in passing that law in order to give him the assistance that I thought and still think he needs.

That statement, coming from him, is not to be answered by the fact that any member of the Committee on Foreign Relations in this body is not prepared to go through and undergo & cross-examination upon exactly what all this business is. I do not know, nor do I pretend to know, nor is it necessary that I should know in order to come to a right understanding of the question on that statement from the officer at the head of that Department. That necessity pressing upon him is as great now as it has been, and the only question, as it strikes me, which is pending before the Senate is simply this: shall we deprive him of this assistance which any one can see who is at all familiar with the workings of the Department may be necessary to him, and which he avers is absolutely necessary in order to enable him to discharge the duties of that Department and to meet the requisitions upon him from our fellow citizens which he must necessarily be called upon to meet? My opinion is, as I said before, that this officer is necessary, and I am unwilling to have him dispensed with.

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, the Senator from Maine has referred to the testimony of the Secretary of State some time ago at the creation of this office. I am able to communicate his testimony this morning. In the course of business I saw him before the meeting of the Senate; and when allusion was made to the proposition to abolish the office of the examiner of claims he expressed himself very strongly against it, saying he regarded that office as essential to the business of the Department. He did not see how the business could be conducted to the satisfaction of the community without that office. Now, that is his testimony.

Senators have undertaken to cross-examine me on the subject; they have asked me to give a bill of particulars of all that this officer has done. I am not able to do it. I give my opin ion on what I know. I have known the opinion of the Secretary of State, and of other persons in the Department now, for several years on this subject. Then, being at the Department in the transaction of official business, I have had occasion to see this officer myself. Then, from my connection with the Committee on Foreign Relations, I have necessarily had a great deal of correspondence with the Department of State; hardly a day passes that I do not receive communications of some kind from the Department covering papers and reports of different kinds. It is in those communications that I have had occasion to see the active talent and industry of this officer. I have seen it year by year and month by month. Now, that is my testimony. It may not satisfy my cross-examiners, the Senator from New York or the Senator from Wisconsin, and I freely say, in reply to them, that I cannot furnish the details. I never have busied myself to inquire into them. Enough if I satisfied myself that the office was important to the public interests. Personally I can have no interest in this. My acquaintance with this officer is very slight; since he has been here I have had nothing but official relations with him; but I am obliged to say that in my opinion he has rendered essential service to our country, and that his office ought not to be abolished.

The Senator from Wisconsin made an analysis of the different kinds of claims that might be presented to our Government. I do not object to his analysis; but take, for instance, the claims of foreign Powers on the United States; there is a very extensive class; and when they are presented it can hardly be expected that the Secretary of State himself will make the first examination of perhaps the complicated papers attending those claims. He necessarily puts that into the hands of another person, who goes over them and makes 40TH CONG. 2D SESS.No. 213.

his abstract, and prepares the way for the final examination by the Secretary himself. And so when our own fellow-citizens present their claims to the Department of State, asking the Department to transmit them to England or to France, or towherever else the claimant may appeal; the Secretary of State is not able himself to go over these claims and all the proofs accompanying them. In the first place, he must commit that duty to another person who performs what in the profession might be called the duty of the attorney, who prepares the case for the final action of the Secretary himself.

I believe in all this matter there is no mys. tification, nor is there any exaggeration. It is all plain as human duty, and I believe it grows out of the necessities of the public service. I hope, therefore, that both these officers will be allowed to remain, the examiner of claims and the Second Assistant Secretary of State.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The ques tion is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts to the amendment.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I supposed the question was on the amendment proposed by the Senator from Indiana.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. That is not in order. The amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts is an amendment to an amendment.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. But is it not in order to perfect the words proposed to be stricken out?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It is in order to perfect the bill, but this is part of an amendment merely.

Mr. CONKLING.

Mr. President, as it seems we are about to vote upon the whole of the amendment proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts, I wish to make one suggestion. The strength of the case against the amendment of the Committee on Appropriations is the advice of the Committee on Foreign Relations; and now before making a statement, I wish to read to the Senate what the Senator from Massachusetts said yesterday. amendment of the committee being read, which amendment proposed to put an end to three officers, the second under-secretary, the examiner of claims, and the superintendent of statistics, the honorable Senator from Massachusetts made this statement:

The

"I was about to say that I was instructed by the Committee on Foreign Relations to oppose the adoption of this amendment, and to move instead thereof an appropriation for the officers whose offices it is proposed by this amendment to destroy. This amendment is aimed at certain officers in the Department of State."

And the Senator then proceeded to argue the importance of all three of these persons and the impropriety and danger of putting an end to the offices of all three alike. Now, Mr. President, that we may see in one instance the extent of that critical process by which the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations supervises and overrules the Committee on Appropriations, I wish to make this statement: I was visited this morning by a person who knows better than the Senator from Massachusetts can know what is done in the Bureau of Statistics in the State Department, as it is called, and from him I learn that if this amend ment of the committee is adopted, so far as the superintendent of statistics is concerned it puts an end to the tenure of a man who has had for a long period of time nothing in the world to do with the business of statistics in the State Department, who has simply received his salary, not professing to render any service in return. I am informed, further, that the adoption of this amendment, sweeping away that place, will leave the actual preparation and compilation of statistics in precisely the same hands in which it is now-the hands of an unthanked clerk of the Department, detailed by the Secretary of State to do that business, a man who receives nothing specifically for doing it, but who takes his compensation as a clerk, asking nothing more, and for that com- li

pensation does all the service for which we have been paying. And yet the honorable Senator from Massachusetts (as I said yesterday, the great orb of the State Department, who rises periodically in his effulgence and sends his rays down the steep places here to cast a good many dollars into the sea) rises and says that he is unanimously instructed by the Committee on Foreign Relations, in substance, to inform the Senate that they are approaching the edge of a precipice, and that they are to do great harm if they abolish this office, because he grouped them all together and made one equal in his indispensability with the other two.

Mr. SUMNER. Will the Senator allow me to correct him there?

Mr. CONKLING. Certainly, as I am always honored to be corrected by the Senator.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator is very much mistaken. I made a distinction between the offices, and my motion is to strike out of the amendment of the committee that part which proposes to abolish the offices of examiner of claims and of Second Assistant Secretary of State, leaving the amendment of the committee, so far as it touches the statistical clerkship, unaffected. And in the course of my remarks, if the Senator will do me the honor to look at them, he will find that I made that distinction ; and I began my remarks this morning by say ing that I had nothing to say with regard to the statistical clerkship; I should leave that in the hands of the Senate. I made my ques tion with regard to the two other officers whose existence in the Department I thought important to the public interests.

Mr. CONKLING. The proposition of the Senator to leave one of these offices in the hands of the Senate implies that the Senate is not to be permitted to pass upon the other two. It reminds me of a meeting somewhat famous which took place in a certain office in State street, Albany, where a certain man in New York, after making up the entire State ticket on the Democrat side, came down to the State prison inspector and had some difficulty about it in his own mind; he could not solve it to his own satisfaction, and so finally he said, "It is of no consequence; we will leave that to the convention; let them nominate a State prison inspector." [Laughter.] The Senator from Massachusetts proposes to make final disposition of all this matter except with regard to this one officer, and that he will leave to the Senate! I rather think, Mr. President, that before we have finished, all this will be left to the Senate by some hook or crook, and upon that theory I will continue to make an observation or two.

I repeat now that the Senator stated, as I read yesterday, that he was instructed; let me give his language:

"I was instructed by the Committee on Foreign Relations to oppose the adoption of this amendment, and to move instead thereof an appropriation for the officers whose offices it is proposed by this amendment to destroy."

Does not that mean the superintendent of statistics as much as it means anybody else?. The Senator may have had some mental reservation about it. I am aware that he did go on afterward to argue and to propose to take the question upon the latter part of the amend ment first. I know that he said this morning that in his judgment this officer, the superintendent of statistics, ought not to be abolished, that he thought it was not wise or safe to do it, but he intimated that he had not so much feeling about that as he had about the other two. But I was commenting upon his statement made yesterday, that his committee backed him in saying to the Senate that this amendment of the Appropriation Committee ought not to be adopted, but that appropriations ought to be made for the officers, to wit, three in number, whom it was proposed to strike out. It is to that I am calling attention, and there the record bears me out.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I beg leave to say that that is precisely what the committee did agree to do.

Mr. CONKLING. Certainly. I had no

doubt about it. The Senator from Maine shows now that I am right in quoting the Senator from Massachusetts, and that the Senator from Massachusetts was right in quoting the authority of his committee. I had no doubt about it. Under these circumstances, having sat a number of times, as I have said, as the humblest member of the Committee on Appropriations, under the somewhat caustic animadversions of the Senator from Massachusetts, implying that we are in outer darkness on all these subjects, and that if knowledge is not confined to him it certainly is confined to somebody who does not belong to the Appropriation Committee, I have taken the trouble to repeat the statement which was made to me this morning on undoubted authority, that this work is done in the State Department by an unthanked clerk, designated, perhaps, by a wave of the hand of the Secretary of State to perform this duty, and repealing the existing faw as regards the superintendent of statistics will leave that same clerk performing the same duty, and make no change except that a man six hundred miles away, having for two or three years drawn the salary of this place, will cease to draw it.

Now, Mr. President, I have only to say that in my belief the Committee on Foreign Relations, when they gave this instruction, were not permitted by the chairman of the committee to enjoy the benefit of all the information which he says he has on this subject. On the contrary, that committee, after proper tuition by its chairman, after being educated as far as it is capable of being educated in the mys teries of the State Department by him, would never, I apprehend, have instructed him to come here and caution the Senate against the false and almost fatal step that it was likely to take in abolishing, among other things, the office of the superintendent of statistics in the State Department, and as we are compelled now to vote upon his amendment as it stands together I trust that it will be voted down, and that the Senator from Indiana will have an opportunity to propose his amendment, and allow Mr. Hunter to stand upon his own footing, because I am very free to say, in harmony with my honorable friend from Wisconsin, that of these three places the Second Assistant Secretary, under all the circumstances, seems to me the one to retain, if indeed we are to retain either.

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, the Senator from New York has a passion for misunderstanding me at least; and he has a manner of expressing it imported from the other end of the Capitol to which we have been less accustomed, I believe in this Chamber, than others have been in the House of Representatives. I am sorry. I wish it were otherwise. I have tried to make a frank statement. I have no personal interest; I am seeking nothing but the public interest. I do not doubt that the Senator from New York is also seeking the public interest; I make no suggestion to the contrary, though I do not see that the public interest requires the peculiar line of argument and cross-examination and the manner which the Senator has chosen to adopt; but that is for him to choose, and not for me.

The Senate will bear me witness that from the beginning of this discussion I made a plain distinction between these different offices. I said that I had little to say for the clerkship of statistics beyond this; that I thought when the change was made it should be transferred to a general bureau of statistics wherever that might be, whether in the Treasury Department or in any other Department of the Government, or whether such bureau should be elevated into a department. My criticism on the present proposition was that it abolished the office in the State Department without transferring its duties anywhere else. That is all. I did not even know the present incumbent, and I made no inquiry with regard to him, for in this whole matter I acted, if I may so express myself, impersonally. I had no in

dividual in view whose interests I wished to promote.

Now, I ask the Senate if I have been treated candidly by the Senator from New York? In the face of my open statement, that with regard to this statistical clerkship I was comparatively indifferent, that I did not think the public interests would suffer if it were abolished, that therefore I made no plea for its preservation, but that I willingly left it to the Senate, was it candid for the Senator to make the comments upon me that he did? I propound the question and leave it.

And that brings me again to the two ather officers with regard to which I made a clear distinction. I regarded then both of them as performing duties important to the public service. Now, it seems to me generally admitted all around the Chamber that with regard to one of them I was right. Even the Senator from New York does not ask to have the Second Assistant Secretary of State sacrificed; but he says, hand over the examiner of claims, let him be sacrificed; and the argument, if I understand his last speech, is that the Senator from Massachusetts insisted that the statistical clerkship should be preserved, and because, according to his representation, I so insisted, in his opinion, and on good grounds, as exhibited by him, the statistical clerkship ought not to be preserved, therefore these others should not be! I do not understand that logic. I do not understand the logic of taking up a case to which I did not refer, on which I did not build, with regard to which, in the discussion to-day, I have made no pretension whatever. I do not understand the logic of taking that case, which may not be sustained by reason or by fact, and arguing from that against the other.

Admit that the statistical clerkship should be abandoned, does it follow that you must abandon the other two offices? Clearly not. I have from the beginning made a difference between the cases; though, as I said when I opened my remarks yesterday-and little did I think then that the discussion was to run on in this way for so long a time-I was instructed by the Committee on Foreign Relations to oppose the whole amendment relating to the three different officers. But then the committee took into view the different grounds-the position in each case. They saw that the statistical clerkship might be dispensed with without great detriment to the public service, but they thought that when it was dispensed with its duties ought to be transferred to some bureau of statistics, and that the measure as now proposed was on that account incomplete; therefore they instructed me to oppose the abolition of that office under the present amendment. Had any substitute been brought forward to transfer the duties of that office to the Bureau of Statistics, that would have presented entirely a different question.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts to the amendment of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. SUMNER called for the yeas and nays; and they were ordered.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I do not want to take time; but I think the only way I can reach the result I wish to reach is to vote in favor of the motion of the Senator from Massachusetts, to strike out the whole clause, and then I shall vote afterward to retain only the Second Assistant Secretary. If I vote against his amendment and to retain the clause reported by the committee I do not perceive how I can afterward divide it.

Mr. CONKLING. Then the amendment of the Senator from Indiana reaches it.

Mr. EDMUNDS. No; I do not think that

will be in order.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I would inquire whether, if this proposition of the Senator from Massachusetts should be rejected, the proposition of the Senator from Indiana, to modify the amendment reported by the committee, would be in order?

The PRESIDENT protempore. That would be in order.

Mr. SUMNER. It would then be open to amendment.

Mr. RAMSEY. I desire to know how I am to vote. I wish to retain Mr. Hunter in office.

I think him a most valuable officer. 1 care nothing about the other two clerks. How shall I vote?

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. If the proposition of the Senator from Massachusetts is voted down, and the proposition of the Senator from Indiana prevails afterward, the Senator from Minnesota will reach the end he seeks to accomplish.

Mr. EDMUNDS. That is not so certain.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts to the amendment of the committee.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 22, nays 14; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Bayard, Cattell, Cragin, Dixon, Doolittle, Drake, Edmunds, Fessenden, Frelinghuysen, Henderson, Howard, Johnson, McCreery, Morgan, Morrill of Vermont, Patterson of New Hampshire, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Sprague, Sumner, Willey, and Yates-22.

NAYS-Messrs. Chandler, Cole, Conkling. Ferry, Howe, Morrill of Maine, Nye, Ramsey, Rice, Sherman, Stewart, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson-14,

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cameron, Conness, Corbett, Davis, Fowler, Grimes. Harlan, Hendricks, McDonald, Morton, Norton, Pomeroy, Saulsbury, Thayer, Tipton, Van Winkle, Vickers, and Williams-20.

So the amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the amendment as amended.

The amendment, as amended, was agreed to. Mr. SUMNER. Now, with the permission of the Senator from Maine, [Mr. MORRILL,] [ will simply move to make the proper appropri ation in that clause for these two officers.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Let us go through with the amendments of the Committee on Appropriations. This clause may be changed in the Senate; I shall propose further amendments which may change the character of the bill in that respect.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Clerk will proceed with the reading of the bill.

The reading of the bill was continued, the amendments reported by the Committee on Appropriations being acted on in their order as reached in the reading of the bill.

The next amendment of the Committee on Appropriations was in line three hundred aud eighty-nine, to strike out "five" and insert eleven," so as to appropriate for eleven clerks of class four in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury.

6.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and ninety-one, to strike out "eleven" and insert twelve," so as to appropriate for twelve clerks of class three in the same office. The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and ninety-two, to strike out "six” and insert "fourteen," so as to appropriate for fourteen clerks of class two in that office. The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was in line three hundred and ninety-six, to strike out $66,400" and insert$101,800."

The amendment was agreed to.
The clause from line three hundred and

eighty-eight to line three hundred and ninetyseven, as thus amended, is as follows:

For compensation of the Secretary of the Treasury, two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, chief clerk, eleven clerks of class four, additional to one clerk of class four as disbursing clerk, twelve clerks of class three, fourteen clerks of class two, two clerks of class two, (transferred from the Third Auditor's office,) fifteen clerks of class one, (two of whom were transferred from the Third Auditor's office,) one mes