3 meat increasing the salaries of the President, Vice-President, judges of the Supreme Court, and members of Congress, including those of the Forty-Second Congress. An unsuccessful effort had been made three weeks before to fasten that amendment upon another apppropriation bill of which I had charge. Tn the struggle to fasten it upon this bill there was a lengthy debate, in which its merits and demerits were fully discussed. In that debate I bore my full share in opposing the amendment. Before it was finally adopted there were eighteen different votes taken in the House and the Committee of the Whole on its merits and its management. On each and all of these I voted adversely to the amendment. Six years'ago, when the salaries of Congressmen were raised and the pay was made to date back sixteen months, I had voted against the increase ; and now, bearing more responsibility for the appropriations than ever before, I pursued the same course. No act of mine during this struggle can be tortured into a willingness to allow this amendment to be fastened to the bill. But all opposition was overborne by majorities ranging from three to fifty-three, and the bill with this amendment added was sent to the Senate Saturday evening, the 1st of March. If the Senate had struck out the amendment, they could have compelled the House to abandon it Or take the responsibility of losing the bill. But the Senate refused, by a vote of nearly two to one, to strike out the salary clause or any part of it; and many Senators insisted that with the abolition of mileage and other allowances $6,500 was no real increase, and that the rate should be greater. The bill then went to a conference committee with sixty-five unadjusted amendments pending between the two Houses. The battle against the salary clause was fought and lost before the appropriation bill went to the conference committee. The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate both recognized the fact in appointing their respective committees of conference. In announcing the committee of conference on the part of the House, the Speaker said: “There are several points of difference between the two Houses of exceeding importance. It is the duty of the Chair to adjust the conference so as to represent those points upon which the House most earnestly insist. The three points of difference especially involved are the subject of salaries of members and other, officers, what is styled the Morrill amendment, and the provision in regard to the Pacific railroad. The Chair thinks that so far as he can analyze the votes of the House on these propositions, that the following conferees will fairly represent the views of the House on the various questions: Mr. Garfield of Ohio, Mr. Butler of Massachusetts, and Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania.” I was appointed chairman because I had charge of the bill. Messrs. Butler and Randall were appointed because they represented the declared will of the House on the salary question. They were not members of the Committee on Appropriations, and
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=