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. ' 1304 OONGRESSIONA.L RECORD-HOUSE. FEBRUARY 7, clerks if that be the fact; but it will be an expression of the will of name was not mentioned by him, but it is inserted in the RECORD. the Senate in the first place, and of Congress, that something shall be I presumed that his animadversion was directed at another colleague, done. It is recognition of the magnitude of this issue. who had that day in some way charged Georgia officials with dere I am not willing either to say that the present Commissioner of liction of duty. Pensions is the only man in the United States who can handle two His remarks as applicable to me were unprovoked and were un hundred examiners and a corresponding number of clerks. If we give parliamentary to a degree of coarseness. I had not arraigned any these clerks we shall have more business transacted in the office, and body for a." dereliction of duty." Nothing I had said could be con suppose it is only a small percentage of the amount which ought to be strued into such an arraignment. It is true that I had differed with transacted, it is still a step in the right direction, and it is superior in my colleague on the Morgan. joint resolution, and I simply expressed my judO'ment to the bill which was offered by the Pensions Committee, that difference, and claimed that the resolution adopted by the House especially for sparsely settled sections of the country. One single on Saturday was entirely satisfactory to me. I mentioned also that district in my State has over forty counties in it. It would not be pos I, together with my colleagues who voted against the first resolu sible for any court traveling to hold sufficient sessions in any of the tion, had been criticised by the partisan press. counties in that district to transact the business with any degree of But sir, I repeat that I said nothing which could be construed, speed whatever. That court would have to wait for the instructions even by th~ most irritable and querulous, into an arraignment of of the Commissioner of Pensions at every step. As to the taking of anybody for a dereliction of duty. A gentleman of discrimination testimony elsewhere in regard to cases pending before the court in can easily recognize a difference of opinion entirely consistent with any county, it could not act except upon his request, and so on. the highest sense of duty in all the parties concerned. And so, sir, Everything would have to be drawn through that one conduit, and it is my privilege to say that my colleague has placed a construction that would have been sufficient to obstruct it just as completely as on my remarks which is most unwarrantable. And, sir, the gentleman the business is obstructed now. did not stop there. While he was up he took occasion to regale the I believe that by the adoption of this amendment, if it shall be House with a choice selection from his 1·epm·toil·e of other people's adopted, we shall arrive at a more rapid disposition of these cases. satire, at the expense of those of us in Georgia who have the temerity I believe it will be regarded as mandatory on the Commissioner of to dissent from his notions of proper party methods. Pensions-if not by the present Commissioner, then by the new one I desire- to dispose of this business more rapidly. I think myself it is the Said he, with classical playfulness- least the Senate can do as an expression of its judgment on that as I am in the line of quoting authorities, in reply to the suggestion of the gentle which has become not only a scandal but a great wrong. man that the independent is always right and everybody else is wrong, to quote The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is whether the amend a declaration from Coke's Institutes, made many vears ago of course. ment offered by the Senator from Kansa-s is in order. Lord Coke in the Fourth Institute draws a. parallel between a useful member of Parliament-one possessed of all ''properties a Parliament man should have' '-and The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 31, nays the Solomon of the bestial world, to wit, the elephant. "Every member of the 24 ; as follows : Rouse," he.says, "being. a counselor, should have t.hiee properties of the elephant: YEAS-31. first, that he hath no gau; secondly, that he is infio::rible and cannot bow; thirdly, Allison, Dawes, Logan, Rollins, that he is of a most npe and perfect memory." * * * We will add two other Blair, Ferry, 1\.Ic¥illan, Saunders, properti.es of the elephant-the one that t.lie elephant is philanthropos, h Jmini :Bruce, Hampton, McPherson, Tel!er, erranti viam ostendit-a vhilanthropist who showed the wanderer his road- :Burnside, Roar, Pendleton, Thurman, Said the gentleman, handsomely translating the dead tongue for Butler, Ingalls, Platt, Vance, those whom Sydney Smith would call the" Agricolous members." Cameron of Pa., Johnston, Plumb, Voorhees, Conkling, Jones of Nevada, Randolph, Windom. The other, that though they be maximce virtutis et mazimi intellectu.s, of greatest Davis of Tilinois, Kirkwood, Ransom, strength and understanding- NAYS-2t. Again translating- Bailey, Eaton, Jonas, Pugh, tamen aregatim semper incedunt- Beck, Edmunds, Kernan, Saulsbury, Booth, Farley, Lamar, Slater, A.nd here the gentleman supplies, with much liberality, his :final translation- Cameron of Wis., Garland, McDonald, Vest1 Coke, Harris, :Maxey, Williams, yet they are sociable and go in companies. Davis of W.Va., Hereford, Morgan, Withers. Sociable creatures that go in fiocks or herds are not hurtful, as deer. sheep, &c., A:BSENT-21. but beasts that walk solely or singularly, as bears, foxes, &c., are daD.gerous and hurtful. fGreat laughter.J And these properties ought every Parliament man to Anthony, Carpenter, Rill of Georgia, Walker, have." (Heard's Curiosities of the Law Reporters, page183.) · Baldwin, Cockrell, Jones of Florida, Wallace, Bayard, Groome, Kello~~· Whyte. Now, sir, I made no such suggestion as that he imputes to me. I Blaine, Grover, Morrill, did not suggest that the independent is always right. I simply main Brown, Hamlin Paddock, Call, Hill of Colorado, Sharon, · tained, as it was entirely proper and legitimate for me to do, that I was right on the particular question mentioned and about which I The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is decided to be in have been criticised. I confess, too, Mr. Speaker, that whenever I order. The question now is on the adoption of the amendment. had been in the habit of regarding the shapely intellectual and :Mr. THURMAN. I move that the Senate proceed to the considera physical proportions of my colleague I had never detected so many tion of executive business. points of similitude between him and the lordly elephant. Indeed, Mr. DAVIS, of Illinois. I move that the Senate adjourn. It is too sir, I have seen nothing of the elephant iu his make-up. Those who late to go into executive session now. know him best will, however, recognize some of the attributes which The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois moves that Lord Coke mentions. He has no gall. Not he. He is inflexible and the Senate do now adjourn. cannot bow. The elephant too, I may remark, is no inexpert trump The motion was agreed to; and (at five o'clock and twenty min eter-for himself. But since the gentleman has humorously likened utes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. me to the solitary species of the jerre natttrre, I will be pardoned for saying that there are gregarious and sociable animals which, to my mind, much more vigorously suggest and typify the gentleman. than the elephant, whose characteristics he would emulate. There, sir, stands that native-born American citizen, G-ttliellmus caprioornuB. He HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. too is gregarious, and while the elephant, I beg pardon, the gentle man from Georgia, would be but a baby elephant in a herd of these :ilioND.A.Y, Febru,ary 1, 1881. sociable mammals, he might most readily be mistaken for a patriarch The House met at eleven o'clock a.m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. of distinction in society with the sportive and frolicsome goat. And W. P. HA.RRISON D. D. so let me in this way gently suggest to the gentleman that his gregari 1 ous illustration is not alway. felicitous. The Journal ot Saturday was read and approved. Mr. HATCH. I rise to a question of order. PERSONAL EXPLANATION. The SPEAKER. The gentleman will state it. Mr. SPEER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of personal privilege. l\fr. HATCH. I insist that this is not a question of privilege. The SPEAKER. The gentleman will state it. Mr. HAMMOND, of Georgia. I hope the gentleman will not be in Mr. SPEER. Mr. Speaker, in the RECORD of Saturday's proceed terrupted. Please let him proceed. ings I find that my colleague, Mr. HAM:Uo:m>, has reflected on me, Mr. HATCH. I must insist upon my point of order in the interest and bas misinterpreted and misstated a brief st!ftement made by me of the legislation of the country. that day on the electoral count joint resolution. The gentleman was The SPEAKER. The Chair thinks the gentleman is going beyond pleased to say, as it appears from the RECORD: the limits of a mere question of personal privilege. Mr. SPEER. I am replying to remarks the gentleman has seen proper I regret that my colleague from Georgia Pur.