1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECO_RD-HOUSE. 2297
Mr. SQUIRE. Mr. President, wliat is the exact question now HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. before the Senate? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to S.A.TURD.A.Y, February 16, 1895. the amendment of the committee to strike out the clause as amended. · The House met at 11 o'clock a.m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. Mr. ALLEN. IsuggesttotheSenatorfromFlorida whohasthe E. B. BAGBY. bill in charge that we now adjourn. We have w9rked all the week, The Journal of the proceedings of yesterday was read and ap and it is now after 5 o'clock Saturday evening. I do not think proved. anything is to be gained by continuing in session to-night. I move LAND GRANTS TO RAILROADS. that the Senate adjourn. The SPEAKER laid before the House a letter from the Secre· Mr. CALL. I ask the Senator from Nebraska to withdraw the tary of the Interior, transmitting, pursuant to a House resolution· motion to adjourn for a few moments. dated January 5,1895, information as to the amount of lands pat Mr. ALLEN. Very well; I withdraw the motion for the pres ented to the land-grant railroad companie.s since May 26, 1894; ent. which was referred to the Committee on the Public Lands. Mr. CALL. 1 ask unanimous consent that we shall agree to BRITISH-VENEZUELA BOUNDARY DISPUTE. vote ·On the pending amendment at the conclusion of the routine morning business on Monday. The SPEAKER also laid before the House the joint resolution The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? (H. Res. 252) relative to the British-Venezuela boundary dispute, Mr. HAWLEY. I wish to address the Senate for five minutes with amendments of the Senate thereto. on one of the proposed amendments. I do not inte~d to waste Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House con- time. cur in the Senate amendments. Mr. CALL. Then I ask unanimous consent that we shall com Mr. SAYERS. I would like to know what there is in this. mence to vote on the amendments at that time, limiting the de The SPEAKER. TheClerkwill report the Senate amendments. bate to five minutes. There are only two or three other amend The Clerk read as follows: ments. Page 2, line 5, strike out the words "boundary limits in Guiana" and_insert HAWLEY. That is satisfactory. I want only five min the word "boundary." Mr. Page 2, line 6, strike out the word "most" before "earnestly." utes. Strike out all of the preamble. The PRESIDING OFFICER. That will be agreed to, if there Mr. REED. What have we to do with this? be no objection. Mr. LIVINGSTON. This resolution passed the House and Mr. LODGE. I have no desire to object to that arrangement, went to the Senate. It simply expresses the sense of the Congress if it is understood that I shall have the right to offer an amend of the United States that this boundary dispute, which has been ment after the committee amendments are disposed of. in existence since 1827, and is affecting the commerce of this Mr. CALL. Certainly, with five minutes' debate. country and which involves a palpable violation of the Monroe Mr. LODGE. That is all I want. doctrine, ought to be settled by arbitration. That is all there is Mr. HARRIS. I think the whole Senate can agree to the five in the resolution. The Senate struck out what they considered minute rule, but I should not be willing to agree to vote abso some superfluous words and the preamble, and I move that the lutely without debate. House concur in the Senate amendments. Mr. ALLEN. At the suggestion of the Senator from Kentucky The motion was agreed to. · I withdraw the motion to adjourn and will move-- Mr. CALL. The agreement is understood as unanimously ISOLATED TRACTS OF PUBLIC LAND. agreed to? The SPE.AKER laid before the House a bill (H. R. 4952) to The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is agreed to. amend section 2455 of the Revised Statutes of the United States in relation to the sale of isolated tracts of public land, with an EXECUTIVE SESSION. amendment of the Senate thereto. Mr. ALLEN. I move that the Senate proceed to the consider The Senate amendment was read, as follows: ation of executive business. Page 1, line 8, strike out "$2.50" and insert "$1.25;" so as to make the clause The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to the con read, "not less than $1.25 per acre." sideration of executive business. After five minutes spent in ex Mr. .NEILL. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House concur in the ecutive session the doors were reopened, and (at 5 o'clock and 25 Senate amendment. minutes p.m.) the Senate adjourned until Monday, February 18, Mr. DOCKERY. !should like to hear some explanation of this 1895, at 12 o'clock m. bill. . The SPEAKER. The Clerk will report the bill. The Senate amendment explains itself. It simply reduces the price of these CONFIRMATIONS. lands from $2.50 to $1.25 per acre. Executive nominations confirmed by the Senate February 16, 1895. The bill was read, as follows: SURVEYOR OF CUSTOMS. Be it enacted, etc , That section 2455 of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby amended so as to read as follows: Bartholomew Kennedy, of Iowa, to be surveyor of customs for "SEC. 2455. It shall be lawful for the Commissioner of the General Land Office to order into market and sell for not less than $2.50 per acre any iso the port of Des Moines, in the State of Iowa. lated or disconnected tract or parcel of the public domain less than one quar. ter section which in b1s Judgment 1t would be ·proper to expose to sale after POSTMASTERS. at least thirty days' notice by the land officers of the district in which such land may be situated: Provided, That lands shall not become so isolated or Timothy J. Williams, to be postmaster at Richwood, in the disconnected until the same have been subject to homestead entry for a county of Union and State of Ohio. . · period of three years after the surrounding land bas been entered, filed Lee C. Atwood, to be postmaster at Conneaut, in the county of upon\ or sold by the Government: Provided, That not more than 160 acres Ashtabula and State of Ohio. shall oe sold to any one person." , John Galligan, to be postmaster at Orange Valley, in the county Mr. COOMBS. Mr. Speaker, I should like to hear some further of Essex and State of New Jersey. · explanation of this. It looks to me as though some people had Solomon F. Henniger, to be postmaster at Shelton, in the county gone upon certain unappropriated public lands and were trying of Buffalo and State of Nebraska. to get title to them under this bill. Frederick A. Peck, to be postmaster at Humboldt, in the county Mr. NEILL. There is nothing of that kind in it. of Humboldt and State of Iowa. Mr. TAWNEY. The public domain of the United States has Rockwell B. Mitchell, to be postmaster at Bridgeport, in the not depreciated in value to the extent indicated by the Senate county of Belmont and State of Ohio. amendment, has it? M. H. Alderson, to be postmaster at Wilson, in the county of Mr. NEILL. No, sir; but there are a few isolated tracts of Ellsworth and State of Kansas. land that can be sold under this bill. They are not subject to John C. Curtin, to be postmaster at Helena, in the county of sale under the existing law. They are subject to homestead en Lewis and Cla1·ke and State of Montana. try, but people will not occupy them under the homestead law. Charles W. Parrott, to be postmast~r at St. Charies, in the There are a good many such tracts in my own State. On the county of Winona and State of Minnesota. other hand, there are men who would buy 40, 80, or 100 acres of David R. Post, to be postmaster at Deep River, in the county of these lands for use in connection with adjoining "farms. This Middlesex and State of Connecticut. bill as it passed the House fixed the minimum rate at $2.50 per John T. Reynolds, to be postmaster at Greenville, in the county acre. of Muhlenberg and State of Kentucky. · A MEMBER. That is what it ought to be. Louis S. Smith, to be postmaster at Medina, in the county of Mr. NEILL. No; because there are some of these lands that Medina and State of Ohio. are not worth that; but this bill provides that they sba.ll be offered - . • ''
2298 CONGRESSIONAL RECQRD-HOUS~. FEBRUARY 16,
at public sale, and if .anybody will give $2.50 or $10 the Govern Mr. COOMBS. May there not be some valuable timber lands ment will get that price. The Senate amendment merely fixes the which somebody is trying to get hold of by means of this bill? minimum price at a dollar and a quarter an acre. Mr. McRAE. If the gentleman had had any experience with Mr. PICKLER. Perhaps the gentleman had better explain to timber lands he would know that no person would be satisfied the House why people do not take these lands as homesteads. with any tract of 120 acres for timber purposes, and to protect Mr. NEILL. Because the lands are not worth it. against any abuse in that direction the bill provides that not ex Mr. PICKLER. Is it not because the tracts are not large ceeding 160 acres shall be sold to any one pBrson. enough? Mr. PICKLER. As I understand, none of these lands are to Mr. NEILL. No, sir. It is because the land is so poor that be sold until homesteaders have had three years to take them if people will not make homes upon it; they could not make a living they want to do so. on it. Mr. :McRAE. That is true, and it is an additional restriction Mr. PICKLER. But this will apply to a great many tracts over the old law. So far as concerns the proposed price of $2.50 an where there are less than 160 acres. acre, I am responsible for that, and still believe it best if it eould Mr. NEILL. Yes. be made general. But as I have failed in that effort, for the time Mr. TAWNEY. And where the land is valuable, too. at least, I will not oppose this. As the Committee on Public Lands Mr. REED. Why did the House make the price $2.50 an acre? has disagreed with me, and the Senate in amending the bill has If the Senate is right in reducing it to $1.25 an acre, how did the signified its opposition, I see no chance at this late day of increas House come to make the mistake of putting it at $2.50 an acre? ing the single minimum price of all lands to $2.50. I admit that Mr. McRAE. Mr. Speaker, I think I can answer the question it would be wrong to put this class of lands at double the price of of the gentleman from Maine. I introduced this bill fixing the all other public lands. If my general proposition should ever pre minimum price of these lands at $2.50 an acre instead of $1.25, as vail these isolated tracts would recovered by it. heretofore. About the same time I introduced another bill to in The SPEAKER. The question is on concuning in the amend crease the single minimum price of all public lands to $2.50 per ment of the Senate. acre. That proposition has not met the approval of the House The amendment was concurred .in. Committee on Public Lands. The minimum price now for aU On motion of Mr. NEILL, a motion to reconsider the vote by the public lands, including those involved in this bill, is $1.25 which the amendment was concurred in was laid on the table. an acre, and now, since my general proposition has not been ap WOMEN A.S SCHOOL TRUSTEES. proved by the House, and since the Senate has amended this bill so as to put these isolated tracts of land upon the same basis as The SPEAKER also laid before the House the bill (S. 1717) to to the mimimum price as the other public lands of the United authorize the appointment of women as public school·tJ:ustees in States, I will not oppose it. the District of Columbia. Mr. REED. But why did the gentleman from Arkansas in his The SPEAKER. This bill was amended by the House; the Sen bill fix the price of these lands at $2.50? ate has disagreed to the amendment of the House, and asks a con Mr. McRAE. I did that because I thought the price ought to ference. The amendment will be read. be $2.50 for all of our lands. The Clerk read as follows: M.r. REED. Then why do not you stand by it? At the end of line 6 add the following: Mr. McRAE. I have stood by it as far as I could without en "And for this purpose the number of trustees of said board shall be in· dangering the defeat of this bill. The other general bill has not c~eased from 9 to 11, not more than two of whom shall be women." been even favorably reported by the Committee on Public Lands, Mr. HEARD. I move that the House insist on its amendment, and if it is not passed it would of course be unjust to put these ·and agree to the conference asked by the Senate. the most worthless of our lands at $2.50 and let the other more Mr. PICKLER. What change has been made by the Senate to valuable public lands be rated at $1.25 per aere. this bill? · · Mr. COOMBS. Does it necessarilyfollow that these are worth The SPEAKER. The Senate has disagreed to an amendment less lands? of the House and asked a conference. - Mr. PICKLER. No. Some of thBse lands are good lands~ Mr. MEREDITH. I should like to know the effect of the action Mr. McRAE. Under this bill these isolated tracts of our lands taken by the Senate~ Does it provide that women shall be left off can not be disposed of unless the area of the tract is less than a this board? homesteader is entitled to under the law, and the lands before be Mr. HEARD. The bill, as passed by the Senate, authorized the ing sold must have been subject to homestead entry for at least appointment of women as school trustees, but put no limitation three years. upon the number. Mr. PICKLER. This bill, as I understand, allows the sale of Mr. MEREDITH. They ought not to be trustees at all. tracts of less than 160 acres-tracts, for instance, of 120 or 100 Mr. HEARD. The amendment of the House, upon which I have acres. It very often happens that there are fraetional tracts moved to insist, limits the number of female members of the board which, although thelandisjustas good as any other, are not taken to two. up as homesteads because the quantity is less than 160 acres. It The motion of Mr. HEARD was agreed to. seems to me that we ought not to sell in this way tracts of more The SPEAKER announced the appointment of Mr. CADMUS, Mr. than 80 acres, because tracts exceeding that area might be taken HEARD, and Mr.ALDRICH as conferees on the part of the House. by some homesteader. Mr. McRAE. That is not probable, and besides no suchchange SURVEYOR'S OFFICE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. can be made in the bill now. The SPEAKER also laid before the House the bill (S. 444.) mak Mr. PICKLER. I believe this is a good bill. These fractional ing the surveyor of the District of Columbia a salaried officer, and tracts are scattered here and there; and nobody takes them as to provide for more efficient service in the surveyor's office, with homesteads, so that they are not doing anyone any good. But I House amendments disagreed to by the Senate and a request for should not like to see any great quantity of these lands sold at the a conference on the part of the Senate on the disagreeing votes price named. of the two Houses thereon. Mr. McRAE. No land can be treated under this bill as isolated Mr. HEARD. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House insist on or disconnected until it has been subject to homestead entry for its amendments and agree to the conference asked by the Senate. three years. I assume that after all the lands adjoining have been Mr. DINGLEY. I hope the gentleman from Missouri will un disposed of and settlers refuse to enter for three years that the lands derstand in conference that this is not merely a formal disagree can not be of much value. ment. Mr. PICKLER. .And any tract. to be sold must be less than 160 Mr. HEARD. Mr. Speaker, I think I need not say to the gentle acres. man from Maine that whenever I have had anything to do with a Mr. MoRAE. It must be less than one quarter section, and a conference on the part of the House I have always sought, as I full quarter is 160 acres. will hereafter, to try to make it express the exact will of the Mr. KIEFER. Does the bill specify the number of acres? House. I feel assm·ed that the conference committee will be cog· Mr. McRAE. It must be less than a quarter section. If there nizant of its duty to the House and will not fail to observe the is as much as a quarter section, either full or fractional, the land action taken by the House with reference to this or any other can not be treated under the bill as isolated or disconnected; and matter committed to it. even if the quantity is less than that the land must have been The motion of Mr. HEARD was agreed to. subject to homestead entry for three years. Besides, the lands The SPEAKER announced the appointment of Mr. CoBB of will be offered at pablic sale, with a guaranty of the minimum Alabama, Mr. HULL, and Mr. CooPER of Indiana as conferees on price and fees. the part of the House. Mr. COOMBS. I call the attention of the gentleman tothefaet that the provisions of this bill are not limited to fractional sec REFERENCE OF SENATE BILLS. tions in detached positions, but apply to all detached lal..ds. The SPEAKER also laid before the House bills of the Senate of Mr. McRAE. Less than a quarter .section. the following titles; whlch were referred as indicated, namely: -
1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2299
A bill (S. 2409) granting certain lands in the abandoned military pr operty has been used for the erection of barracks, quarters, etc., r eservation at Fort McKinney, Johnson County, Wyo., to the which goes to the occupation of churches, schoolhouses, and mat State of Wyoming for public purposes-to the Committee on the ters of that kind. The matter has been undergoing an investiga Public Lands. tion before the committee over which the gentleman from Texas A bill (S. 2576) for the erection of a public building at Paris, rMr. SAYERS J presides, in connection with the deficiency bill, and Ky.-to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. the knife has been used q11ite freely so far as that class of cases is concerned, with the approval of the gentleman from Texas, and LEAVE OF ABSENCE. used to cut out all of that class of claims. It seems to me that By unanimous consent, leave of absence was granted to Mr. TuR matter had better be fought out before we, by resolution of Con NER of Virginia, for this day, on account of sickness. gress or otherwise, journey any further along this line. DEFICIENCY APPROPRIA.TION BILL. Mr. TERRY. I hope the gentleman will withhold his objection until I have finished my statement. :Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, from the Committee on Appropriations, Mr. CANNON of illinois. If the gentleman wants to establish reported a bill (H. R. 8892) making appropriations t be printed. Mr. REED. That is to say, all you want to do now is to get the PUBLIC BUILDL.'fG IN THE CITIES OF WINSTON-SALEM, N . C. camel's nose into the tent? Mr. TERRY. Well, if the gander has a right to get in I do not Mr. :McKAIG, also from the Committee on Public Buildings see why we should keep it out. [Laughter.] and Grounds, reported back the bill (S. 2663) to provide for the Mr. REED. My reference to natural history was to the camel, erection of a public buildino- in the cities of Winston-Salem, N.C.; not the" gander." fLaughter.] which was referred to the Committee of the Whole House on the Mr. TERRY. Well, I understood you to say you" gander." state of the Union, and, with the accompanying report, ordered The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the gentle to be printed. m an from Arkansas? WARREN C. BEACH. Mr. CANNON of illinois. I want to make just this suggestion Ml". CURTIS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I askunanimouscon to the gentleman, that the Second Deputy Comptroller is v~ry sent for the present consideration of the bill (H. R. 8715) to place h andy now in auditing accounts presented of this character where Warren C. Beach on the retired list of the Al"'Ily. 2300 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. FEBRUARY 16,
The bill was read, as follows: The bill was read, as follows: B e it enacted, etc., That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized, by and Be it enacted, etc., That the present pension paid to Alexander Williamson, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to place on the retired list of the a private iii. Company H, Second Regl.ment Kentucky Infantry, during the Army, with the rank of captain, Warren C. Beach: Provided, That the sa.id war with Mexico, be, and is hereby, increased to $50 per month, and the Com Warren C. Beach shall not, by virtue of such restoration to the Army, be en- missioner of Pensions be, and he is hereby, directed to have his name placed titled to back, present, or future pay or allowances of any kind whatsoever. on the pension roll at such increased pension. The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New York asks unani- The committee recommended ftle following amendments: mous consent to consider this bill. Is there objection? 't Amend by striking out the word "fifty " in line 6, and inserting in lieu Mr · SAYERS· L e t US h ave an exp1 ana ti ono f 1 • thereof the word "twenty-five," so as to fix the rate of pension at $25 per The SPEAKER. Without objection, the gentleman from New month. Also amend by striking out "Commissioner of Pensions," in line 6, York can make a short explanation. and substituting therefor "Secretary of the Interior." Mr.CURTISofNewYork. CaptainBeachgraduatedfromWest Mr. LOUD. I desire to make a short statement in connection Point and served twenty-one years in the Army. Then, being in fail- with this bill. It proposes to grant an extraordinary pension to ing health, and having some business to attend to in another part a soldier of the Mexican war, on account of blindness developed of the country, being out on the plains, he asked to be retired or forty years after said war. While I do not desire to be specially to have leave of absence. He did not e:et an order for either. He technical, or to throw myself in the way of the passage of pension resigned, expecting, however, that ifter he got to Washington bills in this House, I desire to state in justice to myself that I and attended to his business he could be ordered before a retiring presented to the Fifty-second Congress, and again to the Fifty board. That failed. He is now willing to take retirement, with- third Congress, two bills proposing to pension soldiers of the late out having any pay for the past or future, but simply placing him war who had served three years, the ground of the application on the army list as an officer. There is precedent for that. being in each case the blindness of the applicant. I ·was informed Mr. SAYERS. Mr. Speaker, I object to that bill. by the committee that it was contrarytothepolicyof the Pension Subsequently Mr. SAYERS withdrew his objection. Office to report bills granting extraordinary pensions in cases of The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present consideration this character. of this bill? I am inclined to think that the judgment of the Pensions Com- There was no objection. mittee was absolutely just and proper, because all these cases The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time; and have been presented to the Pension Office. They have presented being engrossed, was accordingly read the third time, and passed. all evidence that was possible to connect their blindness with their On motion of Mr. CUR TIS of New York, a motion to reconsider service in the Army. Now, then, if it is impossible to connect the last vote was laid on the table. blindness twenty years after the late war with the service, it seems to me that it is much harder to connect blindness occurring forty PENSION BILLS PASSED. years after the Mexican war. The only object I have in making Mr. MARTIN of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the bills re- this statement to the House is to show that once in a while, if a ported from the Committee of the Whole last night be taken up member has special friendly connection, or is a member of the and considered. Committee on Pensions, he can secure a favorable recommenda Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. I want to know about how long tion from that committee and bring his claim before this House. the gentleman thinks that will take? These matters should be acted on in justice and equity to all. Mr. MARTIN of Indiana. It will not takeover thirty minutes. They should be covered by general law or at least there should be Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. If the gentleman thinks he can no exception made in any case. I will say again, Mr. Speaker, get through by 12 o'clock, I shall not object. that I believe the position taken by the committee in the two cases The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Indiana rMr. MARTIN] thatiintroduced here and hadreferred to them was perfectly just, calls up certain bills, which, under the rule, have the right to be correct, and proper, and that very course, in my opinion, should considered. The previous question was ordered last night on have been followed in this case. I shall not raise any technical those bills, which would bring them up immediately after the objection to the case, however, but make this statement in justice reading of the Journal, subject in this case, by special order, to to, and the cases introduced by, myself. appropriation and revenue bills; but appropriation bills do not an- The amendment recommended by the Committee of the Whole tagonize them, and therefore the House will proceed to consider was agreed to. these bills. The bill as amended was ordered to be engrossed for a third The following bills, reported from the Committee of the Whole reading; and being engrossed, it was accordingly read the third on the Private Calendar, were severally considered, the amend- time, and passed. ments recommended by the committee agreed to, the Senate bills On motion of Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, a motion to reconsider ordered to a third reading, read a third time, and passed, and the the vote by which the bill was passed was laid on the table. House bills ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and JOHN J. SHIPMAN. being engrossed, read a thh·d time, and passed: A bill (S. 1969) granting a pension to Harrison c. Hobart. Mr. MEREDITH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for A bill (H. R. 6928) to remove the charge of desertion from the the present consideration of the bill which I send to the Clerk's military record of Wear Crawford. (Title amended in accord- de~e Clerk read as follows: ance with the recommendation of the committee.) A. bill (H. R. 6901) to increase the pension of Maj. Gen. Julius A bill (H. R. 7076) to execute the findings of the Court of Claims in the matter H. Stahel. of the claim of John J. Shipman. · A bill (H. R. 575) granting a pension to Charity Ann Smith. Be it enacted.J etc., That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, authorized ana directed to pay to John J. Shipman, out of any money in the A bill (H. R. 7177) for the relief of Barz.ill a C · H u dson. Treasury not otherwise appropriated\ the sum of 17,811.96, the same being A bill (H. R. 8264) granting a pension to Saloma Mangold. the amount found by the Court of Clrums to be due to the said John J. Ship- A bill (H R 5565) antm. g a pension to Joseph R Brooks man from the United States for stone furnished and delivered by the said · · gr ' ' Shipman to the United States and used by it in the construction of a lock on A bill (S. 2599) granting a pension to Caroline E. Wessels. the Big Sandy River near Louisa, Ky., the said findin~ of the Court of A bill (H. R. 6646) for the relief of Albert Munson. (Title Claims having been made in a proceeding and trial in said court authorized amended m accordance with the recommendation of the commit- . by resolution of the Senate of the 16th day of January, A. D. 1889, transmit- ting said claim to the Court of Claims under the provisions of an act a.p- tee. ) proved the 3d day of March, A. D .ll883 (twenty-second volume United States A bill (H. R. 2218) for the relief of John B. Leach. (Title Statutes, 485) and an act approved the 3d day of March1 A. D. 1887 (twenty amended in accordance with the recommendation of the commit- fourth volume United States Statutes, 505), to be insthuted in said court tee.) against the United States. The SPEAKER. Without objection, a motion to reconsider the Mr. SAYERS. Let us have an explanation of this bill. vote by which each of these bills passed, and to lay on the table Mr. MEREDITH. I will ask for the reading of the report, or I the motion to reconsider, will be considered as made, and the mo- will make a statement. tion to lay on the table will be considered as agreed to in each The SPEAKER. The report is three pages long. Without ob- case. jection, the gentleman may make a brief statement. There was no objection. Mr. MEREDITH. This is simply a bill to carry out the find- ings of the Court of Claims and to pay a gentleman by the name ALEXANDER WILLIAMSON. of Shipman for stone furnished to the United States Government The SPE.AKER laid before the House the following bill, re- under a contract which has been recognized, the facts all found ported to the House by the Committee of the Whole House on the by the Court of Claims and a certain amount ascertained to be Private Calendar with the recommendation that as amended it do due. This is simply asking the Government to carry out its con- pass: tract. A bill (H. R. 8099) to increase the pension of Alexander Wil- Mr. SAYERS. How much does it involve? liamson. Mr. MEREDITH. Seven teen thousand dollars. 1895. CONGRESSION.&L RECORD-HOUSE. 2301:
Mr. SAYERS. Then I want to look into it before I give con The Clerk read as follows: sent to its consideration. A bill (H. R. 8665) making appropriations for the na. val service for the fiscal Mr. MEREDITH. The question is whether it is a just and year ending June 30, 1896, and for other purposes. proper claim. :M:r. GEISSENHAINER. :M:r. Chairman, inasmuch as the lead The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Texas objects. ing features of the bill under discussion have been fully and very Mr. MEREDITH. Is it not too late to object after unanimous eloquently debated, and inasmuch as the Committee on Naval consent has been given? Affairs has determined that, as far as possible, every member of The SPEAKER. Unanimous consent was not given. the House shall have an opportunity of expressing his views on Mr. MEREDITH. I thought it was. this subject, I will confine myself to a very few brief remarks, in M.A.RTH.A. CUSTIS CARTER. which I shall attempt to touch upon certain points that have not Mr. RANDALL. I ask unanimous consent for the present con hitherto been alluded to. sideration of the bill (H. R. 4756) to grant a pension to Martha I desire fi.TSt, sir, to call the attention of the House to the vast Custis Carter. extent of sea mileage under the jurisdiction of this Government. The bill was read, as follows: On the Atlantic we have a coast line of 2,732 miles, and a coast line of bays, rivers, etc., to the head of sh1p navigation of 33,778 Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and i.ted to place the name of Martha Custis Carter, widow of miles: making a total of 36,510 miles. On the Gulf coast we have Samuel P. Carter, ate rear-admiral of the United States Navy and major a total mileage of 19,143 miles. On the Pacific coast we have a general of the Uni ed States Volunteers, on the pension roll, subject to the total mileage of 8,900 miles, and on the Alaska coast 26,376. This provisions and li tations of the pension laws, and pay ?er a pension at the rate of $100 per m nth from and after the passage of this act. makes the total of our outer coast 10,376 miles; bays, rivers, etc., 80,553 miles; making a g1·and total of 90,929 miles. The popula Mr. TALBERT of South Carolina. Has that bill been consid tion along the coast in the seaboard and lake towns amounts to a ered in Committee of the Whole? grand total of over 16,000,000 people. Along this coast are seven or Mr. RANDALL. It has been amended in the committee. eight cities aggregating a wealth of between three and four billion Mr. TALBERT of South Carolina. Has it been considered in dollars. This wealth, sir, is to be protected by war vessels. In Committee of the Whole at a Friday night session? the late civil war the number of vessels obliged to be employed Mr. RANDALL. No; it has not. was 697, as follows: Mr. TALBERT of South Carolina. Then I object, Mr. Speaker. Mr. SAYERS. I call for the regular order. Ironclad steamers, coast service ______: _____ ------_------46 Ironclad steamers, inland service------29 The SPEAKER. The regular order is demanded. The regu Side-wheel steamers. _____ ------____ ------___ ·-- _____ ------203 lar order is the call of committees for reports. ScrewSailing steamers--- vessels ______------____ ---· __ ------______----- ______19811.2 ORDER OF BUSINESS. Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous 588 consent to dispense with the call of committees for reports, and In 1864, 109 vessels were a.dded, and the Nayy consisted of 697 that gentlemen having reports to file may be permitted to hand vessels of a tonnage of 510,396, carrying 4,610 guns. them to t4e Clerk. The growth was not confined to vessels. From 7,600 men in . There was no objection, and it was so ordered. service at the beginning in 1861, the number was increased to Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. I will yield to the gentleman 51,500. from lllinois to ask unanimous consent for the consideration of a The aggregate of laborers and artisans employed in the na.yy measure. yards was 16,880, an increase from 3,844 previously in the pay of Mr. DURBOROW. I ask consideration for a measure that has the Government. About the same number was employed in pri been reported by the Committee on Naval Affairs. vate yards and establishments. The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Texas demands the reg Now, sir, we who are liable-thank God not to a condition of the nlar order, which cuts off requests for unanimous consent. same kind again, hut to foreign attack-have not one single bat Mr. SAYERS. I demand the regular order, Mr. Speaker. tleship. We have some under preparation and building, but not Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. I move that the House resolve one ready to defend our coast. itself into Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Mr. Chairman, John Adams, contemporaneous with Thomas Union for the consideration of general appropriation bills. Jefferson in almost avery particular, even to the date of his death,· Mr. DURBOROW. Pending that motion, I ask unanimous because they died on the same 4th of July at nearly the same hour, consent for the consideration of the bill which I have in my hand. said in a letter written to Thomas T1·ux:tun in 1802: It is a bill reported from the Committee on Naval Affairs. "The counsel which Themistocles gave to Athens, Pompey to The SPEAKER. The regular order cuts off everything. Rome, Cromwell to England, De Witt to Holland,· Colbert to Mr. SAYERS. I will withdraw the demand for the regular France, I have always given and shall continue to give to my fel - o:tder, so as to allow the gentleman an opportunity of having his low-countrymen, that, as the great questions of commerce and bill considered. power between nations and empires must be decided by a mili Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Then I withdraw the motion to tary marine, and war and peace are determined at sea, all neces go into Committee of the Whole for the present, to let the gentle sary encouragement should be given to the Nayy. The trident of man have an opportunity to go into Committee of the Whole, Neptune is the scepter of the world. which is for the purpose of disposing of the caravels. This advice, given by that great man at that early date, has held· TRANSFER OF REPRODUCTION OF C.A.R.A. VELS_ OF COLUMBUS TO CO good ever since. It is democratic. It is Jeffersonian. Thomas LUMBIAN MUSEUM, CIDC.A.GO. Jefferson and John Adams were contemporaries, and although The SPEAKER. The gentleman from illinois asks unanimous there may have been a difficulty between them for some years, consent for the present consideration of a bill which the Clerk death came to them at almost the same hour, and we are told that will report. the last words on the lips of Adams were ''Jefferson still survives." The Clerk read as follows: Now, Mr. Chairman, having alluded to that affecting historica.l incident, I want now to allude to another. There is an item ill A bill (S. UM) authorizing the Secretary of theNavy to transfer the reproduc tions of the caravels of Columbus to the Columbian Museum of Chica~o. this bill for the repair of that gallant old ship, the Constitution, Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he hereby IS, au sometimes known by the name of " Old Ironsides." . thorized to transfer to the trustees of the Columbian Museum of Chicago the The Secretary of the Navy, in his report in support of this appro r eproductions of the caravels of Co1umbus, the Santa Maria, Nina, and P·inta, which were exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition. priation, makes the following statement: " For many years past this vessel has been used as a receivi.iig The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present consideration ship at the nayy-yard, Portsmouth, N.H., has been housed over, of this bill? and only such repairs put upon her as would render her habitable Mr. STORER. I object. and in condition to float. Her present state is such that if this The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Ohio objects. famous old ship is to be longer preserved as a memento of our N.A.V.A.L .A.PPROPRI.A.TION BILL. glorious past a larger sum of money than that appropriated at the The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Maryland moves that the last session will be necessary. In view of the memories which are House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole House on the inseparably connected with this vessel, the Department believes state of the Union for the consideration of general appropriation that it would be wise for Congress to authorize that she be re bills. paired and put in such condition as will enable the Department The motion was agreed to. to preserve her indefinitely. Should such an act be passed the old The House accordingly resolved itself into Committee of the ship might then be brought to Washington and kept at the navy Whole House on the state of the Union, Mr. O'NEIL of Massachu yard as an object of interest to the many thousands of patriotic setts in the chair. Americans annually visiting the capital of the nation." The CHAIRMAN. The House is in Committee of the Whole She was built in September, 1797, and in the early years of the for the consideration of the bill the title of which the Clerk will century, whenwarwas imminent between France and the United report. States, she played her part in defending our commerce. Again, 2302 CONGRESSIONAL "RECORD-HOUSK FEBRUARY 16;
under Captain Hull, she gained a most signal victory over the I also subjoin an extract from the report submitted to the House Gue1~riere. Later on, under Captain Bainbridge, she achieved a by Mr. Herbert on the" Increase of the Navy," March 10, 1886, victory over the frigate Java, and afterwards, in the Bay of Biscay, whichwasatthattimeprepared byLieutenantGriffin,oftheNavy, under Captain Stewart, over the two British frigates, the Cyane showing the value of destructible property subject to the fu·e of and the L.e?.:ant. Her reputation is national. One of her com an enemy's guns in the cities named: manders' tlutt I have named came fTom New England. Two of them came, respectively, from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 18.29, when she was very much dilapidated, according to the re ports, Secretary Branch ordered her tO" be pulled to pieces, but public sentiment ran so high and the people were so much opposed to the destruction of the old ship that popular meetings were held illiJi~~r~w~;;~~;~~;~~-s~~=~~!:;~-=E~; l.~·~~~ throughout the country and the Secretary was de-nounced and was obliged to rescind his order and to direct that she should be re Total ------_----- _------______--- _·_____ ------3, 836, Mr. WASHINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I wish to call attention of the Treasury are barely adequate to meet our current arid nec briefly to some of the items in this bill so as to give the House an essary obligations. _ opportunity to consider seriously whether we are feady at this In speaking of this proposed increase of the Navy, I want to day, in a time of profound peace, to enter upon the construction of invite the attention of the House to a report which was made by battle ships and the extension of theNavy in such a way as to lead what was known as the naval-policy board, which was appointed, eventually to an expenditure of perhaps $350,000,000 in the con if I remember correctly, in 1 82 or 1883, and which reported a gen struction of new ships, and whether we shall then be ready to vote eral plan for the increase of the Navy. The policy board recom annually the enormous sum of money which will be necessary to mended the building of a total number of 227 vessels-10 first keep those vessels properly armed, properly manned, and properly class battle ships, to cost $56,000,000; 3 first-class battle ships of equipped. A brief glance through this bill will give us some idea great endurance, to COBt $11,000,000, and so on-the report giving of what must be the expenditure to keep up the Navy as it now each class and kind of vessel, which I will not consume time in exists and to provide for the increased expenditure which will enumerating. The total, as I have said, was .227 vessels, which necessarily follow the completion of the vessels already contracted were to cost a gross sum· of $349,515,000. _ In carrying ont in a for and now in course of construction. general way the recommendations of this policy board we have This is one of the only appropriation bills which in all my ex already built and equipped vessels sufficient to maintain all the perience in this House has come from the committee in such a naval power that we shall need on the high seas for the next shape as actually to increase the estimates of the Department. We quarter of a century. · all know that there is scarcely a Department of this Government I do not share the apprehension of those gentlemen who think that does not make its estimates with a liberal allowance, provid it essential that in order to preserve the integrity of the Republic ing for all sorts of deductions by the committee which is to con and to keep peace within and without our borders we must pos sider its bills. The Navy Department estimated what would be sess a naval establishment equal to that of the great powers of the necessary to meet all its regular and current expenditures for the earth, either singly or combined. We should reflect what it would ensuing year, and yet the Committee on Naval Affairs has brought cost to indulgeinsuch a luxury. I find from the best information in a bill which increases the estimates of the Secretary to the ex at command that Great Britain to-day has a navy embracing about tent of $844,927. It has been said that much of this increase be 275 vessels of all kinds, most of which are constantly in commis yond the estimates is due to the fact that they propose to build sion. Her annual expenditure for the maintenance of that num three battle ships and twelve torpedo boats. ber of vessels and their proper equipment amounts to $87,000,000. An investigation of the bill and report shows that the amount France has 187 vessels, and her annual expenditure upon her navy actually appropriated because of this proposed increase in the is about $52,000,000. Germany has 75 vessels, with an annual ex number of vessels is only $535,629, leaving $309,298 of the increase penditure upon her navy of $23,000,000. Russia, with 120 vessels, unaccount-ed for, except on the general principle of extravagance. many of them small wooden vessels, spends $30,000,000 per annum Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Will the gentleman pardon me upon her navy. Italy has about 91 vessels in her navy, and the a moment? annual expense for its maintenance is over $20,000,000. The :Mr. WASHINGTON. I must beg the gentleman not to inter United States, from the best information I can get, has about 47 rupt me. My time is limited to thirty minutes, and the gentle vessels, many of which are frequently out of commission, and we men favoring the bill control nearly all the time which ha.s been spent last year something over $25,000,000 in their maintenance. allotted to general debate. I am constrained, therefore, to ask It is proposed in the pending bill to spend more than $31,000,000 that I be not interrupted. this year in maintaining these vessels and laying the keeh of a Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. All right. few others which it is proposed to construct. Mr. WASHINGTON. Now, Mr. Chairman,aslwasabouttosay, Now, Mr. (,~airman, if we are to undertake to emulate the ex this bill increases the appropriation of last year $5,444.,197.14. The ample of European nations who are always ready to fly at each naval bill of 1894 as it became a law appropriated $25,366,829.72. other's throats, in their armaments, and who are maintaining them This bill asks for $31,807,521.30. Comment seems unnecessary. at the expense of their tax-ridden people, we must expect an ex Can the country, can the Treasury stand an annual increase of penditure which in the near future, if we follow the ratio in this five and a half million dollars in the cost of our Navy. bill, will soon reach fifty to sixty millions annually. That would Everynewshipfinished and put into commission entails a heavy be an outrageous and an unnecessary burden upon the people additional expense each year. TheNa val Committee, for instance, of this country. I find that the English navy costs 81,021 per man; has increased the appropriation for the equipment of vessels $188,- our Navy costs $1,500 per man, nearly one-third more. If there 000 because of four or five new ships going into commission dur fore it costs England eighty-seven millions per annum to maintain ing the past year. We are nowhere given a detailed statement of her present navy, it would cost the United States three times that the cost per day or per annum of maintaining one of these great sum, or two hundred and sixty-one millions per annum, to main floating palaces; but the cost is enormous. tain a navy as large as that of England to-day. Are we prepared The committee tell us briefly in the report that the estimates to put this awful burden on our people? If so, for what object? submitted by the Bureau of Ordnance have been increased in the Ls any nation threatening to invade our shores? Does our foreign sum of $1,131,081.50 over the existing law. They say that of this commerce need any such protection? Ls it barely possible that this ' sum $150,000 is for a modern battery for the Hartford, $159,558.50 great anxiety for a large new navy may have some connection is for a reserve supply of guns, $130,000 for a reserve supply of with the desire for territorial acquisition, so evident in some quar projectiles, $242,500 for additional torpedoes, and $75,000 for a ters? Possibly there is some connection between a great navy magazine at Craney Lsland. I should think: the purchase of so and the annexation of the Sandwich Islands. Perhaps some am~ many projectiles and additional torpedoes would require addi bitious statesmen are dreaming of taking Cuba under our protec tional magazine space. I have heard .no reason whatev-er given tion. If we are to engage in a war of conquest, we certainly shall for all this additional war material. I also find an item of $500,- need a navy, and the sooner we build our ships the better. 000 for reserve guns for auxiliary cruisers. Mr. DOCKERY. If the gentleman will permit me, in addition Why, sir, we have no auxiliary cruisers that I know of except to the vessels that have been alTeady constructed how many others the Paris and the New York. It seems to me it would be ample are there in process of construction? time to enter upon the purchase and manufacture of guns for aux Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. The gentleman from Missouri iliary cruisers after we shall have found vessels of that class flying asks a question, and I will answer it with the consent of the gen the American flag which we would have the right to take and to tleman from Tennessee. This bill provides for the completion of use in case the emergency should arise. Until there has been such every vessel that is now authorized by law. Provision is made modification of our shipping laws that American-owned vessels in the bill for each one of them in detail. can sail under the American flag, no matter where the vessel may Mr. WASHINGTON. Butthatis not the whole of the expense have been constructed, it is not probable that we will have many by any means. The gentleman must remember that if it takes auxiliary cruisers. • $31,000,000 to provide for the vessels already completed and to But to return to the increase of .the Navy. It is recommended keep them in commission, it would require a vastly greater sum that 2,000 additional men be enlisted in the Navy. This increase if the 15 vessels named in this bill be constructed. It will take is said to be necessary in order to put the new ships already fin forty orforty-fivemillionsnext year, and will continue to increase. ished in commission. The bill carries an increase of $460,481 to As I said, when once started you can not escape from it. provide for these new men if enlisted. The report states that Our Navy is already amply able to maintain the dignity of the there will be required on account of ships finished last year the United States, an(!. to protect the rights of our citizens on all the following additional sums: For Bureau of Equipment, $188,000; seas. I do not think any further increase necessary at this time. for Bureau Steam Engineering, $245,000; a total of 433,000, which, It is a waste of time for gentlemen to figure up the thousands of added to what it is said will be needed for the 2,000 additional miles of sea.coast line on the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf, and the men, will make an annual increase of $893,481, from which, if Great Lakes of the North and then undertake to show how inade once authorized, I fear we can never escape. quate the Navy is in comparison to that of Great Britain. There In these matters we can never go backward. We must continue is no parallel between the situation of the United States and of to advance. I can see no necessity, therefore, for entering upon Great Britain, and there is no reason for making the comparison. & reckleM expenditure of public money at a time when the receipts Why, if we would undertake to place at the month of every har· 2304 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. FEBRUARY 16, bor, inlet, and bay on the coast a great armored vessel, and keep Then, when we come down to the bottom of page 21, under the stationed there a fast cruiser, the burden of taxation would be so head of the new Naval Observatory, we find that there is asked for p-eat upon the people of this country that in ten years we would quarters for observers out at the observatory, four buildings, have a revolution that would sweep any party who favored such which ought to be called residences, to cost $7,500 each, a total of a scheme out of existence forever. $30,000. Now, Mr. Chairman, I shouldliketohave the committee I will ask the indulgence of the committee while I go through explain why it is necessary for quarters to be constructed for ob this bill somewhat in detail and show a few of the enormous sums servers and officers stationed at the Naval Observatory, which will it is proposed to expend on navy-yards and docks, and matters cost the enormous sum of $7,500 e~h. other than ships. Mr. DOCKERY. Do I understand the gentleman to say that I find by an investigation of the bill on page 13, under the head this bill carries an appropriation for four residences at the new of repairs and preservation of navy-yards, a proposed increase of Naval Observatory? $100,000, and yet while it would seem that that would cover the Mr. WASHINGTON. If my colleague will read the bill, on expenditures in that line, all through the bill, at every navy-yard, page 21, at line 25, at the bottom of the page, he will see the fol an examination will show that there are additional increases pro lowing: posed, the whole of which swell the appropriation for this pur N ew buildings: For quarters for observers, four buildings, at $7,500 each, pose up into the millions. That is only a general appropriation $30,000. on page 13 under that head, but if we go forward and take up Now, Mr. Chairman, I had occasion in the warm months of last each of the yards in detail we will see that there is an enormous year to take a walk out to the Naval Observatory, and after my expenditure for alterations, enlargements, and additions to these eyes had been delighted by the magnificent proportions of the yards. beautiful new observatory, which is a structure worthy of this At the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, for instance, there is an item to great country, they rested next upon a palatial residence finished which I wish to call the especial attention of the committee for a in the highest style of modern architectural art. This building I moment, and that is to construct or authorize the repair of the learned had been constructed at the expense of the taxpayers, com workshop near the timber dock-$85,000. Now, Mr. Chairman, pleted and furnished no doubt at the expense of the taxpayers, as a I was in the Brooklyn yard myself not very long ago, and on a residence for the chief observer or superintendent:of the Observa cursory investigation it seemed to me thoroughly enough equipped tory. Heaven knows what it cost; but there are few houses in the to transact all of the business of the United States Navy; and yet city of Washington grander in proportion or more beautiful in this bill proposes to expend the modest sum of $85,000 for one exterior, and I do not think that in a R epublic, under an econom new shop! ical Government, such as ours should be, we ought to erect palatial It is easy to imagine that before the end of the year they will quarters for army or navy officers who are assigned to the soft come back with an estimate of $50,000 or $60,000 to put ma snaps called shore duty. I do not object to reasonable residences, chinery in that new shop. And I do not select Brooklyn to make to comfortable quarters, but it strikes me that these appropria an invidious distinction. It was simply for reference. Follow tions go beyond the bounds of reason. all of these other provisions in the bill relating to yards, and you I hear my friend on the committee [Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland] will find much the same thing. ·Coming down to the Washington whisper to one of his associates that he cut down the Naval Ob Navy-Yard, we find an appropriation for the extension of the servatory estimate $50,000. Mr. Chairman, I thank him for that electric-light plant of $5,000. If I am correctly informed, there little suggestion, though it was not intended for me. was an expenditure on this same electric-light plant last year of . Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Oh, yes, it was. $15,000. Now, in the name of high heaven, how much of the Mr. WASHINGTON. His remark is proof of the statement I people's money is it going to take to put proper electric lights in made in the beginning that there is hardly a Department or bureau the quarters of the officers, in the barracks and shops and store of this Government that does not estimate for from 50 to 100 per rooms at this Washington Navy-Yard? cent more than they know they are going to get, and then if they Again, it is proposed to convert the museum building No.6 get 50 per cent of their estimate, they get in many cases more than into officers' quarters at an expense of $8,000. Anyone casually they have an actual need for if proper economy is practiced. Yet, investigating the condition of the yard would suppose that there instead of cutting down the whole estimate of the Navy Depart were qual"ters enough there now to take care of all of the officers ment, the Naval Committee has increased it, as I said, about who are assigned to duty here; but we must have another large $5,000,000. Of course they must have necessarily cut down an esti building converted into residences, at an expense of $8,000. It mate here and there. It would hardly be possible for them to seems to me to be an entirely unnecessary expenditure, or if it is have done otherwise. not, the committee reporting this bill should have brought before Mr. REYBuRN. You are opposed to the whole Navy, are you the House and the Committee of the Whole some specifications not? showing the absolute need :of this great expenditure of public Mr.WASHINGTON. No,sir;Iamnot. Now,Mr.Chairman, money at such a time as this. reverting again to the subject of battle ships, I want to reiterate I find again at the naval station at Port Royal, S.C., leaving and reenforce what has been said heretofore, that the construction out other large appropriations for that yard, an item for the con of these large battle ships requires a great deal of time; and naval struction of a repair shop of $80,000. Now,in the name of Heaven, architecture and the manufacture of guns, both for naval and how many repair shops do we need along the Atlantic and Gulf land use, are so rapidly developing that, in the majority of cases, coasts? Here is a provision also for a dry dock at Algiers, La., if we were to lay the hull of a battle ship to-day, before it could at the mouth of the 1\fississippi River, embodying a total expendi be completed it would be changed and modified so that the man ture of $1,250,000. To be. sure, this bill only appropriates $100,000 who drew the original plan would not recognize the ship of his for this dry dock, but that is only" the starter." More will be own designing. called for next year. Such is the history of our Navy in every particular. I hold in I stated that this bill was prolific of appropriations for the future my hand a report which was made a few years ago by a gentleman and a glance along its pages and its lines will convince any fair now a member of the Senate, who was once Secretary of the N avy, minded man of the truth of this statement. and an active and efficient man in that capacity, the Hon. WIL I find again, for dry dock and naval station on Puget Sound, LIAM E. CHANDLER, of the State of New Hampshire, and this doc page 21 of the bill, an appropriation of $280,000. The commit ument will bear perusal of everyone interested in this subject. tee does not tell u.s what is to be the total cost of this naval sta He states in regard to a few of our naval vessels, heavy armored tion, and all of the other appurtenances thereto belonging, which vessels, a few facts that ought to be brought to the attention of will be asked of the House in the future. Perhaps a million and every member of this House. Mr. CHANDLER says: a half or two millions of dollars will have to be expended at this point which I understand is within 30 miles of the British line, o/ir~;~:~~~;~~~~;;g~~~~ ~:C6i!sesu~o to~~~fo~ e!~nfot{:~::S\ ~b~~re~: where a British land force can march in one day and besiege, per for general purposes in a p eriod of about ten years. haps seize and destroy, this costly plant. Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Did he give the difference be Sir, it strikes me that if we need a naval station or navy-yard tween the ironclad and the battle shi:ps? on the Pacific Coast, it should be at Mare Island and not on Puget Mr. WASHINGTON. Yes. Sound. There is no necessity that I can discover for any more This proposition is as true now as it was eight years ago. It is doubtful than one yard, and that should be large enough and sufficiently whether any naval power has a broadside armored vessel even five years old such as it would build to-day when constructing m or e ironclads. equipped to care for all our vessels that need repairs in the wat-.ers Our own limited experience is the same. Congress, by the act of August of the Pacific. 5, 1882, direct ed the Naval Advisory Board to r eport in detail concerning the I find again, for the naval station at Key West, Fla., there is d ouble-turreted monitors P urit an, Amphitrit e, T en ·orJ and Monadnock, " whether any changes in the original plan or plans shoula. be made." appropriated in this bill the insignificant sum of $20,000 to buy a r.rhe Board made reports, dated December 15,1882 J anuary 11, 1883, April5, lot for a coal shed. Why, Mr. Chairman, I should think that 1883, May 31, 1883, and October 25, 1883 (Navy Depanm1 ent Report, 1883, pages $20,000 would buy several acres of ground in and around the lit '74-84), substituting roller-base t urrets for the original style of m onitor tur tle point of Key West, on the southern end of the Florida coast. rets, and settling the final plans for the completion of the vessels. The Board also say: But $20,000 is recklessly appropriated, under present conditions, "It is easily possible to complete the vessels by taking advantage of the :r:e to buy a lot on which to place a coal shed. cent developments in armor, guns, and machinery, without making any radi- 1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2305 cal changes in the deSigns, so that their speed, endurance, battery power, corded the United States had no such Navy as she has to-day, and protection, and seagoing qualities shall be fully equal to those of any foreign U'Onclad of similar dimensions designed previous to 1879." yet the genius and talent of the .American inventor was such that, Congress favorably r egarded the reports and plans of the Naval Advisory in a brief space of time, with a comparatively small expenditure Board, and March 11, 1883, approyriated "for the engines and machinery for of money, the United States got together a Navy which was supe the double-turreted ironclads, m accordance with the recommendations of the Naval Advisory Board, $1,000,000." rior to that of any power on the E>arth, a fact which the people in Yet such has been the assumed yrogress of invention and imyrovement in the section whence I come learned to their sorrow. It came out ironclads that instead of these ships being brought to completiOn in accord of that struggle triumphantly; and if we should become involved ance with the recommendations of the Advisory Board, radical changes are in war with a foreign country, we can trust to .American talent, being made, completely depriving them of their special character as low-free board, revolving-turret ships. The turrets have been taken off the Puritan, to .American ingenuity, and American genius to furnish the ves so that she may come up higher out of the water, and stationary barbette sels, the arms, as well as the brave hearts and commanding gen protection for the guns has been adopted, and they are to be fired from above ius to meet the emergency of that hour. I insist that when this the rampart and covered only by a steel umbrella, which will be blown away by any heavy projectile and the guns disabled. bill comes up for action under the five-minute rule for amendment Moreover, running between the barbette towers a commodious super in the Committee of the Whole these expenditures shm:ud be structure has been built on the deck in order that the officers may not be closely supervised and largely reduced. [Loud applause.] obliged to endure the discomforts of living below deck, where the crew must live. Whatever may be the real value as a war ship of the once more recon . Mr. Chairman, I desire to print some further extracts from Sen structed Puritan, she is no longer a low-free-board, double-turreted monitor; ate Report No. 174, Fifty-first Congress, first session. I am con and it is clear, if what has been done has been done wisely, that an ironclad vinced that they are worth reading, and they bear directly on the carefully designed in 1883 became obsolete before 1889. subject of battle ships. And I think, if I am not mistaken, neither one of these vessels I.-THE UNITED STATES OUGHT NOT TO BUILD .ARMORED BROADSIDE BAT is to-day completed. Is that a fact? TLE SHIPS. Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. They will all be completed by The time has not yet arrived, if, indeed, it will ever come, for the construc 1896. tion by the United States of the ponderous, unwieldy, and costly broadside Jannary, armored vessels with which European nations are making experiments of at Mr. WASHINGTON. None of them is completed. least doubtful value. Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Oh, yes. · Whether the majority of the committee approve the whole programme of the Mr. WASHINGTON. They are to be completed in January in policy board, involving the construction of an American Navy, to cost not less than $349,000,000, or whether they dissent from some of its features, does another year. A further perusal shows how materially the plans not appear. One ~oint, however, the advocates of this comprehensive plan have been altered from time to time and large appropriations must frankly adnnt, that if this nation is to build and maintain the battle made in consequence of these changes. A plan is adopted, much ships which it includes, the rest of the plan must b e sub~tantially adopted in order to make the fleet contain all the classes of ships necessary for a vast money is spent, and then the plans have to be all changed and and well-proportioned navy. another appropriation asked for. Secondly, it seems equally clear to the undersigned that if the whole plan Mr. SAYERS. Let me remind the gentleman that only in the is to be adopted, and yet construction is to proceed by degrees and not by at once authorizing the whole expenditure. then the very last ships to be built last session of Congress we had to make a large appropriation to should be heavy, armored line-of-battle ships, costing $5,640,000 each; whereas cut two of these vessels in two and make them longer, so as to the majority of the committee propose to build these first, and to appropriate keep them from turning over. comparatively little money for the construction of the harbor-defense moni Mr. WASHINGTON. That is true. tors, rams, cruisers, gunboats, and _torpedo boats recommended by the Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Let me state to the gentleman policy board as a necessary part of thell' scheme for a complete and adequate from Texas that the last appropriation bill carried just what this llij"'?"i.S the opinion of the undersigned that in the progress of the ~econstruc tion of the American Navy by suitable steps and reasonable and moderate does, and the gentleman approved of that bill. appropriations, which has been auspiciously and successfully begun, the new Mr. WASHINGTON. I object to all of this coming out of my constructions next to be authorized should be a certain number of proper time. harbor or coast defense vessels and a considerable number of moderate-sized Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. I want to say to the gentleman cruisers and gunboats, varying from vessels of 1,500 and 1,700 tons, like the Dolphin and Yorktown~, up to ships like the Boston and Atlanta, of 3,000 tons. from Tennessee that the Monadnock was in the naval review two Our unrrotected haroors will thus be made partially secure, our naval of years ago. ficers wil be able to spend more of their time upon the water instead of being Mr. WASHINGTON. That may be. The Puritan I saw my housed on shore duty; they will become familiarized with our own coast, and will perhaps become sufficiently proficient in practical seamanship to be self, not long ago, lying at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard as empty as able, whenever the time comes, if the future brings such a period, to take an old washtub, and just about as helpless. charge of large armored battle ships and go out upon the ocean to meet and Then we undertook the construction of the Maine and the Texas; destroy, if they can, the fleets of European powers. But to assume that we hav~ now rea~hed a point when we should substan· and I think they have been completed and put in commission. tially discontinue other naval constructions and begin the work of building They are not what they would have been if we had waited a little 38 armored battle ships to cost $177,~J.OQQJ. or even that we should build forth while longer. Yet, Mr. Whitney advertised in the press, and gave with eight of such ships. to cost $45,.u:u,uw, is a ~ave mistake, which, if per sisted in. may become a fatal barrier to real, Wise, and judicious progress in a chance to all the naval architects of the world to compete in the rehabilitation of the Navy. We do not now need .heavily armored broad furnishing plans for these ships. He did not confine himself to side battle ships. We probably never shall need them. the naval architects of the United States. IV.-${6,000,000 NOW FOR BATTLE SHIPS WILL TAKE MONEY AWAY FROM Therefore, Mr: · Chairman, we ought to go very slowly indeed in FORTIFICATIONS AND HAR:BOR DEFENSE. a proposition to construct these enormous engines of war, which, The expenditure, under the head of the Increase of the Navy, of $48,000,000 when completed, will either lie useless in some navy-yard, to be for eight armored battle ships, to be authorized by the present Congress, is eaten up by rust, or the plans on which they are be constructed out of proportion to any sum likely to be authorized for certain kindred ob to . jects which:shoula;be considered in connection with the naval appropriations. will have to be changed from time to time during that construc If the line-of-battle ships will be in no proper sense coast-defense vessels, how tion, so that instead of costing $4,000,000 each they will cost $6,000,- much is to be appropriated for such defense vessels, and how much for forti 000 or $7,000,000, and be worthless when completed. I hope that fications and guns for the same? These are the first and most vital questions. Simultaneously with the preparations made in pursuance of the act of the House is not ready to enter upon the construction of costly August 5,1882, for the reconstruction of the Navy, the subject of coast and ships like these at this time. harbor defense was seriously considered, and later, in accordance with the No doubt more vessels are wanted by those who take a great act of Congress of March 3,1885, the Fortifications Board was appointed, con sisting of the Secretarr of War (Mr. Endicott), four army officers, two interest in the Navy and who have personal reasons for wishing naval officers, and two Civilians. to have a great Navy. I do not prop~se to question the motives The elaborate report of this Board is dated January 16,1886 (House Ex of any member, but gentlemen all know that each year there is a ecutive Document No. 49, Forty-ninth Congress, first session), and it rec ommends as a comprehensive plan for defending our entire seacoast and large class of cadets turned out at Annapolis prepared at the ex lake frontier: For land defenses for 27 port.q, for masonry and earth pense of the Government for naval life. These young men nat works, $31,863,000; for armor ;for land batteries, $20,300,000; for structural urally desire to reach a command in some vessel and an oppor metal, $3 320,000; for guns ani! mortars, $281554,000; for carriages. $9,411,800; for tunity of obtaining rank and distinction at the expense of the floating batteries and their armament: For San Francisco, 10,725,~j for · New Orleans $8,150 000; for submarine mines and their adjuncts, $4,~,000; country. If I had it in my power I would so change the law that and for torpedo boats, $9,720,000; or $126,377,800 in all; and the Board recom; only a limited number of the cadets would be admitted to the mends appropriations for the first year of $21,000,000, and $9,000,000 annually thereafter, until at the end of, fourteen years the scheme would be com Navy each year. The others, after receiving a thorough training pleted. which would fit them for command should the country ever re This report was submitted to Congress January 23, 1886. Four years have quire their services, should be sent back to civil life, where they passed, and of the appropriations asked for not more than $5,000.000 have could join the great army of producers and become useful citizens. been made; and of the $10,725,000 for the harbor of San Francisco and the $8,150,000 for New Orleans, with which to construct floating batteries, noth We have already, as a part of the new Navy, a great reorganiza ing has been given by Congress. The omission has not happened by rGason tion scheme pending before the House and on the Calendar-a plan of any la~k of confl.dence in the eminent and able members of the Fortifica by which it is proposed to putupon the retired list practicallythe tions Board, or in the soundness of their recommendations; but because Con&Tess has not considered the country as in a condition of emergency re great bulk of the men in the Navy to-day who are of mature age, quirmg undue haste, but has believed that by moderate and reasonable ap so as to give the younglings and striplings a chance to force them propriations the work of establishing a suitable coast and harbor defense by selves to the quarter-deck. If that bill is carried through and fortifications and floating batteries, and of rehabilitating the Navy, could be will be carried forward without extravagance or waste. · these new ships are built, in every Congress there a de The question now raised is whether a present direction to s~Iid $!6,000,000 mand for larger and larger appropriations in order that our young for eight naval battle ships is contrary to or in accordance With the general and worthily ambitious officers may sail the seas and parade the policy of Congress concerning fortifications, coast defenses, and naval con structions. , . . greatness of our Navy before an admiring world. If the national interests require us to contemplate and to at once enter upon At the outbreak of the greatest war that history has ever re- the expenditure of $200,000,000 under the War Department for forti.ficationt XXVII-145 r------~------~~------~~----~--~------~- ~ ---~------. 2306 CONGRESSIONAL _REO ORD-HOUSE. FEBRUARY lH, and coast defenses, in pursuance and in enlargement of theJ>lans of the For part. The two things necessary, primarily, to building up foreign ' tifications Board, and under the Na~ Department of $281,550,000for naval vessels as recommended hf the policy board, supplemented by .at least commerce are, :first, .an efficient consular service, .and, second, a $50,000,000 for the rehabilitatiOn of the League Island and other navy-yards, navy sufficiently powerful to support and protect ou.r enterprising then we maypossibly justify continuing naval construction by building eight citizens who go into foreign lands to can-yon trade. England's large armored line-of-battle ships, costing 46,000,000, that .can not go in or if out of our shallow harbors. commerce followed her navy; it did not precede it; and we want Such a navy as seems to be thus contemplated by the majority of the com to build up the commerce of ow· country we must first have a mittee would make the United States the equal or the superior of any of the navy sufficiently strong to protect ente1-pri.sing American who en European na.val_powers. It would I'equire the enlargement of our foree of seamen from 7,500 to 25,000 or 30,000, and annual expenditures for new con gage in business abroad, and, as England does, to let every citizen structions, for repairs of the fleet, and for the maintenance of the Navy far know that the a.rmof his country will reach out to protect his per beyond any sums hitherto advocated. Are we prepared to thus place and son and his property wherever they may be. [Applause.] maintain our naval force upon such a footing that we may at any moment be The gentleman also said that even if we must have a navy he ready to engage on our coast and out upon the open ocean and in European waters with the most formidable naval powers of the Eastern Hemisphere? objected to the class of ships known aB battle ships. He went If we are, here is indeed a new departure, and one that should be entered on to describe them, and he said that they were top-heavy, that upon deliberately and with our eyes open to a.ll the present and future bur we had reached a point beyond which we could not go in con dens which it will entail. The undersigned is not in favor of such a naval policy. Coast defense structmg armored crtrisers, that these battle ships could not enter should be first amply provided for. All the arts of naval warfare should be the harbors where they would be required to go, and that they kept alive among our people. Industries necessary to the construction of were useless as a means of defense. He went further and cited any kind of war vessels or guns should be domesticated. We should restore the flag of our merchant ships and revive the carrying trade in American the recent naval encounters in the Yalu River and at Wei Hai vessels in all the waters and in all the commercial ports of the globe, and Wei as illustrations of the uselessness of such ships. I do not protect our mercantile marine when thus reestablished. We should con know where the gentleman got his information but I wish to tell struct and maintain a navy superior to that of a!ly nation of the Western Hemisphere and to that of the nation owning the Island of Cuba; and thare him that the battle ships in the YaJu conflict came out, so far as we can stop, it is to be hoped, for manY. years. their hulls were concerned, their floating capacity, comparatively But to build a navy embracing as its principal feature the enormous ar unscathed. The light guns of the cruisers made no impression mored battle ships of European countries, and to make ready to fight at any upon them except upon their decks; and I have it from the most moment naval e~ements on the high seas with those powers, has not hitherto been considered the true American policy. Toma.i.nLain suchana.vy, reli.able.anthorities in our own Navy that, with ufficient upply and also a sygL...em of fortifications and coast defense, with a land army com of ammunition and rompetent sailors and officers, tho e hips mensurate with such a naval force, would go far toward bringing the United would have been ready for a. second engagement inside of forty States into th~ lamentable condition of the nations of central Europe. They are bm·dened with great navies and enorDlQus standing armies which are eight hours. draining the lifeblood of the people and imposing burdens of debt and taxa The gentleman also said that our country was not able to make tion so grievous that before man-y years relief from them., if not afforded in armor plate to put upon these ships, and he referred to certain re an_y other way, will be accomplished by revolutions. It may be gratifying to our national pride to talk of building a fleet of cent scandals that permeated this conntry in regard to the manu enormous armored battle ships with which, disdaining fortifications and facture of such armor. I again reply to the gentleman that by coast defense, we may in case of war go out to seek and destroy our enemies direction of this House that matter was investigated, and the com upon the ocean, or to carry the war into their country. But when the prop osition takes the concrete form of an authorization at this time of eight 'Such mittee advised the Department to go on with the same contr~ta, ships., to cost $5,MO,OOO each, or $45,120,000 for the eight, as the inception of a thereby showing that those scandalous rumors wer~ unfounded, scheme to build 38line-of-battle ShiiJs, to cost $177,400,000, as a part of a navy and that the firm engaged in furnishing the armor !had done it to to cost $3!9,515,000, it would seem to be wise for Congress at onoe to consider with great seriousness what shall be the definite national policy concerning the best of their ability and up to the requirements of the ron the Navy and f01·tifications and coast defense, and to settle that policy upon tracts. a more reasonable and conservative basis. Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, I wish to state that the battle Mr. ADAMS of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, as I listened to ships now under construction are nearing completion, and while the remru.-ks of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. WASHINGTON] I would not advocate that the Government of the United States who has just taken his seat~ it struck me as an .anomaly and a should be called upon to furnish work for our si,.···il.led workmen or thing hard to realize that one bearing the historic name of Wash our shipyards, I do state as a sound economic doctrine that if ington should utter such sentiments on the floor of this House, those shipyards are allowed to fall into disuse, and if those skilled when in the final address of the Father of his Country he laid it workmen a;re allowed to scatter so as not to be within reach when down as the best advice he could give to those who were to follow they are needed, not only shall we not be able to oo.nstrud battle him in guiding the destinies of this Republic of ours that ''in time ships in an hour or a day, as suggested by the gentleman from of pe~e we should prepare for war/' [Applause.] Tennessee, but we shall not be able to construct them at all . . The gentleman in his peroration said that when the necessity Do you wish to drive our oountry back to the position of the arose the ships would be 1·eady, and that brave sailors to man South American Republics, who buy their ships from England, them and strong intellects to command them would appear for France, or other foreign countries, and then when the time of the emergency; but he omitted to remember that earlier in his I"e danger comes and those ships are injured, as we have seen was maTks he had told us that it takes two years and a half to con the case in Brazil and Chile in our recent experienee, they ean sti·uct a battle ship. [Laughter.] It is that fact, sir, which not even repair them in their own harbors to fit them to go again makes it necessary foT us to commence the construction of these into active service? ships in time. For two years no app1·opriation has been mad~ in Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Kansas further says that this regard for the Navy Deparlment, and therein lies the neces these enormous ships would not be able to enter most of the har sity why the consh·uction of these ships should be provided for bors on the Atlantic coast. In reply to that I say it is not in without further delay. tended that these battle ships should enter such harbors. The But, Mr. Chairman, I wish more particularly to direct my re harbors where they are constructed, the harbors where navy marks in answer to the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. SIMPSoN], yards exist to repair them, are sufficiently deep for them to enter. who, rep1·esenting one of the political parties in this country-all The position of a battle ship during time.s of peace is to be laid that is left of it-stated on this floor the other day that there was up, not to be in service, because of the heavy expense~ The posi no necessity for the United States to have a navy at all. That tion of the battle ship in time of w.ar is where it can conduct gentleman took exception once when I made the -remark that he what in naval circles is ~own as offensive-defensive protection. and his party represented only a certain class of people in this Its position is along our coast, where it may be able to repel any country. I would like to call his attention now to the fact that, attack which may be made upon us by foreign navies. J'ust as the to the full extent~ he does not in his remarks on this snbject even cruisers go to faT distant port , and just as the monitors and tur represent that class. When he ships his grain from Kansas he rets and oth-er harbor-defense ships are kept within the harbors, does not know where it is going, where it will find a market, or the position of the battle hip is a certain distance t a., to repel where it will be finally landed; and I call his attention to the fact invasions, to protect om· ports, and prevent any foreign fleet from that for weeks two American vessels lay in the harbor of Rio de approaching within such a distance as to be able to do us damage. Janeiro unable to discharge their cargoes of flour or to free them Therefore the gentleman's objection is not sound. selves from the unlawful force that was deterring th"8ID from the Mr. Chairman, 1 had the honor to represent my countryinTira pw·suit of their business until that gallant sailor, Admiral Ben zH durmg the recent revolution. No one could tell what might ham, with the same Navy which the gentleman says is useless and happen within forty-eight hours. Ame1'ican citizens there ap ought not to exist, came into the harbor of Rio de Janeiro .andes pealed for protection to th€ir GovernmBnt. And to the shame of corted these two Baltimore clippers up to the dock and protected our country be it said, that although there were American citi them in the discharge of their cargoes. zens residing there who did not know at what minute their prop Therefore, sir, I claim that~ven from the gentleman~s own point erty or lives might be imperiled, there was nothin,.,. then in South of view, even from the standpoint of those who live in the interior American waters to be sent to their protection but thB Tallapoo a, and who tell us that there is no need for a navy or for protection which l.ay in the River Plat&-an old side-wheel steamer "'Whieh on the sea, it is obvious that the Navy, even in time of peace, can ha-d been oondemned to such an extent that she was not allowed be most useful to our .commerce in enabling our citizens to pursue · to go to sear-and that gallant ship to which histori<: associations thBir lawful business in foreign countries. The gentleman told attaeh, the Riehmond. But when the Richmond .ente1·ed the us that England needBd a navy because she had a comm.Brce. I harbor of Rio she was like the ideas of the gentleman from Krm want to reply to the gentleman that therein lies .an error on his :sas--she was out of date; she was antiquated; £h~ be1-ong.ed to a · ~GRESSIONAL REOORD-HOUSE. 230'i pas't ·neriod. One !broadside from ~he Wir-adentes or the Ric"heualo, lJJedo :is seoani:lary 'in importance 'to -:the 'oattle ship. We can pro '{)f the Brazilian -navy, wcmldhave . senti:hat~allant-old ship to-the vide forfue destn1.cti0D. ofrtb.e-torpedoes .by w.hat is known:a.sthe 'bottom, not because of lack .of courage 011 ·the -pa:rt of her crew., torpedo destroyer. But all -the -nations of EuroJ>e, Asia, .:and ib.e ibut because of the inefficiency of'the -vessel. People appealed to whole world must ·depend either .for supremacy at sea or for the us in South America, as1..-ing, "Why is it that we never see ·the protection 'Of "their lhambars and their commerce on ·the battle ship. American 1lag enter the ha1~bor here, notwithStanding the "}>TO- So I submit that it will not answer -to 11rovide ~ ·appropriation Claimed sympathy of the United States with ·the :South .:A.meri.can for torpedo b9ats; it will not answer to p1·ovide.an appropriation Republics ;::md then· IJrOfessed -readiness to .lend 11. helping band -:to , for-cruisers, ·either armored or unarmored, 'but we-must provide those Governments?" the means for the ,construction of three great battle ships. There is .another reason why .our country £hould hsve an ade- See what England .has ·done and is .doing; .and we ·ean not rival quate navy. One of our great Democnttic ·statesmen laid down her or approach hex in tb.e celerity of construction of-war ships. the doctrine wlrich has ever since 1>orne his name-the Monroe You must beaT in mind that 'the vessel just launched by the Brit doctrine. It has now become not mere1y ·a political principle, but ish ad.m:iral.ty -was :finished in tfive ·days less -than one year; that is a cardinal rdectrine of the American peaple tha;t we -will brook no to sa;v, ih:tt-that period of time e1aJ>sed between i;he -laying of the foreign interference either in the political affadrs or ·the cammer- keel and the launching of the vessel, and the -vessel herself will1Je ciol :relations 'Of this :hemisphere. Those who have mot :followed finished and ready for sea in August next to make her ~eea or the course of-public events know littlewhatthe.shot1irom:thega1- steam trial. iant Newark across the bow of the TiradeJntes JID..eant. i[ will ltell So England .needs but eighteen months for the completion of ~ou. It enunciated that the Tebelli.on which was rbei:ng fostered one 'OI tthese"imme'.lli>e battl~ r~lrips of 14;900 tons displacement, and fOT the -sol~ :;purpose ·of .Festoring the monarchy lin !B~aiil :must the MetgTlli(/iofmt 'Rlld the Majestic ~rm but ;the first .two ·of a. 'Class . come to an end. It was a notice-from "the United '8tate11 :that we m ·nine 'V~1B of lfhis -displacement in .:proc·ess of coustruction; ;would lntve no ·more foreign interference in -the pt>liticail:affa:irs of a-nd -this class o.f vessels wit:h speed, rst .forced draft, of 17! 'knots, .t1ris ·mmtinent. When that -shot was fuea it was u.ndel'Stood "that and :a nmt:ara.l ornotforced draft :of 16 :knn.ts, mrly fallows a serie.s the 'United States -stood ready-to maintain'that doctrine-;'all.d there- . of ·eight 'IIlagtrifi.oent ~attle "BhiJS ~remmtly completed -of only 750 npon the rebellion·oollapsed, the new Republic of Bxaz:ii wasm'ain- inns less displacement. So we hRVe iEng!and :Rn.d all the countries tained, Im.d "the honor of the UniteaSta;tes .on this ·contineiit -up- ef Em6pe, and Ch:i:na'Ebnd..'Japa.n.,rOb.Tie .a:n:d Rra;zll !building ibattle .bald. .Bh±ps all the 1rl:me, amd rit tis essential :foo: Ulll'']rro:teotion .and the Sir, if we wish to m-aintain our }>Osition .mnong :the :Imvi.es uf maitttenance -of ·our Jrosition ;amang fue ~ons :of the ~vadd -:that the w0r1a. if we wish 'OUT cauntry·te occupy·a.-J)laee -anrong the we shonld naturally his every thought turned to joy and peace. But the illustrious deeds of our countrymen upon the sea will be repeated. gentleman from Massachusetts failed to quote one of the stanzas Our sailors are the best on the globe, our gunners can not be ex following. He quoted the beautiful stanza: celled. No people ever have produced, and I believe no people Were half the power that fills the world with terror, ever can produce, officers who can handle ships in action with the Were half the wealth bestowld on camps and courts skill of Americans. Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts. Let the battle ships be built. I would not have such an enormous navy as England has. We do not need it. We have not patches But he failed to quote a subsequent stanza, in which the poet of territory all around the globe to defend as she has. But our says: Down the dark future, through long generations, own protection, our honor, and our dignity demand that we The echoing sounds grow famter and then cease; should have a Navy sufficient to defend our coast and guard our And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, interests wherever they maybe menaced. [Applause.] I hear once more the voice of Christ say "peace.,; But the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. SIMPSON] has run this You will observe that the poet holds out no such view as that debate into an argumen~ for free sh1ps. Possibly he was antici of the gentleman from Massachusetts that the millennium will pating the consideration of the free-ship bill of the gentleman from have come in the year 1895. illinois [Mr. FITHIAN] • . He says: This would seem to settle the question which has hitherto ex Down the dark future, through long generations, isted in our minds, whether there is any industry of our people The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease. which the Bourbon leaders of the Democratic party have not de Gentlemen, nineteen hundred years have passed since the ad t-ermined to destroy. Having already blasted our land with its vent of the Man of Nazareth, and instead of growing nearer and legislation in favor of foreign nations it-now seeks to go down to more near to a universal era of peace, all the energies, all the the shores of the sea and make havoc and desolation there. inventive talent, all the genius of the human mind are now de The Scriptures say there are three things which are insatiable, voted to the manufacture and construction and suggestion of the sea, the grave, and a barren woman. Had the Bible remained implements of war more horrible, more fatal in the power of exe to be written in these times the inspiredwriterwould have added cution than any which the world has heretofore seen. So I sub a fourth, more insatiable than all the others, the destructive mania mit that, laudable as these views of the learned gentleman from of modern Democracy, when it rests its eyes upon any profitable Massachusetts maybe, appealing as they must appeal to us as men avocation of our countrymen in which they may achieve for them of human sympathies, they are impracticable, they are beyond the selves the comforts of life, contribute to the general welfare, and pale of thought except as a philosophical view. And it is only our advance the dignity, the honor,and the greatness of their country. duty in the way of self-preservation to take care of our own. You [Applause on the Republican side.] know what peaceful arbitration amounts to. You have seen that Whatever is calculated to develop the rich resources of our land, in the result of the Bering Sea arbitration, and I submit that this employ and justly remunerate its labor, add to our common store country should be powerful enough to have the latent force of of wealth, hasten our progress in all that is most desirable to a arms, and a strong armament, so that it can enforce its demands brave, energetic, aspiring people, and respond to the national whenever we find that peaceful arbitration is out of the question. yearning for a higher plane of living and a strong, independent And I say to you, gentlemen, in conclusion, that I hope you, one position among the nations of the earth, appears to be regarded and all, Democrats and Republicans alike, will vote without a by the majority party in this Congress as a red rag is looked upon moment's hesitation in favor of this appropriation. Vote for it by a mad bull, and no less likely to receive a furious attack because it involves a question of the honor and dignity of tills from it. country as a nation. Vote for it because it involves the continu It is not enough, as it seems, gentlemen, to satisfy your greed ance and prosperity of certain great American industries which for destruction that you have crippled or destroyed every industry have been believed in and advocated by the leaders of both the of our people which you could reach through your miserable tariff Democratic and Republican parties. bill, but you now propose to swoop down like vultures upon our [Here the hammer fell.] shipyards and say to our shipwrights that they must construct no Mr. MILLIKEN. Mr. Chairman, I do not purpose to discuss more American ships unless they do it at the rate of wages which at length the merits of this question. I wish to say a word, how is paid upon the Clyde. ever, in favor of the battle ships. We are weak only upon the You do more than this. You determine to introduce the for ocean. No nation upon the globe would think of attacking us on eigner to participate and eventually monopolize our extensive the land, or if they should do so, the result would be such as to and profitable coastwise carrying trade. discover to them that they had made a serious mistake. Almost at the beginning of our Government the statesmen of I was interested yesterday while listening to the gentleman from that period foresaw the great value and advantage to our country Kansas [Mr. SIMPSON]-and I have listened to the same kind of of protecting this trade. They proceeded to do it. It has been arguments from others-urging that we are so great, so strong, one of the most important factors in the promotion of our pros and so imposing that no one would dare attack us upon the ocean perity and power. even though we had no navy at all. To-day we have the finest line of coasting vessels afloat, unsur This is a foolish assumption, unwarranted by all that may be passed in their saWng qualities, unequaled in their beauty of con learned from the lessons taught in the history of nations and the struction, manned by crews as hardy and brave as sail the seas, character of mankind. furnishing whenever necessary a nursery for our Navy, an arm of Why, Mr. Chairman, when the lion's claws are clipped and his strength as well as a source of wealth to our country. teeth are drawn the fox may dare attack him. However great, Should the gentleman's free-ship project be ecacted into law it strong, and imposing we may be, we could not risk an issue even will be but the first step toward breaking down the barriers of pro with Japan if she have a navy and we have none; our great strength tection erected by our forefathers to this pursuit so valuable to our would_be ~3eless without the means to make it available. By fail people and giving it to foreigners, who will monopolize it, because ing to provide ourselves with such ships of war as our col.mtry, they will follow it with cheaper vessels than our own, manned by with its immense.and diversified interests demands, we invite at sailors more poorly paid and fed and with much fewer comforts of tacks that would never be made were we prepared to meet them. living. Strong in our geographical position, in the energy and bravery But aJl this is in line with Democratic policy. It is modern of our people, it is hardly less than a disgrace that we should be Democratic statesmanship. It is destructive of whatever it touches nearly defenseless upon the sea. Why, England will build this in our own land or that belongs to our own people anywhere. year more tonnage of armored ships, carrying more and larger gtms, The same policy of stupidity or infidelity to American interests than all we have in our Navy, aud this, too, with our extended which is sending 45,000,000 of American sheep to the shambles in coast line upon two oceans, which is now almost entirely unpro the interest of foreign woolgrowers, crippling our lumber and tected against attack. salt industries, closing our mines and embarrassing ourmanufac An efficient Navy is necessary to our independence and respect tures, impoverishing our merchants and farmers, and sentencing able standing among the nations of the earth. It has been so our workingmen to idleness and poverty would decree an aban always, and there is nothing more gallant in the history of na donment of our shipyards for the benefit of British builders and tions than the part which the American Navy has acted in the a surrender of our splendid and profitable coastwise carrying trade past. No American heart inspired by patriotic feeling can fail to to Canadian and English coasters. The gentleman's free-ship swell with pride while recounting the exploits of our countrymen policy would accomplish this. · upon the ocean in the wars of the Revolution and of 1812. The American shipbuilder, who is constructing the finest ves We were the first to meet and vanquish Englishmen upon the sels, whether of iron or wood, that sail the ocean, and who sends sea. Inferior as were our vessels in numbers and size, our coun the evidences of American skill and enterprise to every quarter of trymen made a record so honorable in its character and so conclu the globe where the seas and rivers exist, and the American coaster sive of the superiority of our sailors in skill and gallantry, that it seem to be about the only men in our country whom your destruc is to-day a source of patriotic inspiration to every true American tive tariff law could not reach, and now you would place your soul. [Applause on the Republican side.] paralyzing hand on them. - Give us an adequate Navy and if _occasion shall require it the If you shall succeed in effecting your purpose then you can eel- 1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2309 ebrate your victory upon the ruins of a grander prosperity, built largest sense, and for this reason our forefathers made special laws up by your countrymen during many years of protection, than for its protection. . has ever brought comfort to the hearts and homes of any other They enacted that no vessel should be entitled to an American people known in the history of the human race, and when the register and carry the An1erican flag except it should be built people get at you again they will smite you with a more terrific witliin the jurisdiction of our Government. thunderbolt than crushed you on the 6th of last Novembar. They also made laws protecting ·our coasting trade. What was But the Bourbon element of the Democracy, which controls now, the purpose of these laws, which are almost as old as the Govern as it always has the Democratic party, is nothing if not destruc ment? The motive of our ancestors :is plain. They, in their wis tive. Condemned to thirty-two years retirement from national dom, foresaw the great advantage to our people of constructing control for its attempt to dissolve the Union, it now returns to our own ships and controlling our own domestic commerce. power to compass so far as it can the ruin of a most marvelous They knew and regarded the fact that no nation from the palmy prosperity which grew up during the generation of its impotency days of Athens's commerce to their times had ever possessed and for serious harm. retained a great commercial marine except it built its own ships. It constructs nothing. Its unsuccessful attempt to reestablish They knewthevalue of our shipyards to our people as a sourceof a corrupt and semisavage monarchy in Hawaii is the only monu employment. They felt the necessity of developing the skill of ment of its endeavor to build up anything that has occurred our people in constructing ships as the foundation of a navy and within the memory of men now living. Us mission seems to be to to make us independent of the world in this calling. tear down what patriotic hands have erected. An invading But the gentleman from Kansas and most of the party on his enemy could be hardly more determined in its efforts to annihilate side of the House do not seem to feel it. He says we can not all the sources of our thrift and greatness as a nation than the build ships because we pay our shipwrights high wages. But we Democratic party seems to be in all it has done and proposes to do. can and we do it, and we intend, if possible, not to reduce the This attack upon our shipyards is made upon an industry which rate of wages. The gentleman has talked a good deal about the was guarded and cherished with particular solicitude by our fore wrongs of the workingman. But now he proposes to reduce the fathers, which has been the pride of our people, and is peculiarly wages of the men who work in our .shipyards to the low wages national in character and far-reaching benefits. Perhaps no more paid on the Clyde, or transfer their avocation to foreign countries. correct reason can be given why it is offen sive to modern Bourbon But, Mr. Chairman, there is another consideration in connec Democracy and is now the object of its assault than the fact that tion with this debate which seems to me to be the most serious it is associated with the most inspiring achievements which illus of all. trate the pages of American history. The opposition which we find here to building these battle ships In shipbuilding as well as in the character of our intrepid sailors and providing something like adequate protection for our nation's we have led the world. No finer specimens of the shipwright's interests, betrays a lack of patriotic spirit on the part of a cer art ever traversed the ocean than have been modeled and built in tain class of men in this House and in the country which is to be American shipyards. deplored. That unpatriotic spirit seems to be popular just now. We built the Great ReJYuhlic and many others of her class, Why, we found it in the case of Hawaii, when a President of whose sailing qualities were unrivaled in their time, and whose the United States had signed a treaty and sent it to the Senate, a symmetry and beauty of model were the admiration of all who treaty that would have annexed these beautiful Islands to this loved to look upon splendid specimens of naval construction. country and given us a position that commands the Pacific coast, They furnished the models for the great iron steamers which now a position, too, that could be made as impregnable as Gibraltar, cross the ocean with such remarkable speed as to make Europe and it was rejected, and every effort made to turn back the tide our near neighbor. of civilization and restore a rotten monarchy. It was opposed in The gentleman's policy would do nothing less than to destroy every way, and with a bitterness that can hardly be accounted the shipyards of America, where these grand results have been for. Oh, I would rather have the future reputation of honest, achieved, and where to-day the finest ships in the world are being intelligent, patriotic John L. Stevens, saying in his dying mo constructed, disperse our shipwrights, deprive our country and ments, "Stevens pulled up the flag and he never pulled it down," the world of the fruits of American genius in this grand pursuit, than all that will remain of Presidents and Congresses that strug and make American shipbuilding a thing of the past. gled to detach Hawaii from our influence and interests, and re The great iron shipyards of the Cramps, from which has re turn it to a government ·of barbarism. [Great applause on the cently been launched the magnificent steamer St. Louis, unsur Republican side.] · passed if not unequaled by: any ship of the kind on the globe, the . In Samoa, too, somebody wanted to give away all that we had splendidly equipped establishments at Newport News, Chester, there. In Japan, also, this Government, through certain gen Bath, and San Francisco which have produced so many steel ves tlemen, wanted to interfere against the Mikado and in favor of sels that have carried to the :four corners of the globe proofs of China, which meant to favor the British interests there. And the constructive genius and power of our people, are all doomed when, Mr. Chairman, we came to make a tariff, there was a cer to abandonment and destruction by such a law as the gentleman tain class in this House and in the country that desired to give would enact. This means the discharging from eJD.ployment of away everything we .had; to give away American interests to more than 20,000 workmen and the deprivation and distress of whomsoever would take them. I say that is the saddest and most 100,000 people. . serious part of the case; and part of the Democratic party, at There are no sturdier, steadier, sober, and more intelligent work least, with the Administration, has done a harm that I fear may men in our country than our shipwrights; none who contribute seriously trouble us in the future in endeavoring, perhaps un more to the wealth and greatness of the American nation, and at consciously, to blunt the· patriotic spirit of the people of this the same time give it as little trouble. country. He who does that does us the greatest possible harm, Where will they go? What will they do when you have driven for in the patriotic hearts of the peoplerestsoursecurity. With them from their present avocation? . Your policy of ruin has out them our institutions can not exist. When Demosthenes was closed every other avenue of industry to them. There is not an eloquently urging the people of Athens to struggle against Philip honorable pursuit in the land that does not find labor begging at for the protection of Greece, Eschines was leading his party its doors for employment. against his own country, not in battle but in the councils of the Had you destroyed this great industry two years ago, when the nation. country was safely under the protective policy of the Republican When Hannibal was fighting Rome, with his matchl,ess genius party, when the factories were all running, the :furnaces blazing, endeavoring to crush the great enemy of Carthage, there was a the mines open and worked, the farmers finding good markets, copper-head party at home, led by Hanno, that finally defeated and labor everywhere in demand, it would have been nothing less his purpose and brought Carthage to ruin. Oh, let it not come to than a great national crime, but now it will be both a crime and pass here that gentlemen shall take a position that shall finally a cruelty. build up a party in this country that shall be a party of unpatriot I am not sorry that the gentleman went to the length which he ism, a party that shall oppose everything which the interests of did and developed the animus of that side of the House upon this the people demand, and which shall endeavor to put a check on subject. We know now who is the friend and who the enemy of the power, the grandeur, and the glory of this great nation. American shipbuilding; who would have us employ the skill Battle shipst Why, as I have said, England this year will build and genius of our own people to construct a Navy and merchant more battle ships of larger tonnage, carrying more weight of marine, and who would give this industry to the foreigner; who metal, than the entire battle ships of our Navy. She will this has a pride in the splendid results of American genius, and whose year increase her ships beyond the number and strength of all we admiration is all reserved for those who live beyond the ocean and have, and we talk about this little niggardly appropriation for a carry another flag than our own. few battle ships which we need to enable us even to do the police But I said that the vocation of shipbuilding was of national im duty of the United States upon the ocean. [Applause on the portance. Every vocation of our people is indirectly of national Republican side.] -importance, since no part of our people can prosper or suffer with Have gentlemen no pride in their country? Do they wish to out affecting for weal or woe every other part of them. see it shorn of power to defend its interests and its honor? Would But shipbuilding is of national importance directly and in the they have its ports the prey of every second or third class nation .· 2310 CONGRESSIONAL REOOR~HOUSE . F EBRUARY 16, on the globe? W onld they see it sa defenseless that it must quail the committee. has had the boldness to state that these vessels at every threat of other nations, and feel its incompetency to ~e:re eventually to cost $23,000~00<>-L l should like to kno.w what gnard its dignity and maintain its rights? [Applause.] al!lthority he has for making any such statement. Vessel aftey If they do the people do not, and s much as gentl~men have vessel has been authorized by law; yet in. no mstance, so far as I done to blunt in the hearts of the men and women of our land know, has the cost for the construction of any vessel gone beyond their earnest love of country, they will find when the trial day the amount authoriz.ed by law; and in more cases than one the shall co:zne. that they have undertaken a task that can not be ac- vessel was constructed, completed, and armed for less money than c~mplished. Let us have the battle ships. The patriotism and the law authorized. Therefore I can not see why the gentleman wisdom of the nation demand i:t, and we shall not be held guilt- should state in good faith, when we appropriate not exceeding less by those whom we r epresent if we shall not respond, by our $12,000 ,000, that the expense is going to be ..,23,000,000. There is votes, to that demand. The people are proud of their country, no reason in law and none in precedent for such a statement. proud of its grand history, J}rond of its progress and its prowess, The geD:tleman from Kansas also stated to the House th..'tt there proud of i:ts institutions and their beneficent influence upon man- are only five or six ports in the United States which these first kind, abroad as well as at home, and they will not see its arm of class battle ships can enter. If he knows no more about theNavy power patralyzed by those who are monarchists at heart, though generally than he knows about this particular subject, his state they present an American surface to the world. [Great ap- ments are not entitl~d to consideration at the hands of this House. plause.] I read from an article called" The ships of the new Navy:" [Mr. COOMBS addressed the committee. See Appendix.] ex=~~~ will draw more w ter un.doubtedly. but they certainly will not Mr. TALBOTT of Ma,-vland. 11 "-. Chairman, ""Nfore ... ~==---ing It is a. common mistake to suppose that we have no harbors which ve ~ Is •• J · J.;;u- 1.10; ~lllll drawing 20 feet ean enter. w, have 3S ports which vessels d?awing SO feet my re:markst I desi:re to state to the committee that the gentleman can enter at half tide-, including Eastoort Rook:land. a.nd Portlan • Me.; from Maine, Mr. BouTELLE~ who is a member of the minority of Porlsmonth, N . H .; Marblehead and New &dford. 1'tiass.; Ne}'I'Port. R.I.; •tt N 1 Aff: · t ha k t "'- b t New London. Co.nn.; Gard.iners Bay and several otherpointsonLong Island; the C omm1 ee on ava aus, was o ve spo en. o-Ul:Jy, u NewYm·k• Hampton Road, V!l!.; K~y West, Fia,.; Santa:&u--bar:ll, 1'tfonter&y, he is not here and his time· has been occupied by other gentlemen. San Francisco, and Mendocino City, cal.~ Olym_pia, Port T €> wnsend, 'E I havereeeive:d a message-:fuom him statingthatheis not elland a.ndSeattle, Wash. Thi!port.sof:Bo n,.Mass..,Lewes,DeL,andNe.wOl'l s, 1;.. • th H t this time b t hat,~ · · · f fth La..,ca.n. be entered by vessels drawing25 feet. The port of New York has a unabl e t Ove:m e ousea ' 11 t .u.eiSm avoro e depthof SOfeetof waterthronghoutth&wholecha.nnelatmea.n lowwater, bill as reported from the committee, and that if he were here would so that a ship drawing 30 feet ma.y e.nter a.t any stage of the tide. t ake part in the debate and advocate its passage:. It thus appears that there are· 38 ports of our country which a Some time ago there was a question even in my mind as to the vessel drawing 30 feet of water can enter. propriety of tbe provision embraced in this bill for new battle M:r. LOUD. The gentleman will allow me to suggest that the ships, but the Secretary of the T:reasu:ry has removed from my . gentleman from Kansas is a fresh-water sailor~ mind all donbtastotheproprietyofmaki:ng·theseappr opriations. ~b. TALBOTT of Mm-yl:and. Yes, si::Jr; quite" fresh." Inacommrmication to the Senate on the 2d day of this month the Now, we are told that there is no necessity for a :navy; that an Se:ereta:ry estimated that for this calen.O:ar year-and I wish the the vessels which have been oonstrneted unde:r anthority of law H ouse distmctlyro nnde:rstand the time that the estfmate covers- are useless and w0rlhles . Sir, tilere- neverw!lS at more bw-efaced that for this calendar year, under the existing tariff laws, there proposition ~de: in the halls of Cong17ess. _I assert that e ery will be a surplus over and above all pub1ie expenditures of more vessel authariZed and· constructed by anthonty of Congress. an t han 822,000,000. That being the case~ the obJection based upon s e•s the purpos2 fotr which it was bnilt If e hav been bnild the supposed inability of the Government to undertake the con- ing unarmored and armored cruisers which are worlble , w y is struetion of these battle ships is removed. oth e? gentlemen may it that the other nations of the earth have not found it out and discredit the estimate of the See:retary of the Trea.smy, but I am discarded th~m? n ot prepared to do that. I for one am not willin~ ~o discredit the Why is it that every unarmored cruiser and every armored authorized head of the Treasury Department in tllis statement. CTtriser OWD.ed by France·r by England, by Germany, and by all I am sure no other gentleman -will do so It being~ then~appar- the :first..elass- poweJ'S of the earth is carried on the register of the eDt that we shall have at our disposal funds sufficient to build a respective nations to-day-office~·ed, manned, provisioned, and navy, I pro~ first to discuss the question wheth&r or not it is supplied with sufficient ammunition to engage in ba.ttle2 good policy. I can not go into detail and answer the various state- Mr Chairman, an officer in command of an unarmored cruiser ments of all the gentlemen who have addressed this committee. would be exceedingly foolish, and would be courl-martialed, if he The last gentleman who spoke in oppomtion to this bill, the gen- should engage a battle ship at odds when he could get away and tleman fiom Tennessee [Mr. W.A.SHING'l'ON], had the temerity to Ba~ve his vessel. But what was the polic-y of the comm nders of state to this House that the construction of these vesse~-1 sup- English and American vessels as fa.r back as the wrur of 18l2? }>(>Se he meant the maintenance of the!.'e a,nd all other vessels-was They so~gh.t each othe~· out. A vessel of 20 gnns in the Eno-lisb ~ingtoentailuponthisconntrythee:rlraordinarycosto-fbetween navy would seek out one of 2(} gnru:; in th.e American Navy; a 250,000,000 and S300,00(),000. 'Why, Mr. Speaker, this app:ropria- chall~:nge would pass,. and they w ould engacre in conflict. Sc it tion, all told, cru"l.ies a little mo:re th. n 31,0001000. 0uld be now in case of a . The unarmored crnise:r would This appropriation embraces in its features. enough money to se:a:rch out the rmarmored! cruiser of the enemy; the protect ed finish every vessel authorized by existing law, and at the end of cruiser would search out the protected cruiser, and when the fight the fiscal year 1896, with the appro~iation earned in thls bill, by fleet of ships was on the battle ships. provided fo:r under this every vessel autho.rized by law will have been completed except law, would take their pl ces in the line of battle, and the: pro the battle ship Iowa. And under the most adverse circumstances, tected and unprotected cruisers would take their proper places in when the gentlemen on the other side take control of the Honse the line. Each would do its parl, and the sum total would be the and the SeDate they can carry on the: appropriations contemplated science and the bravery of e:i:lherside, and perhaps the preponder in the construction of thes& battle ships, they can appropriate ance: of guns W011ld weigh the most in the battle. every do!lar for the construction as it progresses, and the next na· Bot we-ar~ told 1hai we do not need any navy at all, and that val appropriation bill will not exceed, unde:r a11y cironmst nces, Great Britam is willing to arbiirate. Great Britain never arbi in my judgment, ove:r $20,000,000 for t-he support of the Navy. trates with anybody except one who is ready to, fight her. Great I stated yesterday, Mr. Chair man, that for the current expenses Britain used the American colonies befo:re the American Revolu of the Navy ~partment we had not departed substantially from tion, to wrest from FY nee her French provinces, and what return the features of the bills for 1894 and 1895. Yet, te my surprise, did we get for it? When we came to seek our independence, for the gentleman from Tennessee states to. thls. House that we have getting that. we had given up all of this valuable teuito.ry she exceeded the estimates of the Department by over $800,000. That invited the savages to aid in preven.ting the cbie -ement o.f the is t:rue. We have appro.pl'iated in this bill ~.007 more than the inde>pendence for which our fathers fought; and after had estirnaJtes. But we do this because we provide in this. bill for achieved independence she, by act after act, by impres ing our car:rying out the recommendations of the Department. We do it seamen, and by other a~ i e acts~ compelled us, the infant because the l)e.partment treoommend'ed that we should add t-o ou:r Republic of the _ orl:d, as we were at that time, to decla:re war naval force. at lea t 2,000 enlisted men. against the greatesi power of Europe. We declared war and we We have authorized the enlistment of those 2,000men, but we fought it, and we licked her from Champlain to New Ode ns. appropriate only for 1,000, taking it for granted that perhaps [Applause.] .AI~bitrate with us. If we had not these battle ships du:dng the next fiscal year the. Secretary of the Navy can only and cruisers of ours~ and. if it w s not understood to be the policy enlist possibly 1,000, or probably may not have use for the whole: of the United State Government that we would go on building n umber, tho.ugb it is well that he should have the: authority to np this Navy,. she would never 1·equest. arbitration with ns. Her enlist them. The pay of these 1,000 additional enlisted men will dealings would be very different be 8349,000 and the cost for then maintenance 109,000. In ad- 1\Ir VAN VOORHIS of New York.. That is. co~:rect. dition to that we have added to t his bill the sum necessary fo:r the Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. We would neYer hear of rutbi- fust year towar d planning the con struction an d beginning these tration then. n ew vessels which are authorized. Why, sir~ thegentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. EYEB.Er11) said The gentleman from Kansas. l Mr. S:m:l>sON], who has addr~ that there was. an &a no on earth oi u :peace and good Will" ·. 1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2311 amongst all men. If England wants to arbitrate let her disband The gentleman says, "Peace!" Yes, nobody desires peace more her naval forces. If she wants to arbitrate that is the first step. than I do. Nobody desires that this country shall remain at peace If England is to disarm her naval force and rely upon arbitration -more than I do. But I go further than that. I go away beyond in the future, let her discard it. But she is not going to do it. the desire to have peace. I go to the extent that this country of And if we made the demand she would say, of course, "The com- ours shall put itself in a condition to command peace. [Ap plications in Europe are such that they will not permit us to do plause.] that;" but when a compli~ation arose here, she would find it very There is but one way to do that, and that is to build your Navy. ~sy to spare a few of her battle ships to send across and give us That is the one popular branch of the military arm of the Govern considerable trouble. ment. It is the one branch of the military arm of the Government Why, my own State was invaded by th€ British soldiers in 1812, that is popular in every part of the country. Why, sir, the gen and the United States Government has paid more to our citizens tleman from New Jersey rMr. GEISSENHAINER], the chairman of for losses sustained by that invasion, more money, than it would the Committee on Naval.A:.ffaiirs, bas stated to theHousethenum .have cost to have maintained a laTge fleet in Chesapeake Bay. ber of miles comprising our coast. This coast, counting in the Without the aid of theBritishfleettheynever could have landed Lake States, embraces over 16,000 miles. Why, the gentleman • their forces on our shores. Without the aid of the British fleet from Tennessee [Mr. WASHINGTON] said it is impossible to place they could never have landed at New Orleans. I have no faith in a battle ship at every port. Did anybody ever sayit was necessary the protestations of the English Government. I have never known to do it? Certainly not. What I say is this, that we want for them to let go a single inch of territory on which they had their our coast defense on the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Gulf of clurohes. History does not record any such transaction as that Mexico sufficient battle~ships to meettheenemyat any given point, where En"land has got her hands on any part of the world. because, with thefadlity with which information is now conveyed, A 1\!EmmR. Not even Ireland. it is not a very difficult matter to collect a fleet in from three to Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Not even Ireland, or Scotland, six days upon any part of our coast. That is all that is intended. or Wales, or India, m: any of the islands in the sea.. I desire to say this to the gentleman, that it is much more eco- I want to say this in this .connection: When the British army nomical to build your battle ships .and have them at your com invadedNew Orleans theyinvadBd it because the transaction which mand, so that you can order them up and down the coast, at secured to us the transfer of that vast Louisiana territory from the immensely less cost than yon can build forts and put guns in them French Government was so recent that they thought if they could at every single point which can be at'-IACked on our seacoast. Sir only defeat an American army at New Ol·leans, at the mouth of the William Pitt had but one motto, Mr. Chairman, so far as sta-tes Mississippi River, they could own all the territory covered by the manship was concerned, for the English Government. It was a cession of Louisiana by France. catching phrase. Th€ one word was ''Security. " Security for Mr. ROBINSON of Pennsylvania. Itwasbe·causeof the d.efeat the English people, security for the merchantmen of the English d the French fleet by the British at Trafalgar that that cession nation, security foT its inhabitants at home and abroad; and that was made. covers the case. So far as we are concerned we go beyond that; Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. My attention is called to the I go beyond that. I not only desire secm:ity, Mr. Chaii"'man, for faet that it was the defeat of the FTenchand Spanish navy atTra- Ammcan citizens at home and amoad; I insist-that when a. mer falgar that induced Napoleon to part with that valuable pos- chantman of Baltimore sends his cargo to Rio that it shall be session, and transfer it to us. I might go into that question landed. Our nation did it when we had the best :fleet that ever more at length, Mr. Chair~ and discuss the effect of the assembled for many a day in the waters of Rio, and the me1·chant battle of the Nile, and the battle of Trafalgar, and the battles of ships of my own town unloaded their cargoes when the English Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, but they have been all gone into men and Frenchmen did not. .But 1 go beyond that; away be by other gentlemen who have discussed this question. yond that. I claim that it is the 'Province of good American citi- N ow, I am obliged to the State of Massachusetts for one thing, zenship and statesmanship that the American fleet shall dominate, and that is, to say that there is more than one statesman who bas that the American people Shall C'ontrol the western waters of the hailed from that great State as a member of the Everett family. Atlantic Ocean and the eastern waters of the Pa~ific, and any A gentleman by the name of Edward Everettt who occupied quite man who is willing to eurrender for his country either of thffie a prominent place in the history of the United States, and whose propositions is not worthy t<> represent his people in this Con memory is revered and respected by all of the people of this land, gress. a man of the largest culture, has made some remarks on a kindred My Democratic friends, we are told by gentlemen on the other question, to which I will re~eT you. I can ·not read. all of his side, over and over and over again, that the Navy has been builtt speech, but it was delivered m 1864. He was the chairman pre- but never yet has it been built by a majority of this side of the :aiding at a complimentary dinner given to the Committee on Naval HoUBe voting for it; and I am ashamed to say that that charge is Affairs of the House of Representatives, at the Reve~e HollSe in a.lmost true. And yet, my associates on this side of the Hause, :Boston, on the 12th day of March, 1864. At that time he used you have never gone into a Presidential campaign that yon did this language: not tell the people what the Democratic party did for theNavybe- But, gentlemen, it is not exclusively nor mainly these commercial associa forethewar. Youneverhadaconvention that-yon did not pledge tions which have led our people to cherish a navy. They have felt that those -the people that you were going to build this important b1·anch of great natural powers, the world-surrounding ocean, its shores and its depths, the military service of the conntry. I will not take time to read it; 1ts harbors and its boundless pathwa-ys, -the winds that sweep it surface, the currents which obey their impulse, the livin~ tribes which swarm upon its but in 1888 you took special pains to ten the country that you ap shoals or wallow in its abysses, were intendea by a gracious Providence to proved the administration by Secretary Whitney of the Navy De rank high among the materials of that greatest creation of the wisdom of partment, and ga-ve him great credit for building yon!' war vessels. man, a'mvilized commonwe:Mth. They have deduced from all history, anc-ient .and modern, they have inherited with the primal traditions of the mother In 1892, in the convention at Chicago, presided over by my friend country, the v:ital truth, that for territory situated on the seaboo.rd, naval m front of me [Mr. WILSON of West Virginia], you adopted another skill and strength are the indispensable condition of national independence, resolution, saying to the country that you were in favor of build safetyJ and power; a truth, by the way, enough of jtself to show the mad ness or the South in attempting to sever her connection with a great naval ing and maintaining the Navy commensurate with the population, power, with the inevitable effect, jf she could succ.eed in the suicidal attempt, wealth, and dignity of the country. of placing her own coasts, harbors, and thi3 mouths of her riyers at the Mr. LIVINGSTON. ls not that about the only plank of the mercy of every foreign power able to keep a few war steamers at sea.. The patriots of thi3 Revolution, South as well as North, saw this. Mr. Democratic platform in Chicago that we have not gone back on? Edward Rutledge told hisfellow-citizensof SouthOarolina that"tlley bad :Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. We have not gone back on that. no other resource, in time of danger, than the naval force of our Northern Sometimes people do not know what they put in platforms. friends." It has been so from the dawn of history. It was a navy which en abled a little city of Greece to beat back the barba-rous hordes of the East. Mr. SIMPSON. Do you Jmow of any promise made in the It was a navy which enable(lCarthage so long to dispute theJITogress of the platform adopted by the Chicago convention that has been ful Romans to universal dominion. It was a navy-nay, it was one naval bat filled? tle-which gave Augustus the Empire of the world; a navy which carried the N orthmen from the polar circle to the coasts of France, to Sicily, and Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. So far as I am concerned, we Constantinople; and which made Venice and Genoa, alternately, the mis will carry out this one. tresses of the Mediterranean and the Levant, and, through them, of the Mr. LIVINGSTON. I would like -to see them carry out -one commerce of the East. It was theirnav:ies which, in the dawn of the modern thing? political system of Europe, put it in the power of Spain and little Portugal to div:ide between them, like the two halves of an orange, no small]>art of Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. I desire, .Mr. Chairman, just to the newly discoYered world. It was her naval strength which prevented ca11 attention to something said by the Secretary of theNavy him England from being crushed in the Titanic struggle with Spain m the six self some years ago. teenth century; by which, in the seventeent-h and ei~J:rteenth centuries, she laid the foundation of her vast colonial empire on tnis continent, in India, The report which was brought into the House on March 10, 1886, and Australia; and by which, even now, she belts the globe with the sovereign by Mr. Herbert, then chairman of the CoiilmL~e on Naval Af girdle of her dependencies. fairs, said: That, Mr. Chairman, was the language of a very distinguished The geographical situation of the United States and the relations we bear gentleman in Massachusetts, the late Edward Everett, father of to other nations are peculiar. We have no rival on the western eontinent, and we justly feel secure against any attack an enemy mi~ht make upon us the gentleman who addressed thB House yesterday. by land. But we are-without adequate means of defending our foreign or Now, Mr. Chairman, as far as I am concerned, I am 'Pa.rtial in our coastwise commerce, and the cities scattered along our long line of sea. this business. I have always been for a navy, and always will 'Qe eoast are absolutely at the mercy of any second-rate naval power of the w~~ - for a great navy. Your committee have not thought it profitable to inquire into the causes 2312 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD- HOUSE. - FEBRUARY 16, which have resulted in placing the United States in this anomalous position among the nations of the earth. But a brief retrospect may be useful in en Mr. LIVINGSTON. I think that we had better carry out this abling us to decide what should be our policy for the future. promise, as it is the only one left in the platform that has not been Prior to the war of 1812 mere were some serious difff'rences of opinion violated. among our statesmen as to whether the Umted States ought to attempt to be come an important naval power, but from the moment when the news came Mr. T.ALBOTT of Maryland. During the century of our na of the brilliant viC-tories of Hull and Lawrence at sea and Perry and :McDon- tional existence that will close on the 4th of March, our Navy has ough on the lakes. the question was decided. . . been engaged in war with France two years, with Tripoli four From that day the American Navy was an obJect of more or less pnde and years, with Great Britain three years, with the Barbary powers affection under every Administration. We built the best ships afloat and armed them with guns which were at least equal to any in the world. We seven years, with Mexico two years, and in the civil war four did not aspire to be, because it was not necessary, but we demonstrated our years. capacity to become the equal if not the superior of any naval power in the In other words, gentlemen, while you say there is no danger of world. This was believed by the statesmen of that era to be the attitude the United States should assume before the world. war, war is declared in these days by telegraph, by cable. You Your committee see no reason why we should entirely depart from that can not tell how soon we may have war. It is a fact that the Eng policy now. We believe thisGovernmentshouldatleast create a navy which lish Government, following its usual practice, is to-day trying to will be respectable in size, and that we should demonstrate our capacity to in cease it rapidly to any required extent. establish a boundary in Alaska.that would take from us the most In 1846, in pursuit of the policy then agreed on by all, the United States valuable part of that recently acquired Territory. We can not tell • founded the present Naval Ac.'tdemy. This institution is said to have owed when war may come upon us, and the only thing for the Amer its existence primarily to that eminent citizen, who now lives to witness the fruits of his wisdom, the Ron. George Bancroft. ican people to do now and always is to keep up with the times. The Naval Academy keeps abreast with the foremost in this era of devel [Applause.] I do not claim that we ought to have a navy as large opment, and it has furnished us with a personnel for our Navy unequal~ in as the British navy. I do not claim that we ought to have a navy training and culture bythat of any other nation. The officers thus tramed are drawn from ·an portions of the country, so that the Navy, in so far as as large as the French navy. What I do say is that we ought to officers are concerned, is a representative body. have a navythat, using the language of Admiral Walker, "would But these officers would be practically useless in case of war now with any be able to meet any detachment of the English navy or the French first or second rate naval power, because our ships now in commission are of an obsolete type, and they are armed with guns which are practically useless navy or of any foreign navy that could be sent to our shores." against the armored vessels of to-day. Gentlemen may think I am talking idly, but the English people In 1860 the era of wooden ships and stone forts was drawing to a close. are not idle. They are building forts all around us; they are es Some efforts had been made in the direction of armored ships by several na tablishing coaling stations all around us. The English Govern tions. A number of armored batteries had been designed, and Napoleon III, in 1858, had protected one of his vessels with about 3 inches of iron. But these ment is making more progress toward establishing substantial were all untried. forts and reliable coaling stations on this continent than she is on The great battle between the Me1-rimac and the Monitor showed the power the other. and value of iron armor for the protection of battle ships, and the system of warfare at sea was revolutionized. The United States showed wonderful en Mr. MONEY. And more than we are doing on this continent. terprise and ingenuity in building ironclad vessels during the four years of Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland. Yes, sir; more than we are doing our civil strife; but since that war ceased, now twenty-one years ago, we have on this continent, as a matter of course, because of the mistaken made no advance. policy we have been pursuing. Our Navy now is not equal to what it wa~ in 1860 .. ~ut all other IJ?.arit4De nations profiting by the lessons taught dunng our Civil war, have VIed With Now, Mr. Chairman;! will ask leave to extend my remarks in each other in improving their navies. Iron took the place of wood for ves the RECORD, because as the eulogies on the late Senator Colquitt sels and steel has now taken the place of iron for both vessels and gun..o;;. are to begin at 2 p. m., I think it proper to move that the commit Ships of war have grown larger and heavier, guns have grown larger and heavier and for twenty years the contest has gone on between the power of tee do now rise in order that the House may have a few minutes armor to resist and the power of guns to pierce. It now seems to be almost for the transaction of routine business between now and that hour. definitely settled that a modern projectile, tlu·o~ from the heavi~t and I thank the members of the committee for their kind attention, best gun will pierce at point-blank range the heaVIest armor a seagomg ves and I move that the committee do now rise. [Loud applause.] sel can ~rry. Yet, though this is g_enerally concede4, the guns which possess this power are so heavy, so expensive, and necessarily so few upon a vessel, The motion was agreed to. and the conditions of a. combat at sea are so different from target practice, The committee accordingly rose; and the Speaker having that the great naval powers of the world are continuing, and probably will continue to build armor-clad vessels. Lieutenant Jaques, one of the most resumed the chair, Mr. O'NEIL of Massachusetts, from the Com accompllihed officers of the United States Navy, in a pamphlet on this sub- mittee of the Whole, reported that they had had under consider ation the naval appropriation bill and had come to no resolution jeRt:rE~~:~~h~u~:~i~~ ~~~~tJs~i!8ss~~use the penetrating power of thereon. modern artillery is superior to the resistance of modern plates I would call attention to the fact that circumstances attending target practice on the DONATION OF CONDEMNED CANNON. proving grounds-the fire normal, guns on fixed platform and the range only Mr. HULL. Mr. Speaker, a day or two ago there was sub g. few hundred feet-are very diff'erent from those in battle, where the range ls great the armor fitted to the fort or ship is constructed to present the least mitted to the House by the Speaker a Senate act donating some amount' of normal surface, and the attacking gun and moving ship ar.e ever condemned cannon from the navy-yard at Portsmouth, N.H., to chan~ing their positions. According to Noble, one ~f the ablest Eng~sh ~r the Iowa State Museum, at Des Moines, and it was referred by tllleriSts a thickness of armor equal to one-half theruameterof the proJectile will insu~e almost certainimpen~trability in the ever-varying conditions of a mistake to the Committee on :Military Affairs. In reporting the battle at sea." bill back from that committee, I ask unanimous consent that it be But as at present circumstanced it is of small moment to the United States now put upon its passage, as I think it can be disposed of in two whether the modern gun or modern armor is superior. We have neither the one nor the other-no gun mounted that can pierce an enemy's armor, or three minutes. no armor on a completed vessel or on a fort that can resist an enemy's guns. The bill was read, as follows: Our heaviest granite wall is only 8 feet thick, while an SO-ton English gun Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Navy be, and is hereby, au has thrown a projectile through 25 feet of granite and cement. "No ma~o~ thorized and directed to supply the Iowa Historical Museum, Des Moines, can withstand such a fire. Even 75feetof earth would J?robablynot reSISt It, Iowa, on the request of the governor, with two condenmed cannon and one and if it would troops could not, without other protectiOn, work the cannon condenmed seacoast mortar from the Portsmouth Navy-Yard, N. H., the under the galling fire of modern ma-chine guns." State of Iowa to pay all the expenses of transportation, etc. Then, after carefully comparing our Navy at that time with our The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present consideration Navy of 1860, and also with the principal navies of the world, the of this bill? report proceeds: There was no objection. The bill was ordered to a third reading; and it was accordingly If we study carefully the characteristics of the navies summarize~ in this appendix, we find that we are not only at the mercy of European natiOns, but read the third time, and passed. ~ that our neighbor, Brazil, might exact tribute of any city along our Gulf or On motion of Mr. HULL, a motion. to reconsider the vote by Atlantic coast. while Chile could enforce silnilar demands on the shores of which the bill was passed was laid on the table. the Pacific. The Riachuelo and Aq_uidaban, those formidable Brazilian armored cruisers, BILOXI .AND B.A.CK B.A. Y BRIDGE. could steam, at 13 to U knots an hour, from Brazil to New York in ten days. These vessels could with impunity pass our forts and anchor in New York Mr. STOCKDALE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for Harbor but without doing this\ their guns could easily throw shells into the present consideration of the bill (H. R. 8459) to amend an act New York City from off Coney Island beach. The Chilean vessel Esme-r:alda entitled "An act to authorize the Biloxi and Back Bay Bridge Com carries coa~ enough to enable he~ to steam at 8 knots an hour .from Chil~ to San FranciSco without ex.haustmg half her coal supply. With her hi_gh pany to construct a bridge over that portion of the Bay of Biloxi, power guns she could lie outside the Golden Gate and lay the city of'San in the State of Mississippi, known as Back Bay." Francisco under contribution without going :within the reach of Its guns. The bill was read, as follows: The Cochrane and Blanco Encalada, other Chilean ships, are protected by 9 Be it enacted, etc., That the act entitled "An act to authorize the Biloxi and inches of iron armor,and carry batteries of six 8-inch breechloading rifles. Back Bay Bridge Company to construct and maintain a bridge over that por It is the unanimous opinion of your committee that the Government of the tion of the Bay of Biloxi, in the State of 1\iississippi, known as Back Bay," United States ought not longer to permit the lives and property~f Amei:ican citizens to be thus manifestly held at the mercy of so many foreign nations. approved August 27, 189!, be, and the same is hereby, amended as follows: In We have therefore earnestly inquired what steps ought to be taken to in section 6, line 2, strike out "one year " and insert instead thereof the words crease our means of defense. In the present condition of maritime warfare, "two years." considering all proposed means of attack and defense it is a grave question The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present consideration to decide in what proportions between the erection of fortifications and addi of this bill? tions to our naval establishment expenditures should be divided. It is not our province to discuss that question. We suppose all will admit the value There was no objection. of forts and guns ashore. The nations of the Old World have exp~nd~d vast The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time; a:ntd sums in the erection of iron and steel clad forts, and they are contmumg the being engrossed, it was accordingly read the third time, and passed. work. Even for the usea of the Navy there must be harbors of refuge and safe anchorage must be provided where not only naval vessels, but those of On motion of Mr. STOCKDALE, a motion to reconsider the vote the commercial marine may find shelter in time of war. by which the bill was passed was laid on the table. 1895 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2313 REAR-ADMIRAL J. H. RUSSELL. the Sixth Georgia Infantry; served as brigadier-general and was Mr. ROBINSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I ask unani commissioned as a major-general; was elected governor of the mous consent for the present consideration of Senate bill 864, to State in 1876 and reelected to that office; at the expiration of his authorize the payment to Rear-Admiral John H. Russell, of the term as governor he was elected to the Senate of the United States United States Navy, of the highest pay of his grade. for the term commencing March 4, 1883, and was reelected in 1888. The bill was read, as follows: Such was his own account of his life. Though modest, it out lines a career of great distinction, beginning early and terminating Be it enacted, etc., That in consideration of the eminent and conspicuous serv only at his death. It omits any mention of his successes at college, ices rendered by Rear-Admiral John H. Russell, of the United State~ Navy, .re tired, particularly in that on the night of September 13,1861, while holding his deeds of gallantry in two wars, and his great triumphs in his the rank of lieutenant, he voluntarily commanded an expedition of about ;100 political campaigns, though sometimes hotly contested. Nor does officers and m en which destroyed the Confederate war vessel Judah, which wa.s fully armed, manned, and equipped, and moored at the Pensacola Navy this sketch contain even an allusion to his ministries in the pulpit Yard, in the presence of over 1,000 .soldiers who we~e stationed at _the ~ard, and all the enterprises of the Methodist Church, though these and in the face of numerous batteries, one-fifth of his command bemg either pious offices were performed while he was governor and Senator. killed or wounded. he being among the latter, and in that he served faith In one of his last speeches in the Senate he closed with the excla fully and commendably during the subsequent years of the ~ar of the ;·abel lion in important commands and has never received any speCial promotlo~ or mation: advancement in numbers .... said Rear-Admiral John H. Russell shall receive Righteousness exa.lteth a nation! the highest pay of his graae. It is interesting to note how closely he followed the footsteps The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present consideration of his distinguished father, Walter T . Colquitt. The latter Wa5 of this bill? also educated at Princeton College, was a lawyer of great repu Mr. SAYERS. Let us have some explanation of the bill. Let tation, was a judge of the superior court, a general of militia, the report be read. a member of the general assembly of the State, a Representative The SPEAKER. The report is quite long. Is there objection in Congress, a member of the Senate of the United States, and a to the present consideration of this bill? minister of the Methodist Church. · The careers of the father and Mr. TALBERT of South Carolina. I object. son are so nearly identical that they form chapters in the same POST-OFFICE APPROPRIATION BILL. story. The line of the one's life seems to have been a prolonga The SPEAKER laid before the House a bill (H.R.8272) mak tion of that of the other. Let us hope that the son of Alfred H. ing appropriations for the service of the Post-Office Department Colquitt may be wori*.y of his lineage and that an honorable nam€1 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896, and for other purposes, may become a part of the inheritance in this family. with amendments of the Senate thereto. I leave to others more intimately acquainted with Senator Col Mr. HENDERSON of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I move quitt the highest office of a friend, an affectionate tribute to his that the House nonconcur in the Senate amendments and ask for private traits and virtues and a minute detail of the elements of a conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses. his character and conduct. His manhood began in affluence; he The motion was agreed to, and the Speaker appointed as con died poor. He had no extravagant habits, and in a money-loving ferees on the paxt of the House Mr. HENDERSON of No~h Caro age he was content with a moderate living, and never repined lina, Mr. DUNPHY, and Mr. LOUD. over the great losses entailed by an unsuccessful war. The pa ASSISTANT ENGINEER, ETC., HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. thetic devotion of his family during his long affliction was the fittest reward for his own generous solicitude as husband and Mr. SHELL. :Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for the father. He lived in a historic era, and in all its mighty move present consideration of the resolution which I send to the desk. ments he occupied leading positions. And amid them all, with The resolution was read, as follows: their great anxieties and temptations, he seems to have professed Resolved, That in addition to the sum of $300 to be paid out of the contin that highest ideal of life which covets public confidence for the gent fund of the House of Representatives for an assistant engineer and three additional laborers, under resolution of January 24, 1895, the Clerk of the opportunities it affords for usefulness, and yet reverently worships House is hereby authorized and directed to pay from the contingent fund of God! We call our departed friend to witness that such a scheme the House, for t~e same purposes and_at the same rates of pay, the further of life is consistent with the loftiest courage in the hour of battle, sum of $90.28. the most enduring public favor, and the serene fortitude of a Mr. SAYERS. Mr. Speaker, I should like to know why this is Christian in the article of death! presented. Mr. SHELL. It is simply because of a mistake in the original Mr. BLAIR. Mr. Speaker, it was my good fortune to be asso resolution. We asked for the full amount, but the House passed ciated with Senator Colquitt for about eight years in the other the resolution for $300. House of Congress, and although not intimately acquainted in a Mr. SAYERS. And with the expenditure of this sum the serv g~neral sense, yet there was a consanguinity of views between us ices of this man are concluded and paid for, I understand? upon certain great lines' of thought and action which gave me a Mr. SHELL. Yes, sir. feeling of nearness and almost of kinship, which did not require The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the present considera frequent expression in order that both might understand its ex tion of this resolution? istence. I therefore drop my sprig of evergreen upon his grave Mr. ROBINSON of Pennsylvania. I object. to-day with the feeling that I, too, have lost a brother. THE LATE SENATOR COLQUITT. Others more familiar with the details of his record have already The SPEAKER (at 2 o'clock p . m.). The Clerk will report the explained them and in both of these great ha.lls of legislation have special order. pronounced in fitting terms that eulogy which belongs to those The Clerk read as follows: whose illustrious lives deserve immortality among their fellow R esolved, That the third Saturday in February next beginning at 2 o'clock men. My tribute may well be brief and such as one gives spon p.m., be set apart for eulogies on the life of the Hon.Afued H. Colquitt, late taneously and aside as he moves silently in the procession to the a Senator from the State of Georgia. tomb of the beloved. Mr. TURNER of Georgia. I offer the resolutions which I send Senator Colquitt was a distinctively elevating force in the Sen to the desk. ate and throughout the country. Modest and unpretending to The Clerk read as follows: the last degree, yet firm and full of assertion when important prin Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspended that oppor ciples were involved, he was felt even though unheard, and when tunity may be given for tribute to the memory of Alfred H. Colquitt, late a occasion imperatively demanded his voice would fill the Chamber Senator from the State of Georgia. Resolved That as a particular mark of respect to the memory of the de like the tones of Paul at Mars' Hill. ' ceased and in recogmtion of his eminent abilities as a public servant, the He seldom spoke at his best except upon some theme which House of Representatives, at the conclusion of these memorial services, ad aroused the moral and religious side of his nature, and t hen it journ. Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. was that his wonderful organization revealed the full power of the Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to send a copy of these resolutions physical, intellectual, and moral elements of human nature in to the family of the deceased. combined and harmonious action. At such times he was eloquent The question being taken, the resolutions were unanimously in the highest sense, and his power over the Senate and over popu adopted. · lar audiences was very great. The inspiration of the occasion would overcome all reserve, and :Mr. TURNER of Georgia. :Mr. Speaker, Alfred Holt Colquitt the great cause would seem to transform him into a superior being. was born in Walton County, Ga., April 20, 1824; graduated at While in the Senate he spoke repeatedly and with great power Princeton College in the class of 1844; studied law and was ad upon the evils of intemperance and in support of Sabbath observ mitted to the bar in 1845; served as a staff officer with the rank ance, as well as upon education and kindred subjects, and I think of major dm·ing the war with Mexico; was elected and served as it will be admitted that the influence he exerted in favor of these a member of the Thirty-third Congress; was a member of the fundamental and everlasting human interests will constitute his Georgia legislature in 1859; was a Presidential elector for the chief, as they certainly will his undeniable, claim to the gratitude State at large on the Breckinridge ticket in 1860; was a member of posterity. of the secession convention of the State of Georgia; entered the I well remember the unfailing support which the Senators from Confederate army as captain; was subsequently chosen colonel of Georgia, the empire State of the South. always gave to the educa- . 2314 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. .FEBRUARY 16, . tion bill, and that Mr. Colquitt was very an.rious for its success. not enchain his ardent temperament and martial spirit when the Few men more than he comprehended the calamity involved in its music of drum and fife s.ummoned patriots to a:rms. failure. Senator BTown also, one of the great statesmen of our Laying aside his law books. and foxegoing the laurels to be won generation, has placed on record speeches and sentiments upon before courts and juries, he hurried to l'rlexico, where the honor of the same vast theme which in coming time, when the events of his country and the chivalry of its soldiery were to be sustained our day can be faithfully written and their :relative- importance and illustrated on ·the field of battle. Bravely and gallantly per seen in just perspective, will embalm his memory in the gratitude forming his part on this arena and flushed with the victories that of the ages. everywhere c?owned the American arms, at the cloSe of the war Senator Brown was the great plebeian whose native force carried he returned to his native State, and ins-tead of resuming his chosen h im to the summit of attainment and power among his fellow- p1·ofession preferred rathe1· the peaceful though no less dignified men in the hard attrition and competition of free institutions. occupation of a farmer. Senator Colquitt was the son of wealth and social position, the Nothing recorded in ancient or modern history is comparable to representative of that great patrician element which coru;tituted the aase and luxury enjoyed by a Southern planter at that period. the most remarkable aristocracy of history. . His happy condition elicited the envy of the world, an envy which These men were the most perfectly connected and yet contrasted many mistook for philanthropy. To be the proprietor of broad illustration that I have known in their harmonious and full-orbed and fertile a.cres. cultivated by AfTican slaves who never felt the action as Senators of their State of the extraordinary manne1· in severities of cold, hunger, and nakedness. as do many of the auf which our system of theoretically free Government blends the fering poor of the present day, who gave 'themselves to the pleas activities and inte1·ests of ever y grade and class of men into one ures of to-day without bestowing a thought on the needs of to grand unity of action, of progress,. and of elevation to all. morrow, who never suffered the lack of any substan81 good, This power of reconciling the warring classes and conditions of whose happiness and contentment were only surpassed by the m en was the one thing lacking in the institutions of G reece and bounteous hospitality that nourished them, and whose love and Rome, and those republics fell. devotion to the master were only equaled by that of .his children, But who shall pretend to say whether Franklin~ the plebeian, was indeed a princely heritage. or Je:ffeTson, the patrician, contributed the most to the foundation . Such was the happy fortune of Senator Colquitt in his early man of .t\__merican liberty? And it is because the principles which they hood and until the suffrages of a free and confiding constituency promulgated and the institutions which em~ed their teachings called him while yet a young man to represent them in the House possess this power of drawing all men unto themselves that our of Representatives of the United States. And having honorably .Republic shall be everlasting. discharged the duties required in that station he, unlike the am- I can never forget the last time I saw Senator Colquitt. I t was. bitious statesmen of the present day, declined to. serve them lontier, n ot long before his death. Stricken and disabled, he was making · preferring the'-' quiet shades of a private life." Here in pastoral his way on the little vehicle whicl»was used to enable him to move simplicity and in the felicity of domestic and social virtues he about in the open air and between his residence and the Senate. spent the pa.ssing years until a strenuous call to a higher duty H e was then on his way to the scene of duty. We had not met for bade him renounce the pleasm·es of home and :fireside to enter upon aconsiderabletime, and then both were in full health and strength. an arenar of more arduous e:ffmt . . But little was said, and the interview was no.t in words. When he, in common with all Georgians, became convinced I encouraged him with ali the hopeful suggestions that I could that the Government of our fathers was about to be overthrown think of~ and he smiled and talked bravely of the restoration to and the principles of liberty engulfed in the mad tide of fanati come. But neither deceived the other, and those great eyes blaz- cism then raging, and unhappily not entirely yet subsided, he ing with a fixed and far-off penetration showed clearly that the yielded to the manly instinets of his nature and urged upon his light of another world was painting its realities upon his sensitive coun•ryme:n the propriety of a peaceable secession from those spirit. We knew that we had thought some thoughts and at- with whom they could not live- in b.onornble equality and amity. tempted some deeds together~and thatanimmortalsympathywas The wisdom and rectitude of his conduct in this matter is left born of om· association. But for this world we then knew that it without further remark to the judgment of future generations was all over. He is the better off. Rest to his ashes.r Everlast- and impartial history. His countrymen with one accord followed ing bliss to his soul! Let us take up our b~rden and move on. his advice~ and when it was perceived that the great questions then at issue must be submitted to the arbitrament of arms he. Mr. LA'VSON. Mr. Speaker, I hope that someone more compe was among the first to enlist in a causa then supposed to be not only tent than myself to speak of the life and character of Senator Col just, but in accord with every principle of liberty and of a right quitt will seize this opportunity to do so. I never had the good eous self-defense. fortune to enjoy an intimate and confidential acquaintanceship Entering the Confederate army as a captain he passed through with him; we lived far apart, and our different lines of employ all gradations successivelyuntil he reached the rank of a major ment seldom brought us together. I was more intimately ass~ general; and in all g-radations and at all times scrupulously ciated with him and had better opportunities. to acquaint myself performed all the duties of a soldier and a natriot. Of his mili with his personal characteristics during the last months of his life tary record it is unnecessary to speak more. Suffice it that he never than ever before. During those few months I daily met with him shrank from the hardships of the ca.mpnor shunned danger in the and his amiable and excellent family, who had come here to min field, and that his skill in" plucking victory from defeat" was so ister to the infirmities of his latter days_ conspicuously displayed on one occasion as to win for him the But I, like every Georgian, could not fail to know of his public title of the " Hero of Olustee." His devotion never wavm·ed until carear as a sold:ie1· and statesman, and as a trusted and honored the Confederacy ceased to be numbered among the nations of the governor and Senator, strongly intrenched in the love and confi earth; its prodigies of achievement availed not its triumph, but dence of the people of Georgia, his. native State. won for it an epitaph of lofty sentiment. Senator Colquitt was ushered into life upon an elevated plane. No nation e'er rose so hite and fair, F ew have been so fm·tuna.te in their birth as he. His father Nor fell so pure of crime. was a man of great distinction as an orat01·, lawyer Senator of Returning after defeat, he resumed his occupation of farming. the United States, :md last, but not least, as a minister of the gos- But its former pleasures and happiness had vanished. The pros· pel. In the traditions cherished by the old men of Georgi3 the perity that rested on the blossoming fields and plenteous ha1·vests fame of his father as a successful criminal lawyer ~md as a politi- of the South had de-parted. The silent sp~ters of ruin and deso cal debater on the hustings is Dot exceeded by that of any one oi . lation mocked the eye on every hand. Yet Senator Colquitt, with the great men who were his contemporaries. He is thought by the same heroism that marked his military career, set about the many to have been the equal in many respects, of Toombs., rehabilitation of his desolated country. His countrym~ recog Stephens, Johnson, and Cobb, who subsequently attained to the nizing his zeal in the promotion of agriculture and confidin~ in zenith of their fame. his wisdom and fidelity, called him to the presidency o:f their State Senator Colquitt descended from such a father, and inheriting Agricultural Society. His field of usefulness was thus widened; many of his personal traits, it is said, was also the 1·ecipient of a · his wise counsels~ deriving authority and dignity from his official liberal education, having graduated from Princeton, N.J., a col- position, were more potential, whereby a braver and more intelli lege which at that period stood in the front ranks of the institu- gent spirit was infused into the communityof planters. New life tions of learning and which yet preserves a high reputation. and hope sprang up, and under the auspices of that society the After his graduation he espoused the profession of law,. and no agriculture of Georgia has been advanced until it will compare one probably ever had spread out before him a futm-e more fruit- favorably with any State in the Union. ful of splendid achieYements and honorable successes. From the head of that society Senator Colquitt was elected to J udging from his industry, singleness of purpose-, and consecra- the chief magistracy of the State for two successive terms--the tion to duty, as manifested in his subsequent career~ we may fi1·st term without opposition. In that great office, as eve1·ywhere~ assume that he. would have- become an ornament to his profession he held the confidence of the people. They believed him honest~ had he submitted to its severe exa{)tions and worshiped at th'El they knew him loyal , and hence they trusted him. He did not shrine of J ustice instead of Mars. But the literature of Coke and disappoint th.em. Their interests were secure in his keeping. His Blackstone and the search for dull and musty precedents could adminicitration of that great office w as unt arnished, and if he com- 1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2315 mitted mistakes they were of the head and not of the heart. His Senate Chamber of the United States, he was always the same, PllllX>Se was always to do right. conscientious and devoted in the discharge of his every duty, and At the close of his second term as governor he was elected to both by teaching and by example doing all in his powe:r to fill the the Senate o:f' the United States, and reelected at the expiration of fullest measure of his calling. his term. The people demanded his continual ad-vancement in As a general he successfully sought to inspire the brave men he office, but no elevation of station ever raised him so high that he led to the exercise of the highest type of courage, as a statesman forgot them. It was in their service and during a session of the he used the strongest efforts to add to the happiness and pros Congress that hs suffered a stroke of paralysis that eventually re perity of his fellow-beings, and as a citizen he exerted the great moved him from the stage of action. Bnt notwithstanding his influence he possessed to create a religious and moral sen~illlent disability and though suffering intensely physically, he stood at the among those who had the good fortune to enjoy his association. post of duty with unwavering fealty until death carried him General Colquitt possessed an abiding and unquestioning faith hence. He died with lri.s armor on, and truly it may be said of in the immortality of the soul taught by the Christian religion, him, as of the heavenly orbs- and believed that a life spent in elevating the moral character and promoting the happiness and welfare of his fellow-being would, The stars go down To rise on som.e fairer shore, in the world to eome, realize the promises to the good and faith And bright in heaven's jeweled m·own ful servants of our Lord. To a man like this death could have They shlnil fm·evermore. no terrors) but would come as the beginning of eterna_ havpi Mr. Speaker .. the life of such a man is a benediction to man ness. The grave could have no sting, but be the open door- to a kind. Reared in affluence, occupying by inheritance .the highest better, a perfect, and everlasting life. social position, and th:rangh a long life the favored child of for His death is an irreparable loss to his devoted family, to his tune, yet he was simple and unaffected in his habits, courtly and State, which loved and honored him, and to his entire country, gracious in his manners, stainless in private life, robust in manly which so sorely needs the services of such men as Alfred Holt virtues, ado:rned with the Christian graces, lofty in his aspira Colquitt. tions, and responsive to every duty. These accomplishments con [Mr. TATE adfuessed the Honse. See Appendix.] stituted the ideal man. It is true- that he was a politician. He had a profound knowl 1\lr. GROSVENOR. :Mr. Speaker, it is a matter which has cat\sed edge of the peo-ple and their modes of thought, the subtle motives a great deal of comment in the North that the people of the South that infinence them and the agencies by which they are controlled. should ha\e so persistently prrt forward for political preferment the He saw from afar the coming changes in political sentiment and men who fought against the Union in the great war of the rebellion. action and thus was enabled to guide where he could not control Commongratitndeand common comradeship for the men who stood together in a great contest like that scarcely explains the steady the political activities of the people. He felt a deep and earnest persistence with which the people of the South have heaped honors sympathy with the people and sincerely desired to promote every almost exclusively upon the men of the South who fought in that agency that would co:nduce to their advantage and improvement. great war on their side. Because, notwithstanding the general In this he was perhaps as disinterested as the frailty of om: nature principles of comradeship to which I have referred, there inter will permit us to be. venes always the ambition ofl men to hold high office :md to occupy He was also a partisan----a true and loyal Democrat. He had a the positions of leadership, which overcomes the sentiment of grati· sn:preme conviction in the rectitnde of its principles and in the tude, and leads to division, at least, of the honors and emoluments adaptation of those principles to every political exigency. He of public favor. could not be neutral, nor was it possible to persuade him that any And yet, druing aU these years, now a period of a full ave:ra!!e tenet in opposition to Democratic principles could be sound. He generation of men, we find the people of the So-uth have mad; a might toler te, but oould not sanction any principle of the opposi record of unflinchin(J' loyalty to the men who fought for their cause tion. For these reasons his party confided in and loved and hon and have selected them for leadership in peace and to receive th~ ored him. No man could supplant him in their affections. To honors of civil life. • the last hour of his life they were as loyal to him as he was to But when you come to ma-ke something more than a cursory and them. fie calamity th?t befell him overwhelmed them with imperfect examiua.tion of the record it trtmspires that there have grief, and for months prior to his demise they joyfully welcomed been later events and more recent conditions which are more atis every rumor indicating the probable restoration of his health. factory in explaining the circumstances to which I have referred. Senator Colquitt espoused and daily exemplified the sublime The men who in 1865, returning from the fruitless effort for doctrines of the Christian religion. They were an anchor to his Sonthern independence, laid hold upon the shattered fragments of faith, both sure and steadfast. His profession was not put on for ma.terial things in the South, and led in the :firsi; demonstrations of display; it was not a garment to be worn and laid aside at pleas effort to retrieve the unfortunate past, are the men, after al1, to ure; it was the symbol of a deep and earnest conviction that had whom the loyalty and love of the people of the South have boon become ingrnined and integrated with his character. He incul manifested. It is a fact that the men who gathered to(J'ether these cated these doctrines from the rostrum and the pulpit, and illus broken fragments and p1L~hed forward on the line of rehabilita trated them in his ardnous'e:fforts in aid and encouragement of tion were in large part the men who fought for the overthrow of every religious and educational movement. the Union a.nd the establishment of the Confederacy, for it is true In office Senator Colquitt "pursued the noiseless tenor of his and has been over and oTer again admitted, and never successfully way." He did not court notoriety nor shun responsibility, but denied, ih tin the great cotton States of the South there was but was equal to the discharge of every duty. He may not have been a ve~tig0 of loyalty to the Union when war was actually precipi the intellectual equal of some of his. contemporari-es, yet in sublime tated, and there w s a great percentage of the men of that section loyalty to duty, in undaunted moral and physical coUiage, and in who went with :;ill. the fol'ce of th ir abilities into the war of the fnll consecration to the interests of his people and country he had rebellion. It was a popular demon tration. It m y not have been no superiors. tho result of calm and deliberate judgment. It certainly was the The memory of his beneficent deeds and noble achie-¥ements outbreak of a fury of error. We have ceased to call the great will be fondly cherished by the citizens of his native State, while :rebellion a crime because it is not wise to prl)mote and perpetuate his lofty character and enduring fame remain the heritage of sectionnJ. strife-~ and we join hea.rtily, we of tho North, in declaring mankind. that no more shill- The war clouds sever, Nor too winding :river be red, Mr. WHEELER of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, to enter into the speeial details of the life and services of the eminent Senator and that we will from henceforth and forever, proud of our own whose memory we are here to-day to commemorate should be left loyaJ.ty to the Government, re-mindful of the men who stood on on-r to those of his State who have had the honor and privilege of a side of tbe battle-_ yet waive all crimin:1tion and recrimination, and lifelong association, and I shall only speak of him as he was work together for the obliteration of the wounds of the past. Waiv in~ nothing of onr love fol·loy:1lty, yieldin(J' nothin(J' of our denun known to the people of his neighboring States. ciation for disloyalty in the a'bstract, we will nevertheless do what The distinguished Senator from Georgia, Alfred! Holt Colquitt, we can to obliterate all, excepting the lessons of the past. Those was a great and a good man. In all the exigencies of life he we must cherish. adorned and graced every position he was called npon to oecnpy. But what a task lay before the people of the South! The men of He was eminently one of those men who did his full duty in every the North returned to their homes amid the acclaims of mHlions who activity in which it pleased God to place him. joined to do them honor fo.r having stood by the Union; and the When the shadow of death passed over his form there ended a shouts of trinmph, the cheers for \ictory, were the sweetest notes blameless career, a life consec!ated to the cause of Christianity, of their reception. And they found no desolation of homes.. There to. the good of the people of h1s State, and to the entire country. we:re hearts broken; there were dismembered families and ruined Whether b:ravely leading his soldiers to vietory on the plains of .firesides, the homes of parents and children, wives, mothers, and :Mexico or engaging in almost continuous battle as a major-gen sweethearts; but there was a rest-ored country and the triumph of eral in the late war, he conducted himself with the most admir loyalty, and the prosperity of material things. able and untiring fortitude. As governor of the State he loved so How was it with the men of the South, eonqnered in battle! weD: or representing his people in this Hall of Congress. or in the I can not diseuss the why or the wherefore. I will not admit the 2316 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. FEBRUARY 16, Southern claim tha~ it was because of numbers, nor will I taunt .Alfred Holt Colquitt was one of these leaders. He had taken an the Southern man with the claim so often put up that it was our active and brilliant share in the war for the overthrow of the Union. superior fighting qualities; nor will I ye~ in this presence and in Misled as he was, his conduct upon the field of battle, in common this connection proclaim that it was solely and alone the judgment with the brave men of his section, will evE'r be a monument to the and wisdom of Almig~ty God arrayed on our side. I will not .':aive success of the armies of the people of the North. When we applaud the honors due to my comrades for having earned the magmficent our own courage, our own chivalry, our own success, in the light of victory by ascribing it to the inevitable and overshadowing Gettysburg, and Chickamauga, and Vicksburg, :tnd Shiloh, and power of the Almighty. Driven to an expression upon th!l't qu~s Peach Tree Creek, and Fort Fisher, we eulogize .the courage, the tion I would insis~ that the valor of my countrymen, the mtegnty chivalry, and the devotion of our enemies. of my comrades, had something to do with the victory, however Colquitt was a citizen soldier, but he believed in war as an arbi much Divine Providence may have willed our success. The great trator. He fought in the Mexican war, and shed luster upon the work w~s not alone due to either influence. escutcheon of his native State. He fought in the war of the rebel But the returning Union man found his roof-tree still over his lion, and sacrificed wealth, case, and everything upon the altar of head. He found the material prosperity of his section practically a mistaken loyalty to the South. He was one of the first to recog unimpaired, and in many instances enormously enhanced. He found nize surrounding conditions; and however heroic he may have been the machinery of Government in full operation, and no uncertainty at Olustee, however ~allant upon the battlefields of .Mexico, his as to the future status of the citizen. gallantry in those act10ns counts for little to mo a8 compared with How was it with the Southernmen tt Thousands found their home the heroic efforts he mado to restore good government to his State steads gone. Tens of thousa.nds found themselves bankrupt and after the war. He was one of tho gallant leaders of that return to practically ruined. They found anarchy instead of government. good sense, good government, and prosperity. He was one of the· They found desblation instead of prosperity. They found the civil men who took hold of the burning brands and extinguished the government destroyed. They found uncertainty everywhere. A flames. He was one of the men who rallied the insurgents from few of their leaders ran-fled from the country. They found a con lethargy, from despair, from vindictiveness, and gathered them into dition, to summarize, without further detail, such as was sufficient organized bancls of citizl'ns returning to loyalty; doing the work Of to overwhelm with despair the stoutest-hearted men. The men who loyalists; laying their hands upon the structure they had sought to had with unparalleled chivalry followed the leadership of others tear down to build it np; bringing the stones they bad t~ken out of into the rebellion, stood demanding that the lea,ders who had pre the temple, and replacing them therein; coming back with the flag cipitated the rebellion should devise some means of extrication fro!ll they had sought to dishonor-bringing it back as the :flag of their the conditions that surrounded them. Those of us who -were m country. I accord to the !.lead Senator my meed of praise, and I the South when the war had ended will join in saying that the wonder not that in the politics of his own great Empire State of the wisest statesman, the most courageous citizen, would have been South he was more invincible than the greatest leader of the rebel helpless to have attempted to devise a scheme of extrication that lion was invincible ou the battlefield. would have merited and received the approbation of any considera Men of the United States-my countrymen-over the bier of this ble number of the people. .A proud-spirited people had first to dead statesman, this heroic insurgent in the hour of rebellion, I make its suO'gestion0 in the light of its material overthrow upon the stand to accord to his memory a word, a tribute of honest con battlefield; and then it had to hear from the victorious other side gratulation. In the South his memory will be ever endeared by all as to what would be acceptable as terms of peace. . the phases of his life and all the epochs of his career; and in the It may be said that the condition of war was one of awful North, drawing the veil of oblivion upon the one epoch, his fame responsibility and awful perplexity; but I say that the period of as an .American citizen will be ever cherished as a p:trt of the reconstruction was a period of greater perplexity and greater history of the American people. uncertainty to the honest men of both sides than was the condition Mr. Speaker, I join. with the gallant sons of Georgia in drop of war. In war time we knew what we were to do. vVe were ping a tear of love and affection upon the new-made grave of .Alfred to march, and bivouac, and fight. In reconstruction times the Holt Colquitt. wisest did not know what to do. No rule of law hitherto deciued applied to the questions of that hour or bad wise application to [J\ir. MADDOX addxessed the House. See Appendix.] the conditions surrounding us. Mr. LESTER. J\Ir. Speaker, we come at this hour to speak a Had we been dealing with our enemies there would have been no word for oux dead. No praise or censure can affect him in mem trouble. The laws of war fixecl the conditions. The conditions ory of whom we lift our voices to-day. The lesson of his life, like should be the will of the victor-the vanquished not to be consulted. the lesson of the lives of all men, is for the living. Merely to have But they were not our enemies; they were our brethren. Our lived and to have died, to have moved through the short span of future was bound up in their future. If we were to prosper in the life, teaches nothing except that fact imprinted on the face of future they must prosper in the future; if they were to be crushed nature to be seen of all men that there is a life and a death. But in the future we were to suffer for that. I maintain that the great good deeds and a life that exemplifies the virtuous qualities im wisdom shown by the dominant.party in this country in the treat planted by the Author of all good in the human mind make that ment of these great questions is to-day, looking back on it in the valuable tribute to humanity that gives a life its value to the light of all its imperfections, yet an exhibition of profound states world, and gives good title to fame and immortalitytowhich men manship. aspire. But what of the men of the South f They were driven to rebuild Born in the State of Georgia on th~ 20th of April, 1844, Alfred their destroyed homes, and to them was assi~ned the task of recon H. Colquitt, after a lifetime spent upon her soil and in her serv structing State governments. Theirs to brmg back into the sym ice, died and was buried among his own people in April, 1894. metry of governmental organization the fragments that they founu The environments of his birth and the circumstances of his around them. The leaders were to in.spire hope, confidence, and childhood were such that he could and did imbibe those social patriotism in the minds of the overthrown. They were to teach and humanitarian qualities which adorn the neighbor and good cit the men who returned from the battlefields that despair was not the izen and contribute as well to the formation of personal and in attitude commensurate with .American character. They were to dependent manhood. This charactet was his by inheritance and rally the great body of the people of the South to bring forth out of education. the ashes around them, phmnix-like, if possible, a new South and a new .American form of government. How well they have done this, In early manhood we find him where his country called him, a time will tell. soldier fighting with patriotic· fervor on the plains of Mexico, and There is one thing that they have done that we know now: they while still young serving his State and country in the Halls of have organized the Southern section of the United States to be loyal Congress. :111d true to the American flag-loyal and faithful to the Constitution With his State and his people in soul and sentiment in the great of the Union. Ready and willing, now and always, to protect and struggle in the war of secession, with much to lose and nothing to uefend and vindicate the American flag. That they have accom gain save to serve the right as he saw it, he met the issue with plished this with t.he surrounding conditions is a testimonial to the fortitude and courage, regarding wealth and life only proper sac character of the men who did it that my words can not improve rifices to his cause. First in the con.fUct and the last to leave it, upon. as a soldier and as commander of soldiers his record was brilliant Little wonder, then, it is, that the people of the South idolize, and without a blemish. The hard-fought fields of Virginia and not alone nor especially t he men who led them in battle, but they the historic battle of Olustee are monuments of his well-earned idolize and worship the men who, out of the fire of battle, out of fame. the smoke and carnage of war, came forth to gather up and 1ead Laying aside the implements of war, with nothing saved but the people of the South along the pathway they have traveled; honor, the citizen soldier resumes his civic duties with a perfect and lookin~ about them now upon the peaceful homes of the South, adjustment to the conditions. the exaltat10n of law aud order and good government, the obliter His people called him to their service, and as chief magistrate ation of that blighting curse of slavery, the restitution of the law of his State he served his State for a number of years, and was of the land, the erection of splendid educational institutions, the then delegated a Senator of the United States, where he ended his building up of industries, the growth of national pride and national earthly career on the 6th of April, 1894. loyalty, is it an y wonuer that the men of the South turn to the men He served his people. They honored him living and mourn him who led them through this Red Sea of trouble out into the Prom dead. In the pantheon devoted to illustrious memories we place ised Land of happiness and prosperity! his name. 1895. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 2317 Mr. HARRISON. Mr. Speaker, while my physical condition was nearer to the great heart of the people of that Commonwealth seems to forbid that I should to-day undertake to make any re than Alfred H. Colquitt. He was kind, ,he was liberal, he was m~rks on any subject, such was my admiration for the great Sen sympathetic, he was obliging. His very nature warmed up to the ator from Georgia that I feel impelled to say at least a few words demands of the common people. Every sympathy of his heart of one who lived so well and died so nobly. went out to the suffering, the poor, and the struggling masses of Born and raised in Georgia, I learned in my boyhood days to his State. While he was president of the State Agricultural So honor the name of Colquitt. The name of Walter T. Colquitt I ciety I was intimately associated with him, being an officer under remember as a ''household word." But Alfred H. Colquitt it was him. And it was remarkable, Mr. Speaker, to see the interest he my privilege to know well. I knew him best as a soldier. During took in the development of the grea,t agricultural interest of the the siege at Charleston, S.C., I was temporarily under his com South. It is remarkable how he could comprehend the details mand. On James Island and at Battery Wagner I have seen him that entered into the reviving of that interest in Georgia. It was when over 800 of the heaviest guns known to the United States remarkable to see the personal sacrifices that he made in endeav Army and Navy were scattering their deadly missiles over the oring to build up that section and put it once more upon a plane heads of the Confederate forces. Often have I seen his person of prosperity and advancement. covered by the smoke and dust of exploding shells; and always As a citizen, Mr. Speaker, everybody respected him; and none when the sea breezes would drive the smoke away, Gen. Alfred but those who were jealous of his power and his greatness dared H. Colquitt could be seen at his post of duty where the firing was to criticise him. heaviest, exhibiting to his devoted oldiers the fact that he asked His official life has been referred to by some of my colleagues. of them the performance of no duty in which he himself did not Everybody in Georgia and everybody in the broad Union, after personally and conspicuously engage. At the battle of Olustee, in he became a United StatesSenator, knew where to findAlfredH. Florida, which the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, Gen Colquitt on any question that presented itself. to his mind for a eral HAWLEY, says, in his speech in the Senate on the 8th of January conclusion. And never once-! am proud to say it-either in last, " was the bloodiest battle in which he participated during the State a.ction or in his action at the other end of this Capitpl did war," it was my privilege to command a brigade of Georgians, he desert what he believed to be the true interests of the masses which, together with Colquitt's brigade and a few detached regi of tb..i.S country. He was with the people and against the classes. ments and batteries, constituted the Confederate forces engaged in He wa.s for the people first, last, and all the time. that battle. It was in February, 1864, in the open pine woods of As a Christian gentleman he exercised a wonderful influence in Florida that I saw General Colquitt form his brigade and at its my State and, indeed, in this entire country-indeed, sir, his head move into actioh; and for six long hours, seated upon his '' old name in that relation extended all over this world of ours. He is gray," did he, with face to the foe, command and direct the move known to-day in China and Japan; he is reverenced and respected ments which resulted in a glorious victory to the Confederate in England and Germany and France for the interest that he took arms. in moral and religious reformations and enterprises. He was a During those "times which tried men's souls" I was much with man, Mr. Speaker, whom to know was to love. In his most inti General Colquitt, in camp as well as on the field. I then and mate and private relations-and that is where we can best judge there learned not only to admire and honor his gallantry as a sol of the true man-he was always ready to do the right thing and dier, but to love and esteem his beautiful Christian character and to battle against what he believed to be wrong. his devoted and lofty patriotism. A man of strong convictions, He lived for those that loved him, he had the courage to carry them into execution. A constant fol For those that knew him true, lower of his great Redeemer,he so interwove the beautiful Chris For heaven bright above him, tian graces into his character as to render gentle the heart of a .And for the good he could do. soldier and to keep the statesman always a suppliant for Divine For the cause that needed assistance, For the wron~ that lacked resistance, guidance and assistance. For the future m the distance, Truly a great man has fallen; and Alabama, Georgia's eldest .And for the good he could do. daughter, joins her mother in placing a sprig of acacia on his ~ave, and would urge the young men of our country to emulate Mr. TURNER of Georgia. I desire to ask, Mr. Speaker, that all his noble example. · gentlemen who have not spoken and who may desire to submit re- . . . I mar~ upon . th~ life and character of Senator Colquitt may be Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, It IS to me a pleasmg duty pernntted to prmt such remarks in the RECORD. to join with my colleagues ~>n this floor in pa~g this last tribute There was no objection. to Senato~ A:tfred H. Colq~tt, a n~bleman, With a no.ble ancestry. The f?PEAKER (at 3 o'clock and 10 minutes p.m.). Inaccord- I became mtimately acquamted With Senator Colqmtt soon after ance With the terms of the resolutions heretofore adopted and as the close of the late war betwe~n the States, when Georgia was a further mark of respect to the memory of the dece~ed, the devastated, when poverty and disorder ruled throughout our sec- Chair now declares the House adjourned until Monday next at 12 tion of the country. It was then I began to admire him and love o'clock. him. He was a Georgian in every sense of the word; yet his heart was warm enough and his mind broa,d.enough to take in all classes and all sections of this great country. CHANGE OF REFERENCE. He was born, Mr. Speaker, in the county adjoining that in which Under clause 2 of Rule XXII, the Committee on Invalid Pen I was born. He lived the greater part of his official life in the sions was discharged from the consideration of the following bills, Congressional district that I have the honor to represent. I was and the same were referred to the Committee on Pensions, to wit: with him in every political campaign in which he was ever inter A bill (H. R. 8819) granting an increase of pension to Caroline ested after the war. I was with him and for him in each and every B. Bradford; one. I knew him, Mr. Speaker, in his private life-at his home, A bill (S.1725) for the relief of Phebe Norwood; and with his family, and with his friends. I knew him in the political A bill (S. 2118) granting a pension to Elizabeth A. Granger. caucus. I knew him on the hustings before the people. I knew him in his official life as governor of the State. I knew him be fore he was governor of Georgia when he undertook to gather to REPORTS OF COMMITTEES ON PRIVATE BILLS. gether and lift up, with the help of others, the remnants that were left in that downtrodden section of the country-the South, es Under clause 2 of Rule XIII, Mr. MOSES, from the Committee pecially his own State, and undertook after the issues of the war on Pensions, reported the bill (H. R. 8825) to pension Mrs. Sarah were past to revive and restore the prosperity and happiness of that M. Brady; which, with the accompanying report (No.1845), was people. ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee of the Whole Senator Colquitt, as has been well said, was one of the most re House. markable politicians that this country ever produced-astute, far seeing, and far-reaching in his comprehension of political events and their relation to the people and their effect upon the public. PUBLIC BILLS, MEMORIALS, AND RESOLUTIONS. Never, _perhaps, in his life was he defeated on a political issue Under clause 3 of Rule XXII, bills, resolutions, and memorials when he waB directly interested or when he directlycontrolled it. of the following titles were introduced and severally referred as He was a partisan, aB his father as well as his grandfather was follows: before him-strictly a partisan; yet one thing could be said of him By Mr. HEARD: A bill (H.R.8893) to amend an act entitled in his political relation with parties, that to perhaps the fullest ''An act to provide for the opening of alleys in the District of Co possible extent he was pure in his politics. He was fair and con lumbia," approved July22,1892-totheCommittee on the District siderate, honorable and just in his political measures and affilia of Columbia. tions. By Mr. JOSEPH: A bill (H. R. 8899) approving an act entitled Mr. Speaker, he was very much endeared to the masses of the "An act to provide an addition to the insane asylum of New Mexico, people of Georgia. No man has lived or died in that State who and for other purposes "-to the Committee on the Territories. .· 2318 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. FEBRUARY 18, By Mr. TARSNEY: A bill (H. R. 8900) to amend .section 9 of · SENATE. an act entitled "An act to authorize the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf RailToad Company to construct and operate a railroad, · MoNDA..Y, February 18, 1895. telegraph~ and telephone line through the Indian Territory, and Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. W. H. MILBURN, D. D. for other purpo es "-to the Committee on Indian Affairs. On motion of Mr. BERRY, and by unanimous consent, the read By 1\h·. CAMINETTI: A r esolution calling upon the Secretary ing of the J om·nal .of the proceedings of Saturday last was dis of the Treasury, the Attorney-General, and the Commissioner of pensed with. Railroads for certain information concerning the bond-aided rail EXECUTIVE COMM:Uli.TICATIONS. roads-to the Committee on the Pacific Railroads. The VICE-PRESIDENT laid before the Senate a communica Also, a concurrent resolution requesting the Secretary of the In tion from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting for the terior to suspend action on all selections filed by land-grant rail fa.vorable consideration of Congress a request of the chief of di road companies for land situated in the State of California-to the vision of mail and files, Unit.ed States Treasury, that additional Committee on the Public Lands. appropriations be made for the clerical force of that division; By Mr. CURTIS of Kansas: A concurrent resolution oi the Kan which, on motion of :M:r. GoRMAlV, was, with the accompanying sas legislature, a king that the pension laws be extended to the papers, referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and ordered members of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cav to be printed. alry, and to their widows and. orphans-to the Committee on In He also laid before the Senate a communication from the Attor valid Pensions. ney-General, transmitting, in response to a resolution of the 15th instant, a list of all judgments which have been rendered against PRIVATE BILLS, ETC. the United States by the Court of Claims in Indian depredation Under clause 1 of Rule XXII, private bills of the following titles cases since the adjournment of the first session of the present were presented and referred as follows: Congre s against which no motions for new trial have been filed By Mr. BROOKSHIRE: A bill (H. R. 8894) to correctthemili or appeals taken; which, with the accompanying papers, was re tary record of John W. Canary-to the Committee on Military ferred to the Committee on Indian Depredations, and ordeTed to Affairs. be printed. By Mr. BYNUM: A bill (H. R. 8895) appropriating $3,792.23 in HOUSE BILLS REFERRED. payment of the claim of A. Brewer, of Indianapolis, for con The bill (H. R. 840) to correct the muster of Lieut. Gilman L. structing sewer adjacent to the lands of the United States in .T ohnson was 1·ead twice by its title, and referred to the Commit city of Indianapolis, Ind.-to the Committee on Claims. tee on Military Alfairs. • Also, a bill (H. R. 8896) appropriating money for the payment The bill (H. R. 8 11) granting a pension to James Jones was read of the claim of the Western Paving and Supply Company for twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Pensions. paving with asphalt streets adjacent to United States court-house MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE. and post-.office building in the city of Indianapolis, Ind.-to the A message frotn the House of Representatives, by Mr. .J.A.MES Committee on Claims. KERR, its Clerk, announced that the House had agreed to the By Mr. LOUDENSLAGER: A bill (H. R. 8897) granting a pen amendments of the Senate to the joint resolution (H. Res. 009) au sion toNancy G . .Aliabach-to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. thorizing the Secretary of War to deliver condemned cannon to By Mr. PAGE: A bill (H.R.8898) grantingapension to Ellen Asher Gayl.ord Post, Grand Army of the R epublic, of Plymouth, Dowdell, of Warren, R. I.-totheCommitteeoninvalidPensions. Pa., and to Eckley B. Coxe Post, Grand Army of the Republic, .of By 1\fr. BLACK (by request): A bill (H. R. 8901) for the relief Freeland, Pa. of 1\iaj. John G. Butler-to the Committee on Claims. The message also announced that the Hou e had pas ed the fol By Mr. STRAIT: A bill (H. R. 890..,) for the relief of James G. lowing bills with amendments; in which it request-ed the concur Love, of Union County, S. C.-to the Committee on War Claims. rence of the Senate: By Mr. WOLVERTON: A bill (H. R. 8903) to increase the pen A bill (S. 1969) granting a pension to Harrison C. Hobart1 bre sion of ClaraL. Nichols, widow of Bvt. Maj. Gen. W. A. Nichols, vet brigadier-general of volunteers; and of the United States Army, from S30 per month to $50 per month A bill (S. 2599) granting a pension to Caroline E. Wessels. to the Committee on Pensions. · The message further announced that the House had passed the following bills; in which it requested the concurrence of the Sen ate: PETITIONS, ETC. A bill (H. R. 575) granting a pension to Charity Ann Smith; Under clause 1 of Rule XXII, the following peti,tions and papers A bill (H. R.2118) to pension John B. Leach; were laid on the Clerk's desk and referred as follows: A bill (H. R. 5565) granting a pension to Joseph R. Brooks, By Mr. ADAMS of Pennsylvania: Petition for the passage of father by adoption of Henry M. Brooks; House resolution of January 19,1895 (Mr. CoOMBs's), for the rati A bill (H. R. 6646) to pension Albert Munson; fication of a permanent treaty of arbitration between the United A bill (H. R.. 6901) to increase the pension of Maj. Gen. Julius States and Great Britain-to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. H. Stahel; • By Mr. DALZELL: Petition of 106 citizens of the Sixth ward, A bill (H. R. 6928) to remove the charge of desertion from the Pittsburg, Pa., in favor of a constitutional amendment to -the military record of Wear Crawford; effect that "no State shall grant the right of franchise to any A bill {H. R. 7177) for the relief of Brayilla C. Hudson; person not a citizen of the United States"-to the Committee on A bill (H. R. 8099) to increase the pension of Alexander Wil the Judiciary. . liamson; By Mr. HALL of Minnesota: R esolution by the Board of Trade A bill (H. R. 8459) to amend an act entitled "An a.ct to authorize of the city of Mankato, Minn. favoring the issue of bonds now to the Biloxi and Back Bay Bridge Company to construct and main be made-to the Committee on Ways and Means. tain a bridge over that portion of the Bay of Biloxi in the State By 1\h·. HITT: Resolutions adopted by the Winnebago County of Mississippi, known as Back Bay; and Farmers' Institute at the annual meeting, February 1, 1895, at A bill (H. R. 8715) to place Warren C. Beach on the retired list Rockford, ill., against the pooling bill-to the Committee on In of the Army. terstate and Foreign Commerce. The message also communicated to the Senate the resolutions By .Mr. LACEY: Petition of many citizens of Ottumwa, Iowa, in of the House of Representatives commemorative of the life and favor of House bill granting an increase of pension to Gilman services of the Hon. Alfred H. Colquitt, late a Senator from the Williams-to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. State of Georgia. By Mr. MARION: P etition of Felix Pflaum and other citizens PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS. of Port Jervis, N.Y., to prohibit by constitutional enactment aid :Mr. WIDTE. Mr. President, I present, with a word of explana to sectarian organizations-to the Committee on the Judiciary. tion, a memorial signed by 20,000 r esidents and taxpayers of Also, petition of Felix Pflaum and other citizens of Port Jervis, southern California, nearly all of whom reside in Los Angeles N. Y., to prohibit any State granting the elective franchise to any County, requesting eal'ly and fa.vorable action with reference to person other than a citizen of the United States-to the Commit the construction of a breakwater at San Pedro, Cal., and the es tee on the Judiciary. tablishment of a deep-water harbor at that point. By Mr. OUTHWAITE: Petitionprayingfortimeforconsidera Owing to commercial demands not only of a local, but likewise of tion of House bill 56-to the Committee on Rules. a national character, the officers of this Government having such By Mr. WASIDNGTON: P apers to accompany the claim of matters specially in charge, as well as both House of Congress, James J. Wylie, of Humphreys County, Tenn.-to the Committee authorized an examination under the proviSion of the river and on War Claims. harbor act of September 19, 1890, of the Pacific coast between By Mr. WOLVERTON: Petition of 85 citizens of Shamokin, Points Duma and Capistrano. The r esult of such examination is Pa., in favor of the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments to the contained in House Executive Document No. 39, Fifty-second Constitution of the United States-to the Committee on the Ju Congress, first session, the same being a report made by Colonel diciary. Mendell, Colonel Gillespie, and Colonel Benyaurd, of the Corps