that there can be no injury possible to result to the public credit, and much good must ow to the economical and efficient administration of the Government, if all these appropriations were to pass through Congress annually.

Mr. SPRAGUE. Mr. President, I have but a word to say, and it arises from the remarks made by the Senator from Ohio. This

is an old subject with me-the fortifying of the public debt and making its influence paramount beyond any other interest in this country. The permanent appropriation for the payment of interest on the public debt is pernicious, inasmuch as it is made in the interest of consolidated wealth. I would make that item of our political economy so anxious as to the condition of the country that they would study the acts of Congress, the acts of parties, and see to it that our legislation was made in the interest of economy and common honesty. There is no patriotism at the present time like that which emanates from the pocket-book.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. FERRY, of Michigan, in the chair.) The question is on the amendment as to the amount appro. priated in the fifth section, line three.

The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment of the Committee on Appropriations was to add at the end of section five the following:

And section twelve of the act approved March 3, 1847, entitled An act to establish certain post routes, and for other purposes:" and section eight of the act approved March 3, 1851, entitled "An act to reduce and modify the rates of postage in the United States, and for other purposes,' so far as said sections provide for specific permanent appropriations for carrying free matter in the mails for the several Departments and for members of Congress, be, and the same are hereby, repealed.

Mr. MORTON. Before the vote is taken on that I wish to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute; and I will state that if this should be adopted the standing appropri ation of $700,000 will be adequate for the purpose. The Senator from Minnesota says it is not now.

Mr. RAMSEY. I do not hear what the Senator says.

Mr. MORTON. I say if my amendment should be adopted the standing appropriation of $700,000 will be adequate for the purpose. Mr. SHERMAN. No; we appropriate $4,000,000 in addition.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment of the Senator from Indiana will be read. The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed to strike out the clause moved to be inserted by the committee at the end of section five, and in lieu of the words proposed to be stricken out to insert:

That the right to send matter through the mails free by members of Congress, commonly called the franking privilege, is hereby abolished, to take effect on the 1st day of January, 1873.

Mr. CARPENTER. Is that amendment in order?

The PRESIDing officer. The Chair will state that the amendment offered by the committee pertains to free matter going through the mails, and the Chair would rule it to be in order. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Indiana to the amendment.

Mr. POMEROY. I make the point of order. The rule applies not to what may be germane to some amendment, but what may be germane to the bill. This thing may be germane to some amendment that may be pending, but not to the bill itself.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas has made a new point of order on this question. The Chair will not assume to settle it, but will submit the question to the Senate.

Mr. POMEROY. I do not care enough about it to have it submitted to the Senate. I withdraw my point of order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The rule is a little ambiguous, and the Chair would prefer its submission to the Senate.

Mr. CONKLING. I think I will renew the point of order if I understand what it is. What is the amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be read by the Secretary, and then the Senator from New York will understand it.

The Chief Clerk read the amendment of the Committee on Appropriations, and also the amendment of Mr. MORTON to the amendment. Mr. CONKLING. I withdraw the point of order. I thought it was a different amendment relating to a subsidy.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Indiana to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. BAYARD. I do not know that I have any particular objection to the abolition of what is termed the franking privilege, by some strange perversion of terms, the privilege so called being popularly by what may be known as a vulgar error supposed to be a privilege in favor of members of Congress; but I think the people of this country would further well understand the fact that the law which allows communications between members of Congress and their constituents, the law which allows the distribution of public documents, of seeds from the Patent Office, and other matters provided by law for gratuitous and public distribution, cannot be practically made efficient without the power given to members of Con. gress under their frank to distribute them. If any gentleman in the Senate who has looked at this matter practically can say to us that || any method so cheap to the public, so economical for the distribution of public documents and other matters of general and gratuitous distribution, to which I have referred, can be presented as that which permits them to pass under the franks of members of Congress, I wish he would rise in his place and state it. It is perfectly well known that the cost of mail routes and of mail carriage is not increased by this transmission of public documents and the amount of other postal matter franked by members of Congress. The country pays as much for the transportation of a mail-bag empty or half full as it does for it totally full. I have seen a good many of the largest mail routes in this country; I have now and then been in mail cars, and I never yet saw one filled; and yet the cost to the Government would be no greater to send them filled than to send them half full or less than that, as they now run.

I know that a year or two ago the Postmaster General of the United States undertook to get up a little cheap glory for himself and his Department by sending at public expense, without authority of law, a great num. ber of petitions, the signatures to which were procured by the post office officials throughout the country, for the abolition of this privilege so called. It was considered by Congress, reported upon by committee, and the time of the Senate for many days, and perhaps in the aggregate for many weeks, was devoted to the consideration of this question; but for one reason or another the measure failed to receive its approval

I think, without meaning to reflect upon the honorable Senator who offered this amendment, that there is something not very complimentary to the people in supposing that these cheap bids for popularity will in the end receive public approval. I doubt it. I shall vote against the proposition to abolish the franking privilege so called until some committee shall elaborate a plan that shall be submitted to the Senate to`show that public documents can be distributed and the real interests of the people of the country can be subserved by adopting some other system to take the place of the present system. I think it is rather a cheap bid for popularity. For that reason I move that this amendment of the honorable Senator from Indiana be laid on the table.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware moves that the amend

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NAYS-Messrs. Alcorn, Boreman, Cameron, Casserly, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Ferry of Michigan, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Harlan, Morton, Pratt, Ramsey, Schurz. Scott, Sherman, Sprague, Wilson, and Wright—22. ABSENT Messrs. Ames, Anthony, Brownlow, Davis of Kentucky, Flanagan, Frelinghuysen, Hamilton of Maryland, Hill, Howe, Kellogg, Lewis, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Osborn, Patterson, Pool, Ransom, Robertson, Saulsbury, Stockton, Sumner, Thurman, Tipton, and Trumbull-24. So the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Committee on Appropriations to section five.

The amendment was agreed to.

The Chief Clerk concluded the reading of the bill, the last section, section six, being in the following words:

SEC. 6. That if any person who has held an office in any executive Department of the Government, to which he was appointed, shall act as attorney, solicitor, or agent, in the prosecution of any claim against the United States in such Department, within two years after the date at which he ceased to be such officer, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction in any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall pay a fine not exceeding $5,000, or be imprisoned in the penitentiary not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court.

Mr. CARPENTER. I move to amend the bill by striking out the sixth section. I make this motion upon two grounds; in the first place, on account of the palpable injustice of such a provision, and in the second place, because of the glaring unconstitutionality of it. I should have more confidence in the unconstitutionality of it; but it is on the other ground that I hope to prevail here. [Laughter.]

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that you cannot disfranchise a traitor by retroactive provision; that the Legislature or the constitution-makers of a State cannot do it, because that is imposing a punishment which is ex post facto under the Constitution of the United States. This section of the bill proposes to visit punishment upon a man who has had the misfortune to be a clerk in a Department, and who served in that capacity when the law pronounced no penalty upon him. It proposes now by retroaction to visit upon him disfranchisement for this service and to make it a penitentiary offense, or at all events a misdemeanor, to exercise the right of a citizen which he would be entitled to exercise but for having held an office as clerk, a thing entirely in the past, punishing it with consequences never hinted at when the thing was done.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The ques tion is on the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I am a little surprised at the degree of zeal with which the Senate seems to take the striking out of this section. I do not know of any abuse in the Government (and we have heard of a great many, some of which were rather moon-shiny, though others

may have been more or less real) greater than this of having people who are employed in the Government relinquish their employment and turn right around and become the agents and attorneys of those who wish to get money out of the Treasury through that Department. More frauds have been committed and more wrong done to the people of the United States in that way, in my opinion, than in any other way that has yet been mentioned at this session of Congress respecting corrupt practices; and as the law now stands, these corrupt practices are such as the Departments are not responsible for. As the law now stands, they cannot prevent a man who has been a clerk yesterday in charge of a particular claim on a contract, if you please, in the Post Office Department, from to-day going to his fellow. clerks as the attorney of the man who has the claim, and by one influence and another getting them to pass the claim and get a warrant for it and draw it from the Treasury. The Chorpenning claim got its status and its start largely in that way. Other claims that I need not refer to, for which Congress would never appropriate without a very thorough investiga tion certainly, have been worked through the Departments in spite of all the skill and resistance of the heads of them, where they could be brought to their notice, by people who held confidential relations to the Government turning around and becoming the attorneys for those who pretended to have claims against it.

Why, sir, this idea of people employed in the Departments immediately turning around and becoming claim agents is just as bad in morals as it would be for an attorney to be my counsel to-day and to-morrow, in the very same case, to turn up on the other side. Men may say that is a mere matter for lawyers, but I can tell you that even the common people that we speak of sometimes, the body of the country, the plain people, can understand how base it is and how wrong it is for a man who has been counsel upon one side to become immediately counsel upon the other, or for a man who has been a judge even to become counsel in the cause in which he has been judge, and it is much more so in these Departments, where they are much more approachable than the judiciary are, of course. It would be a very improper thing for anybody to talk to a judge about a cause that was pending; but in the Executive Departments it is not thought to be an improper thing for anybody to go and talk and use all the influence he can.

Now, here is the head of a bureau to whom the Government has intrusted all the papers and affairs on its side of the controversy, to whom it is known that particular clerks in that bureau may either from ignorance or from interest or some other cause be persuaded to pass a claim which goes under their review which otherwise they would not. That man retires from his three or four thousand dollar position and comes up the next day as the attorney, having a contingent fee of $10,000, if you please; he goes right back into the Department, hunts up the proper clerk in that bureau, and uses his influence upon him; I do not say always corruptly in the sense of using money, but uses the influence which naturally could be exercised by a man of capacity upon people with whom he had been associated, and the first you know a claim which never ought to have been paid has taken its money out of the Treasury.

This is a great abuse. It is an abuse that we have been trying in one way and another to stop for three or four or five years. Here is an opportunity to make one step. My honorable friend from Wisconsin says the Supreme Court have decided that you cannot prevent a traitor from practicing in the courts. That may be; but I think he will find it hard to prove that you cannot prevent a man who is in the employ of the Government, or has been, from having the run of the Departments and going into the Departments, which are our

Departments-they are not judicial tribunals; they are our own Departments-and making use of the influence, the knowledge that he has obtained when he has been receiving our money to get money out of the pockets of the people.

Therefore, Mr. President, I hope that the Senate will not strike out this section, but will stand to it and see that it shall not go out.

Mr. CARPENTER. One word in reply. In the first place, the Senator's remarks proceed upon the ground that these men, after they go out of a Department are going to carry with them such an overriding influence that they will manage the Department when they get back. Mr. Webster covered that ground when he said that politicians are not sunflow. ers; they do not turn to their God when He sets the same look they gave when He rose. When a man who has occupied a place in some bureau in a Department is once out, that is the end of his influence. The man who can influence the Department is the man that is just coming in, not the man who has just gone out.

But the Senator says, also. he may have information which will enable him to get a claim through. If he has information which will enable him to get a claim through, always supposing that there are honest men left in the Department to pass upon it, then the facts of the case ought to put it through; and the idea that we should prevent an allowance of claim if the facts of the case call for its allow ance, proceeds on the ground that the Government in dealing with its citizen is just like a litigant wrangling and quarreling with an opposite party. By no means. The Government stands as guardian over the citizen. The Government is bound to protect the citizen, not beat him if it can by chicanery, by sup pression of fact, by destruction of testimony. If I have a claim before any one of these Departments, and the testimony is on file showing that I am entitled to it, the man who conceals it, being a clerk in the Department, is a rascal. If he will have any more influence after he gets out, it is a premium for putting him out, and a good end is accomplished.

Another great objection to this is that you visit this penalty on men ex post facto. If you choose to pass a law in the future, then if a man accepts the position of clerk in a Department, he knows the penalty attached to it, he knows the disfranchisement; but you are visiting now upon a man who may perhaps have been in a Department but for some brief space, thirty days, this extreme penalty.

Again, a man who has held the humblest position in the Internal Revenue Bureau is disfranchised from prosecuting any claim relating to or concerning foreign customs because it comes under the same Department; he cannot prosecute a claim for a light-house keeper on Lake Michigan; he cannot do anything in the whole Treasury Department. The section is unjust. That it is unconstitutional seems to me too plain a thing to talk about; however, I do not regard that as of any particular con sequence.

Mr. WRIGHT. Before the question is taken on striking out the section, I move to amend it. It now reads, "that if any person who has held office in any executive office of the Government." I move to insert after the word "executive" the words "or legislative," and after the word "appointed," in line three, to insert the words "or elected," and immediately after the word "shall," in the same line, to insert "hereafter;" so that it will read :

"That if any person who has held an office in any executive or legislative department of the Government to which he was appointed or elected shall hereafter act as attorney, solicitor, or agent in the prosecution of any claim against the United States," &c.

tive officers, there is very great propriety in applying it to members of Congress as well.

Mr. CASSERLY. I ask to have that amendment read; it seems to me that a few words more would make it all the Senator from Iowa desires.

The Chief Clerk read the amendment of Mr. WRIGHT.

Mr. CASSERLY. The objection to this section, that it is retrospective in its effects, seems to me a strong one. I am in favor of the general policy of forbidding officials in the Executive Departments or ex-members of Congress from using the advantages which they have gained either in their office or in their place as member of Congress to push claims, or bills, or anything of that sort. The whole system is evil to the last degree. The influences which it brings about the Capitol and the Departments of the Government are not good. If there be anything in our power to restore the primitive simplicity and honesty of the Government in any of those particulars, we ought to do it. But I think there is great objection to making the section retrospective. Therefore I had drawn an amendment to which I crave the attention of the Senator from Iowa. It is to strike out the words "has held" in the first line, and insert the words "shall hereafter hold;" so as to read:

That if any person who shall hereafter hold an office in any executive Department of the Government to which he was appointed, shall, after he has ceased to hold such office, act as attorney, solicitor, or agent, &c.

My friend in front of me [Mr. SCOTT] sug gests that as the law now stands, being a penal law, it may well be construed to operate only upon those persons who are in office at this moment. In that point of view also I think my amendment is desirable.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I suggest to the Senator from California to add, then, "who now holds or who shall hereafter hold," so as to save all possible question touching those who are in.

Mr. CARPENTER. I want to suggest to my friend from California that that does not obviate the difficulty. You cannot pass a law saying that a man who is now smoking a cigar shall be fined fifty dollars any more than you can pass a law that the man who smoked yesterday shall be fined fifty dollars.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Can you not provide that if a man now smoking a cigar commits murder to-morrow he shall pay a fine?

Mr. CARPENTER. But your amendment would apply it to those who are now in office. Mr. EDMUNDS. If they do not like it, let them step out before this becomes the law.

Mr. CARPENTER. But suppose they are not willing to submit to it, and have not notice in time to get out. They could not imagine that such a law would be passed.

Mr. EDMUNDS. It is pretty difficult to get out of office, it is true, by your own confession. Mr. CASSERLY. I think the amendment of the Senator from Vermont would be open to the objection that it is substantially retrospective, because to say to a man who this moment holds an office that if hereafter he shall do something which is innocent at this time, or at least not open to penal statutes, does practically make your act retrospective, and in the case of a penal act that is especially objectionable and probably unconstitutional, as the Senator from Wisconsin has suggested.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I would suggest an amendment, "that if any person shall, thirty days after the passage of this act," &c. That would give them an opportunity to get out. I really do not think that the section is subject to the criticism of being an ex post facto law. We all know that so far as treason was concerned that was in the nature of a punishment, and therefore was declared to be unconstitutional; but this is a mere qualification for office.

practice in the Supreme Court and saying that he shall not practice in the Departments, so far as regards the question of punishment?

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I do not know that there is any; but that is not the point. Mr. CARPENTER. That is what the Supreme Court have decided.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. So far as treason is concerned, I understand that preventing a person who was guilty of treason was directly a punishment. This is merely prescribing what shall be a disqualification for office. I take it that we should have a perfect right to provide that a man should not practice unless he was learned in the law. I take it we should have a perfect right to provide that a man who had been an attorney in a case should not in that case afterward be the attorney of the other party, which is about what this provision amounts to. It is a mere disqualification of office, and not a punishment; therefore, in my opinion, not ex post facto.

I can see great objections to persons who have held these positions and become familiar with the details of the office, holding the position of attorney, not that we want to conceal facts or the truth as it exists in the records, but one familiar with those records may know one fact in favor of his client, he may know another fact that if disclosed would make the Govern. ment right, and he takes a partial view of the whole subject, so as to put the Government in the wrong and his client in the right. This act, with the amendment suggested that it should only operate in the future, I think is a salutary and good law.

Mr. NYE. I hope, sir, that the section will be stricken out even if the amendment should prevail. We have reached that happy period now in our political history when we have a civil service system in partial operation and soon to be in full operation. I am a little unwilling on the back of that to say that it makes a man's character questionable for integrity to take a position in_the_national employment of this country. I am a little slow to say that if I go into any Department and acquire a knowledge which enables me to perform duties that others cannot perform by that knowledge which I have accumulated, shall incur a penalty if I use it. As well might the honorable Senator from New Jersey impose a penalty that if a man took a position in the Post Office Department, he should remain in prison thereafter when he left it till the records and rolls and remembrances with which he was familiar were forgotten. I do not suppose that it hurts a man's character to be a clerk, and I am unwilling to legislate upon the supposition that it does. I would not chain these young men down for two years. I like a man who has pluck enough to get out of one of these Departments; once there, you propose to say to him, "The minute you step aside from that, for two long years you shall not exercise in any way the knowledge you have obtained."

but

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I call attention to the fact that it is only "in such Department." Mr. NYE. Suppose the clerk wants to be a dishonest man, can he not go to my friend from New Jersey, who is an astute and keen lawyer, and tell him all he knows himself? On every hand he will find lawyers that want retainers; but if he wants himself to investigate an honest claim, and avail himself of the knowledge he has thus obtained, there is a penalty. Sir, I hope that character of legislation will not be adopted.

Mr. SCOTT. The Senator from Nevada has just called attention to one feature of this pro vision which has struck me as showing that it does not go far enough. If we intend to remedy this evil, the section ought to impose a penalty upon an officer of a Department who communicates information he may acquire in it to any person who may make use of it. It will be very difficult to frame any law which would practically accomplish that result. But there

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any

The PRESIDing officeR. The Chair hears no objection, and the amendment will be so modified.

Mr. NYE. I ask the honorable Senator why he does not include in that the judiciary? Executive and legislative officers are included. Now, why not include the judicial department? Why should the Attorney General turn around and take up employments against the United States?

Mr. EDMUNDS. That is not a judicial office; it is an executive office.

Mr. NYE. I say any branch of the Gov

ernment.

is another objection to this section as it stands to which I wish to call attention. The primary intention or object of the section is to prevent persons who have been in the Departments from making use of the knowledge they acquire there to enforce money claims against the Government. But as the section stands I submit that it will do far more than that. The language is in the prosecution of any claim against the United States." If it were claim to recover money against the United States," it would be reaching the object sought to be attained, but I submit now that the language as it stands would prevent a man who had been in one of the Departments from appearing there in contest between two private citizens claiming a patent from the United States; it would prevent him from appearing in the Patent Office where there were two contestants both asking a patent from the United States, because although it is not a money demand, it is in the form of a claim against the || United States. I take it that this language would go so far as to debar an attorney or agent who had formerly been in the Depart-after ment from appearing in either of these cases. Certainly if the section is to be amended so as to make it prospective only, it ought also to be amended so as to confine this provision to the prosecution of claims to recover money against the United States.

I am not sure but that it is open to the objection which has been urged by the Senator from Wisconsin, although I am willing to go as far as anybody can to prevent the scandals which have heretofore arisen from persons making use of the knowledge acquired in official positions to revive claims against the Government and also to enforce them. I shall at the proper time offer an amendment to insert the words to recover money" after the word "claims," for the purpose of meeting one of the objections which I have made.

Mr. MORTON. I think this section is too broad as it stands, and interferes too much with private rights, and I shall vote to strike it out unless it is very materially amended. It is an abuse to allow a man who has been employed in one of the Departments to resign or otherwise go out and use the knowledge he has there acquired in enforcing claims against the United States. But there ought to be some limitation to this restriction. The prohibition against his practice should be con. fined to that particular bureau or that particular sphere of duties in which he was employed and in regard to which he obtained particular knowledge.

Is there any sense in saying that a man who has been employed in The Patent Office shall not be allowed to practice before the Commissioner of the General Land Office or the Commissioner of Pensions, or any other bureau or any other officer in that Department not connected with that class of duties upon which he was employed? It seems to me not; and unless the section can be so amended as to confine the prohibition to the abuse I shall vote against it. Suppose a man is employed in the dead-letter office of the Post Office Department, is there any sense in saying that he shall not practice before the Post Office Department in other respects in regard to maiters not connected with the dead-letter office? There would be no sense in that; it would be an interference with private rights without any cause whatever.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. WRIGHT. Allow me to modify that amendment. Instead of "executive or judicial" I propose to strike out the word "has," in the first line, and insert "shall have been a member of Congress or who shall have;" so as to read:

That if any person who shall have been a member of Congress or who shall have held any office in any executive department of the Government, &c.

Mr. WRIGHT. I have only to say to the Senator from Nevada that I propose to go thus far, and if he desires to go further he can move an amendment.

Mr. BOREMAN. I suggest to the Senator from Iowa that members of Congress are now prohibited under heavy penalties from prosecuting claims before the Departments, as I understand.

Mr. EDMUNDS. This relates to two years

they go out.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Iowa to the sixth section.

The amendment was agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now is on the motion of the Senator from Wisconsin, to strike out the sixth section of the bill as amended.

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

Mr. CASSERLY. Is it the opinion of the Senator from Wisconsin that no amendment of this section would make it acceptable to him?

Mr. CARPENTER. I have not heard any suggested yet that meets the objections I have to it.

Mr. CASSERLY. It seems to me that if the Senator desires, in the view I have, to suppress or check the evils we see around us every day, and which are increasing from one day to another by reason of the peculiar facilities enjoyed by ex-members of Congress and ex-officers of the Departments in prosecuting claims of private advantage to the detriment of the public good, I think-and I am sure he must feel as I do about that-he would be willing to allow an effort to be made to put this section in such a shape that he can accept it.

Mr. BAYARD. Would it be in order at this time to offer a substitute for this section? The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would be. Mr. BAYARD. I ask the Senator from Wisconsin to withdraw his motion and let the Clerk report my substitute.

Mr. CARPENTER. I suppose the Senator has a right to perfect the section before the vote is taken on striking it out.

Mr. BAYARD. I understood the motion of the Senator from Wisconsin to be to strike out the whole section, and I ask him to withdraw that to enable me to offer a substitute.

Mr. CARPENTER. That would be in order

by way of perfecting the section without regard to my motion.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair has so ruled.

Mr. BAYARD. I ask that my amendment be read.

The Chief Clerk read the amendment, which was to strike out all of the section after the word "that," in the first line, and to in

sert:

From and after the passage of this act, any person who shall hold any office in any executive department of the Government shall not act as attorney or agent in the prosecution of any claim against the United States in any executive department in which he shall have held such office for the period of two years after he shall have ceased to be such officer.

Mr. BAYARD. The object proposed to be reached in that substitute for the section is in the first place to secure the absence of this

very heavy penalty for such attempted action. The great cure for the dishonesty and undue and improper influences which this section seeks to correct after all will be found in the integrity and intelligence of the officers of the Departments. It seems to me it is quite enough for Congress to indicate to these officials by a law of this kind that persons who hold office in Executive Departments sball not, for two years after the expiration of their term, be permitted to act as solicitors, attorneys, or agents in those Departments. If Congress declares, as it will if this amendment be adopted, that such person shall not hereafter act as attorney, agent, or solicitor in any Department, that is sufficient to prevent it being done. I deprecate this continual addition of crimes and penalties to our laws. It is quite enough, it seems to me, to indicate to our officials that a certain class of people are, from high motives of public policy, to be excluded from using their personal influence and using the information which they have gained while in the employ of the Government for the purpose of furthering their pri vate interests. If that fact be made known to the officers of our Departments, surely it will be sufficient to accomplish the exclusion of the class of persons who are here referred to without having this repetition of fines and penalties for attempting to act. They cannot act if this substitute is adopted, and it is not prospective in its character, which meets the objection, which I think is a sound one, of my friend from Wisconsin.

Mr. EDMUNDS. May I ask my friend from Delaware a question?

Mr. BAYARD. Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS. He says they cannot act if they are told they ought not to. Suppose they should happen to act; what then? Does he propose to let them act as violators of the law without punishment?

Mr. BAYARD. Well, Mr. President, I do not think violations of a law of this kind are to be presumed or expected. It would be well known that an official who permitted one of this proscribed class of persons to act as attorney, agent, or solicitor in his Department would be very apt to lose his official head. That would be perfectly well understood, and I cannot imagine either that the person would attempt to act or that the official would permit him to act in the face of a law of this kind, and I had rather, I confess, see the law obeyed in that way than to have this eternal reliance upon penalties and punishments as the only means of securing obedi

ence.

Mr. EDMUNDS. That is a very millennial argument.

Mr. STOCKTON. I regret very much to differ with gentlemen for whom I have so high a regard as the gentlemen who sit on my right, [Mr. BAYARD and Mr. CASSERLY,] and I have not risen to discuss this question, but I deem it my duty to express on this occasion my utter and entire dissent to the whole of this section. Why the Government of the United States finds it necessary to put pains and penalties upon any man who seeks to make a living by practicing his business or profession, and cannot make it any other way, I do not understand; and it is a very bad principle to admit that that can be done or may be done.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I was about to ask my honorable friend a question with his permission in reference to what he says about the honor of the Government; whether he would be willing to repeal the existing laws which prohibit a member of Congress from practicing before the Departments?

Mr. STOCKTON. Certainly not as long as he is a member of Congress. That exclusion is founded upon public policy. Every member of Congress and every Senator is a natural guardian of the Treasury. It is his business to defend it, to protect it, and he

certainly could not go in and assail it. That is perfectly plain.

Mr. EDMUNDS. But my friend will see it interferes with the private operations of that member of Congress in the meantime, and his argument went to the point that it was very improper to interfere with the right of a citi zen to do what he had a mind to, and a man ought not to be deprived of his rights as a citizen because, as the best citizen in a particular district or State, he has been elected to office.

Mr. STOCKTON. I differ with the honorable Senator from Vermont as to how far my argument went. It went to this extent: that you had no right to put pains and penalties upon a man because he had been a member of Congress. You have a right to see that he behaves himself under the Constitution as a member of Congress while he is in Congress; but you cannot disqualify him, you cannot put disabilities on him because he is a member of Congress. There is nothing degrading in being a member of Congress. It is not so degrading that a man should be all the rest of his life, or for two years, or any other time supposed incapable of doing the business that his fellow-citizens do. Suppose we were to pass a law that any man who had ever been a member of Gongress should not for two years thereafter be allowed to practice his profession in any court of the United States; suppose, in other words, without wearying my imagination to seek for further suppositions, you would put any other disability on him, would that be right? You may say it is constitutional. I do not want to go into as close an argument as that; and yet when the Constitution says that members of Congress shall be chosen in such and such a way and under such and such circumstances, I doubt very much whether it is not running the line very close to pass a law saying that a man has got to suffer any disability for being so chosen.

I rose, Mr. President, simply to suggest this idea. I have no wish to argue it. I regret very much to differ with gentlemen so learned in the law; and if they have thought over the subject carefully, I have no doubt I must be in error, but I recollect distinctly when I was upon the Committee on Appropriations, this question came up and I saw the evil of it. I admitted the evil; I would gladly seek a remedy; but the remedy is in the Department itself. There ought to be no secret in a Department, the publication of which or the knowledge of which can endanger, under any proper and fair system, the public Treasury. It must be protected by the virtue, the honesty, and the character of the men who are placed at the heads of the Departments. I do not mean to say that they are not so now; but place such men there, and one after the other, step after step, you will find gradually all the men under them will become just as pure. It is a matter of imitation. The example of pub lic virtue in the heads of Departments, from the highest office in our Government to the lowest, will always be followed by the employés as well as by the people of the country. It is a matter of tone; it is a matter of character; it is a matter of honor. There is nothing else in the world that can protect your Treasury. To pass a provision of this kind, it seems to me, is an admission of the impossibility of having proper integrity in our Departments, which I do not believe. In addition to that, I say if it is not unconstitutional, it is a continuation of that long-continued system of unnecessary police interference with the individual liberty of the citizens, which is always more or less tyrannous. Its only justification is that it is necessary for the preservation of the public good and the public Treasury.

Mr. SPRAGUE. There is no credit in any man who repudiates his debts. That is a selfevident proposition. He does so when he in any way conceals an error or mistake in his credit accounts. The measure before us is one of the latter kind. If the Government

owes, let the Government pay, and let all the facts favorable to the claimant be open to his agent and to the public. It is a question of national repudiation or common honesty. I favor the latter, and shall vote for expunging the sixth section. A clerkship in Washington under the Government is the most dwarfing to the clerk of any in the United States. I would vote for any proposition that would tempt him from such employment. If he can gain a more independent livelihood by the use of the knowledge which he acquired in Gov. ernment employ that would tempt him out of it, one person at least would be saved from its pernicious influences.

Mr. STEWART. There may be evils that are aimed at by this section, but this section does not reach the main evil in the Departments. There ought to be a system of prac tice there by which both sides can be heard. You ought to stop ex parte applications and hearings affecting private rights, or affecting the rights of the Government, require notice to be given, and have both parties represented; have the Government represented when there is only one antagonist, and when several are interested have them all present. If you would provide that there should be no more ex parte practice in any Department in any case, then there would be no need of this provision. Then if the attorneys should possess information obtained in this way, if the Government were represented it would make no difference. We have now a Department of Justice, with a good many officers, and whenever there is a controversy in a matter involv. ing certainly over five hundred dollars, or involving title to land, or involving franchises that ought to be heard in the Department, both sides should be present. I think it would be much better if the committee would direct their attention to having trials in such cases, not ex parte hearings where damages are done, where wrongs are committed; and then I do not think an ex-clerk of a Department would have any advantage over an able lawyer who took up the case. I do not think he would have any advantage over the Attorney General or his representative. In every case of importance there ought to be some rule by which the claim may be properly scrutinized and publicity given to the transaction. That would save millions, and save private rights. The great trouble in the Departments is the want of publicity in these transactions. Every question affecting private interests or affecting the rights of the United States should be heard publicly, and everybody should be heard in open court, so to speak; anybody should be allowed to come in and hear the case; a day should be fixed for the hearing in all these controverted matters. Outside of that there is no business for any attorney or any agents about the Departments. That being secured, the ex-clerks would not be any more potent than anybody else. I suggust to Senators to make it an offense for an officer to communicate with them ex parte at all. That ought to be done. That is the grand evil which should be stopped. I do not think this section amounts to much striking at a particular class. I do not think we are touching the real evil. The real evil is ex parte practice in the Departments. It is not the use of information obtained while he was in the Department by an ex-clerk, who has been turned out of office and has got no friends, but the ex parte practice of the Departments. We ought to require something like the practice in the courts.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from Delaware as a substitute for the section.

The amendment was rejected.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question recurs on the amendment offered by the Senator from Wisconsin to strike out section six.

Mr. SCOTT. I move, then, to insert those words, so that the clause will read :

That if any person who shall have been a member of Congress, or shall have held an office in any executive department of the Government to which he was appointed or elected, shall hereafter act as attorney, solicitor, or agent in the prosecution of any claim to recover money against the United States in such Department, within two years after the day at which he ceased to be such officer, &c.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I understood the Senator from Pennsylvania to offer this amendment with a special view to the Patent Office. That was the point that he made, that this section would prevent a member of Congress from arguing a case before the Commissioner of Patents.

Mr. SCOTT. And the Land Office.

Mr. EDMUNDS. The Patent Office was the one referred to. Now, as to the Patent Office, the law is plain. Members of Congress are not now prohibited from arguing causes there, because everything there is not a claim against the United States any more than a suit pending in the Supreme Court is. The United States stands merely as the judge in a matter of interference or of grant between private parties; and so it has always been held that the existing law against members of Congress arguing causes did not apply there at all, for the Government had no interest in it; it was of no consequence to the Government which way the matter was decided. So it has been the practice ever since that law was passed, and before, for members of Congress who were counselors at law, as they might happen to be retained, to argue causes there just as they would in the Supreme Court. It does not fall within the mischief of the act of 1863, if that is the date of it, and does not fall within its letter, and therefore never has been held either in morals or law to fall within the condemnation of that act. So much for the Patent Office. So this amendment is entirely unnecessary as to that.

When you come to the Land Office, I think it would be just as great an abuse for a mem. ber of Congress who had put himself in relations in the course of his duties, as members of Congress must with all these Departments in the course of his rightful duties in taking care of his constituents, with the Commissioner of the Land Office or the heads of his bureaus ; it is just as much against just policy, and against the protection of the people, who have some rights as well as claimants, to allow a member of Congress, or a member of a Department, to undertake the land-grant busi ness before the Commissioner of the Land Office as it would be to undertake the money business in the Treasury Department proper.

I think this amendment ought not to be adopted for the reason that I have stated, that as far as it applies to the Patent Office it has no application at all, for members of Congress may lawfully and morally practice there now; in the other department, in the Land Office, which has been named, I think the mischief is just as great as it is in taking money out of the Treasury.

Mr. SCOTT. I do not remember the language of the act of Congress which prohibits members of Congress from practicing in any of the Departments in cases of claims against the Government. The purpose of my amendment was simply to accomplish the very thing which the Senator from Vermont says is the ruling of the Departments. I gave the Patent Office and the Land Office simply as illustrations, not intending by any means to convey the idea that any member of a Department or any member of Congress might go there urging the land-grant business, and instancing a case in which a conflict of private rights might

arise in the Land Office, where A may claim a patent and B may claim a patent for the same land, a conflict of rights; the demand is in form for a patent from the United States; it is a demand against the United States for a patent although private rights only are in volved in the demand. Now, I wish to avoid the construction which might be put upon this act to debar a man from representing private rights of that character in such a contest in the Patent Office or in the Land Office. Mr. CARPENTER. Will my friend allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. SCOTT. Certainly.

Mr. CARPENTER. Why is it not just as pernicious to allow that thing to be done in the Patent Office as anywhere else? Is the Commissioner of Patents exempted from influence any more than the Commissioner of the Land Office? Has he not as good a heart, as kind a feeling, and does he not sympathize with his friends just as much? If those qualities of the heart are objectionable to a man in office, say so, and turn all that class of men

out.

Mr. SCOTT. I am not discussing either the qualities of the heart or the head of the Commissioner of Patents or the Commissioner of the Land Office; but the fundamental idea of this legislation is to prevent parties who have been in the Departments from using the information they get there to enforce claims against the Government, not to deprive private parties of their knowledge, or the skill, or the evidence which may be in the possession of those parties to enable them to enforce their rights. A private party is entitled to any evidence that will defeat his adversary or enforce his own claim, and what I wish here to do is not to permit this act to be so construed as to drive these parties away from the advo cacy of the rights of private parties in these Departments.

Mr. STEWART. I have been looking at this matter, and I cannot see how this section can possibly do any good in any event. I cannot see that there is anything in it that will prevent any rascality at all. I wish to call the attention of the Senator from Vermont to its language, because I am anxious to reach the same object that he is; but I do not think this amendment will reach it.

Mr. EDMUNDS. If my friend will pardon me, it is almost now, as perfected by the Senator from Iowa, in terms like a bill reported from the Judiciary Committee, with the assent of my friend, two or three years ago.

Mr. STEWART. I may have assented to it, but on reflection I do not think it reaches any purpose. The object is to prevent collusion and fraud in the Departments. If a per: son is an honest man, and simply goes around attending to routine business and does not do anything wrong, you do not want to touch him and deprive him of his bread. If he is an honest man, he will obey this law. If he is a dishonest man, it will accomplish no good, for he will soon find out a very plain way to do the very same thing and evade your law. He can go to his friend in the Department, if he has one, and he can make his arrangement outside, and can then send a most respectable looking man to make the formal application. This section will not prevent such things at all. It will not drag such a transaction to light.

I repeat, Mr. President, the great difficulty in the Departments, the great evil that has grown up, is these ex parte applications and hearings. I know of no case that has been complained of in which the United States was interested where, if the Attorney General had been notified and had been present, the thing would not have been stopped. Where the United States is not interested, for instance, with regard to a patent for land, where there is a controversy, the most outrageous injustice is done necessarily by the practice, even if the officers are ever so honest, of allowing ex parte hearings.

The whole theory of justice is that both sides shall be heard. If you can break up the ex parte practices in the Departments you have reached the real evil. Where there is a claim against the Government of any considerable amount, fix the amount, and say that the Attorney General shall be notified, and he shall be summoned there to argue the cause on behalf of the Government. It never should be heard ex parte under any circumstances. If private rights are involved, the party should be notified, and the ex parte practice should be stopped. There is where the evil is. If you pass this law, an honest man may do only routine business, but a man who is a rascal may go to his friend in the Department and make an arrangement with him, and then send his substitute to appear in the Department, because if he is bad enough and the officer of the Department is bad enough to commit fraud on the Government, they are bad enough to meet on the outside and talk it over, and make arrangements for evading your law. You propose to send a man to the State's prison because you say if he is allowed to practice there he is liable to commit a fraud. I say if he has any desire to commit fraud there is no necessity for going into the Department to do it. He can send somebody else there, and make his arrangements outside. So I do not think this section will accomplish the purpose desired, but will only interfere with a set of men who are doing routine business.

Soon

Mr. CRAGIN. I am in favor of the object of this section of the bill. I wish to state a case that occurred in my recollection. after I came to the Senate, say about seven years ago, a New Hampshire man who had moved to one of the western States, and was some ten or a dozen years before that a postmaster in a little town in New Hampshire, wrote me that he understood there was a balance due him as postmaster, and that he wished me to go to the Department and ascertain and if possible get the money for him. I went up to the Post Office Department, and I found on inquiry that there were probably due to small postmasters who had gone out of office some time previous, and for a long time previous, small balances; and some clerk in that Department, who had access to that information, had gathered up the names of these postmasters and the amounts due to each one of them, and having gone out of the service, he wrote letters all over the country to these postmasters, who never supposed they had a cent due them, proposing, if they would put the business in his hands, to collect the amounts for a percentage, a large percentage. Of course it was to the interest of the Government not to voluntarily spread this information before the country. They paid each individual as he applied.

Mr. CARPENTER. I wish to ask my friend from New Hampshire if the Government was in any way injured or wronged by paying what its own books showed it owed?

Mr. CRAGIN. Certainly not; but it is time enough for an individual to pay sometimes when the account is presented to him.

Mr. CARPENTER. Then the morality of that is, if the Government have got the books and the only information on the subject, and owe money to their citizens, they ought to conceal that fact from the citizens.

Mr. CRAGIN. Not at all. The individual has a right to come and demand his pay, and he will get it.

Mr. CARPENTER. But he does not know it. Mr. CRAGIN. Then he is well enough off without. Here is another class of claims: during the war a large number of officers in the Navy, and also in the Army, were summarily dismissed from the service without judgment of a court-marshal, and I know efforts are being made to gather up the names of those officers in the Navy, and in the War Department, in order that they may present