thetic as we are, we cannot be expected to relieve them, directly or indirectly, from the national Treasury. The twelve concessionnaires of Nicaragua have shown enterprise in adventure, but no progress in their undertakings. Apostolic in number, they should have exhibited some apostolic results. The administration has been shown, perhaps, apostolic graces not seen by us. Deep in the archives of the State Department, it may be, are unanswerable evidences justifying the honorable Secretary in his enthusiastic campaign for this much-coveted appropriation; but if so, they have been deemed too sacred or apostolic to be communicated to the mere representatives of the people of the United States! Painful as it is to oppose the wishes of the Secretary, disappoint the twelve concessionnaires, or spoil a scheme so beautiful and fruitful to all save the Government and people of this country, we are yet compelled to declare that appropriations from the public Treasury must be for the public welfare and made plain and open to the eyes of the people. They abhor secret service and secret-service funds. They believe we are strong enough in the right to demand openly all we are entitled to; and more they do not desire us to ask.

We oppose, then, this amendment and shall continue to oppose it with every means at our command. To allow it is a further surrender of the Monroe doctrine, a surrender of our traditional continental policy. It would be a violation of one of the solemn treaties of this Government with a friendly power. It would be taking $1,450,000 out of the public Treasury and giving it to private persons for nothing, under the miserable pretense that this Government will undertake to build a ship-canal across Nicaragua at a cost of from $75,000,000 to $300,000,000. Beyond all this, it would recognize the right of the representatives, the servants, of the people to take the money of their constituents secretly and expend it secretly without their knowledge or consent. To this we can never consent. It is antidemocratic, anti-republican, and contrary to the spirit and genius of our institutions. [Applause.]

SPEECH ON ARMY APPROPRIATION BILL.

AUGUST 1, 1888.

The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and having under consideration the amendments of the Senate to the bill (H. R. 10234) making appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889

Mr. BURNES said:

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have not been in the habit of thrusting myself into a debate unless it seemed to me absolutely and indispensably necessary. I can only say now, in making a seeming departure from my regular course, that the illness and absence of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations [Mr. RANDALL], who is a member of the subcommittee on fortifications, afford me an incentive and perhaps a justification.

I shall premise the remarks I will submit on this occasion by calling attention to the fact that the subcommittee in charge of the fortifications bill, now on the Calendar of the Committee of the Whole, was composed of my colleagues from Texas [Mr. SAYERS], from Alabama [Mr. FORNEY], the honored chairman of the Appropriations Committee [Mr. RANDALL], from Ohio [Mr. BUTTERWORTH], and from Kansas [Mr. RYAN].

The views I shall present are my own, but it is believed that they are in accord with those of the distinguished gentleman whose absence has caused me to speak.

I listened on yesterday with much interest and attention to the argument of the distinguished gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED], and it is almost idle to say, what nearly every member upon this floor concedes, that when he states his propositions to the House he follows them to their logical conclusions with an accuracy that is excelled by but few. He stated his proposition yesterday in reply to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia [Mr. BLOUNT], and upon the proposition so stated by him his argument was logical, close-fitting, and unanswerable. But upon the propositions as laid down by my friend from Georgia, the argument of the distinguished gentleman does not, in any sense, apply. What was the proposition, or what were the several propositions of the distinguished gentleman from Maine?

He stated first that the Senate of the United States was a co-ordinate-a coequal-branch of the legislative power of the Government with the House. Who disputes it? Certainly not my honored friend from Georgia. He laid down as a proposition that we had no right to dictate to the Senate of the United States upon what bill it should place its legislation. Who disputes it? Conceding every proposition that he made, and then what is left for us but the very ground upon which the distinguished gentleman from Georgia leaves it, namely, that while we concede equality to the Senate and its right to put upon any House bill it pleases such legislation as it may have the power to originate under the Consti

tution of the United States, we claim for this House a perfect equality of right. This House has the same rights on its part that the Senate has in its own behalf; and, inasmuch as the Senate is the coequal of the House, except in so far as it cannot originate appropriation bills, so the House is the equal of the Senate in all respects, with the exclusive right to originate revenue or appropriation bills.

This is no partisan question. We represent the majority of the House to-day. But how soon may that side of this chamber represent the power, the dignity, and the honor of the House and be charged with the duty of enforcing and preserving its rules.

Mr. BURNES. It may be soon, which God forbid. It may be late, as I believe it will be.

Mr. TOWNSHEND.

Mr. BURNES.

It never will be.

Brother TOWNSHEND says it never will be.

Mr. RYAN. That settles it. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURNES. As he is our prophet I accept it, too, as it is supported by the unanimous voice of my side of the House. [Renewed laughter.]

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I desire to appeal to your love and respect for the body of which we are all members, to your own self-respect, to the honest pride of American Congressmen, and to their sense of duty in maintaining the rights and prerogatives of the House against Senatorial usurpations. I desire to lift you from your knees before that grand Sanhedrim-sometimes called a social club at the other end of this Capitol and place you upon your feet as free and independent men, knowing your rights and the rights of the House, and having the courage to maintain and protect them.

What is your right? You have made rules and regulations for the government not of the Senate but for the government of the House. It is not the Senate's business, we will say, to observe or enforce your rules, but it is manifestly the business of the House to enforce its own rules and maintain its own dignity. Throughout the Forty-ninth Congress, when my friend from Illinois [Mr. TowN SHEND] was a member, and a leading member, upon the Committee on Appropriations, this question of making appropriations for fortifications was agitated between the two Houses. Bills came and bills went, and they went and came, every time to and from the Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Fortifications. The same differences existed then that exist to-day. The same disposition of the Senate to carry through its measure by any practicable means that existed then is apparent now. The conflict between the Senate and the House in the Forty-ninth Congress had some curious features, to which allusion should be made, and the members on both sides of the chamber ought to take notice of them. The Senate was urging upon this branch of Congress the very measures which now appear as amendments on the bill of the Committee on Military Affairs. They were the issues then as they are the issues now. Your Committee on Appropriations with a veteran spirit of legislation steadily resisted the propositions which the Military Committee has been quick to approve; and it seems fair to assume that because of this eager approval by the committee the

Senate Committee on Appropriations has leaped over the established and known comity between the two Committees on Appropriations, the customs of legislation between them, and the well-known rules of the House of Representatives, known as fully by the Senate committee as by the House committee, and all to transfer jurisdiction over a vast field of proposed national expenditure to a committee of the House committed in advance to the policies of the Senate Committee.

But I am delaying an explanation of my remark that there were some curious features about this proposed legislation. During the first session of the Fortyninth Congress there was reported to the Senate of the United States a bill entitled "A bill to encourage the manufacture of steel for modern army ordnance, armor, and other army purposes, and to provide heavy ordnance adapted to heavy modern warfare and other purposes." This bill provided for the establishment of a gun foundry at the Watervliet arsenal, West Troy, N. Y., and authorized the purchase of 10,000 gross tons of gun steel. Pending the consideration of this bill in the Senate, the House, during the same session of the Forty-ninth Congress, passed the regular appropriation bill providing for fortifications and other works of defense. The Senate passed that bill with amendments appropriating $6,000,000 for the purchase of gun steel, and provided for the erection of the gun foundry at the Frankford arsenal, Philadelphia.

I will only allude to the motives influencing gentlemen elsewhere by calling attention here and now to this significant change in legislation proposed by the Senate, and leave it to the consideration of thoughtful members to determine the reason for such sudden change in the minds of those behind this proposition. Then Watervliet was a mere incident; Philadelphia was the right place. But your committee yielded not. The question was higher and more sacred than that of a mere location. It was above all personal considerations, or ought to have been, and was, with the House subcommittee. Now, it is Watervliet again, as the change to Frankford did not increase the activities of support of the Senate amendments.

There is yet another question in this connection that I would call to the attention of the House. The Senate amendments under consideration embrace in substance and effect the features of one of the regular, distinctive appropriation bills, which, under the rules of the House, is assigned to the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations.

If this House should by its action concur in this amendment, placed in violation of its rules and of the joint parliamentary practices of the Senate and House upon an appropriation bill emanating from a committee having no jurisdiction, it will give warrant to the Senate, in the future, to usurp the rights and even the constitutional privileges of the House, among which is the sole right in the House of originating appropriation bills; for the fortification appropriation bill, which the House directs by its rules to be made by the Committee on Appropriations, has been made in the Senate and has been tacked on to the bill of a committee which did not originate it and had not the power to originate it.

There is now pending in the Senate a bill (S. 62) for the purpose of providing fortifications and other defenses recommended by a board appointed by the Presi

Ident of the United States.

This bill proposes an appropriation of $126,377,800. If the action of the Senate now under consideration is not met with stern opposition on the part of the House, may we not expect at the next session that the army appropriation bill will be returned to this body with an amendment of the Senate embracing this bill, appropriating out of the moneys in the Treasury, either now or hereafter to be collected, this startling sum of $126,377,800?

Mr. CUTCHEON. Will the gentleman permit a question?

Mr. BURNES. I am very weary in this heated caldron, and would rather not be interrupted.

Mr. CUTCHEON.

Do I understand you to say that the fortification bill of the last Congress located the works at Frankford arsenal, Philadelphia? If I do so understand you, I have a bill before me which you will find at

Mr. BURNES. I did not hear what the gentleman said.

Mr. CUTCHEON. It says to be located

Mr. BURNES. Give me your question again.

Mr. CUTCHEON. It says to be located at such place as the Board of Ordnance shall determine.

Mr. BURNES. I say that in the original bill that was reported in the Senate it was proposed to establish the gun foundry at Watervliet, but the amendment placed upon the fortification appropriation bill embraced, in all respects, the substance of that bill, except that it was proposed to establish the gun foundry at the Frankford arsenal, in Philadelphia, instead of at the Watervliet arsenal.

Mr. CUTCHEON. The House bill in the Forty-ninth Congress does not locate it at Frankford, but leaves it to be determined by a board of ordnance at such place as they shall determine. In the last hours of the last Congress

Mr. BURNES. I am not talking about what was reported from a conference committee in the dying hours of the session, either by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations or any one else; I am speaking of the action of the Senate in amending the House bill by the insertion of the Frankford arsenal as the place of location, and in daring impudently and wrongfully to invade privileges of the American House of Representatives and requiring that we should sacrifice our rules at its behest and renounce the constitutional right of the House to originate bills of appropriation. The motive is a proper subject of inquiry.

Mr. TOWNSHEND. You are speaking about what occurred in the last Congress, not in the present, of course.

Mr. BURNES. I think there is no misunderstanding about what I have said in regard to this proposition.

Mr. Chairman, the representatives of the United States assembled in this House owe a duty to themselves as well as to the people of this great country and their public Treasury. Will you not look into the quality and motives of legislation that comes to us from another body? That is the question, and it is intimately connected with the preservation of the rights, the usefulness, the dignity, and the honor of the American House of Representatives, and the orderly, economical, and constitutional appropriation of the public revenues for the proper administration of the General Government.