the fees of marshals and the fees of witnesses, because they run together, the marshals disbursing the funds for both.

In 1881 the appropriation was $650,000, and there was a deficiency of $172,600, making a total for the year of $822,600.

From that time on we began to decrease, because the year 1881 was an expensive year. In the year 1882, the succeeding year, the appropriation with the deficiency was $650,000 as against $822,000. In 1883 the appropriation was $600,000 without any deficiency. In 1884 it was $600,000 with a deficiency of $90,753; a total of $690,753. In 1885 there was an appropriation of $600,000 with a deficiency of $124,447; making a grand total of $724,447. For the past year, closing on Wednesday last, the appropriation was $675,000, and this bill provides for a deficiency of $20,000, which will make a total of $695,000 as against a total of $724,000 the preceding year.

The pro forma amendment was withdrawn.

Mr. CANNON. I renew the pro forma amendment for the purpose of saying that notwithstanding the extraordinary increase, considering the professions on the other side of the House, especially for witnesses, this appropriation bill does not recommend enough money either to pay the witnesses, or the marshals, or the jurors for the last fiscal year of 1886; and I might add to that the miscellaneous expenses. There is to come in for these different items a further deficiency all the way from $150,000 to $250,000 in the aggregate to be appropriated for next year.

It may be asked why the appropriations are not more liberal in this bill.

Mr. BURNES. I do not rise to controvert what the gentleman from Illinois has said, so much as to call attention to a great abuse in the management of the Department. It is not the fault of the present head of the Department, but of the system which has been in existence in this Government for many years.

This money appropriated for witnesses goes out to the different marshals, sixtyfive in number, I believe, and goes out necessarily on a blind division on requisitions made by each marshal, and each marshal is trying to get as much as possible for witnesses. Now, if you appropriate too much money the accounting officers, or the Comptroller making the division, will naturally divide it all up, and it goes out to the sixty-five marshals; it is in the hands of the marshals, and one marshal has too much, while another, perhaps, has not enough.

But when these remittances are reported back by the marshal it is found on the marshaling of assets there is enough. While one has got too much another has received not quite enough, and those who have the excess, in returning the money, will make good the deficiency in the accounts of many other marshals. It is that system which necessarily makes mistakes and errors and deficiencies too. If you give a marshal $2,000 when he ought to have but $1,000 he will spend it all if he has any reasonable chance of doing it.

Therefore, as this money has to go out blindly, in this one Department, it is far better to have deficiencies than to have excessive appropriations, because it is parted with by the Government blindly without knowing how much will be needed to pay the witnesses by a particular marshal. This system ought to be changed.

Perhaps it will require a law to change it; but it ought to be changed, and if the head of the Department of Justice has the power to do it he ought to do it at

once.

If he has not, we ought by law to regulate the manner of furnishing the marshals money to pay fees of witnesses and jurors.

Mr. CANNON. I move to strike out the last two words. I do it for the purpose of saying that the gentleman from Missouri does not understand this matter or I do not. It is true that the marshals do make requisitions upon this fund, and in answer to those requisitions, so far as the Attorney-General sees proper to answer them, the funds are given to them and they disburse them in the payment of witnesses and of jurors. But I do not understand there is a surplus in the hands of any marshal in the United States. On the contrary, the gentleman from New York [Mr. ADAMS] called my attention when this bill was being considered the other day to the fact that in the district of New York in which he resides there is a large amount, many thousand dollars, due to witnesses and to jurors for services in 1886, and no money to pay them, and after this appropriation which we provide in the deficiency bill is exhausted they will still go to a large extent unpaid; and so it is throughout the length and breadth of the country.

Mr. BURNES. I would ask my colleague if he does not know that of course New York does not get enough, and that it will always be wanting a little more. [Laughter.]

Mr. HISCOCK. Mr. Chairman, I have listened to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. McCOMAS] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. CANNON] and the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BURNES], trusting to hear from those gentlemen or some other member of the committee some explanation of this immense increase of $131,000 for witness fees in the year 1886 as compared with the preceding fiscal year, and an increase of $75,000 for pay of jurors. It looks as if there were “something rotten in the state of Denmark." I trust that the Committee on Appropriations have seen fit, in their wisdom, to investigate this increase, and are able to tell us the cause of it-whether there has been an increase of court business, an increase of litigation, or an increase of terms. The fact presented is something strange, and in view of the business habits of the gentleman who has charge of this bill, I doubt not he will be able to furnish some explanation of it. An increase of $75,000 for pay of jurors, and $131,000 in witness fees in one year, as compared with the preceding year, is something startling. I know we all hear about these abuses which gentlemen have spoken of, but they do not account for this remarkable increase.

I trust that before this matter is disposed of the distinguished gentleman who has charge of this measure will give some little information to the committee. Two hundred and six thousand dollars is a large sum for court expenses in two branches of the service. It looks as if jobs had been "put up," as if witnesses had been subpoenaed for purposes of speculation, and men summoned as jurors without proper necessity.

Mr. BURNES. I desire to say to my friend from New York [Mr. HISCOCK] that now and then there are extraordinary and surprising expenditures. It would probably be as difficult for me to account for the extraordinary increase in the

appropriation for payment of witnesses as it would be impossible for the gentleman from New York to account for the extraordinary expenses of marshals in 1881, reported in a deficiency bill from the Committee on Appropriations, of which he was at that time chairman.

Here was a deficiency of $172,600 over the bill which preceded it and everything that has followed it. I presume there was something wrong in that deficiency. I might presume so, if I wanted to be ugly or wanted to be partisan or unfair; but, sir, I do not intend to be either.

The fact is, the deficiency over the appropriation of $172,600 was larger than in reference to any other appropriation which has followed it, with but one exception— indeed, it was three times more than any deficiency which has occurred in the last five years.

Mr. HISCOCK. I wish to say to the gentleman

Mr. BURNES. Allow me to proceed without interruption.

Mr. HISCOCK.

Mr. BURNES.

Mr. HISCOCK.

Allow me to interrupt you.

Allow me to proceed.

I am not talking about deficiency, but

Mr. BURNES. I cannot yield at this moment. I say, Mr. Chairman, this is an extraordinary expenditure for 1881. I suppose it is fair. I am not here to say there was anything unfair about it. I am not here to charge there was any improper expenditure in that year by the marshals of the country.

I am here, however, to admit these extraordinary expenses have occurred in the last year, I suppose, because there has been an extraordinary number of witnesses, because there has been a great increase of business in the courts. I suppose so. I do not suppose any gentleman on the floor would charge there has been any improper practices in this expenditure by the Attorney-General, at the head of the Department of Justice, or by any of his subordinates. We have appropriated extraordinary amounts for the fees of witnesses. We have appropriated for the past year $550,000; and we have appropriated by the urgent deficiency bill and by this bill for the same year a deficiency of $185,000, making in all for last year $735,000. For the preceding year the amount appropriated was $604,406; for 1884, $660,000; for 1883, $601,000; 1882, $670,000; and for 1881, $580,000.

I grant $735,000 is an extraordinary appropriation for the fees of witnesses. Who is to blame? I believe it is the system, and, notwithstanding the suggestion of the gentleman from Arkansas, I have satisfactory information, so far as I am concerned, from gentlemen connected with this Department, when this expense is canvassed in some places it will be found to be too large and in some places not large enough, and that what now seems to a great deficiency will be found to be less when the facts are all known.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. BURNES. I now move the committee rise for the purpose of extending the session for half an hour.

The motion was agreed to, and the committee accordingly rose.

Mr. BURNES. I now move that the House adjourn.

Mr. HEPBURN. This is the evening for pensions

Mr. BURNES.

Then I move that the House take a recess until 8 o'clock this

evening, in accordance with the special order.

Mr. ADAMS, of New York.

What is that for, pension business?

Mr. BURNES. Yes, sir.

The motion of Mr. BURNES was agreed to, and the House adjourned.

DEBATE CONTINUED, JULY 3, 1886.

The CHAIRMAN. The House is in Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the general deficiency appropriation bill.

Mr. BELMONT. I understand yesterday there was an agreement that the paragraphs concerning the State Department should be taken up this morning. I believe it was understood we would go back to them this morning.

Mr. BURNES. I do not understand any such agreement as having been made. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman in charge of the bill simply stated that he could not go back on yesterday.

Mr. BURNES. I will go back when we get through the bill.

The Clerk read as follows:

JUDGMENTS, COURT OF CLAIMS.

Mr. BURNES. From line 1069 to line 1579, inclusive, I see no necessity for reading. These are judgments of the Court of Claims. There is a mere list of the names of the judgment creditors and the amounts of judgment as certified by the clerk of the court. The reading will consume half an hour or more, and I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of that list and let it be printed in the RECORD.

There was no objection, and it was so ordered.

Mr. BURNES. I ask unanimous consent to make a correction of some errors in the printing of the paragraph relating to these judgments of the Court of Claims. In line 1191 the letter "r" in the name Bursch should be stricken out. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection that correction will be considered as made.

There was no objection.

Mr. BURNES. I desire to correct an error which occurred in printing the same paragraph. I send up an amendment to come in after the word "cents," in line 1360.

The Clerk read the same.

Mr. BURNES. By an error these names, which are in the list as certified by the Court of Claims, were omitted from the bill.

The amendment was agreed to.

Mr. GUENTHER moved the insertion of the following amendment before the last paragraph:

For the payment of unappealed awards and judgments rendered against the United States for flowage damages caused by the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, in the State of Wisconsin, as follows, etc.

Mr. BRAGG and Mr. GUENTHER addressed the House upon the amendment. Mr. BURNES. I yield five minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. RANDALL].

Mr. RANDALL. I do not pretend to discuss here the legal points involved in this case or whether the Congress of the United States did right or wrong in delegating to a State court the adjustment of a claim against the Federal Government; but I do say that the whole proceeding from the beginning to the end of this matter induced, and I may properly say compelled, the Committee on Appropriations to resist this payment in every way possible, and I do not believe but what the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. BRAGG] if he had himself been a member of that committee would have done the same thing.

Originally, the United States Government made a grant of land to the State of Wisconsin. The State of Wisconsin donated this land to this corporation.

After a while the corporation got tired of the enterprise, and then it was that there was an application to the Government to take possession at a certain price. The award of damages against the Government, whereby the Government assumed the ownership, if I remember aright-and I hope the gentleman will correct me if I do not state the figures correctly-the award was about a million of dollars, but there was deducted from that the value of the land which the Government originally gave to the State of Wisconsin, and which left the Government of the United States actually indebted to this corporation to the extent of $300,000, or thereabouts.

Mr. BRAGG. I think it was less. I believe it was $124,000.

Mr. BURNES. Originally $325,000, and it was subsequently reduced to what the gentleman from Wisconsin states.

Mr. RANDALL. I have resisted everything in connection with this enterprise from the beginning. In addition to the arrangement made originally we had to expend $1,100,000, or, as the gentleman from Texas states it, $1,900,000. And then how was the Government treated? There was a reservation that these people should have the rentals; so that we built this improvement, but the corporation reserves all the income from our money.

Now, I think that justified the Committee on Appropriations in resisting to the fullest extent, and continuously, this appropriation of money. That is all I have to say. This is the history, and I wanted to state the history of it to the House so that the committee might be aware what prompted the Committee on Appropriations in its continual resistance to this measure.

Mr. BURNES. I yield half of the time which remains to me to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. CANNON].

Mr. CANNON. In the original legislation under which these liabilities of the Government accrued I had no lot or part. It may have been an unwise grant. For the sake of the argument let us say it was. Nevertheless the legislation was had. In addition to that, the United States has provided a forum in which its citizens have litigated their rights under the act of Congress, and those damages have been reduced to judgments. They are awards from which there is no appeal.

The responsibility of the United States as reported by the Attorney-General is