reform before the session expires. I think the Public Printer was entirely frank and entirely sincere in his statements to the committee, and I understood my esteemed colleague at the time as being entirely satisfied with his statements made. Mr. CANNON. I am not now finding fault with them.

Mr. BURNES. He did not come into the office at the beginning of the fiscal year. The former incumbent remained until some time in September; and whether the fault of this deficiency belongs to the present Public Printer or to his predecessor is not now worthy of consideration; or at least, it need not now be considered. It is sufficient to say, however, that the present Public Printer is confident that in the future he can do all this public printing for the appropriations made-$2,000,000-instead of $2,400,000, which heretofore has been expended, I believe, for that purpose. But be that as it may

Mr. HENDERSON, of Iowa. He says he can do that provided you give him an entirely new outfit of the office-new type, new boilers, &c.

Mr. BURNES. We will not go into that now. We will give you a chance before the session ends to contrast the work of the present Public Printer with that of his predecessor.

Mr. HENDERSON, of Iowa. It should be understood that he is to do all that with an "if."

Mr. RANDALL. There is no "if" in the other case, where the money was spent.

Mr. HENDERSON, of Iowa. There is an "if" here. He says he can do this if he has the office all reorganized, with new type, new boilers, &c.

Mr. CANNON. Does my friend from Missouri want to be understood as claiming that $1,000,000 for the remainder of the year can do $2,000,000 worth of public printing which Congress has ordered or may order in the future?

Mr. BURNES. I would have the House understand that unless there is some extraordinary and unexpected accumulation of work, unless there is something that has never occurred before in that office, the Public Printer is confident he will be able during the next six months to do the work for the million remaining, and not only that but he will be able to do the work from year to year for $2,000,000. Mr. CANNON. And keep up with the work Congress has ordered?

Mr. RANDALL.

I understand him.

Mr. BURNES.

And do as much work as the last Public Printer. That is as

That he will do as much work as ever has been done for $400,000 less money annually.

Mr. HENDERSON, of Iowa. Provided you give him a practically new office, new type and new machinery. He is to do it with a great advantage which Mr. Rounds did not have.

Mr. BURNES. All right; we will come to that in proper time.

Mr. HENDERSON, of Iowa. It was the gentleman from Missouri who started this discussion.

Mr. BURNES. I beg the gentleman's pardon. It was my friend from Illinois [Mr. CANNON] who started it.

The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time; and being engrossed, it was accordingly read the third time, and passed.

REMARKS ON JUDICIAL DISTRICTS IN MISSOURI.
FEBRUARY 7, 1887.

A HUMOROUS ALLUSION TO THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEFFERSON CITY, MO.

Mr. BURNES. I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill which I send to the desk, being a substitute for House bill 2929.

The

The SPEAKER. The bill which the gentleman moves to pass under suspension of the rules has heretofore been read in the hearing of the House. Clerk will read the title of the bill.

The Clerk read as follows:

A bill (H. R. 2929) to amend the act dividing the State of Missouri into two judicial districts and to divide the eastern and western districts thereof into divisions, establish district and circuit courts of the United States therein, and provide for times and places for holding such courts, and for other purposes.

The SPEAKER.
Mr. BLAND.

Is a second demanded on the motion to suspend the rules? To save time, I ask that a second may be considered as ordered. The SPEAKER. A second will be considered as ordered if there be no objection. The Chair hears none. There are now thirty minutes for debate-fifteen minutes in favor of the motion and fifteen against it. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BURNES] to control the time in support of the motion, and the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BLAND] to control the time in opposition.

Mr. BURNES. Mr. Speaker, in the State of Missouri there are at present three United States courts-one at St. Louis, one at Jefferson City, and one at Kansas City. These three courts are on a line through the center of the State—one upon the eastern border, another upon the western border, and another in the center. That great State, embracing more than 70,000 square miles, lies to the right and the left of these courts. In the southwestern portion of the State there is no United States court; in the northeastern portion there is none; in the northwestern portion there is none. We, in support of the bill, think it best for the judges to go to the people at Saint Joseph, Hannibal, and Springfield to perform their judicial labors rather than that the people shall be dragged in many instances 200 miles for the purpose of paying obeisance to the judges, who in spite of their pretenses are servants and not masters of the people. This bill meets the approbation, I believe, of a large majority of the delegation from Missouri, and has also the sanction of the Judiciary Committee. We think that we are asking nothing unreasonable or unusual when we call upon our friends to sustain us in our wish to pass this bill. Asking only for equality of right and common justice, let me make a comparison: The State of Iowa, on the north of us, has six United States courts.

The

State of Ohio, a much smaller State, is divided, I believe, so that there are now several divisions of the United States courts in the two districts of that State.

Mr. SENEY. Six.

Mr. BURNES. I thank my friend from Ohio. We ask for but six in the State of Missouri; no more than Iowa, no more than Ohio, and I believe but little more, if any, than in the adjoining State of Kansas. I see nothing unreasonable in this proposition. It is much more convenient and cheaper for the judges to go to the people than for the people to go to the judges. Besides, their visits to their masters may save them from superciliousness and prejudice in their conduct. We ask no extraordinary appropriation. The bill does not impose any additional burdens upon the Treasury nor increase the public expenditure; it does not create any additional judgeship, but requires those in office to serve the people by going out of their slippers and gowns upon the public highways to be seen. I trust members of the House will agree to give Missouri these ordinary court facilities which are enjoyed by so many of the people of so many of Missouri's sister States. I will reserve the residue of my time.

Mr. CLARDY. I wish to ask my colleague whether the substitute just read changes at all the division of the eastern judicial district, as stated in the original bill.

Mr. BURNES. No, sir; the eastern district remains as in the original bill. The substitute divides the counties in the western district a little differently with regard to the different divisions.

Mr. O'NEILL, of Missouri. Does it leave the eastern district unchanged? Mr. BURNES. Practically so.

Mr. HEARD. I wish to ask my colleague a question. The original bill affected the status of only two counties embraced in my district-Polk and Dallas. I ask my colleague whether the substitute proposes to affect any other counties in my district.

Mr. BURNES. I think it does not

Mr. HATCH. It does not.

Mr. HEARD. Then I desire to say that I shall vote for the bill. There are twelve counties in my Congressional district, one of which is now in the western judicial district of Missouri, the remaining eleven counties being in what is now the central district. This bill proposes to change two of those eleven counties lying on the southern border of my district, attaching them to the Springfield court. I have had no remonstrance from any of the people of my district against this change, while I have had petitions in favor of the propositions from the two counties sought to be affected by it. I shall therefore vote for the bill.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BURNES] has eleven minutes of his time remaining.

Mr. BLAND addressed the House, after which Mr. BURNES yielded one-half of his remaining time to Mr. HATCH.

Mr. BURNES. This is not a matter concerning which there should be any misunderstanding or any feeling. The issue is simply a plain business proposition involving public convenience. My esteemed friend from the Jefferson City district is not, in his argument, quite as fair as is his usual custom, for he takes up the

question and considers it as if the bill proposed to extend the jurisdiction of the United States courts. That question is not involved and has nothing to do with this bill. The distinguished gentleman, in his effort merely to discharge his duty to a small portion of his constituents, seems to oppose this bill on the ground that he is opposed in general to United States courts; but he has such a court at Jefferson City, and the love of its advantages and conveniences drives the boarding-house keepers in that place to insist upon his denying to others equality of right thereto. The people of Jefferson City are very charming, but their necessities are numerous and great. The bar association of that place, like the bar, has become a ghastly joke. The bar association of Jefferson City! Will wonders never cease? Professor Parsons, in Harvard law school, gave his class one morning an illustration of the absolute barrenness of the "absolute rights of persons

as defined by Blackstone, saying that he once read a book entitled Wolves in Iceland, and the first paragraph declared "there are no wolves in Iceland." So of the bar association of Jefferson City, substantially. There is no bar association of Jefferson City-I had almost said there is no bar in Jefferson City.

Jefferson City, it must be stated, is a very small town. If it were not the capital of the State and the site of the penitentiary it would be the solitary and unbroken abode of innocuous desuetude; for business or industrial pursuit there would be as profitless as on a lone rock in the vast center of the great sea.

But there are hash-houses there-and hash-houses; they demand the able and distinguished Representative of that district to protect them from the loss they may sustain if they should lose the patronage of the few witnesses, jurors, and lawyers whom the exigencies of the meager docket, which has been described, require semi-annually to attend.

Of course there is but little business on the docket of the Jefferson City court. Why should there be any? But ask my esteemed colleague, who so ably represents the Kansas City district, as to the business on the docket at Kansas City. You will find in his response that the court is in session almost continually. Ask my other esteemed colleague from Saint Louis [Mr. O'NEILL]-the life and light of the House as to the volume of business in the court of Saint Louis. You will hear in response that the court is crowded all the year round with lawyers, litigants, jurors, and witnesses, many of whom have to travel several hundred miles from their homes in order to obey the process of the court and discharge their professional or public duties.

But my friend representing the Jefferson City district, whose district lies in that part of Central Missouri south of the Missouri river, was born, Congressionally, to a better estate. It was a sort of "Cæsarian operation" that delivered Cole county into his jurisdiction and made him feel that it was his duty to compel unwilling citizens to sojourn beneath the scrubby oak and dwarfed pine growing doubtfully on the yellow clay of that inhospitable soil. To stop the "hash-house" business of Jefferson City, or in the slightest to diminish it, will create more commotion in that city than ever agitated the Ephesians in their manufacture of wooden gods.

But my distinguished colleague sees no necessity for courts at Saint Joseph, Hannibal, or Springfield. He sees no public demand for them. Of course not; why should he? Jefferson City cannot see beyond her municipal limits. The public

demand for these courts is not in Jefferson City, nor with the alleged barristers of its bar association. Go to the great communities of the State-to Saint Louis, solid, great, and grand city of the great valley, in which the seat of empire and the center of commerce are now recognized throughout the world, if you would learn of the public wants. Go to Kansas City, marvel of progress and incarnate spirit of enterprise, if you seek more knowledge of Missouri than we or the able and distinguished Representative of that city on this floor can give you. My distinguished colleague [Mr. O'NEILL], representing a city of more than half a million of people, can be depended upon for a knowledge of the popular will. ·

Mr. O'NEILL, of Missouri. Will the gentleman permit me for a moment? Mr. BURNES. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'NEILL, of Missouri. Two years ago there was a strong protest from my city against the bill then presented. The present bill, I am informed, has been shorn of many of the features then deemed objectionable. I presume the present bill is not obnoxious to my people, as I have not up to the present hour received a single protest against this bill.

Mr. BURNES. I might add, the gentleman from Saint Louis will be found voting for the bill.

May I not safely conclude that my distinguished and esteemed colleague from the Jefferson City district, in the faithful discharge of his duty to a portion of his forlorn constituents, has found some demand for these courts in the public estimate? Saint Louis is not objecting, and that city represents a large and respectable portion of the State. Kansas City is not objecting, and that city represents a large and respectable portion of the State. Saint Joseph, the third city in the State, and making rapid strides to pre-eminence, and the people all around in the districts of my colleagues from the second and third districts, as well as my own, are earnestly demanding these courts. Hannibal, the fourth city of the State, and Springfield and the great southwest, joining hands in support of this bill, ought to inspire some slight belief that the demand was general and popular in Missouri; but poor old Jefferson City, with its "bar association" and its meager court docket, is fighting for its "hash-houses" and contending against equality of right in court business with three great quarters of the State; and, while doing so, painfully aware that the capital of the State must very soon be removed elsewhere.

If senators and representatives now in session at Jefferson City, representing the great communities interested in this bill, should come to understand the selfish and unjustifiable wrongs that Jefferson City and its "bar association" would inflict upon them, the capital-removal question would have at once irresistible reinforcements. [Applause.]

Mr. BLAND. The gentleman knows, or ought to know, that the present Legislature has recently voted that proposition down.

Mr. BURNES. Yes; but the General Assembly is still in session. [Here the hammer fell.]

The SPEAKER. The question is on the motion of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BURNES] to suspend the rules and pass the bill.

The question was taken and the bill passed, more than two thirds voting in favor thereof.