linger, Lewis, Lynch, MacIntyre, Marshall, McClelland, McCormick, McCrary, McGrew, Merriam, Merrick, Monroe, William E. Niblack, Orr, Packer, Palmer, Hosea W. Parker, Pendleton, Poland, Ellis H. Roberts, Rusk, Sawyer, Scofield, Sessions, Shellabarger, Shoemaker, Slater, Slocum, H. Boardman Smith, John A. Smith, Worthington C. Smith, Speer, Sprague, Starkweather, Stevens, Stevenson, Terry, Washington Townsend, Upson, Walden, Waldron, Warren, Wells, Wheeler, Willard, and John T. Wilson-96.

So the conference report was adopted near the close of the session of Monday afternoon,

March 3.

The conference report then went to the Senate, and about an hour after midnight the vote was taken, and resulted-yeas 36, nays 27. So the bill went to the President.

The foregoing extracts from the Globe show the history of the bill so far as it relates to increase of salaries, and exhibit every vote taken in the House and Senate while the clause known as the Butler amendment was under consideration.

A review of the history of the legislative bill shows that there were four stages of its progress in each of which the salary question presented itself with conditions differing from those at any other stage. The first was the struggle in the House to determine whether

the Butler amendment should be added to the appropriation bill. Everybody knew that that bill must pass, and that if the amendment was put on and kept on it also would become a law.

During this stage every feature of the salary question was debated, and nineteen votes were taken in the House bearing more or less directly upon the proposed amendment. All but two of them resulted in favor of the amendment by majorities ranging from 3 to 53.

Though there were two hundred and forty members of the House of Representatives, it was very rare that more than two hundred were present and voting at any one time. But so many votes were taken on the Butler amendment, and on so many different days, that we are able to find from the record the sentiment of nearly the whole House upon it. An analysis of the record shows that there were six members who were not recorded on any of the votes. There were 103 who voted

against it whenever they did vote, but only 50 voted against it every time. There were 131 members who voted for it on some or all of the votes; and 83 of those voting, never voted against it at any stage.

On the 10th of February, before any debate was had on the subject, 81 members recorded their votes in favor of fixing the congressional salary at $8,000, and making that rate apply to the Forty-Second Congress.

The motion to adjourn, to prevent the introduction of the Butler amendment in a thin House, was beaten by 29 majority.

The motion to strike out the retroactive clause was beaten by 16 majority.

In the Committee of the Whole the Butler amendment was carried, on a rising vote, by 22 majority; and on the vote by tellers it was adopted by 15 majority. After it had once

failed in the House, the motion to clinch its defeat by laying on the table the motion to reconsider was beaten by 53 majority. The purpose and effect of that motion were perfectly understood by the House. The motion to reconsider the vote and thus retrieve the defeat was carried by 49 majority.

These votes exhibit the real strength of the advocates of the salary amendment in the House, and exhibit also the responsibility of members for its adoption.

The second stage was in the Senate, where the question was: shall the Butler amendment be allowed to remain as a part of the bill. If the Senate had disapproved it, the responsibility would have been thrown back upon the House to determine whether that body would abandon the amendment, or, by insisting upon it, run the risk of losing the appropriation bill and causing an extra session. But the Senate refused by three very decisive votes to strike out the increase of salaries proposed by the House; and by a fourth vote and by many speeches indicated their purpose to make the increase of congressional salaries greater than it had been made in the House.

The bill having thus been acted on in both Houses, it became the duty of the presiding officer of each House to appoint a committee of conference to consider the sixty-five items of unadjusted differences. Parliamentary usage requires that conference committees shall be so made up as to represent the views of the body for which they act. On appointing the committee on the part of the House, the Speaker alluded to Pacific railroad sections, the cotton claims section, and the salary amendment as the chief points of contest in the bill, and said:

Messrs. BUTLER and RANDALL had vigorously defended the salary clause throughout; and the Speaker, in accordance with parliamentary usage, appointed them because he regarded the voice of the House as clearly in favor of the increase. In the Senate the appointment of the conference indicated the same understanding of the sentiment of that body.

The third stage was in the conference, where the two Houses attempted through their Representatives from each to adjust their differences and come to a final agreement upon the bill.

A conference committee is not a legislative body. Its duties are clearly defined by parliamentary law. It cannot strike out of a bill anything on which both Houses have agreed; it cannot insert new matter that neither House has acted upon. The members of a conference committee are appointed to represent the views of the House that appoints them, and if they act at all they must act in accordance with parliamentary usage and the rules governing the two bodies.

The first thing done in the conference committee was to ascertain what had been the action of the two Houses on the several amendments. It was the right and duty of the conferees of each House to interpret the action of the House that appointed them, and the Senate conferees were unanimous in declaring that they considered themselves instructed, first, to agree to an increase of salaries; second, not to strike out the retroactive pro vision; and, third, to put the congressional salary at a higher rate than $6,500. Two of the House conferees agreed with those of the Senate on the above points, but on the motion of the third member of the conference on the part of the House (Mr. GARFIELD) the amendment was so modified that the back pay to members should not include expenses of travel, and that the amount should be reduced by the whole sum received as mileage by mem bers of the Forty-Second Congress, which amounted in the aggregate to nearly $400,000. The other sixty-four items of difference were then considered. Among them were the Pacific railroad sections, which were the fruit of the whole winter's work of one of the investigating committees of the House. The report was completed Monday noon. Mr. GARFIELD, as chairman of the committee, presented it, but reserved the right and obtained permission of his associates to state in the House that he had in conference opposed the increase of salary clause, but had signed the report as the best that could be done under the instructions of the two Houses.

The fourth stage was the action of the two Houses on the whole bill as it came from the conference committee. That that report embodied in almost every respect the recorded will of the two Houses will not be disputed. That the conference committee had done their duty in accordance with parliamentary law is not denied. The responsibility for the increase of salaries does not rest upon that committee, ex

cept in so far as its members had, before the conference, aided to fasten the salary clause upon the bill.

It was still possible for a small minority of the House to delay and perhaps to defeat the bill by dilatory and fillibustering motions. This course was open to any member of the House. But no one was willing to take so grave a responsibility. A test vote was taken immediately upon the reading of the conference report. That test was on ordering the main question on the adoption of the report, and it was ordered on a yea and nay vote by 19 majority. The vote on the report of the conference committee was no adequate test of the sentiment of the House on the salary question. It was a vote not on the increase of salaries merely, not on the retroactive clause, but upon the whole bill. And it is unreasonable and unjust to say that in votir for a bill as a whole every member is to be set down as favoring each provision of the bill. Furthermore, the vote on the conference report was no test of the strength of the supporters of the salary clause. Though the vote shows a majority of but six in favor of the report, yet there were present and not voting fifteen members who an hour before had voted on the motion to order the main question on the adoption of the report; and nine of these fifteen on direct votes in the House had voted in favor of the increase of salaries. Besides this, nineteen of the ninety-six who voted against the conference report had, on former votes, voted in favor of the increase when that was the sole question at issue. These facts show how strong a reserve the salary clause had in its favor.

Members who had no other responsibility than the casting of a vote were quite willing, after having forced the amendment upon the bill, to drop out on the final vote or vote "no," and thus shirk the appearance of responsibility for what they had done.