Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/495

 the bottom, I think I have been robbed of the use of rny drag-net; I think the distinguished Senators have got it. They have been applying it to Lieutenant Maury; and I think there was some drag-netting done in relation to the facts which the venerable Senator from Delaware presented here. I do not know where he got them, but I know that he had them. It reminds me of an incident that occurred with a mill boy. He went to the mill by a new direction to which he had not been accustomed. There were some insinuations that the miller was not the most honest man in taking toll. The boy, of course, used all his vigilance whilst there. He was standing about the mill, and observing everything to which his curiosity attracted attention. The miller thought he would get into an interesting conversation; so he went to the boy and asked him what his father's name was. The boy said he did not know. "Well," said the miller, "where is he from?" "I do not know," answered the boy. " Why," said the miller, "you know nothing." "Yes," said the boy, "some things I know, and some things I do not know." "Well, what is it that you do know?" The boy answered, "I do know that the miller's hogs are very fat." "Well, what is it that you do not know?" "I do not know whose corn fattens them." [Laughter.] So I know that the Senator from Delaware had this information, but I do not know who gave it to him. The natural inference is that it was no enemy.

I come now, sir, to speak more particularly of the action of the naval retiring board, and the law by which it was created. I believe that law is universally condemned. It is possible that the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, and both the Senators from Louisiana, think it not only constitutional, but very proper. For my part, however, as I said before in speaking of this subject, I regard it as a most odious law, and it has been most odiously executed. What was involved in that measure? The efficiency of the Navy—our whole national marine. The safety and glory of our country were involved in that measure. Was it ever considered as such a measure ought to have been; or was it skillful engineering that drove it through the Senate, that carried it through the other House, and that is now endeavoring to sustain it by an overwhelming influence? I shall not omit to state what that influence is. But I ask you, what obligation rested on the officers constituting this board? Did the obligation of an oath rest upon them? Were they sworn to discharge their duty, and the trust confided to them, impartially? Or were they invited by sinister considerations to violate the trust, and fail to discharge the obligations which duty imposed on them? Had they not most seductive influences held out to them?' What were they? Promotion; to take the place of others, or to keep them out. Sir, this was the situation in which they were placed. They had every motive to disregard the rights of others, and consult their own interest; and they had no obligation but selfishness to constrain them to the discharge of their duties, or restrain them from the disregard of their duties.

Sir, we are told—and it is the voice of wisdom speaking to us—"that no man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other; ye can not serve God and mammon." These men could not on this occasion serve their country and serve themselves. They could not serve those whom they had regarded as friends heretofore; because, if they retained them in their situations, it gave themselves no promotion