Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/57

 CONGRESSIONAL PAPERS. NO. II— THE SENATE.

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��least S0,000 to 100,000 persons to perform the work required to administer the gov- ernment with any reasonable degree of efficiency. It must have, also, under the most favorable circumstances, not less than $150,000,000 annually, for the same purpose. To indicate how this vast sum shall be wisely and economically ex- pended is the principal problem that con- fronts the legislator, in either branch of Congress, and one to which he must give earnest and careful attention if he would avoid political shipwreck. A nation of money-worshippers may forget a vote given upon matters purely political, one unworthily bestowed, or one against which many objections can be urged; but a false step in the vicinity of the "almighty dollar," may often prove, fatal. Hence the sensitiveness of the House in regard to everything involving an ex- penditure of money. The House know- ing that a hundred dollars is needed for a certain purpose, appropriates ninety- nine, and sends the bill to the Senate. The Senate adds the needed dollar. The House disagrees. The Senate "insists.'' They have a "conference." The House "recedes from its disagreement" — as it intended to all the while. Then the House calls the country to witness that it is finally compelled to submit to add- ing the extra dollar, and denounces the Senate for its extravagance.

This is, in brief, a history of all legis- lative "conferences" between the two houses, upon money appropriations. It is safe to say that for the last twenty years the Senate has carried, in "confer- ence," three of every four amendments previously "insisted" upon in open Sen- ate. As a whole, the Senate is composed of much abler men than the lower branch of Congress. Generally, they are men who have had many years experience in the House. They must, of necessity, know more concerning the needs of the government. They are elected for an official term of six years. They are less under the necessity of trimming and hedging to secure a re-election. They can afford to wait longer than a member of the House for the "vindication" of their motives which it is said time will

��surely bring. They can better afford to consider every public measure upon its merits, rather than its immediate conse- quences upon their personal ambitions. These, and many other reasons equally potent, make it possible for a Senator to exercise a more careful judgment, and a more intelligent comprehension of meas- ures that must receive his consideration. The ever changing character of the House, its great number of new mem- bers, and the time required to become at all familiar with the complicated machin- ery of legislation, consumes its time, and limits its usefulness as a legislative body. The Senate with one fourth the mem- bership, and three times the term of ser- vice, can give to all important matters much more attention than it is possible for them to receive in the House. Hence of the thousands of bills rushed through the latter, generally less than half secure the approval of the Senate. The balance remain in the Senatorial pigeon-holes, wherein slumber many thousands of schemes originally designed to extract "very hard cash" from the coffers of our beloved Uncle Samuel.

In the matter of giving or withholding its approval of measures referred to it, the Senate has to bear more than its just share of the burden, for the House will frequently pass bills that it knows the Senate will kill — and which the House really desires it should kill. It only wishes to shift the responsibility of the execution to the other end of the Capitol. The lobbyist says "I can get your little bill through the House well enough, but, gentlemen, there's the Senate." This is particularly true of bills involving small money appropriations, and bills of a pri- vate nature. The big railroad schemes and steamship subsidies are as vigorous- ly advocated and opposed, and as thor- oughly discussed in the House as in the Senate ; but of the smaller matters, many a member votes against his better judg- ment for a bill to please some influential constituent, knowing all the time that it can never pass the Senate. In the House, very important measures are sometimes passed under a suspension of the Rules — a two-thirds vote being required for that

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