on account of newly authorized Federal services could well have been postponed, and that, too, without detriment to the public service. In our endeavor to check and keep down these increased expenditures and increased appropriations, we were throughout this session without support either from the public, from the press, from the minority, or from the Executive Departments of the Government. The increased appropriations of more than $43,000,000 on account of the Army and Navy, or for preparation for war to the end that we may have peace, were not, in the judgment of many, necessary, and yet this increase was not as great as the amount demanded. The demand for these enormous increases in war expenditures did not originate with the representatives of the people. It originated elsewhere, and was supported largely by a misdirected public sentiment, to such an extent that a majority of this House and a majority in the other branch of Congress, including Representatives of both political parties, supported them because they did not dare oppose them, while those who did oppose them were restricted in their efforts by the meaningless filibuster by the minority. ANALYSIS OF APPROPRIATIONS The history of the appropriation bills for the session, which I will print, shows in detail and in aggregates the estimates of appropriations submitted to the Congress; the bills, as reported by the House committees, as passed by the House, as reported by the Senate committees, as passed by the Senate, and, finally, as they became laws after the differences between the two Houses were reconciled in conferences; and also for purposes of comparison the appropriations made for 1908 are shown. The estimates submitted to Congress by the executive as a basis for the appropriations made, including regular annual expenses, deficiencies, miscellaneous, and permanent charges, amounted to $1,079,449,288.96, or an excess over the total of all appropriations as finally approved by Congress during this session of $70,644,394.39, and $158,651,145.16 excess over all appropriations made at the last session of Congress. The twelve regular annual appropriation bills for 1909, as passed by the House, appropriated only $743,907,820.97. The last sum is a reduction under the regular estimates submitted to Congress at the beginning of the session of $98,847,172.87. Adding to the latter sum the additional estimates submitted to Congress since the session began, and carried in the table under estimates as miscellaneous at $25,500,000, a total reduction by the House is shown in estimates for the ordinary operating expenses of the Government of $124,347,172.87. The Senate passed the twelve regular annual appropriation bills by increasing them over what they carried as passed by the House to the amount of $73,453,553.76. The twelve regular annual appropriation bills as finally enacted appropriate - Less than the estimates, including additional or miscellaneous estimates, $73,640,368.04; More than as passed by the House, $50,706,804.83; Less than as passed by the Senate, $22,746,748.93; and More than the regular appropriation acts for the current fiscal year $36,850,701.53. The grand total of all appropriations made at this session, including the regular annual bills, deficiencies, miscellaneous, and permanents, exceed those of last session by $88,006,750.77 A comparison of each of the general appropriation bills and other general titles of appropriations with those of the last session of Congress is shown in the following table: DIFFERENCES IN THE APPROPRIATION MEASURES OF THIS SESSION, COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE LAST SESSION OF CONGRESS The total appropriations made apparently on account of deficiencies at this session, amounting to $56,995,973.65, exceed the amount of the last session by $44,586,974.74. This unusual sum is due not to any violation of the antideficiency legislation so recently enacted, or to illadvised or inadequate appropriations made last session, but is more than accounted for by the sum of $12,466,750 for public buildings authorized at this session, and by two other sums, one of $10,000,000 for the payment of pensions required on account of the law passed at this session to increase the pensions of widows of soldiers, and another of $12,178,900 to continue the work on the Panama Canal. At the last session of Congress all the money was appropriated that was asked for or that could, under the expectations then entertained, be expended during the current fiscal year in the construction of the canal; but the rapid progress under the splendid organization at work on the Isthmus made it necessary to supply as a deficiency in the current appropriations the sum given in order to avoid a suspension of the work. Deducting the three sums named, together with $11,791,342 for the Army and Navy expenditures, to which the prohibitive deficiency legislation does not apply, and the sum left for deficiencies, only $10,558,981.65 is gratifyingly small, and much less than the ordinary deficiencies for any of the recent years. RELATION OF EXPENDITURES TO WEALTH At the request of the Committee on Appropriations the Director of the Census has recently prepared and furnished, for their information, tables showing the actual expenditures of the Federal Government from 1791 to 1907, by fiscal years, and by four-year periods corresponding to the several Administrations. In connection with these statistics Director North has furnished an analysis so valuable and informing to all who are interested in the problem of governmental expenditures that I shall ask its insertion in the Record as a part of my remarks. The most significant fact to be derived from an inspection of the relationship of expenditures for the maintenance of government to the aggregate wealth of the nation is the uniformity for a long series of years of the proportion shown. This uniformity, as indicated in the tables and analysis, exists not only in the expenditures for the Federal Government, but also in the tax levies for State, municipal, and local government. Practically no variation whatever appears in the proportion of expenditure for the Federal Government per $1,000 of national wealth, but such increase as appears is indicated in the tax levies made for government other than Federal. The figures presented suggest a tendency to increase expenditures for State or local government more rapidly than for the Federal Government. The truth of this apparent tendency is confirmed by the fact that the census report of 1890, the first to present the aggregate payment for all expenditures of all classes, as distinguished from mere tax levies, for States, counties, cities, and minor civil divisions, including schools, amounted to $569,252,634, or $9.30 per $1,000 of national wealth. In 1902, however, the year in which the next census inquiry upon this subject was made, the aggregate payment for expenditures of this class had nearly doubled, amounting to $1,156,447,085, or $12.80 per $1,000 of national wealth. In general, therefore, it appears to be an established fact that while the expenditures for the maintenance of the National Government have steadily increased during the whole period of national existence, and latterly much more than I believe they should, they have maintained an almost uniform proportion, except during the period of the civil war, in comparison with each $1,000 of national wealth; but that the expenditures made for the maintenance of State and local governments of all kinds have shown a decided tendency to increase in proportion to each $1,000 of national wealth, thus reflecting the general tendency of the age and of the nation, as wealth increases, to make more liberal expenditures for the maintenance of various classes of government and governmental institutions. The actual per capita expenditure for the maintenance of the Federal Government during the first period, from 1791 to 1796, as shown by the Census Office, was $1.34. It would be natural to contrast this figure with the per capita of annual expenditure for the last fiscal year, amounting to $8.91; but it will be evident upon reflection that there is no comparison possible between the mere per capitas themselves without consideration of the resources of the nation at the two periods mentioned. Except in time of war or in periods of great depression, there is of necessity in every nation a rough relation between the expenditures for the maintenance of government and the ability of the nation to furnish such resources. Unfortunately, there exists no information concerning the aggregate wealth of the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The earliest data upon the subject was collected at the Seventh Census in 1850. THIS CONGRESS DESERVES PRAISE Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I want to commend this Congress as it is concluding the labors of its first session, and pay tribute to the courage it has manifested in its acts of commission as well as those of omission. Whatever the unthinking or the superficial critic may now say, the impartial and nonpartisan historian will hereafter record and truthfully state that, in the affirmative work performed and in contending against and successfully resisting unconstitutional demands upon the powers and the treasury of the Federal Government, the work of no previous session is comparable with the work of the first session of the Sixtieth Congress. [Great applause on the Republican side.] The history of the appropriation bills of this session and the analysis of public expenditures made by the Census Office to which I have referred follow, pp. 310-311. REVIEW OF APPROPRIATIONS ON BEHALF OF THE MINORITY 1 [It is customary that after the chairman of the committee on appropriations has made his statement, he is followed by the principal member of the minority on that committee with a criticism of the fiscal policy of the majority.] MR. FITZGERALD said: Mr. Speaker: Speaking for the Democratic members of the Committee on Appropriations and at their direction, I desire to present the following review of our appropriations and of the country's financial condition: It is a prodigious task to examine the Departmental estimates. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] has not overstated the difficulties of those upon whom the burden is placed. The country would have been benefited had the recommendations of the committees charged with the preparation of the supply bills been more generally heeded by the House. The importunities of those outside are sufficiently difficult to resist, without having the membership of the House take sides against its committees on questions of expenditure. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Tawney] enunciated a new doctrine. It will be a surprise to the country to hear his explanations of the enormous appropriations of this Congress. He attributes the wastefulness, the recklessness, and the extravagance of his own party, in complete control of the Government, to the fact that the Democratic minority of the House has exercised its constitutional right to call the roll upon every question submitted to the House. The purpose of the minority was to center the attention of the country on the work of Congress, and that purpose has been successfully accomplished. Mr. Speaker, I recall when the naval appropriation came back from conference it was not due to the vigilance of the majority, but to the vigilance of the minority that it was discovered that the conferees on that bill, in violation of all rules of parliamentary law, had inserted a provision carrying a large sum of money. It was not the action of the minority that prevented that report being rejected, but it was the partisan action of a Republican Speaker who permitted the conference report to 1 Congr. Record, May 30, 1908. |