building, covering every room - a report which was simple, direct, concise, evidently prepared without passion and without prejudice, telling the exact truth; and the exact truth was that in the great center of the meat-handling industry of the United States conditions existed which threatened the character and integrity of the meat products of the United States. That report was submitted to the President. In order to confirm it, or not confirm it, he selected two men in whom he had confidence, who did not claim to be experts, who were ordinary, intelligent citizens, having the judgment of ordinary, intelligent citizens, and sent them there to make such an investigation as you and I would make. The report of those two gentlemen confirmed the report that was made to the Secretary of Agriculture. The President of the United States, understanding, as you and I understand, that meat is something which goes into the consumption of every family, knowing, as you and I know, that the great meat industry of the United States exports to foreign lands $200,000,000 worth of meat a year, knowing the importance of this subject, communicated the facts to Congress. Why? In order that public sentiment might be stirred all over the United States, and that the legislative judgment of this body and the other across the Capitol might be stirred to enact into law a provision for governmental inspection, which should insure the healthfulness, the wholesomeness, the cleanliness, the purity, and perfection of American meat products. [Applause.] That is all there is of it.

A bill passed the Senate, passed without consideration, a provision conceived by a gentleman who wished to do good things, who was moved by a good purpose. That bill was imperfect. It came over here and was sent to the Committee on Agriculture. Hearings were had. Representatives of the packers were heard; representatives of the Agricultural Department were heard; the men who went to Chicago to investigate were heard. The committee gave ample consideration to the representatives of all these interests; and I want to say to you, gentlemen, with reference to the truth of the charges which have been made, that when Mr. Wilson, the representative of the packers of Chicago, who came there and very modestly and very clearly stated what he deemed the conditions to be in Chicago, and then, in response to questions, admitted that every solitary conclusion of Mr. Neill and Mr. Reynolds in their report should be carried out, he confessed judgment on the essential points in this controversy. [Applause.] And when the board of health of Chicago sent their representative, under the spur of public feeling that has been applied in this case, into the packing-house district and started to work there, in nearly every establishment the truth of the charges was again sustained. There is no question about it. The committee took up that bill in the utmost good faith, every man actuated with the desire to draw and present to this House a measure which should compel rigid and, in so far as human judgment could make it,

perfect inspection of meat, to give us a bill which should not only be just to the producing interests of the United States, but also fair and just to those great manufacturing interests which are handling hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the meat products of this country. The committee worked in absolute good faith. They have no pride of opinion. There was but one purpose among the members of that committee and that was to make the bill right. I disagreed with the majority in the first report which came here, providing for a court review. I do not believe that every time the Congress of the United States draws a law, under the power which it has over interstate commerce, to regulate some particular kind of business, we must provide in that particular bill for some particular kind of court review. That provision has gone out of the bill.

It is true that I have consulted with the President. It is true that the Speaker of this House has taken hold of this thing as a Member of the House and as an American citizen, and has worked with Mr. Roosevelt. Neither has shown any pride of opinion, but a simple desire to yield non-essentials in order that the executive branch of the Government and the legislative branch of the Government and the American people, all of whom want a good law, may have it. [Applause.]

SENATOR RAYNER ON CONGRESS AND THE

1

EXECUTIVE 1

WE come now to another and a different scene. The pivotal point around which the railroad rate bill revolved for months in this Chamber was the character of review that the courts were to assume under its provisions. One side claimed that the courts should only exercise a constitutional review under the fifth amendment; the other side advocated a full statutory review from the proceedings of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The President came into the game early. We realize that no fight is thoroughly equipped upon this floor unless the President is in it. He longs for a fight as the hart panteth after the water brooks. It was a match to the finish between the senior Senator from Rhode Island and the President. They stood respectively in the foremost ranks of their profession. The Senator from Rhode Island was an expert in the ring and had upon many an occasion in this arena been awarded the victor's prize. The President, also, was a dean in the art, and had reached a degree of eminence in his calling that made him a dangerous foe to encounter. It was a most interesting spectacle. The Senator from Rhode Island time and time again went down beneath the ponderous blows of his opponent, but each time he arose like Aurora, the goddess of the 1 Congr. Record, Jan. 31, 1907. See another part of the speech, supra.

dawn, arose from her chariot in the sea. At length science commenced to tell. The Senator from Rhode Island had reserved his strength for the last encounter. The President had changed his tactics so often that he became exhausted and appealed for help. One morning the Senator from Rhode Island appeared in this Chamber with a radiant smile. The President had never penetrated the meaning of that smile. It had lured him like the sirens lure their victims to destruction. The smile indicated that the tournament was over. The Senator from South Carolina looked upon the other side of the Chamber for his promised troops, but they had fled and vanished. An ex-Senator from New Hampshire lay dead upon the field. The President lay entangled in his armor, and his breastplate and his battle-ax were shattered, and above him waved the pennant of Rhode Island, and the Senator from Rhode Island smiled. If the President had only kept out of this fray it would have assumed an entirely different form and ended in an entirely different way. It was impossible, however, for him to do this. He could not remain quiescent in the White House and observe a great struggle like this progressing without taking part in it. So that he got into it, it really did not make much difference to him upon which side he was enlisted. One day he was upon one side and the next day he was upon the other.

Here we were day after day struggling with questions of constitutional law, as if we really had anything to do with their settlement, laboring under the vain delusion that we had the right to legislate; that we were an independent branch of the Government; that we were one department, and the Executive another, each with its separate and welldefined distinctions, imagining these things, and following a vision and a mirage, while the President was at work dominating the legislative will, interposing his offices into the law-making power, assuming legislative rights to a greater extent than he could possibly do if he were sitting here as a member of this body; dismembering the Constitution, and exercising precisely and identically the same power and control as if the Constitution had declared that Congress shall pass no law without the consent of the President; adopting a system that practically blends and unites legislative and executive functions, a system that prevailed in many of the ancient governments that have forever gone to ruin, and which to-day still obtains in other governments, the rebellious protests of whose subjects are echoing over the earth, and whose tottering fabrics I hope are on the rapid road to dissolution.

If I were called upon to select the most wonderful exhibition of the President's power that has occurred within my experience, I would take our action upon the canal bill at the close of the last session of Congress. This was an achievement in which his consummate skill in propelling legislation appeared in its most perfect proportions. We had all heard the argument of the junior Senator from South Dakota in favor

of a sea-level canal, and its demonstrative facts and unanswerable logic seemed to carry conviction with its presentation.

All at once a wireless message came from the White House. The President had determined that there was either to be a lock canal or that there should be no legislation upon the subject. I can never forget the day upon which the vote was taken. The biography of the President will perhaps some day be written by the senior Senator from Massachusetts. MacCaulay said that if Boswell had not been the greatest fool who ever lived, he could not have given to the world the greatest biography that was ever written. This will not apply to the Senator from Massachusetts. He wields a master's hand in biographical literature, and when he writes this biography I hope that he will dwell with glowing emphasis upon this surpassing accomplishment. Napoleon at Austerlitz never turned the scales of fortune with greater celerity of movement or audacity of assault than the President threw into this maneuver. How was it done? What subtle force did he employ in the execution of his plan? The day the vote was taken this Chamber presented a most peculiar aspect. The air seemed laden with some narcotic wafting its somniferous essence over this body. When the roll was called the clerk could hardly hear the responses upon the side of the lock canal, and as the answers came they came in whispered accents and with bated breath. The charm had done its work, the deadly vapor had benumbed our faculties and made us pliant slaves to the master will. Even the senior Senator from Ohio who, when his convictions are aroused, has often on this floor displayed the Nemean lion's nerve, fell a victim to the magic power of the love charm that had been concocted at the laboratory of the White House. I would like the Secretary to read a few of the pathetic and funereal passages of the Senator's deliverance upon this occasion.

It shows how the dominating spirit of the President can ride the whirlwind when he has made up his mind to legislate, and how in absolute defiance of the laws of nature he can produce a senatorial vacuum beneath the sweep of his mighty genius.

Mr. FORAKER. Mr. President, I do not care to discuss this question beyond saying something similar to that which has just been said by the Senator from West Virginia.

"I remember, when the proposition was before the Senate some time ago, as to whether we should adopt the Panama or the Nicaragua route, I was greatly influenced in favor of the Panama route, as no doubt many other Senators were by the fact stated at page 11, according to the print I have before me, of Report 783, part 2, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session, where the Interoceanic Canal Committee, or a majority at least of its members-"

Mr. KITTREDGE. A minority.

Mr. FORAKER. Yes; it was a minority report I was looking to see. Α minority of the members of that committee set forth the advantages of the

Panama route, as contrasted with the Nicaragua route, and then, after they had enumerated nine specific advantages, they added the following:

"10. It is recognized that a sea-level canal is the ideal. The Panama Canal may be either constructed as a sea-level canal or may be subsequently converted into one. On the other hand, no sea-level canal will ever be possible on the Nicaragua route."

Now, like the Senator from West Virginia, I had remained of the idea ever since until within the last two or three months, when this discussion was commenced, that it was the part of wisdom to build a sea-level canal, and I supposed that would be the result of the investigations that were being made by the committee. I did not have time, because occupied with other work, to follow the hearings before that committee and read the testimony as it was taken and printed from day to day for the benefit of the committee and for the benefit of Senators.

I was, therefore, somewhat unprepared when, a few days ago, it was insisted that we should settle this matter at this time by voting upon it. I then made a request that there might be further time than was proposed to be given us in order that we might investigate this subject and read the testimony to obtain further information.

But we are to vote, and every Senator must speak for himself in a few minutes. There is no time to investigate further, and I propose, although with some misgiving as to whether that is the wisest thing to do, to follow what has been indicated as the preference of those who have the greatest responsibility with respect to this canal.

As I have intimated before in reference to this matter, I did not take the floor for the purpose of discussing it. I took the floor only to express the doubt I have and the regret I have that I can not vote as I propose to vote with greater satisfaction to myself.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS' REMARKS 1

[The House being in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 12320) making appropriations to supply urgent deficiencies in the appropriations for the fiscal year.]

Mr. WILLIAMS said:

Mr. Chairman: I have no idea of occupying the time of the House for thirty minutes. I do desire, however, for five or six minutes to address myself to this proposition. It seems to me that the gentleman in charge of this bill has made a mistake in his estimate of what an estimate is. Some time ago we were faced with an emergency bill to provide sixteen and one-half millions of dollars for the prosecution of the work on the Panama Canal. The House then expressed to the Panama Commission and to the country its desire that hereafter appropriations for the construction of the Panama Canal should take the usual course. If there were any necesstiy for appropriating the amount of this bill,

1 Congr. Record, Jan. 22, 1906.