that necessity could have been met by introducing into this House a bill duly reported from a committee, duly passed upon in a regular way, or else by a provision on a regular appropriation bill.

It seems to me that the most hopeless thing about us individually and collectively in attending to our duties in Washington as a legislative body is the contemplation of the impotency of the legislative branch of the Federal Government in connection with all sorts of matters. We are led around by the nose with rings in our noses- by chiefs of bureaus, chiefs of divisions, and heads of departments, and whenever we give notice to the country, after voting down a part of an appropriation in an emergency bill, that we would demand the regular order, gentlemen come in later on, out of the regular order once more, this time in the phase of a deficiency bill, asking that what the House refused to do irregularly shall still be done irregularly. Now, the gentleman speaks about the estimates having been given to the committee, to the House, and to the country. No estimate, in the true sense of the word, has been given at all. In the regular routine of business an estimate means much more than what this committee brings to this House now. An estimate comes from the Department. It comes printed. It comes long in advance. It comes in time to be ready for the study and consideration of each Member of this House and for the study and consideration of the country, in order that the country may influence this House.

Mr. LITTAUER. Will the gentleman permit

Mr. WILLIAMS. One moment. And the only thing which comes before us here now is a lot of detailed statements furnished to this committee, never furnished to this House in any proper manner, no hearings that could be followed by the country, no opportunity for the country outside of this House to consider the question before them and to influence the House. This is a popular government, or it is supposed to be. It is a government of the people, through their representatives, and not a government of committees, not a government of representatives merely, but a government of the people by the people, through their representatives and through their committees. Now I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. LITTAUER. Does not the gentleman know that regular estimates, as full as estimates usually submitted to the House, have been forwarded by the Secretary of War, through the Secretary of the Treasury, and they are before the committee and before the House a regular document

of estimates?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not know that.

Mr. LITTAUER.

And that the hearings were held in the usual way and that the published hearings are now to be had by anyone who asks for them?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes; "now to be had," but not to be had a suffi

cient length of time before this question was brought to the consideration of the House for the country to determine for itself the wisdom or unwisdom of this policy. I know a so-called "detailed statement" was submitted to this committee, and I do know that this committee attempted to make a detailed appropriation to this House. Let us see how detailed and how specific that appropriation is. Let me read it, Mr. Chairman: "For miscellaneous material purchased in the United States, $1,000,000." How miscellaneous? What material? What purchases? "For miscellaneous purchases on the Isthmus, $400,000." That might be held to be comparatively specific except for the language put in there later, "and miscellaneous expenditures." That will be the language of the law when it goes out. Will you tell me what possible devotion of money to any possible purpose is not covered by the language "and miscellaneous expenditures?"

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND ON THE TRANSMISSION OF OFFICIAL PAPERS

[It has often been a matter of difference of opinion as to how far executive departments are obliged to furnish information and documentary material to Congress. The Senate has made it a practice to request information of the Department of State upon matters of foreign affairs only as far as the public interests will permit the giving of such information; but in the case of the other departments more direct demands for information are made by Congress. Ordinarily the departments, of course, are ready to give a full account of their affairs for the use of Congress, but occasions have arisen when the giving of specific information was refused. An interesting controversy of this kind took place during the first administration of President Cleveland when the Senate had demanded the transmission of the papers connected with the dismissal of a certain federal official. As the Tenure of Office Act had not as yet been repealed, although it had been amended during the administration of Grant, the Senate still claimed that its consent to the dismissal of an official was necessary. The President refused to transmit the papers, and the Tenure of Office Act was shortly after repealed. The following extract is from a special message (March 1, 1886) of President Cleveland giving the reasons for his refusal to comply with the request of the Senate.]

UPON this resolution and the answer thereto the issue is thus stated by the Committee on the Judiciary at the outset of the report:

The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional competence of either house of Congress to have access to the official papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States created by laws enacted by themselves.

I do not suppose that the "public offices of the United States" are regulated or controlled in their relations to either house of Congress by

the fact that they were "created by laws enacted by themselves." It must be that these instrumentalities were created for the benefit of the people and to answer the general purposes of government under the Constitution and the laws, and that they are unincumbered by any lien in favor of either branch of Congress growing out of their construction and unembarrassed by any obligation to the Senate as the price of their creation.

The complaint of the committee, that access to official papers in the public offices is denied the Senate, is met by the statement that at no time has it been the disposition or the intention of the President or any Department of the executive branch of the government to withhold from the Senate official documents or papers filed in any of the public offices. While it is by no means conceded that the Senate has the right, in any case, to review the act of the Executive in removing or suspending a public officer upon official documents or otherwise, it is considered that documents and papers of that nature should, because they are official, be freely transmitted to the Senate upon its demand, trusting the use of the same for proper and legitimate purposes to the good faith of that body. And though no such paper or document has been specifically upon the Departments, yet, as often as they were found in the public offices, they have been furnished in answer to such applications.

The letter of the Attorney-General in response to the resolution of the Senate, in the particular case mentioned in the committee's report, was written at my suggestion and by my direction. There have been no official papers or documents filed in this Department relating to the case, within the period specified in the resolution. The letter was intended, by its description of the papers and documents remaining in the custody of the Department, to convey the idea that they were not official; and it was asassumed that the resolution called for information, papers, and documents of the same character as were required by the requests and demands which preceded it.

Everything that had been written or done in behalf of the Senate, from the beginning, pointed to all letters and papers of a private and unofficial nature as the objects of search, if they were to be found in the Departments, and provided that they had been presented to the Executive with a view to their consideration upon the question of suspension from office.

Against the transmission of such papers and documents I have interposed my advice and direction. This has not been done, as is suggested in the committee's report, upon the assumption on my part that the Attorney-General or any other head of a Department "is the servant of the President, and is to give or withhold copies or documents in his office according to the will of the Executive and not otherwise," but because I regard the papers and documents withheld and addressed to me, or intended for my use and action, purely unofficial and private, not infre

:

quently confidential, and having reference to the performance of a duty exclusively mine. I consider them in no proper sense as upon the files of the Department, but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my control. I suppose if I desired to take them into my custody, I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them, no one could complain.

Even the committee in its report appears to concede that there may be, with the President or in the Departments, papers and documents which, on account of their unofficial character, are not subject to the inspection of the Congress. A reference in the report to instances where the House of Representatives ought not to succeed in a call for the production of papers is immediately followed by this statement:

The committee feels authorized to state, after a somewhat careful research, that within the foregoing limits there is scarcely in the history of this government, until now, any instance of a refusal by a head of a Department, or even of the President himself, to communicate official facts and information as distinguished from private and unofficial papers, motions, views, reasons, and opinions, to either house of Congress when unconditionally demanded.

DISCUSSION OF REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION 1

1

MR. FORAKER. Mr. President, I desire to call up, if I am in order to do so, resolution No. 180.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Senator from Ohio calls up for consideration the resolution named by him, which will be read.

The Secretary read the resolution submitted by Mr. Penrose on the 3d instant, as follows:

Resolved, That the President be requested to communicate to the Senate, if not incompatible with the public interests, full information bearing upon the recent order dismissing from the military service of the United States three companies of the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Infantry, United States troops (colored).

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on the adoption of the resolution of the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, I am opposed to the resolution offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania. My opposition to it is based entirely upon the form of it. This resolution does not, so far as the subject-matter goes, fall within the class of inquiries which the Senate has ever been accustomed to address to the President. It implies on its face, Mr. President, a doubt here which I think does not exist; as to whether the Senate is of right entitled to all the facts relating to the discharge of the

1 Congr. Record, Dec. 6, 1906.

three named companies or not. Always the Senate, in passing resolutions of inquiry addressed to Cabinet officers, except the Secretary of State, make them in form of direction, not request. It rarely has happened that a request has been addressed to any Cabinet officer where foreign relations were involved. Where such a resolution has been adopted it has been addressed to the President, with the qualification that he is requested to furnish the information only so far as, in his judgment, the transmission of it is compatible with the public interest.

There are reasons for that, Mr. President. The State Department stands upon an entirely different basis as to the Congress from the other Departments. The conduct of our foreign relations is vested by the Constitution in the President. It would not be admissible at all that either House should have the power to force from the Secretary of State information connected with the negotiation of treaties, communications from foreign governments, and a variety of matters which, if made public, would result in very great harm in our foreign relations matters so far within the control of the President that it has always been the practice, and it always will be the practice, to recognize the fact that there is of necessity information which it may not be compatible with the public interest should be transmitted to Congress- to the Senate or to the House.

There are other cases, not especially confined, Mr. President, to the State Department, or to foreign relations, where the President would be at liberty obviously to decline to transmit information to Congress or to either House of Congress. Of course, in time of war, the President being Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, could not, and the War Department or the Navy Department could not, be required by either House to transmit plans of campaign or orders issued as to the destination of ships, or anything relating to the strategy of war, the public knowledge of which getting to the enemy would defeat the Government and its plans and enure to the benefit of an enemy.

There are still other cases. The Department of Justice would not be expected to transmit to either House the result of its investigations upon which some one had been indicted, and lay bare to the defendant the case of the Government. The confidential investigations in various departments of the Government should be, and have always been, treated by both Houses as confidential, and the President is entirely at liberty to permit by the Cabinet officer to whom the inquiry is addressed as much or as little information regarding them as he might see fit. I have no doubt the President would transmit everything upon this subject. My objection is to the form of the resolution. I think we ought to maintain the uniform practice upon the subject. I do not think, as to a matter upon which the Senate clearly has a right to be fully advised, it should depart from the usual form of directing the transmission by the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of the Interior, to adopt