NIGHT SESSION.
Mr. BROWN, of Wells, offered a resolution raising a committee of five to investigate frauds in the Quartermasters Department, and other expenditures, with power to sit forty days after the adjournment of the Legislature, and to send for persons and papers.
Mr. MOORE moved to strike out five and insert three.
Mr. CLAYPOOL. I am opposed to the investigation because no respectable person makes a charge. I ask will Senators on this floor vote out of the Treasury of this State four, five, six or ten thousand dollars for the purpose of gratifying the idle curiosity of some one? I shall vote upon this measure out of regard to the public Treasury of the State, out of regard to the public interests and the spirit of justice that ought to control it. Why, sir, has it come to pass that no man can occupy a public position--an office, no matter how well he does it that some committee shall not be appointed to go around, to investigate and hunt up charges, when the searching eye of party for two years, fails to get up charges against him? Sir, I would not do it unless some respectable gentleman preferred a charge against him. The political status of Indiana is low enough, God knows, and I ask that Senators will not give it another kick and knock it still lower. I trust Senators are not willing to do this thing; and trust no Senator wants to be upon such a committee. I trust the resolution will be voted down; and that will deprive members on this floor of the opportunity to vote in myself or my friend from Wells [Mr. Brown.] But suppose such a committee were organized, what could they do? They meet--no charges are preferred, and they go to work smelling around the purlieus of the public offices, and summons A, B and C, and ask them if they know anything about frauds. If there is a single, solitary Senator upon this floor willing to make a charge of malfeasance against any officer I would vote for a resolution authorizing an investigating committee.
Mr. BROWN, of Wells. Mr. President: I regard it as a healthy sign for the Senator who has just preceded me to say that he is in favor of an investigation when any Senator will make a charge of sufficient importance to warrant it. But he says no Senator has made any charge upon this floor against any public official. The gentleman certainly could not have been present the other day when I read to the Senate from Mr. Washburne's report of the Select Committee of Congress appointed by the House to examine into the Government contracts. Let me refer him sir, to the charges made by that Republican investigating committee. Let me refer him to what was said on the floor of Congress, by Mr. Van Wyck, of New York, a Republican, and chairman of that investigating committee that "the mania for stealing seemed to have run through all the relations of Government; from those nearest the throne of power down to the merest tide-waiter every man who dealt with the Government seemed to feel or desire that it would not long survive, and to think that each had a common right to plunder it while It lived." And if this be insufficient, then let me call the gentleman's attention to the statement made in this chamber the other day by the Senator from Lawrence (Mr. Cobb) that the poor laborer in the State Arsenal was compelled to pay a certain per centage of bis scanty earnings as the price at which only he could retain his place.
But let us see what the Congressional investigating committee say. They come to our own State--they make due investigations and say that the Quartermaster in this city has performed his duties in such a manner as compels them to question his fidelity. And they stop not with this statement. They intimate further, that if Mr. Vajen (they speak of him by name) had been a United States' officer instead of a State official, his conduct would warrant a special report, and they impliedly advise the State authorities to give his transactions a rigid investigation.
The gentleman speaks about the mere matter of expense. A small item it will be, sir. Three men to sit forty days at three dollars a day amounts to $360, and the contingent expenses might be $50 more. But say it will cost $500; what is five hundred dollars on the part of the State of Indiana? Why, sir, I can go into my own district and easily raise enough by subscription to pay the expenses of this committee, and my people would willingly pay it for the satisfaction of knowing page: 225[View Page 225] who have discharged their duties well who have been faithful to the trust and confidence reposed in them and who have not.
But what will be the moral effect, sir, of voting this resolution down? It has been charged upon one State official, at least, that he has violated the trust committed to him, and if he be not brought to an account, may not others commit more frauds, thinking to escape? They can say there was not a majority of this Legislature in favor of investigating the conduct of recreant officials. They can say the honorable Senator from Lawrence made a charge fro in his seat in this Senate that laborers in the arsenal were compelled to buy their situations there with a per cent-age of their hard earned pay, and the Legislature refused to investigate the matter, therefore, we may commit frauds, peculations, yea, steal as much as we wish without fear of the Legislature.
Mr. President, I must refer again to the matter of cost. The gentleman says it will cost something. I have intimated it may cost five hundred dollars. What is the small pittance of five hundred dollars to the great State of Indiana? Why, the public treasury of the country is drawn upon every day to the amount of a million of dollars, without the objections of these gentlemen, to carry on an ungodly civil war that should never have been commenced and ought not to be prosecuted one day longer, and yet they object to paying five hundred dollars for the purpose of seeing what has been the extent of these transactions which, an honorable Senator says upon this floor, smack of peculation, fraud and dishonesty. They are in favor of draining the treasury of its last dollar and the North of its last man in the prosecution of this destructive civil war, and yet cannot vote live hundred dollars for this investigation. For one, sir, I want to know what Senators will refuse to vote for this investigation on this ground.
I desire to say one word further. This is a matter I have had under my especial care and charge, and the resolutions which have been introduced here, exhibiting towards me parliamentary discourtesy, hall not affect in the least my purpose to prosecute it to an ultimate termination. But gentlemen, or men, I will say, who can so far forget the courtesy due to a fellow Senator, shall hereafter receive from me the treatment that is due to any one but a gentleman. I, sir, am the peer of any man upon this floor. I, sir, by the laws of the State, represent as honorable a constituency as any man here. I, sir, have had reposed in me the confidence of a people who expect me to do my duty in this Senate chamber, and I will march straight forward in its pursuit, regardless of the ungentlemanly insinuations implied by any such resolutions.
Sir, I intend to favor this resolution until I get it through the Senate, or it falls. I shall discharge my duty at any rate.
The resolution was adopted by yeas 27, nays 9.
The PRESIDENT made the committee on the part of the Senate to consist of Messrs. Brown, of Wells, Cobb and Claypool. Messrs. Wolfe and Browne, of Randolph, were added to the committee by a resolution of the Senate.
The bill [H. R. 69] prohibiting the State Librarian from letting books go outside of the capitol building, was passed by yeas 34, nays 0.
Mr. DUNNING offered a resolution, which was adopted, fixing the compensation of the Secretaries and their Assistants at $4 per day, and the Doorkeeper, the Assistant Doorkeeper, and their employees at $3 50 per day.
THANKS TO THE PRESIDENT.
On motion by Mr. CLAYPOOL it was--
Resolved, That the thanks of the Senate be, and the same are hereby tendered to the Hon. PARIS C. DUNNING, for the prompt, dignified and impartial manner in which he has presided over the deliberations of the Senate during the present Session.
The bill H. R. 75 (see page 82) was read the third time.
