THE ROLL CALL
THE Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES On Unknown Seas WE LIKE Senator Cummins. We admire his brilliancy. We respect his ability. We have the highest regard for his fine personal qualities. But we...
...and a little further computation will show that it would have maintained ten men a year and three-fifths of a year...
...American Citizen, you have not kept yourself informed with reference to the achievements of the National Monetary Commission, this great and signal accomplishment of Aldrich statesmanship...
...To such as these, if found worthy, Senator Aldrich and Speaker Cannon extended sympathy and opportunity to serve their country on the Monetary Commission...
...He is lacking in safe and sane conservatism...
...And at Home IT SEEMS to us that New York, the center of the country's financial control, the home of Wall Street and the birth-place of our financial panics, would be indeed the most proper place for the commission to meet and confer with our captains of finance and learn the needs of our great financial Interests...
...That was its ultimate purpose, we say, notwithstanding the jibes of irreverent persons about its being a commission to furnish comfortable berths for "lame ducks"—a vulgar term by which is meant members of Congress who have failed of re-election...
...A Sufficient Sum" INDEED, it was in this very particular, with reference to constituting the Monetary Commission, that the great Aldrich perhaps most signally demonstrated his supremacy in matters of money and finance...
...They could not even question the propriety of any part of the expenditures, because the commission, by virtue of this wise provision, had not disclosed any of the details of its expenditures...
...All such rude questions as to the acts and expenses of the great Monetary Commission were forever closed by the genius of Aldrich and a stroke of the pen...
...Is it not to be regarded as evidence of most practical financial genius to be able to draw several good salaries from the same employer at the same time, and do it for more than three years without the employer finding it out...
...Truly the passage of such a measure by the Senate is ominous of the "tyranny of popular majority...
...They have gone on serenely to this day gracing the public service, ornamenting the commission and making their regular monthly connections with the disbursing office...
...And in his zeal to serve the "tyrannical" populace, he seems not to understand that the destruction of these institutional bulwarks is sure to result in "legalized terrorism" and other unhappinesses...
...What is more, the United States Senate has given him its support...
...It has gathered to our country's service able students who have compiled some forty monographs, relating, more or less to the subject of money and finance, and it has caesed them to be printed in pamphlet form at the Government Printing Office in Washington...
...It was simply provided that in the event of such "retirement"— should perchance any member of either House who had been appointed to the commission fall in the elections a victim to "the tyranny of popular majority"—he should nevertheless continue as a member of the National Monetary Commission and at the same compensation as though still a member of Congress...
...Vulgar Questions Foreclosed IT WAS, however, with reference to the more rude and vulgar inquiries as to the commission's expenses that the provision for the finality of the chairman's audit and order proved most effective, as is illustrated by this from the Record: Mr...
...Of course, the names on the Commission's pay-roll gave Cummins and his supporters some opportunities for captious criticism, for they showed amounts paid to several gentlemen as employees of the commission who are well known to have been holding, during part or all of the time, other positions in the government service with very substantial salaries attached...
...As a result, its expense accounts had to be filed in detail, and a Department auditor at Washington made an unseemly noise about approving expenses for a commissioner abroad for "laundry, haircuts, shampoos, shoe-shines, and automobile rides on the Appian Way with guides for pleasure...
...What could be more conducive to patriotism, unlimited patriotism in fact, than this all-wise provision for an unlimited appropriation...
...It has done more than this, sir...
...This alliance he has steadfastly maintained...
...Only Senator Bailey, of all the old guard, seriously attempted even a protest in behalf of the great Commission...
...Congressman Vreeland, of course, was Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, and a conspicuous champion of the welfare of great financial Interests...
...What could be more fitting than that which happened...
...It visited New York upon several occasions and it held a protracted meeting during one hot period at Narragansett Pier, a very delightful place in which to compose one's thoughts upon the subject of finance...
...Who, indeed, other than those great pillars of government would have possessed the wisdom and insight to have discovered the hitherto unsuspected erudition in matters of finance and that hitherto undiscovered genius and capacity for monetary research which in Senators Burrows, of Michigan, Knox, of Pennsylvania, Daniel, of Virginia, Teller, of Colorado, Hale, of Maine, Money, Bailey, and Representative Overstreet, of Indiana, Burton, of Ohio, Bonynge, of Colorado, and Pujo, of Louisiana, marked these statesmen, among all the vast membership of Congress, for the country's service upon this great Commission...
...In appropriating for the Monetary Commission, the Act was drawn to provide the appropriation of "a sufficient sum"—without any limitation as to the amount...
...The twain were friends and colleagues...
...Prior to the expiration of their terms in the Senate, however, both developed strong inclinations to investigate monetary problems and, this coming to the attention of Senator Aldrich, both were, (within an hour of the time when they would otherwise have been turned out into a cold world full of tyrannizing majorities, with nothing to show for their patriotism but an "ex—" apiece) speedily appointed upon the Monetary Commission and their connections with the ship of State preserved and continued indefinitely without even the trouble of a campaign...
...Said Senator Bailey in his speech in the Senate opposing the Cummins measure: "It was, however, believed by those who were instrumental in creating the commission that if we allowed vacancies to be caused by the death or retirement Of its members there would be such a constant change of its personnel that it would never be able to make a report worthy of the subject and worthy of the Senate...
...A Continuing Body SECOND ONLY to the genius shown in making up the commission, was that displayed by Senator Aldrich in constituting it as a continuing body with its personnel unchanged...
...It is stated here merely in the words: "Travel of commission in Europe $19,250.18...
...It has stood, sir, before the world, a symbol of the great care and studied deliberation with which the American Congress approaches those questions affecting the great financial interests which are the foundation of our national prosperity...
...For Senator Teller and Congressman Bonynge, whose "retirement" from Congress fell almost immediately after their appointment upon the commission, was political death thus robbed of its terrors...
...The Immigration Commission also traveled abroad...
...That this devotion to the country's service should be not only unlimited, but placed upon the highest plane of superiority above our common and ordinary institutions, it was further provided: "Said appropriation shall be immediately available and shall be paid out on the audit and order of the chairman or acting chairman of the said commission, which audit and order shall be conclusive and binding upon all Departments as to the correctness of the accounts of such commission...
...Cummins: Unfortunately, I am not able to answer, although I have no doubt they are...
...his manifest deference to the "tyranny of popular majority...
...The commission, or a part of the commission, visited Europe in these three years, and for aught I know it may be intending to visit Europe again...
...According to his usual wont on such occasions, and as a proper indication of his contempt for such rash and irresponsible conduct in the Senate, Senator Bailey at once arose in his place on the Senate floor and announced his resignation from the commission...
...It has pondered, sir, upon the recognized shortcomings of our monetary system...
...And he protested in vain...
...Dixon: In discussing the traveling expenses, I merely wish to inquire of the Senator from Iowa whether the expenses of the colored barber who was taken on the European trip, are included in the $36,000...
...The measure as passed by the Senate, almost unanimously, requires the Commission to report on the 8th of January next and forthwith cuts off all compensation of ex-Senators and ex-Congressmen, and forbids the payment of any further compensation to employees of the Commission "already receiving a salary or emoluments from the Government...
...The meeting at Narragansett Pier cost for expenses only $3,493.73 and even Senator Cummins concedes that Narragansett Pier was not only "a very delightful place in which to compose one's thoughts upon the subject of finance," but also "a convenient place" to meet...
...Also, it is said, he counselled with Speaker Cannon upon the selection of the members from the House...
...It also had its own auditor, but there was no provision making its audit "binding upon every Department...
...Had you or we, reader, been charged with the selection of a Monetary Commission, would we have possessed the wisdom to have selected even one of these...
...He shows not a proper respect for those sacred institutions of government builded by his predecessors...
...Not only has the Monetary Commission shown great skill and diligence in discovering and employing world-beating mono-graphists, but it has with unusual industry gathered to the public service a large number of bright and agreeable young men to assist it and be in attendance upon it...
...They could not show that these expenditures were not proper in the course of preparing the commission ultimately to make its report...
...But we should view with sadness (should we not...
...His selection as Vice-Chairman of the Commission was, therefore, most logical...
...In company with them, he has even sought to tear down some of the most "monumental" of those works of statecraft erected under the direction of Aldrich and Cannon...
...Are we to view without concern this spectacle of the good ship Senate, which, under the miraculous hand of pilot Aldrich, was guided ever into Safe and Secure places, has in his absence been torn ruthlessly from its moorings and with new hands upon the helm plunges on an uncertain course over unknown seas...
...Although all the credit of the work was accorded to the Vice-President, Senator Aldrich gave his exclusive personal attention to the matter and selected the Senate members himself...
...It has traveled abroad, sir, and dazzled the nations of the old world with the brilliancy of American statesmanship...
...Damon and Pythias THEN THERE were the cases of Congressmen Smith and McLachlan...
...Questions of this kind were of necessity promptly dismissed in the discussion, as witness the Record: National Dignity Upheld Abroad THE WORST that could be said was quite in the nature of speculation and conjecture such as the following, with reference to the traveling expenses of the Commission, by Senator Cummins: "It is an uncomfortable thing to analyze this statement (of the commission's expenses) and I do not intend to do so unless it shall become necessary by suggestions which are made hereafter...
...Now he has actually assailed the National Monetary Commission...
...Let us tell you, sir, that the National Monetary Commission has for three years and more stood as a sublime monument to the fundamental Sanity and Conservatism of our government in dealing with those great and profound subjects of Money and Finance...
...To the service of this coterie he has brought his unusual talents...
...That Senator Aldrich himself should be Chairman of the Commission, any one of extended Congressional experience would regard as a foregone conclusion...
...We trust you begin to appreciate what humiliation we, as a nation, were saved by having the great financial talents of Senator Aldrich applied to the drafting of this legislation...
...By contrast, consider the unseemly discussion in the House during the last Congress, with reference to the expenditures of the Immigration Commission—a discussion which would have been avoided had the legislation for that commission been drawn by his skilled hands...
...Also there was indecent complaint in Congress because the expense accounts indicated that commissoners had taken with them, at the public expense, their families, some of their relatives and their private secretaries...
...It was said in the debate in the Senate that these attendants and assistants to the Monetary Commission were so numerous as to overflow the Commission's large and sumptuous offices in the Senate office building and to a considerable extent occupy the spacious corridors...
...A Humane Provision THIS WAS ALSO a very humane provision, as you will see if you will regard for a moment the position of these "retired" Senators and Congressmen without this provision for their continued connection with the Government they have so long served,—these who have fallen victim to "the tyranny of popular majority...
...Lese Majestie...
...There were two deaths in the commission during the past year and it so fell out that Senator Taliaferro, an exemplary and conservative Democrat from Florida, encountered the unfeeling "tyranny of popular majority," and Senator Flint, a reliable Aldrich Republican from California, to avoid the same "tyranny," was obliged to "retire...
...Smith resigned from the Monetary Commission just in the "nick o' time" so that McLachlan could be appointed to the commission on March 3d before his term in the House expired, and be permitted still to enjoy the pursuits AND EMOLUMENTS of the "faithful...
...Just how the law provided against vacancies and changes in personnel, as suggested by Senator Bailey, in cases of death, we cannot undertake to explain...
...McLachlan succumbed to the dread "tyranny" and the 4th of March, it seemed, would mark the end of his official career...
...Smith was a member of the Monetary Commission and was also re-elected to Congress at the last election...
...But some of our public men, like Senator Cummins, seem to have no high appreciation or respect for such ability...
...WHEN HE CAME to the Senate he promptly allied himself with that unnameable band who refuse to take orders from King Wall Street...
...Think of it...
...On a High Plane THE WISE FORESIGHT of this provision in keeping all considerations of the Monetary Commission on the high plane of its grand, ultimate purpose, freed of vulgar questions of its expenditures, was well illustrated in the recent debate in the Senate...
...The Birth of the Great Commission IT WAS NEAR the midnight hour on the 30th of May, 1908, when the Senate under the mastery of Aldrich, with patriotic forgetfulness of its own comfort and convenience, forsaking its rest and the pleasanter things of life, was laboring far into the night to secure the safety and well-being of our great Financial Interests by the passage of the Aldrich currency law, that the great Monetary Commission was given birth...
...He even goes to the extreme of demanding that some of them be changed...
...That was the ultimate purpose of the commission, you understand—"to make a report...
...A little computation will show you that at $6 per day allowance for traveling expenses these expenses would have maintained one man in constant travel—on such travel as is customary in making such investigations—for a little more than 16 years...
...These critics seemingly overlook the probability that these gentlemen were perhaps for that very reason to be regarded as especially competent as assistants in the financial investigation of the commission...
...You must, we think, agree that we probably would not...
...Senator Cummins and those acting with him could do nothing more than allege undue delay in the making of its report and make reference, in thinly veiled sarcasm, to the total of its expenditures (a modest sum, down to date, of about a quarter of a million...
...The Ingratitude of Republics WHILE WE MIGHT expect such lack of perception in him and a few other Senators, we were truly surprised that the Senate, notwithstanding the great wisdom and eminent respectability of this monumental institution and its profound patriotism and affection for the public treasury, yea, without regard for the disrespect for its peerless chairman and erstwhile master of the Senate which its action would imply, should join in the support of the Cummins Bill to require the Commission to report on a fixed date and to abolish the Commission...
...To secure for it the highest standard of ability, to assure the respectability of its personnel, the law provided that the Monetary Commission should be appointed from the two Houses of Congress, those from the Senate to be selected by the Vice-President, and those from the House to be selected by Speaker Cannon...
...The Senate of the United States, erstwhile bulwark of all Special Privilege, laying disrespectful hands upon that idol of the Money Power, Aldrich'S pet commission...
...But the provision against vacancies by "retirement" from Congress is clear and explicit...
...Achievements of the Money Board PERCHANCE in your busy affairs of life, Mr...
...Aye, more than that, sir...
...but it is sufficient to say that the entire traveling expenses of the commission, with its employees, to March 31, 1911, were $35,412.34...
...It may be said that some of these selections were so obvious that no great labor or deliberation was required in making up the list...
Vol. 3 • September 1911 • No. 35
