would increase their power, given for war, and use it for whatever purposes they pleased.

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As an illustration of that-because we feared it-there was a motion made in the United States Senate by the leader of the Democratic party in the Senate. A motion was offered and carried without much discussion that a committee on expenditures be appointed, consisting of five members of each house. It was to watch expenditures, they had got so mous, and we found it so impossible in our appropriation bills to provide for limiting how much and how the sums should be spent that we thought, in order to keep a reasonable check on the departments, that we had better have a committee to trace the money. That went through the Senate without objection. It came to the House, and there was a general understanding that it would go through the House until there came a letter from the President expressing great opposition to the measure. The letter was sent to the man who had the matter in charge. That, of course, brought the Democrats solidly against the measure and it was defeated, and that was the last opportunity for us to have any sane and careful inspection and safeguarding of the expenses. After that letters of that kind were very frequent. Why, there was an epistolary communication between the committees and heads of departments which covered a large part of our legislation.

That reminds me of a little incident Secretary Shaw once told me about. He said he had an old colored man who used to come to his office

to bring letters to sign every day. He would put a letter down on the desk, and after the Secretary had signed the man would put down another. One day a letter caught the Secretary's eye, and he said, really communing with himself, "James, it seems to me that I have read that already. What are the circumstances of that letter?" He was really talking to himself, "I don't know nuthing," replied the colored man, "about the circumstances, Sir, but you signs dar." The Secretary signed "dar," and that was the last attempt he made at independence. And so from the day of that first letter against the creation of an expenditure committee a letter from the head of a department was sure to make any Democratic committee "sign dar" instantly. There has not been any investigation or scrutiny of these enormous expenditures except what could be made in advance by the appropriation committees.

Now, I suppose the old axiom is true that love of power is bred by the possession of power. So, it seems to me, there has suddenly been growing up in the Administration a constant desire for more and more power. It was not simply the Democrats who have acquiesced in the desires of the Administration. We Republicans decided early in the session that there was only one thing we could consider. We could not have any partisan division, and we acquiesced with the Democrats in bestowing on the Executive and the different departments all the powers and all the functions they thought they could possibly use for the successful prosecution of the war. There was no division of party. But,

my friends, the President now tells us that the war is over. It therefore seems to me that the time has come for Congress to resume its functions. It is time for us to inspect the appropriations, to inspect the powers the Administration desires.

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So, it seems to me, one of the first duties of the incoming Congress is to go back to normal times and see that there shall again be division of the government into different branches, and that the Executive shall become once more one of the co-ordinate branches of the government. Some of the stretches of power exerted by the Administration seem to me pretty indefensible. course, the most flagrant one you all know, the one alluded to by Senator Lodge, the fact that the PostmasterGeneral took over the telegraphs, telephones and cables after peace was assured, although he knew that Congress granted that power simply as a war emergency. It seems to me that was such an exercise of power as in the future we shall be able to veto. The Administration from now on, I think, will probably take notice that peace has returned, and that it can no longer receive from Congress without scrutiny, as it has in the past, whatever powers it desires.

The return of peace, of course, brings with it for us new issues. I am hoping, myself personally, that part of the treaty of peace will be a league of nations. I personally want that there should be a league which will in the future have supervision over the different relations of the different nations. And it seems to me that that is so clearly for the interest

of Europe that America, in entering such a league, is so clearly making a sacrifice and not gaining an advantage, that any terms we ask that are fairly reasonable Europe will be only too glad to grant. I notice that it looks as if an accommodation was coming. I noticed the other day that the cables had sent over a report that in eleven minutes the President had made such a convincing speech to the three other great powers that they had accepted the Monroe Doctrine. I was delighted that a cable under Mr. Burleson was able to bring forth that very interesting fact, that there was a speech of eleven minutes and that the President was entitled to all the credit of it. It is all the more commendable when we consider that he convinced them in eleven minutes, whereas it had taken eleven weeks for the Senate and public opinion to convince him that the Monroe Doctrine must be preserved.

The return of peace is going, of course, to require of us entirely new issues. Lloyd George said recently, "All internal events in every country are dependent upon peace. Pending this, commerce and industry are kept in a kind of stagnation which can only engender engender disorders." That which is true in England is true here. Therefore the one thing we want, it seems to me, with or without a league of nations, is immediate peace. Disorders are beginning to show themselves in this country. Business cannot adapt itself to the future until the uncertainty of war is taken away. That is the first uncertainty that must be removed. Therefore, it seems to me, the first thing we desire is an

immediate peace. Then it is time for Then it is time for business to begin to prepare itself for other difficulties.

I appreciate that this Congress, which is going to meet, I don't know when, but which must meet before long, has before it issues that that are more difficult than those in the Congress which has passed. Until we can meet them-the issues of the railroad, shipping and tariff problems, and of arrangements to be made for our returning soldiers and sailorsuntil those are met business does not know how to go to work. Therefore, and this is what I have been leading up to, it seems to me a shame that Congress has not been in session for the last month.

I do not wish harshly to blame the President for wanting to go back to that atmosphere of luxury and adulation which surrounded him in Paris. It was very natural, and considering the other commissioners he appointed, I am inclined to think it was wise he should go back. Certainly, if it was the President's purpose to convince the American people that his presence in Paris was indispensable, his selection of fellow negotiators was most sagacious. There is Mr. White. I know him well. I admire him and have a most affectionate feeling for him. He is an able man. But he was appointed as a Republican. Mr. White is a diplomat. It has been his life, and he feels towards parties as the army and navy feel-that they are servants of the administration in power. Intimately as I know him, I did not know what party he belonged

to, but I suspect, after this appointment, that he must have voted for Mr. Wilson in the last election, because I observed that in all these nonpartisan or bi-partisan appointments, where Mr. Wilson has appointed a Republican representative, it is pretty certain that the man voted for Mr. Wilson in the election that went before. Take William Kent, on the Tariff Commission, as an example. I have known him for years. He was in the House as a Republican. He was a most eccentric and erratic Republican, and he professed openly and always that he was a free trader, and in the election before he was appointed to the Tariff Commission he not only voted for Wilson, but organized a Wilson club. After Wilson was elected, and when he had to appoint a bi-partisan commission, he put on as a Republican representative William Kent, an avowed free trader, a man who voted for him in the last election. That is rather characteristic of the appointments that have been made during this Administration.

There are two reasons, it seems to me, why it is most important that Congress should be in session. The one I have already alluded to, the preparation of the business program so that the work of the country can proceed. But there is another, though I won't go into the details, for which there is even a more imperative reason. The Senator suggested that the Constitution provides that no money can be drawn from the Treasury except in consequence of appropriations

made by law. The fiscal year begins on the first of July. That means that when the first of July comes, if appropriations have not been made and passed before that date, there is not any money with which to pay the expenses of the government. The wheels of government will stop on July 1st unless before that date the appropriation bills have been passed. When the Republicans were in power for 16 years up to 1910 the appropriation bills always went through on time, but since 1910-I think it is one of the specimens of Democratic inefficiency-the Democrats have failed to pass some of those indispensable appropriation bills. How did they get round it? Because something must be done; because on the first of July there would be nothing with which to pay the clerks. So on the last day of June they passed what is called a continuing resolution, a resolution which continues the appropriation bills of the preceding year for one month at the same rate, and during that month they hope to pass, and generally do pass, the delayed appropriation bills. This year there were six big supply bills which the Democrats were not able to pass between September and March, and they amounted to about $3,500,000,000 in all. Congress must be called to pass those six appropriation bills, or else to pass resolutions, because if they do not, after July 1st there will be no money with which to run the government. This year it is peculiarly necessary we should pass the bills themselves, and not one of these continuing resolutions, because the bills

passed last year were bills providing for war expenses, and were infinitely larger than we shall need next year.

Take the army. The bill which the Democrats in the last Congress put through the House, and which failed in the Senate provided a little more than $1,000,000,000 for the army next year, but the bills which were passed the year before for the army when we were in the war provided for $11,000,000,000.

Now we do not want to pass a continuing resolution and put money in the hands of the army at the rate of $11,000,000,000 a year and let the officers revel in it, for they are not all like Gen. Edwards. (Laughter.) Consequently it is extremely important that the next Congress should have time to pass the bills which the last Congress was not able to pass, but the President does not seem disposed to give us the opportunity. It is perhaps complimentary to the Republicans that he thinks that we can pass in two months bills which his own

party could not pass in in three months. Yet if we are to go into any investigation of them we shall have to have time. It begins to look as if they do not want us to have any investigation. Then there are a couple of appropriation bills that apply to this year. One of them is for $750,000,000 for the railroads. They need that now to provide for the immediate necessities of the railroads. I understand that Mr. Hines is raising money somehow, and from investigations of my own I infer that some of his means

are of questionable legality. But in the other deficiency bill there are payments for all kinds of activities of the government from March 1st to July 1st. It provided for the payment to soldiers and sailors of sums due them from the War Risk Insurance Bureau, for family allowances of soldiers and sailors, and for numerous needs in different departments. These payments cannot be made until the bills are passed, yet we are left with no possibility of providing for them.

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It is not necessary that the President should come here before he calls us together. He can summon Congress from Paris, as well as from here. Last Winter he was absent for some weeks. Business suffered, of course. A number of bills did not become law for eral weeks and had to come back from Paris by mail. The same would be true now. That Congress was probably more subservient to his wishes than the next one will be. Therefore his presence was a little more indispensable. Let us meanwhile begin to get our minds on the work. Let us study the tariff question, the railroad question, the shipping problem. and all those other problems of utmost importance that are hanging over the business of the community, because we cannot get started until they are settled. They cannot be settled in a short time. There has got to be long discussion, long investigation and compromise. And please remember, when you get provoked, as you certainly will after the settle

ment has not come, that we have waited now for more than a month, and nobody knows how much more time we shall have to wait before a beginning can be made on those problems.

I have been for twenty-six years in Congress. I suppose that during that time I have had about the same views that the Massachusetts environment compels almost every Congressman to have. They say that as a man grows older he grows more conservative. I was elected Speaker, strangely enough, you may think, by the more progressive or the younger men of the party. I confess, I think I rather reverse the ordinary custom, and as I have grown older I have grown more radical. I think it would make some of my supporters smile if they knew what my radicalism was. At the same time I presume it is true of every man here. As you look back for twenty years and think of the line of difference there was then between radicals and conservatives, I suspect that almost every man who was then a radical would be in the conservative ranks today. There has been such a movement forward, such changes of outlook on social questions, that, as I say, a radical of twenty years ago would be a conservative now.

I confess that my sympathy has grown stronger and stronger with that class of our community who get the least pecuniary rewards for their work. An increased share by them in the profits of production will have the effect of stabilizing