instance, to make provision for those great expenditures, a legacy of the war. That is a very grave duty to those who are going to frame the bills under the leadership of Mr. Gillett.

Then there are a number of domestic questions that ought to be dealt with. As a matter of fact, the Congress of the United States ought to be in session at this moment, and ought to have been called in March to deal with the railroad question alone. It is one of the most difficult questions ever presented. The government management has failed, I think deplorably. It is recognized that we cannot go back to the old system as it was. It is also recognized generally, I think, that there must be in the railroads in the future the care and zeal which come from private management. But with that there must be also strong government supervision and regulation. I am not attempting by that mere generality to solve the railroad question. It will require the very best ability that can be brought to it, and it ought to be dealt with now. Government ownership does not seem to have been altogether satisfactory in regard to railroads or telegraphs, or perhaps telephones, or even as to cables. There never was the slightest reason on earth for taking over the telegraphs, telephones and cables. They had done their work through the war, as was admitted by the people who took them, admirably and well; they can be restored. I am not undertaking here tonight to attribute motives, but the cables were taken, without the slightest reason that any one can see,

when the war had come to an end, taken under the war power given for war purposes, and the only tangible effect we get from that is a large suppression or a capricious uniformity of all the news that comes from Paris. And even to go back behind the war powers, it would do no harm, I think, to improve the postal service a little.

We ought to investigate some of the enterprises into which the government has been launched, have them fairly and thoroughly investigated and the facts laid before the country. We ought to know what the situation is. We ought to know why we spent so many hundreds of millions on aeroplanes, and then, at the close of the war, according to Gen. Pershing's report, had 247 all told, I think, and no combat planes. We might look into the question of the heavy artillery, for

think we used almost exclusively the French 75's. I think we would do well to inquire into the operations of the shipping board.

These things involve colossal sums of the people's money that have been spent. I hope to see the House take up all these questions, for the House has more members in proportion to committees than we have, and they have committees there which could devote their time to some of these investigations. We want to get back to a normal basis on fuel and food, and all these things require investigation and legislation. I have merely touched on the high points, but this is the work that lies before the House and Senate, which I suppose will assemble at some time before the statutory day in December.

One always feels a little hesitant in referring to the Constitution, but the Constitution requires that Congress should meet at least once a year. Also the laws require that no money should be paid from the Treasury except on appropriations, and a number of appropriation bills failed. Therefore, unless the army and the navy are to unpaid and a great many public 1 ́s come to a stop we shall have ve a meeting of Congress in time ss some bills or some continuing resolutions before the first of July, nd when the Congress once comes together it is master of its own fate. It can adjourn when it pleases, take a recess when it pleases, and what is most important of all, can come together when it pleases.

That, in bare outline, and only as to a few points, is what lies before the House, where most of this legislation on appropriation and revenue bills begins, the Senate, as I said before, having the amending power. And these measures ought to be taken up at once and dealt with. They will require the greatest possible unity of work between the two houses. There must be a general policy on which the majority in both houses are agreed. And I said to my friend, the Speaker, during the dinner, that there was one thing we could say with confidencethat so far as he and I were concerned, there was no danger of jealousies or differences, for though his office is considered as one well within the presidential circle, neither he nor I can have any competition in that direction. We are both immune from the presidential malady, and we nei

ther of us are competitors for that office, for I am far too old, and he is too young. I believe the Republicans in both houses appreciate the enormous burden of responsibility which has fallen upon them. I am sure they mean to deal with these difficult problems I have suggested, and deal with They will shirk nothing. They will them to the very best of their ability.

carry out everything that is necessary to make the war a success in the peace we make, because the peace we make with Germany is a part of the war, and it must be carried out. It is part of the war to finish the war. The peace with Germany must be carried through, and we shall probably have to furnish troops for the army of occupation under the provision made for reparation of damages. Everything that relates to that war will be carried out by the Republican party with the utmost thoroughness, and in the same spirit in which we stood all through the war, backing the war to the utmost of our power while we were a minority. We will carry it through and finish it, so far as we have the power, while we are a majority in Congress.

It is a very great task. The Republican party is to be congratulated, the state of Massachusetts is to be congratulated, the country is to be congratulated, that the Republicans, now in control of both branches of Congress, have made such an admirable selection as that of Mr. Gillett to lead the House through all these trying questions that spread before us. (Prolonged cheering.)

every country ought to create within its own boundaries everything that is necessary for its own business life. We have been compelled by the exigencies of the war to build up in the United States within the last four years many industries which it had been impossible to have before, important industries which, I have no doubt, representatives of the Home Market Club have embraced, and in relation to which have tried to secure from Congress the necessary protection, industries which at last under the pressure, the embargo of war, have been created. What shall we do with these industries now? Shall we not continue them and recognize that in the future the United States must supply its own needs and do its own work? That, it seems to me, is the obvious lesson of the war. That theme was not given me to develop. My friend and colleague, Mr. Fordney, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, an expert on that subject, was expected to be here, and I am very sorry that a death in his family has prevented him from addressing this Club. But I could not forbear from saying a word about the principle which your very name implies, which your history illustrates, and which never made a stronger appeal than now to the business judgment and to our national pride.

Now the subject which your Secretary assiged to me was "The Congress of the United States." When Senator Lodge said he was going to talk about the House of Representatives I confess I shivered a little. We have certain things about each other -the different houses have-which

we do not generally air in public, and I thought I might be compelled to say and express a few views I have about the United States Senate. But am not going to. I only want to say that I have the most absolute admiration and respect for and confidence in the leader of the United State Senate, and it occurs to me, my friends, that if Massachusetts has got any little due bills against the United States, the coming session will be a good time to collect them.

The most striking feature, in my opinion, just now about the Congress of the United States, the most unfortunate and the most indefensible, is that the Congress is not now at work. I suppose the famous statement of Garfield is still true-that the government at Washington still lives. But the government does not seem to still live at Washington. The President is in Paris; the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, are away, the Secretary of Commerce, I believe, is in Boston. There is only one of these department heads that I know of who is in Washington, and that is the one with whom we could most gladly dispense-the Postmaster-General.

The President and his confreres in Paris have with them an army of retainers, some official and some unofficial, some authorized by law and some unauthorized, and some, I am sure, are drawing fine salaries. There is a feeling at Washington nowadays that any Democrat who has not had a joy-ride at the government's expense to the most attractive and expensive pleasure resort in the world just now is a mere piker. You know

the latest beatitude is, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see Paris."

When war is raging it is inevitable that Congress shall occupy a secondary position. The Executive is then the centre of the stage; the army and navy are arms of the Executive; and therefore not only the most conspicuous, but the real, the vital settlements of war are made by the Executive. And so Congress necessarily takes a secondary position. The last Congress was a war Congress; it passed appropriation bills, it passed revenue bills, with sums surpassing all records. It is without a rival in that respect. But I am disposed to think that the most striking characteristic of the last war Congress was its absolute abdication of initiative. It left the initiative absolutely to the Executive and became simply a register of the wishes of the Administration.

Why, I remember that some years ago, when a Republican administration was in power, one of the leaders of the Democratic party rose and denounced a committee because they dared to bring before Congress a bill which had been prepared by one of the departments. He said it was the duty of the committee, the duty of Congress, to draft its bills, and that Congress ought not to allow the encroachment of the Executive in even suggesting a bill. How obsolete that sounds today. Why, my friends, in the last Congress there was hardly a bill of any prominence suggested in which the man who introduced it did not take pains to tell Congress that it was drawn and approved by the

Administration. Sometimes it was necessary, in order to get the support of the dominant party, to make a statement like that.

I do not remember that there was more than one occasion on which Congress ventured to dispute and disagree with a presidential recommendation. That was very early in the session when the administration asked in the army bill for a lump sum, an appropriation of $3,000,000 for the war department to spend as it pleased. Well, now, it is an inherited instinct with Congress never to grant lump sums to departments. I presume we have inherited that down through hundreds of years from our British ancestors. Because the only way is to give some specific definition to limit appropriations for a depart ment. Consequently, when that request was made it was granted by the Military Committee, but the House after a sharp debate, turned it down, indicating that the House had the right to insist on limitations so that we should have an idea of how much money was going to be spent in detail. But that was the last outbreak of independence. After that there was not a bill suggested that was not readily followed by Congress. I think that the inherited instinct the House has that we ought to know how money is going to be spent will get a little increased impetus when we find out how the President has spent the $100,000,000 we put at his discretion to expend during this war. I am sorry to feel that there has been a

decided tendency on the part of the departments to use the war exigency as a sort of cloak under which they