U. S. Senate Speeches and Remarks of Carl Schurz/Legislative, etc., Appropriation Bill

by Carl Schurz

LEGISLATIVE, ETC., APPROPRIATION BILL.

...

Mr. SCHURZ. Mr. President, I beg pardon of the Senate for detaining them a single moment longer on this subject. It is not my intention to make a speech on the general beauties of education. I think we are all fairly impregnated with that idea. I merely desire to make a few observations in reply to my friend from Connecticut.

It seems to me that he entertains some apprehensions which are not entirely justified in fact. He argues that if we maintain a Bureau of Education here it will to a certain extent centralize the direction of the educational interests of the country, and absorb the attention of the people of the States with relation to that matter. I think he might just as well argue that the establishment of a bureau of agriculture would centralize and absorb the agricultural interests of the country; and he knows very well that that is not the case. Certainly in most of these States we have our own systems of education in successful operation; we have our schools, we have our superintendents, and so on. So we have in all the States our agricultural societies; and nevertheless, although each State may be capable of taking care of its own agricultural interests, nobody will deny that this great center of information, where knowledge is collected, and from which it radiates, called the bureau of agriculture, is of very great advantage to the country, and is at this moment very highly appreciated by the people.

I do not think that we should establish a department of education here and intrust it with the direction of the whole educational machinery of the country; but I do indeed think that we might form here a center for the collection of information, not only of statistics, as has been suggested, for an intelligent head of such a bureau might inform himself of the different methods of education adopted in other countries, for our own rather mechanical methods are capable of great improvement; of the different kinds of school-books existing in other countries; might put himself in correspondence with the persons in the different States taking an interest in the subject of education; might transmit the information he himself has collected to them, and thus stimulate and feed that interest which we already perceive now all over the country ---

Mr. EDMUNDS. Different foreign States you allude to, as well as domestic.

Mr. SCHURZ. I mean that he might gather information from foreign States and disseminate it all over this country. In so far I believe that just as the Agricultural Department, which now exists, and which certainly does not absorb nor centralize the direction of the agricultural interests of the country, has become of eminent advantage to the farmers of the United States, and eminently popular with them, and educational bureau, intelligently conducted, might perform the same office.

When it is said that so far that office has not been very successfully performed, that may be true. It may be argued that it has been laboring under very great disadvantages, that the means at its command were very insufficient, that it was not aided by precedent and experience, and all that; all of which may be correct. But we have made the attempt; we have tried the experiment. The experiment is worth making, and I do not think that it would be well to give it up now when we have started anew, and when there is a fair prospect of success; and in order to secure that success we ought to grant to this Educational Bureau at least those means which are absolutely necessary to render a successful performance of its task possible.

...

Mr. SCHURZ. I should like to have a little information from my friend from Vermont. He says that the south wing of the new building to be erected will cost probably a trifle over a million dollars. I should be glad to know how much the whole building will cost, which is to include the War and the Navy Departments, the Attorney General's Department, &c. Will not that cost some five or six million dollars?

Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. I suppose when the building shall be completed it may cost four or five, or possibly six million dollars; but I assure the Senator from Missouri that it will cost much less to build it here than it would at St. Louis. [Laughter.]

Mr. SCHURZ. The observation I was going to submit upon this amendment to the appropriation bill had no reference at all to the matter which the Senator from Vermont was touching upon. I consider it rather a smart piece of strategy on his part to turn the flank of what I was going to say by such a previous remark. However I do not intend to let him escape in that way.

We are asked here to commence a building, one small portion of which will cost in all probability, as the Senator states, something over a million dollars. Now, it is a very well known fact that the buildings required for this Government always cost about double the amount of the estimates made beforehand; so that if the Senator says $1,000,000, before we get done with it that one wing will in all probability cost not only two but perhaps even three million dollars; and before we get the whole building finished, which undoubtedly will be done before the necessities of the case call for it, we shall have a structure costing from seven to ten million dollars.

It has of late been fashionable in the Senate to raise the cry “Down with the taxes!” and I think that it is a very proper cry. I believe it is very highly appreciated by the people of the United States; but that cry has almost uniformly been accompanied by another cry: “Up with the appropriations!” How these two things are to go together I cannot clearly understand.

A few days ago we listened to very eloquent speeches, one delivered by my friend from West Virginia, [Mr. Willey,] and another by my friend from Indiana, [Mr. Pratt,] members of the Committee on Claims, on the losses suffered by southern loyalists during the war, and the complaints brought before Congress by them, that their just demands are not satisfied, demands, however much they may appeal to our sympathies, we have shown no willingness and disposition yet to satisfy. Certainly there are a great many claims standing against us of a similar kind, which the honor of the nation will oblige us to respect; and before we have discharged the most urgent of our just obligations, it seems to me it would be eminently proper for us not to raise the appropriations so high as to curtail our ability to pay without making heavier the burden of the taxes already weighing so grievously upon the people. I therefore appeal to the Senate, before they run into millions of appropriations, that they first coolly consider whether and how the taxes are to be reduced while the appropriations are to be raised.

The Senator from Vermont has favored us with another amendment to the appropriation bill, also amounting on the face of it to $500,000, to enlarge the Capitol grounds, so that when we step out of these marble halls our eyes may be gladdened by a fine piece of landscape gardening; all of which may be very pleasant and beautiful, but I humbly submit that before we go into such luxuries we should first satisfy those who have just claims against this Government. We should first listen to that urgent cry for the reduction of the taxes rising all over the country; a cry which tells us that the interests of this country are suffering, and that we should not go into the lavish expense of millions before having wisely provided for the manifold necessities pressing upon the Government.

...

Mr. SCHURZ. I desire to say a very few words in reply to my friend from Vermont.

Mr. SUMNER. Will the Senator give way for an adjournment?

Mr. SCHURZ. Not now. I shall not occupy more than two or three minutes.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator can then reflect on his remarks to-night.

Mr. SCHURZ. I do not need any further reflection upon the remarks I wish to make. I think we can dispose of this matter now, so that it will not be necessary to reopen it to-morrow.

I said I wished to make a few observations in reply to my friend from Vermont, who treated the matter of the removal of the capital in a becomingly serious manner. The Senate will bear me witness that I did not allude to that subject which I first rose. But since the discussion has been started, I may as well venture upon expressing my views. I do not form my opinions very hastily, nor do I think I am easily swayed by what may be called local influences.

I may say that I had an opinion on this subject long before the question of the removal of the capital to the valley of the Mississippi had been mooted in my section of the country or anywhere else, and the conclusion which I had formed was that the capital of a country is very liable to be changed as soon as the geographical proportions and the relations of the population of that country change. There is nothing very strange or very fearful in this. It may be a very natural and quiet process. We have seen such things before. It occurred, for instance, in Russia, where the capital was moved from holy Moscow to St. Petersburg mainly for the reason that the emperor of Russia deemed it highly important to that empire to create a great navy and make it a maritime Power.

Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. But the Senator knows they are about to go back again.

Mr. EDMUNDS. He did not follow a central position exactly.

Mr. SCHURZ. If Senators will have patience I shall make a remark bearing on that point. It is probably well known to Senators that at the present moment the question of removing the capital is agitated in Russia again.

Mr. NYE. Moving it back again?

Mr. SCHURZ. Not moving it back again to Moscow, but moving it to a more convenient and more central place, a place more likely to be the center of gravitation of the Russian empire, namely, Kiev.

It is also known that as soon as the geographical proportions of the kingdom of Italy had undergone a very important change the capital of that kingdom was removed from Turin to Florence. This happened in our day; so it may be said that there is nothing peculiarly strange in the removal of the capital of a country from one place to another.

I do not think it is a question of sentimentalism, or of memories, or of local prejudice. In most cases it is one of those questions which are decided by the sense of national interest entertained by the people. so it is my belief that the capital of this country is going to be removed from this city to the Mississippi valley. That removal will not require my voice to agitate it or to advance it. The interests which will gather to bring about that result will be far stronger than agitation carried on by a few individuals. Nor do I think that all the eloquence that can be evaporated here on the floor of the Senate will be sufficient to prevent it. And if you erect the buildings proposed here they will make the removal only more expensive, but no less certain. That is my opinion. I give it for what it is worth. Of course there are opinions to the contrary, and each man may stand upon his own.

Mr. EDMUNDS. How soon?

Mr. WILSON. When?

Mr. SCHURZ. I will not venture any prediction on that point.

Mr. NYE. I will ask the honorable Senator if he does not think that the roof of this edifice will need repairing before that is done? [Laughter.]

Mr. SCHURZ. If the Senator from Nevada will inquire closely he will find the roof of this edifice is in need of repairs now.

Mr. NYE. Certainly.

Mr. SCHURZ. Then I think that question answers itself.

Now, as to the propriety of moving the capital, as to the interests which will command such an event, and as to the results which will follow it, there is great variety of opinion, and legitimately so. I do not mean to go into an argument on that question now. The Senate will bear me witness that I did not bring forward the issue. I spoke upon the question of economy, and referring to that once more, I am a little surprised at my friend from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] who, when he made his first financial speech on the floor of the Senate at this session, a speech which created a great sensation in the country, and which I am sure was very highly appreciated by his friends, raised the cry “Down with the taxes!” and I do not think that cry could be pronounced with more emphasis than he pronounced it, “Down with the taxes!”

Mr. SUMNER. I repeat it now.

Mr. SCHURZ. It cannot be too often repeated. And yet now, because the State Department is a little uncomfortably located, which I admit; now, because some change may perhaps be needed with regard to securing the archives, he, instead of looking for an economical way to remedy the evil, is at once ready to rush into an appropriation of $500,000 to start on, and which will inevitably involve another appropriation of five or six millions to complete the work. I leave it to him to establish the consistency of his cry, “Down with the taxes,” and his other cry, adopted to-night, “Up with the appropriations.” I fear I cannot trust my friend's financial speeches any longer if they are followed up by such practical applications.